Any improvements in vehicle animation?

[Pranjal]

I have been a PC GTA player all throughout. So after the horrible experience of how the vehicles in GTA SA moved, can anybody having the console version of GTA IV verify whether those glitches have been sorted out?

 

I mean comeon, GTA holds its own in the Third person shooter genre but San Andreas' vehicle animations were the most pathetic of all games I have played. I still remember my Turismo being nonchalantly overtaken by Mananas and Perennials on the freeways. Even on the normal roads, vehicles moving forwards would reverse gear without any rhyme or reason causing pile ups and fusions. So whether those occurences have been taken care of is my question.

[Slamman]

I own PS 2 and 3 games as well as the 3D GTAs for PC... what exactly was the problem? The PS2 era games were much in the same way as the PC's?

I would add that computer controlled AI cars always move faster then the ones under your control. The same way cops that target you under a wanted level act differently then those shooting or chasing crooks under AI.

There is also the improvements every GTA brings to the series, and these are there too, if you ask me. It is better, the bottom line being.

3rd person shooting is better in PS3's Uncharted then it is in GTA4, and that's why it will always be faulty... at least as it stands.

Edited August 17, 2008 by Slamman

[Seddo]

I have never been overtaken by a Manana's or Perennial's even when i'm on the free way with a poor car.

 

Anyway on GTA 4 near enough every car has different speeds and different handling abilities and it's very noticeable, if you see a couple of cars parked up and you're trying to escape the police after a certain amount of time playing you get used to the cars and you would now which car to choose to help you escape.

 

Also when going up hills you can drive at full speed, you will notice you car goes quite sluggish up it especially if you start from a stand still, also when driving at full speeds the cars give a little jolt when going up the gears.

 

The car physics and such have improved greatly.

[Slamman]

Speaking of the reversing of peds, I can't recall it much in SA, but in GTA4, it has happened plenty of times when they are blocked, as there has to be a reason they would do it. I've been rammed and killed a couple times I was crouched behind a car for cover, that's the most annoying quirk of all, which means, use your 360 visuals as often as you can!

[NecroViolator]

You could always check on YouTube and search for GTA 4 (IV) and watch...

[Slamman]

You don't get a good hands on impression from that, I can tell you heavy trucks in this game are slower then dripping sh*t, as my friend used to say all the time.

They are the worst, but are graphically very pleasing, considering

[Seddo]

You don't get a good hands on impression from that, I can tell you heavy trucks in this game are slower then dripping sh*t, as my friend used to say all the time.

And how is he going to get a 'hands on impression' from us telling him about it?.

 

Atleast visuals will be better than words...

[NecroViolator]

Sad to say there is ALOT of GFX bugs ingame...

 

 

[Blackadder.]

Speaking of the reversing of peds, I can't recall it much in SA, but in GTA4, it has happened plenty of times when they are blocked, as there has to be a reason they would do it. I've been rammed and killed a couple times I was crouched behind a car for cover, that's the most annoying quirk of all, which means, use your 360 visuals as often as you can!

Common sense would tell you not to take cover behind a soon-to-be moving object.

 

But vehicles and traffic have been improved in IV, they added these wonderful things called 'indicators.' Suspension has also been greatly improved, you can feel the car lean as you turn. makes fishtailing a lot more useful to get around corners.

[Dhatz]

there is one change that needs to be done. driving wheels have to move when streeting. that sh*t totally ruined any reason for having incar camera in III era.

[Fnorg]

MY question is, does Niko just turn his body the way he turns, or does actually turn the wheel. I hated when CJ tilted himself to turn the car. He DID do that, right?

[Dhatz]

MY question is, does Niko just turn his body the way he turns, or does actually turn the wheel. I hated when CJ tilted himself to turn the car. He DID do that, right?

yes,the turning animations in III series are terrible. there is inly one type of them(no 900degrees) and driving wheels ain't animated.

[cant remember]

Though for GTA3, in-car animations were revolutionary. His simple turning the wheel and looking behind etc.

GTA3 was one of the first games where cars actually had an interior with guys sitting inside and not merely gray windows texture.

 

And yep, on the PC version, there is something terribly wrong with the freeways on San Andreas. Though it appears the faster your computer is the less bad it it.

I once tried to run San Andreas on a 700mhz with merely 32mb of ram. It was unplayably slow, BUT, AI cars drove insanely fast, it was almost impossible to jack one, much faster than they do on a normal computer. I have the impression the bug is much less prominent on the PS2 version.

Edited August 19, 2008 by Niteye

[gamesguru]

I mean comeon, GTA holds its own in the Third person shooter genre but San Andreas' vehicle animations were the most pathetic of all games I have played. I still remember my Turismo being nonchalantly overtaken by Mananas and Perennials on the freeways.

You mean handling right (and what do you mean glitches!?)?

 

Yeah, the handling absolutely rocks and takes time (depends on how you play) to learn/master. It's very rewarding. And just to say you was talking about animations (stealing, baling etc.), there is one glitch where you shoot someone as they're getting out of an car; and they will complete the animation before dying .

[Stalkertr]

I have a question , In GTA IV think that you are going too fast , then when you pull the hand brake , does car get rolled ? or spin ?

[Pranjal]

You mean handling right (and what do you mean glitches!?)?

 

Yeah, the handling absolutely rocks and takes time (depends on how you play) to learn/master. It's very rewarding. And just to say you was talking about animations (stealing, baling etc.), there is one glitch where you shoot someone as they're getting out of an car; and they will complete the animation before dying .

I am not at all talking about your version of animation. Each of the 3 versions of GTA San Andreas on the PC namely, 1.0.2.0 and the Steam one, all have the same problems: the cars on freeways are simply too fast. The paths of the vehicles even in the normal streets are actually not normal. If a vehicle is going in front of me, I expect it to go straight and not reverse the vehicle 360 degrees as if it is trying collide head on with me. Once I was driving a car in Doherty and another one out of nowhere landed on top of me. These are not glitches but horrible blunders in coding the trajectories and vehicle paths in the game. An dyou all are claiming that it is all right. In fact GTA 3 and Vice City's vehicle paths were coded much better than SA. Look at this pic below:

 

The Manana was actually in front of my ZR 350,can you believe it? And every body knows about those huge pile ups and fusions. I once saw 3 cars fused and blasted to smithereens. I don't want this sort of nonsense in GTA IV PC version. Are they already there in the console versions?

[gamesguru]

I see what your saying. A bit like lag in an online game.....

 

I do notice that the cars, can sometimes 'judder' when on the highways. However, I believe this is due to our individual PC specs [not being high enough]. I wouldn't know, as my PC has always been crap when it comes to RAM.

[cant remember]

 

I see what your saying. A bit like lag in an online game.....

 

I do notice that the cars, can sometimes 'judder' when on the highways. However, I believe this is due to our individual PC specs [not being high enough]. I wouldn't know, as my PC has always been crap when it comes to RAM.

It's not just the twitching (and this is on computers above the recommended requirements!).

It's also that they drive much too fast, semi's drive as fast as you do in a sports car. When they change lanes, it is unrealistically fast, when they have to brake, they are standing still in an instant (brake lights don't even go on).

When they take an exist or a 90 degree turn, a bus can do this at 150mph without skidding or anything at all and turn extremely unnaturally.

 

It is the same in GTA3 and Vice "kind of". Well not really because those games didn't have any areas where cars drove faster than elsewhere.

In fact the highways in San Andreas just appear to be what slow driving cars do, but with the speed much higher, so it looks unnatural, as if you were watching a movie in fast forward.

Edited August 19, 2008 by Niteye

[Pranjal]

I see what your saying. A bit like lag in an online game.....

 

I do notice that the cars, can sometimes 'judder' when on the highways. However, I believe this is due to our individual PC specs [not being high enough].

San Andreas on my PC runs at 125 fps with the frame limiter turned off. And you say that you can understand what I am saying.

 

Or maybe my PC is simply too fast for SA. In fact Niteye is correct with his analysis. So are these features there in GTA IV console versions?

[gamesguru]

And you say that you can understand what I am saying.

Maybe slight mis-phrasing on my behalf. But I did say, and I quote " I wouldn't know, as my PC has always been crap when it comes to RAM. ".

 

But, I wouldn't know most of these glitches (which Niteye highlighted), as I don't play my PC copy very often; because of my rubbish RAM, as already highlighted. But yeah, SA is glitchy; IV has glitches, but some are respective to the gameplay.

 

But like SA, IV will probably get mods to stop these (very few) 'annoying' glitches. Although some may disappear and visa-versa when getting ported to the PC.

[cant remember]

I hope they don't add glitches. I found that overall most PC ports were poorer than the console version. The PC had sharper resolutions and better graphics etc. but the port itself was rather clunky, especially in III and vice, the reworked animations for a mouse and keyboard. When looking around the guy turned too but there was no animation he was pretty static. Strafing animations were also much less smooth. They did not take into notice that because you're not using a pressure-sensitive controller, Tommy and Claude's animations appeared much more crude on the PC.

In San Andreas, they greatly improved this for the PC, but it had some extra bugs that the PS2 didn't, eg. cars always being dirty and washing the car not working. (though they did bring a patch that fixed this).

 

EDIT: as for whether the highways in GTA IV are still awkward. I haven't seen it for myself but someone I know who also complained about this bug said it's fixed in IV.

Edited August 19, 2008 by Niteye

[Cursed]

I'm just hoping that the animations in IV are smooth. It has already been mentioned how jerky cars are on the freeways, when allecerating, turning or breaking (With a terrible screech may I add). They just change lanes without any warning, causing a massive pileup, resulting usually in seeing the "Wasted" message

[cant remember]

I'm just hoping that the animations in IV are smooth. It has already been mentioned how jerky cars are on the freeways, when allecerating, turning or breaking (With a terrible screech may I add). They just change lanes without any warning, causing a massive pileup, resulting usually in seeing the "Wasted" message

Is this in San Andreas or IV you're talking about?

If it's IV then that would suck.

[Cursed]

San Andreas, I haven't played IV.

[Graven]

What I am curious about is how they port the driving? Every single vehicle is so damned different that I can´t imagine feeling it with WSAD. Even a PS3 or XboX360 controller does not do the justice.

Being a huge PC (All games on PC) player, this is major thing. I will use controller with vehicles, and keyboard walking.