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Gaming Grand Theft Auto IV PC

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Tim S, 4 Dec 2008.

  1. wyx087

    wyx087 Homeworld 3 is happening!!

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    anyone know which EXE do i add to nVidia control pannel to force AA?? the game really need AA.
     
  2. LeMaltor

    LeMaltor >^_^

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  3. LeMaltor

    LeMaltor >^_^

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    Statistics
    Average FPS: 23.32
    Duration: 37.47 sec
    CPU Usage: 88%
    System memory usage: 96%
    Video memory usage: 18%

    Graphics Settings
    Video Mode: 1280 x 1024 (60 Hz)
    Texture Quality: High
    Render Quality: Highest
    View Distance: 100
    Detail Distance: 100

    Hardware
    Microsoft Windows XP Professional
    Service Pack 3
    Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
    Video Driver version: 180.84
    Audio Adapter: Realtek HD Audio output
    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 4300 @ 1.80GHz

    File ID: Benchmark.cli

    Yippy :D

    edit: ingame seems a different story, memory leak or something but the game slows down as you play coming to a slide show :S But with 1 draw distance and 1 density I can still play with High textures 25fps outdoors and 35+ indoors :D
     
    Last edited: 6 Dec 2008
  4. djDEATH

    djDEATH Habari gani?

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    that driver has massively improved things for me too, now can get around 30 FPS most of the time, and only drops below that when lots of cars are on screen or when its raining.
     
  5. LeMaltor

    LeMaltor >^_^

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    But look at my (and yours when you benchmark) Vram useage, my CPU and ram seems to powering the whole game, its like playing Half Life in software mode >_<

    edit: my benchmarks before this driver show my vram useage at 100% and 99% o_O
     
    Last edited: 6 Dec 2008
  6. impar

    impar Minimodder

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    Last edited: 9 Dec 2008
  7. ParaHelix.org

    ParaHelix.org What's a Dremel?

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  8. impar

    impar Minimodder

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    Greetings!
    Truly a pity. :sigh:
    It was the best GTA4 review I read by far.
     
  9. -6i6-

    -6i6- What's a Dremel?

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    It seems to me that the game does have quite different results from rig to rig.
    I dont know if the below result is good but it is totally playable even if i surpass
    the resource usage: Currently 544/483 megabytes

    cpu: C2D E6600@ 3.060mhz
    RAM: 2GB ddr2@ 425mhz OCZ gold
    GFX: Gigabyte 8800GT 10% overclocked
    HD: WD6400AAKS



    Statistics
    Average FPS: 32.38
    Duration: 37.25 sec
    CPU Usage: 88%
    System memory usage: 87%
    Video memory usage: 88%

    Graphics Settings
    Video Mode: 1024 x 768 (75 Hz)
    Texture Quality: Medium
    Render Quality: Highest
    View Distance: 72
    Detail Distance: 100

    Hardware
    Microsoft Windows XP Professional
    Service Pack 3
    Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
    Video Driver version: 178.24
    Audio Adapter: Realtek HD Audio output
    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz

    File ID: benchmark.cli
     
  10. ry@n

    ry@n Minimodder

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    I had to spend literally over an hour try to make this game work but despite all the hassle its still my favourite game, even If I am running it just below 1280x720 with mostly low settings.
     
  11. books

    books What's a Dremel?

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    Here is my perspective. I've recently finished playing GTA4 all the way through, after playing it on and off for about a month. I disagree with some of the things the review said, but I'll come to that.

    The game ran fantastically on my PC. The graphics were absolutely stunning, with huge view distances. I could stand on one island and look across the river in to the adjacent island and I could see the epic skyline. I could see for miles, and the graphics were beautiful. The amount of detail in this game is unbelievable. Anyone who doesn't appreciate this is spoilt rotten. There are leaves in the gutters in some places, there are potholes in the road that have been covered up roughly, just like in real life. There are people walking around carrying their shopping, near a coffee shop you'll see people walking around carrying a coffee. If you run in to them they'll drop it. There are countless locations, uptown, downtown, parks, slums, the big city area with skyscrapers and people in suits walking around and Ferrari type cars driving around. In the scruffy part of town I walked in to a burger shop and comically, the guy said, "Wanna buy a burger mother f*****?". You can also go bowling, play pool, go to a comedy show, or go to a pub and play darts. You can take girls on a date or, unlike what the review says, you can completely ignore all that. I think I took the first girl on a couple of dates and then I barely even answered my phone for the rest of the entire game. I just did the missions that appeared on the map and you don't HAVE to answer your phone or call anyone. You can shoot the tyres on a car and air will come out and the tyre will go flat and affect the handling. There are leaves blowing in the breeze, birds, fog, smog, wind and rain, cops eating doughnuts, people walking around chatting on their mobile phones. The detail is just unbelievable. There are also countless cars now. Unlike past GTA games where there was about a dozen or so cars just cut and pasted all over the city, this game looks like a real city with countless different cars. You pull up at a set of lights and there could be 20 different cars in sight, SUV's, a couple of different sports cars, luxury cars, a taxi, a supercar, a family car, an old car, etc.. and then a couple of motorbikes too. It's a living breathing city and NO other game even comes remotely close to achieving that.

    Now on to the comment in the review which said, "Unfortunately though, our response to these conclusions is simply that the game isn’t any better on the PC. It doesn’t matter how you look at it, the PC version of the game is just not the definitive Grand Theft Auto Iv experience.". I don't even know where to begin with this. The game is the same game as on the consoles, the review admits that itself. Where it improves is that the graphics are far superior. You only need to look at screenshots to see this very clearly. Not only that, but nothing beats a mouse for shooting. The running and gunning is as good as any third person shooter. It's smooth and very accurate. I can snipe people in the ear, rocket launch right in to the side of a car, I have machine guns, sub machine guns, grenades, all the gear, and thanks to mouse controls, it just plays as fast and easy as a first person shooter. If I hear someone behind me, I can whip around and quickly aim at their heads and shoot, and I don't need some artificial auto aiming helper to compensate for the crappy gamepad controls. As for driving the cars and choppers, I have an XBOX360 controller which cost £17.99 including delivery, so I have everything the consoles have but I have the mouse and keyboard in addition. So I can't see how anyone could say it's not the definitive version.

    The game is a technical masterpiece. It has top of the line graphics, but it also has top of the line sound, with a A+ voice acting and an unbelievable sound track. The detail as I described earlier is just unmatched, there are a massive bunch of missions and they are generally higher quality now than they ever were in previous GTA games. It may start with a few drive from A to B missions, but it quickly gets more intricate and there are several epic missions like the bank job etc, and even the standard missions are as creative as it gets. whether it's triggering car bombs with your phone, sniping people on a building site, or blocking a tunnel with your truck to ambush a police escort. They are pushing the limits of the GTA style missions.

    You can take a cab ride to shorten a journey, or drive yourself in any kind of car, or various types of motorbike, you can swim and you can ride in various types of boats and powerboats, and there are of course the choppers.

    So to me, the game is a technical marvel with a good solid vein of gameplay running through it. Getting less than an 8 out of 10 just seems completely perverse to me.

    Having said all that, I have tired of this kind of game now. I've played all of the GTA games since they were little 2d top down games. I think this is the pinnacle of GTA's journey so far in that everything is just so polished and so well fleshed out. I missed the planes and especially the harrier and jetpack of the last game, but besides that, I think this game is a marvel. The problem is though, it's all stuff I've done before, in San Andreas, in Vice City, in GTA3, but also in all the 2d versions that came before it. It really has lost it's shine now. It's incredible that they have such a great driving game AND such a great shooter all in the same game, but when I play each of those individual elements these days, I really want more from it. With the driving elements I adored all the fantastic chases that GTA4 provides, the best and most realistic car chases in any game, ever. But besides that there is not a whole lot else there. I am used to games where I can upgrade my car or games like trackmania where you do loop the loops and stuff. This is 'just' driving and it's not really 'special'. The same goes for the shooting elements. I have all the basic weapons but again, I've played shooting games since Wolfenstein 3d, so for me to be interested these days, I need new stuff. As good as GTA's shooting bits are, when you compare it to the Onslaught mode of the recent Unreal Tournament games, or the massive online battlefield type games, or even Crysis which had a couple of tricks up it's sleeve like 'the suit', GTA just seems a bit behind.

    That's just me though. I respect and appreciate the sandbox aspect of the game, but it doesn't really interest me as it does other people. I personally am more interested in epic shooting battles like the set pieces from the Halflife or Fear games or the big online battles, and this game just doesn't really have much like that. So I'd give it an 8/10 for achieving so much, but I personally am in to a different kind of game these days. I think the GTA series could potentially achieve that some day, but I doubt it will happen any time soon. I have wished for it for a long time, and they NEARLY nailed it with San Andreas when they added that area capturing idea, but because they did it like a last minute addition, it didn't work out well at all. I again hoped they might have elaborated on that kind of thing with GTA4 but it seems that they just redid all the good ole trusty GTA basics, which is fine... just not for me. I'll keep hoping that some day they will give me GTA4 but with that bit of something extra, but I suspect I'll have to just keep getting that from other games. Again though, that's just me personally, the RPG and RTS geek that I am. It doesn't take away from the fact that as an action game, this is about as epic as it gets really. I think if you were new to this series and judged it fairly, against other games of it's type, and put your waning interest after years of GTA playing aside, you would see that this is pretty much a masterpiece.



    p.s.
    My PC is:
    E6600 are stock speed (2.4)
    8800GTX (stock speed)
    2gig ram
    XP sp3

    I play at 1680x1050 which is the native resolution of my monitor. I find that ALL games run great on my PC, cranked to maximum settings. I can only use AA on some games, but I don't really miss AA seeing as I'm using a widescreen monitor not a widescreen TV. I suspect that the game only ran like crap for the reviewer and anyone else, because they were trying to play it at a ridiculous resolution. If you go above this resolution with a bigger monitor or an HDTV, then you need to REALLY pay for it and start overclocking stuff, because as far as I'm concerned, you are doing something that isn't really intended, as these games are made for the majority, not the minority who insist on overdoing it. To me, trying to play these kinds of cutting edge games on a massive screen and then complaining about the performance, is the equivalent of trying to drive a Porsche up the side of the Hoover Dam and complaining that it only reached 60mph.
     
    Last edited: 18 May 2009
  12. kenco_uk

    kenco_uk I unsuccessfully then tried again

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    I found the storyline in GTA4 really very good and when you get bored, you can zoom about and blow stuff up like a lunatic - it's a great sandbox where you can lose an hour or so just baiting the police and then outrunning them. I'm playing it a lot less now though due to other games and afk/irl.
     
  13. Krikkit

    Krikkit All glory to the hypnotoad! Super Moderator

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    Interesting perspective books, but I think you're missing a crucial thing about GTA - it's not a shooter, or a driving sim or anything else. It's halfway between.

    It'll never get to the point where one part feels as good as a game of that genre, simply because it'd take too much time.
     
  14. gavomatic57

    gavomatic57 Minimodder

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    It's one of the few games to make significant use of all 4 cores of my Q6600. More interestingly though is how screen resolution seems to have no impact on frame rates - whether it is at 1280x720 or 1680x1050 it sticks to around 20fps. It also uses over 4gb RAM when you have 8gb.

    It is a great game, great graphics and sound and it works properly with the 360 controller - unlike Vice and San Andreas, who's remote control helicopter missions are impossible on the PC - I miss the property owning, revenue generating and generally care free feel of Vice City, as well as the characters and voice talent. However Niko and the other characters are reasonably endearing, but I'm hopeful of a re-visit to Vice City using the new game engine! That would be awesome!
     
    Last edited: 19 May 2009
  15. books

    books What's a Dremel?

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    See the problem I find is that I too can blow an hour by whizzing around causing mayhem and seeing how high I can get my police rating. I actually killed a bunch of cops and had the big vans chase me. Then I jumped in to a chopper and landed on a tall building where nobody could reach me. The cops all pulled up down below, and I chucked grenades down on them and rocket launched the SWAT vans as they showed up. The only thing they could reach me with was choppers which I just rocket launched or shot the police in the side. It was fun, but only for about an hour. I wouldn't want to do it again because there just isn't really any point to it.

    As I said some people appreciate this more than others. I personally just would rather some more direction to it.

    That is obvious. But it's only two elements so it's just all about money. GTA is such a massively popular, mainstream game series, I think they could afford to push both elements. The two elements don't necessarily need to be as good as individual games, as long as it all comes together to be a great experience. Right now they have the basics down, running around and shooting, so it just needs to go somewhere from here. I think they will nail it eventually. I think they nearly came up with something special with the zone capturing in San Andreas, but they didn't give the idea a high enough priority.

    Also, I personally think the chopper and boats were a waste of development time seeing as they were barely used. Personally I would prefer that they reel in some of this stuff and go for a bit more of a quality over quantity approach. That's just me though, and as I said, I still think it's a masterpiece.
     
  16. SID3W8Z

    SID3W8Z What's a Dremel?

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    I didn't read through all the posts, but the consensus seems to be, the game sux on the Pc. I have to agree. I recently purchased a Dell Studio XPS 435MT and tried running it on that. The darn game would stall every 5 seconds or so. I assumed it was a driver issue, and I downloaded the latest driver (still the same). I wrote to Rockstar to get some information (3 times), NEVER got a reply. It must be one of the worst Customer Service places ever! Why even put a link to write in, if you won't acknowledge. CRAPPY Game, Crappy Customer Service... I won't be buying another game for the PC... that's for sure. I'll go to Gamestop and get it used, where I can return in 7 days if it's this crappy.

    Now, here is my system specs...

    Dell Studio XPS 435MT
    Core i7 @ 2.67GHz
    4GB Ram at 1066MHz
    ATI Radeon 4850 512mb (even overclocked it to 690/1148MHz with Fan at 100% - No Help).

    I then lowered the settings to the lowest it goes on all the sliders... guess what, game still paused every 5 seconds or so. Complete GARBAGE! I went back to playing Saint's Row and Saint's Row 2 on the Xbox360... and totally enjoy that game SO MUCH MORE!
     
  17. books

    books What's a Dremel?

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    Surely that's more likely to be the fault of your PC though, and not the game? Because the same game, ran great on my PC and my PC isn't even as good as yours. You have a faster processor, faster graphics card, and twice the amount of RAM.
     
  18. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    That pausing every 5 seconds is not the game's fault. If it crashed randomly then it'd be a faulty game. You, Sir, have the problem that many Dell customers face: You're a Dell customer. :p
    But honestly, please don't blame the game for something that's not its fault. I still have to try it on my PC but I won't buy it before it falls under £10 used.
     
  19. ry@n

    ry@n Minimodder

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    It was and still is (as of about a week ago in the Gloucester store) £9 in Morrisons.
     
    perplekks45 likes this.
  20. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    That might actually be worth a try... off to find out where a Morrison's in Bath is to be found. :)

    Cheers!
     

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