~ Technical GTAIV Guide ~

[MonkeyMhz]

GTAIV Technical Index

 

1. Basics

2. LOD System

3. AI System

4. Vehicle Density

5. Texture Quality

6. Render Quality

7. Distance/Object & Quality

8. Dithered Shadows

9. Resolution Scaling

10. Conclusion

 

Additional Info:

DX10 Confusion

 

 

1. Basics

 

You must know FPS (Frames Per Second) the amount of frames rendered and displayed by your Computer per second.

 

First you must understand the basics. In modern gaming theres three things that have the biggest impact of visual quality. These big three are:

 

- Shaders

- Textures

- Models

 

Ill briefly explain what each one is. Shaders are mini programs created by programmers and artists that are usually coded in a specific shader language, usually HLSL for DirectX and GLSL for OpenGL. These mini programs are able to be sent and directly computed on your GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) which is much faster and more efficient that sending it to the CPU which is flooded with other work. These shaders can perform effects, such as motion blur, bump mapping, normal mapping, parallax mapping, ambient occlusion, Shadows and more (you can look those up on Google images if you want to see what they are).

 

People with older GPU's sometimes whine, oh why does everything show up blank, or in big black boxes. This can be caused by a Pixel Shader thats out of date. Shaders must be supported on your graphics card. Pixel Shader 3.0 was last/current gens main pixel shader. Therefore if a Pixel Shader 4.0/DX10 technology is used in a game and you only have a DX9/3.0 GPU, your gonna see the Shaders distorted or not at all. Shaders are now becoming huge part of gaming, making the amount of stream processors and bandwidth on your GPU become a large factor. Core Clock is not so much a big deal now days, its not that great of a performance booster. But it needs to be sufficient to transfer data so if your card has more stream processors its gonna need more clock speed. The main thing that makes the 8600GT so obsolete to the 8800GT is that the 8600GT has 1/3 the stream processors, and much less bandwidth. To get over this barrier to make your 8600GT to perform barely as good as a lower end 8800GS you must over clock the Memory and Core by significant amounts. This is not a over clocking guide but I am explaining what the difference is between these cards. Heres a little thing for you to remember when buying GPU's:

 

*However every 2 gens, usually the X600 turns closer to the X800. Example the 7600 was weaker than the 6800, but the 8600 is equivalent or close to the 7800/7900.

 

NVIDIA:

*1st Number is Technology, 2nd Number is Speed.

eg. 8800GT is much faster than a 9500GT.

 

ATI:

*1st Number is Technology, 2nd Number is Model Base, 3rd Number is Speed

eg. 4650 is slower than a 3870.

 

Now lets move on to textures, textures are simple. They are laid out flat pictures/painted textures that are UV Mapped on to 3D objects. Textures are usually a multiple of 2, eg. 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024.etc

 

The higher the texture quality, the higher the resolution which means the higher the detail/crispness. And also, the higher the VRAM usage. Most games the textures will overflow into the RAM if the VRAM is full. It does this is FarCry2, I can put my textures in FarCry2 to ultra higher with virtually no performance impact.

 

Now on to models, models are the 3D objects that make up everything in the game. They are designed in 3d applications and then saved to a file that keep the coordinates of their vertices's (small points), three vertices's make a polygon/triangle. Often game designers have poly limits to certain things, a main character may have a poly limit of 5000 triangles, as for a civilian that just browses the street may only have a limit of 3000 triangles. More triangles the more your GPU has to process, GPU bandwidth, memory clock and some of the Core Clock is what does this work.

 

So often a object in game consists of a model made out of triangles which has a texture wrapped around it, which then may have a shader on it to make it have a nice shimmer or glossy look or something like that.

 

So really your GPU really is full used all the time, having to constantly process so many things. This is why the GPU is such a large factor in most 3D games.

 

2. LOD System

 

LOD stands for Level Of Detail. This method is used in gaming to cut down on processing power if it is not needed.

 

eg. If your looking out a hi rise window, why would all the pedestrians need to be drawn at full polygon detail when you cant even notice their facial features.etc. Therefore the LOD kicks in, if your really far away from something it will divide its polygons.

 

Kinda like this:

@ 1-50 Feet away the pedestrian is 2500 polys.

@ 50-100 Feet away the pedestrian is 1250 polys.

@ 100-200 Feet away the pedestrian is 625 polys.

@ 200+ Feet away the pedestrian is 312 polys.

 

This really cuts down on power when its applied to everything in the scene, allowing games like GTAIV to have huge cities with a playable frame rate. Also usually at a certain point 500+ feet, the pedestrians/cars may disappear completely because why would the computer calculate a pedestrian half way across the map when your never going to know he even exists.

 

Often LODs branch out or are a branch out of culling, a method were objects that aren't shown in your current view aren't drawn. This speeds up things by a significant amount. So pretty much your GPU only processes whats in your current view.

 

3. AI System

 

AI is becoming more and more advanced every year. GTAIV uses Euphoria for its animation/AI system [corrected] animation/ai animation related system. This system is amazing, and I think you all realize that especially when your playing the game and you get hit by a car and u limp off the side or hold your stomach. This was a fantastic addition to GTAIV, however Its a massive CPU hog. Usually AI is always processed on the CPU along with sound and other calculation, just recently has NVIDIA introduced ageia which can speed up things a fair amount. However, physx is completely different than Euphoria. Theres no comparison, Euphoria and physx are each their own API.

 

I think GTAIV should have given us a slider to set the quality of AI. But thats just whining so ill shut up now about that. [Corrected, AI such as pathfinding.etc was done by the GTAIV engine, euphoria only does the animation related stuff].

 

AI isn't one simple if statement, theres thousands of calculations going on. Theres path finding, so characters know where their going. Theres a small little attitude programmed for them so they have their own mini personality. Maybe not in some games but definetly in GTAIV and in some next gen titles.

 

AI gets extremely complex so I wont cluster your mind too much here. Lets leave it at its very CPU intensive and can really increase the realism of free-roaming type games.

 

4. Vehicle Density

 

In GTAIV Vehicle density mainly increases the cars/traffic, this makes the city feel much more alive but sometimes can be a nuisance, the Vehicle density will cause more polygons per scene and slow down your GPU a bit, as well as your CPU for the AI of those vehicles. But really, I didn't see that great of a performance impact.

 

5. Texture Quality

 

Texture quality determines the resolution of the texture maps. Maybe in low the average texture map is 128x128, and in medium its maybe 256x256 and high perhaps its 512x512. Bigger the texture, the more VRAM/Memory usage.

 

Unfortunately GTAIV does not handle memory usage well, when you exceed it, things seem to disappear and pop ups seem to be rampant. Ive kinda found a work around for some people who experience that with lower end cards, but nothing is a guarantee for everyone.

 

5. Render Quality

 

Render Quality in GTAIV seems to be the amount of AF present. AF stands of (Anisotropic Filtering). Or just texture filtering, the lower it is the closer the objects will blur, you will notice when you walk away from a clear poster on a wall or something a blurriness will come over it at a certain distance, this is AF. The higher the AF value the less blur, the crisper the images at a distance, you can notice this on the road when driving. I'm guessing Low is 0, Medium is x2, High is x4, Very High is x8. I dunno I'm guessing, its something like that.

 

5. Distance/Object & Quality

 

From what I have seen, these options increase/decrease the amount of detail seen from a distance. For the Distance Quality I think it changes the poly limit/LOD of buildings from farther away, lower the value the less polys buildings/things are, the higher the value the more polys things are making them more detailed, this will really suck up GPU power on PC's as well as some CPU.

 

Object Quality is simular but with props on the street, garbage cans.etc and smaller not as drastic objects. I set this at least over 15 or else if your going really fast you might hit something before it appears. Or you will see them pop in ugh!.

 

8. Dithered Shadows

 

Why you ask? Well it comes down to this, either R* didn't want to change the shadow method from the consoles. Or, it performs better than other quick shadow methods without making small props shadows invisible. Another one of my guesses is maybe that they wanted to make shadows have a faked ambient occlusion type look. But it doesn't work very well without the blur.

 

What I would have been happy with is if they left these nasty shadows in, but made the blur only affect the shadows, and when your driving fast in your car or moving your mouse have the motion blur, and when aiming have the depth of field. Because as PC gamers we don't like our texture quality to be compromised, the game looks very nice with sharp textures why would we ruin that with blur.

 

9. Resolution Scaling

 

GTAIV is future proofed! You must understand this meaning!... As a developer, I understand this meaning, and im not impressed.

 

Pretty much what R* did is in higher resolutions, the reflection map/shadow map/environment maps increase in size/quality.

 

Perhaps at 800x600 they are 256x256, and at 1024x768 they are 512x512, and so on.

 

This is not good for many reasons, first of all because its built in to resolution that was their main mistake. They call their game future proofed because I'm pretty sure at 1920x1080 these maps are so big it will slowdown most GPUs. This doesn't necessarily mean a increase in quality. In a technical sense it does. However,

 

any game can say they are future proofed and say, oh you haven't ran it in full graphics you can turn aax16 and bump the resolution to 4800x3600 and you will lag. R* is doing this in a smaller sense were they are building in big not really needed reflection/shadow/environment map sizes in with the resolutions. So pretty much your gonna have to wait for nearly a 2GB GPU with alot of bandwidth and stream processors to defeat this game in the highest resolutions.

 

GTAIV also repeats the Shaders in higher resolutions, I believe I have proved this with my big controversial Ultimate Performance thread. From my screens were I cheated the scaling system using a 800x600 base with 1680x1050 render the water reflection was much more stretched than in the in game settings to 1680x1050. It seems as if the higher the resolution the more they repeat the shaders. This can cause a bit of a slowdown especially when its doing it on nearly everything in the game. Now don't get those confused, shader is much different than textures.

 

10. Conclusion

 

Well hopefully you learned something, and if not then good you already know it all and you probably didn't make any stupid posts.

 

And for the last time, yes GTAIV was poorly made to some extent. They should have made better shadows, done proper blur without degrading texture quality and they should have added AA and many other options as well as just optimizing the game. But clearly that didn't happen and we will have to make the best of it until they fix it, if they ever fix it.

 

If I forgot anything, or if I'm mistaken on something, or if you have questions, reply.

 

*Waiting for the bullets to fly.

 

DX10 Confusion

 

For the last time, DX10 does not make your game look amazing. Its the 3D/Texture artists and programmers that do that. DirectX10 is the directx's next version of its API. Just like in the past from DirectX 8 to DirectX 9 a new pixel shader is introduced. Which is Pixel Shader 4.0 in DirectX 10. Now I'm not here to burst your bubble but not one game out right now uses DX10 properly. Currently every game that claims to use DX10, does but its more of a emulation. Since the DX10 SDK did not exist for most of the time these games were developed they were all built around DX9. DX10 does introduce some new changes, big changes. New features include geometry shaders and a new look at rendering more from the GPUs point of view and more. We probably wont see a true DX10 game for a little while. I think the video card companies are moving too fast, already we've had DX10 8series GPUs out for over a year and not one true DX10 game has come out.

 

Theres already talk about DX11, but don't worry there probably won't be a game with that for quite a while.

 

And for those who say, oh Crysis had DX10 but we hacked it over to DX9 GPUs, remember the godrays!.

 

Yes and no, you cannot run DX10 specs/PS4.0 properly on a DX9 card. Period.

 

However, games like Crysis that claimed the godrays were a DX10 feature was true, those godrays used Pixel Shader 4.0. But then why were we able to get the same effect in DX9. Well simply because Pixel Shader 3.0 was fully capable of producing that effect. The majority of so called *DX10* effects that we have seen are achievable on a DX9/PS 3.0 card with little to no differences.

 

However farther down the road we will start to see more advanced geometry shaders and things that will not be achievable on DX9 cards at all. But from what most of us have seen of DX10 so far, DX9 can achieve it all. However as a developer I have played around with it and I can say there are some crazy and efficient things DX10 can do. Geometry shaders are fantastic.

 

However I should also mention that OpenGL is capable of everything DX10 can do, however OpenGL3.0 was a mess because its in the stage of being re-written. So many things are deprecated, so its in a really messy stage. OpenGL 4.0 or 3.1 will be good, OpenGL has many advantages over DirectX, however DX is the choice of most game developers because its the industry standard for games. OpenGL is the industry standard for hi quality 3D and rendering. I prefer OpenGL. But nevertheless if your game engine is coded well switching between the two should be fairly straight forward and not too much of a hassle.

 

*Btw, its pathetic how magazines flaunt dx10 as the all mighty best thing that ever happened to gaming. Its mainly just to get you to buy DX10 based cards. DX10 is good though, but it just amazes me how so many game websites and magazines display all the wrong facts or just show amazing screen shots and no explanation of whats actually going on.

Edited December 19, 2008 by MonkeyMhz

[Pixelated]

+100. Very nice read, lots of good info.

[JD83]

Nice post...

I already knew all of it, but it's nice to see someone post it for all the complainers. I don't think most of the kids here understand how demanding the Physics/AI and large draw distances are on your system. Meaning you max out vehicles and your system not only has to render them, it also takes a massive amount of calculation on the part of your cpu to control their AI.

Last, I bet quite a few of the complainers are running pirated versions of the game and whining that it doesn't work right...serves the thieves right.

[Gutslab]

Nice post...

I already knew all of it, but it's nice to see someone post it for all the complainers. I don't think most of the kids here understand how demanding the Physics/AI and large draw distances are on your system. Meaning you max out vehicles and your system not only has to render them, it also takes a massive amount of calculation on the part of your cpu to control their AI.

Last, I bet quite a few of the complainers are running pirated versions of the game and whining that it doesn't work right...serves the thieves right.

But even if you take out the 'kids' who have no idea of what's going on, you are still left with several upon several people who meet minimum requirements and still can't get the game to run reasonably or even to start. I like how easily you make an assumption on who's playing the game and that's it probably OUR fault.

[postem]

Nice.

I think that if R* released a bunch more of visual on/off options all we would be much more happier.

 

About complaining, i think people need space to vent.

 

From yesterday, im much more resigned to play the game as it is. I just wanted some way to disable those horrible shadows.

[weedking]

The video card explanation isn't always clear cut like that. It's debatable if a 7900 is faster than an 8600GT.

[MonkeyMhz]

 

Nice post...

I already knew all of it, but it's nice to see someone post it for all the complainers. I don't think most of the kids here understand how demanding the Physics/AI and large draw distances are on your system. Meaning you max out vehicles and your system not only has to render them, it also takes a massive amount of calculation on the part of your cpu to control their AI.

Last, I bet quite a few of the complainers are running pirated versions of the game and whining that it doesn't work right...serves the thieves right.

But even if you take out the 'kids' who have no idea of what's going on, you are still left with several upon several people who meet minimum requirements and still can't get the game to run reasonably or even to start. I like how easily you make an assumption on who's playing the game and that's it probably OUR fault.

Yea, this game has many problems. But hopefully it will eventually be patched. Also R* should get some common sense and stop with the Securom crap, they are just filling Securoms pockets. No one will ever stop piracy, but if you make a good game it will sell.

 

If you don't have enough money for the game. Do what me and my friend does. For some games in the past were I just care about single player and he just cares about multi player. We split the cost, 50/50. Buy the game, duplicate it on both our computers, one of us plays off line one of us plays online. Were both happy. If we didn't do that with some games we wouldn't have bought it at all. We did that with COD4. I think that is fair, but hell. I buy my games just cuz I like the Box/manual its fun to have them and then look back on them in the future, *peers over at Doom3 & HL2 boxes.

 

Only time were i split the cost is were if my friend or something really wants multi player and I don't really care for the game but if i pay half and get it why not. Everyone wins in that situation. I haven't even completed the first couple of missions on COD4. And i probably never will but its there. lol.

[MonkeyMhz]

The video card explanation isn't always clear cut like that. It's debatable if a 7900 is faster than an 8600GT.

True, ill update that.

[Enigma[UK]]

Wow, amazing post!

[mortuus]

Worthless post, tell us something we dont know. does it help fps better ? NO.. so duh no matter if 800x600 and most settings low still crap and hard to even get 30fps with lots of action and explosions so keep that guide thats worth nothing to urself.

[biggeo]

Well said, lot of info but still even I was aware of the most, but still my question remain:

 

Why I can't run GTA IV even I tried everything. As the benchmark say I could run the game but....... my system

[MonkeyMhz]

 

Worthless post, tell us something we dont know. does it help fps better ? NO.. so duh no matter if 800x600 and most settings low still crap and hard to even get 30fps with lots of action and explosions so keep that guide thats worth nothing to urself.

 

*Yes we know GTAIV isn't the best made game, it has many problems however ...

 

This post is not to improve your FPS, its to inform you why your game may be running slow. So you understand whats going on, so you can set your settings better for your GPU.

 

And also its so people can be educated and not mis-inform others, so they don't throw around sentences such as

 

"DX10 would make GTAIV run at 100fps in 1920x1080! OMG DX10 makes AI REAL PEOPLE! LIFE!".

[hwaescher]

And also its so people can be educated and not mis-inform others, so they don't throw around sentences such as

 

"DX10 would make GTAIV run at 100fps in 1920x1080! OMG DX10 makes AI REAL PEOPLE! LIFE!".

Well said, thanks for your post

 

What was really shocking me about GTA4 wasn't the game performance, it was the reaction in this forum. So many whiners, desinformation and the bad language in countless posts.

 

Comparing the gfx of games like crysis, need for speed or COD with GTA is comparing apples and oranges.

[gpux]

 

GTAIV Technical Index

 

1. Basics

2. LOD System

3. AI System

4. Vehicle Density

5. Texture Quality

6. Render Quality

7. Distance/Object & Quality

8. Dithered Shadows

9. Resolution Scaling

10. Conclusion

 

Additional Info:

DX10 Confusion

 

 

1. Basics

 

You must know FPS (Frames Per Second) the amount of frames rendered and displayed by your Computer per second.

 

First you must understand the basics. In modern gaming theres three things that have the biggest impact of visual quality. These big three are:

 

- Shaders

- Textures

- Models

 

Ill briefly explain what each one is. Shaders are mini programs created by programmers and artists that are usually coded in a specific shader language, usually HLSL for DirectX and GLSL for OpenGL. These mini programs are able to be sent and directly computed on your GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) which is much faster and more efficient that sending it to the CPU which is flooded with other work. These shaders can perform effects, such as motion blur, bump mapping, normal mapping, parallax mapping, ambient occlusion, Shadows and more (you can look those up on Google images if you want to see what they are).

 

People with older GPU's sometimes whine, oh why does everything show up blank, or in big black boxes. This can be caused by a Pixel Shader thats out of date. Shaders must be supported on your graphics card. Pixel Shader 3.0 was last/current gens main pixel shader. Therefore if a Pixel Shader 4.0/DX10 technology is used in a game and you only have a DX9/3.0 GPU, your gonna see the Shaders distorted or not at all. Shaders are now becoming  huge part of gaming, making the amount of stream processors and bandwidth on your GPU become a large factor. Core Clock is not so much a big deal now days, its not that great of a performance booster. But it needs to be sufficient to transfer data so if your card has more stream processors its gonna need more clock speed. The main thing that makes the 8600GT so obsolete to the 8800GT is that the 8600GT has 1/3 the stream processors, and much less bandwidth. To get over this barrier to make your 8600GT to perform barely as good as a lower end 8800GS you must over clock the Memory and Core by significant amounts. This is not a over clocking guide but I am explaining what the difference is between these cards. Heres a little thing for you to remember when buying GPU's:

 

*However every 2 gens, usually the X600 turns closer to the X800. Example the 7600 was weaker than the 6800, but the 8600 is equivalent or close to the 7800/7900.

 

NVIDIA:

*1st Number is Technology, 2nd Number is Speed.

eg. 8800GT is much faster than a 9500GT.

 

ATI:

*1st Number is Technology, 2nd Number is Model Base, 3rd Number is Speed

eg. 4650 is slower than a 3870.

 

Now lets move on to textures, textures are simple. They are laid out flat pictures/painted textures that are UV Mapped on to 3D objects. Textures are usually a multiple of 2, eg. 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024.etc

 

The higher the texture quality, the higher the resolution which means the higher the detail/crispness. And also, the higher the VRAM usage. Most games the textures will overflow into the RAM if the VRAM is full. It does this is FarCry2, I can put my textures in FarCry2 to ultra higher with virtually no performance impact.

 

Now on to models, models are the 3D objects that make up everything in the game. They are designed in 3d applications and then saved to a file that keep the coordinates of their vertices's (small points), three vertices's make a polygon/triangle. Often game designers have poly limits to certain things, a main character may have a poly limit of 5000 triangles, as for a civilian that just browses the street may only have a limit of 3000 triangles. More triangles the more your GPU has to process, GPU bandwidth, memory clock and some of the Core Clock is what does this work.

 

So often a object in game consists of a model made out of triangles which has a texture wrapped around it, which then may have a shader on it to make it have a nice shimmer or glossy look or something like that.

 

So really your GPU really is full used all the time, having to constantly process so many things. This is why the GPU is such a large factor in most 3D games.

 

2. LOD System

 

LOD stands for Level Of Detail. This method is used in gaming to cut down on processing power if it is not needed.

 

eg. If your looking out a hi rise window, why would all the pedestrians need to be drawn at full polygon detail when you cant even notice their facial features.etc. Therefore the LOD kicks in, if your really far away from something it will divide its polygons.

 

Kinda like this:

@ 1-50 Feet away the pedestrian is 2500 polys.

@ 50-100 Feet away the pedestrian is 1250 polys.

@ 100-200 Feet away the pedestrian is 625 polys.

@ 200+ Feet away the pedestrian is 312 polys.

 

This really cuts down on power when its applied to everything in the scene, allowing games like GTAIV to have huge cities with a playable frame rate. Also usually at a certain point 500+ feet, the pedestrians/cars may disappear completely because why would the computer calculate a  pedestrian half way across the map when your never going to know he even exists.

 

Often LODs branch out or are a branch out of culling, a method were objects that aren't shown in your current view aren't drawn. This speeds up things by a significant amount. So pretty much your GPU only processes whats in your current view.

 

3. AI System

 

AI is becoming more and more advanced every year. GTAIV uses Euphoria for its animation/AI system. This system is amazing, and I think you all realize that especially when your playing the game and you get hit by a car and u limp off the side or hold your stomach. This was a fantastic addition to GTAIV, however Its a massive CPU hog. Usually AI is always processed on the CPU along with sound and other calculation, just recently has NVIDIA introduced ageia which can speed up things a fair amount. However, physx is completely different than Euphoria. Theres no comparison, Euphoria and physx are each their own API.

 

I think GTAIV should have given us a slider to set the quality of AI. But thats just whining so ill shut up now about that.

 

AI isn't one simple if statement, theres thousands of calculations going on. Theres path finding, so characters know where their going. Theres a small little attitude programmed for them so they have their own mini personality. Maybe not in some games but definetly in GTAIV and in some next gen titles.

 

AI gets extremely complex so I wont cluster your mind too much here. Lets leave it at its very CPU intensive and can really increase the realism of free-roaming type games.

 

4. Vehicle Density

 

In GTAIV Vehicle density mainly increases the cars/traffic, this makes the city feel much more alive but sometimes can be a nuisance, the Vehicle density will cause more polygons per scene and slow down your GPU a bit, as well as your CPU for the AI of those vehicles. But really, I didn't see that great of a performance impact.

 

5. Texture Quality

 

Texture quality determines the resolution of the texture maps. Maybe in low the average texture map is 128x128, and in medium its maybe 256x256 and high perhaps its 512x512. Bigger the texture, the more VRAM/Memory usage.

 

Unfortunately GTAIV does not handle memory usage well, when you exceed it, things seem to disappear and pop ups seem to be rampant. Ive kinda found a work around for some people who experience that with lower end cards, but nothing is a guarantee for everyone.

 

5. Render Quality

 

Render Quality in GTAIV seems to be the amount of AF present. AF stands of (Anisotropic Filtering). Or just texture filtering, the lower it is the closer the objects will blur, you will notice when you walk away from a clear poster on a wall or something a blurriness will come over it at a certain distance, this is AF. The higher the AF value the less blur, the crisper the images at a distance, you can notice this on the road when driving. I'm guessing Low is 0, Medium is x2, High is x4, Very High is x8. I dunno I'm guessing, its something like that.

 

5. Distance/Object & Quality

 

From what I have seen, these options increase/decrease the amount of detail seen from a distance. For the Distance Quality I think it changes the poly limit/LOD of buildings from farther away, lower the value the less polys buildings/things are, the higher the value the more polys things are making them more detailed, this will really suck up GPU power on PC's as well as some CPU.

 

Object Quality is simular but with props on the street, garbage cans.etc and smaller not as drastic objects. I set this at least over 15 or else if your going really fast you might hit something before it appears. Or you will see them pop in ugh!.

 

8. Dithered Shadows

 

Why you ask? Well it comes down to this, either R* didn't want to change the shadow method from the consoles. Or, it performs better than other quick shadow methods without making small props shadows invisible. Another one of my guesses is maybe that they wanted to make shadows have a faked ambient occlusion type look. But it doesn't work very well without the blur.

 

What I would have been happy with is if they left these nasty shadows in, but made the blur only affect the shadows, and when your driving fast in your car or moving your mouse have the motion blur, and when aiming have the depth of field. Because as PC gamers we don't like our texture quality to be compromised, the game looks very nice with sharp textures why would we ruin that with blur.

 

9. Resolution Scaling

 

GTAIV is future proofed! You must understand this meaning!... As a developer, I understand this meaning, and im not impressed.

 

Pretty much what R* did is in higher resolutions, the reflection map/shadow map/environment maps increase in size/quality.

 

Perhaps at 800x600 they are 256x256, and at 1024x768 they are 512x512, and so on.

 

This is not good for many reasons, first of all because its built in to resolution that was their main mistake. They call their game future proofed because I'm pretty sure at 1920x1080 these maps are so big it will slowdown most GPUs. This doesn't necessarily mean a increase in quality. In a technical sense it does. However,

 

any game can say they are future proofed and say, oh you haven't ran it in full graphics you can turn aax16 and bump the resolution to 4800x3600 and you will lag. R* is doing this in a smaller sense were they are building in big not really needed reflection/shadow/environment map sizes in with the resolutions. So pretty much your gonna have to wait for nearly a 2GB GPU with alot of bandwidth and stream processors to defeat this game in the highest resolutions.

 

GTAIV also repeats the Shaders in higher resolutions, I believe I have proved this with my big controversial Ultimate Performance thread. From my screens were I cheated the scaling system using a 800x600 base with 1680x1050 render the water reflection was much more stretched than in the in game settings to 1680x1050. It seems as if the higher the resolution the more they repeat the shaders. This can cause a bit of a slowdown especially when its doing it on nearly everything in the game. Now don't get those confused, shader is much different than textures.

 

10. Conclusion

 

Well hopefully you learned something, and if not then good you already know it all and you probably didn't make any stupid posts.

 

If I forgot anything, or if I'm mistaken on something, or if you have questions, reply.

 

*Waiting for the bullets to fly.

 

DX10 Confusion

 

For the last time, DX10 does not make your game look amazing. Its the 3D/Texture artists and programmers that do that. DirectX10 is the directx's next version of its API. Just like in the past from DirectX 8 to DirectX 9 a new pixel shader is introduced. Which is Pixel Shader 4.0 in DirectX 10. Now I'm not here to burst your bubble but not one game out right now uses DX10 properly. Currently every game that claims to use DX10, does but its more of a emulation. Since the DX10 SDK did not exist for most of the time these games were developed they were all built around DX9. DX10 does introduce some new changes, big changes. New features include geometry shaders and a new look at rendering more from the GPUs point of view and more. We probably wont see a true DX10 game for a little while. I think the video card companies are moving too fast, already we've had DX10 8series GPUs out for over a year and not one true DX10 game has come out.

 

Theres already talk about DX11, but don't worry there probably won't be a game with that for quite a while.

 

And for those who say, oh Crysis had DX10 but we hacked it over to DX9 GPUs, remember the godrays!.

 

Yes and no, you cannot run DX10 specs/PS4.0 properly on a DX9 card. Period.

 

However, games like Crysis that claimed the godrays were a DX10 feature was true, those godrays used Pixel Shader 4.0. But then why were we able to get the same effect in DX9. Well simply because Pixel Shader 3.0 was fully capable of producing that effect. The majority of so called *DX10* effects that we have seen are achievable on a DX9/PS 3.0 card with little to no differences.

 

However farther down the road we will start to see more advanced geometry shaders and things that will not be achievable on DX9 cards at all. But from what most of us have seen of DX10 so far, DX9 can achieve it all. However as a developer I have played around with it and I can say there are some crazy and efficient things DX10 can do. Geometry shaders are fantastic.

 

However I should also mention that OpenGL is capable of everything DX10 can do, however OpenGL3.0 was a mess because its in the stage of being re-written. So many things are deprecated, so its in a really messy stage. OpenGL 4.0 or 3.1 will be good, OpenGL has many advantages over DirectX, however DX is the choice of most game developers because its the industry standard for games. OpenGL is the industry standard for hi quality 3D and rendering. I prefer OpenGL. But nevertheless if your game engine is coded well switching between the two should be fairly straight forward and not too much of a hassle.

 

*Btw, its pathetic how magazines flaunt dx10 as the all mighty best thing that ever happened to gaming. Its mainly just to get you to buy DX10 based cards. DX10 is good though, but it just amazes me how so many game websites and magazines display all the wrong facts or just show amazing screen shots and no explanation of whats actually going on.

Your post has many inaccuracies and has no relevance to the fact that the PC version of GTA IV is lousy port job. why do you people keep defending Rockstar? seriously whats all this blind loyalty about?

 

[MonkeyMhz]

I'm not defending them, I mentioned the shadows, and what they should have included. Ive been over before in other posts that game projects have a time line and it seems for R* the project manager of the PC version just slopped it off, didn't assign enough people or just didn't care. Making GTAIV on PC a huge mess. Ive said before in other posts. I guess Ill just have to make it more clear in this one.

 

Btw, Plz mention my inaccuracies I would like to correct them.

[qwertz123]

*Btw, its pathetic how magazines flaunt dx10 as the all mighty best thing that ever happened to gaming. Its mainly just to get you to buy DX10 based cards. DX10 is good though, but it just amazes me how so many game websites and magazines display all the wrong facts or just show amazing screen shots and no explanation of whats actually going on.

wut? dx10 is the only way to have proper AA in all new games, since the lighning algorithmus used nowaday isnt capable of doing it with a dx9 path, so please feel so kindly and SFTU tard,,,,and euphoria engine is just a blending/morphing method from md5 model to ragdoll and vice versa.

 

what a crock.

[WaveBossa]

Nice post...

I already knew all of it, but it's nice to see someone post it for all the complainers. I don't think most of the kids here understand how demanding the Physics/AI and large draw distances are on your system. Meaning you max out vehicles and your system not only has to render them, it also takes a massive amount of calculation on the part of your cpu to control their AI.

Last, I bet quite a few of the complainers are running pirated versions of the game and whining that it doesn't work right...serves the thieves right.

Please... PLEASE... JUST STOP IT ALREADY!!!

 

If GTAIV is such a demanding unholy game that requires the breath of God to run then why does it run on the xbox 360?

 

The truth is, most of us have computers that could put the 360 to shame, but GTA runs much worse on our systems? Why? BECAUSE IT WAS A BAD PORT, PERIOD! Yes you can do things to make it run faster, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a BAD PORT. There wouldn't even be this controversy if it wasn't a BAD PORT. And I am putting this in caps to help drive it into some of your thick skulls that this is a BAD PORT!

 

Yes, if you had hardware from 2010, it would run fast regardless, but does that mean that it's any better coded? NO, IT DOESN'T.

 

GTA might be demanding, but that doesn't excuse the fact that this port job sucks @$$.

[qwertz123]

waveboss spoke the final judgment, so CASE CLOSED!

[ArecBalrin]

Whilst the OP is knowledgable, so are a lot of other people who have legitimate complaints to make. He knows that shaders are supposed to be handled by the GPU, which is vastly more capable than the CPU at proccessing them. He doesn't however seem to be aware that Rockstar have already stated that they let the CPU handle ALL the shader proccessing in GTA IV. My jaw hit the desk when I read it.

 

So it isn't 'somewhat' unoptomised. It's a complete fecal pastry.

[MonkeyMhz]

 

*Btw, its pathetic how magazines flaunt dx10 as the all mighty best thing that ever happened to gaming. Its mainly just to get you to buy DX10 based cards. DX10 is good though, but it just amazes me how so many game websites and magazines display all the wrong facts or just show amazing screen shots and no explanation of whats actually going on.

wut? dx10 is the only way to have proper AA in all new games, since the lighning algorithmus used nowaday isnt capable of doing it with a dx9 path, so please feel so kindly and SFTU tard,,,,and euphoria engine is just a blending/morphing method from md5 model to ragdoll and vice versa.

 

what a crock.

 

Wow, now I have to deal with you. This is gonna be fun since you clearly have no knowledge of Euphoria.

Edited December 16, 2008 by MonkeyMhz

[WaveBossa]

*Btw, its pathetic how magazines flaunt dx10 as the all mighty best thing that ever happened to gaming. Its mainly just to get you to buy DX10 based cards. DX10 is good though, but it just amazes me how so many game websites and magazines display all the wrong facts or just show amazing screen shots and no explanation of whats actually going on.

wut? dx10 is the only way to have proper AA in all new games, since the lighning algorithmus used nowaday isnt capable of doing it with a dx9 path, so please feel so kindly and SFTU tard,,,,and euphoria engine is just a blending/morphing method from md5 model to ragdoll and vice versa.

 

what a crock.

Wow, all he was saying was that DX10 was overhyped. And guess what?? IT WAS. Deal with it. The visible, quantifiable improvements in DX10 over DX9 games could be counted on your fingers. Even Crysis tried to make up a false dx10 mode which was easily ran DX9 when hackers got into it.

 

Of course DX10 is better, but honestly, he is completely right. The magazines and articles pre-vista led people to believe that just owning Dx10 meant that games would blow you away comared to their dx9 counterparts. And guess wut? It didn't happen. Okay, so the water in Bioshock was amazing in Dx10.... and???

[MonkeyMhz]

 

*Btw, its pathetic how magazines flaunt dx10 as the all mighty best thing that ever happened to gaming. Its mainly just to get you to buy DX10 based cards. DX10 is good though, but it just amazes me how so many game websites and magazines display all the wrong facts or just show amazing screen shots and no explanation of whats actually going on.

wut? dx10 is the only way to have proper AA in all new games, since the lighning algorithmus used nowaday isnt capable of doing it with a dx9 path, so please feel so kindly and SFTU tard,,,,and euphoria engine is just a blending/morphing method from md5 model to ragdoll and vice versa.

 

what a crock.

Am I reading this right, you call me a tard.

 

I didn't say that you have to have DX10 for AA, you are mentioning things I didn't even speak of in there, and you quote something that has nothing to do with your response.

 

But anyways to inform you, DX10's AA is more hardware accelerated, it will perform better than current AA operations. R* could have totally done AA in GTAIV, theres not only 1 way of doing it. It just would have been some work. They could have done the old blend-op routines to get rid of jaggies. And Euphoria has much more going on behind the scenes, its not your ordinary rag doll physics. Its a whole non-linear animation system. It allows you to incorporate muscles, bones, and even motor nervous systems into characters allowing for more realistic unbaked animations. Reactions are different every time.

 

If Euphoria was basic rag doll physics, why would developers who have way more knowledge than you about this pay thousands of dollars for Euphoria when they can code rag doll physics in a day or go with a cheaper package.

 

Clearly you are one of the people who should be reading this post, and your still not getting it. Sad...

[MonkeyMhz]

Whilst the OP is knowledgable, so are a lot of other people who have legitimate complaints to make. He knows that shaders are supposed to be handled by the GPU, which is vastly more capable than the CPU at proccessing them. He doesn't however seem to be aware that Rockstar have already stated that they let the CPU handle ALL the shader proccessing in GTA IV. My jaw hit the desk when I read it.

 

So it isn't 'somewhat' unoptomised. It's a complete fecal pastry.

Wow, if your serious about that and thats true. R* might just be one of the stupidest game companies around.

[EdGein]

no disrespect but this topic helps noone, only thing I need to know is that this game should be able to work on my computer... my computer stomps the minimal requirements with ease =-/

[Chroniss]

no disrespect but this topic helps noone, only thing I need to know is that this game should be able to work on my computer... my computer stomps the minimal requirements with ease =-/

Come on guys, this is just a large fanboy post. Just because you can use pretty text formatting doesnt change the fact that your post could be sumed up with:

 

"ROCKSTAR IS THE BEST ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS A STUPID WHINER."

[MonkeyMhz]

no disrespect but this topic helps noone, only thing I need to know is that this game should be able to work on my computer... my computer stomps the minimal requirements with ease =-/

Come on guys, this is just a large fanboy post. Just because you can use pretty text formatting doesnt change the fact that your post could be sumed up with:

 

"ROCKSTAR IS THE BEST ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS A STUPID WHINER."

How the hell are you guys comming to the conclusion that im supporting R*, look at my posts, look what I have typed. R* has completely fked the game, its a god damn mess.

 

Clearly you guys aren't reading. This post is not to support R* its to inform you about the technologys behind GTAIV, they should be running much faster, but they are not.

 

Anyways at least this has informed some people but others are probably too lazy to read or think and just post their mouth off every 3 seconds.

[Chroniss]

no disrespect but this topic helps noone, only thing I need to know is that this game should be able to work on my computer... my computer stomps the minimal requirements with ease =-/

Come on guys, this is just a large fanboy post. Just because you can use pretty text formatting doesnt change the fact that your post could be sumed up with:

 

"ROCKSTAR IS THE BEST ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS A STUPID WHINER."

How the hell are you guys comming to the conclusion that im supporting R*, look at my posts, look what I have typed. R* has completely fked the game, its a god damn mess.

 

Clearly you guys aren't reading. This post is not to support R* its to inform you about the technologys behind GTAIV, they should be running much faster, but they are not.

 

Anyways at least this has informed some people but others are probably too lazy to read or think and just post their mouth off every 3 seconds.

Your post is fine and all, I'm referring to your subtitle, and the fact that all this text is pretty meaningless in terms of peoples problems.

[J0EBUSHID0]

"future proof" is just a marketing buzz-word that really means "we wanted this out before christmas and didn't bother to optimize it"...

 

The only other time I heard "future proof" was last year when Crysis came out... just before christmas.

[MonkeyMhz]

True, but if the un-informed people read this there will be less noob posts about nonsense.

[MonkeyMhz]

no disrespect but this topic helps noone, only thing I need to know is that this game should be able to work on my computer... my computer stomps the minimal requirements with ease =-/

Whats your specs? and whats the problem with your game? does it not start? what specifically is the problem, lets see if we can fix it.

 

My game had tons of problems after install after I worked my way through the error messages I now have it running.