what would it take to make GTA4 smooth on my machine?

[Fayd]

my rig:

C2D E4400 @ 2.7 ghz
MSI P35 board
4 gigs corsair XMS2 - 5-5-5-12 (4x1 gigs :/)
Diamond HD3870 (stock)
Raptor 150gig (sys)
Samsung HD501LJ(program drive)
Vista x64 Ultimate

So, what would it take to get GTA4 to run smoothly on my machine at 1920x1200? I'm not heavily concerned about graphics quality (though it seems that when i did turn down graphics quality, it didnt help much.)

OC the CPU more? OC the GPU? swap components?

EDIT: shit, i just realized..we have a PC gaming forum.

can the first mod that sees this move it there?

 

[BlueAcolyte]

CPU and RAM are both limiting factors. GTA4 is extremely CPU-hungry.

 

[Fayd]

ram is a limiting factor at 4 gigs? jesus.. i thought i was good there

 

[Sam25]

I saw some videos on Youtube of GTA IV being played at 6 gigs of RAM. Ran very smooth. But seriously, isn't 4 gigs of RAM good enough to run this game?

 

[CuriousMike]

The little googling I did on this suggests GTA IV sucks on anyones machine.

The XBOX 360 and the PS3 both have 512MB of RAM ( used for textures and frame buffers too ! ), so theoritically... giving in for Windows overhead, Windows bloat, and Windows "Use-More-Memory-Just-Because-Card", I'd think it should run fine with a lowly 2GB of RAM.

Theory and practice are obviously divergent here.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: CuriousMike
The little googling I did on this suggests GTA IV sucks on anyones machine.

The XBOX 360 and the PS3 both have 512MB of RAM ( used for textures and frame buffers too ! ), so theoritically... giving in for Windows overhead, Windows bloat, and Windows "Use-More-Memory-Just-Because-Card", I'd think it should run fine with a lowly 2GB of RAM.

Theory and practice are obviously divergent here.

Not quite, you missed a large section of the 'theory'; the fact that an XBOX has fixed hardware, which allows for a far higher amount of code optimization then you can get with consumer PC's.

 

[Spicedaddy]

4GB ram is plenty
HD3870 512MB is fine unless you need 1920x1200 and High Textures

Your CPU is definitely holding you back. Get a Quad.


edit- hadn't read the whole post... If you only have 512MB on your vid card, you have a choice of Medium textures with lower res, or Low Textures at 1920x1200. Personally, I find Low textures look like crap, so I'd rather put up with the jaggies and have Medium textures.

but the CPU is still your weakest link.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
4GB ram is plenty
HD3870 512MB is fine unless you need 1920x1200 and High Textures

Your CPU is definitely holding you back. Get a Quad.


edit- hadn't read the whole post... If you only have 512MB on your vid card, you have a choice of Medium textures with lower res, or Low Textures at 1920x1200. Personally, I find Low textures look like crap, so I'd rather put up with the jaggies and have Medium textures.

but the CPU is still your weakest link.

Yep GTA4 needs a really high overclocked dual or a quad to run well at all plus a video card with 1GB ram to run with textures on high.