GTA4

[toyota]

Originally posted by: ComputerDude67
My computer with a dual core runs just fine. I have almost everything maxed out. I don't have any graphical corruption. The game plays and looks great. One thing nobody has brought up is this game has 64bit executables so running it on a 64bit OS probably helps greatly. I know when they relased the 64bit patch for Crysis Warhead it made the game run much smoother. 64bit is where it is at. They now have 64bit executables for GTA4, Crysis, Crysis Warhead, HalfLife 2, Far Cry 2 and Far Cry (great game to play again in 64bit mode). I also checked GPU utilization while running GTA4 and the game never pegged my GPU like others. My CPU was pegged but no lag noticed. Running game at 1680*1050.

Another thing slightly off subject, Crysis Warhead uses the most RAM I have ever seen on a PC (with video games) and with 64bit version Vista 64bit has a memory load of 3.8GB of RAM - Love it as I have 8GB.

I hate the Windows Live Internet garbage.

PEACE!!

maybe your pc is using that much ram because you have 8 gigs and Vista is doing stuff with it. I also have 64bit Vista but just 4 gigs of ram and my total ram usage in the task manager is 2.8 gb while playing Crysis Warhead 64bit DX9 and 2.4 gb for 64bit DX10. of course it will be higher if I leave other things like FF running but I close that out. the most memory I can make the game by itself use is 1.8 gb in DX9 and 1.0 gb in DX10. that seems odd that I get 800mb difference between DX9 and DX10 in the game itself but only 400mb in the task manger.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: coloumb
Patience finally paid off - saw this on sale for $39.00 at the local Fred Meyer's. With $10.00 coupon in hand - I walked out with what I thought was the right price for this game [under $30.00]. Upon loading the game - everything looked pretty damn cool simply because it was night time in Liberty City. Once the sun started shining in the sky - the game became a visual crapfest of annoying pixelated shadows, fuzzy textures from various buildings/objects, and random texture effects on various buildings. If I had one request for a patch - give me the option to not have daytime shadows in the game or freakin change the code used to display the shadows [ugliest implementation of shadows I've ever seen in a game]

I do believe one of the major bottlenecks of my system is the 8800GTS card - I opted to get the funky 320mb version due to budget limitations back in the day. I think maybe if I drop funds for a GTS250 1gb or 4870 1gb - the game *should* look visually better.... including the shdadows [sure - they'll still look like crap, but maybe they wont' be as crappy looking as they are now]

The shadows can look pretty bad, you can do two things to make them look better:

• 1) Increase Shadow Density setting - this increases shadow map resolution, meaning more dots/pixels in the shadow itself. This increases demands on both the GPU and CPU.
  2) Use the Smooth Shadow hack I linked earlier - this setting actually seems to increase alpha to coverage samples, improving alpha blending and reducing aliasing on some geometry and almost all alpha textures. Increases demands on the GPU but given no traditional FSAA can be applied and the fact GTA4 isn't really GPU bottlenecked to begin with, there is no noticeable hit to FPS.

Again, GTA4 isn't really that GPU intensive its much more CPU intensive. What's holding you back however is the 320MB of VRAM on that card as that directly impacts max view distance and texture size before you exceed frame buffer limitations, which will cause stuttery gameplay and HDD thrashing.

 

[soccerballtux]

Reason it runs like crap is for the things Chizow is talking about-- shadow tracing is something that would work great on the SPEs in the Cell-- simple number crunching. Because of the customization required to take advantage of these, they'd possibly have to recode the entire engine to do the shadow rendering and other things handled by the SPEs on the graphics card.

 

[coloumb]

Ok - upgraded to an HD 4870 1GB card - this game looks INCREDIBLE [auto detect set everything to HIGH]... including the shadows.

 

[NYHoustonman]

FYI all, patch 3 was released yesterday and is available now.

Haven't tried it yet, but they supposedly 'fixed' the MP cheating issues, and improved graphics performance somewhat (the ability to turn off shadows outright sounds promising).

 

[nerp]

Make sure to d/l it from rockstar and run it, even if steam updates automatically. Just going with the steam update seems to result in crashes to desktop.

 

[NYHoustonman]

So far, the patch has been good to me... Tried running the game without locking the page file (which is what I did to stop stuttering), and it played fine for about an hour, at which point I stopped.

Turned shadows off for a while, but when I turned them back on I realized how important they are (didn't think this would include shadows from buildings :-X).