GTA 4 Runs Like ****

I've googled around a bit and looks like I'm not alone when I say GTA 4 runs terrible! I can't believe I've been conned outta $50 for a game that runs as fast as a dead horse!.. does anyone know how to make the camera go back to classic style so I don't have to use the mouse to look and drive?

I'm hoping there's been a few people here that have a few tricks up their sleeves for this game? I've been tweaking but it'll take time, any advice is very welcome! I'd hate to have to dump Vista again and go back to windows, I like DX 10.

Intel PentiumD 915@3.71Ghz (29c idle - 38c load)
4.0GB DDR 800@stock speed
Radeon 4870 512@stock
Vista SP1

I am planing on an update to my machine shortly.. new processor Q9500 + 4GB faster DDR, new MB and Hard Drive but for now the above is all I've got to play with.

 

I had a problem with the way GTA IV ran on my old setup which was:

*ASUS M3A
*AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.0GHz
*2GB Generic DDR2 667MHz
*600W Generic PSU
*nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512MB GDDR3


Now I have upgraded I get new texture options and the game runs worse lol, I actually upgraded simply to play this game & to justify the expense (it needed it LOL) , now I have:

*ASUS M3A
*AMD Phenom X4 9750 2.4GHz
*2GB Kingston Hyper X DDR2 1066MHz (2.2V)
*650W CoolerMaster PSU X2 12V rails
*ATI (Sapphire) HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 @ GPU 800MHz, Mem Clock 1000MHz

I would say the most notable difference in performance of the game was when I switched from the GF 9600GT to the ATI 4870 1GB, partly because the mobo has an AMD 770 chipset which worked with the nVidia card but not as well as the ATI card. But mainly because it is FAR faster than the nVidia card & overclockable.

So I suggest you get the best CPU you can afford & 3GB+ RAM, you're GPU is fine you just have less video RAM than mine so you won't get the same draw distance, but with a better CPU you're system might be able to compensate for the lack of VRAM.

In gaming most games are heavy on your GPU but GTA IV is very intensive on both your GPU & CPU. It is the devils work indeed :-D

I hope this helped in some way , all I can say is the story is not very GTA @ the end I felt a bit robbed until I realised the game as a whole is top notch just with a bad ending.

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

Yep I'm expecting to need at least a Quad Core CPU in order to push this game along. Since this will be my last upgrade for a while I'm going to get the best CPU I can at around $200 or so.. so far the Q9500 looks good and I might squeeze a few extra MHZ out of it once I strap my Zalman on it. I'm also replacing the memory at least increasing the MHZ if nothing else, will still keep 4GB as the minimum.

I actually thought Doom III hurt my system when it came out and bashed my GeForce 5900 and Athlon64 a few times around the head but GTA 4 is "jackin" my current system. I mean my machine isn't top of the line but cost vs performance it's still decent enough.

After some reading online looks like all I can do for now is adjust the draw distance and tweak the other settings as best as I can.

 

Ok... GTA 4 now runs decently.. well $400 later and a new Q9400, Motherboard and Hard Drive. Everything seems to run a lot more reasonably! Actually the game runs near perfect even before overclocking the Q9400 to 3.2Ghz. Will try to push it on a bit more if I can. I had my PentiumD 915@3.71Ghz rock solid and stable for months cooled by my Zalman 9700.

I think the new hardware CPU, Motherboard and that nice new Hard Drive have helped push things along. I've also ditched Vista for Windows 7 which I'm sure is also helping nudge things in the right direction!