Dear mr R* sir... Why oh why do I STUTTER ?!?

[Yidakee]

Hi there. I bought this game (and an xbox xontroller for pc especially for this game!) two months ago and I still can't play !!

 

Stutter fest after 15 mins, +-5 minuts. More details below.

 

My rig...

 

Acer 6935g laptop

C2D P8600 - 2,4Ghz 3mb L2

4gb dual DDR3 1066

NVidia 9600m GT GDDR3 512 @ 1366x768

320GB 7,200 16mb cache drive SATA II

 

I am fortunate to have access to all OS's, legally.

 

I've done fresh clean installs of

 

XP 32, Vist 32 and 64, Win 7 rc1 64 and 32

 

Right now I have XP 64, but havent installed GTA 4. It the only OS left to try. Just fresh install without even my laptop's drivers, I 'll see to that tonight.

 

Fresh BIOS update, fresh clean installs, very light tweaking, like fixed pagefile and defrag, remove indexing and restore point and very few etc...

 

Used diskeeper to defrag, way better than windows.

 

Installed GTA 4, updated and defragged with contig.exe, but diskeeper does this nicely, just to double pack everything tight. This is the very first software installed. I dont even install antivirus in stutter despair now.

 

Firewall set

 

Done all "official" memrestrict commands. Done all possible non-official commandline tweaks

 

Tried copying ATI dx files over Nvidia Dx files, as per forum threads around here - no difference.

 

ooooff.. what else... AH lool... tried all official Nvidia drivers, rangin 179.x to 190.x... tried almost all, certainly all know-to-work Dox optimized, and THIS IS THE ONLY FACTOR THAT IMPROVED THE GAME SO FAR, by just adding a few fps.

 

Tried with and without Cacheman, Cacheboost, Memfix and two or three others.

 

Have a 2GB SD card dedicated to readyboost, even though my system should NOT require this at all. No difference with or without.

 

 

After 10-20 minutes I get stutters. I've noticed this especially happen on climate changes, espceially night and day. Not rain though, general ambiences. Saves games and mission conclusion too has, but its not a direct cause-effect 100% of the time.

 

On the first mission, I can run off the the second town and create hell, no significant performance decrease.

 

Ultra low settings is as smooth and stutterable and almost high settings. In high settings I'm getting aroun 25fps. In ultra low I get the same. Only if I take it all the way to the top, my fps drops to 12-14 (so my system DOES deliver)

 

My card runs for hours no higher than 60ºc - with the stress tests I've perfomed, constantly quitting and entering game.

 

While extremely frustrated and bored, When it stuttered, I cheated to get a chopper, fly to a building, sniper shoot for 10-20 minutes, and the game is right back to great performance.

 

Could someone please suggest what I should do?

 

And I bought the game because I saw it play ON MY PC for hours on end. It was not my illegal install, but I DID play for hours as it was already there (long story, young family members) and wanted to test performance. Two or three days later I went out to buy a legal copy to enjoy legalness and multiplayer and immediately removed the illegal install and installed it legally. It stuttered almost right off, but that OS was kind of bulky anyways... so I started fresh, and I've been living in frustration like you CANNOT imagine.

Edited August 21, 2009 by Yidakee

[player282]

Use commandline -noprecache. Worked for me.

[Yidakee]

Done that, nothing, but always in combo with something else

 

I just read about someone disabling pagefile. I only have M$ because of GTA 4... this is insane, but sure I will try it !

 

Do you use -noprechace by itlsef?

 

thanks!

[player282]

only -noprecache. nothing else.

[Yidakee]

Ok, I'll try that.

 

Logic says no precaching will translate in not using the pagefile.

 

But being M$, no logic is applicable LOL

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll report back soon I hope

Edited August 20, 2009 by Yidakee

[Bodom247]

Hey there,

I just got your email.. I have actually since sold GTAIV to fund music gear lol.

Anyways, when I did have it, I don't think I encountered your exact problem, although it never really did run very smoothly constantly.. It was playable definately, but just not amazingly smooth. I'd try getting the perfect balance of smoothness and nice graphics in the graphics options.. Maybe try with all settings as low as possible then trying it and seeing if the problem persists, and if it doesn't, raise them slightly and try again etc.

I also had 2gb Readyboost at the time.

Good Luck!

[Yidakee]

 

This is SOOOOOOOOO Murphy's Law..

 

 

Two month in the trying, despairing, readin readin reading reading reading forums, testing tweaks, formating AARGG

 

I finally come here to whine about it, and boom, got it fixed.

 

I still WILL NEVER BUY R* PRODUCTS AGAIN

 

 

 

Fresh install os OS, in this case Vista 32 because I tried dual booting with XP 64 and the damn bootloader was tripping no matter what - must be because of recovery partition - it was the HDD that came with the laptop. So I decided to give it a final headbutt before a clean full format.

 

So, clean install, do regular and general OS "healthy" tweaks like disable system restore, indexing, defrag, etc.

 

Was with 180.84, but went along with 185.85 Dox optimized, as I've done before with no results (not Dox to blame for sure!)

 

First time playing with the recent LIVE update, which has been 1 of the causes for lagging before, here in my system. It has been getting better update to update, but i cannot be certain since I did so many tweaks at once.

 

commandline.txt only has availablevidmem set to 2.0 and percentage to 100

 

I had cacheboost previously installed so I left it, because of undeniably working better than windows task manager.

GTA 4 was NOT set to high priority because I really like being able to healthily alt+tab to check temps and internet connection (very weak signal in my room, sometimes need to manually repair)

 

I went and DISABLED pagefile - Removed my 2GB readyboost SD card - my smiling ninja nod to you ---> « « « « « player 282 » » » »

 

Disabled all eye candy.. vista looks like XP win classic mode. set to best perfomance.

 

then I also tried in NVidia control panel, to set pre-rendered threads to 1, as I read it maked CPU run colder a few degrees - it does!

 

Disabled basically everything I could find... When I get home I'll screenshoot it and post. Anisotropic filterings, anything that had an off state got it, etc.

 

For the very first time I was able to play MP without getting "your system is to slow" - when it is sooooo definitly not slow.

 

Then I traded some emails with a guy I found on the internet with my exact same model (but better cpu) that had this running fine at 35fps with gfx overclocked. He told me he didn't get the stutters until summer came along... I'd been checking of gfx temperature but not CPU !

 

My temps do not go over the tp, not even close!

 

then I realized that I DID manage to eliminate the stutters that come round after 5-10 mins... but the stutters that come

after 20-30 minutes and / or from explosions is due to HEAVY CPU THREADING !

 

So it warms up, and it starts to hick-up.

 

I also removed the bottom cpu and HDD covers... and to my orgasmic disbelief, me and my bud played 6 non-stop hours of missions and MP.

 

On very few ocasions it started dropping some frames and halting for2 seconds... I went into the menu and went to take a pee... unpause, back to full 28-30 fps WITHOUT overclocking !

 

This with setting set to Mid and High

 

Distance a view aroun 15 and 8 (more than enough) - traffic etc... Definition on and v-sync on.

 

But I'll post some stuff later on to SHUT ALL YOU THAT SAY 9600mGT IS NOT NEARLY CLOSE ENOUGH TO PLAY THIS GAME !

 

Now, HDD is going into an e-sata case for better cooling and less interior temperature, I'll be buying a proficient cooling pad for the laptop, set everything to HIGH and VERY HIGH and show all of you arrogant teens that have better hardware and are way too opinionated that "I've got better stuff so your system SUCKS!" that you dont know half what you bark at people.

 

and I say to you... I spent 699€ buying this laptop.. brand new... ha!

 

.!.

 

To all of you who had nothing to do with my bitching, sorry for getting cought in the heat, I really had to let this out.

 

I hope someone benefits from what I found !!

Edited August 22, 2009 by Yidakee

[player282]

good job . Glad you got it working. I forgot to mention I also disabled vista 'superfetch'.

[NitroBullet]

Only an idiot would game on a Laptop.

[n11lc2]

lower your expectations

[Yidakee]

 

It is not in my nature to be this aggressive, but all of you guys are complete morons.

 

 

I have been happily playing these past days like... ooh.. 6h non stop?

 

25-30 fps without OC

 

Gradually going UP in ALL options, and it is NOT hickupping... I am almost all High with great great results. I have not bought the cooling pad yet, when I do, lowering up to 8ºC will be even nicer.

 

I play it on a projector in the living room, an experience that cannot be beaten

 

You are all idiot because this is a community of dissing and putting down. Not of helping and understanding. I did not let myself be beat. My rig ROCKS and I am sorry if you all dished out your pocket money's for ultra high end system, but that is Rocksh*its fault, not mine, and certainly this game ROCKS on a laptop with a 9600m GT 512, mind you though, the GDDR3 version.

 

I will bring proof soon.

[n11lc2]

It is not in my nature to be this aggressive, but all of you guys are complete morons.

 

 

I have been happily playing these past days like... ooh.. 6h non stop?

 

25-30 fps without OC

 

Gradually going UP in ALL options, and it is NOT hickupping... I am almost all High with great great results. I have not bought the cooling pad yet, when I do, lowering up to 8ºC will be even nicer.

 

I play it on a projector in the living room, an experience that cannot be beaten

 

You are all idiot because this is a community of dissing and putting down. Not of helping and understanding. I did not let myself be beat. My rig ROCKS and I am sorry if you all dished out your pocket money's for ultra high end system, but that is Rocksh*its fault, not mine, and certainly this game ROCKS on a laptop with a 9600m GT 512, mind you though, the GDDR3 version.

 

I will bring proof soon.

what a f*cking useless chauvinistic post, no one cares about your laptop and projector kid. I'd brag that my pc is much better than yours but i won't. "You are all idiot because this is a community of dissing and putting down. Not of helping and understanding." lmao oxymoron.

[David.]

I just can't wait to see your proof.

[Yidakee]

n11lc2

 

The only oxymoron here is you, more precicely, and oxidated moron.

 

I am not native, but I suggest you freshen up on your grammar. At best, acuse me of redundant contradiction, which I would refute anyways, since, again, people jsut read the last few posts and think they've got the whole picture.

 

You've got it all wrong. Do not confuse chavinism with extreme radiance and bliss for confirming I did not throw away what I cashed out to play this game. Do you know what chauvinism actually means?

 

I write ALL of this directly to people who have had the same issues as me, so if they stumble here and have problems, doubts about their system, whatever, they'll surely find reassurance.

 

Exhilerated yes, because I spent two months, two full-on months, strainning my eyes, going through numerous forums, in search for answers. I simply did not accept "your rig is crap, you CANNOT play GTA4 on a laptop". I am not ultra geek, but I do know enough about programming and hardware to know when not to go with the majority of high-end-users that simply can't accept this can be played on a "modest" C2D with this gfx card.

 

"ooohhh... if you aint got no quad, hasta la vista baby, yeeeeee-ha! " ... load of crappo

 

That is it, as far as my intentions go.

 

Two months, everyday coming home and trying trying trying. Asking for help politely. Inquiring joyfully as I do on a regular basis. How frustrating is it to try multiple combinations of fresh install, fresh GTA + updates, different drivers and OS tweaking?

 

You have no idea how many hours it took

 

Chauvinism implies some sort of ego trip. I AM tripping, but from excitement, because I love this series of games and I'd been waiting, since the last release, for this one. I was going to buy a PS3 only because of this game. thank God I didnt, that would have been a waste.

 

i am an active member of numerous forums regarding numerous topics. I am quite well know for helping others as I would help myself. More so, if I have time, I'll even go out of my way to assist others.

 

Wouldn't it have been easier if I'd just shut up and played the game? Wouldn't you wish that?

 

That is not a definition of community, but singularity, anti-collectiveness if you will.

 

I do, on the other hand, really feel like sticking it up their **** because there is not a single thread here that does not have some sort of hard-on, anti productive and quite frankly misleading posts and lies!

 

No wonder R* doesn't show up. Its impossible to get through to so many highly anxious teens, nearly OD'ing in their own testosterone rush.

 

I'm working long hours due to my profession, finishing up a project, maybe tonight I'll have time.

 

Anyone want any sort of special proof? Just name it ! I'll do it.

 

I was thinking of a regular youtube video showing laptop and video settings.

Edited August 25, 2009 by Yidakee