Extreme Texture Pop-in

[Spider-Vice]

Hey Rockstar, here's my video below to show you the popups and some stuttering I didn't use to have

 

 

Specs on video description

[libindi]

same here,stutter and pop in after patch 6.

[UltimateGTR]

I personally think they changed the way of handling textures to the way of XBox 360. This problem happened to me too, I got Core i7 975, 6GB DDR3-1600 and GTX280 1024MB, using Windows 7 x64, and of course high textures. I never got this problem before patch 1.0.6.0. Please don't bring in new problems while fixing the old problems with patches!

[OutOfTimer]

I personally think they changed the way of handling textures to the way of XBox 360. This problem happened to me too, I got Core i7 975, 6GB DDR3-1600 and GTX280 1024MB, using Windows 7 x64, and of course high textures. I never got this problem before patch 1.0.6.0. Please don't bring in new problems while fixing the old problems with patches!

So what you're saying to me is that with this set up (which is at least twice more powerful than my own) you still have the same problem as we do? Uh-huh... nice one, R*.

 

This is what I've been saying from the beginning - texture management is completely changed.

[Jay-Cee]

Same here... I could play GTA IV with EVERYTHING maxed out by getting around 45 FPS and no pop-ins at all, in EFLC i get the same FPS with medium settings and a view distances below 50 and massive pop ins.

 

I'm just wondering how Rockstar managed it to totally f*ck up the performance of a game which is nearly identical in terms of graphics and level architecture to another game which runs perfectly well with the latest patches on the majority of systems...???

[Badass_Cyborg]

 

Im getting this after 5 minutes of gameplay and the only way I can get the city to reappear is to load another saved game

 

I thought patches were supposed to fix things and not break things...

[kvic]

 

 

Im getting this after 5 minutes of gameplay and the only way I can get the city to reappear is to load another saved game 

 

I thought patches were supposed to fix things and not break things...

That's exactly the problem I have.

 

I tried this commandline and played for like 2 hours and it seemed to stop.

 

-noprecache -nomemrestrict -norestrictions -novblank

Edited April 19, 2010 by kvic

[Simulated-AI]

I wish i only had the popin...

 

The stuttering made my head hairless...

[Amateur111]

I experience so called "stuttering" in a "It's War" mission. I get something like 1 FPS when crew passes the bridge on the way to the battle with AOD. When I turn and go back to clubhouse from this "freeze zone" - game runs normally again. So there's some "dead zone" in the city, where games nearly freezes and runs normally when u're leaving such zone.

 

-memrestricts and other graphics tweaks don't work for me with this glitch. My specs: E8500, 4gb ram, GTX260

[OutOfTimer]

I've made a side-by-side comparison of version 1.0.3.0 and 1.0.6.0. With Patch 3 there is hardly any texture pop-in. It can only be noticed in the distance when driving really fast. With Patch 6, however, it is everywhere. Props, streets, buildings and everything else pops-in very close to the player all the time and makes my gaming experience worse than I had on my old PlayStation 3.

 

Since I use the same hardware for my comparison, it is pretty clear that something is really f*ucked up. Now, don't tell me to use Medium Textures because I used High Textures with 1.0.3.0 and had absolutely no pop-in. Also, please admit that you modified too much about the way textures are handled and totally f*ucked it up. Now please fix it.

Edited April 20, 2010 by OutOfTimer

[Extortionate]

Just a note, but from what I've seen, the XBox360 version doesn't have bad popup like some of us have. I watched a video a while back and couldn't actually see any popup.

[OutOfTimer]

 

Just a note, but from what I've seen, the XBox360 version doesn't have bad popup like some of us have. I watched a video a while back and couldn't actually see any popup.

I played the XBox 360 version with a friend at one point and pop-in was apparent only in certain scenes (and not all over the f*ucking place).

Edited April 20, 2010 by OutOfTimer

[Jimbatron]

 

Just a note, but from what I've seen, the XBox360 version doesn't have bad popup like some of us have. I watched a video a while back and couldn't actually see any popup.

I played the XBox 360 version with a friend at one point and pop-in was apparent only in certain scenes (and not all over the f*ucking place).

Hey man, seeing as this is your thread, would you be up for creating two lists edited into your orginal post: hardware and software combinations that suffer from pop-in with patch 6, and those that don't?

 

I've spoken to R* support and they said they were looking into this, but with reference to my video, they say that hasn't occured on their test machines. Seeing as they have been active in this thread, maybe we can help narrow down the problem for them? We might even spot a pattern ourselves if it is all stored in one place.

 

Here's my spec to start us off - I suffer from the pop-in problem:

 

Core i7 960 @ 3.2 GHz

6GB DDR3 System Ram

GTX 285 2GB with driver 8.17.11.9745

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

[samn]

I have the popin problem.

Intel E5200 2.5ghz

2gigs DDR2

9800GT 512mb with latest driver installed yesterday

W7 32bit

[bezbox]

Hey Rockstar, here's my video below to show you the popups and some stuttering I didn't use to have

 

 

Specs on video description

Wow, not that I don't feel your pain because I do

but I wish my EFLC (retail) would run half as smooth like your video, I envy you (funny right?)

popin and stuff is not an issue for me but I suffer from extreme stuttering, it's unplayable.

 

GTA IV used to run smooth like butter on my machine, I uninstalled it since I bought EFLC.

So I know for a fact my rig should run EFLC with out a hitch.

 

Specs:

Windows XP pro SP3

Radeon 4870 512mb catalyst 10.3

4gb ram ddr2 800mhz

Intel Q9450

an excellent PSU (forgot the exact type but it's some 500W seasonic)

 

The only thing which is different is that I installed it on the D:\ drive and not the system C:\ drive

and I could do a defrag, but GTA IV ran ok with out defraging either so...

 

I think it's clear R* need to address the issue with a patch pronto.

[FullMetal]

I used to have pop ups pre 1.5 I guess in IV but with the patch before the EFLC update/patch I didn't have pop ups at all (well, sometimes when I was racing really fast but even then they weren't annoying in any way).

 

Now, even in IV, I got pop ups all over the damn place and 5 fps framedrop overall. Also odd how most 'fixes' (changing resolutions/settings) only give you 'frame boosts' and better preformance' indoors and NOT outdoors.

 

[GTAMonkey2012_]

WekllI have tried all manner of tweaks, visual settings and so far the only way to even get near a sweet spot in EFLC is using extreme options like, shadows off, draw distance 1 (popin heaven but FPS fix) ... and well basically everything you can to make it look sh*te.

 

So ive settles with pop-ins in distance so its not so obvious (memrestrict) stutters and fps hits in areas ... I cant seem to balance it "nicely" at all and find a real sweet spot.

 

Yet IV (1.0.4.0 not patch 6 as that's just the same) has ENB, visual IV, max peds, max traffic, and the most minimal of stutters and pop-ins, with FPS that's perfectly playable and to be expected with mods .. I give up tweaking now and will play the story and just see what happens with any updates or fix suggestions later on.

[OutOfTimer]

The problem here is that R* apparently changed the way textures are handled. It seems to me that they use system RAM to offload vRAM (or maybe load most textures to vRAM on the fly) and that's the real reason we have the textures pop-in that we do.

• I've confirmed with practically everyone I could that the load time on startup has been at least cut in half.
• Most people also say they can now set Draw Distance to a number substantially greater than the one they had before.
• Before Patch 6 High Textures were recommended but after applying it, only Medium Textures are.

I'm no IT Pro but it's pretty clear to me that R* is lying and they know exactly what they did. These guys are professional programmers and their knowledge of computers is vastly superior to ours. Even the highest end machines have the same issues and I'm pretty sure that the people who don't notice it are either those who don't have any idea of what's going on or don't really care.

 

@ Jimbatron: If, after reading what I've just written above, you still want me to post those specs in my OP, I will.

Edited April 21, 2010 by OutOfTimer

[Nietzsche's God]

I have significant increase in pop ins, not as bad in that video though.

 

AMD Phenom 9650 Quad Core 2.3 GHz

 

Nividia 9800+

 

7 GB RAM

 

Vistas 64 bit

 

For the first time I was able to increase draw distance, but choose not to.

 

All in game is in Medium settings since I always like to keep everything in the green. And my FPS has dropped by at least 18 FPS. Now only getting 30.

[Summera]

I was able to run GTA IV perfectly smooth before the patch with everything maxed out and now since I installed the new patch I have stuttering issues, texture pop-in's and texture flickering.

 

My rig:

 

Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.80GHz

OCZ DDR3-1600 Tri-kit 6GB

2x ATi Radeon HD4890's in CrossFire.

ASUS P6T-Deluxe V2

 

WTF R*?

[Marcin6]

Yay R* you know how to destroy game and disappoint

[Badass_Cyborg]

 

That's exactly the problem I have.

 

I tried this commandline and played for like 2 hours and it seemed to stop.

 

-noprecache -nomemrestrict -norestrictions -novblank

I managed to fix this problem by typing this in the command prompt:

 

bcdedit /set increaseuserva 3072

 

then restart.

 

I think it only works if you have 4gb RAM and vista/win7 32bit because it enables the use of more RAM.

 

For me, all issues on GTA4 are now resolved. My commandline is empty

[Astrixone]

That's exactly the problem I have.

 

I tried this commandline and played for like 2 hours and it seemed to stop.

 

-noprecache -nomemrestrict -norestrictions -novblank

I managed to fix this problem by typing this in the command prompt:

 

bcdedit /set increaseuserva 3072

 

then restart.

 

I think it only works if you have 4gb RAM and vista/win7 32bit because it enables the use of more RAM.

 

For me, all issues on GTA4 are now resolved. My commandline is empty

What did it solve? pop ups or performence? cause i managed to do the same thing too a few days ago and it didnt solve anything and its 100% worked.

[Jimbatron]

@ Jimbatron: If, after reading what I've just written above, you still want me to post those specs in my OP, I will.

No worries now I think - also from the people who have posted specs since, I think it is clear it is not a unique hardware problem.

 

Intel/AMD users suffer

NVidia/Ati users suffer

Windows 7/Vista/XP users suffer

 

No command lines I have tried work for me, so I'm at the mercy of R* fixing it.

 

[OutOfTimer]

I think it is clear it is not a unique hardware problem. Intel/AMD users suffer. NVidia/Ati users suffer. Windows 7/Vista/XP users suffer.

That's exactly what I thought when R* said they couldn't replicate those issues on their test comps. What are they using for f*uck's sake... Macintosh?

[JohnZS]

I have some news for those in the nVidia camp.

After a discussion with an nVidia technical representative on the official nVidia forums re: GTIV and EFLC issues nVidia confirm that there is a new driver in development due for release in late May/Early June which will resolve a bucket load of issues with how this game behaves on nVidia GPU's and also resolve the notorious SLi shadow and particle effect flicker bug for those who have that issue.

I cannot speak for ATi users, but nVidia users just need to sit tight another 4-6 weeks.

 

Some of you might be interested to see an example of RockStar's Test Platform hereSome of you might be curious to see what RockStar Toronto use for testing here

 

I do not wish to troll or flame, but in my opinion an average frame rate of 24FPS is hardly what constitutes as smooth or playable, but that is just my opinion and not a fact. It is a good job Rock Star did not have shadows enabled on their test PC otherwise they would have noticed the GTX 295 notorious shadow and particle effect flicker bug which nVidia is working on...

 

John

Edited April 21, 2010 by JohnZS

[Rockstar Toronto]

The problem here is that R* apparently changed the way textures are handled. It seems to me that they use system RAM to offload vRAM (or maybe load most textures to vRAM on the fly) and that's the real reason we have the textures pop-in that we do.

• I've confirmed with practically everyone I could that the load time on startup has been at least cut in half.
• Most people also say they can now set Draw Distance to a number substantially greater than the one they had before.
• Before Patch 6 High Textures were recommended but after applying it, only Medium Textures are.

I'm no IT Pro but it's pretty clear to me that R* is lying and they know exactly what they did. These guys are professional programmers and their knowledge of computers is vastly superior to ours. Even the highest end machines have the same issues and I'm pretty sure that the people who don't notice it are either those who don't have any idea of what's going on or don't really care.

 

@ Jimbatron: If, after reading what I've just written above, you still want me to post those specs in my OP, I will.

OutofTimer please post or PM your system specs and settings.

 

- Load Times Cut in Half

I'm not seeing this at all, what are you using as a test? Loading from the Start Menu to the First Mission?

 

- Draw Distance Higher than before

This is mainly because our new shadow solution requires less VRAM then the old one

 

-Auto Configure chooses Medium Textures instead of High Textures

 

On Vista 32 and Windows 7 32 the video card drivers use up the memory in our application space. This scenario is unique to these OS'. On a 32 Bit OS this defaults to 2GB, on 64 Bit OS this is 4GB. We have no control over Video Card drivers (among other .dll's that end up in our address space due to mods and whatnot) that can change the amount of address space used with every release.

 

In our latest profiles, with High Textures we saw that the application memory was exceeding the 2GB limit in some cases so we now auto configure to Medium Textures. Now it is entirely possible that you can run High Textures on these 32 Bit Os and never see the problem due to the unpredictibility of the game (ie. if you skip a cutscene or do a mission differently) but I think even you can see the logic in our auto configure choice in this instance.

 

 

[JohnZS]

Hi Rockstar Toronto

 

I can confirm that loading are were fixed in patch 6

Pre-Patch 6 there was a bug with V-Sync enabled which caused very long loading times, (A work around was to use the -novblank, or disable v-sync in the in game graphics options).

 

Not meaning to drift too far off topic, but are you guys looking into the object pop-in issue?

It is quite hard to describe as it seems cached resources are appearing randomly, I can be in busy areas of town such as star junction and the object draw and building detail appears to work perfectly, yet in less busy areas of town such as Hove Beach or Near that old Casino place objects and texturing appears somewhat delayed and disjointed.

 

It is such a shame to see something like this take the polish off what is an otherwise good game

 

Oh and The Shadow Detail transitions appear to be rather abrupt too, almost like they are using a Bi-Linear Texture Filter as opposed to AF?!

 

Thanks again.

 

John

 

[Jimbatron]

 

It is quite hard to describe as it seems cached resources are appearing randomly, I can be in busy areas of town such as star junction and the object draw and building detail appears to work perfectly, yet in less busy areas of town such as Hove Beach or Near that old Casino place objects and texturing appears somewhat delayed and disjointed.

 

It is such a shame to see something like this take the polish off what is an otherwise good game

 

The last line sums it up for me perfectly. The frustration is increased because we know it wasn't a problem with the previous patches - so it should be avoidable, in theory.

Edited April 21, 2010 by Jimbatron

[OutOfTimer]

 

OutOfTimer please post or PM your system specs and settings. Load Times Cut in Half: I'm not seeing this at all, what are you using as a test? Loading from the Start Menu to the First Mission? Draw Distance Higher than before: This is mainly because our new shadow solution requires less VRAM then the old one. Auto Configure chooses Medium Textures instead of High Textures.

 

On Vista 32 and Windows 7 32 the video card drivers use up the memory in our application space.  This scenario is unique to these OS'.  On a 32 Bit OS this defaults to 2GB, on 64 Bit OS this is 4GB.  We have no control over Video Card drivers (among other .dll's that end up in our address space due to mods and whatnot) that can change the amount of address space used with every release. 

 

In our latest profiles, with High Textures we saw that the application memory was exceeding the 2GB limit in some cases so we now auto configure to Medium Textures.  Now it is entirely possible that you can run High Textures on these 32 Bit Os and never see the problem due to the unpredictibility of the game (ie. if you skip a cutscene or do a mission differently) but I think even you can see the logic in our auto configure choice in this instance.

Since I can often be seen complaining, I'd like to mention I'm a hardcore GTA fan who owns almost every GTA game ever released. I also consider GTA IV my all time favourite game. I honestly appreciate that R* takes time to help us.

 

Loading Times

 

I checked the time it takes for my game to load from the moment I hit "start" on the select screen to the moment I see Niko. I used "Story Complete" savegame for this test. About 10% of the times below consist of the black savegame loading screen and the rest is character artwork.

 

Patch 1.0.3.0: 1 minute 31 seconds

Patch 1.0.6.0: 29 seconds

 

My Hardware

 

 

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP 2

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz

nVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (1 GB vRAM)

Driver: 196.21

3 GB (of rather slow) system RAM

Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)

 

Benchmarks

 

 

Average FPS: 36.64

Duration: 37.07 sec

CPU Usage: 80%

System memory usage: 77%

Video memory usage: 97%

 

Video Mode: 1920 x 1200 (60 Hz)

Texture Quality: High

Texture Filter Quality: High

View Distance: 30

Detail Distance: 60

 

 

Average FPS: 41.92

Duration: 37.07 sec

CPU Usage: 82%

System memory usage: 71%

Video memory usage: 63%

 

Graphics Settings

Video Mode: 1920 x 1200 (60 Hz)

Texture Quality: High

Shadow Quality: High

Reflection Resolution: High

Water Quality: Very High

Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x4

Night Shadows: Off

View Distance: 30

Detail Distance: 60

 

Screenshots

 

This is a screenshot of my usual settings that I also used for this test.

 

 

This is how the first half a second of my game looks after I turn away for a moment. Then all the textures load to high quality. A number of objects is missing, too. None of this happens with Patch 1.0.3.0 - I go outside and everything is there in high quality.

 

Edited April 21, 2010 by OutOfTimer