Extreme Texture Pop-in

[Extortionate]

 

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?!

This is pretty common and happens in games like Just Cause 2. It's a good way of optimising shadow performance just like LOD on distance objects.

 

The shadows do draw as you run along or drive very, very close in some cases but I've never seen this in Just Cause 2 to these extremes.

[Rockstar Toronto]

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

The only reason I turned the shadows off for that benchmark was to compare to the forum members benchmark. I normally run that machine with shadows on high.

 

I've posted before that the flickering shadows are due to a bug with SLI (they don't flicker on crossfire).

[Rockstar Toronto]

 

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)

 

OutofTimer, if you use the following commandline the memory settings will be the same as they were in Patch 1.0.3.0 (these are specific to your hardware):

 

-reservedApp 0 -memrestrict 943718400

 

I'm not sure if this will cause an RESC10 error with your current video driver, but on some machines the OS manages the memory better than others.

[Rockstar Toronto]

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*?

Do you still have everything maxed? Very High Shadows are going to be too much for your GPU's.

 

High Shadows, View Distance and Detail Distance at 50 should work get you in the 30-40 fps range. There is a bug right now with Clip Capture OFF so leave it ON until we can distribute a fix.

[EncryptedReality]

While you are here , ive got to tell you please make the game playable without having to insert disc each time , it just makes possibility of scraching my disc , ofcourse i paid for the game and dont want that to happen so what id suggest is: make it check 1-2 times and than let activated players' games run wtihout need of physical disc in drive after that.

 

Something like in old GTA IV case.

[Rockstar Toronto]

The disc check is something that was mandated.

 

If you don't want disc check get the Steam version.

[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

The only reason I turned the shadows off for that benchmark was to compare to the forum members benchmark. I normally run that machine with shadows on high.

 

I've posted before that the flickering shadows are due to a bug with SLI (they don't flicker on crossfire).

Thank you for your continued support and assistance Rockstar Toronto

 

Would you suggest that for the time being I should play the game with Shadows Disabled and No Command Line.txt? (System Spec is in signature).

I must admit I have not really noticed much difference with -ReservedApp 0 command line or not. However setting a Detail Distance to be greater than the Draw Distance does alleviate a lot of the object and texture pop up. (It is still not quite a smooth a transition as patch 1.0.0.4, but the game on the whole plays a lot better).

 

Once again, thanks for your help and I am sorry if this is a bit like facing the Lions in a Roman Colosseum.

 

Best Wishes

 

John

 

[Rockstar Toronto]

 

Would you suggest that for the time being I should play the game with Shadows Disabled and No Command Line.txt? (System Spec is in signature).

I must admit I have not really noticed much difference with -ReservedApp 0 command line or not. However setting a Detail Distance to be greater than the Draw Distance does alleviate a lot of the object and texture pop up. (It is still not quite a smooth a transition as patch 1.0.0.4, but the game on the whole plays a lot better).

 

Once again, thanks for your help and I am sorry if this is a bit like facing the Lions in a Roman Colosseum.

 

Best Wishes

 

John

I don't see why you couldn't run High Shadows on your rig and have same performance as 1.0.0.4 with Very High Shadows.

 

We have a Win 7 64 bit i7 rig here running an Nvidia 480 and we get a rock solid 35-45 with Very High Shadows and sliders set at 50/50/50.

 

You can try the higher mem restrict number as well, but it won't make as big a difference as I expect it to make on OutofTimers rig.

 

-reservedApp 0 -memrestrict 943718400

 

Again, make sure clip capture is ON to avoid the water slowdown bug.

[quechus13]

Would you suggest that for the time being I should play the game with Shadows Disabled and No Command Line.txt? (System Spec is in signature).

I must admit I have not really noticed much difference with -ReservedApp 0 command line or not. However setting a Detail Distance to be greater than the Draw Distance does alleviate a lot of the object and texture pop up. (It is still not quite a smooth a transition as patch 1.0.0.4, but the game on the whole plays a lot better).

 

Once again, thanks for your help and I am sorry if this is a bit like facing the Lions in a Roman Colosseum.

 

Best Wishes

 

John

I don't see why you couldn't run High Shadows on your rig and have same performance as 1.0.0.4 with Very High Shadows.

 

We have a Win 7 64 bit i7 rig here running an Nvidia 480 and we get a rock solid 35-45 with Very High Shadows and sliders set at 50/50/50.

 

You can try the higher mem restrict number as well, but it won't make as big a difference as I expect it to make on OutofTimers rig.

 

-reservedApp 0 -memrestrict 943718400

 

Again, make sure clip capture is ON to avoid the water slowdown bug.

Will you guys make a new patch to fix everything?

[TruXter]

Those are "extreme pop in" videos?

Helicopter pop in?

I have not played a game in 15 years that has a helicopter that does not make pop ins !

you render so much so fast at once.

 

that is ridiculous. you guys are clowning toronto pretty hard with this thread.

the ss with the red circled areas... what are you showing? antaliasing? in a pop up thread?

 

 

two of these "murky pool" shots are at least a year old. One of them has been posted here a mess load of times.

 

Extreme pop in = driving on a sidewalk and suddenly hear a crashing sound, shoot out your wind shield . turn around to see what the heck happened and you see a street sign appear slowly. This happened all the time on GTAIII and SA to me.

We never got this kind of support. So talking trash and pulling this guy's leg should be a huge no no... purely out of respect that this person is here to put effort into resolving an issue.

Some of you should go back to 4chan and post "Op here, never mind I fixed it" as often and as fast you can for the next week. when that gets old, come back here and understand this site is 10 years old.

You are doing it, we all have seen it. move along.

 

Oh and please apologize to Toronto for bsing him/her like this.

[PainlessDocMuriel]

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)

 

OutofTimer, if you use the following commandline the memory settings will be the same as they were in Patch 1.0.3.0 (these are specific to your hardware):

 

-reservedApp 0 -memrestrict 943718400

 

I'm not sure if this will cause an RESC10 error with your current video driver, but on some machines the OS manages the memory better than others.

Hi,

 

What commandline could I use to get the same memory settings as in Patch 1.0.3.0. for my hardware?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

PDM

[Jimbatron]

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)

 

OutofTimer, if you use the following commandline the memory settings will be the same as they were in Patch 1.0.3.0 (these are specific to your hardware):

 

-reservedApp 0 -memrestrict 943718400

 

I'm not sure if this will cause an RESC10 error with your current video driver, but on some machines the OS manages the memory better than others.

Hi,

 

What commandline could I use to get the same memory settings as in Patch 1.0.3.0. for my hardware?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

PDM

I've been searching across the net and the forum for this, but not had any luck.

 

Can anyone explain how the memory restrict command line works, and what the numbers mean / how you should choose them, or perhaps provide a link to a guide that does?

 

I can gather the obvious that the higher numbers translate to higher end rigs, but I was wondering precisely how it should be set.

 

Many thanks again to R* Toronto for their continued support in this thread.

[totmatte]

I would give Thanks to R* if they made a new Patch! It's NOT my task to "service" a game! that people bought...

Sorry, but that's my opinion...

[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

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.

It solved pop-ups and the performance is pretty good anyway on my radeon5870/phenom965 combo.

[Rockstar Toronto]

Hi,

 

What commandline could I use to get the same memory settings as in Patch 1.0.3.0. for my hardware?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

PDM

Hi PDM,

 

yours would be this:

 

-reservedApp0 -memrestrict 629145600

 

With the latest drivers I would expect this setting to cause gameplay stuttering but as I've said before in this thread sometimes the OS' memory management works better on some machines vs others.

[PainlessDocMuriel]

 

Hi,

 

What commandline could I use to get the same memory settings as in Patch 1.0.3.0. for my hardware?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

PDM

Hi PDM,

 

yours would be this:

 

-reservedApp0 -memrestrict 629145600

 

With the latest drivers I would expect this setting to cause gameplay stuttering but as I've said before in this thread sometimes the OS' memory management works better on some machines vs others.

 

Hello,

 

I have reverted to older drivers (Catalyst 9.10) as some user report smoother gameplay with them, unfortunately it didn't help me..

 

I would try the commandlines in the hope it would reduce the constant 'frameskipping lag'. (despite having reasonably good FPS)

 

Is there a program you would recommend that I could use to record my game in real time so I could show you this new phenomenon?

 

 

Thanks

 

 

PDM

 

 

Edit: the commandlines didn't solve the issue

Edited April 22, 2010 by PainlessDocMuriel

[Rockstar Toronto]

Can anyone explain how the memory restrict command line works, and what the numbers mean / how you should choose them, or perhaps provide a link to a guide that does?

 

I can gather the obvious that the higher numbers translate to higher end rigs, but I was wondering precisely how it should be set.

 

Many thanks again to R* Toronto for their continued support in this thread.

Basically -memrestrict is telling the game how much video memory your system has available. At startup we query the OS for this value but as some of you may have noticed the number can vary even though you are obviously not changing your video card everytime you play the game.

 

Once the game exceeds the amount of video memory available, the Os finds it from somewhere else (system memory) and eventually this causes fragmentation and the game throws up an RESC10 error because the OS can't find anymore free memory. The tricky part is that every OS behaves differently, and thats before you factor in other .dll's and drivers that also make requests from this memory pool which will be different from user to user.

 

Using -memrestrict explicitly tells the game how much video memory to use. The math is to take the desired meg number and multiply it by 1024 twice. So if we wanted to declare 600 megs of VRAM:

 

600 x 1024 x 1024 = 629145600

 

you would enter the commandline "-memrestrict -629145600"

 

Lowering this number increases stability of the game by capping the video memory, but there will come a point where there isn't enough memory to draw everything required by the game which is when you see "popping".

 

 

[Rockstar Toronto]

Is there a program you would recommend that I could use to record my game in real time so I could show you this new phenomenon?

 

 

Thanks

 

 

PDM

I'm not sure what the forums members are are using to make the YouTube videos, maybe Fraps?

 

[PainlessDocMuriel]

 

Is there  a program you would recommend that I could use to record my game in real time so I could show you this new phenomenon?

 

 

Thanks

 

 

PDM

I'm not sure what the forums members are are using to make the YouTube videos, maybe Fraps?

I have Fraps, but doesn't Fraps 'smooths' the recorded video down to 30 FPS or whatever value the user defines?

 

Perhaps I could just use my digital camera, but I presume you already know the problem I'm talking about?

It's as if the game constantly skips a frame (or whatever the correct technical term might be) when driving. Thereby creating the illusion that the traffic is 'jumping' forward instead of just moving smoothly like it did before patch 6.

Changing the display settings even to the lowest possible values doesn't prevent EFLC (Steam) from doing this.

 

Thanks for looking into this

 

PDM

Edited April 22, 2010 by PainlessDocMuriel

[slowride]

 

I don't see why you couldn't run High Shadows on your rig and have same performance as 1.0.0.4 with Very High Shadows.

 

We have a Win 7 64 bit i7 rig here running an Nvidia 480 and we get a rock solid 35-45 with Very High Shadows and sliders set at 50/50/50.

 

You can try the higher mem restrict number as well, but it won't make as big a difference as I expect it to make on OutofTimers rig.

 

-reservedApp 0 -memrestrict 943718400

 

Again, make sure clip capture is ON to avoid the water slowdown bug.

If you have an I7 with the top of the line 480 and its only pulling 35-45 FPS don't you think there's a problem? How about you guys just admit the game is completely messed up and you don't want to put forth the effort to fix it properly.

[TyPe-ZeRo]

 

I don't see why you couldn't run High Shadows on your rig and have same performance as 1.0.0.4 with Very High Shadows.

 

We have a Win 7 64 bit i7 rig here running an Nvidia 480 and we get a rock solid 35-45 with Very High Shadows and sliders set at 50/50/50.

 

You can try the higher mem restrict number as well, but it won't make as big a difference as I expect it to make on OutofTimers rig.

 

-reservedApp 0 -memrestrict 943718400

 

Again, make sure clip capture is ON to avoid the water slowdown bug.

If you have an I7 with the top of the line 480 and its only pulling 35-45 FPS don't you think there's a problem? How about you guys just admit the game is completely messed up and you don't want to put forth the effort to fix it properly.

I've got an i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz and a Radeon 4870 X2. Sure it's not the best card out there today but when GTA IV PC came out, it was pretty big deal. You guys STILL haven't been able to get the other 1GB of FREE RAM (2x 1GB GDDR5) available since this card is basically crossfired.

 

C'mon Rockstar, I paid full retail for a standalone copy of EFLC even though I own the GTA IV PC boxed copy, AND I own a launch date copy of GTA IV (PS3).

[Gilly1987]

 

Is there  a program you would recommend that I could use to record my game in real time so I could show you this new phenomenon?

 

 

Thanks

 

 

PDM

I'm not sure what the forums members are are using to make the YouTube videos, maybe Fraps?

I have Fraps, but doesn't Fraps 'smooths' the recorded video down to 30 FPS or whatever value the user defines?

 

Perhaps I could just use my digital camera, but I presume you already know the problem I'm talking about?

It's as if the game constantly skips a frame (or whatever the correct technical term might be) when driving. Thereby creating the illusion that the traffic is 'jumping' forward instead of just moving smoothly like it did before patch 6.

Changing the display settings even to the lowest possible values doesn't prevent EFLC (Steam) from doing this.

 

Thanks for looking into this

 

PDM

fraps just shows in game fps ure getting .

Majority of people use fraps when recording.

When recording with fraps it murders ure fps by about 10fps and even more

Edited April 22, 2010 by Gilly1987

[Extortionate]

 

I've got an i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz and a Radeon 4870 X2. Sure it's not the best card out there today but when GTA IV PC came out, it was pretty big deal. You guys STILL haven't been able to get the other 1GB of FREE RAM (2x 1GB GDDR5) available since this card is basically crossfired.

C'mon Rockstar, I paid full retail for a standalone copy of EFLC even though I own the GTA IV PC boxed copy, AND I own a launch date copy of GTA IV (PS3).

That's an SLI issues and nothing to do with Rockstar. SLI doesn't combine vram, so really you all ways have the vram on one card not both.

[TyPe-ZeRo]

 

I've got an i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz and a Radeon 4870 X2. Sure it's not the best card out there today but when GTA IV PC came out, it was pretty big deal. You guys STILL haven't been able to get the other 1GB of FREE RAM (2x 1GB GDDR5) available since this card is basically crossfired.

C'mon Rockstar, I paid full retail for a standalone copy of EFLC even though I own the GTA IV PC boxed copy, AND I own a launch date copy of GTA IV (PS3).

That's an SLI issues and nothing to do with Rockstar. SLI doesn't combine vram, so really you all ways have the vram on one card not both.

Of course SLI/Crossfire doesn't combine VRAM, and I'm no coder but I think autodetecting systems with SLI/Crossfire enabled through software and splitting texture load on both banks of memory wouldn't be that hard to do from THEIR end.

 

It's up to ROCKSTAR to make Crossfire/SLI systems work because it is THEIR software that's having trouble accessing the hardware.

Edited April 22, 2010 by TyPe-ZeRo

[BKwegoharder]

I've got an i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz and a Radeon 4870 X2. Sure it's not the best card out there today but when GTA IV PC came out, it was pretty big deal. You guys STILL haven't been able to get the other 1GB of FREE RAM (2x 1GB GDDR5) available since this card is basically crossfired.

C'mon Rockstar, I paid full retail for a standalone copy of EFLC even though I own the GTA IV PC boxed copy, AND I own a launch date copy of GTA IV (PS3).

That's an SLI issues and nothing to do with Rockstar. SLI doesn't combine vram, so really you all ways have the vram on one card not both.

Of course SLI/Crossfire doesn't combine VRAM, and I'm no coder but I think autodetecting systems with SLI/Crossfire enabled through software and splitting texture load on both banks of memory wouldn't be that hard to do from THEIR end.

 

It's up to ROCKSTAR to make Crossfire/SLI systems work because it is THEIR software that's having trouble accessing the hardware.

That would be impossible because of the way sli and crossfire works. Only ATi and Nvidia would be able to make a system that does something like that. But they won't and the reason why is because that would most likely negatively effect performance since a HUGE amount of data will be constantly swapped back and forth over the pci express bus. And it's simply not fast enough to handle something like that.

[TyPe-ZeRo]

 

I've got an i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz and a Radeon 4870 X2. Sure it's not the best card out there today but when GTA IV PC came out, it was pretty big deal. You guys STILL haven't been able to get the other 1GB of FREE RAM (2x 1GB GDDR5) available since this card is basically crossfired.

C'mon Rockstar, I paid full retail for a standalone copy of EFLC even though I own the GTA IV PC boxed copy, AND I own a launch date copy of GTA IV (PS3).

That's an SLI issues and nothing to do with Rockstar. SLI doesn't combine vram, so really you all ways have the vram on one card not both.

Of course SLI/Crossfire doesn't combine VRAM, and I'm no coder but I think autodetecting systems with SLI/Crossfire enabled through software and splitting texture load on both banks of memory wouldn't be that hard to do from THEIR end.

 

It's up to ROCKSTAR to make Crossfire/SLI systems work because it is THEIR software that's having trouble accessing the hardware.

That would be impossible because of the way sli and crossfire works. Only ATi and Nvidia would be able to make a system that does something like that. But they won't and the reason why is because that would most likely negatively effect performance since a HUGE amount of data will be constantly swapped back and forth over the pci express bus. And it's simply not fast enough to handle something like that.

lmao, SO WHY ARE THESE MULTI GPU SINGLE BOARD CARDS BEING PRODUCED IF NO ONE CAN MAKE USE OF THE EXTRA MEMORY?

 

Why not just make 4870 X2 1GB EDITION and that's it? Clearly other software producers can make use of the hardware and others can't. Given the track record of Rockstar's history of GTA IV, I think it's safe to play the "We did a crappy port and our job is only to do damage control, not tweak and enhance PC specific PC hardware" card. Besides, ATI and nVidia's role is hardware design. Not software so why would it be their job for any of this? Their job is only to make sure the hardware works and if it didn't it would've been addressed like the infamous ATI long loading times for Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Edited April 22, 2010 by TyPe-ZeRo

[PainlessDocMuriel]

...uploading video...

 

Edited April 22, 2010 by PainlessDocMuriel

[totmatte]

Answer. Rockstar should make a new Patch with the quality of the 1.0.4.0 and 1.0.5.0 !!! Nobody had problems with those patches...

That's it. And then, we can play smooth, without texture pop-ins and other texture problems, and not wasting time here, to find the solution... We Paid for it! TO PLAY. not to solve problems after we bought it...

[mva5580]

Well I definitely notice the same things as people are posting here, namely:

 

- Load time is increased

- Much more texture pop-in

 

The game runs smoothly, but the texture pop-in is so much more frequent than the most recent patch, obviously something was changed between then and now. My system is:

 

- AMD 9950 quad core

- 4gb RAM

- AMD 4870 1gb

 

I play on high textures at 1920 x 1080. My draw distance is 35. High shadows. The game runs smoothly but the texture pop-in is a huge difference, and a bit of a downer. The game ran fine before the patch for me, other than shadows giving me issues. The shadows work fine now, but now I have this texture pop-in thing to deal with. It's always something.

[Rockstar Toronto]

If you have an I7 with the top of the line 480 and its only pulling 35-45 FPS don't you think there's a problem? How about you guys just admit the game is completely messed up and you don't want to put forth the effort to fix it properly.

We have no set "cap" on how much the game will render or how fast it can run.

 

On this same rig we can configure the game to run a sustained 185 fps. We allow the user to tailor their experience based on what they personally want out of the game within the limits of the hardware they have. This is what we beleive the PC gamer wants.

 

The game looks and plays amazing with the settings we have dialed in on the i7 machine that is hitting 35-45 fps. If we wanted it to run at 55fps we can change the settings to achieve this but we have to lower some settings due to the constraints of the current hardware.

 

We've tried to convey this by telling the user how each setting influences the CPU and GPU.