Bad stuttering?

[nicotin3]

First of all read this!

 

I've started this thread/poll to try and gather input about this specific problem, it seems to happen to quite a few people regardless of their system specs while others arent affected.

If you have a diferent problem use/open a diferent thread to keep this on-topic (common sense).

If you are going to flame R* or start the traditional useless, childish flame wars just go away, it doesnt help.

 

If you care to reply, post your selected option and system specs (dont paste full dxdiags please):

Motherboard, CPU, system RAM, hardrive(s), sound card, graphics card, OS.

 

My case as an example:

Yes, after playing for some time (45 minuts to 1 hour).

Asus P5B-E, E6600 (stock). 4 GIG PC6400 (corsair xms2). 250 gig SB. SB audigy2ZS. 8800 GTX 768. Vista 32 SP1.

 

My PC is all up to date with all the latest device drivers including mobo/chipset and i've tried everything from commandline parameters, increasing the swap file, changing ram, disabling AV, diferent drivers.. all to no avail .

 

GTA IV in windows Vista needs no less than 3 GB of physical RAM!

I found an incorrect setting in my bios that was preventing my system from using its max amount of ram, my system was reporting all the ram but using only 2 GB (check task manager). Vista (32 or 64) cant handle this game with only 2 GB of ram, atleast not for long... my system is now using 3 GB of ram and the game appears not to stutter anymore (2 hour run, no stuttering, no hard drive thrashing), i can alt-tab in and out of the game with good responce. GTA IV is using close to 1.5 GB of RAM in windows Vista!!!

 

This information might help some of you!

If you have Vista and 2 GB of ram, buy more because you need no less than 3 GB (GTA IV uses 1.5 GB).

If you already have more than 2 GB of ram make sure your ram is being used by your system (task manager), after SP1 windows Vista will report all the ram installed on your computer but it might not be using it (always check task manger).

If you use a 32 bit OS the maximum amount of ram your system will use is ~3 GB, regardless of how much it shows under system properties or BIOS (mine shows 4 but only uses 3 GB). A 32 bit OS has a 4 GB adress space limit, this includes your physical RAM and installed devices such as your graphics card.

If you use a 32 bit OS, have 3 or 4 GB of ram but task manager only shows a total of 2 search for a bios setting named memory remap and make sure its set to disabled, this setting should only be enabled if you use a 64 bit OS.

Edited January 8, 2009 by nicotin3

[OverTheBelow]

It sort of stutters alot of the time, particularly in the middle island. I think it's just fps drops from 30 to 24fps though.

[nicotin3]

It sort of stutters alot of the time, particularly in the middle island. I think it's just fps drops from 30 to 24fps though.

You didnt post your system specs but im going to assume that your setup struggles to draw the most detailed/intensive areas of the game (no memory leak or performance loss over time)?

[noVa]

it stutters all the time, its not bad though as i get a high frame rate just if im driving i can notice slight pauses in the flow of the frames only very slight but annoying non the less.

 

e8400 @ 3.8ghz

Asus P5Q-Pro Motherboard

4870 512MB gfx

M-audio MobilePre Soundcard / Emu 1820M souncard (would like to use this one but it doesn't work, disabled during gta4)

4gb PC2 8500+ (1066mhz)

500gb 7200rpm WD Operating System Drive

500gb 7200rpm WD Program Drive

Corsair HX620w PSU

 

 

Edited January 2, 2009 by noVa

[nicotin3]

 

it stutters all the time, its not bad though as i get a high frame rate just if im driving i can notice slight pauses in the flow of the frame rate only very slight but annoying non the less.

You didnt post your system specs either but if it stutters all the time and the frame rate is high im going to assume you have a small amount of ram (2 gig or less)?

Thanks, you didnt include you OS though, if i were you i would try increasing the page file (4092) but you dont seem to have any mem issues.

Also moving the page file to a second drive is known to improve performance and since you have 2 its worth a try.

Edited January 4, 2009 by nicotin3

[noVa]

it stutters all the time, its not bad though as i get a high frame rate just if im driving i can notice slight pauses in the flow of the frame rate only very slight but annoying non the less.

You didnt post your system specs either but if it stutters all the time and the frame rate is high im going to assume you have a small amount of ram (2 gig or less)?

see above i forgot to add them and no i have 4gb well 3.4gb in xp32, no performance gained in my 64bit operating system either.

[Ahm3dS]

the game start with 28fps then slow down to 21 fps....

[nicotin3]

 

the game start with 28fps then slow down to 21 fps....

 

If you care to reply, post your selected option and system specs (dont paste full dxdiags please):

Motherboard, CPU, system RAM, hardrive(s), sound card, graphics card, OS.

 

If you can write you should be able to read.. anyway, your specs are not very high but if the game runs stable at 21 fps and doesnt stutter, crash or anything you dont really have a problem .

[Trull]

I have this issue. When I start playing I get normal frame rates, very playable and no stuttering at all. But the more I keep playing, the worst frame rates I get, it starts stuttering until it gets unplayable.

 

GA-P35-DS3L motherboard

XFX 8800GT XXX Alpha Dog

Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz

2GB DDR2 RAM @ 800MHz | 5-5-5-15

Windows XP x64 Edition SP2

 

I tried overclocking my E6750 @ 3.00GHz and RAM @ 900MHz | 4-4-4-12, but I experienced almost no fps gain, and in Benchmarks I actually get LESS fps.

Edited January 2, 2009 by Trull

[nicotin3]

I have this issue. When I start playing I get normal frame rates, very playable and no stuttering at all. But the more I keep playing, the worst frame rates I get, it starts stuttering until it gets unplayable.

 

GA-P35-DS3L motherboard

XFX 8800GT XXX Alpha Dog

E6750 @ 2.66GHz

2GB DDR2 RAM @ 800MHz | 5-5-5-15

Windows XP x64 Edition

 

I tried overclocking my E6750 @ 3.00GHz and RAM @ 900MHz | 4-4-4-12, but I experienced almost no fps gain, and in Benchmarks I actually get LESS fps.

Same as me... in common we have dual core CPU, 8800 series GPU and ram type.

Thank you.

[NSX]

After about 25-30 minutes of play.

 

System:

ASUS P5VD2-VM

Intel Core 2 Duo 6420 @ 2.1 Ghz

2GB Ram

8500GT 256 MB

Vista 32bit Home Premium SP1

 

Cheers

[Plaffie]

Mine starts to stutter when i walk down the stairs in the first hideout. played the game until the second hide-out before the patch and the NVidia upgrade. tried to change it back, did two new full install of computer and operating system but it keeps stuttering. with fraps i see the framerate going from around 35-40 to 4 and then back.

 

Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Service Pack 3

Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS

Video Driver version: 180.84

Audio Adapter: Realtek HD Audio output

Intel® Core2 Quad @ 2.40GHz

Memory 4 GB

 

i updated all the drivers for hardware, bios update, clean install of vista ultimate 32 SP1. nothing helps.

 

i did send an e-mail to rockstar but they replied (nicely within 24 hours) that they needed dxdiag info. i did send a full report together with the first mail. still haven't heard from them but it's weekend and new year so i give them a couple of days before getting really annoyed.

[bayowar]

 

Mine starts to stutter when i walk down the stairs in the first hideout.

Same for me. The game is a constant stutter, on all settings.

From the second I step into the hall it's ~20FPS, although it feels like 10.

 

Windows Vista x64 SP1

AMD Athlon X2 3.1GHz

4GB Ram

ATI HD4850, Catalyst 8.12

 

When I step out of the safehouse, turn or drive quickly it gets worse, with very low quality textures popping in.

Resolution, quality settings and commandline options make no noticeable difference.

 

I thought it might be using the page file, so I turned that of completely. Still stuttering.

 

There's no unnecessary background services running, apart from Rockstar Games Social Club and Games for Windows Live

 

 

i did send an e-mail to rockstar but they replied (nicely within 24 hours) that they needed dxdiag info. i did send a full report together with the first mail. still haven't heard from them but it's weekend and new year so i give them a couple of days before getting really annoyed.

How nice of them. When I wrote, they said I should talk to Valve - because apparently the Steam version of GTA4 is "a special design" and "only supported by Valve".

Which is utter rubbish and was denied on the GTA4 support page of Steam.

Edited January 3, 2009 by bayowar

[kramsit]

I dont actually get any stuttering and it looks like i dont have as good of a system as someone that posted in here...

 

I have a:

 

nvidia 780i motherboard

E8400 @ 3.6ghz

RAM - 4GB at 800mhz with 4-3-3-10-18 1T

dual 250GB HDD RAID for OS

dual 500GB HDD RAID for stuff.

On board sound card.

Dual 8800 GT's

Vista premium 64BIT

 

Everything is up to date and i somehow run absoutly fine even with -norestrictions and then everything maxed.

 

[joytech22]

well it does stutter and lagg from smooth gameplay after about 20 mins, keep in mind i have low ram.

 

Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3 (Nvidia Nforce 560)

DDR2 1.7GB 1400MHz

AMD Phenom X4 2.2GHz (per core)

Nvidia GeForce 9800GTX/W 512MB Vram

Seagate something 250GB 10000RPM 16mb cache

Seagate something 80GB 7200RPM 8MB cache

Soundblaster 24-BIT Advanced HD PCI sound card

 

[Irrati0nal]

My games runs fine for a while (20 mins or so and Systweak cachebooster helps). But it gradually starts using more and more ram until it freezes completely. Usually Alt+tabbing and Show desktop fix it, but then it does it again. It's strange, I will start playing the game using 40-60% of my ram, then it goes up to 70-75% then to 90% and finally 99% and frozen.

 

[email protected]

EVGA680i-SLi-A1

2GB of RAM

8800GTX

2TB RAID 0 array for OS and GTA4 install

 

I average 31FPS then it freezes

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: using Windows XP SP3 with a 4Gb pagefile

Edited January 5, 2009 by Irrati0nal

[nicotin3]

 

My games runs fine for a while (20 mins or so and Systweak cachebooster helps). But it gradually starts using more and more ram until it freezes completely. Usually Alt+tabbing and Show desktop fix it, but then it does it again. It's strange, I will start playing the game using 40-60% of my ram, then it goes up to 70-75% then to 90% and finally 99% and frozen.

 

[email protected]

EVGA680i-SLi-A1

2GB of RAM

8800GTX

2TB RAID 0 array for OS and GTA4 install

 

I average 31FPS then it freezes

 

Can you post what OS and page file /virtual memory settings you use? *edit your post above*

Edited January 4, 2009 by nicotin3

[Nillansan]

I do experience some stutter, it gets worse over time. Quite annoying. Check my signature for details on my rig.

[noVa]

it appears that my stutter is just part of the game as i finally got round to installing fraps and theres no indicated frame rate drop, either that or it's just to quick to register a drop.

 

so i've decided to just stop thinking about it.

[<Floyd>]

 

it appears that my stutter is just part of the game as i finally got round to installing fraps and theres no indicated frame rate drop, either that or it's just to quick to register a drop.

 

so i've decided to just stop thinking about it.

 

this was always happening to mine as well...but once i never signed into Windows For Games and it wasn't stuttering and ever since its been fine

 

cant be arsed posting all my specs (really budget PC).

 

my fps used to drop when stutering happend tho

[Ahm3dS]

Ok! i fixed this...

 

I still have my laptop warranty ,they changed something on it and the game work without sutter

 

the sutter happen if u tryed to run the game on setting up to Auto Config

 

also i overclocked from 700mhz to 880mhz i got more 5fps but after 10min of gameplay fps back to normal

[geoffrey2008]

My previous installation ran perfectly OK

 

I then reformatted my PC using Windows XP Beast Edition. The game now stutters all the time. Sometimes I get a memory dump screen saying nv4_disp file error (I know this is to do with the drivers I've tried 3 different versions of drivers and done a complete uninstall including registry settings each time). The game sometimes stutters but sometime it just halts the entire computer. Ctrl + Alt + Del doesn't work and it needs to have the reboot button physically pressed.

 

All drivers installed OK no missing devices in Device Manager. NVIDIA drivers are GeForce ForceWare 185.20 XP 32-bit

 

Asus P5GC-VM Mobo

2.4Ghz Dual Core P4

Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS 512MB

2 x 1GB PC5300 DDR2 RAM

C-Media PCI Soundcard

500GB SATA HDD

Windows XP SP3

[nicotin3]

My previous installation ran perfectly OK

 

I then reformatted my PC using Windows XP Beast Edition. The game now stutters all the time. Sometimes I get a memory dump screen saying nv4_disp file error (I know this is to do with the drivers I've tried 3 different versions of drivers and done a complete uninstall including registry settings each time). The game sometimes stutters but sometime it just halts the entire computer. Ctrl + Alt + Del doesn't work and it needs to have the reboot button physically pressed.

 

All drivers installed OK no missing devices in Device Manager. NVIDIA drivers are GeForce ForceWare 185.20 XP 32-bit

 

Asus P5GC-VM Mobo

2.4Ghz Dual Core P4

Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS 512MB

2 x 1GB PC5300 DDR2 RAM

C-Media PCI Soundcard

500GB SATA HDD

Windows XP SP3

You dont meet the minimum requirements to play the game, "dual core" P4 aka Pentium D is bellow the minimum CPU requirements.

Your problem with video drivers is not related to the problem this thread is meant to cover, you are using leaked drivers instead of the recomended 180.84 beta.

 

On topic

I believe the game stutters after some time because its hogging all available physical ram (and the page file tries to compensate), my game doesnt go as far as crashing.

I've checked my ram use after the stutter kicks in and my system was using 92% of all available RAM, seems excessive to me .

[rnd2k]

times differs from 5 to 20 min some times 1hour i fix that for a while with the weather change crack

 

my system is

 

Q6600 3.17Ghz

4GB RAM

EVGA 8800GTS 640mb

 

windows XP64

 

res running 1280x1024 draw distance -25, detail distance -30

[Irrati0nal]

I believe the game stutters after some time because its hogging all available physical ram (and the page file tries to compensate), my game doesnt go as far as crashing.

I've checked my ram use after the stutter kicks in and my system was using 92% of all available RAM, seems excessive to me .

You said it does not crash but does it slow down at all? And gradually or suddenly.

 

[nicotin3]

I believe the game stutters after some time because its hogging all available physical ram (and the page file tries to compensate), my game doesnt go as far as crashing.

I've checked my ram use after the stutter kicks in and my system was using 92% of all available RAM, seems excessive to me .

You said it does not crash but does it slow down at all? And gradually or suddenly.

 

Gradually, the game just devours my ram, thats when the swap file goes nuts and thats probably why it stutters IMO.

The game doesnt crash, i can exit to windows, wait a bit, re-launch the game again and play for another 30 minuts or more .

 

I really dont know why, im not a programmer... all i can do is post the problem and describe it as well as i can .

[noVa]

weird though i've started to get a progressive slow down now and yet gta never uses anymore than 400mb ram and i always have above 2gb free.

[belinda]

ppl experiencing stuttering after a while should check if -nomemrestrict is present in your commandline.txt or your gta 4 shortcuts. on many systems it leads to massive vram usage, which then leads to many ram <-> vram transfers which slows the game down. but removing the -nomemrestrict command is no helpful option too. on many systems it leads to much lesser vram usage than resonable and introduces missing or popping in and out textures and geometry.

 

try the undocumented -memrestrict command instead. with it you can specify a certain amount of vram used by the game. but you should not use all your video memory. on my system and setup (512mb vram) gta 4 starts to stutter when free video memory drops below 80mb (verified with ati tray tools). for my 512mb gfx card i use the following command:

 

-memrestrict 419430400

 

which equals 400mb vram. if you have a true 1024mb gfx card try using:

 

-memrestrict 838860800

 

which equals 800mb vram. but this is only a suggestion. if you are technically savvy try measuring your vram usage while playing gta 4 for some time. ati users can do it with ati tray tools, and i'm quite confident there is a way for nvidia users too. maybe a tool is able to do it for any gfx card, but since i already use att i won't look any further

[Plaffie]

i solved the stuttering. my game started to stutter almost straight from the beginning (see my post on the 3rd). thanks to the forum users andree and Elev8r who posted in http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=387703&hl i was able to solve it. i used HWmonitor to look at the temperature of my CPU and it reached over 90 degrees celcius which is just 20 degrees too high.

 

now all i have to do is wait for my new cooler. i hope it might also solve some problems for other users on this forum.

[nicotin3]

i solved the stuttering. my game started to stutter almost straight from the beginning (see my post on the 3rd). thanks to the forum users andree and Elev8r who posted in http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=387703&hl i was able to solve it. i used HWmonitor to look at the temperature of my CPU and it reached over 90 degrees celcius which is just 20 degrees too high.

 

now all i have to do is wait for my new cooler. i hope it might also solve some problems for other users on this forum.

Well, you could atleast have read the first post and posted your system specs, anyway since you havent even installed your new cooler yet you dont even know if the temperature was causing the problem .