card ideas for gta 4?

[midnight growler]

I'm in the planning stages of buying a new multicore system. Debate about Securom aside, I'd really like to play GTA4 and am wondering what video cards would be good.

Screen resolution will be basic for the time being, just 1280x1024.

I'm looking at either a dual-core AMD 7850 Kuma or a tri-core 8750 for the processor and 4 gigs of ram since its so cheap. I'm going to stick with AM2+ right now because DDR3 doesnt seem worth it yet.

As video cards seem to be the bottleneck right now, I'd rather put most of my (meager) purchasing power towards a really good card. I'm not looking for the bleeding edge, but Id like something that will allow me to crank up the settings pretty nice for a while.

I have a 7800GT so I'm slightly biased towards nvidia. I read the thread about the intended specs of their 300 series, but I gather those are still a long way off. I do plan to upgrade in two phases though. First I'm going to get the cpu/mobo/ram and keep my 7800GT until I save up enough paychecks to get the video card. So that would mean I'd be ready to get the gpu in July or August.

Like I said, this is still just the planning stage, so I'm trying to get a good idea of what to aim for.

 

[AzN]

GTA4 benefit the most out of multiple core CPU's. more the merrier. High clocked quad would be best.

video card doesn't matter much but more vram it has the better so you can turn those settings up. A 8800gt has similar performance to GTX 2xx so...

 

[Qbah]

If you can't get a Quad Core (those are pretty cheap now btw, a Phenom II 810 for example), get the tri-core for GTA IV. The more cores the better for this game. As for the GPU, get one with at least 1GB RAM like a Radeon HD4870. A GTX260 c216 will be fine too. To max out all the sliders you will need a 2GB GPU though

Here's a link to some CPU tests for GTA 4 - back from Dec 2008 though. No Phenom II or Q9xxx series CPUs in it though. Here's another one, with the latest CPUs (no Phenom II either though).

 

[soccerballtux]

GTA4 really is a terrible port on the PC.

 

[superunknown98]

These People don't lie. You need a good cpu. I will admit that after 3 patches it ran acceptably on my old Athlon 64 x2 5000+ and radeon 4850. However, after upgrading to a Phenom II x3 720 it ran like butter with the same video card.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Azn
GTA4 benefit the most out of multiple core CPU's. more the merrier. High clocked quad would be best.

video card doesn't matter much but more vram it has the better so you can turn those settings up. A 8800gt has similar performance to GTX 2xx so...

Exactly this. I had an E7200 on the same system in my sig and GTA4 stuttered like crazy. Changed the dual core with a quad core and it just flies now. I don't have any performance issues now.

But I still agree with soccerballtux, that this game is a very, very bad port.

 

[F1shF4t]

I got more improvement in GTA4 when switched from q6600 @3.3ghz to q9550 @3.73 than adding the second 4870 in crossfire. Fast hdd helps too with loading times.

 

[Marty502]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
GTA4 really is a terrible port on the PC.

Yup. Down to performance, is one of the worst I've ever seen.

Well, at least it isn't a Capcom game. Now those raise the bar. FF7 anyone?

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
GTA4 really is a terrible port on the PC.

I don't understand why people say this with no evidence or any reasoning other than my computer runs like shit with GTA4 PC.

At first I thought it was terrible port too but it really isn't. Other than gamepad support and no AA support I didn't find any real faults compared to the console version of this game. PC version is far superior to the console versions. It has better graphics and resolution support...

Consoles run it well because consoles have multiple core CPU. Xbox 360 has 3 cores and ps3 has 7 cores. People with performance issues with the PC version usually had 1 or 2 cores.

If you look at the minimum requirements it asks for at least 2 cores around 2.5ghz or something. Not too sure. For recommended system it asks for a 2.4ghz quad core. When was the last time anybody tried to run a game with barely making minimum requirements? I'm thinking probably never or long time ago. Minimum requirements is supposed to run like shit. Now recommended system requirements is what really requires for normal frame rates we are all used to playing a game. YES!!! These kind of games do exist that are heavily dependent on CPU and not GPU. The way GTA4 runs is that it really doesn't use much graphic horsepower. It just relays textures and pixels back and forth through memory subsystem and spit it back to the screen while CPU take cares of everything.

 

[error8]

Well the whole concept of bad console port, is that this game requires a lot of resources to run fine. Really, 1.5 gb of video memory and a quad core it's a lot, for a game that doesn't even have antialising and has horrible shadows. There are games with much better graphics that run flawlessly on a dual core and a fast 512 mb videocard. This affinity for the lots of cores and the fact that the gpu doesn't count that much, makes you think about console port gone bad. This game just doesn't know how to use pc resources as it should.

And remember that every GTA, before this, ran fine on mid range system with all eye candy on. This one doesn't. You need a serious high end system to make it run normal.

 

[AzN]

I always thought a bad console port was actually running worse than console version. Which the PC version wasn't. It's just that the game requires more than 2 cores to run it decent which the consoles are superior over 2 core PC systems.

I thought GTA4 looked great. Just the sheer detail, drawing distance and AI amazed me. The older GTA series weren't as complex as GTA4. It looks like a silly cartoon compared to it. You can't compare the 2. Not even the same ball park.

 

[Marty502]

Actually, my problem (and most folks') with GTA4 is that it requires way too much for what it delivers, in the end.

Yes, the PC graphics are way above the console version, but come on. Even something like a E8400 can't keep up with it sometimes, even overclocked.

And the thing is, while the graphics are good, they are not what you'd expect by looking at the requirements chart. There's too many PC games with far better IQ and lower requirements.
I think Crysis and Far Cry 2 don't even support quad cores, and watch how they look and how they run. Yes, the city in GTA4 is huge compared to what those games have to handle at a time. But still.

I do give credit that GTA4, while underperforming IMO, has been rock stable for me.

Anyway, for the OP: If you wanna get the most from GTA4, here's a tip: I think it was Tom's or Anandtech that showed that GTA4 gained quite a few FPS by having 6 GB of RAM, instead of 3 GB, in a 64-bit OS of course.

So, besides all the CPU talk, if you can splurge on lots of RAM, do it.

 

[error8]

You can't compare two games from different periods of time, that is true, but you have to remember, that San Andreas for example, looked amazing for its time and ran like a charm on mid range computers. I've played that on a Socket A sempron, maxed out and that wasn't even a mid range computer for that time. That was a good console port, GTA4 isn't.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Marty502
Yes, the PC graphics are way above the console version, but come on. Even something like a E8400 can't keep up with it sometimes, even overclocked.

And the thing is, while the graphics are good, they are not what you'd expect by looking at the requirements chart. There's too many PC games with far better IQ and lower requirements.
I think Crysis and Far Cry 2 don't even support quad cores, and watch how they look and how they run. Yes, the city in GTA4 is huge compared to what those games have to handle at a time. But still.

I played the entire game @ medium settings on my 8800gs with the cpu below clocked @ 3.22ghz most of the time. While it did not run smooth it was manageable. Averaging about 18-35fps in the actual game and not the benchmark which I was hitting 40fps.

You can't compare apples and oranges and say one is better because it has better graphics. A game could be good at one thing another could be good another.

Crysis is a FPS that is heavily dependent on GPU and still runs like crap till this day although it looks good. Far Cry 2? A shitty GTA4 wanna be at that and I thought it actually looked worse than GTA4. Far Cry 2 actually does support quad except it's more balanced between CPU and GPU load. GTA4 beats Crysis or Far Cry 2 hard in sheer amount of AI that is going on screen at any given time. Similar to how MMORPG are run. That takes tremendous CPU load. I didn't find GTA 4 lacking in graphics dept. either... Like I said before all GTA4 is doing is loading and unloading pixels/textures back and forth like much older games. It really doesn't use much shading capabilities of modern GPU. That's why 8800gt can compare in performance to GTX260 in this game.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: error8
You can't compare two games from different periods of time, that is true, but you have to remember, that San Andreas for example, looked amazing for its time and ran like a charm on mid range computers. I've played that on a Socket A sempron, maxed out and that wasn't even a mid range computer for that time. That was a good console port, GTA4 isn't.

Try looking at San Andreas now and look at GTA4. Not even the same league... The amount of AI are way more complex and sheer numbers of AI has quadrupled if not more.

Now if you remember ps2 could run this game maxed out although lower resolution. PS2 or original xbox CPU was much weaker than a sempron. Graphics looked exactly like the xbox version except it supported AA and higher resolutions. Now thing with GTA4 is that it uses deferred lighting so it can not render AA with dx9. It's just the nature of the engine. GTA engines has always been a CPU hog. it just that the original gta 3 engine was programmed for ps2 with much lower resources in mind so you had much better frame rates than the console version at the time.

 

[vj8usa]

Azn: I consider GTA4 to be a bad port because increasing graphical settings like shadows/resolution seems to increase CPU load. That makes no sense to me. Normally, in a game where I'm CPU limited, I do my best to increase settings until my GPU's close to maxed out. With GTA4, that seems to be impossible, as even going up in resolution doesn't really increase GPU load.

 

[AzN]

vj8usa. You are entitled to your own opinion...

but I have to disagree... The CPU limitations you are trying to explain does not apply to all games nor are all engines work that way. There were quite a few CPU dependent games like GTA4 in the 90's and today consisting of MMORPG with massive AI.

You just need more vram or else it's swapping textures and pixels to lower performance. You feel like it's increasing CPU load because your CPU wasn't powerful enough in the first place. Upping the resolution/shadows wouldn't matter long as you weren't maxing out your vram or close to it.

As for GPU load I've pretty much explained this earlier. I've mentioned it twice because Marty seemed to have a hard time understanding the concept.

 

[ComputerDude67]

Runs great on my box and only 2 cores. Although graphics are set to a 512MB video card. No stuttering and I LOVE this game. This game is rock solid and never crashes and no problems. Specs below.

If you want to see GTA4 in all of its beauty then you need more that 1GB VRAM. I would get the Sapphire 4870 2GB from NewEgg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102826

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: Azn
but I have to disagree... The CPU limitations you are trying to explain does not apply to all games nor are all engines work that way. There were quite a few CPU dependent games like GTA4 in the 90's and today consisting of MMORPG with massive AI.

That's interesting. GTA4's the only game I've seen where GPU load doesn't go up when increasing graphics options. Another CPU hungry game I played recently was Mass Effect, but that behaved like I expected. I could increase graphics settings until my GPU usage was approaching 100% without losing performance.

Originally posted by: Azn
You feel like it's increasing CPU load because your CPU wasn't powerful enough in the first place. Upping the resolution/shadows wouldn't matter long as you weren't maxing out your vram or close to it.

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all. I know I'm not close to maxing out my VRAM; that's exactly why I'd expect my framerate to stay steady when I'm CPU limited. If I was running out of VRAM, then I'd expect my performance to drop.

Originally posted by: Azn
As for GPU load I've pretty much explained this earlier. I've mentioned it twice because Marty seemed to have a hard time understanding the concept.

I don't see where you explained my issue with GPU load. No matter what I do, I can't get my GPU to get anywhere near 100% load. That's exactly why I consider this to be a sloppy port, as a well coded game would make full use of a modern GPU.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: Azn
You feel like it's increasing CPU load because your CPU wasn't powerful enough in the first place. Upping the resolution/shadows wouldn't matter long as you weren't maxing out your vram or close to it.

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all. I know I'm not close to maxing out my VRAM; that's exactly why I'd expect my framerate to stay steady when I'm CPU limited. If I was running out of VRAM, then I'd expect my performance to drop.

Sorry sometimes my written English can sound awful... I will try my best to explain....

If you are stretching your vram or getting very close to using all the vram it does hinder performance to some extent in this game.... I've tried playing this game @ 800x600 using the same settings as 1440x900 - just upping the resolution... For the most part I had very similar frame rates between 800x600 and 1440x900 because it was close but not too close where the frame rates drop.... You have ATI card which performs worse with Nvidia rivals in this game which makes sense considering 8800gt has way more texture fill than HD4850... I'm not too sure but you might experiencing some vram limitation or video card issues as I had very little performance difference between the 2 resolutions....

Originally posted by: Azn
As for GPU load I've pretty much explained this earlier. I've mentioned it twice because Marty seemed to have a hard time understanding the concept.

I don't see where you explained my issue with GPU load. No matter what I do, I can't get my GPU to get anywhere near 100% load. That's exactly why I consider this to be a sloppy port, as a well coded game would make full use of a modern GPU.

All GTA4 engine does is unload single and multi-textures back from GPU memory sub-system. It doesn't use complex shaders to render scenes instead it uses the CPU to do all these things... You don't get a full load in your GPU because that's all it's doing... It wouldn't matter if you were trying to run the game with higher graphic settings long as you didn't get too close vram limitations to load unload single and multi-textures.

 

[midnight growler]

Thank you everyone for your help and explanations. I know that GTA4 is pretty unique in its demands so it isn't a good 'target game' to plan my upgrade around, but it just comes down to wanting to play it and have it look nice (with a mouse and keyboard too! )

As for getting a card with 1792 or 2g of VRAM: how much of an advantage will this provide for other games? I'm worrying the cost of the extra memory might be a bit of a waste if other games can't use it and it leaves me also with a slightly slower core than a faster card with less memory.

Again thanks for the replies and listening to me think about all of this out loud

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: midnight growler
Thank you everyone for your help and explanations. I know that GTA4 is pretty unique in its demands so it isn't a good 'target game' to plan my upgrade around, but it just comes down to wanting to play it and have it look nice (with a mouse and keyboard too! )

As for getting a card with 1792 or 2g of VRAM: how much of an advantage will this provide for other games? I'm worrying the cost of the extra memory might be a bit of a waste if other games can't use it and it leaves me also with a slightly slower core than a faster card with less memory.

Again thanks for the replies and listening to me think about all of this out loud

You'll almost never see a performance difference going from 1 to 2GB VRAM at 1280x1024.

 

[Triton67]

I tested GTA4 with SLI GTX260 and dual core E8400, almost 4GHz...low low frame rates. If I ran it with only one GTX260, almost same fps...the game doesn't seem to support multi GPU, but since it seems to be a console port; lots cpu cores will help.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: ComputerDude67
Runs great on my box and only 2 cores. Although graphics are set to a 512MB video card. No stuttering and I LOVE this game.

Really? I had my E7200 at 3.9 ghz and it always stuttered, even when I changed my videocard from 4870 512 to a 4870 1gb.

 

[motardman]

OK, I'll give you guys my 5 cents worth.....

My current spec is as follows:

Q6600 @ 3.25 Ghz
4Gb PC6400 DDR2 @ 846 Mhz
HD4890 1Gb @ 900/1000
580 watt PSU
32Bit Vista

I started off with a HD4870 1Gb and I had the the framerate slow down issues in GTA 4. I'm running 1920 x 1080, all settings on high with view distance at 25, shadows at 10 and the other 2 at 50.

The slowdown was almost random, always outside but would just start in traffic (or when the sun was setting it was worse) and would carry on until I stopped driving and waited a while (almost like it was some sort of I/O issue).

Anyhow, I REALLY like this game so i decided to spend more money in pursuit of happiness. I splashed out and bought a XFX GTX 275 896MB card and bingo, same settings, PERFECT framerate except maybe a tiny bit of slowdown during sunset and the occasional stutter when the Forceware driver failed and recovered (honestly the GTX 275 is the most buggy card I've ever owned!!!!!).

So you'd think that would be the end fo the story right.......NO. The major issue now is that the Nvidia card really was a bag of cr@p for my other favourite games. Terrible stuttering issues and blue screens in Left 4 Dead and blue screens in Call of Duty 4.

I went out and bought my current card, an HIS HD4890 OC Edition. Back to perfection in L4D and COD4 but back to slowdown in GTA 4. So I'm now in the playing with settings fun that everyone loves trying to stop the slowdown. Have set Catalyst AI to standard and Adaptive AA to OFF which seems to have helped.

It may well be CPU power to a certain point but I think once you get to a certain level and have a quad core or speedy dual core then the BEST thing to get this damn game running is to buy a high end single core Nvidia GPU, I'd just recommend the GTX 285 over the 275 as the 275 seems to have too many driver issues at the moment. I wish there was some sort fo fix for the ATI slowdown but I think it must be another damn case of developers optimising for one brand for kickbacks, is almost as annoying as time limited exclusives......can you say no Lost and the Damned for PC......argh!!!!!!