Low and Medium Textures

[uk_john]

I was able to play GTA IV on Medium with my AthlonXP 5600 (2.8ghz dual core CPU) 2GB DDR2 (600mhz) RAM and 8600GT 256mb, albeit with a little choppiness and pop-in every now and again. After playing a couple weeks and Manhattan being opened to me, I got a bit fed up with the pop in and went down to Low Textures, which meant of course raising other settings.

 

What surprised me was how similar Low Textures with improved sub settings was compared to Medium Textures. Given the smoother game with no pop in, I felt overall that Low Textures was better!

 

I have seen GTA IV running on High Textures,and there's no comparison, but between Low and Medium Textures I am not so sure at all!

 

So if you have been struggling a little on Medium Textures, do yourself a favour and try Low Textures - you may be surprised how similar they are!

 

We have been trained that it's always better if you can play at higher settings, and many games set at Low are quite worse than set at Medium, I just don't think GTA IV is one of them!

[Stalkertr]

Believe me , it is not .. Low and meduim settings are both different... I played and saw it (That's my opinion though)

[EncryptedReality]

It takes a good machine to be able to play decently.

[Hydro_PT]

LOW textures are way worse than MEDIUM ones. I played with both and the LOW settings just show blurred textures everywhere. With MEDIUM I don't see that, but they're still not HD. With HIGH, you get really good textures.

 

There's a lot of difference between LOW and MEDIUM in GTA IV, believe me.

[faro0485]

Since you're experiencing hassle with the medium textures, you're not going to notice the quality of the high. And then again they're not going to load as high detailed most of the time. But when it comes to quality, medium is much better than low, for higher resolutions. And high is even still better for those with even higher resolution. But for those who want more will desire for more.

[n11lc2]

ever since i got a 1gb card i cant go back to medium textures

[Jc84144]

I was able to play GTA IV on Medium with my AthlonXP 5600 (2.8ghz dual core CPU) 2GB DDR2 (600mhz) RAM and 8600GT 256mb, albeit with a little choppiness and pop-in every now and again. After playing a couple weeks and Manhattan being opened to me, I got a bit fed up with the pop in and went down to Low Textures, which meant of course raising other settings.

 

What surprised me was how similar Low Textures with improved sub settings was compared to Medium Textures. Given the smoother game with no pop in, I felt overall that Low Textures was better!

 

I have seen GTA IV running on High Textures,and there's no comparison, but between Low and Medium Textures I am not so sure at all!

 

So if you have been struggling a little on Medium Textures, do yourself a favour and try Low Textures - you may be surprised how similar they are!

 

We have been trained that it's always better if you can play at higher settings, and many games set at Low are quite worse than set at Medium, I just don't think GTA IV is one of them!

 

I'm guessing when you had textures on "Medium" you had a low setting for the Texture Filter Quality, and now you've gone to "Low" texture setting you raised the Texture Filter Quality setting? In that case, yes it would probably look better on low textures than medium. But seriously... no one should be using a setting lower than "high" for texture filter quality, as anything lower just looks awful.

 

If you stick Texture Filter Quality to Highest, and go back to Medium Textures, you'll see the big difference between low and medium.

[Extortionate]

ever since i got a 1gb card i cant go back to medium textures

Yep, I have a 512mb card and use High texture settings all the time, can't stand mushy textures. I can live with the slight performance decrease.

[blood_hound]

same here with extortionate actually my game is set at first to low and still has crappy FPS, so i went to medium, still crappy to high... crappy.. but at the same time the framerates are stable to 19 - 20, it get's decreased whenever i go very very fast but it'll do i also experienced this that i thought low textures are just like high, but the fact is when i look at niko's clothing, it's very very ugly, so i setted to high

[uk_john]

 

@Jc84144

 

You're pretty spot on If I play Low Textures that allows me to have shadows on medium rather than low, water quality on high instead of low, distance draw at 48 instead of 31 and detail goes to 48 too from31. It also allows Texture Filtering to be set at highest instead of medium. I have also discovered that I can use the Ultimate Graphic mod and still have decent FPS, so I think all these 'upping the extras' makes up for having Low Textures.

 

I must admit, on my 22" LCD, the graphics are not muddy and indistinct at all. Mind you I have DOF and Bloom turned off, so that helps clarity!

 

I will still stick with my argument, that when you look at the difference between Low and Medium in most games, there is quite a difference, but with GTA IV the difference isn't as great.