Unit Deserviced Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 (edited) I am getting a stuttering/frame drop issue similar to what is described here, but ONLY when it rains in game. Before anyone suggests that I try changing texture/reflection/shadow quality, I've experimented with ALL of these options and the memrestrict command described in this post, AND updated my video drivers to the latest release, but the problem persists even with everything at minimum values. It's unfortunate that this has happened with the patch, as with the previous two versions I was getting perfectly smooth performance on high quality even during the worst of thunderstorms. Now, I'm forced to use a bed or garage to advance time to the point where it's not raining any longer, as the erratic frame drops make it unplayable. The weirdest part by far is, like I said, this ONLY occurs when it's raining. I've gone so far as to create test games where the weather is only allowed to be certain conditions, and everything else runs smoothly except for rain. If anyone else on this board, or Rockstar, has any insight for me, I will gladly try anything suggested. Thanks. EDIT: Sorry, forgot to include information that could be helpful. OS: XP Pro SP3, 4GB RAM Video Card: GTX 260 GTA Version: Steam, 1.0.3.0 Edited March 24, 2009 by Unit Deserviced Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suicidschraube Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 oh lawd, after 3 hacking months i can finally say: thank you rockstar. the game works fine now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sh1v4 Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Memrestrict command didn't help me for this stutter issue. Game was fine before patch 1.0.3.0. (I used ingame auto settings and tested -memrestrict 262144000). Specs: Windows XP SP3 1GB Corsair Ram Q9550 @ 2.83ghz 8800GTS 512M Forceware 182.08 WHQL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krycek Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 K guys I hope this will help you,the memrestrict didn't do sh*t in my case,I had terrible stutter issues after 20-30 minutes with Gta IV 1.2 and the same story with 1.3,what it worked for me was to downgrade my drivers to 181.22 and it fixed all the stuttering in my case.I can play for hours without any slowdowns now and the game works great with the latest patch. So if you have an Nvidia card and 182.08 drivers try to downgrade them,181.22 worked the best for me. It's a temporarily solution but right now although Rockstar is to blame for this I also think Nvidia has a part of the blame. Specs: Win XP Sp3 4 Gb Ram Q9400(2.66Ghz) GF 9800 GT (with 181.22 drivers now) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain_Obvis456 Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 (edited) Before I say this doesn't work let me ask if I did this right. Did I do it right? The game starts out fine and after a minute or two my frame rates drop way down. They start around 45-50 and then drop to 10 or less and I went from the game playing fine before this patch to it being totally unplayable. I have had no issues before this patch. I also tried lowering the the textures to low and using the lowest value for the low texture memrestrict and it seems to make no difference. I assume this is a condition of running out of vRAM although correct me if I'm wrong. The game also starts stuttering a lot besides the low FPS. I can tell because fraps is telling me my FPS are still in the 30s and the game is stuttering. Then I get the low FPS later. However the game never crashes. [email protected](used to be at 3.8 but got random freezes, dropping it to 3.4 stopped this when the game 1st came out.) Gigabyte P45 mobo 2GB RAM 3870 Sapphire Raedon driver 9.3 (also tried 8.12) Windows XP pro Any help would be appreciated. I've played an awful lot before the patch, since Dec 3. I've been through the game 4 times and completed all the achievements if that gives any indication. I totally love the game and am bummed that I really can't play since the patch. Sorry for big pict, Photobucket won't save resized pict. Kept everything to 1 side Edited March 25, 2009 by Captain_Obvis456 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockstar Toronto Posted March 25, 2009 Author Share Posted March 25, 2009 looks like you left out the "-" before the memrestrict. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_CP_ Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 (edited) Rockstar Toronto I use a -memrestrict 230686720 but I don't have textures. What can help to textues? Edit. -memrestrict 188743680 for LOW textues works. -memrestrict 262144000 for MEDIUM textures works. -memrestrict 629145600 for HIGH textures works. R*, big thanks, I can set textures to High and I see textures! Edited March 25, 2009 by City_Poke912 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain_Obvis456 Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 looks like you left out the "-" before the memrestrict. Thank you very much. This has cured 90% or the stuttering. If I am correct if I set the values a little lower would it get rid of the rest? Also do I have to lower it in certain increments or can I pick a lower number and test until I find one that works for me? Thanks again though I hadn't been able to play MP in 3 days and today I could again so thanks a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TiRANB Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 (edited) Okay, I try it. PS. This is movie with error I had that problem too. I restarted my PC 3 times and it worked again Edited March 27, 2009 by TiRANB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livilaNic Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 I had that problem too. I restarted my PC 3 times and it worked again Heh. Three's a crowd, get outta here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vabellabel Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 hey rockstar! what mem restrict do you recommend me using? im using medium texture and i have a 1gb gefore 8800 gt card. thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Girish Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 hey rockstar! what mem restrict do you recommend me using? im using medium texture and i have a 1gb gefore 8800 gt card. thanks! Any one of these will do; -memrestrict 262144000 -memrestrict 293601280 -memrestrict 314572800 It's a trial and error method, tbh. You'll have to check and see which one gets rid of the stuttering issue for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShamelessPie Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 Rolled drivers back to 181.22 as mentioned before. Works perfectly. Ran for 6 hours strait without dying. Kudo's to whoever mentioned that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rawzon Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 why doesnt R* just fix the problem with a patch instead of coming up with these BS solutions that people that paid $50 bucks for a game shouldnt have to do? i've tried all these stupid settings and the game still goes into a lockup after about 20 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeDuke3 Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 This game is amazing. I just found a way how to make game run allmost perfect smooth.. fresh install xp sp3 and gta 4 pc is: gtx 260, q6600, 4g ram screenshot settings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rawzon Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 This game is amazing. I just found a way how to make game run allmost perfect smooth.. fresh install xp sp3 and gta 4 pc is: gtx 260, q6600, 4g ram screenshot settings kinda crazy all the hoops you have to jump to get a game to work, i have amd2 6000 BFG 9800GT and 4gigs of ram still can get the game to play longer then 30 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kn00tcn Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 why doesnt R* just fix the problem with a patch instead of coming up with these BS solutions that people that paid $50 bucks for a game shouldnt have to do? i've tried all these stupid settings and the game still goes into a lockup after about 20 minutes. as if rockstar is in charge of everything, refer to Rolled drivers back to 181.22 as mentioned before. Works perfectly. Ran for 6 hours strait without dying. Kudo's to whoever mentioned that. a complicated giant game on incredibly varied hardware, software, drivers, users, etc is going to have hiccups what can another patch do, pick these tweaks automatically? it probably does that already, commandlines are overrides Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kvic Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 I think they should start paying people to beta test the patches before they release them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vichello Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Guys, you should try Systweak Cacheboost. It's a handy program that helps cache memory en RAM usage. Whenever I play GTA without it i get stuttering after about 30mins, with this program NO STUTTERING WHAT SO EVER, im NOT saying better FPS, im saying no stuttering. You can get the program easily from the 'web'. Just install it and let the service run on startup(not the trayicon). press 'optimze now' and 'empty cache memory' before u play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ifoxhound Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Guys, you should try Systweak Cacheboost. It's a handy program that helps cache memory en RAM usage. Whenever I play GTA without it i get stuttering after about 30mins, with this program NO STUTTERING WHAT SO EVER, im NOT saying better FPS, im saying no stuttering. You can get the program easily from the 'web'. Just install it and let the service run on startup(not the trayicon). press 'optimze now' and 'empty cache memory' before u play. I've tried this and got BSOD after a minute of play . Had to back out to the -memrestrict. Thanks for advice anyway. I'm always up for some new suggestions which might fix the stuttering and texture popping together. So far we were able to either fix the stuttering (freezing) but the textures popping stays OR we got no popping but the game stutters and crashes afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thek76 Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Hi all. not sure if my post belongs here or not. When I first start playing the game everything is fine. Then all of a sudden the game comes to a halt almost. And sometimes the sounds go funny, like tyres screeching on a loop and horns sounding constantly. My system should meet min specs, I don`t think its over heating as computer behaves normally when I get the game to end. Here are some specs if you need them. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+ Cpu Speed 2.51 GHz Ram 3.0 GB ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Thanks for looking at this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rawzon Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Hi all. not sure if my post belongs here or not. When I first start playing the game everything is fine. Then all of a sudden the game comes to a halt almost. And sometimes the sounds go funny, like tyres screeching on a loop and horns sounding constantly. My system should meet min specs, I don`t think its over heating as computer behaves normally when I get the game to end. Here are some specs if you need them. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+ Cpu Speed 2.51 GHz Ram 3.0 GB ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Thanks for looking at this i get the same thing. amd2 6000 4 gigs of ram BFG 9800gt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unit Deserviced Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 Rolled drivers back to 181.22 as mentioned before. Works perfectly. Ran for 6 hours strait without dying. Kudo's to whoever mentioned that. Just thought I would chime in and say that this cured all of my problems as well. I was even able to jack the settings up higher than I had them before without using the command line or -memrestrict, while maintaining superior performance. Kind of a bittersweet solution, but whatever works, I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
{HHx}Bud_Gld Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 This game is Bull s h i t. I run a quad and i had no probs until i put patch 1.3 in. I wasted hours with command line BS. I t is not the system it is the port. Thanks for selln me a beta and patchin it 3 times. Ill admit with patch 3 i upgraded my drivers to no help if i install the game and patch till 1.2 it runs great. But patch 1.3 with in 1-2 min it chops or stutters or what ever u wanna call it. Most forum questions are never answerd by r o ck star. but are answerd by peeps spending hours to fix there own probs. then postin fixes . So cheers to them . I run a 2.2 quad with a 3870 vid and 3 gigs of ram. cmon its not a great system but supasses all min requirements. i will give u r o cks tar another 20 bucks and u can call it a mod like e a does u no what i mean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoungGun Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 This game is amazing. I just found a way how to make game run allmost perfect smooth.. fresh install xp sp3 and gta 4 pc is: gtx 260, q6600, 4g ram screenshot settings i have the same gpu and cpu as you do with only 2GBs of RAM but I can the game at much better settings.. http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/979/gta1898607.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Th3 ProphetMan Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Is any info confirmed about how the quantity of system RAM afffects sttutering? I understand that the memrestrict command tells the game the GFX card has less memory than it actually has so that when the leak starts growing it grows on the Video ram and not the system RAM, because if SYS RAM reaches 2GB it causes sttutering. Is that it? That's the only way i can possibly make sense of all this sttutering issue and it's workaround.. Please rockstar give as an exact explanation about what causes the sttutering and how memstrict helps fixxing it so that we know how to handle it better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kvic Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 NO MORE STUTTERING I redid my entire system all new drivers,the newest direct x,installed it on it's own partition and I even got my old xbox controller working prefect ,I did have to use one of the recommended memrestrict fixes but it is running great. Statistics Average FPS: 51.24 Duration: 37.06 sec CPU Usage: 62% System memory usage: 48% Video memory usage: 78% Graphics Settings Video Mode: 1440 x 900 (60 Hz) Texture Quality: Medium Texture Filter Quality: High View Distance: 25 Detail Distance: 37 Hardware Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series Video Driver version: 6.14.10.6925 Audio Adapter: Realtek HD Audio output AMD Phenom II X4 940 Processor File ID: benchmark.cli Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikt Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 I don't even see when the game stutters. It runs at 15fps... lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PharmacisT- Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Does this "Tweak" improve FPS or something? Or is it only for ppl who have stuttering issues Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evanwier Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 This game is amazing. I just found a way how to make game run allmost perfect smooth.. fresh install xp sp3 and gta 4 pc is: gtx 260, q6600, 4g ram screenshot settings The point is... you have a quad core and a gtx 260 and have to run on all-low to get it to 'almost' run smooth. I bet you can run crysis a hell of a lot better than this, and it works a world better. There seriously needs to be a patch instead of command lines Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
