~ Technical GTAIV Guide ~

[Zenzuke]

 

wut again....physic calculation for ragdoll models? kool dx10 "water animations" in bioshock?

 

dude, what ever u smoke, it has to be good!

 

browsing through the last comment page is like reading my own comment: euphoria is capable of blending (calculating) your animation model, once it got a ragdoll model, BACK to a animation model. the only game i know so far is the doom3 beta (zombie resurrection) but it got nuked in the final game for what ever reason.

 

and to comment the dx10 story: even r* said that only a dx10 path is capable of doing proper AA.

 

thats what i said.

 

done.

You don't know what you're talking about and you embarrass yourself. Your comment is wrong on so many things that it's useless to try to dissect it, let's just assume EVERYTHING you said is wrong more or less. Let's just say you don't have even the slightest clue of what Euphoria is and comparing to zombie resurrection in the leaked beta of Doom 3 is just stupid. You even said MD5 model, once, when describing Euphoria... well... oh, come on...

 

Man, I don't really know why people have the compulsion to comment on things they don't really know anything about, trying to pretend they know BETTER.

 

And to Chroniss... Rockstar DIDN'T code the Euphoria engine... they LICENSED it...

 

Well, who cares... qwertz123 is proof that people don't really read things and don't want to be informed.

Edited December 17, 2008 by Zenzuke

[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 =-/

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.

8800gt E6600 2gig ram.... and the frame rate is really REALLY low....

[PacMaan]

Good original post til it was hijacked by zomfg flamers

 

But you held your own MonkeyMhz. I love you man.

[LanceLongstiff]

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.

Is that true? Can someone give me a link?

[LSD T]

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.

Is that true? Can someone give me a link?

Would explain the shocking performance and butt ugly shadow effects.

[postem]

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.

Is that true? Can someone give me a link?

This would be a dumb decision. But not impossible if considreing it was just copied from PS3.... welll wait a minute... dx process shaders on gpu... not way FAIL

[postem]

I am sure that I will get flamed for this post, but it doesnt matter. People are entitle to their opinion. It just so happens that mine is positive.

 

JP

This forums are a complete flame fest!

[postem]

The PC version was optimised for the PC... whether poorly or not is a matter of debate... I think you nailed it.

 

If R* toronto stated that "anyone that perform a cocksucking will get an exclusive tshirt" you would have all closet filled.

[creat3d22]

 

The PC version was optimised for the PC... whether poorly or not is a matter of debate... I think you nailed it.

 

If R* toronto stated that "anyone that perform a cocksucking will get an exclusive tshirt" you would have all closet filled.

Did you read that? I said that it's a matter of debate whether the PC version is poorly optimised or not, but that the OP is right in saying that it IS poorly optimised.

 

That said... where's my f*cking t-shirt?

[postem]

The PC version was optimised for the PC... whether poorly or not is a matter of debate... I think you nailed it.

 

If R* toronto stated that "anyone that perform a cocksucking will get an exclusive tshirt" you would have all closet filled.

Did you read that? I said that it's a matter of debate whether the PC version is poorly optimised or not, but that the OP is right in saying that it IS poorly optimised.

 

That said... where's my f*cking t-shirt?

I know you wouldnt even think about if R* demanded fanboy fallatio.

[creat3d22]

I know you wouldnt even think about if R* demanded fanboy fallatio.

Well, I first would have to figure out how to possibly perform fellatio on an entire company without getting mouth injuries... but that's a bit off-topic don't you think?

[postem]

I know you wouldnt even think about  if R* demanded fanboy fallatio.

Well, I first would have to figure out how to possibly perform fellatio on an entire company without getting mouth injuries... but that's a bit off-topic don't you think?

ROFL

[TruSake]

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.

I agree, this post is worthless, considering that Assassin's Creed which looks 10x better than this game with much higher detail might I add, I can run the game without ANY slowdowns on my average computer, yet this game which as mentioned is much better looking than GTA IV I can't run it for sh*t!! unless I put ALL graphics down and on top of that run it a 800x600.

[creat3d22]

I can run Assassin's Creed in 1280x1024 without issues while GTA IV runs at 1024x768 max on my rig... doesn't change the fact that GTA is exponentially more complex than AC in all aspects.

[Warup89]

I had to make an account here to thank Monkey, and all the other people being really informative on this topic, but since this is the "internet" you guys are bound to have ignorants flaming this thread . Anyways, I'm actually lucky to have this game running fine with no slow-downs since day 1, I just checked in here since i had minor annoyances such as the one you stated of the objects popping out of nowhere, but is not a big deal. I do agree R* didn't do an stellar job porting this game to PC, but overall this is still a great successor from its early brothers [eg. GTAIII, VC, SA..and so on]. People just gotta have patience, since 99.9% of PC games aren't 100% fail-proof at release.

 

-This should be sticked and have a "*Read Before posting*" aside of the title.

[Gutslab]

I am sure that I will get flamed for this post, but it doesnt matter. People are entitle to their opinion. It just so happens that mine is positive.

 

JP

This forums are a complete flame fest!

it's like the la riots [/weak analogy?]

 

this is what happens to most threads

 

[moogl3s]

 

Good original post til it was hijacked by zomfg flamers

 

But you held your own MonkeyMhz. I love you man.

Yeah, MonkeyMhz I feel sorry for you having to put up with all these accusations. Although there do seem to be some people with a brain here (ie those who can see he's not writing it to be loyal to R* or as a fanboy )

 

As for GTA4 being a crap PC port and the 360 version is better, it may be that (due to the crashes and problems). Also don't forget on the 360 it's rendered at 720P or 1280x720, so if you're playing it much higher than that and you're wondering why your better PC can't get the same graphics as the 360 you should really take that into account. Plus the 360 has a dedicated upscaler built in so it doesn't look as crap as when we, on a PC play at lets say 1 res lower scaled up to 1920x1200 or so. I'm not saying the 360 isn't 1080p compatible though, it does render at those full resolutions just on other non graphic intensive games.

 

PS - Monkey you should flee to more credible forums where there are actually people intelligent enough to understand your post or to discuss it without flaming

 

 

*Awaits flame PM by some 10 year old retard*

[bdarma]

great post op, thanks.

 

[kkiidd]

Thank's for you details guide~

 

however the most important point should be:

The game should run smoothly under the computer requirement which R* claimed.

[gpux]

 

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.

 

 

If a game is designed to run with a specific shader model, graphic cards that do not support said shader model wont be able to run the game in the first place. The Black Boxes are a result of texture corruption or faulty texture handling which is usually a driver related issue and has nothing to do with shaders.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

That wouldn't be a wise programming decision since there is latency present between the graphics memory and main system memory which will result in in-game stuttering unless the bus speeds are very high. consoles can compensate for there low amount of VRAM and system RAM with the high bandwidth available between system components, the reason behind this is that everything is embedded in a console.

 

 

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.

 

 

Euphoria is a motion animation and physics engine not an AI engine and the reason why its so intensive on the CPU is because the animations are calculated in real-time and that it doesn't use predefined ragdoll physics.

[MonkeyMhz]

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.

 

 

If a game is designed to run with a specific shader model, graphic cards that do not support said shader model wont be able to run the game in the first place. The Black Boxes are a result of texture corruption or faulty texture handling which is usually a driver related issue and has nothing to do with shaders.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

That wouldn't be a wise programming decision since there is latency present between the graphics memory and main system memory which will result in in-game stuttering unless the bus speeds are very high. consoles can compensate for there low amount of VRAM and system RAM with the high bandwidth available between system components, the reason behind this is that everything is embedded in a console.

 

 

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.

 

 

Euphoria is a motion animation and physics engine not an AI engine and the reason why its so intensive on the CPU is because the animations are calculated in real-time and that it doesn't use predefined ragdoll physics.

First of all I didn't say they are always caused by a pixelshader thats out of date, I said they CAN be caused by a pixel shader thats out of date, and thats true. As well as your point of texture corruption or faulty handling thats another thing that can cause it.

 

2ndly yes its true using your pagefile and normal ram instead of video ram does cause stuttering but it shouldn't limit you like in GTAIV. Most other games I have including crysis overflow my vram and run fine. And even more stupidly R* binded the res of shadow/reflection maps to the resolution which is beyond stupid.

 

3rd, yes Euphoria is motion and animation/physics engine, but it uses a some controller module AI to make the characters react how they do. I do agree I typed that wrong i said Animation/AI system, which is right in some sense but I shouldn't have put that. Because Euphoria does not do anything else but the animation related stuff, path finding.etc is done by GTAIVs engine. Thank you for correcting me there.