GTA4, my ATI X1950PRO and the Patch

[belinda]

thanks sky4ce,

 

won't work just like you predicted. do you know if the game has some validation process for files not included in files.txt & filelist.pak like the shader files? i have to dig through the modding forum here to see if anyone found a way to modify / exchange shaders.

[belinda]

added another topic:

-> NO DYNAMIC HEADLIGHT SHADOWS

 

by reading around here i found threads about those shadows missing, mostly by nvidia sli users which don't get dynamic shadows when using sli and get them when playing with sli disabled. since i've never seen them on my system i suppose i'm affected too. please all you ati x1xxx card owners (x1950, x1900, x1800, x1600, x1300...) post some feedback about which bugs you guys are affected by and, even more important, which not.

 

EDIT: stupid limit hit me here, i'm not allowed to include more than 12 screenshots directly in one post, needed to convert a minor one to a clickable link.

Edited December 21, 2008 by belinda

[sky4ce]

belinda, I think you should also add in 1st post screens with pixelated reflections on windows of buildings and on cars. It`s also noticed on the ground when it`s wet (when rain is). Also there is a bug with striped shadows(lines) on far buildings.

 

Rockstar Toronto would you please say a few words to us, is this bugs (or even a few of these bugs, which affect gameplay) will be fixed?

Edited December 21, 2008 by sky4ce

[belinda]

please sky4ce make some screenshots and upload them somewhere (e.g. imageshack.us) so i can add them in the right context.

but there seems to be a 12 pictures limit in one post here, so i can only add new screens as clickable links without thumbnails.

[Rudi Rookworst]

I have a Ati Radeon x1900xt and with 1680x1050 resolution I've got missing textures. It only get fixed at a very low resolution, but then it's no nice graphics

[DVNT]

-> ATI CATALYST DRIVER

some will mention now, hey you are using a very dated catalyst driver. but let me explain - i tried the new official v8.12 when it came out and it introduced very heavy stuttering after a few minutes playtime. while driving around fps suddenly dropped to 1-2fps, just like the game constantly loading data but with no heavy hdd activity (regarding to hdd led). it felt like the memory leak bug some people suffer from. since i never had that stuttering before with the old catalyst v8.6 i reverted back and the stuttering was gone. despite the new stuttering i did not notice any changes in visual quality (i was praying for better shadow quality) or performance in cat v8.12. so i will stay with catalyst v8.6 until ati releases a cat with real optimizations for gta4 (cat v8.12 release information does not mention gta4 at all).

 

Thats very interesting, this is the second post where someone has noted the new drivers are causing the "very heavy stuttering after a few minutes playtime" bug. I have the 8.12 drivers and at first liked them because of the initial fps increase but I get this terrible bug that makes the fps drop and game unplayable. Thanks for letting us know this, I will have to keep an eye out for driver updates. I might go back to an older driver too.

Did you notice Cat v8.6 was any slower than v8.12 (in the first few mins anyway)?

 

[Anach]

Thankyou for posting this. I have an x1950XTX and experience the exact same issues you describe.

 

As for the pixelated bloom lighting. This happens in most games, so it seems it's an ATI issue.

 

Relating to missing voices/sound. For me, I seem to be only missing sound within interiors (Buildings and Vehicles). I fixed this by setting it to Stereo rather than surround. Surround was working fine before the patch. SBLive here too.

 

[belinda]

@ Anach

the x1xxx series is not able to do fp16 filtering for true hdr-rendering effects. only earlier techniques (e.g. the one used in splinter cell 3 or halflife 2 engine games) show nicely filtered hdr images on x1xxx series cards. modern game engines tend to use fp16 to implement hdr-rendering and effects based on it (read this, especially the "Development of HDRR through DirectX" part if you want to know more). i remember having the same problem with mass effect. a clever guy in some forum even rewrote some of the pixel shader code to get rid of that pixelisation. since all gta 4 shaders are already compiled there is nothing we can do about it.

 

 

@ DVNT

no. i did some integrated benchmark runs before and after and the results were very close (24,7fps with cat v8.6 to 24,9fps with cat v8.12, difference is not worth being mentioned). but i'm not very happy with the ingame benchmark sequence. it's too short, only at night and plays in a very limited area of liberty city. it's not detecting the "after 10-15 minutes stuttering" the cat v8.12 brought me.

 

personally i did not notice any performance decrease after going back to cat v8.6. but i won't say or recommend anyone to roll back to cat v8.6 for various other reasons. it's kinda old and maybe has some flaws or performance issues with other new games. but since i'm only playing gta 4 and fallout 3 these days (which my v8.6 is doing fine) i'm staying with it until a new ati driver with real gta 4 benefits arrive.

 

if you want to narrow down if your stuttering is cat v8.12 related just step back to v8.11 first. then maybe v8.10 and so on. after a new driver install i recommend testing with starting a new game (keep your safegames, it's just for testing) to rule out any strange mystical magical stuttering reasons buried inside a safegame. if it works stutter-free, load your latest savegame and test there.

Edited December 21, 2008 by belinda

[nexus99]

what a crappy game! I have never seen so many bugs/glitches/crashes in a video game.

ok, here are my problems as an ati owner:

 

video card: Sapphire ATI X1900XT

system: AMD FX-60 Dual core, OCZ 2GB RAM, WinXP sp3

driver: catalyst 8.12

patch: 1.01

texture quality: medium

render quality: highest

 

1> Shadow flickering: fixed after the patch.

2> Car damage: fixed after the patch.

3> No dynamic shadows: same here.

4> Crappy internet: same here, messed up textures.

5> Dark interiors: i got this problem only in pool bars and booth tunnel. These places are completely dark, cant see anything.

6> Pixelated Bloom: same here, it looks very bad when there is too much bloom.

7> Driver stuttering: i dont have this problem. 8.12 works much better than previous drivers.

8> Horrible shadow edges: the worst shadows i have seen in a game.

9> Missing textures in high setting: If i increase the texture quality to high, everything is messed up: missing textures, flickering peds etc. and view distance goes crazy, all objects flicker. Not playable.

10> Horrible trees: just like shadows, very blurry and ugly.

11> Mysterios fog: Sometimes a big area around Niko are covered with a high fog layer, and prevents you to see your car or character. if you move mouse, it disappears but still very annoying.

 

 

[Reignfire]

what a crappy game! I have never seen so many bugs/glitches/crashes in a video game.

ok, here are my problems as an ati owner:

 

video card: Sapphire ATI X1900XT

system: AMD FX-60 Dual core, OCZ 2GB RAM, WinXP sp3

driver: catalyst 8.12

patch: 1.01

texture quality: medium

render quality: highest

 

1> Shadow flickering: fixed after the patch.

2> Car damage: fixed after the patch.

3> No dynamic shadows: same here.

4> Crappy internet: same here, messed up textures.

5> Dark interiors: i got this problem only in pool bars and booth tunnel. These places are completely dark, cant see anything.

6> Pixelated Bloom: same here, it looks very bad when there is too much bloom.

7> Driver stuttering: i dont have this problem. 8.12 works much better than previous drivers.

8> Horrible shadow edges: the worst shadows i have seen in a game.

9> Missing textures in high setting: If i increase the texture quality to high, everything is messed up: missing textures, flickering peds etc. and view distance goes crazy, all objects flicker. Not playable.

10> Horrible trees: just like shadows, very blurry and ugly.

11> Mysterios fog: Sometimes a big area around Niko are covered with a high fog layer, and prevents you to see your car or character. if you move mouse, it disappears but still very annoying.

 

That about sums it up for me too, although I have bloom disabled here by virtue of having edited the visual settings file. It does make a difference, especially at night time.

[partslinger]

I am having nearly identical problems, so I'll just use the last persons format, changing what is needed. Maybe if enough X19xx card owners drop a post here, we'll get some results from ATI/Rockstar.

 

video card: ATI X1950 pro 512MB

system: Core 2 Quad @ 2.4, Corsair XMS 2GB RAM, WinVista Ult X-64 sp1

driver: catalyst 8.12

patch: 1.01

texture quality: medium

render quality: highest

 

1> Shadow flickering: fixed after the patch. (Same here)

2> Car damage: fixed after the patch. (Same here)

3> No dynamic shadows: same here. (Me too)

4> Crappy internet: same here, messed up textures. (Same here)

5> Dark interiors: i got this problem only in pool bars and booth tunnel. These places are completely dark, cant see anything. (Same here, I can play darts and can see in the pool hall, but the tabletop itself is black)

6> Pixelated Bloom: same here, it looks very bad when there is too much bloom. (Same here)

7> Driver stuttering: I do have this, and the 8.12's don't help.

8> Horrible shadow edges: the worst shadows i have seen in a game. (Same here)

9> Missing textures in high setting: If i increase the texture quality to high, everything is messed up: missing textures, flickering peds etc. and view distance goes crazy, all objects flicker. Not playable. (I get missing textures, but I get them at all settings, doesn't matter)

10> Horrible trees: just like shadows, very blurry and ugly. (Same here)

11> Mysterios fog: Sometimes a big area around Niko are covered with a high fog layer, and prevents you to see your car or character. if you move mouse, it disappears but still very annoying. (Same here)

And I'll add:

12> 15 minute slowdown even after patch.

13> Water has no texture.

 

Hey Rockstar, how do you test a game that is designed for pc's that don't exist yet?

[slipispsycho]

good to know the pool and tunnels isn't just my problem, as well as the internet being all messed up...

 

have you found a fix for any of these yet?

[Dextrodexter]

i have the same problems and nearly the same pc :-)

i changed only a few things

 

video card: ATI X1950 xtx 512MB

system: Core 2 Duo @ 2.4, Corsair XMS 2GB RAM, WinXP 32 Bit Servicepack 3

driver: catalyst 8.12

patch: 1.01

texture quality: medium

render quality: highest

 

1> Shadow flickering: fixed after the patch. (Same here)

2> Car damage: fixed after the patch. (Same here)

3> No dynamic shadows: same here. (Me too)

4> Crappy internet: same here, messed up textures. (Same here)

5> Dark interiors: i got this problem only in pool bars and booth tunnel. These places are completely dark, cant see anything. (Same here, I can play darts and can see in the pool hall, but the tabletop itself is black)

6> Pixelated Bloom: same here, it looks very bad when there is too much bloom. (Same here)

7> Driver stuttering: I do have this, and the 8.12's don't help.

8> Horrible shadow edges: the worst shadows i have seen in a game. (Same here)

9> Missing textures in high setting: If i increase the texture quality to high, everything is messed up: missing textures, flickering peds etc. and view distance goes crazy, all objects flicker. Not playable. (I get missing textures, but I get them at all settings, doesn't matter)

10> Horrible trees: just like shadows, very blurry and ugly. (Same here)

Edited December 22, 2008 by Dextrodexter

[DominikCZE]

Hello, I made an account so I could reply to this issue as well.

 

I got an ATI x1950xtx 512mb

core 2 duo 2.66Ghz processor

Windows XP SP3 and 4 gigs RAM.

 

Textures: High

Render Quality: Very High

Everything else at 100,100,100,16

 

I must say everything looks the same as at medium though.

 

The car bug and flickering shadows have been fixed with the patch here as well but everything the other people said I have problems with.

 

The gray fog is the most annoying, it sometimes seems as if it was trying to level uneven terrain. I have pics of it but I'm too lazy to upload them somewhere. Basically it keeps covering up roads and uneven places, and entrances, so some missions like the triad one with packie prove tricky when you have to aim trough a gray square....

 

 

 

[DVNT]

@ DVNT

no. i did some integrated benchmark runs before and after and the results were very close (24,7fps with cat v8.6 to 24,9fps with cat v8.12, difference is not worth being mentioned). but i'm not very happy with the ingame benchmark sequence. it's too short, only at night and plays in a very limited area of liberty city. it's not detecting the "after 10-15 minutes stuttering" the cat v8.12 brought me.

 

personally i did not notice any performance decrease after going back to cat v8.6. but i won't say or recommend anyone to roll back to cat v8.6 for various other reasons. it's kinda old and maybe has some flaws or performance issues with other new games. but since i'm only playing gta 4 and fallout 3 these days (which my v8.6 is doing fine) i'm staying with it until a new ati driver with real gta 4 benefits arrive.

 

if you want to narrow down if your stuttering is cat v8.12 related just step back to v8.11 first. then maybe v8.10 and so on. after a new driver install i recommend testing with starting a new game (keep your safegames, it's just for testing) to rule out any strange mystical magical stuttering reasons buried inside a safegame. if it works stutter-free, load your latest savegame and test there.

Thanks belinda, I noticed the 8.12 drivers also stopped Far Cry 2 from working at all. But it kept recommending getting 8.11, I think it was, when I first got Far CRY 2. So I'll have to try rolling back to 8.11 and see how I go.

[TygerGoose]

Yup, same issue with the dynamic lighting (shadows) and the indoor areas. Though I've only been inside the pool hall once so far. It was all black so I gave up playing. Some other indoor areas during cutscenes are darkish as well.

 

Most of my 'complaints' are similar to what has been listed previously. Perhaps it's general to the ATI x1XXX cards.

 

Unlike most of you, I'm using an ATI x1600 256MB mobility card with the 8.12 drivers (but using ATI Tray Tools, not CCC to manage). Not great, but playable. With some tweaks I can get a 17fps, med textures, low render (no difference on med), 10, 10, 50, 0. Other specs are T7200 2GHz core 2 duo, 2GB RAM.

 

Oh, and after one particular mission where you killed vlad, the contrast and saturation reverted to the 50 percent levels and wouldn't change no matter how hard I bumped up the bar. I set the saturation at about 80% previously.

 

 

[GTA4BlackHawk]

Showing same problems with ATI Radeon X1650

[slade67]

same problems here ati 1900GT

[partslinger]

I get the gray chest high gray block as well, but I only get them in the safehoue on the second island.

[belinda]

@ nexus99 and all who reported

thank you for the very detailed experience report, which others used as template for their own reports. that is exactly what i need to verify the bugs mentioned in the first post. are you sure you only have bugged lights in pool bar and booth tunnel? please try to verify the "lights-suddenly-switching-off" bug in the triangle strip club in northern gardens (see my first post for details).

 

@ partslinger

since i have no problem with water texture and reflections, i don't thinks it's a x1xxx bug. there are already some other posts discussing this here, has anyone found a solution or at least a reason for this problem?

 

@ DominikCZE

please upload some more gray fog pics, it's very easy e.g. on imageshack.us and only takes a few minutes.

 

@ DVNT

please post any news about stuttering after rolling back to cat v8.11.

 

@ TygerGoose

i always play with contrast & saturation at about 75% (standard=50%) to compensate the "bland-look" when switching off the light bloom. and i just checked, both sliders are at 75% position and the gfx do change when i play around with them. maybe you should delete (or move to another folder) your SETTINGS.CFG and setup the ingame options again. on my windows xp sp3 system it's located at:

 

c:\dokumente und einstellungen\YOUR_USERNAME\lokale Einstellungen\anwendungsdaten\rockstar games\gta iv\settings

 

@ partslinger

me too, only in this safehouse. i can reproduce it to 100% when using the laptop in the kitchen there. as soon as i exit the laptop view, the fog is there. when i start moving the mouse or walk away the fog suddenly disappears.

[genuf]

The missing indoors lights aren't just in pool. I get it in any indoor place. Some of them have lights, but its pretty obvius that there are others lights that you can see their source, but they're not affecting the textures.

 

I'm talking about the first safehouse, specially when you go downstairs, also at dinner, at every clucking bell, at strip clup, darts, cabaret(not the stage). I mean, every interior.

The blacked fog happens to me in places when the terrain level i'ts changing, such as entering or exiting a bridge. Mostly when you're going upstairs trought some buildings.

 

 

I'm angry cause it's a very stupid bug, and i'm missing all the cutscenes. It's unnaceptable to play like that.

 

I limit my self to do some chasing and making trouble outdoors. I refuse to resume the storyline.

[genuf]

I MEAN THIS

 

[ThatsCool]

The missing indoors lights aren't just in pool. I get it in any indoor place. Some of them have lights, but its pretty obvius that there are others lights that you can see their source, but they're not affecting the textures.

 

I'm talking about the first safehouse, specially when you go downstairs, also at dinner, at every clucking bell, at strip clup, darts, cabaret(not the stage). I mean, every interior.

The blacked fog happens to me in places when the terrain level i'ts changing, such as entering or exiting a bridge. Mostly when you're going upstairs trought some buildings.

 

 

I'm angry cause it's a very stupid bug, and i'm missing all the cutscenes. It's unnaceptable to play like that.

 

I limit my self to do some chasing and making trouble outdoors. I refuse to resume the storyline.

It sin the subway stations too.....

[partslinger]

I MEAN THIS

 

Wow, that sucks! Instead of what your getting, I'm getting missing textures in the "fogs" place. I only get the "fog" in the safehouse. Can you list your computer specs?

[ThatsCool]

On my Radeon X1650 Pro the game is very slow when it rains or when its foggy.

it sucks

[Kamox]

 

I MEAN THIS

 

Yes, same thing here. Moreover, with the last patch the game is ALWAYS slow, worse than pre-patch. Also, dark interiors, impossible to play pool and so on.

I tried even to set the resolution to 640x512 windowed!!! instead of 1280x1024 which I usually use... result: same crappy FPS.

 

My system:

Ati X1950pro

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (single core... i know i know, I'm below minimum specs.. but I played Bioshock seamlessy)

2Gb Ram

Win XP SP3

[ancalimonungol]

I confirm all these bugs. There is also another bug. When I look at sea, There are waves but all is flat. It's like jelly. If I change resolution and look at sea, it look perfect but slowly it becomes like jelly again (40 secs or so) anyone?

[genuf]

 

Wow, that sucks! Instead of what your getting, I'm getting missing textures in the "fogs" place. I only get the "fog" in the safehouse. Can you list your computer specs?

 

my specs.

 

 

C2Duo e4400 2GHZ @ 3GHZ.

4x512 DDR2 667 OCZ / @900mhz

 

and of course the latest buggy vga Sapphire X1900Xt 512Mb

 

 

Can some mod Sticky THIS topic please, cause these are really important issues for us x1xxx Users.

[Mordie]

Well, I have an idea to try and get Rockstar's attention. Using the video editor post BUG REPORT videos featuring the problems. That's what I did here in my bug report video. So pass around the video links and get them rated, watched, and commented to the top so Rockstar fixes these problems ASAP.

 

Thank you for the help.

Edited December 24, 2008 by Mordie

[DominikCZE]

I MEAN THIS

 

Yeah that's how my thing looks exactly! Extremely annoying and sometimes makes some things really hard to play, I'll try to get some pics on here later of it.