GTA IV on PC...

[homercles337]

So i built a new rig a while back and decided to pick up GTA IV. Why all the .NET framework, Social Club, nonsense hoops? I dont get it. The game wont run and im on the verge of just returning the damn thing.

Edit: I should mention that im running Vista Ultimate x64 with a i7 920, 6GB, with a Radeon 4890. I think developers are intentionally killing PC gaming with this nonsense.

 

[Zenoth]

It's just another very bad port, they didn't do anything to optimize it for PC hardware, it's one such bad port out of hundreds, you'd better play it on Consoles for which it was made, the PC port is just there to make a little extra and potentially shut up any whiners about its absence on the PC market. I myself played it on both XBOX360 and PC, and if I had a choice I'd surely go with the XBOX360 version. And, anyway, GTAIV gets boring fast, and it doesn't support Anti-Aliasing (PC version), and all that extra software nonsense we need to install, it's all good reasons to play much better games than that.

 

[Sacraster]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
It's just another very bad port, they didn't do anything to optimize it for PC hardware, it's one such bad port out of hundreds, you'd better play it on Consoles for which it was made, the PC port is just there to make a little extra and potentially shut up any whiners about its absence on the PC market. I myself played it on both XBOX360 and PC, and if I had a choice I'd surely go with the XBOX360 version. And, anyway, GTAIV gets boring fast, and it doesn't support Anti-Aliasing (PC version), and all that extra software nonsense we need to install, it's all good reasons to play much better games than that.

i agree, but i really prefer mouse/keyboard than controller. that is why i got it for pc instead of ps3

 

[NYHoustonman]

I had a tough time with it as well, but ended up playing through twice - it was repetitive at times, but the attention to detail/storytelling in a lot of instances was impressive.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: Sacraster

Originally posted by: Zenoth
It's just another very bad port, they didn't do anything to optimize it for PC hardware, it's one such bad port out of hundreds, you'd better play it on Consoles for which it was made, the PC port is just there to make a little extra and potentially shut up any whiners about its absence on the PC market. I myself played it on both XBOX360 and PC, and if I had a choice I'd surely go with the XBOX360 version. And, anyway, GTAIV gets boring fast, and it doesn't support Anti-Aliasing (PC version), and all that extra software nonsense we need to install, it's all good reasons to play much better games than that.

i agree, but i really prefer mouse/keyboard than controller. that is why i got it for pc instead of ps3

This is one of the styles of games where IMO a gamepad is better. You're driving quite a bit, and given the handling of most cars in GTAIV driving works much better with a gamepad. The shooting may work better w/ a mouse, but it's designed with an autoaim for consoles which works well. Since it's not mainly a shooter, the autoaim doesn't ruin the experience.

 

[Cheesetogo]

It's definitely a pain in the ass to get everything working, but in my opinion it's well worth it when you do. There are also ways to bypass Rockstar Social Club and Games for Windows that you might want to look into.

 

[Cheesetogo]

Originally posted by: gorcorps

Originally posted by: Sacraster

Originally posted by: Zenoth
It's just another very bad port, they didn't do anything to optimize it for PC hardware, it's one such bad port out of hundreds, you'd better play it on Consoles for which it was made, the PC port is just there to make a little extra and potentially shut up any whiners about its absence on the PC market. I myself played it on both XBOX360 and PC, and if I had a choice I'd surely go with the XBOX360 version. And, anyway, GTAIV gets boring fast, and it doesn't support Anti-Aliasing (PC version), and all that extra software nonsense we need to install, it's all good reasons to play much better games than that.

i agree, but i really prefer mouse/keyboard than controller. that is why i got it for pc instead of ps3

This is one of the styles of games where IMO a gamepad is better. You're driving quite a bit, and given the handling of most cars in GTAIV driving works much better with a gamepad. The shooting may work better w/ a mouse, but it's designed with an autoaim for consoles which works well. Since it's not mainly a shooter, the autoaim doesn't ruin the experience.

I'm not sure you can actually enable auto-aim on the PC version. I've tried playing with my Xbox360 controller before and couldn't stand it. I went back to the mouse and keyboard after 5 minutes.

 

[venkman]

I have a very similar system to yours (i7 920/3GB/4890) and it still runs kind of crappy on recommended settings. Very playable, but panning onto draw distance areas produces notable stutter. I think ill stick with the 360 version, heck I might even consider getting the DLC.

 

[shortylickens]

This is gonna start a flame war but..........

Overall I think it was actually easier getting DOS games to work properly.

 

[AdamK47]

The game runs on my system and run pretty well, but I agree, the game is bloated with far too much front end crap.

 

[Baked]

That's why I play games on console. Everything's optimized and there's no DRM to worry about.

 

[vj8usa]

If you're playing the singleplayer, you can completely bypass social club/Live and not lose any functionality (saves still work). It'll run and look WAY better on an i7+good GPU than on either console.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: gorcorps
This is one of the styles of games where IMO a gamepad is better. You're driving quite a bit, and given the handling of most cars in GTAIV driving works much better with a gamepad.

Am I the only one who drives better with a keyboard? I find it really hard to drive the car with analog sticks because the steering is analog. Pushing the stick a little right steers it a little bit right, so if I'm making tight turns I need to push the stick all the way over as far as it goes. If I'm driving crazy and swirving back and forth, it requires quite a bit of thumb movement.

The trick to making GTA 4 run is to run launchgtaiv.exe in the game folder. If I hit run from the social club menu, it tells me I need service pack 3. Yeah, Vista service pack 3. Good look finding that on the MS website.

Overall I think it was actually easier getting DOS games to work properly.

Of course it was. Most DOS games were just copy and paste. Even Quake is like that. I can copy the Quake folder to another computer, make absolutely no changes to any of the config files, and it will run.

 

[Sam25]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
It's just another very bad port, they didn't do anything to optimize it for PC hardware, it's one such bad port out of hundreds, you'd better play it on Consoles for which it was made, the PC port is just there to make a little extra and potentially shut up any whiners about its absence on the PC market. I myself played it on both XBOX360 and PC, and if I had a choice I'd surely go with the XBOX360 version. And, anyway, GTAIV gets boring fast, and it doesn't support Anti-Aliasing (PC version), and all that extra software nonsense we need to install, it's all good reasons to play much better games than that.

Exactly this. I was so disappointed to play this crappy port on PC.

 

[alm4rr]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
This is gonna start a flame war but..........

Overall I think it was actually easier getting DOS games to work properly.

*shudders at soundblaster config hangs & IRQ flashbacks*

 

[Sam25]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
This is gonna start a flame war but..........

Overall I think it was actually easier getting DOS games to work properly.

LOL

 

[ibex333]

Originally posted by: homercles337
So i built a new rig a while back and decided to pick up GTA IV. Why all the .NET framework, Social Club, nonsense hoops? I dont get it. The game wont run and im on the verge of just returning the damn thing.

Edit: I should mention that im running Vista Ultimate x64 with a i7 920, 6GB, with a Radeon 4890. I think developers are intentionally killing PC gaming with this nonsense.

Don't immediately start blaming the game or the devs just because you were too lazy to make the game work. Your computer is so much better than mine in every possible way, yet all that power is going to waste because you don't want to take the time to make this game work and enjoy it.
That being said, YES, the game is a very bad, lazy port, and it's filled with all kinds of crap to stop you from pirating. But that didn't stop me! (from playing it that is ;P)
What I did is I did some searching, grabbed myself a couple of cracks, and that solved most of my problems with all that social club nonsense. I spent time looking for this stuff, because I REALLY wanted to play this game unlike you. Clearly, you just didn't care enough.

I am able to play GTA IV fine, at full speed at low-mid settings and it looks much better than the console versions. I can only imagine what it would have looked like if I was running it with max settings. Sadly, after the initial awesome intro, and the realization that the game is obviously taking place in New York City, in Brooklyn, on Brighton Beach (very cool), the rest of it, it actually pretty similar to GTAIII and San Andreas. There is plenty of new stuff, but really, underneath all that it's still the same, and gets boring quite quickly. (at least for me) I don't know why I burnt out so damn fast, but I did! It only took a week or so to make me want to stop playing this game. In comparison, I played Fallout 3 for months and I am still coming back for more. Who knows, maybe part of it is because the devs released all of the expansions on the PC, while Rockstar will only be releasing expansion on consoles and they are NEVER coming to PC. When I 1st heard about this, I was absolutely shocked, but these days stuff like that is becoming more common. That's ok, though - once they realize their games are being pirated on consoles almost as easily as they are on PC, they will hopefully stop with all the bull. (which I very much doubt off course)

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: ibex333
once they realize their games are being pirated on consoles almost as easily as they are on PC, they will hopefully stop with all the bull. (which I very much doubt off course)

Back when my friends and I each owned a Playstation 1, everyone had a mod chip. The purcahse rate for games was incredibly low since anyone with 2 CD drives could rent a game from Blockbuster, make 20 copies of it, and hand it out to friends at school. One friend even had a CD label maker and he would print labels that made the copies look very similar to the real thing.

PS1 had insane piracy. PS2 was just as bad. Xbox was even worse since it had emulator piracy as well. Xbox 360 is worse than all of them because now the game images can be downloaded; you don't even need to rent the game! Developers have known about the piracy issue for a long time and they simply don't care. They're not going to suddenly realize that Xbox piracy is huge (they already know) and decide to release a GTA 4 expansion on the PC because of it.

I'm just glad the current DRM is nowhere near as bad as it was in the 80s. In the 80s, PC games would ask you to type a word from a certain page on a certain line. If you bought a used PC game and the retard who owned it before you lost the code card, or the instruction manual was missing pages, you were screwed. DRM was just as crippling then as it is now. At least software cracks are free whereas using the photocopier at the library to copy a friend's instruction manual was expensive.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
It's definitely a pain in the ass to get everything working, but in my opinion it's well worth it when you do. There are also ways to bypass Rockstar Social Club and Games for Windows that you might want to look into.

Yeah, i looked for that and dont want Social Club bullshit on my PC at all. I have only found fixes that require installing and logging in once. I actually thought about making a "dummy" RGSC.exe that would run and do nothing.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
This is gonna start a flame war but..........

Overall I think it was actually easier getting DOS games to work properly.

Why would that start a flame war? Install --> run. With this game im having to do stuff with the .NET framework, Social Club must be running, then there are game play issues. Im taking this thing back...

 

[Cheesetogo]

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
It's definitely a pain in the ass to get everything working, but in my opinion it's well worth it when you do. There are also ways to bypass Rockstar Social Club and Games for Windows that you might want to look into.

Yeah, i looked for that and dont want Social Club bullshit on my PC at all. I have only found fixes that require installing and logging in once. I actually thought about making a "dummy" RGSC.exe that would run and do nothing.

Do a search for xliveless.

 

[Acanthus]

as of patch 1.04 i havent really had any issues.

The multiplayer modes could use a bit more polish, that aside the game runs fantastic overall. I run it on the rig in sig at medium settings @ 1680x1050 no AA 16xAF

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
Do a search for xliveless.

I tried firing up GTA 4 for the first time since reinstalling Windows and it came up with a new problem.

Activation process has been terminated

For additional information, please visit our support homepage: http://activate.rockstargames.com/?c=GTA4
The SERIAL was not found in the database. Most likely the SERIAL has been entered incorrectly.

Press BACK to retry activating (please verify the correct input of the SERIAL) or press CANCEL to abort.

If the problem persists, please visit our support homepage for possible solutions: http://activate.rockstargames.com/?c=GTA4

So if I reinstall windows on the exact same computer and have the files verified through Steam, the game still doesn't work? Thanks for stealing my money, cunts.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
It's definitely a pain in the ass to get everything working, but in my opinion it's well worth it when you do. There are also ways to bypass Rockstar Social Club and Games for Windows that you might want to look into.

Yeah, i looked for that and dont want Social Club bullshit on my PC at all. I have only found fixes that require installing and logging in once. I actually thought about making a "dummy" RGSC.exe that would run and do nothing.

Do a search for xliveless.

Would this work for Broken Steel? That GFW Live shit is so clunky with Fallout 3. Again i had to jump through major hoops just to get that to work (yes, this is mainly why i didnt want to do the same for GTA). Downloadable Content my ass, more like downloadable PITA. Why is this such a hard thing for distributors to get to work. Its not about getting it to be usable, but its about getting it to WORK at all.

 

[skace]

Why are you having so many problems getting this to work? I too have Vista Ultimate 64, i7 920, 6GB of RAM, and a GTX 295. GTA4 worked flawlessly from the get go. Yea the social club is a little lame, but whatever, I just clicked past it.

Why is your machine having so many problems?