Maybe my wires are crossed then, that is the argument that I'm having. This game should run max quality, max resolution, and everything given the power of the hardware available. The fact that it doesn't and that Rockstar suggests that we need even MORE powerful hardware to run it is more than enough reason to be upset IMO.Stoney Mason said:
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PC : Grand Theft Auto IV, Who's playing it ? And how?
- Thread starter lowrider007
- Start date
Stoney Mason
Banned
Cheeto said:
What I'm saying is there is no theoretical max. There is always more. GTA 4 on the PC should run comparable to the other games on the market. If it's not that's a fair complaint and to be honest that seems to be the case from what people are saying. But there are always settings that could degrade performance above that.
Well, I don't know if GTAIV should require more powerful hardware to max everything out - but if it does, why complain? Would you've been happier if they let the current 'high' option out and called the current medium option high, making you be able to run it with everything maxed?Cheeto said:
In other words, is it possible to make this game with the same graphics, but easier to run? I don't really know.
infinityBCRT
Member
Caught this over at nvnews.net:
If so then that means that things in the distance are being rendered at an insane detail when you crank it up to 100. I'd like to see what people get on an 8800 with the console settings. If it runs at higher than 25 FPS then it means that a PC with the 8800 would be outperforming the 360.
edit: its in R*'s GTA FAQ. Also, they say Shadows generated by positional lights are exclusive to the PC version.
If so then that means that things in the distance are being rendered at an insane detail when you crank it up to 100. I'd like to see what people get on an 8800 with the console settings. If it runs at higher than 25 FPS then it means that a PC with the 8800 would be outperforming the 360.
edit: its in R*'s GTA FAQ. Also, they say Shadows generated by positional lights are exclusive to the PC version.
lowrider007
Licorice-flavoured booze?
Not sure who would use this but still.
got it in the mail, the packaging is very nice with the cool cardboard sleeve thingy similar to MGS4 PAL... installing now, thanks God that Rockstar Games club stuff registration was quick, impressions on performance later (Q6600@3ghz / 9800GTX+ 512 / XP SP3 4GB)
edit: game says it's 64 bit optimized, anyone tried this with XP/Vista 64?
edit: game says it's 64 bit optimized, anyone tried this with XP/Vista 64?
VictimOfGrief
Banned
^ Exactly. GTA4 is not Crysis.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...Xrenity said:
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
Cheeto said:
Visuals aren't the only thing in a game. How about everything else? Is the same like those photo realistic games? How about the AI? Scope? etc?
And yes, maybe R* should've released this game with medium setting as max. Might've made those "my pc is worth more than your life so 60fps or bust" guys a bit satisfied.
brain_stew
Member
Oh, I couldn't be more angry right now. Finally installed everything, launched the game and "the secuROM launcher stopped working" arghh!! I'm on Vista x64, any else had this problem. Is there anywhere on the disc or online where I can install secuROM by itself, I sure as hell don't want to go through that whole installation again.
I've got Mass Effect on this PC and never had any issues so why in the hell will secuROM not work with GTA IV? To say I'm pissed would be a bit of an understatement!!
I've got Mass Effect on this PC and never had any issues so why in the hell will secuROM not work with GTA IV? To say I'm pissed would be a bit of an understatement!!
infinityBCRT
Member
Heres the thing, the options that people are bumping up were never meant to increase visual quality significantly. Those sliders bump up the detail in the distance, stuff that most people won't notice unless they are flying over the city. R* just wanted to throw a bone to the PC users, but seems like people would prefer that R* cap off those settings since visual quality isn't improved that much and their PCs can't handle drawing that much detail in the distance.Cheeto said:
Have you seen the low detail vs. high detail screenshot comparisons? The game still looks great in low detail. Bumping up the settings beyond the console ones that I posted above probably isn't worth the FPS drop, and you won't miss much by sticking to their recommended settings.
Haunted
Member
Are those true? And you can crank the detail and view distance up to one hundred on the PC version?
An increase like that.... certainly sounds like it would take a lot of power.
Gonna play it at detail 23 and view distance 11 so I can say it was better than the console version. lawl
edit: still seems like a pretty shitty port. Man, Rockstar. smh
Stoney Mason
Banned
psy18 said:
I sort of agree with this to a certain degree. I think Crysis is a beautiful game and certainly pushing some heavy power in the graphics department above GTA 4 but GTA 4 it also simulating a complete real world city environment with all the things that can entail. There were times when I was playing GTA 4 on the 360 and saying holy shit, this will be an interesting thing to look at on a PC simply because of how much is going on.
Off topic but wasn't Saints Row 2 supposed to come out on the PC? Did that get cancelled?
infinityBCRT
Member
Haunted said:
Whats your FPS/configuration? I'd like to know how it runs at the console settings (1280x720, detail 22, vd 10, shadow detail all the way down, medium textures). And a few screenshots would be nice too
brain_stew
Member
So I'm the only one with the secuROM crashing BS? Lucky me!!
I did a repair install, tried a few tricks that have apparently fixed past secuROM game issues but still nothing. Just sent off a report to secuROM which is the only solution suggested on their site though I'm not expecting them to be helpful.
Oh well, a whole new re installation it is then, see if I have better luck this time.
Its slated for January and is going to be free to Gametap subscribers. Which would be great if Gametap could get with the times and support Vista x64.
I did a repair install, tried a few tricks that have apparently fixed past secuROM game issues but still nothing. Just sent off a report to secuROM which is the only solution suggested on their site though I'm not expecting them to be helpful.
Oh well, a whole new re installation it is then, see if I have better luck this time.
Stoney Mason said:
Its slated for January and is going to be free to Gametap subscribers. Which would be great if Gametap could get with the times and support Vista x64.
infinityBCRT
Member
I feel for you bud. Your situation is the real reason to hate stuff like SecuROMbrain_stew said:
brain_stew
Member
infinityBCRT said:
Well I've never been so very anti SecuROM in the past but its only when you experience it going wrong first hand when you realise how crappy it is.
So, I reinstalled the game and it activated online and ran...................once. Now if I try to load it up it keeps giving me the same error, so I'm in the excellent position where I have to go through a 40 minute installation just to play the game I payed for.......awesome.
I sure as hell hope a crack emerges soon, because I don't hold out much hope of SecuROM helping me out.
Death Dealer
Member
Xrenity said:
It is a bad port. People are not complaining simply because their ultra l33t rigs can't get 60fps at 1920x1200 x8AA.
The modest improvements in visuals and performance over the consoles doesn't remotely justify the required hardware.
If it was properly ported, theoretically, with a quad core and GTX280/4870, one should expect perfect 60fps at 720p with the console graphics options, low render quality, 1/4 on most sliders, yet that is not the case.
infinityBCRT
Member
I've seen a report at nvnews of the 280 running at ~45FPS at 1680x1050 (console = 1280x720), high textures (console = medium), view distance of 30 (console = 20), detail distance of 70 (console = 10)Death Dealer said:
I don't think its a stretch to say if he scaled down the settings to console settings, it would be running at 60 FPS
As for it being a bad port, R*'s mistake was not capping off the high detail settings, since people want to use it even though they don't make a big visual difference and is too taxing on hardware. There is a point to those settings (when flying you'll see less pop in, you won't have cars appearing and disappearing in the distance in front of you/behind you) but they won't give a big boost in visual quality.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
The R* defense force has mobilized and the first casualty is the truth. This was a bad port. Period. There are GTA3 mods that look and run better than this even on ancient hardware.
Death Dealer
Member
infinityBCRT said:
Minimum FPS is what counts. I could be wrong, but even on modest settings, high end rigs appear to be getting atrocious frame drops when the action gets intense.
Mr.Potato Head
Banned
I feel the same..its a piss poor port...bottom line, i dont care what anyone else says..after 8 or so months of extend time to work on this port...this game should be a better performer then what it is right now on high end pc's... i have a high end pc and in no way does this game look leagues better then what i got with my 360 and ps3..no way.Cheeto said:
I think alot of this shit is just Rockstar "trying" to cover up their shit port and people should be pissed..they have the right to be after waiting an extra 8 months or so for basically graphics that are somewhat better then what the 360 is producing or ps3 producing...its uncalled for
Stoney Mason
Banned
SapientWolf said:
Not to be part of the defense force but I tried a lot of those GTA 3 mods and think GTA 4 is doing a lot better than that but I digress. I won't speak for the quality of this particular port especially since I don't own it.
infinityBCRT
Member
Lince said:
Can you try it on console settings and see how it runs?
(1280x720
texture = medium
view = 21
detail = 10
shadow = 0/low as possible)
infinityBCRT
Member
R* did make mistakes. The social club/install problems are inexcusable. They did absolutely no work in trying to scale the game to lower hardware. And they probably needed more flexibility with their texture settings. In terms of visual quality it seems like the sliders do nothing for detail in your immediate surroundings. The character models/car models/objects all have the same detail. However, its insanely increasing detail that you probably don't notice. I guess it could be valid to argue that R* should have capped those detail sliders off to a point where the game would be guaranteed to run at 60 FPS on a GTX 280.SapientWolf said:
finally tried on Vista 64 with these settings
1680X1025
Texture quality: High
render quality: very high
view distance: 40
detail distance: 70
vehicle density: 70
shadow density: 16
25-50 fps with 3.3ghz quad and a 4870x2. The visuals blow the console versions away. View distance appears to be the killer. Vehicle density of 100 drove me nuts, it still ran ok but too many cars were around!!
Could do with AA though....
1680X1025
Texture quality: High
render quality: very high
view distance: 40
detail distance: 70
vehicle density: 70
shadow density: 16
25-50 fps with 3.3ghz quad and a 4870x2. The visuals blow the console versions away. View distance appears to be the killer. Vehicle density of 100 drove me nuts, it still ran ok but too many cars were around!!
Could do with AA though....
Death Dealer
Member
infinityBCRT said:
Does shadow density = 0 literally disable shadows ? Because obviously the consoles have them. Also the in game benchmark program is not indicative of in game performance, it's on the optimistic side. The only way to know for sure how it runs is to play the game with fraps running.
edit: N/M apparently shadow density option is a unique PC feature. So consoles are = 0.
brain_stew
Member
Want some more awesome news? The whole unlimited installs was a lie.
Because the SecuROM program is broken for me, I've had to go through the awkward process of deactivating and reactivating everythime I want to launch the game. Launch it any other and it'll crash. Well, after 3-5 goes at this, I no longer can do it because I've attempted too many activations on this PC apparently. Great
Now I've got to go through the awkward process of a manual activation and hope that works, it'll still probably crash after relaunching though so I get one chance to play the game for 10 - 15 minutes of work. Awesome.
Last time I buy a Rockstar product, this shit, is ridiculous.
Even more good news: Awesome the manual unlock won't work either apparently I've used up too many activations and I need to revoke a license. Yet when I try to revoke my license, I'm told it has already been revoked. So its confirmed THIS GAME HAS A LIMITED AMOUNT OF INSTALLS, NO MORE THAN FIVE.
Avoid this turd like the plague.
Because the SecuROM program is broken for me, I've had to go through the awkward process of deactivating and reactivating everythime I want to launch the game. Launch it any other and it'll crash. Well, after 3-5 goes at this, I no longer can do it because I've attempted too many activations on this PC apparently. Great
Now I've got to go through the awkward process of a manual activation and hope that works, it'll still probably crash after relaunching though so I get one chance to play the game for 10 - 15 minutes of work. Awesome.
Last time I buy a Rockstar product, this shit, is ridiculous.
Even more good news: Awesome the manual unlock won't work either apparently I've used up too many activations and I need to revoke a license. Yet when I try to revoke my license, I'm told it has already been revoked. So its confirmed THIS GAME HAS A LIMITED AMOUNT OF INSTALLS, NO MORE THAN FIVE.
Avoid this turd like the plague.
infinityBCRT
Member
I think it disables shadows from local light sources. I don't think it disables the global lightsource shadows. In R*'s FAQ they say that (local light source) shadows are exclusive to the PC version.Death Dealer said:
infinityBCRT
Member
Ouch. Thats a reason to be legitimately pissed off. That being said, I hope you can call R* and get this issue fixed.brain_stew said:
VictimOfGrief
Banned
Bold for bitter tears.SapientWolf said:
Along with some other shitty ports that we've gotten recently, this is annoying as hell.
brain_stew
Member
infinityBCRT said:
Well, its late now, I'll send an email in the morning. If they don't get this sorted soonish then I'd expect a full refund from them, this is really not acceptable.
Stoney Mason
Banned
chespace said:
Your statement does not compute. Please resubmit.
Q9550 (Quad Extreme)
4GB DDR3 Ram
2x GTX280
With everything maxed out and forced 4XFAA + 16XAAF this still chugs.
With AA+AF turned down a bit this runs at about 50 FPS for me. Drops to 25-30 though, viewing the skyline from above. This is pretty intense considering i got a rig as good as it can get with normal money.
EDIT: On this Settings this game does look like a completely different game though (1680x1050).
4GB DDR3 Ram
2x GTX280
With everything maxed out and forced 4XFAA + 16XAAF this still chugs.
With AA+AF turned down a bit this runs at about 50 FPS for me. Drops to 25-30 though, viewing the skyline from above. This is pretty intense considering i got a rig as good as it can get with normal money.
EDIT: On this Settings this game does look like a completely different game though (1680x1050).
Okay, maybe my Q9550 3.8 OC and 4870X2 will choke on GTA4 after all.Joseph Merrick
Member
how would you go about using this anyway? when I try to run the .exe directly it asks for the social club thing, which is already running. it wants to be run from the social crap 'play' button only here. durlowrider007 said:
also, anyone know if there is a windowed mode? I can't find it. same as san andreas/gta3s there
maybe I had the same as this. it worked fine by restarting the social club program before restarting the game. crashed if I didn't.brain_stew said:
CabbageRed
Member
Is everyone else having dithering issues? It is not just the shadows (which produce a crawling effect I haven't seen since the days before bilinear filtering) but also on the "fade" in effect which makes objects less than a block away appear to be made of a random dots.
brain_stew
Member
Joseph Merrick said:
Hmm, that might have been the solution for me then, who's to know. Hopefully this activation limit is only because I did so many within 24 hours and it'll reset tomorrow if it didn't then Rockstar's whole mantra about unlimited install was basically a complete lie and I'll have to email/phone them to find some sort of solution. Its beyond retarded that I've got to go out of my way to get the game I payed for running, what a buggy mess.