Invisible world glitch?

[race.freak]

Hi, I got GTA IV quite a while ago, and wasn't able to play it for the longest time due to one of the many FATAL ERROR bugs. I got a new computer a while ago, installed the game, and it worked perfectly for several months. Recently, however, I'll run the game, start it, and 99% of all the textures are invisible. Only a few civilians spawn, no cars appear anywhere, and the only visible items are interactive ones like lamp posts and fire hydrants. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit with an Nvidia GeForce GT 520MX video card. A video card driver update did not fix the problem, and I have no idea what to do. Any help on the subject would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

-race.freak

[Girish]

Do you remember what changes you made to the system since the last time the game worked?

Have you tried reinstalling the game and deleting all files from the Settings folder?

[race.freak]

I don't remember making any changes to the system itself. A reinstall failed to get it working, and all the graphical settings keep auto-setting to the lowest quality. It says that it uses too much space, but managing to change anything doesn't change the amount it uses for some reason. If I manage to set the settings to somewhere around medium, and start the game, it never gets past the loading screen.