Texture Popping on High End PC

[Rycon]

Alright Il make this simple, im sure this has come up before but I couldn't find it, so I apologize.

 

Ive just built a new PC and everything is running great, ive got GTA4 1.0.7.0 on almost max settings. But no matter what I seem to set them at, I seem to be having texture popping issues, everything loads just fine, its just the slight stutter it takes to load them in the distance, and when your driving fast it just doesn't feel smooth. Everything else seems to run very smoothly, its just when I make the game load textures by driving fast or whirling around the camera it stutters slightly. I have 2 regular drives (Sata2) in RAID 0 on an Intel controller. What can I do to help smooth this issue out? Is it simply because I dont have SSD drives? I dont SEEM to have any issues with other games.

 

 

Win 7 64.

Intel I7 930, water cooled.

6 gigs tri-channel 667mhz memory

Radeon HD 5850.

All latest drivers.

 

Thank you for any help or advice you can offer!

[Astrixone]

Alright Il make this simple, im sure this has come up before but I couldn't find it, so I apologize.

 

Ive just built a new PC and everything is running great, ive got GTA4 1.0.7.0 on almost max settings. But no matter what I seem to set them at, I seem to be having texture popping issues, everything loads just fine, its just the slight stutter it takes to load them in the distance, and when your driving fast it just doesn't feel smooth. Everything else seems to run very smoothly, its just when I make the game load textures by driving fast or whirling around the camera it stutters slightly. I have 2 regular drives (Sata2) in RAID 0 on an Intel controller. What can I do to help smooth this issue out? Is it simply because I dont have SSD drives? I dont SEEM to have any issues with other games.

 

 

Win 7 64.

Intel I7 930, water cooled.

6 gigs tri-channel 667mhz memory

Radeon HD 5850.

All latest drivers.

 

Thank you for any help or advice you can offer!

Have you seen this happening on other games? If so, than it something with your computer and i am not sure there is any solution. I got the same problem, on GTA IV, EFLC, AC2, BFBC2, even on the new Mafia II demo.

[Rachpoil]

Is your HD 5850 the 1GB VRAM version. If so, try putting all the quality settings to high and the view distance to below 50. If you have the 2GB of VRAM on your HD 5850, just try putting the view distance to below 50 and if you still have issues try also lowering the shadows setting to high.

 

You have the latest drivers installed for your hardware?

 

I don't think that having solid state drives instead would resolve your stutter problem. I did not noticed if GTA IV uses the hard disk a lot when running. If so SSD could help but i don't think it would completely get rid of the stutter problem. SSD will give benefit in games that uses the hard disk intensively; in some games SSD offers practically no improvements.

 

For what it's worth, i heard that using HD 5XXX series in CrossFire create stutter in GTA IV (probably a driver issue) but it seem that you have a single card.

Edited August 14, 2010 by Rachpoil

[Rycon]

No I don't seem to have trouble with other games, like Bad Company 2.

 

Im not running SLI. I have 1 gig vram version. I will try those texture settings, I appreciate the help. Mabye its just the tiny processing lag it takes for high res textures, I will be overclocking soon, but I kinda doubt its CPU.

 

Do I need to do any command lines or anything?

[Rachpoil]

 

No I don't seem to have trouble with other games, like Bad Company 2.

 

Im not running SLI. I have 1 gig vram version. I will try those texture settings, I appreciate the help. Mabye its just the tiny processing lag it takes for high res textures, I will be overclocking soon, but I kinda doubt its CPU.

 

Do I need to do any command lines or anything?

Now that you mention it, I remember hearing from RockStar_Totonto that a command line can help improve the game. I will try to retrieve that post.

 

I found the link. It is for texture popping but it would not hurt to try it:

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=445554

 

Hope it help.

Edited August 14, 2010 by Rachpoil

[viometrix]

the other games you mention are not sandbox games, even on the best of the best systems you will get texture pop in. there is nothing you can do, its coded that way. some command lines minimize it, better yet visual packs help in a big way like visualiv and ultimate graphics tweak. so sorry to give you bad news, but it is the truth.

[Jimbatron]

If you are not bothered about multiplayer, try installing Patch 4 or 5 instead. Pop-in got noticably worse from Patch 6 and 7 on mine.

[OutOfTimer]

What you describe seems to be the exact same problem I had. I was lucky enough to have it solved with command lines provided by R* Toronto. My computer is much weaker than yours but I can still run everything on max settings and have no issues up to 1.0.3.0. From that point the game started to fall apart. By today's standards, GTA IV is not that much of a resource hog anymore. The problem is, it is very unoptimized and unstable, so it may run very bad even on the most powerful systems for no apparent reason.

 

 

If you are not bothered about multiplayer, try installing Patch 4 or 5 instead. Pop-in got noticeably worse from Patch 6 and 7 on mine.

^ This. Except that it's safer to try 1.0.3.0 because it was the last patch not designed with EFLC compatibility in mind. Either find proper command lines or downgrade. There is no other option I can think of.