Performance tips - 2011

[ikt]

Introduction

After about 2 years of GTA IV on the PC, I still see people with trouble running the game. Here's a guide I made in an explosion of insane madness. It takes mid-end computers from mid 2009 as a basis. 2 years old at the time of writing and GTA IV works wonderfully on it. People with much older hardware (4 years old) could use the guide too, but with lower settings. Newer computers that are weak could use the guide too. Newer computers with good decent hardware shouldn't get bad performance at all, but if you are, chances are you have your setting a notch too high.

Feel free to add, modify or disprove it, if you have enough factual arguments and it will really help people. If not, please, don't. Thank you!

(as for the mods, feel free to modify the guide to something less rude)

 

The guide

1. Get decent hardware. Not top of the notch, but something mid-end should do really well.

2. If you have over 4GBs of RAM (and you should have), install Windows Vista 64-bit with the latest SP and update it. Same procedure with Windows 7. Install the newest DirectX and drivers for your graphics card. If you have the guts and somehow are cheap and bought a cheap graphics card, overclock it. You don't need al those fancy autostart programs, unless you're mentally and physically handicapped or you have the same work scheme as Bill Gates his bank account, you don't need autostarts. Also don't install any antivirus software, this makes your computer slow because of active scanning and sh*t. Also disable Windows Firewall and all other security measures. Unless you're either operating on NASAs network or downloading porn from shady websites instead of streaming it via big youtube-like porn websites, you're pretty safe.

3. Install the game if you haven't done it before.

4. If you don't play MP, install Patch 3 or 4. These patches are compatible with most mods and they're running pretty well, offering the best shadow quality vs performance (compared to patch 6 and 7).

5. Now, get CCleaner and completely clean everything that is cleanable. CLEAN. DO IT. Registers, unneccesary autostarts.

6. Defrag using Defraggler. Defrag every partition/drive that is used by your system. (C: AND the drive GTA IV is on

 

Now you finally can play GTA IV!

 

NO

More setting upcoming.

 

Now launch GTA IV. Get into the graphics options menu (after loading the game). Here's what we're going to do, providing you have a mid end computer. Some reasonable sane settings that will not decrease quality a lot from maxed.

 

Resolution, refresh rate and AR: Your monitors default.

Reflection: High. Do not go to Very High, since the reflections are f*cked up anyway, you won't notice a single bit with a default game.

Water: High. This looks very okay. Very high seems to offer only more ripples on the water. Medium messes up water reflection.

Shadow: To your likings. I recommend High, since it looks the prettiest while still maintaining a nice framerate.

Texture Filter quality: Highest. Graphic cards nowadays shouldn't have any trouble running 16x AF.

View Distance: Slide it untill you're well 100 BELOW the maximum allowed. If you have a big VRAM and a medium graphics card, do not go higher than 40. If both are high, tops 60. More than that and you won't see anything improve. It also eats a lot of resources, so go as low as possible.

Detail distance: about 50 should do very well. But same as above, go as low as possible of what you think is acceptable for gameplay.

Vehicle density: your choice, better keep it below 60 or you'll be finding yourself in traffic jams everywhere.

Shadow density: if you have a strong GPU, abything is okay. for weaker GPU's, 0. You won't notice a lot of difference anyway during playing.

Defenition: Off for DoF and motionblur, ON if you like everything crisp and clear. Off is recommended for framerates lower than 40FPS. It smoothens movement when driving.

Vsync: Should be OFF. Vsync ON makes loading times much longer and caps your FPS.

 

 

If your computer is below the following specs, forget it and go play GTA SA or something.

Dual core CPU clocked at 2.6GHz. (The higher your CPU clock, the better performance you'll get. If you have one core, forget it. If you have 6 cores at 1.6GHz, forget it. Get at least 3 cores at 2.5GHz and you're in. GTA IV doesn't profit a lot from more than 3 cores.)

3GB RAM (2GB is very close to not enough).

Equivalent to 9600GT for very minimum. Below that and the GPU is just too weak. Also 256MB VRAM MINIMUM (and count on low textures with that (those are ugly)). 128MB just doesn't cut it. 1GB recommended for high textures, 512MB for medium works well.

It's also very important the computer components match eachother. You can't play anything with an Intel Core i7 990x while having a 8400GT graphics card, neither does it work the other way around. If you're going to spend, spend wisely and don't have any overkills and insuffiecent components in relation to eachother.

 

Keep in mind that Rockstar their minimum specs sums up the hardware to be able to play everything on LOW/OFF. Recommended is about the same settings the consoles have, and console options aren't very high.

Edited June 23, 2011 by ikt

[OverTheBelow]

Consider adding some bold tags to the listen graphical options with the descriptions unbolded, would make it alot more pleasant to read because right now it just looks like an huge wall of text.

 

 

Also, Shadow Density seems to be very very very dependant on the CPU - atleast in my experience. Though I haven't really looked into it much, the feature performs like crap for me either way so I keep it off.

Edited June 22, 2011 by OverTheBelow

[Prometheus]

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about more than 3 cores

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

 

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

With vsync off I noticed and increase in FPS, also FASTER loading.

 

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about less than 3 cores

Fixed it for you.

 

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

equivalent to your card? nah, I temp used a 9500GT, playing on high w/ all sliders 100, getting 30 FPS, but hey, it wasn't fair, since the CPU was very good.

[ikt]

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about more than 3 cores

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

 

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

With vsync off I noticed and increase in FPS, also FASTER loading.

 

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about less than 3 cores

Fixed it for you.

 

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

equivalent to your card? nah, I temp used a 9500GT, playing on high w/ all sliders 100, getting 30 FPS, but hey, it wasn't fair, since the CPU was very good.

Thanks, cleared up the language.

Vsync: I meant what you said.

Frequency: If more than 4 cores you won't notice any improvements. But you'll get stuck with lower frequencies and many cores. Less cores than 2 also will give you a bit of trouble.

GPU: With a dual/tri core setup and a 9500GT you won't get very good performance. But I'll edit it. Saw some other people playing on high/medium with that card.

[Prometheus]

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about more than 3 cores

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

 

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

With vsync off I noticed and increase in FPS, also FASTER loading.

 

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about less than 3 cores

Fixed it for you.

 

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

equivalent to your card? nah, I temp used a 9500GT, playing on high w/ all sliders 100, getting 30 FPS, but hey, it wasn't fair, since the CPU was very good.

Thanks, cleared up the language.

Vsync: I meant what you said.

Frequency: If more than 4 cores you won't notice any improvements. But you'll get stuck with lower frequencies and many cores. Less cores than 2 also will give you a bit of trouble.

GPU: With a dual/tri core setup and a 9500GT you won't get very good performance. But I'll edit it. Saw some other people playing on high/medium with that card.

Believe me, 4 cores, is MUCH better than 2 cores. You can look at some benchmarks.

 

And for the 9500GT, since the processor is quad-core (not any quad core) , but is was a temp video card anyway.

 

Also, the overclocking part is right, the slightest overclock gives you an increase in the game perfromance, which shows you that the game is CPU dependant, and 4 cores is much better than 2 cores only.

 

Did you/anyone try it on XP & 7? was there any difference?

[ikt]

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about more than 3 cores

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

 

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

With vsync off I noticed and increase in FPS, also FASTER loading.

 

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about less than 3 cores

Fixed it for you.

 

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

equivalent to your card? nah, I temp used a 9500GT, playing on high w/ all sliders 100, getting 30 FPS, but hey, it wasn't fair, since the CPU was very good.

Thanks, cleared up the language.

Vsync: I meant what you said.

Frequency: If more than 4 cores you won't notice any improvements. But you'll get stuck with lower frequencies and many cores. Less cores than 2 also will give you a bit of trouble.

GPU: With a dual/tri core setup and a 9500GT you won't get very good performance. But I'll edit it. Saw some other people playing on high/medium with that card.

Believe me, 4 cores, is MUCH better than 2 cores. You can look at some benchmarks.

 

And for the 9500GT, since the processor is quad-core (not any quad core) , but is was a temp video card anyway.

 

Also, the overclocking part is right, the slightest overclock gives you an increase in the game perfromance, which shows you that the game is CPU dependant, and 4 cores is much better than 2 cores only.

 

Did you/anyone try it on XP & 7? was there any difference?

I haven't tried XP on this computer, but on another computer a while back (Pentium 4 @ 3.2GHz, 2GB RAM and HD4830) Windows 7 didn't any much improvement, neither did it hurt the performance. It was just exactly the same. I do recommend Windows 7 overall, since it is MUCH easier on drivers, USB peripheral drivers are easy (Windows searches for them on Windows update) and overall maintenance is easier.

 

Somebody please compare the operating systems on a decent computer. And please, do compare good maintained installs. No fanboying, comparing a clogged up XP against a fresh Windows 7 or the other way around. It's just not fair for other people.

[Prometheus]

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about more than 3 cores

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

 

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

With vsync off I noticed and increase in FPS, also FASTER loading.

 

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about less than 3 cores

Fixed it for you.

 

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

equivalent to your card? nah, I temp used a 9500GT, playing on high w/ all sliders 100, getting 30 FPS, but hey, it wasn't fair, since the CPU was very good.

Thanks, cleared up the language.

Vsync: I meant what you said.

Frequency: If more than 4 cores you won't notice any improvements. But you'll get stuck with lower frequencies and many cores. Less cores than 2 also will give you a bit of trouble.

GPU: With a dual/tri core setup and a 9500GT you won't get very good performance. But I'll edit it. Saw some other people playing on high/medium with that card.

Believe me, 4 cores, is MUCH better than 2 cores. You can look at some benchmarks.

 

And for the 9500GT, since the processor is quad-core (not any quad core) , but is was a temp video card anyway.

 

Also, the overclocking part is right, the slightest overclock gives you an increase in the game perfromance, which shows you that the game is CPU dependant, and 4 cores is much better than 2 cores only.

 

Did you/anyone try it on XP & 7? was there any difference?

I haven't tried XP on this computer, but on another computer a while back (Pentium 4 @ 3.2GHz, 2GB RAM and HD4830) Windows 7 didn't any much improvement, neither did it hurt the performance. It was just exactly the same. I do recommend Windows 7 overall, since it is MUCH easier on drivers, USB peripheral drivers are easy (Windows searches for them on Windows update) and overall maintenance is easier.

 

Somebody please compare the operating systems on a decent computer. And please, do compare good maintained installs. No fanboying, comparing a clogged up XP against a fresh Windows 7 or the other way around. It's just not fair for other people.

I myself will try it, since i'm reinstalling Windows 7 anyway, and you can use Windows XP mode on Windows 7 (Use an emulator-like program to run Win XP in 7).

[OverTheBelow]

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about more than 3 cores

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

 

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

With vsync off I noticed and increase in FPS, also FASTER loading.

 

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about less than 3 cores

Fixed it for you.

 

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

equivalent to your card? nah, I temp used a 9500GT, playing on high w/ all sliders 100, getting 30 FPS, but hey, it wasn't fair, since the CPU was very good.

Thanks, cleared up the language.

Vsync: I meant what you said.

Frequency: If more than 4 cores you won't notice any improvements. But you'll get stuck with lower frequencies and many cores. Less cores than 2 also will give you a bit of trouble.

GPU: With a dual/tri core setup and a 9500GT you won't get very good performance. But I'll edit it. Saw some other people playing on high/medium with that card.

Believe me, 4 cores, is MUCH better than 2 cores. You can look at some benchmarks.

 

And for the 9500GT, since the processor is quad-core (not any quad core) , but is was a temp video card anyway.

 

Also, the overclocking part is right, the slightest overclock gives you an increase in the game perfromance, which shows you that the game is CPU dependant, and 4 cores is much better than 2 cores only.

 

Did you/anyone try it on XP & 7? was there any difference?

3 cores is much better than 2 cores in terms of performance (by far, it was night and day difference for me). Quad core is no different whatsoever compared to a tri-core with GTA 4, unless the architecture is different or you're running a load of CPU-intensive programs in the background while playing.

 

The game is only programmed to use 3 cores, and because of this it will choke itself on higher settings if the clock speed isn't high enough.

 

 

Also, statements like this:

 

I temp used a 9500GT, playing on high w/ all sliders 100, getting 30 FPS

are extremely inaccurate or unclear. How do we know you weren't playing at 800x600 in the airport with traffic and peds disabled etc? Because maybe then it'd be possible. Or perhaps Fraps read 30fps, but you were getting extreme stutter (no doubt due to the lack of VRAM - in result relying on your system RAM). Seriously, it annoys me when people think it is correct for them to say "HERP i play at 60fps on my intel HD on MAX SETTINGS" because they were playing in the airport with everything disabled at a puny resolution.

 

Even I don't get 30fps in normal gameplay on completely max settings (shadows, sliders, density the whole lot), but that's at 1080p. And it stutters like sh*t.

[Prometheus]

 

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about more than 3 cores

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

 

Vsync: OFF. Enabling this only makes loading very long.

With vsync off I noticed and increase in FPS, also FASTER loading.

 

GTA IV loves frequencies and doesn't give a sh*t about less than 3 cores

Fixed it for you.

 

Equivalent to 9600GT. Below that and the GPU is just too weak.

equivalent to your card? nah, I temp used a 9500GT, playing on high w/ all sliders 100, getting 30 FPS, but hey, it wasn't fair, since the CPU was very good.

Thanks, cleared up the language.

Vsync: I meant what you said.

Frequency: If more than 4 cores you won't notice any improvements. But you'll get stuck with lower frequencies and many cores. Less cores than 2 also will give you a bit of trouble.

GPU: With a dual/tri core setup and a 9500GT you won't get very good performance. But I'll edit it. Saw some other people playing on high/medium with that card.

Believe me, 4 cores, is MUCH better than 2 cores. You can look at some benchmarks.

 

And for the 9500GT, since the processor is quad-core (not any quad core) , but is was a temp video card anyway.

 

Also, the overclocking part is right, the slightest overclock gives you an increase in the game perfromance, which shows you that the game is CPU dependant, and 4 cores is much better than 2 cores only.

 

Did you/anyone try it on XP & 7? was there any difference?

3 cores is much better than 2 cores in terms of performance (by far, it was night and day difference for me). Quad core is no different whatsoever compared to a tri-core with GTA 4, unless the architecture is different or you're running a load of CPU-intensive programs in the background while playing.

 

The game is only programmed to use 3 cores, and because of this it will choke itself on higher settings if the clock speed isn't high enough.

 

 

Also, statements like this:

 

I temp used a 9500GT, playing on high w/ all sliders 100, getting 30 FPS

are extremely inaccurate or unclear. How do we know you weren't playing at 800x600 in the airport with traffic and peds disabled etc? Because maybe then it'd be possible. Or perhaps Fraps read 30fps, but you were getting extreme stutter (no doubt due to the lack of VRAM - in result relying on your system RAM). Seriously, it annoys me when people think it is correct for them to say "HERP i play at 60fps on my intel HD on MAX SETTINGS" because they were playing in the airport with everything disabled at a puny resolution.

 

Even I don't get 30fps in normal gameplay on completely max settings (shadows, sliders, density the whole lot), but that's at 1080p. And it stutters like sh*t.

 

Resolution? 1680x1050, yeah a little low, but sorry I forgot that anyway.

Processor? 2500k (remember, it was a temp vid card)

 

And believe me I'm not that kind of a person, I just wanted to sum everything up to him, I'd be more specific next time.

Edited June 23, 2011 by PrometheusX

[Jigglyass]

Well, you should say instead of 4GB of ram get x64, but if you have more than 3.4GB of RAM and VRAM combined, use x64.

 

VRAM uses the addressing same way as RAM does.

[YankeesPwnMets]

I myself will try it, since i'm reinstalling Windows 7 anyway, and you can use Windows XP mode on Windows 7 (Use an emulator-like program to run Win XP in 7).

You only can do office things in XP mode. XP mode can't even run Pinball with smooth FPS. Believe me, I've tried it. Games won't work on XP mode at all

[Prometheus]

I myself will try it, since i'm reinstalling Windows 7 anyway, and you can use Windows XP mode on Windows 7 (Use an emulator-like program to run Win XP in 7).

You only can do office things in XP mode. XP mode can't even run Pinball with smooth FPS. Believe me, I've tried it. Games won't work on XP mode at all

Fine, I give up then, I won't be installing XP, since it causes many problems if Vista/7 is installed.

[iTRiP]

...

Edited August 18, 2012 by iTRiP

[ikt]

Well, installing Windows XP after Windows 7 is installed is possible too. You'll be able to fix the booting screen by reinstalling Windows 7s bootmanager again, it detects XP. No conflicts whatsoever. As for the hard drives, dividing a harddrive into multiple partitions and booting from different partitions is completely possible.

 

Sadly I can't install XP because this hard drive is already divided into too many partitions. Windows Vista, Windows 7, Data and Recovery, in that order. I'll try if I can get something, but I don't promise anything.

 

Shrinking Data partition now. I'll try XP64 bit.

[Jigglyass]

You guys sure enjoy jumping alot of hoops for this sh*tty, outdated game.

[Simulated-AI]

I found a fair solution to my performance problems, i replaced the old Q9550 with an i7.

Its fairly cheap and runs great.

 

Now i can finally max out the game.

[ikt]

You guys sure enjoy jumping alot of hoops for this sh*tty, outdated game.

Tell that the modding community.

[iTRiP]

...

Edited August 18, 2012 by iTRiP

[ikt]

Hell, Windows XP won't let me install it without a floppy drive. What is this sh*t? Oh wait, nevermind, it's a 2001 operating system based on 2000 computer facts, and in 2000, all computers had floppy drives. 2011 computers do not.

 

Well, there wouldn't be much difference anyway. Windows 8 time!

 

@OverTheBelow:

I already burned it to CD's, but XP needs a floppy drive for the installation because of SATA drivers or something.

Edited June 25, 2011 by ikt

[OverTheBelow]

Hell, Windows XP won't let me install it without a floppy drive. What is this sh*t? Oh wait, nevermind, it's a 2001 operating system based on 2000 computer facts, and in 2000, all computers had floppy drives. 2011 computers do not.

 

Well, there wouldn't be much difference anyway. Windows 8 time!

Put it on a CD or USB flash drive and boot from there.

[iTRiP]

...

Edited August 18, 2012 by iTRiP

[YankeesPwnMets]

1. Windows XP SP2 isn't supported. You f*ck your computer up, nobody cares anymore

2. Any version of XP before SP3 was the most unstable sh*t I've ever seen, maybe along with Windows XP x64

3. It's easily not easyly

[iTRiP]

...

Edited August 18, 2012 by iTRiP