Crappy Performance

[techboie]

http://www.techenclave.com/gam...eaks-fixes-123712.html

According to the people at these forums, GTA IV should run nice and smooth with 30+ FPS for my hardware configuration. But it runs like crap.

Intel C2D E7300 @ 3.5GHz
2 X 1GB DR2 800 OCZ CF Edition
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb
WD 640GB 32mb

12x10 MAX no AA
Avg 15 FPS. 25 according to the benchmark, runs like crap, constant stuttering

12x10 Lowest
Avg 25-30 FPS, 35 according to the benchmark, runs playable

Shouldn't my system do more?

 

[Stumps]

IIRC GTA4 really requires a quad core to run at it's best, but I haven't played it so I really can't confirm that.

What OS are you using? if you are using Vista then you really need 4gb or better (depends on if you are using x86 or x64 though), 2gb is pretty limitating under Vista when gaming.

Trying lowering your res down to good ol 1024x768.

 

[techboie]

I am using Windows 7. All other games run just fine. Come on man, 12x10 Lowest and still not flawless is a bit too much to gulp down even despite 2GB of fast memory. I think I have reduced to 10x7 too but it doesn't make much of a difference.

 

[Stumps]

hmmm not sure, I've only just started mucking around with windows 7.

From what I have been advised in another thread GTA4 puts Quad cores to really good use...it was pretty much everyones thoughts when asked about going from a Q6600 to a 4ghz+ E8x00 series CPU.

What Cats are you using?

 

[techboie]

I am not using CAT, the inbuilt Windows 7 drivers. ATI's website has nothing for windows 7.

 

[MTDEW]

Its not your pc.
Dual core, only 2gb ram and 512mb card for GTA IV just isnt enough to stay above 30fps at a high rez.
I know its hard to believe, but its true with this game.
Especially once you get into the "main square" with all the lighted billboards.

Turn off CLIP CAPTURE in the game menu, that should help some with the stuttering.

 

[techboie]

But howz the PCs of all those gamers in the thread doing just fine after tweaking?

 

[MTDEW]

They removed the shadows, that helps A LOT.

And the guy in the first post is running really really low settings.
He using -width 1280 -height 1024 -shadowdensity 0 -viewdistance 10 -texturequality 0 -renderquality 0 -detailquality 10 -nomemrestrict

He'd be better off with a console then running the pc version!

 

[techboie]

The guy on the second page, first post and even the first guy are maxing out all details in game. Besides, it is not that at lowest settings I am getting splendid performance either. It is still quite crappy.

 

[MTDEW]

Give me a sec, i'll start it and write down my settings.
Best i can do is tell you what i have and what im running at.

 

[Fox5]

2GB of ram will really hurt performan.ce

Try lowering the visual settings. On low, they're basically equivalent to what the consoles are doing, and don't look much worse anyway. And they run way better. At the very least, lower view distance.

 

[MTDEW]

I doubt this will help you much.
But, i can say, DONT believe everything you read online, people lie about their performance in games/benchmarks all the time.

All i can is, what im posting is 100% the "real deal" on what performance and settings i have on my gaming rig.
Now i drop into the 30's and sometimes a little less in the "main square" at night with all the Neon signs around.


Specs.....
Vista 64 ultimate
Q6600 @ 3.4ghz
8GB DDR2 1000
1gb GTX 280
X-FI Xtreme Gamer

rez- 1920 x1200 (no AA, since it doesnt work)

In game benchmark.
(with my email running and this forum page running in backround)
AVG FPS - 53fps
CPU Usage - 79%
System Mem Usage - 38%
Vid Mem Usage - 93%

In Game settings.
1920x1200
Clip cature - OFF
resourse usage - 967mb of 1002mb
texture quality - High
Render Quality - Very High
View Dist - 31
Detail Dist - 52
Vehicle density - 36
Shadow Density - 6

Ive used no tweaks at all, since it looks and play great for me at these settings.

I cannot imagine a rig thats capable of maxing everything to 100%
I honestly dont think its possible, cuz even with a dual GPU card or two cards in sli/ x-fire, you still cant have more than 1gb of video memory available.
I dont htink theres a video card available TODAY that would not run out of video memory maxing everything in game to 100%.

Sure, you can say it benches at great framerates, but since you own the game, you already know the benchmark doesnt reflect how well it runs "in game".

Look at my bench, its says avg 53fps, and i can tell FOR SURE it doesnt run at no consistant 50+fps while playing.


Edit: Ooops, forgot im downloading the Windows 7 beta in the background also, so not sure if that hurt my benchmark performance a little or not.
But i doubt it did too much if at all.

 

[techboie]

Turned off Clip Capture and set the settings to Med-High.

Now there is no stuttering as such.

Average FPS are 18-20 although people say they should be around 25-30.

Gaming is decent and playable, though not all that nice and smooth.

 

[techboie]

To make it run nice and smooth I need to play at 10x7 Grounded with textures on high. Then too there is stuttering while turning during driving.

How are you guys playing fine at 12x10 MAX???

 

[imported_TimBob]

There are windows 7 drivers.

http://support.ati.com/ics/sup...ledge&questionID=39069

 

[Darklife]

Just turn the textures down to medium, that and view distance are the only settings that actually make a difference. Besides, the difference won't be noticable.

 

[chizow]

MTDEW has already answered your questions, its most likely a combination of the CPU, RAM and VRAM causing the low performance. If you lowered texture detail and view distance and resolution and are still having poor performance issues, then its your CPU and RAM. I'd start by adding 1-2GB of RAM (Win7 64 if you get 2GB) to see if that makes things smoother, as I doubt you'll want to buy a new CPU for GTA4.

As has already been stated, GTA4 is easily the most system intensive game to-date and will take full advantage of all the halo specs on current hardware like multi-core, VRAM, CPU cache etc.

GTA4 CPU Comparison
You can see a 3.6GHz E8400 with 6MB L2 performs the same as a 2.4GHz Q6600. You can also see 3GHz 4 and 6MB L2 chips get somewhere around 25 and 27 FPS, so if you're seeing 20-30FPS I'd say that's about right for a 3.5GHz CPU with 3MB L2. Again, the cheapest/easiest upgrade for you would be to add RAM and perhaps use W7 x64, which should help the game run smoother.

 

[tno]

Remember too that game play isn't just about hardware, what other software are you running in the background? What is the OS doing? We don't know much about Win7 yet, it could be as much of a resource hog as Vista has been. And not using official ATI drivers means that your card is probably not getting it's full workout.

 

[techboie]

According to the benchies I should be getting 27 FPS on a GTX 280 and I am getting 25 FPS on a 4850. But not real world. Only in the benchmark. That is useless anyway.

 

[Insomniator]

Why are people trying to run games that barely function on XP/Vista on windows 7...?

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: techboie
According to the benchies I should be getting 27 FPS on a GTX 280 and I am getting 25 FPS on a 4850. But not real world. Only in the benchmark. That is useless anyway.

Not sure what you mean by real world, as PCGH uses a custom demo showing in-game action. Again, there are settings that stress the GPU, like shadows, but for the most part GTA4 is CPU/system bottlenecked more than anything else:

GTA4 with 7 GPUs

Your results seem pretty typical for the hardware you're running.

 

[AzN]

I get an average of 40fps on the benchmark with medium textures @ 1280x1024. System in my sig. Use the recommended settings.

AMD GPU don't work as well as Nvidia GPU in this game. At least this is what I've been hearing.

 

[Tempered81]

change the reflection resolution for a boost:

http://www.pcgameshardware.com...h_tweaked_reflections/

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
change the reflection resolution for a boost:

http://www.pcgameshardware.com...h_tweaked_reflections/

This doesn't do anything for me except it GTA4 crashing.

 

[Spicedaddy]

E7200 @ 3.5GHz is the limiting factor in my case, and I have a worse video card than you (3870 512MB). I play it at 1280x800 Medium/High/22/20/20/2.

It's right there in the readme, yet everybody's expecting to max out everything on a dual-core...


Minimum Hardware Requirements:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
Memory: 1.5GB
Free Hard Drive Space: 16GB
Video Card: 256MB NVidia 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900
DirectX 9 compatible Stereo Sound Card
Keyboard
Mouse


Recommended Hardware Requirements:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
Memory: 2GB (Windows XP) 2.5GB (Windows Vista)
Free Hard Drive Space: 18GB
Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870
DirectX 9 compatible Surround Sound Card
Keyboard
Mouse