How many FPS should I be getting?

[0_Lostboy_0]

I've been reading a lot of topics on this forum since the game came out on PC, and my topic is not much different from a lot of others, so feel free to ignore me. But just to put in my 2 cents, here are my results:

 

My hardware:

Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 32-bit

Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe with nForce4 SLI Intel Edition

BFG Tech NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 OC 896MB

Video Driver version: 181.20 (I've also tried 180.48 and 180.84 with no real difference)

Audio Adapter: Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi XtremeMusic)

Intel Pentium D 840 Dual CPU 3.2GHz

3GB DDR2 RAM

Running the retail version of GTA IV

 

2 things I am aware of. My graphics card is PCIe 2.0 in a PCIe 1.0 slot, so I'm not getting the full advantage of that. However, in my set up I don't think it would make a difference for this game, as I think my processor is the bottleneck.

 

I know that the CPU minimum requirements is an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz, but mine is still a dual CPU and at a much higher GHz, so shouldn't my CPU be ok?

 

Also, I have almost nothing running in the background. I don't use Auto-Update for programs. I don't have anti-virus programs. And if I turn off the few things that are running, such as Windows Aero or Sidebar Gadgets, it doesn't make a difference.

 

Here's the minimum setup that I would prefer:

Video Mode: 1680x1050

Texture Quality: Medium

Render Quality: Medium

View Distance: 30

Detail Distance: 20

Vehicle Density: 33

Shadow Density: 0

 

With that setup, in the benchmark I get 19.83fps. Which might be playable, except that the benchmark is not really a true test. In my own real-time test using Fraps, I get 11fps, which is certainly not playable. Here's my benchmark hardware usage:

CPU: 96%

System Memory: 66%

Video Memory: 59%

Shouldn't the game find a way to maximise the use of my graphics card and memory, and take some load off the CPU?

 

To give it perspective from another needy game, here are my fraps results for Crysis:

Very High: 20fps

Medium: 40fps

Low: 60fps

 

For another perspective, I wanted to see what my results would be if I set everything in GTAIV to a very ugly low:

Video Mode: 800x600

Texture Quality: Low

Render Quality: Low

View Distance: 1

Detail Distance: 1

Vehicle Density: 1

Shadow Density: 0

 

Even though this setting is unplayable ugly, I still only got 23.65fps in the benchmark, and only 16fps with Fraps. Here's my benchmark hardware usage:

CPU: 95%

System Memory: 61%

Video Memory: 33%

 

So basically, no matter what I do (aside from upgrading hardware), I still can't get this game in an enjoyable playable state. From what I've read from other people my situation is common. But I really believe with my hardware, I should be getting much better then this. I really hope patch 2 fixes this.

[rud]

I don't know much about your particular video card but your processor, while fast, is an older generation than what the game requirements state (core 2 duo or the amd equivalent). As you can see from your benchmarks, while your CPU usage is nearly maxed your other utilizations aren't high at all. This is pretty typical of this game, which is CPU hungry to a very large degree. Basically without a fast enough CPU you can get any kind of expensive video card you want without much performance improvements in GTA, the GPU simply won't have anything to do while it's waiting on the CPU to finish whatever hungry hunry tasks rockstar has set for it.