Car Spawning System

[Neudd]

One thing that I've always disliked about Grand Theft Auto IV was the vehicle spawning system, the variety of vehicles that are spawned at one time.

For example in Grand Theft Auto IV there were only a certain selection of cars spawned at each time, say if you got on a faggio then the futo or super gt would spawn in that car selection. You would never see an Comet, Super GT or Turismo pass each other as most of them are in different car selections, or classes. Also in IV was that annoying moment of spending ages looking for that rare car that only to find when you got into that vehicle loads of them would end up spawning...

 

Now for Grand Theft Auto V, I hope they address this issue, but I don't know if it's something to do with system hardware. As we already know that there will be different car classes in different locations (luxury, high end cars near Michaels area, and then lower class, 4x4's near Trevors Blaine County area.) With the issue of having the rare car you find and then spawning everywhere, how will this work with now being able to purchase cars? Who would want to purchase a rare high end car to only find loads of them lining the streets?

 

Do you think they can/will address this issue?

Edited May 18, 2013 by RDL

[meson1]

It is to do with memory limitations. GTA can only cope with so many models of vehicles at once. It's also why it tends to make use of the car model you're driving, i.e. you're driving it so all of a sudden peds are driving it too.

 

I don't think they eliminate this issue for GTA:V. However, with the next GTA on next gen with 8GB of RAM to play with, it should hopefully be a different story.

[Neudd]

It is to do with memory limitations. GTA can only cope with so many models of vehicles at once. It's also why it tends to make use of the car model you're driving, i.e. you're driving it so all of a sudden peds are driving it too.

 

I don't think they eliminate this issue for GTA:V. However, with the next GTA on next gen with 8GB of RAM to play with, it should hopefully be a different story.

Oh right that's the only reason I could think of for it to be like that. But yeah hopefully with next gen consoles this won't be an issue.

 

The only problem with that theory is that I'm pretty sure IV for PC has the issues too, even when many systems are running 8GB< already...

[22ka]

I don't think it has to do with ram really. I mean R* said that they have 5x as many ped in V than in IV so that way its harder to see doubles in 1 area. So reall I'm sure they can do the same with the cars.

 

Reall I think its coz IV was just their ''prototype'' for this gen and that they were running out of time to fix everything, but hay who knows

[Dope_0110]

I don't think it has to do with ram really. I mean R* said that they have 5x as many ped in V than in IV so that way its harder to see doubles in 1 area. So reall I'm sure they can do the same with the cars.

 

Reall I think its coz IV was just their ''prototype'' for this gen and that they were running out of time to fix everything, but hay who knows

Five times more peds meant there are than many models, not that many people on the screen at the same time. That amount will remain about the same as in IV.

 

As for cars, it is a memory limitation problem and will certainly be different on next gen. As for why IV had similar spawning on PC too. Well, it's the same game, same engine, same everything, so the way game chooses to spawn cars is also the same. Though I wouldn't complain as IV spawns pretty much different vehicles on my PC most of the time especially compared to III era.

[RockStarNiko]

Car spawning problem has always been annoying.

 

Its nothing to do with memory limitations, that is just some lame excuse.

 

If you find a sports car and then suddenly everyone is driving the same sports car, that is just bad programming, should be no excuses.

 

[CasperRDG]

Yeah hated it in some ways... but in SA my favourite vehicle was the sanchez so when I inevitability destroyed it it was great there were more around!

[Dope_0110]

Car spawning problem has always been annoying.

 

Its nothing to do with memory limitations, that is just some lame excuse.

 

If you find a sports car and then suddenly everyone is driving the same sports car, that is just bad programming, should be no excuses.

It's not a lame excuse. The game's got.. what.. over a hundred vehicles. It's can't have them all on the ready in the memory. That's why they create classes and when you ride a car from one class, the game prepares cars for that class in the memory, and some from other similar classes.

 

Would like to see you program a better system.

[CommonSeb]

It is to do with memory limitations. GTA can only cope with so many models of vehicles at once. It's also why it tends to make use of the car model you're driving, i.e. you're driving it so all of a sudden peds are driving it too.

 

I don't think they eliminate this issue for GTA:V. However, with the next GTA on next gen with 8GB of RAM to play with, it should hopefully be a different story.

I think this could be improved by making a small change.

 

Spawn everything BUT the model you are driving. That would just add ONE more

vehicle for the hardware to deal with.

 

This way we can get the illusion of driving something unique.

[meson1]

 

It is to do with memory limitations.  GTA can only cope with so many models of vehicles at once.  It's also why it tends to make use of the car model you're driving, i.e. you're driving it so all of a sudden peds are driving it too.

 

I don't think they eliminate this issue for GTA:V.  However, with the next GTA on next gen with 8GB of RAM to play with, it should hopefully be a different story.

Oh right that's the only reason I could think of for it to be like that. But yeah hopefully with next gen consoles this won't be an issue.

 

The only problem with that theory is that I'm pretty sure IV for PC has the issues too, even when many systems are running 8GB< already...

No. It still applies because (unfortunately) Rockstar insist that the game mechanics are essentially the same for all platforms so they impose the same restriction on the number of car types at any given time. It seems crazy seeing as you can ramp up the traffic levels but not the number of models of cars. The only other differences with the PC versions are the higher res. textures and a few other graphical bells and whistles.

 

It would be nice if they would ease up on more of those restrictions when platforms have additional resources such as memory etc.

Edited May 18, 2013 by meson1

[LennonNL]

This, along with the random spawning of cars (like if you look behind you while driving, and look forward again, a f*ck load of cars spawn out of no where on the road!), are the most annoying things in GTA IV for me.

 

Also the way other cars drive pisses me off too, like if there is a car turning left it just drives into other cars instead of waiting til it's clear or whatever.

[BlackNoise]

I can understand why we see peds driving whatever car we're driving at the time, but the one thing I've been wondering is can't R* specifically program the game to not spawn the car you're driving? Or put a limit on the amount you can see within a certain range?

 

I don't know much about GTA IV and RAGE, but I made a mod for SA awhile back that would eliminate/replace any duplicate of the car you were driving. It just seems like R* could do something like that. Just tell the game "don't spawn the car the player is driving".

 

It just seems weird they haven't fixed this problem by now. Maybe it's not a priority, which would be understandable I guess.

 

 

[Neudd]

I can understand why we see peds driving whatever car we're driving at the time, but the one thing I've been wondering is can't R* specifically program the game to not spawn the car you're driving? Or put a limit on the amount you can see within a certain range?

 

I don't know much about GTA IV and RAGE, but I made a mod for SA awhile back that would eliminate/replace any duplicate of the car you were driving. It just seems like R* could do something like that. Just tell the game "don't spawn the car the player is driving".

 

It just seems weird they haven't fixed this problem by now. Maybe it's not a priority, which would be understandable I guess.

It would be nice if the car classes that are on the system are randomly generated, thats what I want, not ALL the cars on the memory at the same time.

[RockStarNiko]

Car spawning problem has always been annoying.

 

Its nothing to do with memory limitations, that is just some lame excuse.

 

If you find a sports car and then suddenly everyone is driving the same sports car, that is just bad programming, should be no excuses.

It's not a lame excuse. The game's got.. what.. over a hundred vehicles. It's can't have them all on the ready in the memory. That's why they create classes and when you ride a car from one class, the game prepares cars for that class in the memory, and some from other similar classes.

 

Would like to see you program a better system.

Just because the memory cannot handle all 150-200 vehicles at once does not mean we should end up with stupid car spawning.

 

The reason we get the stupid car spawning is because of bad programming, when dealing with the problem the memory gave them.

 

Why don't they make it so the vehicle spawning is determined by location on the map.

 

If you driving round the docks, 25-30 vehicles are assigned to appear at random and only vehicles that you might find down at docks such as trucks, vans etc

 

Also they should put a limit on certain vehicles such as limos, sports cars etc so that only 1 will appear.

 

 

[johncs154]

Car spawning problem has always been annoying.

 

Its nothing to do with memory limitations, that is just some lame excuse.

 

If you find a sports car and then suddenly everyone is driving the same sports car, that is just bad programming, should be no excuses.

It's not a lame excuse. The game's got.. what.. over a hundred vehicles. It's can't have them all on the ready in the memory. That's why they create classes and when you ride a car from one class, the game prepares cars for that class in the memory, and some from other similar classes.

 

Would like to see you program a better system.

Just because the memory cannot handle all 150-200 vehicles at once does not mean we should end up with stupid car spawning.

 

The reason we get the stupid car spawning is because of bad programming, when dealing with the problem the memory gave them.

 

Why don't they make it so the vehicle spawning is determined by location on the map.

 

If you driving round the docks, 25-30 vehicles are assigned to appear at random and only vehicles that you might find down at docks such as trucks, vans etc

 

Also they should put a limit on certain vehicles such as limos, sports cars etc so that only 1 will appear.

Agreed! The whole lets spawn 20 limos was bad. Also not sure if this was PC only but getting in a cab usually causes only cabs to be driven around.

[Agni]

Car spawning problem has always been annoying.

 

Its nothing to do with memory limitations, that is just some lame excuse.

 

If you find a sports car and then suddenly everyone is driving the same sports car, that is just bad programming, should be no excuses.

It's not a lame excuse. The game's got.. what.. over a hundred vehicles. It's can't have them all on the ready in the memory. That's why they create classes and when you ride a car from one class, the game prepares cars for that class in the memory, and some from other similar classes.

 

Would like to see you program a better system.

Just because the memory cannot handle all 150-200 vehicles at once does not mean we should end up with stupid car spawning.

 

The reason we get the stupid car spawning is because of bad programming, when dealing with the problem the memory gave them.

 

Why don't they make it so the vehicle spawning is determined by location on the map.

 

If you driving round the docks, 25-30 vehicles are assigned to appear at random and only vehicles that you might find down at docks such as trucks, vans etc

 

Also they should put a limit on certain vehicles such as limos, sports cars etc so that only 1 will appear.

That's...exactly what already happens. Cars appropriate to the area spawn there. But it IS a memory problem. They simply CANNOT do anything better as long as the consoles are so weak and pathetic. The next gen needs to come quick, the consoles are simply too outdated.

[Dope_0110]

 

Car spawning problem has always been annoying.

 

Its nothing to do with memory limitations, that is just some lame excuse.

 

If you find a sports car and then suddenly everyone is driving the same sports car, that is just bad programming, should be no excuses.

It's not a lame excuse. The game's got.. what.. over a hundred vehicles. It's can't have them all on the ready in the memory. That's why they create classes and when you ride a car from one class, the game prepares cars for that class in the memory, and some from other similar classes.

 

Would like to see you program a better system.

Just because the memory cannot handle all 150-200 vehicles at once does not mean we should end up with stupid car spawning.

 

The reason we get the stupid car spawning is because of bad programming, when dealing with the problem the memory gave them.

 

Why don't they make it so the vehicle spawning is determined by location on the map.

 

If you driving round the docks, 25-30 vehicles are assigned to appear at random and only vehicles that you might find down at docks such as trucks, vans etc

 

Also they should put a limit on certain vehicles such as limos, sports cars etc so that only 1 will appear.

Either you've never played GTA before or are simply here to hate on Rockstar.

 

If you had played, you'd notice that DIFFERENT LOCATIONS DO HAVE DIFFERENT CARS ASSIGNED TO THEM. But it's still a memory problem. If you're in the docks, you will have trucks, vans and sh*tty cars spawn, now you travel very fast to the downtown, the memory can't just replace all the data in a split second and prepare downtown cars so vans and trucks still appear until new cars are loaded.

 

And yes, they could, but it's normal for a few sports cars and even limos to appear at certain locations at the same time. That's when memory comes into play again and starts throwing in too many.

 

Please go and try to learn some programing before you accuse them of not doing it right, as I don't see many other companies making games on the level of quality that every GTA gets.

Edited May 18, 2013 by Dope_0110

[Backfire6]

This was already discussed in another thread.

[Miamicanes182]

I just wanna know what are they gonna do to make me pay for a car instead of just stealing it. Like there has to be something special about it or it will be one of those that u can't steal cuz it's always locked unless u buy it.

[Neudd]

This was already discussed in another thread.

Well instead of being a dick about it, why not link us?

[RockStarNiko]

Car spawning problem has always been annoying.

 

Its nothing to do with memory limitations, that is just some lame excuse.

 

If you find a sports car and then suddenly everyone is driving the same sports car, that is just bad programming, should be no excuses.

It's not a lame excuse. The game's got.. what.. over a hundred vehicles. It's can't have them all on the ready in the memory. That's why they create classes and when you ride a car from one class, the game prepares cars for that class in the memory, and some from other similar classes.

 

Would like to see you program a better system.

Just because the memory cannot handle all 150-200 vehicles at once does not mean we should end up with stupid car spawning.

 

The reason we get the stupid car spawning is because of bad programming, when dealing with the problem the memory gave them.

 

Why don't they make it so the vehicle spawning is determined by location on the map.

 

If you driving round the docks, 25-30 vehicles are assigned to appear at random and only vehicles that you might find down at docks such as trucks, vans etc

 

Also they should put a limit on certain vehicles such as limos, sports cars etc so that only 1 will appear.

Either you've never played GTA before or are simply here to hate on Rockstar.

 

If you had played, you'd notice that DIFFERENT LOCATIONS DO HAVE DIFFERENT CARS ASSIGNED TO THEM. But it's still a memory problem. If you're in the docks, you will have trucks, vans and sh*tty cars spawn, now you travel very fast to the downtown, the memory can't just replace all the data in a split second and prepare downtown cars so vans and trucks still appear until new cars are loaded.

 

And yes, they could, but it's normal for a few sports cars and even limos to appear at certain locations at the same time. That's when memory comes into play again and starts throwing in too many.

 

Please go and try to learn some programing before you accuse them of not doing it right, as I don't see many other companies making games on the level of quality that every GTA gets.

No I am here to hate on the car spawning problem, why take such a big leap and say I'm hating on the whole company.

 

It is bad programming.

 

You already said before they make it so vehicles have classes and the spawning is determined by this, so I said they should determine car spawning by location only.

[tenpennyisplainevil]

In any other GTA than IV, the spawning system was fine. I don't know how or why, but they screwed it all up in IV. All I want is the old system, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

[Psychotic Mind]

I agree with the above, this was really a problem espec in IV. I thought maybe it had something to do also with the rarity of said vehicle? Like the infernus was rare, but once you had it alot would spawn. A boxville was also pretty rare, but once you have it not too many spawn.

 

I hope this is dealt with in V.

[piper5by5]

You know what always annoyed the crap out of me? When I destroy my car or something happens to make it undriveable, so I get out and turn around to get in another car... and the entire block is empty. No parked cars, no stray taxi, nothing. So then I run around the streets until one miraculously spawns somewhere near me. I really hope this doesn't happen in GTA V.

[MrcTOtheJ]

Yeah the problem did seem to be the biggest in IV.

 

I mean in San Andreas or Vice City get in the Hotring or another car that's one of a kind and only Spawns there you don't see it everywhere in traffic, get in the Sultan RS or the Infernus or the Comet in IV, and they're litterally everywhere, you can be in the projects of Bohan and everyone just has an expensive sports car it seemed.

 

So I really hope they fix that, I don't mind high end vehicles spawning in high end areas, but when I get in it and that one car is everywhere it was annoying.

 

I could drive a Cheetah in SA though the countryside and all that was there was the typical trucks, dirt bikes, and so on. In IV, it'd be everything in that area, PLUS what you were driving no matter what it was and no matter how little it fit in there like I said it usually tended to happen in one of a kind Vehicles, but still it was old.

 

I do understand that when you're going fast and cars that normally don't spawn there do because the game can't keep up that's happened in every GTA, that's understandable it's whole your car spawns everywhere no matter what that only seemed to happen with GTAIV that is the issue.

[Radical Rebel]

This is an issue that I really hope they resolve since it was in almost, if not all, past Grand Theft Auto games.

Another and more frustrating traffic issue that I really hope that is fixed this time is when you have a car in front of you at said, 50 - 75 feets and you look back (example : to look out for pursuing cops) and when you put back the camera in front, some cars have spawned out of nowhere right in front of you between you and that car that was ahead of you, which almost always result in a crash. Frustrating to have teleporting drivers and cars.

[Algonquin Assassin]

In any other GTA than IV, the spawning system was fine. I don't know how or why, but they screwed it all up in IV. All I want is the old system, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

You've got to be joking right? This is not a GTA IV specific issue.

[Killerdude]

This has been the situation with EVERY GTA, Not just IV, and it's for a good reason. I've heard people saying their PC's and sh*t start struggling big time when they applied a mod that changed it up.

[MrcTOtheJ]

In any other GTA than IV, the spawning system was fine. I don't know how or why, but they screwed it all up in IV. All I want is the old system, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

You've got to be joking right? This is not a GTA IV specific issue.

This.

 

 

Like I said in my post though it was more noticible in IV, for me at least, it happened allot less it seemed in the III era, my biggest gripe was that one of a kind vehicles in IV would spawn everywhere namely the Sultan RS and such.

 

Took the imersion away when everyone was driving the same customized purpose build race car as I was.

[Yofriends]

There is another thing very annoying about the car spawning system in GTA IV: it's the suddenly "magical vanishing" of some cars in front of you when you drive in a traffic jam or in an area with a lot of stopped cars...

 

Hope this will be fixed in GTA V.