Same lag on high and low settings?

[LethalRabbit]

Hey everyone,

 

The first thing I'll mention is that I know that I've got a crappy pc.

I've ran some tests on canirunit.com, and it told me that I should be able to run GTA IV (minimum). Only thing that failed to pass recommended was my CPU.

 

So I bought GTA IV, installed it, but when I started it I was amazed by how laggy it was.

I hope someone can explain to me where this lag comes from.

It doesn't matter wheter I put my settings to high or low, I only suffer from lag when I'm driving a car or something.

I can walk in rooms with high settings without problems, I can also walk on the street, but as soon as I enter a car everything starts lagging, making it literally unplayable. It's as if the map just doesn't load quick enough, and therefor 'pauses' the game every second.. If I drive the car slowly I have less lag as well, but when I'm at the highway and speed up it lags a lot more, and sometimes even freezes my game and my whole computer, causing me to reboot.

 

My specs are:

 

CPU: Pentium ® Dual core CPU E5200 @ 2.50 GHz

Memory: 2048 MB RAM

DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Graphics card: nVidia GeForce 9500GT - 1024 MB

Resolution: 1360x768

Game version: 1.0.7.0

 

 

Currently everything is set to low/off, and I still suffer from the same lag as when everything is set to medium.

 

I've updated my videocard drivers, also tried to add some RAM by turning a flash drive into RAM etc. Maybe some tweaks could help me?

 

If you have any ideas on what this could be, please let me know. I'm quite a noob with this kind of stuff, so please try to explain it as you would to a 5 year old xD

 

Edit: Forgot to mention, I have also added the -memrestrict to the launch options.

Edited July 11, 2011 by LethalRabbit

[Exxon]

Reinstall the game and use patch 1.0.4.0, that's the best one performance wise.

The only thing I can say now is that your computer just isn't up to the task to run IV normally.

 

By the way, use '-noprecache' (without the quotes) in your commandline.

[LethalRabbit]

Thanks for the reply, I'll try to add that command to the commandline. I'm afraid I can't install patch 1.0.4.0. because I have bought this game through steam, and steam has the annoying feature to just download the latest of everything and install it right away..

I've also tried to defragment my game folder, and I have just disabled the windows event log feature. After the reboot I'll see if it worked ^^

 

Grz

 

Edit: *sigh* no luck at all..

Edited July 11, 2011 by LethalRabbit

[Oaty]

Your CPU is probably holding back your graphics card (though not by very much).

[LethalRabbit]

So pretty much the only thing left to do is just buy a new computer I guess..?

 

Thanks for the help so far

 

Edit: Since this lagging and stuttering problem also occurs in a lot of other games, I'm thinking about upgrading my CPU. I currently have an ASUS P5KPL-CM Motherboard (Socket 775). Anyone can recommend me an AFFORDABLE cpu that would fit in there and that will also be able of handling games like these? Or would overclocking my cpu also get the job done?

Edited July 11, 2011 by LethalRabbit