Are SA PC graphics poor?

[paradilly]

Hi all,

 

Have had GTA SA on PC for a couple of weeks or so now,

 

My PC is a new build with the following specs,

 

athlon XP 3700+ CPU

1 GB DDR 400 Ram

Radeon X850 XT PE GPU

 

Benchmarks (6400 in 3dmark2k5) and other games seem to play absolutely fine (doom3 - HL2 etc.).

 

GTA:SA using fraps averages around 65 FPS with limiter off so its not framerate thats the problem. The near graphics look fine and smooth on all settings, even when rotating, its just that the distance objects such at towers in the distance and telegraph poles etc. tear and distort when rotating the camera. You can basically see the far graphics stepping/stuttering as the camera is rotated. It basically looks like a vsynch is out but a lot worse, turning the limiter on helps a tiny little bit but it still looks terrible. I know the game engine is now quite old but is this normal. Its bad almost to the point that it hurts my eyes. Would anyone else say that the far objects are smooth when rotated?

 

I have tried to capture this in a video but you cannot seem to see the effect.

 

Am I being paranoid or do you guys think I have a problem. I took it into a local PC store for a second opinion but they said it was the game too, Id just expect it to look a littl;e nicer and be a little smoother, problem is I have nothing to compare it to.

 

Any comments much appreciated kind people!!!

[jelly]

It's innately bad. R* fail at porting. I think you're exaggerating a bit, though.

[paradilly]

I suppose I am exaggerating it but I was sooo looking forward to the PC version. Did 97% no cheats on PS2 and didnt want to complete as I was saving it for PC version. Its probably just me but its constantly on my mind when playing, especially since everything else looks so nice.

 

So your saying that you see this?

 

Better explained in the link below (cannot do here due to formatting.)

This explains what happens to a lamppost for instance

Graphics in distance

Edited September 20, 2005 by paradilly

[jelly]

I see the lowpoly models that are rendered at long distance, and yes, they look poor. I can't be positive that I see the _exact_ same thing as you do, though. If there's any flickering I'm probably so used to it I don't notice it anymore.

[Kumagoro]

I saw it in most openGL games (hitman)

But never in DirectX games

 

It's rather normal for games (i think) but very visible in SA

[Gta1player]

have you noticed when the game boots up , it says " nVidia , the way its meant to be played " , that could be the problem i dunno , but i use to have an ATI card and games that were made on the nVidia chipset looked like garbage in some areas , San Andreas for PC was ported to nVidia standards not ATI . the LOD files in San Andreas (that loads textures for distance files) are blurry but thats what happens when you take away the scan lines from a television set and port them to a crisp monitor display that shows a freckle on a fly's rear end from a mile away .

 

 

most PC games now-a-days are nVidia made .

 

 

 

nVidia is the best gaming card on the planet .

 

[jelly]

have you noticed when the game boots up , it says " nVidia , the way its meant to be played " , that could be the problem i dunno , but i use to have an ATI card and games that were made on the nVidia chipset looked like garbage in some areas , San Andreas for PC was ported to nVidia standards not ATI . the LOD files in San Andreas (that loads textures for distance files) are blurry but thats what happens when you take away the scan lines from a television set and port them to a crisp monitor display that shows a freckle on a fly's rear end from a mile away .

 

 

most PC games now-a-days are nVidia made .

 

 

 

nVidia is the best gaming card on the planet .

 

I play on a 7800GT card and I'm having similar problems. The game is simply crap.

[spaceeinstein]

It's the problem of low level detailed objects loading to a higher level of detail (or the other way around). If you are far away enough, both level of details might want to pop up on top of each other until you are either closer or farther away. Since this game barely has any mipmapping, that happens. This also heppened in previous GTAs but there were not much mountains back then.

[GTA3Freak-2001]

Could you prehaps give us some screenshots? Its just hard to know if your having a real problem or just that you aren't easily impressed with the graphics and small things annoy you.

 

I assume you've got the settings turned up, AA, V-Sync etc.

[ŋĩĉħðĮæ]

ive got both the ps2 version of SA and pc... the pc graphics straight blows the ps2...

Edited September 21, 2005 by ŋĩĉħðĮæ

[BCspeed34]

Yeah do you use AA as GTA3 said, if not, then that's your problem.

 

And they're not "ripped" Its just how your card displays it. Mine does it too. And it's stock.

[paradilly]

OK, thanks for all the input, Im guessing that Im just making a big thing out of nothing. I have AA on at moment but with it off seems to make little difference, cant take any screenshots of it as sceen captures are static and show distance objects fine as theyre not moving.

 

Thanks for all the help pepes, at least Im not going mad

 

[Mike0]

Which settings do you use. What drivers.

[paradilly]

Phenomena is same on all settings but currently set everything to highest at 1024*768*32*2AA

Drivers are cat 5.8s and 6.64 Nforce 4 drivers (I think, theyre about 4 weeks old)

 

Cheers

[SEEJAY123]

have you noticed when the game boots up , it says " nVidia , the way its meant to be played " , that could be the problem i dunno , but i use to have an ATI card and games that were made on the nVidia chipset looked like garbage in some areas , San Andreas for PC was ported to nVidia standards not ATI . the LOD files in San Andreas (that loads textures for distance files) are blurry but thats what happens when you take away the scan lines from a television set and port them to a crisp monitor display that shows a freckle on a fly's rear end from a mile away .

 

 

most PC games now-a-days are nVidia made .

 

 

 

nVidia is the best gaming card on the planet .

 

Are you certain that GTA San Andreas will have better graphics on an NVIDIA card? Because this might impact my next buying decision. I was originally thinking x800 series, but maybe I go for 6800?

[GTA3Freak-2001]

Better maybe if you looked really closely but generally you can't really pick a difference in quality when your talking two card at the same sort of level.