Jump to content
    1. Welcome to GTAForums!

    1. GTANet.com

    1. GTA Online

      1. Los Santos Drug Wars
      2. Updates
      3. Find Lobbies & Players
      4. Guides & Strategies
      5. Vehicles
      6. Content Creator
      7. Help & Support
    2. Red Dead Online

      1. Blood Money
      2. Frontier Pursuits
      3. Find Lobbies & Outlaws
      4. Help & Support
    3. Crews

    1. Grand Theft Auto Series

      1. Bugs*
      2. St. Andrews Cathedral
    2. GTA VI

    3. GTA V

      1. Guides & Strategies
      2. Help & Support
    4. GTA IV

      1. The Lost and Damned
      2. The Ballad of Gay Tony
      3. Guides & Strategies
      4. Help & Support
    5. GTA San Andreas

      1. Classic GTA SA
      2. Guides & Strategies
      3. Help & Support
    6. GTA Vice City

      1. Classic GTA VC
      2. Guides & Strategies
      3. Help & Support
    7. GTA III

      1. Classic GTA III
      2. Guides & Strategies
      3. Help & Support
    8. Portable Games

      1. GTA Chinatown Wars
      2. GTA Vice City Stories
      3. GTA Liberty City Stories
    9. Top-Down Games

      1. GTA Advance
      2. GTA 2
      3. GTA
    1. Red Dead Redemption 2

      1. PC
      2. Help & Support
    2. Red Dead Redemption

    1. GTA Mods

      1. GTA V
      2. GTA IV
      3. GTA III, VC & SA
      4. Tutorials
    2. Red Dead Mods

      1. Documentation
    3. Mod Showroom

      1. Scripts & Plugins
      2. Maps
      3. Total Conversions
      4. Vehicles
      5. Textures
      6. Characters
      7. Tools
      8. Other
      9. Workshop
    4. Featured Mods

      1. Design Your Own Mission
      2. OpenIV
      3. GTA: Underground
      4. GTA: Liberty City
      5. GTA: State of Liberty
    1. Rockstar Games

    2. Rockstar Collectors

    1. Off-Topic

      1. General Chat
      2. Gaming
      3. Technology
      4. Movies & TV
      5. Music
      6. Sports
      7. Vehicles
    2. Expression

      1. Graphics / Visual Arts
      2. GFX Requests & Tutorials
      3. Writers' Discussion
      4. Debates & Discussion
    1. Announcements

    2. Support

    3. Suggestions

Happy Holidays from the GTANet team!

What Is The Cause Of GTA IV's Poor Performance?


The Duke Of Nukes
 Share

Recommended Posts

The Duke Of Nukes

I've been curious as to what causes the extreme frame-rate drops in this poorly-optimized game, and I want to find out. This isn't a question of "why does my PC lag a lot while playing this game", it's a question of "which pieces of code are the cause of this poor performance". I wanted to put this in the general sub-forum for GTA IV, but since I encourage digging in the files and creating fixes, I decided to put it here. Does anyone here know about this stuff? I wish I could dig in myself, but I don't have a gaming PC as of now (I will get it eventually), and I'm somewhat of a n00b coder (as of now, I can do only relatively small changes). Once I get my gaming PC and I have bought the game, I will try to contribute as much as possible (by the way, I bought the game multiple times on different platforms, including PC, but I wasn't able to run it there, and my accounts have been deleted). Does anyone have anything to say?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Duke Of Nukes

Does anyone have anything to contribute to this? Does anyone even know which files are responsible for the optimization?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shadows....

(cant list more, its just because :r*: optimized the game bad on the pc)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Duke Of Nukes

Shadows....

(cant list more, its just because :r*: optimized the game bad on the pc)

What about them? Too high-resolution? GTA V had excellent shadows (maybe even better shadows) than GTA IV but still is better optimized. There HAS to be something else going on to make this game run like a handicapped turtle, because graphics shouldn't be the case. Unfortunately, I can't find out myself until I get my gaming PC.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Duke Of Nukes

Where can I find GTA IV's optimization code? The exe? Where? There must be a file that contains GTA IV's optimization code.

Edited by The Duke Of Nukes
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think you understand what reversing an executable is and modding GTA in general. Have you programmed before?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Duke Of Nukes

I don't think you understand what reversing an executable is and modding GTA in general. Have you programmed before?

Kind of. I've stated in my first post here that I am pretty n00bish in coding, but I had coded before, just extremely minor things (mostly insignificant bug fixes in GTA 3 like looking into the PS2 code from a disk I had laying around to add the petroleum pumps back, and some MUGEN). What I DO know is that reversing the executable is probably very hard, and it might render my save files unusable, since the change in the exe's code. I want to know where the optimization code for GTA IV resides, to know if it's even the most slightly fixable (I've seen tools that claim that they optimize GTA IV's code better, but I don't know if that's true since I'm unable to test it), and if there's any hope for fan-made optimization.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Have you tried commandline?

It fixed my gameplay pretty much when it was unmodded.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Duke Of Nukes

I haven't received my PC yet, so I haven't played it there yet, and I can't try those things out yet, but I will eventually (I ordered it some time ago, and it is JUST being built, it's a BEAST). I'm not so sure it's the shaders that's causing the performance hits, since we have better looking and more intensive ones today, but there must be some other code that makes it run like syrup. Remember, this topic is about finding the source of the poor performance, not finding a work-around to the problem, I want to tackle it right in the source.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Source" of the poor performance?

It's been said like 1000times that its because the poor gta ivs porting to pc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Duke Of Nukes

"Source" of the poor performance?

It's been said like 1000times that its because the poor gta ivs porting to pc.

I meant the piece of code that causes the poor performance.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Spider-Vice

There is no piece of code that causes poor performance, it's the code structure itself that is poor. The game was almost directly copied from the Xbox 360 build, and then adapted to PC, not much work went into it. That's why it runs poorly. It doesn't help that IV's original code is also very sloppy, because it also runs very badly on the consoles.

V fixed this, and V PC is fine because it wasn't a port from last gen, but a separate development along with next-gen.

  • Like 1

image.png

GTANet | Red Dead Network | 🌲

black lives matter | stop Asian hate | trans lives = human lives

the beginning is moments ago, the end is moments away

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

"Source" of the poor performance?

It's been said like 1000times that its because the poor gta ivs porting to pc.

I meant the piece of code that causes the poor performance.In fact, even if it's a piece of code, can you fix it?

Honestly bro, the game is poorly ported as ive heard.

No way to fix it, however, R* made some patches for fixing.

They works.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

LaBombaRomba

It's important to know that it also runs like garbage on consoles (fps usually in the mid 20s), even less playable than the pc imo. I don't think the game always runs bad on pc, some places you'll get 60 fps, but in most you'll get 30-50, and this is pretty much unavoidable no matter your specs in my experience with:

-2 hd 5850s in crossfire (1.0.4.0)

-gtx 970 (this really showed off what I was saying, much more so than the other cards, and was on 1.0.4.0)

-he 7750 (1.0.7.0, downgrading on second installation, haven't run it yet though)

Despite all that, I don't see why some people consider it unplayable.

 

Oh and one more thing, 1.0.4.0 imo tends to stutter more despite having better fps generally. 1.0.7.0 also looks a heck of a lot better with the shadows but in my experience the mouse also 'feels' worse, slightly more rough/laggy feeling I guess.

Edited by LaBombaRomba
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it was also the lack of LOD2 & LOD3 models

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it was also the lack of LOD2 & LOD3 models

GTA IV has LOD 2/3 models for almost everything in the game, i don't think this is the cause of the bad performance in the game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...
Necroheadbanger

Well, I'm late to this, but something that kills the frames (at least my frames) is the map. Liberty City is very detailed, the buildings and textures are detailed, and there are a lot of stuff everywhere (debris, fences, boxes, thrash cans, trees, poles, ect) and pickups that glow, and also take in mind all the shadows that all that stuff produces. When a part of the map doesn't loads my frames become pretty decent, but once it loads I get back to the 15 FPS.

 

I once installed a mod that removed all additional stuff (boxes, debris, even doors), and I had some really great frames, but I had to uninstall it as I couldn't play minigames or buy clothes, rendering some missions (like First Date) impossible to complete.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

  • 1 User Currently Viewing
    0 members, 0 Anonymous, 1 Guest

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using GTAForums.com, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.