Did R☆ break the graphics engine with update on last gen consoles?

[blk95ta]

For the last several days since the update, I've noticed a lot more buildings popping in and missing textures on xbox one. I am normally playing in an invite only lobby with 6 or less people. Even if I am by myself I notice it. Some of my other xbox one friends have as well.

 

Interestingly, one of the players in our group owns a brand new xbox series X she got a week ago and has GTA installed on a USB hard drive. During the week of the update, she went on vacation and took her old xbox with her and experienced the same issues. She returned home the other day, however, and upon plugging her hard drive back into the series X, is not experiencing the same graphical pop ins the rest of us are. She is playing the xbox one version on her series X so she can continue playing online with the rest of us. We thought initially that the pop ins were server related, but now we think it might be hardware related. Could R☆ have done something to the software to make it not run as well on the older consoles? Like to then say "look, see? The graphics are breaking on last gen, no more updates coming for them, buy next gen." 

 

Something to ponder.

Edited July 31, 2022 by blk95ta

[CrissRiot]

For sure something graphical has changed. It's the same on PS4, with wayyyyyyyyyyy more popups and slowdown than before (hell anything involving a corona for entering/dropping off/triggering something is especially lagging and noticable).

 

Considering how...light...this update was in terms of anything affecting the open world, something settingwise must have been altered, likely accidentally. If they ARE trying the "last gen bad, next gen good" Apple nerfing bullsh*t, Rockstar can f*ck off.

Edited July 31, 2022 by CrissRiot

[blk95ta]

8 minutes ago, CrissRiot said:

For sure something graphical has changed. It's the same on PS4, with wayyyyyyyyyyy more popups and slowdown than before (hell anything involving a corona for entering/dropping off/triggering something is especially lagging and noticable).

 

Considering how...light...this update was in terms of anything affecting the open world, something settingwise must have been altered, likely accidentally. If they ARE trying the "last gen bad, next gen good" Apple nerfing bullsh*t, Rockstar can f*ck off.

 

I was just thinking that. I remember when Apple got busted slowing their older phones down trying to force people to buy new ones. R☆ better not be trying that BS. 

[CrissRiot]

29 minutes ago, blk95ta said:

 

I was just thinking that. I remember when Apple got busted slowing their older phones down trying to force people to buy new ones. R☆ better not be trying that BS. 

Yeah eh. But, considering the history of GTAO so far, I'm hedge my bets on someone just f*cking up a setting more than anything malicious (I STILL remember when they disabled a graphics aspect where it didn't give depth to textures for a few months years back), especially if they were pouring through old code to add new bits and pieces.

 

Classic Rockstar move.

Edited July 31, 2022 by CrissRiot

[DrEeveell]

Not just consoles, it's running like crap on PC too. Stuttering and freezing, frame rate dropping down to 4 fps. What the hell?

 

[Aquamaniac]

I noticed that too on Xbox One, textures loading too slow, especially in full lobbies.

Edited August 1, 2022 by Aquamaniac

[gamerMK2]

2 hours ago, DrEeveell said:

Not just consoles, it's running like crap on PC too. Stuttering and freezing, frame rate dropping down to 4 fps. What the hell?

 

It's on your end bro.

[Spider-Vice]

There's no conspiracy, there seems to have been a change because even PC has increased stuttering - not down to 4 FPS, and zero streaming issues on an NVMe drive for me, but there is a negative performance difference at random times that didn't exist before.

 

They have merged some of the "E&E" text files into the current versions, and there are texture/asset changes in misc. parts of the map (dataminers see patchday27ng), which means there could be some other misc. internal changes that I feel made it to the PS4 and Xbox One accidentally. Those consoles have been on the limit for a couple of years now (see frame rate in public sessions), so if R* did screw something up or accidentally pushed code meant for PC to the old consoles, it would be enough to kill the game's streaming.

 

They'd gain nothing with breaking the game on purpose on what is still their biggest install base and while there's not enough current-gen consoles too (or not enough people with them yet to warrant "breaking the game").  This is just like the bullsh*t people made up about the character switching lag, then "E&E" released and it was still broken. So much for conspiracy, eh? Who the hell would want bad PR on purpose?

It's clearly a bug and I assume it's gonna be fixed because it seems pretty widespread - in fact, on Friday R* was already working on something in the qabeta branch on Steam, and PC is still running on the same internal "ng" branch as the last-gen consoles, so there might actually be a patch in the works, hopefully.

[fryday]

I have very strange pop ups and texture loadings, too.

 

Im on PS5

[Spider-Vice]

From Reddit, here's what it can look like, it looks like this is the most affected area of the map (expand spoiler to load embeds):

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

[Mexicola9302]

Like every few hours i get a half second freeze and smaller ones in between on PC now. Something is weird that is for sure. And the game is installed on a (Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD), maybe because of that i don't get even more freezes, and it's pretty rare but it still is annoying.

 

It would be nice if they add "Direct Storage API" to the game, i mean if they do it right once, ppl will benefit of it for years.

Spoiler

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Spider-Vice
hid large images

[Spider-Vice]

If DirectStorage comes to a RAGE game it'll be in GTA VI lol.

[Mexicola9302]

1 minute ago, Spider-Vice said:

If DirectStorage comes to a RAGE game it'll be in GTA VI lol.

Sadly yes, it's a shame they won't use it in the PC "E&E" version.

[Valiant ENT CEO]

I was buying some bikes the other day and after purchasing one I had dozens of images not even load on the SSASS website. It looked soooo bad. Just blocky rainbows that said image or something. The game is running exceptionally bad on ps4. Graphically it's like you just installed GTA Vice City on a computer at your local library.. And the year is 2004. 

 

 

[o_Marvelous]

For the first time in my GTA Career I spawned in, IN my car and fell from about 10 feet up (again, while in my car)

Was quite funny. Then, I was trying to catch up with a buddy on party chat and we were going to check out the update together...we got stuck in a black screen trying to load in the casino....after about 10 mins we said eff this and went to play Apex.

 

This is on PS5.

[DrEeveell]

7 hours ago, gamerMK2 said:

It's on your end bro.

 

It was running great before the latest update. I guess the code snuck in and stole my video card while I wasn't looking?

 

[Solid Scorpion]

PS5, I get the occasional stutter now and then since the update that I didn't get before. Like a fraction of a second, feels like it's streaming or loading something.

 

Can only imagine it on PS4, it got to the point where driving near the casino would freeze for a whole 20 seconds for me. It became an area I would avoid.

 

[videotech_]

This happens when this version of the game engine is nearly nine years old. I feel bad for the poor developers having to work with game's super old code. 

[BakeWithMe1000]

Im also having frame rate stutters on PS5 since the update 

[discostu72]

On PC and I too am getting random stuttering and freezing that was not present before last week. No problems with the textures loading properly. There also seems to be a lengthy delay while only entering my auto shop, taking up to 10 seconds to load in. This is all in Invite Only.

[Taterman]

On Xbox 1 it's almost become unplayable. If you fly across the city, sometimes half the building textures are missing or just gray. This is in an invite only with just 2-4 players.

[Spider-Vice]

There seems to have been some kind of platform-wide streaming(?) change, where faster platforms like current-gen and PC's are just getting some extra stuttering and last gen is almost unplayable. Does anyone have an SSD on their Xbox One or PS4 that can report how the game works?

 

It's either streaming or a memory issue IMO.

[CrissRiot]

2 hours ago, Spider-Vice said:

There seems to have been some kind of platform-wide streaming(?) change, where faster platforms like current-gen and PC's are just getting some extra stuttering and last gen is almost unplayable. Does anyone have an SSD on their Xbox One or PS4 that can report how the game works?

 

It's either streaming or a memory issue IMO.

Hopefully they can patch and update soon, cause if they keep throwing stuff into freeroam as the dripfeed goes on, who knows whats gonna happen.

 

That and they still need to fix the Arcade/Agency spawns they broke with the prior update....and re-enable the missing Auto Shop jobs...and fix Cayo... etc.
 

Edited August 1, 2022 by CrissRiot

[MrsRackman]

Damn, I miss the times when a normal PS4 with its stock HDD could still run the game in 1080P without any noticeable FPS drops so far. And now it's literally unplayable on most platforms, Online needs a huge code rework

[Zaniness]

I had the game die on me once, in La Mesa, textures refused to load in fully and trying to enter an interior shortly after threw me into an endless black screen. There is also part of the city highway where lamp posts phase in and out of existence (near the Vangelico Heist underground hole), which seems to be some issue with dynamic objects loading. But overall I haven't noticed much else on a regular SSD.

[hugh750]

the update made trying to do pac standard annoying audio wise, the other day i was doing it with randoms and we made it to the bikes (they died more often then i did i'm level 540 + (i didn't die once).

i would get a 4 door car so we could drive to the drop off point, the frist time it was a small suv, the other tries it was a lspd cop car i would turn on the emergency lights but i would get no siren and i'm on xbox one s.

yes i know this thread is for graphical glitches and i did get lag and popup.

plus i mentioned my gripes in another thread.

15 minutes ago, MrsRackman said:

Damn, I miss the times when a normal PS4 with its stock HDD could still run the game in 1080P without any noticeable FPS drops so far. And now it's literally unplayable on most platforms, Online needs a huge code rework

yeah it's making us look like we're in ps3 and xbox 360 days (which i admit i kinda miss those days in gtao, except the script kiddies blowing us up and modders).

Edited August 1, 2022 by hugh750

[awesomefoot]

I've had issues on XBox One for a while. Tuners was notable. When you leave the Auto Shop (which I think it located underground up near Kortz center) to deliver a Service car, the street looks like a blank abyss. Then stuff slowly loads in with streetlight posts being last so you need to know their location or wait.

 

This one though is flickering. Streets, buildings, they start to load then disappear then reload.

[arisfelbonilla]

I don't think a simple patch fixes this little mess. 

[Niccky]

Funny enough this has been happening to me before the update. Haven’t seen it since it dropped. I still get frame stutters here and there though 

[El Cavilldo]

 

Obviously not as bad, lol! That 'honor' belongs to you-know-what-game. 

 

Edited August 2, 2022 by El Cavilldo