More RAM or SSD

[AngryGamer94]

GTA IV runs horrible on my computer.Aside the very low frame rates(10-35fps) there's also the freezing issues.The game freezes for microsecond and every time this happens there's also a massive frame rate drop.(10-20)I even got a new GPU recently (gtx 295,found it on a sale) and it runs worse on that than my 4890.

Specs:

Asus P6T

i7 920~3.20GHz

Ati 4890/GTX 295(it runs horrible on both cards)I don't use both and i cleaned all of my drivers before changing them.

3GB DDR3 RAM

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HDD(SATA 3,64MB Cache,read/write speed 100+MB/S)

 

I 'll either add 3 more GB of RAM or get an SDD(OCZ Vertex 2 Series,read:285 MB/S/write 275 MB/S)Will that make the game more playable?

Thanks in advance

[luceberg]

Yes, 3Gb more Ram. The hard drive speed is not that important.

 

Are you running 64 bit windows?

 

Apart from that, your rig should run the game really well.

[AngryGamer94]

Yes i have 64bit windows.Isn't GTA IV a 32bit application though?Aren't 32bit applications limited to 2GB of memory?

[yoječ]

32bit apps are limited to 4GBs of memory IIRC.

[Spider-Vice]

32bit apps are limited to 3.25GBs of memory.

Fixed.

 

BTW, GTA IV IS NOT a 64 bit app, it is ENHANCED for 64-bit OS's which means it takes more processor power, giving better framerates. Anyway try getting 4 or more GB of RAM if you can afford it.

[AngryGamer94]

Thanks guys

I guess i'll just get the 3extra gigs of RAM and a game.The SSD is more expensive and i'll have to use all of my money.

[Ebernanut]

32bit apps are limited to 3.25GBs of memory.

Fixed.

 

BTW, GTA IV IS NOT a 64 bit app, it is ENHANCED for 64-bit OS's which means it takes more processor power, giving better framerates. Anyway try getting 4 or more GB of RAM if you can afford it.

There seems to be a lot of confusion on this subject but as long as you don't get into the subject of how reserved system address space is calculated it's fairly simple.

 

A 32 bit OS without PAE(physical address extension) can address up to 4 gb, however some of the addresses are reserved for hardware so you won't see more than 3.5 gb or RAM usable(but you might see less) in a 32 bit OS. In addition to this limitation 32 bit applications are generally limited to 2 gb, according to rockstar GTA IV uses PAE which allows it to use more than 2 gb when run in a 64 bit OS.

 

 

@OP: With your hardware you should be able to run the game without those issues, upgrading to 6 gb isn't a bad idea but I don't really think it will help much with GTA IV. The biggest advantage of having an SSD drive is reducing load times, but I doubt it will help with stuttering.

 

GTA IV doesn't like SLI so the first thing I would do is turn off SLI, if that doesn't work I would try different GPU drivers or different patches for the game(1.0.4.0 works the best for me), defragging the HD might help as well. If none of that fixes the problem I would try installing it on a fresh install of Windows with nothing but drivers, updates, and basic security programs installed. This is much easier to do if you have an extra partition or hard drive to install to so you don't have to trash your current windows installation.