ENABLE GTA to use system ram for VRAM

[ppehrson 0]

 

in my Processes GTA4 runs in 32 bit mode for some reason, i was wondering if your does to,

 

the process says: GTAIV.exe *32

 

wondering if this is just me.

Of COURSE it does. It is a 32 bit game!!!

[ppehrson 0]

 

(in theory a 64bit buss should run twice as good as a 32 bit buss)

but thats not the case. id liek to see a fully functional 64 bit exe for GTA in the near future

How old are you?

 

If this is what you think, I think you need to take classes in computer architecture. A 64 bit OS is no where near twice the speed of a 32 bit one due to parity and a lot of other stuff going on... And it will take a LONG time before Vista64 gets even close to being superior to the 32-bit edition as there is simply too little demand for its development yet. The only reason to run 64 bit is if you need more than 3.2 gigs of ram (that is, not for games but for calc critical software) and you don't know how to address more on a 32 bit OS. For gaming, using swapspace is usually sufficient.

[DreamOperator 0]

If I keep the textures at medium I can increase the view distance to 100 which makes the game look better than increasing to high textures. On high textures I have to lower the VD to 50 and that uses up 9MB more than the Vram that is being recognised.

 

By keeping textures on medium and increasing view distance to max along with everything else... I'm only using around 700mb of Vram...

 

And as everyone knows... makes no difference to FPS at all.

 

 

I would recommend that 4gb of ram is a must before trying this... Any less isn't worth it.

you're forcing high texture..

 

look at your benchmarks.. the first one you're using 100% vram.. the 2nd you're using 50% which means the game only uses 512mb

 

you can not use system ram as vram.. if the op is talking about storing video texture in ram.. well the game already does that!! that's what ram is for! it stores things before going to vram

 

if you're talking about your video card using ram as vram.. well that is not possible without driver implementation.. not something game controlled.

 

this trick is the same as using -norestritions .. it allows you to have higher settings but does not give you more vram.. because guess what? you dont have it!

 

running high texture on 512mb will give you pop ups every where.. that is not normal.. i'm sure lots of ppl have come to accept the fact that textures pop up in this game.. NO! if you keep your vram in the green and use the -nomemrestrict launch option.. you should have ZERO texture popups.. everything you can immediately see in any direction should fit and stream perfectly into your vram...

 

please stop posting these bs "fixes" that actually make the game experience worse for people

I was able to use High texture setting w/ my 512mb on 1600x900 using -norestrictions with no pop up issues. Only when set to 1920x1080 did I start to have issues. They weren't even pop up, just stuttering.

[iamnotyou 0]

 

Look at your benchmarks.. the first one you're using 100% vram.. the 2nd you're using 50% which means the game only uses 512mb

 

you can not use system ram as vram.. if the op is talking about storing video texture in ram.. well the game already does that!! that's what ram is for! it stores things before going to vram

 

if you're talking about your video card using ram as vram.. well that is not possible without driver implementation.. not something game controlled.

 

this trick is the same as using -norestritions .. it allows you to have higher settings but does not give you more vram.. because guess what? you dont have it!

 

running high texture on 512mb will give you pop ups every where.. that is not normal.. i'm sure lots of ppl have come to accept the fact that textures pop up in this game.. NO! if you keep your vram in the green and use the -nomemrestrict launch option.. you should have ZERO texture popups.. everything you can immediately see in any direction should fit and stream perfectly into your vram...

 

please stop posting these bs "fixes" that actually make the game experience worse for people

Quoted for truth. Listen to this person.

[gameguy1589 0]

 

Look at your benchmarks.. the first one you're using 100% vram.. the 2nd you're using 50% which means the game only uses 512mb

 

you can not use system ram as vram.. if the op is talking about storing video texture in ram.. well the game already does that!! that's what ram is for! it stores things before going to vram

 

if you're talking about your video card using ram as vram.. well that is not possible without driver implementation.. not something game controlled.

 

this trick is the same as using -norestritions .. it allows you to have higher settings but does not give you more vram.. because guess what? you dont have it!

 

running high texture on 512mb will give you pop ups every where.. that is not normal.. i'm sure lots of ppl have come to accept the fact that textures pop up in this game.. NO! if you keep your vram in the green and use the -nomemrestrict launch option.. you should have ZERO texture popups.. everything you can immediately see in any direction should fit and stream perfectly into your vram...

 

please stop posting these bs "fixes" that actually make the game experience worse for people

Quoted for truth. Listen to this person.

no... this method does work. My video card has 256Mb of vram, before this tweak if I put my textures up too high they wouldn't load at all, they would be invisible. That means those textures werent being saved anywhere except for in my video card which was full and couldn't hold anymore.

 

This method allows GTA to use the shared ram for my textures (so it is possible) and that allowed me to run the game with medium and even high textures. While on high though my hard drive was constantly loading so it was jumpy.

 

That just goes to show that you can use your ram/paging file for vram (basically)

[psx2p 0]

 

(in theory a 64bit buss should run twice as good as a 32 bit buss)

but thats not the case. id liek to see a fully functional 64 bit exe for GTA in the near future

How old are you?

 

If this is what you think, I think you need to take classes in computer architecture. A 64 bit OS is no where near twice the speed of a 32 bit one due to parity and a lot of other stuff going on... And it will take a LONG time before Vista64 gets even close to being superior to the 32-bit edition as there is simply too little demand for its development yet. The only reason to run 64 bit is if you need more than 3.2 gigs of ram (that is, not for games but for calc critical software) and you don't know how to address more on a 32 bit OS. For gaming, using swapspace is usually sufficient.

listen douche before you go google stuff, a 32 bit arch is 32 bits long a 64 bit is 64bits long, this means it cn process 32 or 64 bits per cpu cycle, seriously. lmao you amaze me at how big of an ass u sound. actions speak louder than words, for alot of people this works so piss off if you dont like it,

 

do the math and TELL me im wrong seriously kid. and i didnt say it was faster, i sed twice as good u can take from it what you want.

 

 

when you get your A+ cert then you can tell me how it is.

 

 

and dreamoperator "please stop posting these bs "fixes" that actually make the game experience worse for people"

 

lets see your solution to try and fix these problems, its not a permanent fix but it works for now.

 

lets see, current problem: R* hasnt released a patch for this sh*ty gameplay, so i guess we should all just suffer and wait for them to release a patch? no screw that, i want solutions now!

 

for anyone who posts flaming a person for posting a solution that may or may not work for some then you need to go play in traffic or keep your damn mouth shut until u figure out a better idea.

 

 

 

another thing ppehrson wrote and said of course it does, well if its not a 64 bit game or have anythign to do with it why does the back of the box say, "Enhanced for: 64 bit" awfully misleading id say

[DreamOperator 0]

 

Look at your benchmarks.. the first one you're using 100% vram.. the 2nd you're using 50% which means the game only uses 512mb

 

you can not use system ram as vram.. if the op is talking about storing video texture in ram.. well the game already does that!! that's what ram is for! it stores things before going to vram

 

if you're talking about your video card using ram as vram.. well that is not possible without driver implementation.. not something game controlled.

 

this trick is the same as using -norestritions .. it allows you to have higher settings but does not give you more vram.. because guess what? you dont have it!

 

running high texture on 512mb will give you pop ups every where.. that is not normal.. i'm sure lots of ppl have come to accept the fact that textures pop up in this game.. NO! if you keep your vram in the green and use the -nomemrestrict launch option.. you should have ZERO texture popups.. everything you can immediately see in any direction should fit and stream perfectly into your vram...

 

please stop posting these bs "fixes" that actually make the game experience worse for people

Quoted for truth. Listen to this person.

How can you say QFT when I just explained that I had no issue running high textures on 512mb, yet he said you cannot. I don't worry about the technical of what it can or can't do or how it should or shouldn't work or what ram is doing what. If people report benefit, it's worth looking into. If it doesn't do anything for you, oh well.

[psx2p 0]

 

Look at your benchmarks.. the first one you're using 100% vram.. the 2nd you're using 50% which means the game only uses 512mb

 

you can not use system ram as vram.. if the op is talking about storing video texture in ram.. well the game already does that!! that's what ram is for! it stores things before going to vram

 

if you're talking about your video card using ram as vram.. well that is not possible without driver implementation.. not something game controlled.

 

this trick is the same as using -norestritions .. it allows you to have higher settings but does not give you more vram.. because guess what? you dont have it!

 

running high texture on 512mb will give you pop ups every where.. that is not normal.. i'm sure lots of ppl have come to accept the fact that textures pop up in this game.. NO! if you keep your vram in the green and use the -nomemrestrict launch option.. you should have ZERO texture popups.. everything you can immediately see in any direction should fit and stream perfectly into your vram...

 

please stop posting these bs "fixes" that actually make the game experience worse for people

Quoted for truth. Listen to this person.

How can you say QFT when I just explained that I had no issue running high textures on 512mb, yet he said you cannot. I don't worry about the technical of what it can or can't do or how it should or shouldn't work or what ram is doing what. If people report benefit, it's worth looking into. If it doesn't do anything for you, oh well.

ok thank you for clearing that up, i just dont like people flaming anyone who has an idea.

 

it works for some some it dont, it dosent work all that whell for me, my setting are fine without raising my vram , for gameguy it works. he still gets better frames than me on his 256. but he has a quad core.........

[gameguy1589 0]

yep, works VERY good. If only I had more ram I might be able to run it on max settings with a 256Mb card!

[qwertz123 0]

 

32 bit processes can only use UP TO 4 GB of RAM, including video RAM.

wrong.

 

right: a 32bit OS can only address up to 4gb of system memory, including (shared) video ram.

 

thats alot of a different story mate!

 

a 32bit process has a max of 2gb address space. with the /3gb switch you can force the OS kernel to only use 1gb and therefore having 3gb for the application, but than the executable needs to be compiled with the "large_address_aware" flag. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platf...pae/paemem.mspx

 

with 64bit you will get more registers and therefore the performance can increase, but the main fact lies in the address space of (let me lie) some terabytes of system ram

Edited December 22, 2008 by qwertz123

[RanCorX3 0]

already using the tweak, have 2303 shared system memory + 512mb of ded vram, added -availablevidmem 135.02 to my commandline and its shows 502/2306 in the game.

[thales100 0]

It definetely works for me, now im able to max out everything at 1680 x 1050, including 100% vision distance, and no missing textures, no stutter, no errors at all - just smooth gameplay, tested for eight hours.

 

[Zemtex 0]

Mr. more i have

 

Operating System: Windows Vista™ Ultimate (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.080917-1612)

BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz

Memory: 4094MB RAM

Page File: 2728MB used, 5674MB available

Windows Dir: C:\Windows

DirectX Version: DirectX 10

DX Setup Parameters: Not found

---------------

Display Devices

---------------

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT

Manufacturer: NVIDIA

Chip type: GeForce 8600 GT

DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC

Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0402&SUBSYS_82431043&REV_A1

Display Memory: 2287 MB

Dedicated Memory: 495 MB

Shared Memory: 1791 MB

Current Mode: 1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (60Hz)

Driver Version: 7.15.0011.7824 (English)

DDI Version: 10

Driver Attributes: Final Retail

Driver Date/Size: 10/7/2008 13:33:00, 8459264 bytes

 

but i can only play on

 

video mode: 1680 x 1050

aspect ratio: auto

texture quality: low

render quality: low

view distance: 15

detail distance: 15

vehicle density:1

shadow density:0

 

do you know if your thing with the ram would help me so i can run the game more smoothly??

[thales100 0]

do you know if your thing with the ram would help me so i can run the game more smoothly??

Why dont you give it a try ? If it doesnt work simply delete the -availablevidmem command from your commandline file.

[Zemtex 0]

so i just make a text file with -availablevidmem 2.0 and then put it inside the gta 4 folder??? don't know so much about this kind of stuff ^^

[Iced Bullet7 0]

so i just make a text file with -availablevidmem 2.0 and then put it inside the gta 4 folder??? don't know so much about this kind of stuff ^^

Yes, Using Notepad.

[thales100 0]

so i just make a text file with -availablevidmem 2.0 and then put it inside the gta 4 folder??? don't know so much about this kind of stuff ^^

Thats it, call the file commandline.txt and put it inside GTA 4 main folder, then run the game and check in graphic options if your VRAM has increased, then tweak GFX settings the way you want and test in game.

[Marcin6 17]

When i do this i gut crash to deskop with GTAIV.exe error

 

I have 4 GB DDR2 800 Mhz Patriot , Core2Duo E6750 2.66 Ghz , GeForce 9800 GTX+ BFG OC , ASUS P5B , Vista Ultimate 64 bit

[thales100 0]

When i do this i gut crash to deskop with GTAIV.exe error

 

 

Whats the error message you get ? Out of video memory ?

[Zemtex 0]

my vram won't double nothing happens ....

[thales100 0]

 

my vram won't double nothing happens ....

Download this txt file - http://www.ghostaholic.com/datas/users/1948-commandline.txt

- (rename it to commandline.txt), edit the multiplier you want (1.5, 2.0 or whatever you want to try) using notepad, and place it inside the folder

 

C:\Program Files\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto IV .

[Marcin6 17]

When i do this i gut crash to deskop with GTAIV.exe error

 

 

Whats the error message you get ? Out of video memory ?

Nothing , just GTAIV.exe stopped working

[Marcin6 17]

OK , with this command -availablevidmem 3.0

 

Playing is not possible , my Hard Disck f*cked up , always something loading , and game working and stop working and stop

 

And maybe them crash to deskop with error GTAIV.exe stopped working

[Zemtex 0]

it's not working i can't believe this i copy the thing from the link then put into a document i made and then i name it commandline.txt then i put it just into the gta 4 folder gosh why is it not working :S it's so weird.......

[thales100 0]

it's not working i can't believe this i copy the thing from the link then put into a document i made and then i name it commandline.txt then i put it just into the gta 4 folder gosh why is it not working :S it's so weird.......

Please note that the document is called commanline , not commandline.txt, the .txt i was refering is the extension (notepad).

[Zemtex 0]

okay it works now thanks alot for the help and patience ^^

[Lutra78 0]

 

look at your benchmarks.. the first one you're using 100% vram.. the 2nd you're using 50% which means the game only uses 512mb

 

you can not use system ram as vram.. if the op is talking about storing video texture in ram.. well the game already does that!! that's what ram is for! it stores things before going to vram

 

if you're talking about your video card using ram as vram.. well that is not possible without driver implementation.. not something game controlled.

 

this trick is the same as using -norestritions .. it allows you to have higher settings but does not give you more vram.. because guess what? you dont have it!

 

running high texture on 512mb will give you pop ups every where.. that is not normal.. i'm sure lots of ppl have come to accept the fact that textures pop up in this game.. NO! if you keep your vram in the green and use the -nomemrestrict launch option.. you should have ZERO texture popups.. everything you can immediately see in any direction should fit and stream perfectly into your vram...

 

please stop posting these bs "fixes" that actually make the game experience worse for people

 

That's exactly the same I wanted to post, too. Youre right. This "trick" just forces the game to higher settings. But RAM is not VRAM. And even if the game would share it, then it's much much much slower, and this leads to pop-ups. People should get this.

[thales100 0]

please stop posting these bs "fixes" that actually make the game experience worse for people

 

That's exactly the same I wanted to post, too. Youre right. This "trick" just forces the game to higher settings. But RAM is not VRAM. And even if the game would share it, then it's much much much slower, and this leads to pop-ups. People should get this.

I think its a valid tweak, i have no pop up or missing textures, either no errors after testing it during all night.

I can max all GFX settings at 1680 x 1050 with my rig, including vision distance, what i couldnt do without the tweak, so if it works for me can work for others too -it may be the same of the -nomemrestrict launch option, but if i can play this game maxed, i want to play it this way.

Obviously there is no miracle, you will always play GTA 4 limited by your rig config.

[Lurf 0]

Nice this allows for me to play on high textures with my 8800GT 512 without texture popping. It is however not all good because it does eat away some FPS. I'm happy with high textures and a few less FPS though. Thx!

 

[reassor 0]

if you have 2gb ram then dont add much -availablevidmem 1.2 or 1.3 (depending on how much vram u have)

 

and yes it works ( no poups for me )