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Issues Playing GTA: San Andreas on Compaq Presario

B

BBL

Junior Member
Hi everyone,

I have a laptop that is around 2 years old now, a Compaq Presario F730US.

1 GB of RAM, 120GB HD, Vista Home Premium, 256MB NVidia GeForce 6100 graphics card, 1.8GHz processor, etc.


My problem is, when I go to play GTA: San Andreas, most of the time, the gameplay goes about 4-6 FPS. It's painfully slow, and makes stuff like shooting, driving, etc nearly impossible. According to the back of the box, my computer should be able to easily handle this game. But, it can't.

I recently wiped the hard drive and re-installed Vista (fresh) about a month ago, and it does quite well for Vista, using about 512MB of RAM while idling.


I have disabled the "aero" effect while the game is going, but it still doesn't help with the FPS issue.



Any other suggestions? The game is GTA: San Andreas Second Edition.


Thank you everyone. I really appreciate it.
 
I personally won't be able to help much, given that I've never even heard of that graphics card, but it would probably help everyone if you listed the resolution and settings youre trying to play at.

If I had to wager a guess though Id say video card, but it is just a guess.
 
tailes151 said:
I personally won't be able to help much, given that I've never even heard of that graphics card, but it would probably help everyone if you listed the resolution and settings youre trying to play at.

If I had to wager a guess though Id say video card, but it is just a guess.
Click to expand...

No wonder you didn't hear about it, it's an onboard - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForc...A&sa=X&ei=EmFYTLuDAcL68AbLo4TBCg&ved=0CC8QygQ

OP, That isn't a gaming laptop. You cannot even play games less than 5 year old on it!
 
halluc1nati0n said:
No wonder you didn't hear about it, it's an onboard - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForc...A&sa=X&ei=EmFYTLuDAcL68AbLo4TBCg&ved=0CC8QygQ

OP, That isn't a gaming laptop. You cannot even play games less than 5 year old on it!
Click to expand...

Well, GTA: San Andreas came out nearly 6 years ago, so that works out perfect! 😀 (Sorry, had to) what is an "onboard" chip? I thought they all were?

Nizology said:
Not true.

BBL, just list your in-game settings for us. Maybe try turning down any "eye-candy" features first and go from there. Probably need to turn down your resolution too. Let us know.
Click to expand...


I had the Visual FX set to Very High, and the resolution set to 1200x800. Cranked it down to the minimum, 800x600, and toned back the visual FX to High, and it works quite well now. I might try and bump the resolution to 1024x768 or something, but for now, it's working quite well, and I can't tell any difference in picture quality.


Two slightly related things, In the Playstation 2 version, there was a "target lock" option, where the gun would automatically lock on a selected target, so you could shoot it even if it moved and so on. I can't figure out how to get that feature in the PC version. I don't remember if it was unlockable, or what.

The second (and biggest, for me) issue, is the camera is fixed. If CJ is running away from the camera, it's fine. But, if I need him to turn left, right, or face the camera, the camera doesn't automatically move around so I can "see" where I'm going like it does in the PS2 game. It's focused on one position, and I have to manually move it to see where I'm going. It's impossible to keep shooting or running after a moving target, if I have to constantly stop and rotate the camera so I can see. In cars, it's fine, as the camera automatically adjusts so I'm always able to see where I am going.

(And, since the frame rate is higher than single digit numbers now, I won't be crashing into everything.)


Any help there guys?

Thank you all very much. I'm pretty knowledgeable as far as most every other aspect of it goes, just a little new to the gaming/graphics card section. I don't know what an advantage of a 6100 is over a 7150, unless the 7150 has more VRAM.
 
@ OP, go into BIOS and bump up the RAM allocated to OnBoard Gfx.

Most laptops like yours w/ onboard graphics has no dedicated VRAM and instead take it from system RAM. Since it's usually specced for office work, the setting probably only gives it minimal VRAM (1-4MB range).

Bump it up to the highest it will support (probly 16, 32, or 64 MB) and your resolution issues should go away to a large extent.
 


How do I go into BIOS and do that? It seems to be playing fine, and the OS shows the card I have installed supports 288MB Max video RAM. SO I'm guessing it's 256MB total, with a "surge" o something up to 288.
 
BBL said:
How do I go into BIOS and do that? It seems to be playing fine, and the OS shows the card I have installed supports 288MB Max video RAM. SO I'm guessing it's 256MB total, with a "surge" o something up to 288.
Click to expand...

Reboot your laptop and when the BIOS load screen comes up you usually hit F10 to boot into your BIOS...key might be different though. There'll usually be a message down at the bottom as to what key to hit. As far as where that setting is once in the BIOS, I'm not sure. Just go hunting for it, and it won't necessarily be called "dedicated video ram" or something like that. You might wanna figure out what BIOS you're running and then google it to see where that setting is.
 
BIOS key is usually F2, F10, or DEL. Setting will probably be onboard video RAM or some such label.

I really doubt that it is actually getting 256MB of video RAM if the resolution is limited to 800x600 and can't even hack it at 1200x800. 256 might be the max though.
 
BBL said:
The second (and biggest, for me) issue, is the camera is fixed. If CJ is running away from the camera, it's fine. But, if I need him to turn left, right, or face the camera, the camera doesn't automatically move around so I can "see" where I'm going like it does in the PS2 game. It's focused on one position, and I have to manually move it to see where I'm going. It's impossible to keep shooting or running after a moving target, if I have to constantly stop and rotate the camera so I can see. In cars, it's fine, as the camera automatically adjusts so I'm always able to see where I am going.

(And, since the frame rate is higher than single digit numbers now, I won't be crashing into everything.)


Any help there guys?

Thank you all very much. I'm pretty knowledgeable as far as most every other aspect of it goes, just a little new to the gaming/graphics card section. I don't know what an advantage of a 6100 is over a 7150, unless the 7150 has more VRAM.
Click to expand...

Dude, get a gamepad like the Logitech Rumble II and it will work just like, if not better, than the PS2 version.
 
BBL said:
Two slightly related things, In the Playstation 2 version, there was a "target lock" option, where the gun would automatically lock on a selected target, so you could shoot it even if it moved and so on. I can't figure out how to get that feature in the PC version. I don't remember if it was unlockable, or what.

The second (and biggest, for me) issue, is the camera is fixed. If CJ is running away from the camera, it's fine. But, if I need him to turn left, right, or face the camera, the camera doesn't automatically move around so I can "see" where I'm going like it does in the PS2 game. It's focused on one position, and I have to manually move it to see where I'm going. It's impossible to keep shooting or running after a moving target, if I have to constantly stop and rotate the camera so I can see. In cars, it's fine, as the camera automatically adjusts so I'm always able to see where I am going.
Click to expand...

This is sometimes what you have to expect when you buy the PC version of a game over the PS2/console version. The controls won't be the same.

Based off of what you said, is it reasonable to assume you don't play any computer games? I think most people would agree that the PC control configuration is actually designed better, simply because it gives you more control. Once you get used to it, you'll feel you have much better freedom to quickly change camera angles in any direction you want, with the flick of a mouse. It's pretty great actually.

If you really prefer the automatic camera angles, you could try going into the game options, and going into the control settings to see if you can make it behave the way you want it to.

Oyeve said:
Dude, get a gamepad like the Logitech Rumble II and it will work just like, if not better, than the PS2 version.
Click to expand...

This works too.
 
Set visual FX to low, the only thing you will lose is some ridiculous looking grass ans some really hard edged shadows (some of the worst I've seen)

GTA:SA really has some terrible graphics.
 
Skurge said:
GTA:SA really has some terrible graphics.
Click to expand...

It's a whole lot better than Liberty City though.



Guys, when I try to go into the BIOS, it asks me for the password.


I have no idea what it is. The computer doesn't have a password, I never set one up, since I'm the only one who ever uses it. Vista takes long enough to load as it is.

Any help there? D:
 
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