The truth about GTA IV

[dayaan]

I don't even know where to start, so here goes..

 

I'll tell you a bit about what i do, so it is easier l8r on. I've been working with 3D graphics for 10years now and i'm a computer engineer.

I'm a freelancer and i work in architecture visualisations, automotive industry (industrial design of headlights), i program simulations and

alghorithms in C and similar.

 

GTA is also my favourite chain of games and entertainment being a car freak and a "living city" sucker so i've been a true fan since GTA I.

I won't even start with the obvious progress they've made since.. if you want to know what i'm talking about, think about this:

(O) GTA 1998 (1st title) - GTA IV 2008 (7th title) - 10 years (PC versions GTA, GTALondon, GTA2, GTAIII, GTA:VC, GTA:SA, GTAIV)

* they are not all complete reprograms as we know, so we basically have 3 hard game engine upgrades in 10 years' time.

- GTA -> GTA2 use similar engines (a bit upgraded each sequel)

- GTAIII -> GTA:SA

- GTAIV (euphoria and rage do make a lot of difference)

That's 3 complete makeovers in 9-10 years, so one each 3 years or so and each had 3 titles.

This is a well thought out frequency and it is so, that the company can survive and be stable throughout the years. It is a well known practice

and i for one like it, because that means that the company will prosper and continue to put out quality products that have just the tasteful

amount of experiment so it doesn't go boring after few months of play.

GTA was the only title on PC that managed to do that over and over again! And it strikes back again!

The majority of you just don't see it.. how come?

- have you noticed for the first time "3D"(parallax effect on textures): bulletholes, skidmarks, scratches on vehicles

- have you noticed the way the tire flats out when you shoot it and stays flat although it rotates when you drive.. and it flats out slowly - nice

- have you noticed the airflow is exactly where you've shot the tire and it rotates too as you drive and it looks way cool with the new particle system

- have you noticed how when you drive with LittleJacob (he smokes blunts a lot) the smoke flows out of your car depending on which window is broken

and doesn't if all windows are closed

- i won't even mention the new dynamic damage on the cars (the ways i've crashed cars is undescribable, there are no screenshots that can explain

the feeling of being able to look at the wreck 1st handedly by rotating round and zooming in on damaged details, even a movie can't capture the beauty

of it.. it's gotta be pure high resolution PC monitor crisp (a bit too sharp maybe whithout AA ) played version to show exactly what i'm talking

about)

- and the new shaders make those cars look damn slick - clean or dirty, metallic or plain, sport or wagon, dimmed windows or plain transparent

- the night/day cycle, the atmosphere shaders, fog, rain.. admit it! they look fking amazing! the city seems as real as a mofu! driving round in the

early morning with the cool bluish, calm and kind of cold environment in your virgo slowly down a dusty alleyway looking for those few unsuspecting

ATM users to get robbed at 6:30 in the morning... or waking up (loading) into a sunny day with no clouds above and a hell of a traffic jam starting

right about in front of your safehouse .. or when it rains and you get your ass all wet from running and hiding from cops in alleyways just

so they pass you by, then sneaking into another alley to get the car u need to escape -seriously am i the only seeing the gazzillion possibilities

just by making a functional city like Liberty City?

 

.. i am sorry to bring this up, but has somebody actually compared GTAIV to Crysis?!? on what basis? shadows look better? and that's all you can come

up with? WELL get over it! you've got to make some sacrifices to benefit on other areas. if you don't see the need for it, some of us sure as hell do!

(why i believe sacrifices were needed i'll explain l8r)

 

-- this is just to sum up the vehicles part

 

indoors - i've heard a lot of u complain that there aren't enough.,, i've seen 1st person indoor shooters for same money with less interior than GTAIV

(being a mainly outdoor game) and it sure was less detailed.. heck some interiors in GTAIV look damn real!

 

outdoors - ahhh.. Liberty City.. speachless everytime i see it. Come on, have you really looked at it? Taken the time?

24hrs in Liberty City says it all! You've got to see the whole picture, the living

breathing environment even IF only in "your bubble". That's the beauty of the virtual world.. the important thing is that it's expandable, upgradable.

people do tens and tens of different things from workers working on roads, sweeping them, holding signs, people sitting on various rails, benches,

reading, eating, talking on cellphones, talking to eachother, interacting a bit, cops aresting random criminals and holding them at gunpoint to load

them into the nearest patrol car and driving away quickly, saxplayer in parks, hotdog vendors, fastfood vedors, hookers, exotic dancers, brave

individuals, chickensh**s.. i could go on and on and on...

and now the big bang! Euphoria! God bless you NaturalMotion for developing Euphoria!

The ways i've nearly sh** my pants laughing playing this game when getting drunk with Roman/LJ/... i haven't with any other! and being drunk is not

even a tenth of what Euphoria does REALLY good. Runnig over pedestrians in a million different ways, streets, jumps, rollovers.. with a few dozen

different cars from high SUVs to small sharp sport cars to extreme truck carmaggedon..

This game is really made of a lot of huge independently sold games.. bare with me.

The shooting experience with Euphoria now got even better than the one in Crysis (where in Crysis shooting is it's sole purpose but in GTAIV just one

of the things you can do very effectively)

nevertheless GTAIV has same quality weapons - they are all affected by bulletsize/power, shooting rates, reload times; RPG has an astonishing graphical

and physical effect.. explosions in particular are unprecedented - have you noticed that the explosion from an RPG or a grenade or another car has

a blast wave that actually damages nearby vehicles in a spherical way adjacent to the explosion? have you ever seen anything like it in a real-time

simulated program/game?

Back to topic, weapons being evolved enough to cope with any firstperson shooter, the advanced raggdoll physics in Euphoria is too! Even better if u

ask me. Different body parts reacting as they should and the best part is that when u shoot armed people in their left hand they still try to shoot you

even though they are stumbling and trying to maintain their balance not even looking your way at times.

 

Since we're already some 50 details -that make GTAIV really a GTA- down, those of you who have really played this game and enjoyed it know that i haven't

even scratched the surface of what GTAIV really means.

In words of the developers themselves: "We feel like we've only scratched the surface in terms of the depth and detail of Liberty City."

 

The foundation that they have laid down for themselves with making GTAIV is ROCKSOLID! This is a gold mine for an unbelieveable gametitle.

They can add in just about anything they want and simply put it in an alreadly working and fully functional city. We miss the Fire Dept? It's probably

one days programming for them and it's in (trucks are in, firemen are in, firestations are ready, fire-particle system works perfectly, the watercanon

on the fire-rig works already). U want the forklift to be functional? 60mins of work and imagine the possibilities with euphoria and the damage system

to cars. Parachutes? come on, piece of cake. Trucks with attachable trailers? Simpler now with euphoria than it was with GTA:SA i tell you! Peds can

now actually grab onto your car - vehicles and peds are now all softbodies (thus the dynamic damage to cars), so rigging a trailer to truck is like

two peds interacting (grabbing onto eachother) which is Euphorias jokercard.

You are all missing the point with complaining how this and that isn't included and blah blah. The main thing to see here are the possibilities with this

kind of angle to making a game. First you make a living breathing environment and then gradually add different things to see how it works and tweak

subtly.

This is where we should be taking part! When i was a teenager we couldn't interact with the actual makers of games.. seriously. We were only getting

what they served us with little to no feedback whatsoever. The sole idea, that the developers would listen to us and make a game to our liking was

nothing more but a wet dream!

But this is actually possible nowadays more or less. This is the leading GTA forum in the world. The developers themselves took part in it. Instead of

greeting them with respect and hopefullness they'll listen, they have to come to this dissing place, where they are made to feel horrible and not

particulary good about themselves. That is no way to treat a guest and certainly no way to treat somebody that would eventually do you much good and

is the only one that can really make the game better by our ideas.

Modding! Modding rocks.. everybody that has any respect for human intelect, curiosity and adaptability has to recognise that!

And even Rockstar do. They just can't do it officially as they are bound by the "no leak of info on the projects" law. They even encourage us to play

with their games (you've got to admit that GTAs have always been quite open to modding - things could be a million times more encoded but it just sits

there in plain text with explanations included - come on!), but this prolongs their lives and makes them interesting even years later. A lot of us

stopped playing GTA:SA only recently when GTA:IV came out.. some still haven't.

Rockstar developers, coders, modelers.. they are not so different from us.. some of them came out of forums like this a few years ago. at first a young

intelligent programmer, freak, posting at forums trying to make a name, now works for a stable company with a nice future trying to make it with the

bosses canceling him when he wanted to program a working Trash so we could put peds in there and compact them a bit. Bosses see sales / young witty

programers, modelers, coordinators see fun, exciting, new interesting ways of making a game, making it fun.

We had R* here so we could build a long strong relationship where in some cases they would actually listen to our proposals and make them true.

Wheelsupport, a bit more graphical tweaks, different shadows, a working forklift, give us fire department and stuff i mentioned before. This things

are all so easy to implement in this foundation/base called GTA:IV. Remember how GTA:III empty and dull changed into GTA:SA that was bursting with

possibilities.. now imagine where GTA:IV could go with a lot less effort and a lot more attention to detail.

 

Being such a dissing PC community will only make them stop the PC production on future products and it's our loss!

Since getting money from selling titles on PC is hard due to a lot of piracy and expensive hardware (yes, piracy ISN'T the only factor), we should be/

/have to be supportive of them! I know GTA:IV had some bumps upon launch, but admit it! THE ONLY REASON YOU WERE SO UPSET IS BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T WAIT

ANOTHER SECOND TO PLAY IT AND IT IRRITATED YOU THAT IT DIDN'T WORK THE SAME SECOND YOU BOUGHT IT! AND THAT'S A SPOILED LITTLE BIT*H'S REASON!

 

After writing this gazzillion set of lines it's quite hopeless but anyway here goes...

 

For gods sake, be aware of the fact that GTA:IV is rated 18years and above and so should the visitors of this forum be(GTA:IV for PC), so any

adolescent remarks you could kindly delete/remove/ban the username moderators please.

So should all the posts that go: "fck u rockstar, cockstar, stupid r*, idiots can't programm/draw/think/play etc. etc. etc." be deleted immediately.

If we are all above 18 here, PLEASE!!! act like it! Be professional, don't hide behind your internet thinking nobody knows who you are. Why don't you

act like this in public? Couse you'd get knocked the f**k out, that's why u chicken!

 

Moderators of this community: Is there any way you could clean up this mess of a PC Version subforum and start everything from scratch?

Something serious.. 90% of this isn't helping anyone! And im being serious.. it took me more than a month to try to read all this CRAP!

There are a few shining stars, but everything else must go!

My suggestion to keep things a bit more organized is to keep pinned a few main SERIOUS threads and then keep a minimum of additional threads couse

54 pages of titles is in no way functional

 

- REAL Troubleshooting (to actually interact with R* if they are still willing that is) for controllers, patches, graphical updates

- Future suggestions, wishes, ideas (but we would actually have to be good with R* to have them listen to this part of forum)

- Modding - AND NO MODS IN MP - come on ppl, have a sense of decency

- Videos and screenshots (another great things about GTA:IV, a virtual director of a short movie with a slo-mo-almost-matrix effect)

.

.

- Other - bitching and whining about performance and how GTA did this and that to your computer, freezer and the microwave

 

I know i've forgotten a lot of things, but i hope u see what i'm trying to tell you in my post.

Be patient, be supportive because everybody needs appreciation as well as you do, to be better, to make better games nevertheless.

Be constructive, don't just negate and diss everything you don't like, it's a living proof you're a spoiled little underage brat and you don't belong

on this forum!!! -This alone can be a reason enough to ban somebody.

 

If we want to see any DLCs, addons, patches, controller support, truck trailers, forklifts and parachutes coming PC way it's time to play a completely

different note. Time to clean up this GTA:IV PC forum and make it again the only and best unofficial official GTAseries forum.

 

And for the first time tell R* what they deserve to hear:

 

You've made a KICKASS game and i am for one VERY grateful that you've decided to port it to PC even if a bit slopy (though it gave me little trouble)

and i hope you will listen to our future suggestions because it will only make the game better and thus raising the sales for you to buy yourselves

new cars with bigger salaries and having us as a satisfied customer will only bring u benefits.

And stop kidding yourselves.. PC will still rock the scene where hard physics and big resolution graphics are needed, so stop the console idiocracy!

Read my lips: nVidia CUDA, nVidia Physx!

It's like saying Punto is a better car than a Ferarri simply because it is more suited for the majority of population.

 

I'm out!

 

EDIT: @chngdman reminded me that deleting isn't really the way in digital era and i agree, so i change my perspective to just moving the unneccessary

posts to their final rest in an Archive area subtitled: The old bitching and whining (we got over it)

Edited January 22, 2009 by speesy

[AK47-Maximus]

All I have to say is GTA 4 is one of the best games to ever grace the gaming industry period.

 

Top 5 best games ever ? f*ckING YEA!

 

Does Rockstar suck ass because they havent released a worthy patch ? f*ckING YEA!

[UndeadDevil]

GTA IV would be classed as perfect visuals if only they just blur the shadow textures and enabled AA (Who knows how they've completly disabled it, Supersampling is impossible to disable even with Defered Rendering)

 

All your points are good, and for the most part I don't see what people are moaning about here, yeah there's a few bugs. For example why does the traffic changes lanes when your flying down the middle of a bridge on a motorbike....

 

But overall, for me anyways GTA IV is running fine, better graphic quality than consoles in 1050p and its all smoth around 45fps.

 

Just a shame the GPU is soo under-utilised, plenty of spare resources for Supersampling

 

Edit: Also Super Human Strength Mod + Bodyguard Mod + Moltiv Cocktail Uzi = .......

Hehe, Console's can't have mods

Edited January 22, 2009 by UndeadDevil

[MaxAwesome]

What just happened here?

 

and nobody ever said GTA IV was a bad game. It's just a bad port. Noone ever denied tha game is full of nice little details... what's your point?

[UndeadDevil]

It's just a bad port. Noone ever denied tha game is full of nice little details... what's your point?

Its actually a fine port, its just not majorly optimized, it just needs the hardware it needed on the 360/PS3! AKA 3 Cores, then its fine, R* hopefully will sort this in a patch, but well personally i'm not holding my hopes up for another patch.

 

If you want to see a bad R* port get Bully.....

[ExitiumMachina]

It's not even a port, poorly optimized, yes...but not a port. I would imagine they kept the config files and some .dat files from the 360 version, however the rest is completly built (and hastily, one year). I'm happy with the game, mainly because I know my hardware isn't suffecient for the game and it runs at 37fps anyway. Go play Godfather, now that was a crap port...hell, almost all the files were .xbx direct from the xbox.

[chngdman]

I grew a f*cking BEARD reading this post! THANK YOU! I loved it all, but the part about deleting stuff - it's important for serps, assuming

 

But I have to say, I am otherwise in completely in agreement personally and I have been so moved that I have gotten you the largest cookie of all time. I had to go here to get it:

 

 

We left it upstate, you will need a truck:

 

 

Dude, great post, seriously, in all accounts, you turned my expectations from the topic title into something else - enjoyment.

[dayaan]

@chngdman:

Thanks a bunch! But ill just have to w8 till they give me those damn trailertrucks to go fetch the cookie

 

EDIT: It took me a whole beardgrowing year to write this but i feel at peace now knowing i can't do more.

Edited January 22, 2009 by speesy

[HotDogBun]

Why is it we can have multiple threads consisting of a Rockstar circle jerk, but if someone opens another anti-rockstar gta4 for pc thread it gets locked immediately?

[UndeadDevil]

@HotDogBun - http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=troll+wikipedia

[Drag_Drift]

Why is it we can have multiple threads consisting of a Rockstar circle jerk, but if someone opens another anti-rockstar gta4 for pc thread it gets locked immediately?

Because anti-rockstar threads are sh*t. What will 5 pages of ranting do to this forum? Everyone will just flame each other in there. Everyone is tired of that sh*t.

[zinklesmesh]

dude, the cars in GTA 4 aren't soft body. they don't flex and spring, they just snap into a damaged state (not a realistic one I might add - nothing actually bends, it's like the car loses mass. they also apply a cheesy displacement map to damaged areas to make it seem like dented metal)

if you want real soft body, check out Rigs of Rods and try my Chevrolet S10 and Lexus LS430 (they represent its abilities as a damage simulator pretty well)

Edited January 22, 2009 by Kitteh

[TruXter]

REMOVED QUOTE .... RD

 

 

QUOTED FOR THE FANBOYISM OF IT. I love the game too. Excellent post, good thing you stretched it out so the A.D.D. kids will saty out.. well at least out of the first page.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Raindancer

[nvr2fst]

Why is it we can have multiple threads consisting of a Rockstar circle jerk, but if someone opens another anti-rockstar gta4 for pc thread it gets locked immediately?

Do a count and you will see.

[ikt]

tl;dr:

Yes, IV IS awesome, but it butthurts us that noone can run it properly, so not many people can enjoy GTA IV @ 1280*1024 or higher without the lowest details and such. I've tried playing on full (norestrictions) and the game absolutely looks awesome. But playing with 5FPS sucks. But that's my problem, i'm the one using a single-core 2004 processor. But i see many people with dual and even quad-cores who can't run this game properly.

[Officer_Dufus]

dude, the cars in GTA 4 aren't soft body. they don't flex and spring, they just snap into a damaged state (not a realistic one I might add - nothing actually bends, it's like the car loses mass. they also apply a cheesy displacement map to damaged areas to make it seem like dented metal)

if you want real soft body, check out Rigs of Rods and try my Chevrolet S10 and Lexus LS430 (they represent its abilities as a damage simulator pretty well)

I looked at some of the sample videos for that game and while the physics might be great it is a "lonely" game. Imagine GTA4 without any AI peds or vehicles.....

 

Also the one video of the truck rolling around on the mountain. It looked more like jello than a truck.

[frequenco]

Wow...

 

anybody devoting THAT much time on defending/attacking a game needs to re-check his/her priorities in life!

[stifmeister]

 

I grew a f*cking BEARD reading this post! THANK YOU!

 

LOL!

 

Seriously though, I agree totally with the main poster. Problems and frustrations aside, this game is an absolute masterpiece.

[thales100]

All I have to say is GTA 4 is one of the best games to ever grace the gaming industry period.

 

Top 5 best games ever ? f*ckING YEA!

 

A positive post from AK47 ? I have to agree !

[thales100]

it just needs the hardware it needed on the 360/PS3!

It needs much more than these consoles, but looks much better too all GFX settings maxed.

[pinky]

The OP is bang on in my opinion.

I think it takes people who either mod GTA or are involved with the production of software/models etc to fully appreciate the work that has gone into IV. It isn't perfect but it's a damn good start so far.

The game seems to be even easier to mod than previous GTA titles and there was a good selection of coders/modders beginning work on it straight away, the custom tools being created so far are excellent and things can only improve.

It does suck that a high number of people can't play the game in the quality that they should, some of it programming errors and some by them being a bit overoptimistic with the minimum specs. Then those that are deluded and think their PC should PWN all when it maybe just deosn't.

But overall this is gonna be a good outing of GTA for sure.

 

I also agree about the constant whining, it could prove fatal for further GTA titles on the PC in the future. There are those who won't really care about that fact, if you are one then kindly f*ck off somewhere else and leave this forum to the true GTA fans who want to continue playing on their PC.

There is nothing wrong about sticking up for yourselves and making genuine complaints, but turning every thread into a whine/troll fest is getting old.

 

The mods should delete probably 90% of the threads in the PC section as most are utter pish and just a waste of bandwidth, you really do struggle to find the useful topics.

[mkey82]

I haven't read the whole thing so I apologize in advance if I took this out of context.

 

 

Being such a dissing PC community will only make them stop the PC production on future products and it's our loss!

?

 

* 8 month delay

* NO marketing nor media attention. ZERO hype.

* unfinished/untested game

 

Yeah, I 'm really looking forward their next PC release. In the meantime I might go and get me Bully, as to enhance my otherwise positive R* experience.

 

 

Since getting money from selling titles on PC is hard due to a lot of piracy and expensive hardware (yes, piracy ISN'T the only factor), we should be/

/have to be supportive of them!

More or less the same as above is valid, but with an addon - when you take into consideration the (quality*functionality*reliability*game price)/(hardware price) quotient, it becomes painfully obvious PC is not that expensive. For people who need such a device.

 

Beside, it has been proven a number of times there are a lot of more or less capable machines out there. And with this we're back on piracy.

 

 

I know GTA:IV had some bumps upon launch, but admit it! THE ONLY REASON YOU WERE SO UPSET IS BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T WAIT

ANOTHER SECOND TO PLAY IT AND IT IRRITATED YOU THAT IT DIDN'T WORK THE SAME SECOND YOU BOUGHT IT! AND THAT'S A SPOILED LITTLE BIT*H'S REASON!

? The very same second? You made me realize somethig about myself. I'm a little bitchy kiddie who has zero patience and sh*t for brains. Thanks.

 

Even though most other games work right out of the box (with a possible update right after release) you make it sound like it's a bad thing. People generally like to insert the disc, install the game and then play it (with a possible hitch or two). But no, GTA IV has the special procedure which sadist among us seem to enjoy.

[dafour]

Remember how GTA:III empty and dull changed into GTA:SA that was bursting with

possibilities.. now imagine where GTA:IV could go with a lot less effort and a lot more attention to detail.

 

 

 

 

 

[GamerJerome]

GTA IV is a nice game but unfortenly to much bugs . But they had to put planes and more options in it

[PacMaan]

Good post. I'm semi-hard.

[chngdman]

Why is it we can have multiple threads consisting of a Rockstar circle jerk, but if someone opens another anti-rockstar gta4 for pc thread it gets locked immediately?

Because this is not an anti rockstar forum. We're not here to sh*t on rockstar, we are here to applaud them. If you have something negative to say, don't say it here, simple as that, I suppose.

[Vicetopia]

A living, breathing city with... Nothing to do in it.

Yeah, what a boring game, finished the main story then quit.

What should I do after the main storyline?

 

Shoot Pigeons? That's a chore. And you need a map for it.

Unique jumps? Same as the pigeons.

Mini-games? If I wanted to play pool and shoot darts, I'd do it in real life.

 

It's only better than GTA3 due to graphics and physics.

Otherwise there's not enough content in GTA4.

 

Running over people?

Shooting people and cops?

Flying helicopters?

 

Yeah like I haven't been doing that since GTA1.

New features, please.

Sorry but a "masterpiece" of a game, actually has to be a game. Not just standing around admiring the cityscape.

 

On to (dare I say it) SR2.

Unlike you, I can make a point in less than 2,688 words.

Edited January 22, 2009 by Vicetopia

[METAL666]

i agree, this game is best, and reacts to users input like it would in real life.

 

and unlimited fun/comedy that never gets old.

[UndeadDevil]

 

Why is it we can have multiple threads consisting of a Rockstar circle jerk, but if someone opens another anti-rockstar gta4 for pc thread it gets locked immediately?

Because this is not an anti rockstar forum. We're not here to sh*t on rockstar, we are here to applaud them. If you have something negative to say, don't say it here, simple as that, I suppose.

No, your far from correct.

 

Your allowed to report problems you have with the game here, discuss possible solutions, etc. Saying something negative is allowed, its when the same thing is said in a couple 100 posts and certain individuals (trolls) constantly keep posting the same thing just with the intention of wasting moderators time that most of us here will get pissed off with them.

Edited January 22, 2009 by UndeadDevil

[rud]

good post, there is a lot of bad being said about the game and it's nice to pause and reflect on the good once in a while.

 

But... I don't think anyone is really dissing the artistry of the game, which as always has been masterful. Another great batch of good ideas has come in, and in many but not all ways the game surely looks much better than its predecessor.

 

I just wish they hadn't abandoned so much of what they had before, bicycles and weapon skills and what not. Also I wish they'd spent at least 1/100th as much time and money on writing actual factual system requirements as they did making the flat tire effects.

 

Vicetopia: it sounds like your sick of grand theft auto in general. I don't really think it's the games fault that you have grown tired of running people over and shooting cops. I do feel safer knowing that there's people like you on the streets though :-)