GTA IV Performance...

[TUN3R]

Ok I'm sure there are like 100 topics about this but I'm still gonna write one cause I'm a selfish dick

 

Before I go forward, here's my PC:

 

Intel Core i5-661 3.33 GHz

Forsa GeForce 9400GT 1GB

4GB DDR3 RAM

Motherboard IDK but it was high-end, just in case I wanna change the other parts.

 

In theory, although the graphics card is pretty weak, it should be able to run GTA IV at a decent frame rate with the graphics to medium. Here's some gameplay with the graphics close to minimum (it runs the same even if textures and reflections are to lowest):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqJ_YgtEnn8...layer_embedded#!

 

As you can see it's terrible. That leads us to my question:

 

How can I better optimize GTA IV? I don't mind sacrificing graphics... bellow medium they suck anyway.

 

If it were possible I would like to have the cars look as good as they can, maybe the people (Niko at least) as well. Everything else doesn't really matter. I just want the game to run well.

 

Thanx.

 

EDIT: By the way I have 1.0.7.0

 

Also, I will get a GeForce 250 but I doubt that will be an improvement on GTA IV.

[yogeshking]

first of all your gpu is not good enough.

second if you wanna optimize use 1.0.3.0 patch and use timecyc tweak and set your resolution 800x600

now you can see noticable change in performance but quality

[personman_145]

I concur.

 

Processor-wise, I'm most familiar with AMD.

 

Is the i5 a quad core @ 3.33?

 

If so that should be plenty, I run a quad Phenom II@3Ghz. If I don't get carried away with view distance and traffic density, I average around 50 fps.

 

Edit: I just looked it up. Looks like a dual core with hyperthreading? I have no idea if GTA4 utilizes hyperthreading... If it does, you are probably good, if not, you might need a real quad core.

 

The GeForce 9400GT isn't really a gaming card though, least not these days, and was fairly low-end in its prime. If you could snag a GTX 460 1GB, it might make quite a difference.

 

Since I upgraded my CPU from a dual core 2.2Ghz to a quad core 3Ghz, and upgraded my vid card from GeForce 8800GTS to GeForce GTX 480, it has run quite well... Maybe still a little CPU limited.

 

I use high textures, high shadows, about 25% view distance, and 33% detail distance, 33% car density (this is pretty much the default the game picks on my rig) average around 50FPS, sometimes it's slower when there is a lot of traffic + shadows + architecture.

 

Not the smooth 60FPS minimum I would like, but very enjoyable.

 

Edit 2: I actually lucked out when it came to the upgrade... My old AM2 motherboard will run many AM3 CPUs. So I kept my mobo and ram, got a new AM3 cpu, new gfx card, new powersupply... Pretty nice seeing as I was used to needing a new board and ram for any substantial upgrade.

 

-Andy (MCP, former tech)

Edited September 23, 2010 by personman_145

[personman_145]

You might try running the game with a higher priority by modifying the command line for the shortcut:

 

I think you can use: start /abovenormal c:\blah\blah\LaunchGTAIV.exe

 

Try /abovenormal or /high.

 

I wouldn't expect miracles, but it might get slightly smoother.

 

You might also set all your nvidia driver options to performance.

 

Defrag, or use contig to defrag the GTA4 directories and all subdirectories.

 

Short of upgrading your system, or overclocking your system, this is probably as good as it will get. Good luck.

 

-Andy

[TUN3R]

Maybe I should have specified:

 

-I defrag the PC each week (SmartDefrag, detailed)

-I defrag-ed GTA IV with contig (or whatever it was called, right after install)

-I use GameBooster

-I have Windows 7 Ultimate 32b

 

And umm... an i5 is weaker than a Quad? Sons of bitches sold me out...

 

Anyway GeForce 480 = as much as my current parts together. Best I can afford atm is a GeForce 250, or maybe a 275 but I can't find it anywhere and I don't trust delivery services enough to order one online.

 

Wasn't there something with commandline in the GTA IV folder that I could use to make the game run better?

 

By the way is this fake?

 

 

@personman_145

 

/abovenormal in the quotes or outside?

Edited September 24, 2010 by TUN3R

[Garfield 2]

The i5 you own is a dual-core. It only has 2 cores and 4 threads. The Intel Core 2 Quad on the other hand has 4 cores and 4 threads. The i5 750 is a quad-core. You just got yourself a dual-core (which is stupid as Intel should limit the dual core range to i3s, quad-core to i5 and superquad-octo core CPU to i7.

[personman_145]

Best bet as far as an upgrade may be to look up your motherboard and see if it'll support a quad core.

 

It looks like there are some legit quad cores in the i5 range, but only models that are 700+ like the 750 and 760:

 

http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.asp...arketSegment=DT

 

We would probably need to look up your motherboard to see what would work for sure.

 

If you don't mind running with most of the eye candy down and just want a fluid experience, you may have better luck going for a processor upgrade.

 

I'm not quite positive what is limiting you more, processor or gfx. If you could grab a GeForce 250 and a (compatible)quad core processor, you may be able to have a good game going.

 

If you have CPU-Z, it should tell you your mainboard make and model on the mainboard tab. If you don't have it, you can google it and download it.

 

Let us know and we can probably pull up specs on it and see what you could do processor-wise.

 

-Andy

[TUN3R]

This i5 already costs a fortune. I won't be getting a new one anytime soon, best I can afford (with effort) is the GeForce 250.

 

Anyway here: http://img829.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=capture2x.png

[crackdawg]

It has a texture fill rate of 4.4. Around 20 and 1GB gets you 35 avg on medium settings and 25 on high. This would break the bank on a laptop, luckily this is desktop and you can do it super cheap. RAGE still does mesh calculations and texture baking on GPU even though its mostly CPU work..

 

that wasnt really hard to answer...

Edited September 24, 2010 by crackdawg

[TUN3R]

It has a texture fill rate of 4.4. Around 20 and 1GB gets you 35 avg on medium settings and 25 on high. This would break the bank on a laptop, luckily this is desktop and you can do it super cheap. RAGE still does mesh calculations and texture baking on GPU even though its mostly CPU work..

 

that wasnt really hard to answer...

And in English? I'm no geek man.

[crackdawg]

for GTA IV and EFLC you want a texture fill rate of at least 18 and at least 512 RAM. The noteworthy thing is that more VRAM only allows better quality and resolution. 512 and 18 plus TFR gets good average frames under acceptable resolutions.

 

Here are a couple resources that will save people from all the IT experts on the net:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of...rocessing_units

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of...rocessing_units

 

Internal clock cycles mean almost nothing on CPU and GPU unless you need to calculate fill or FSB rate from them..that is a common marketing ploy by people who dont know anything because other people who dont know anything repeat it and it sales surplus hardware at a profit because it has big numbers and a brand name.

 

go get a ATI or Nvidia card that has 1GB of GDDR5 and high clocks but low TFR and watch it bottle neck under GTA. Crysis and Battlefield are just FPS games, not remotely close to the mechanics of GTA. The lower nm of the GPU just means it uses less power and produces less heat basically. and 40nm is the best currently.

 

I only post here because I find semantics and marketing extremely annoying. My formula will work on anything even legacy hardware and save money. Dont buy from stores or shops either, they make money by buying cheap and selling high and nothing worth having goes over that type of market often. The specialists there are complete morons too, especially at places like best buy where a A-plus cert gets you job security.

Edited September 24, 2010 by crackdawg

[TUN3R]

X_X

[Garfield 2]

Just get a better graphics card. I own a generation if not two old 9600GT and it runs the game fine on medium textures. high shadows, bars at console settings...

9400GT is a low-end rebranded 8500GT which is almost 3 generations old now.

I'd advise you to get at least a 9800GT (due to you having dual core) and at most a HD 5770 as you won't see more speed with better graphics cards.

[crackdawg]

When IV first came out I had a 500 dollar rig which was a athlon x2, 4GB 4CAS PC6400, and a BFG 8800GT OC 512MB on a biostar M2 8100 board. Id play for days in multiplayer with good visuals at 38 plus FPS. That was on poorly optimized XP SP3 too. That card had the 33 TF rate the 9800GT had too, but heated the whole room. I ran that on a 360W PSU too with a lot of USB stuff, you dont need some power plant to use decent hardware.

 

you could build such a system for under 200 bucks now. I may do that myself, mobile stuff that will play EFLC you will find for 600 if you know where too look, that builds something insane in desktop form, especially with a zotac H55 ITX.

Edited September 25, 2010 by crackdawg

[TUN3R]

 

When IV first came out I had a 500 dollar rig which was a athlon x2, 4GB 4CAS PC6400, and a BFG 8800GT OC 512MB on a biostar M2 8100 board. Id play for days in multiplayer with good visuals at 38 plus FPS. That was on poorly optimized XP SP3 too. That card had the 33 TF rate the 9800GT had too, but heated the whole room. I ran that on a 360W PSU too with a lot of USB stuff, you dont need some power plant to use decent hardware.

 

you could build such a system for under 200 bucks now. I may do that myself, mobile stuff that will play EFLC you will find for 600 if you know where too look, that builds something insane in desktop form, especially with a zotac H55 ITX.

Mine was 727$ x_x

 

Anyway I finally have enough for a 250. Should I get that or a 9800GT?

 

I don't like ATi cards. I owned 3 of those (a 9600 256MB, a 9600 512MB and a X1800 I think) and all of them broke. I've had 2 Nvidia's (GeForce 2 and GeForce 4) and I only changed them cause they were outdated.

[mkey82]

250 is practically the same as 9800, it's just a rebrand.

[yoječ]

GTS250 is noticeably better than 9800GT. It's equal to 9800GTX+, not 9800GT.

[TUN3R]

GTS250 is noticeably better than 9800GT. It's equal to 9800GTX+, not 9800GT.

Huh? 250 I guess.

[OverTheBelow]

GTS250 is noticeably better than 9800GT. It's equal to 9800GTX+, not 9800GT.

Huh? 250 I guess.

There were three editions of the 9800: 9800GT, 9800GTX and the 9800GTX+.

[mkey82]

250 should be somewhere in between the 9800GT and 9800GTX/GTX+. I.e. a dirty rebrand.

 

How much money are you looking to spend?

 

The fact of the matter is, in the $100 price range, Nvidia has nothing of substance to offer.

 

1GB 4850 for $90 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16814121380R

1GB 4870 for $100 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16814121376R

 

GT250 should be around $100 and it's weaker then both of the above cards.

 

The closest thing Nvidia has for a proper card would be the 450

1GB GTS450 for $120 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814187120

 

Seriously, don't buy into this rebrand bullsh*t.

Edited September 25, 2010 by mkey82

[yoječ]

GTS450 is not that much faster than GTS250, so it's not worth buying either. I aggree that HD4870 is much better deal, being both cheaper and faster.

[TUN3R]

Aight point taken, but those prices are nowhere near the ones in my country:

 

These are the prices with VAT and all that stuff...

 

Radeon 4870X2 = 2200 leo A.K.A. 726$

Radeon 5870X2 = 3200 lei A.K.A 1015$

GeForce 250 = 620 lei A.K.A. 196$

GeForce 9800GT = 400 lei A.K.A. 126$

GeForce 9800GTX = IDK no store seems to have ever heard of it.

GeForce 280 = Same for this one.

 

I'm looking forward to spending maximum 200$. And there's no way in hell I'm buying another ATi failcard. It might be better in terms of performance but if it's not of any use to me broken.

Edited September 26, 2010 by TUN3R

[crackdawg]

at the end of the day the TFR and VRAM is all that matters, everyones benchmarks even reflect it. Core+memory+shader clock comparison is hilarious. Also there are new nvidia and ati cards with 1GB and 2GB VRAM that are slower than legacy cards even in the nvidia 7xxx and ati hd 3xxx range.

 

The wikipedia entries in one of my posts list all the cards, and even prove consistant when cross referencing with highly credible benchmarking sites. Its easy to blow a lot of money on a card with impressive numbers, especially with the 40nm ATI and Nvidia cards.

[TUN3R]

at the end of the day the TFR and VRAM is all that matters, everyones benchmarks even reflect it. Core+memory+shader clock comparison is hilarious. Also there are new nvidia and ati cards with 1GB and 2GB VRAM that are slower than legacy cards even in the nvidia 7xxx and ati hd 3xxx range.

 

The wikipedia entries in one of my posts list all the cards, and even prove consistant when cross referencing with highly credible benchmarking sites. Its easy to blow a lot of money on a card with impressive numbers, especially with the 40nm ATI and Nvidia cards.

 

GeForce 250 then.

[Jigglyass]

250 should be somewhere in between the 9800GT and 9800GTX/GTX+. I.e. a dirty rebrand.

 

How much money are you looking to spend?

 

The fact of the matter is, in the $100 price range, Nvidia has nothing of substance to offer.

 

1GB 4850 for $90 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16814121380R

1GB 4870 for $100 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16814121376R

 

GT250 should be around $100 and it's weaker then both of the above cards.

 

The closest thing Nvidia has for a proper card would be the 450

1GB GTS450 for $120 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814187120

 

Seriously, don't buy into this rebrand bullsh*t.

The only difference between 9800GTX and 9800GTX+ is that 9800GTX is based on a 65nm G92 chip, and has lower clocks. 9800GTX+ runs cooler and with decently higher engine clocks and shader, and will overclock better than 65nm.

GTS250 is exactly the same as 9800GTX+

 

9800GT and 9800GTX differ by only that 9800GTX runs quicker and has all of its 128 shaders enabled, vs 9800GT having 112 out of 128 functioning.

[TUN3R]

250 should be somewhere in between the 9800GT and 9800GTX/GTX+. I.e. a dirty rebrand.

 

How much money are you looking to spend?

 

The fact of the matter is, in the $100 price range, Nvidia has nothing of substance to offer.

 

1GB 4850 for $90 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16814121380R

1GB 4870 for $100 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16814121376R

 

GT250 should be around $100 and it's weaker then both of the above cards.

 

The closest thing Nvidia has for a proper card would be the 450

1GB GTS450 for $120 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814187120

 

Seriously, don't buy into this rebrand bullsh*t.

The only difference between 9800GTX and 9800GTX+ is that 9800GTX is based on a 65nm G92 chip, and has lower clocks. 9800GTX+ runs cooler and with decently higher engine clocks and shader, and will overclock better than 65nm.

GTS250 is exactly the same as 9800GTX+

 

9800GT and 9800GTX differ by only that 9800GTX runs quicker and has all of its 128 shaders enabled, vs 9800GT having 112 out of 128 functioning.

Umm kay.