GTAIV Doesn't stress the GPU

[Warrior7]

I've made by myself some tests about GPU activity under this game.

 

1680x1050 Textures Medium PostProcessing High

 

Then the other things 25 65 45 10

 

So... here's the experiment

 

 

CLICK TO EXPAND

 

As you can see the HIGHEST moment (during game) is 82% (the highest you see is between game and going windows)

 

The grapic card reach 71º MAX FULL thats lower than games like PES2009...

 

So the grapic card isnt being used as it could in this game...

 

 

 

[JeddyH]

maybe that why I can crank the settings fully and it will have the around the same fps as medium settings, once it goes past a certain point it might stress the GPU to its max

[Sub12]

Yup, this is EXACTLY what I predicted in the Readme thread. The CPU acts as a major major bottleneck so the GPU isn't even used properly. I bet your CPU, on the other hand, is going at 100 or almost 100% throughout.

 

What they should have done is ensured most stuff is processed by the GPU (which is at least 10-20 times faster than your CPU for the specific processing). Hopefully they will make some of such fixes in the patch.

 

It's a ridiculous CPU hog, this game.

[null_]

Good find. Let's hope for a fix.

[Warrior7]

The thing is that in any other game you wont see nothing like this xD

[wintord]

Game is a massive cpu hog I went from a X2 at 3.2ghz getting around 20fps average on medium settings switched to a Phenom at 3ghz and went up into the 45fps average with same setting and now I can also crank settings up aswell without losing performance from my 280gtx. The only 2 setting that alter gpu usage on my pc are view distace this is the biggest strain 50 seems about my limit then framrate starts to fall and Detail distance which I also have at 50 seems to be sweet point aswell everything else I can max and maintain 40fps average now. but I have droped texture back to medium though because well it has no impact on my frame rate it introduces load stutter on high which I dont get on medium.

[DAV1D90]

even my temperature of GPU is lowest

 

if i playing games like Crysis, Far Cry 2 i had 70-72C

GTAIV? .... 65C MAX

 

so, something is wrong....

[MMhardKy]

Well, I noticed this, because the fans on my two GTX280s don't even start spinning faster!

My CPU is a C2D [email protected]

Is really a 3.82GHz dual core a bottleneck in this game? Does a quad really improve the performance that much?

[soqzippo]

i have a quad core q6600.. havn't overclocked it yet. I also have gtx 260. I could'nt believe it when the game 1st started you could see slight studders in the cinematics. Then after maybe 5 mins into it it crashed. Then I had to completely skip the opening scenes (even though i wanted to see them) just so i could start playing. If you are in a car and use your mouse to do a 360 view around the car the studdering is absolutely atrocious. So lets hope that the initial poster is right that they are trying to use more of the cpu than the gpu and they release a patch to fix this. I honestly lost interest in the game due to the lag while driving the car. But im glad at least they spent their time making a nice poster to include with the game if thats any consolation

[GTAMonkey2012]

I was going to say the same, in a way dual core isn't a lost hope in a strange way. I have 6400+ x2 AMD Athlon 3.1Ghz and im getting good fps killing draw detail and crap shadow density completely. Oh also GTX260 OC (216 cores).

 

But ... the optimization issue may just be this that the code or stream core could be re worked in order to make this balance out. We know recommended is quad but as we've seen that can be debatable in certain situations. There was a link to reports back to "amd & nvidia / rockstar" link for a patch. Now its funny they are noting to AMD and CPU manufacturers also.

 

I was always going to get an phenom chip in the new year but not as of yet, certainly not JUST because of games or this game but other "dayjob" uses required.

 

Will be interesting, this should be feed back also .. what was the site new link reporting that feedback info to R* again, maybe pass this on also. Someone also mentioned 1 core of there dual core was in operation only at some stages (pinch of salt on that one) .. but then they also haven't implemented SLI so again more GPU patching yet to come, lets hope they open things up in the process GPU side in the core engine via patch.

 

I remember Bohemia Interactive releasing Arma and draw distance etc was killing machines even latest models, then even they found a new coding way with the engine to stream / make use better and via patch to get everyone on expected frame rates, even to the point of upping more draw distance ... and arma was a swine for killing fps with draw distance so its all doable. In fact Arma was on par in some ways with performance like this situation.

 

What im saying is the "bottlneck get quad game over" isnt entirely true, we know its not optimised so it can be balanced engine wise "after the fact" known by history with other games.

 

Will be interesting to see what unfolds.

Edited December 4, 2008 by GTAMonkey2012

[CAPON3]

..ive got Q9450 Oc @ 3.06 and in taskmanger only cpu1 is @95%, cpu2 @ 70% and other 2 not even been used (20%).

my gfx is 9800GX2 @ 680MHZ 1GB 2.08GHZ ..since sli dont work its runing @ 680Mhz 512Mb 1.04Ghz, gpu1 went upto 75C max and gpu2 arond 68C.

[AussieDave27]

Im installing it on ly laptop now and I should get slightly lower performance since I have a 2.8 dual compared to a 3 on the desktop (overclocked to 3.25). The laptop gfx is slightly weaker (9800 gts vs 4870 on desktop) but that probably won't make a difference.

 

Good thing about a laptop though is that at a 15 inch screen you can have a lower resolution and still have it look okay because it won't be overly stretched. GTA might even look all 2 small in my laptop's native resolution of 1650x1024 (or something like that)

[krookie]

Yup, this is EXACTLY what I predicted in the Readme thread. The CPU acts as a major major bottleneck so the GPU isn't even used properly. I bet your CPU, on the other hand, is going at 100 or almost 100% throughout.

 

What they should have done is ensured most stuff is processed by the GPU (which is at least 10-20 times faster than your CPU for the specific processing). Hopefully they will make some of such fixes in the patch.

 

It's a ridiculous CPU hog, this game.

This is absolutely correct. When I have the game running, no matter what settings I use, the CPU usage is at about 95 - 100%.

[rud]

I have a Core 2 duo 6400 (2.13ghz) Radeon HD3850 with 512 MB of vram. Using ATI Tray tools I can watch my GPU % utilization in real time and can readily attest to seeing the exact same kind of data. Mostly my GPU runs around 50% (with my settings cranked to low), setting them higher I can get it working up to about 80% but I haven't seen it past that.

 

This is not *entirely* unheard of in other games for me, but mostly has only happened in simulations like FSX, Steel Fury, and WWIIOnline where there really is a hell of a lot more number crunching than prettiness. I have no idea what GTA is doing with all of my processor, the physics look nice but even in the menus it is working hard constantly.

[AussieDave27]

And those sure are some fantastic looking menus rud

[MMhardKy]

80% of the CPU power is probably used to constantly check if you aren't pirating the game

[DAV1D90]

this is ridiculous, CPU usage in game never goes upper than 80%, both cores (C2D E8200 2,66GHz)

 

f*ck this sh*t.... this need to be fixed... and GPU usage too

[medfreak]

It's obvious really. It's a crappy port that uses PC environment as though it is a console environment. If you ever played a PS2 emulator before you would recognize a strikingly similar pattern. It does make sense since consoles do depend heavily on their CPUs.

 

Bottom line is, this is bad news. Only something on the scale of "The Witcher: Enhanced edition" remake could fix the performance issues. Or some major ass patch. But given how little Rockstar cares about PCs, I doubt it.

[PestilenceJM]

I can just agree on this.

 

A friend of mine has more FPS than me. And guess what, his CPU is better, while his GPU is worse than mine. I think about buying a new CPU. But im not sure if its worth it, cause i play no other game where you need a better CPU.

[krookie]

80% of the CPU power is probably used to constantly check if you aren't pirating the game

It's sad really. The whole anti-piracy thing is getting way out of hand and who suffers in the end? The regular customers. The pirates do not have to deal with any of that Securom crap because the crack either emulates it or removes it entirely. So chances are they are actually getting a much better version which does not install unwanted software and messes with your system files. The only difference is that they cannot play online.

 

There is a working crack out already. Sure, the pirates had to wait two days to play the game but is it really justifiable? The money spent on Securom would've been much better spent on improving and optimizing the game, which runs like crap for a lot of people, probably because of Securom.

 

Sorry for the rant but it just really grinds my gears that all this DRM crap game companies force on us not only doesn't prevent piracy but actually makes the game worse for actual paying customers.

[wintord]

The antipiracy measures are not the problem the games is just really cpu intensive the game engine is ported from the console versions which were based around having 3 cores at 3.2ghz available for use in the case of the 360 and even struggled to hit 30 fps most of the time with what is basically graphics set to low on pc version. My phenom with 4 cores at 3ghz still struggles uses 3 of my cores at 90% and above and the other at over 50% constantly but it runs a dam site better than the x2 at 3.2ghz i took out and changed today. the only way to push my gpu is to turn draw distance and detail right up but that causes the cpu to be overloaded with information and the frame rates become unstable, its all being very limited by what the cpu can do.

[dudester123]

The antipiracy measures are not the problem the games is just really cpu intensive the game engine is ported from the console versions which were based around having 3 cores at 3.2ghz available for use in the case of the 360 and even struggled to hit 30 fps most of the time with what is basically graphics set to low on pc version. My phenom with 4 cores at 3ghz still struggles uses 3 of my cores at 90% and above and the other at over 50% constantly but it runs a dam site better than the x2 at 3.2ghz i took out and changed today. the only way to push my gpu is to turn draw distance and detail right up but that causes the cpu to be overloaded with information and the frame rates become unstable, its all being very limited by what the cpu can do.

i don't think securom takes up that much resources...