about patches

[Rysie]

Hey guys,

I just bought gta3 for my pc and it doesnt run that smooth on a high resolution.

Is there a patch out there that will help the game run more smooth?

[Girish]

I doubt if there's any such patch. Can you tell us what settings you're running the game on and your system specifications? It would be easier to assess your problem if you do.

[Rysie]

Thanx mate.

Im running GTA3 on 1240*748 and 32bit with trails on and the frame sync.

I have:

Intel Pentium 4 2.4ghz

1024 mb 333mhz

128 ATI Radeon 9200 series

40gb hard drive

DVD drive

sound card

do u reckon there might be a ATI driver problem?

im very new to this stuff!

[Girish]

If you're facing lag with that configuration, then it has to be a driver issue. Try updating your drivers and delete the set file from the User Files folder.

 

If that doesn't help, try lowering your sound acceleration to Basic or None. That'll certainly help to a certain extent.

 

If everything fails, then I'm afraid you'll have to lower your resolution. Also, I hope your desktop resolution is the same as your in-game resolution. And check your monitor's refresh rate. Only use those rates that are supported by your monitor, preferably between 60 and 70 Hz.

[Heihachi_73]

Rysie - your specs sound very much like my current system (click on my username for specs). Your one sounds like a pretty good PC for its age, but the high-res stuff might be a bit much for the graphics card, or it could be something else if the hard drive's constantly going.

 

If it's graphics lag and not the hard drive constantly grinding away:

A 128MB Radeon 9200 you say? In the GTA games, I wouldn't put the graphics past a width of 1024 sorry - I have a 256MB Radeon 9550 which drops a few frames even in that mode (1024x768 as I'm still a 4:3 CRT user; your might be 1024x640 or something) sometimes. The 3D rendering engine of GTA3 wasn't the fastest thing on earth; it displays every single item in GTA-world in front of you even if your character is staring at a wall. They only fixed the rendering bug when they released Vice City.

 

The best thing to do would be to lower the resolution one step each time until you don't see any lag. Also, I've noticed the latest ATI Omega drivers (4.8.442) ran like crap on my system (OK, I downloaded them in March, they might not be the latest now!), I quickly downgraded back to the 2006 version I had (3.8.231) and it ran fine again. I don't know if the same Omega drivers had everything 9xxx or only for my series.

 

Another thing which might do wonders is, turn the trails off.

 

If the graphics seems fine for a little while then Windows starts p!ssing you off and you lag up:

If it's a 'constantly loading stuff lag' rather than graphics lag, put GTA3 (and the others if you have them) on another hard drive (not a different partition) so it doesn't fight the Windows page file when loading stuff. Running any GTA from the C drive can lead to a terrible experience, depending on your system. I know you have a gig of RAM so it shouldn't be a problem, but you never know what Windows or programs underneath GTA can be doing. Even having Firefox open alongside GTA3 can sometimes cause lag on my machine (my machine only has 512MB of course, haven't bothered to upgrade it).

[Rysie]

sorry for the late reply,

Thank you guys for helping me!

Ill give everything a go! Im thinking of upgrading my graphics card to a ATI radeon HD3650 512mb agp 8x. will that be a good choice? maybe that might make gta3 run more smoothly?

[gtamodder]

Im thinking of upgrading my graphics card to a ATI radeon HD3650 512mb agp 8x. will that be a good choice? maybe that might make gta3 run more smoothly?

Yes, that would be a good choice. It should make the game run smoother.