Graphical Performance Readme

[[email protected]]

Dear R*

 

I have purchased your game and quite happy with it.

 

However I have never seen such poor performance from a videogame in a long time.

 

I have tried everything.

 

Updates ,Drivers, defragging, tweaks, no background apps, min-max settings.

 

Nothing makes a difference and i am lucky to get 20fps at any setting, the usual slow crawl is 5-15fps.

 

I might as well go ahead and ask when that magical patch is coming out, or at least a solution to the performance problems.

 

Here is my computers specs: 939 Opteron 170 2.01Ghz 1.35v +CM Hyper TX+AS5 Abit KN8 Ultra Corsair VS1GBKIT400+VS1GB400C3 2GB (4x512mb) Auto DDR333 CL2.5 POWERCOLOR ATi HD3870 PCS 512 D3 2DH Seagate ST3500320AS 500gb/32mb Creative Audigy 2ZS+Inspire T7900 Antec BLK3000+Spire RockeTeeR IV 600W ATX2.02 Viewsonic VX2255WMB Xsonic Office Logitec MX510 Billion 7300A Australis IT 1.5mbit "30/10 Plan" XP Pro SP3 Final

 

CPU is below the recommended spec, however people with much slower Dual cores have been getting more FPS then me… WITH BETTER VIDEOCARDS!

 

So please hurry up on that patch and please don’t guide me through those typical support questions such as “Have you tried reinstalling the game”

 

Also MP does not work very well, FPS is worse and I get kicked out of servers saying “Your PC performance is too slow you have been kicked from the server”

 

As it stands now I have a 20GB Dual DVD $80 monstrosity that I am finding very hard to play, imagine now long it takes me to drive from one end of the map to the other? A Fnning long time!

 

I would of taken the game back or at least got a better computer, but in publishers infinite wisdom you have decided on Sony DADAC, uhh, sigh…

 

Anyhow, auto response pisses me off, please try not to send one.

 

Sean 

Dear Sean,

 

TL;DR

 

 

Rockstar

TRDR?

 

Wish i knew wtf that means...

 

Sean

 

Seriously

[GamerJerome]

is there a way to get rid of the pixeled shadows ?

[The_Cheese_Man]

It means Too Long Didn't Read. A way that viewers show that the post was too long to read, meaning they got short attention spans

[Sub12]

I have a question.

 

Why are the nuked shadows and horrible aliasing not visible in the screenshots? Does that mean Rockstar actually got the game running properly but obviously something is wrong with the retail versions? The screenshots render the shadows just fine, and there seems to be anti-aliasing as well. Very curious.

[oc student]

I have a question.

 

Why are the nuked shadows and horrible aliasing not visible in the screenshots? Does that mean Rockstar actually got the game running properly but obviously something is wrong with the retail versions? The screenshots render the shadows just fine, and there seems to be anti-aliasing as well. Very curious.

Well i'm guessing that they use photoshop and blur the aliased edges and do the same with shadows.

 

Guys, I have a Intel Core 2 Duo 8200 running at 2.66 GHZ and a 8500GT and 4 Gigs of Ram. Would I get this game running at the lowest possible settings and res?

[flyer2359]

Remember guys this game depends mostly on you processor in my benchmark it shows it's using 92% of the processor and 60% of my video card and my graphics card isn't overly great either. But when I went to overclock my graphics card game performance didn't change because my CPU is bottlenecking the game.

I can really see High end Core 2 Duo system and Quad Core systems coming into play in the next year or two

[Knyte]

 

I have a question.

 

Why are the nuked shadows and horrible aliasing not visible in the screenshots? Does that mean Rockstar actually got the game running properly but obviously something is wrong with the retail versions? The screenshots render the shadows just fine, and there seems to be anti-aliasing as well. Very curious.

They may also take the screenshot at crazy high resolutiona and then resize them much smaller, which would make them look way better in comparison.

 

 

Remember guys this game depends mostly on you processor in my benchmark it shows it's using 92% of the processor and 60% of my video card and my graphics card isn't overly great either. But when I went to overclock my graphics card game performance didn't change because my CPU is bottlenecking the game.

I can really see High end Core 2 Duo system and Quad Core systems coming into play in the next year or two 

 

I believe most of the people with the best expirence with the game are running Quads. It makes sense, since this is ported from the consoles, which are both multi-cored. The Xbox 360 uses 3 cores (@ 3.2GHz each), and the PS3 has like 6 usuable cores. (I think it has 7 total, but one is reserved for the OS or something.)

Edited December 6, 2008 by Knyte

[kheopstr]

 

DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIES from Rockstar !!!

 

BLOOM is NOT Next Gen...

Bloom is total CRAP and kills any system...

BLOOM = SYSTEM KILL !!!... NOT NEXT GEN...

 

There SHOULD of been Options TO TURN BLOOM OOOOFFFF ingame...

PURE CRAP...

 

Also my Dual Xeon/Quad Core only uses 25% max 30% of CPU power on this crap game...

 

This means that Oblivion was Next Gen as well... Since it had Bloom + HDR...

yup i agree wtih u why dont tell us which technology in the xbox or ps3???

 

if they dont make up this horrible problems with a pacth this game cannt be played.

 

[kheopstr]

lots of replier says cpu is the most important!!

 

i have q6600 and i tired with stock 2.4 and 3.2 ghz there nothing difference.. lots of lags again again again!!

i oc'ed my 4870 750/900 to 790/1100 also nothing changes...

this game have a huge stability problem. this problems can not solved with cpu or something else.. they must realesa a huge pacth !!!

Edited December 6, 2008 by kheopstr

[nookadum]

@kheopstr

 

Check if you have your chipset drivers installed.

 

---

 

It's most likely that this game is very reliant on multi-core CPUs. A lot of people are reporting high CPU usage with cooler video card temperatures, meaning that the video card isn't the one being stressed out.

 

If you think about it, the detail and draw distance does affect what gets loaded in the background, so the more things loading in the background the more the CPU has to work harder. That might the case here.

 

Here's to hoping that R* releases a patch that can at least optimize the game data efficiently for dualers.

[NTxC]

Dont forget the absence of AA and AF

"Render Quality" = AF.

[AusCleaver]

I'm seeing vehicle damages, not like those in the photos that have been posted but rear tail lights and front end damages and also bullet damage, broken windows,etc.

 

I'm running:

AMD 64x2 5200

4GB DDR2 667 RAM

ATI 1950Pro 256MB - ATI 8.12 Beta drivers (made a slight difference)

1024 x [email protected]

Render is set at HIGHEST

 

 

Settings aren't at a high level but are bearable. Around 20 - 27 FPS in benchmarking - yes it has varied.

It's at a playable level but I am looking at a new video card for next week so hopefully it will run a little smoother and look nicer after I get it running.

Edited December 6, 2008 by AusCleaver

[relliksoul]

well i disagree, but then i seem to be one of the lucky ones, although not at first, taken me a day or two of trying different things, reading forum after forum, but im happily playit on high with beautifull framrates, i havnt looked at them, buts thats because i dint need to.

 

steps ive taken>>>>

 

1. unistalled gfx drivers, downloaded 3dguru's driver sweeper, then restarted in safe mode (F8 repeatedly at startup) used the driver sweeper, and reinstalled gfx driver while in safemode, and rebooted.

 

2. ended programs running in background such as antivirus, steam, msn, etc, and replaced dreamscene desktop with jpeg.

 

3 used the simple trick lowerering all setting other than textures, and putting them on high, restarting game, then put texures on low and all else up, (the draw distance only goes to 85 but still), the textures will stay on high unless you restart!

 

4. you can choose between definitions pressing P during game, which takes the blurryness away, or adds it, if allready on!

 

and done, seems to be ok now, hope this helps ne one

 

oh and my stats...

 

pentium quad e6600 2.8

 

4g ddr2 800mhz

 

nvidia 8800gt 512mb

 

vista home premuim 64 bit!

Edited December 6, 2008 by relliksoul

[GamerJerome]

can some one tell me how i can get the lock of my texture settings i have a windows xp and i can change my render settings but not my texture settings

[murad guler]

i have a quad core 3.0 and gtx 280 my pc is defragmented and everything you can imagine im going to tell you all what options to set it on to get the best experience resolution must be at 1280 and 720p and everything else off thats right low low 0 0 0 0 0 with this method i get high definition and 60 frames per second as you can see you dont lose much you only gain and also a side note ive played alot of things in this game strangely i threw every game i had out this game has it all let the modding begin and see you online neighbors oh and please if you modders can somehow get this post proccessing reduced or off we can have an even greater experience this is a must i know in real life there is an effect that god uses like that sometimes but in gta 4 it has too much thanks hope its my last edit

Edited December 7, 2008 by murad guler

[PanzerIV]

Great... another game that will collect dust in the shelf for 1-2 years until there will be hardware that will make the game a little more playable. Right now even the best computers gets horrible performance with horrible graphics. We thought Crysis was codded like sh*t? Well now you got something 100x worse. At least Crysis lag but with very high quality graphics (-_-)

 

Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 4.32Ghz

OCZ Reaper 2Gb DDR2-960 5-5-5-15

Radeon HD4870 512Mb

Auzentech X-Fi Prelude

Vista Ultimate 32bit SP1

[nebai91]

i have this configuration:

 

CPU: Intel Q9550 2.83 GHz @ 3.02 GHz

GPU: Ati HD4870 X2 GDDR5 2Gb

MotherBoard: ASUS P5Q Deluxe

RAM: 2x2Gb Corsair Dominator 1066 MHz

HDD: 2x500Gb Seagate 7200 RPM

Alimentatore: Corsair 650 TX 650 W

 

. . . And not run . . .

[Rudolf]

Did you guys try to put some settings off or on in the graphics display menu? Sometimes your graphics card is incompatible using advanced FS or AA, try messing around with that, very often a texture problem.

[sideways]

Hi....

I have problem on the shadows....is like this guy

 

problem in shadow

have some way of fix that?

 

thanks

[Lavitz]

my game doesn't look like the screenshots either .. and i cranked everything medium / high and even high and high 1280 by 800 and my game just doesn't have that shine ? Why ? My game just seems to be dull - Colorless - Screen i my profile.

http://www.xfire.com/screenshots/lavitiz/?...d2481a521bf.png

 

 

Also someone should figure out how to disable shawdows completely they make the game look worse in every case.

 

[lubosz]

My benchmark

 

Statistics

Average FPS: 41.11

Duration: 37.78 sec

CPU Usage: 87%

System memory usage: 84%

Video memory usage: 67%

 

Graphics Settings

Video Mode: 1280 x 1024 (60 Hz)

Texture Quality: Medium

Render Quality: Very High

View Distance: 74

Detail Distance: 74

 

Hardware

Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3

Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX OC (600/950)

Video Driver version: 180.84

Audio Adapter: Realtek HD Audio output

Intel® Core2 Duo CPU E6850 @ 3.6 Ghz (OC)

[dark79]

My Benchmark with extreme settings

 

Statistics

Average FPS: 27.29

Duration: 38.11 sec

CPU Usage: 47%

System memory usage: 58%

Video memory usage: 100% (Required: 858 Available: 497 )

 

Graphics Settings

Video Mode: 1600 x 1200 (85 Hz)

Texture Quality: High

Render Quality: Highest

View Distance: 30

Detail Distance: 70

 

 

My Benchmark with more modest settings

 

Statistics

Average FPS: 55.23

Duration: 37.26 sec

CPU Usage: 58%

System memory usage: 53%

Video memory usage: 81%

 

Graphics Settings

Video Mode: 1600 x 1200 (85 Hz)

Texture Quality: Medium

Render Quality: High

View Distance: 30

Detail Distance: 70

 

Hardware

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2

Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 3870 x 2 (Crossfire) (825/1200)

Video Driver version: 6.14.10.6869 (Catalyst 8.10)

Audio Adapter: SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio

Intel Core2Quad CPU Q6600 @ 3.60GHz

 

 

Overkill for sure, but it runs better than the benchmark lets on. Also I'm still on 8.10 Cats as 8.11 are real buggy for me, so even though I have my video cards Crossfired, it doesn't work in game. I'm hoping for a performance increase once the 8.12s come out on Wednesday.

 

EDIT: Forgot to put hardware specs...

Edited December 7, 2008 by dark79

[Dhatz]

current generation is for medium settings. you can't even select the high textures to test performance.

But what HW they used to shoot the high shots?(look at the tyres,they're f*cking perfect in there!)

EDIT: i can see in the previous post,that you need two ATis.

I wonder if 5870x2 will be enough(at least to allow high tetures,doesn't have to mean full details distance).

This game gives a reason for making GPUs with 2GB vram.

 

PS: dark79,which soft did you use to overclock the CPU(mine runs on standart freq yet)

Edited December 8, 2008 by Dhatz

[Dhatz]

b) Its next-next gen *rolls eyes*

No, it's a next-gen port. We're currently in a Generation which allows medium settings. The next gen will allow high settings. Pretty clever if you ask me.

The problem is, PCs are a Generation above Consoles at the moment, but because of crappy coding (I guess), IV won't run to the full usability of PCs today, Minimum should be consoles, Medium should be above consoles and high should be Crysis-like if they Optimised it correctly.

Crysis like ?

 

you mean coded so bad that it won't run?

 

It is probably best if we compare crappy coded games to crappy coded games..

and crysis is one crappy built game..

 

Good call.

WTF? i never seen anybody complain about Crysis being buggy. it's only the settings that matter in Crysis, and must be set according to the HW.

and if you think computers could run GTA with same level of detail as Crysis,think again,or rather sop it and read,as Crysis only renders what you are looking at, while GTA renders 360deg to allow reflections.

BTW: do you ppl with nVidia get fragmented reflections on colored parts of cars?(that means windows have the usual bilinear filtering),can post screens if you don't KWITA.

[Irrati0nal]

This is very good information. Now people can stop complaining about why there top end computers cant even run gta4 run it max graphics... Read it and weep

Actually, this is BS propaganda to make people think it takes 1.5 GB Vram to play a game that conmsoels with 512 MB total ram were able to run. BS.

EXACTLY

 

The graphics in this game are nothing new, lol i set everything on 100% and very high and i use 1.5Gb video ram LOL using a 768mb 8800GTX i average 30FPS, ROCKSTAR ARE LAZY CODEMONKEYS

[Dhatz]

This is very good information. Now people can stop complaining about why there top end computers cant even run gta4 run it max graphics... Read it and weep

Actually, this is BS propaganda to make people think it takes 1.5 GB Vram to play a game that conmsoels with 512 MB total ram were able to run. BS.

EXACTLY

 

The graphics in this game are nothing new, lol i set everything on 100% and very high and i use 1.5Gb video ram LOL using a 768mb 8800GTX i average 30FPS, ROCKSTAR ARE LAZY CODEMONKEYS

while you are lazy brainmonkey,this is not crysis,it cannout have good graphics when it has physics AI and renders other things than those directly displayed.

[Ivarrr]

This is very good information. Now people can stop complaining about why there top end computers cant even run gta4 run it max graphics... Read it and weep

Actually, this is BS propaganda to make people think it takes 1.5 GB Vram to play a game that conmsoels with 512 MB total ram were able to run. BS.

EXACTLY

 

The graphics in this game are nothing new, lol i set everything on 100% and very high and i use 1.5Gb video ram LOL using a 768mb 8800GTX i average 30FPS, ROCKSTAR ARE LAZY CODEMONKEYS

It's much easier to develop for a console than a PC, with a console you just make it for one system with a PC you have to make it for a WIDE range of systems and that hinders performance.

 

But yes, this is rather poorly optimized.

[Mefistofeles]

"SLI is currently unsupported. Support will be added through a future game patch as well as an updated Nvidia driver."

 

This is why the game shows under "Resource Usage" that i have 494 MB? When i really got a 1gb 9800gx2?

[relliksoul]

 

Most users using current PC hardware as of December 2008 are advised to use medium graphics settings. Higher settings are provided for future generations of PCs with higher specifications than are currently widely available.

 

all modestly aside, i know a thing or 2 about computers, more than the average, less than a pro, but this future proof stuff is rubbish, i to have had more than one problem with this game since release, but fps isnt one of em(not to say that its not a problem 4 some), the game runs perfectly smooth on the highest settings.( -norestrictions)

 

my pc is my bestfriend and i spend alot of time upgrading, tweaking and fine tuning, but it is in no way a beast, im sure most of u have a more powerfull comp.

 

P5NT - Deluxe couple with a Q6600 2.4G (quad)

Nvidia 8800GT 512

4g DDR2 1033mhz currently only running at 800mhz as motherboard seems to prefer it this way

On board sound

the rest of my componants are beside the point but are moderate. and im running vista home premium 64.

 

this is hardly a future pc, no sli, no ddr3, no exreme cpu. dosnt even match todays leading pc's

 

this leeds me to only 1 conlustion, the low fps people are haveing isnt because the game requires more power, but because its flawed, but thats ok (this time) these things happen, now fix it dont tell us a load of crap thats to hard to swallow and deal with it!

[dark79]

 

PS: dark79,which soft did you use to overclock the CPU(mine runs on standart freq yet)

I don't use software to overclock the CPU, it's all done in the BIOS.

 

Also, I installed the 8.11 Hotfix drivers to get Crossfire working and my FPS increased to around 55fps with the extreme settings I posted earlier (1600x1200, High Textures, 30 Distance, 70 Vehicle).

 

The only issues are that sometimes it takes a bit for high textures to show up (it's low quality until they do) and I have stuttering problems even though the FPS doesn't drop (per Fraps).

 

This didn't happen when I ran the game with the 8.10 drivers, so hopefully the 8.12 gives me the speed of 8.10 with the crossfire performance (minus stuttering) of 8.11.

 

 

"SLI is currently unsupported. Support will be added through a future game patch as well as an updated Nvidia driver."

 

This is why the game shows under "Resource Usage" that i have 494 MB? When i really got a 1gb 9800gx2?

SLi doesn't double your VRAM. Your card is basically 2 GPU with 512MB VRAM for -each- GPU. The SLi is internal. So you only have 512MB of VRAM. The game is correct.

 

I have the same thing with 2 x HD3870 in Crossfire. Even though both cards together have 1GB of VRAM, in Crossfire only 512MB VRAM is available.

Edited December 8, 2008 by dark79