[PC] Grand Theft Auto IV

My only complaints about the graphics are the horrible-looking shadows (perforated and ugly) and the jaggies. I'm OK with the textures since they are better than earlier incarnations.

Still, the game is awesome.
 
Ink said:
This game will never be satisfied, video-wise. I just recevied a new videocard yet the game insists on still crawling. Plus it looks terrible. I would have thought the ability to raise the resolution up a few notches would at least mask the fact that there's zero AA. And the difference between medium and high textures isn't even noticeable, at least I didn't see any. The fact that I can max out Crysis and have it run flawlessly, yet this piece of shit can't give me a decent framerate makes me despise Rockstar for creating, officially, the most graphically demanding game to date. Albeit, I didn't fool around with it all that much. I simply changed some settings, checked it out for a few minutes, then logged out in disgust.

Perhaps more tweaking is in order. I really don't care, though. I've been so disappointed with this release, it kind of makes me was to re-sell it and just play the stupid thing on my 360. I never thought I'd willingly choose a console game over the PC, but for performance's sake, I just may.

Maybe it's just me, and my expectations are far too high, but apparently it's too much to ask to ever even consider maxing this game out without risking damaging my card. If that's the case, why do I even bother?
Click to expand...

What rig do you have now? As long as you have a powerful CPU (tri or quad core) then you should be capable of getting performance as good or better than the 360 version with only a modest GPU as long as you keep the settings equivilent.
 
Bludd said:
My only complaints about the graphics are the horrible-looking shadows (perforated and ugly) and the jaggies. I'm OK with the textures since they are better than earlier incarnations.

Still, the game is awesome.
Click to expand...

You know, that is actually how the x360 version also looks! I first also thought it was a problem with the pc version, untill I saw the x360 version for the first time this week and that actually has the same jaggy perforated shadows.
 
This game needs tweaking and fortunately I got lots of chocolate to power my engine. browsing forums for goodies.


More pronounced motionblur and less blur strength?

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=386262


Increase VRAM limiter?

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=386405

In short create commandline.txt file and put it in the GTA 4 game folder. In this file you put all the -XXXXXXX commands.


Framerate limit variabel lirks?

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=387984


Bypass games filechecker system to be able to mod it's files?

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=380102&st=0&#entry1058714420


Surprised the patch + newest ATI drivers up the framerate while I am using max settings. kinda PS3/xbox360 framerate but looks much better. Also teh delayed streaming is fixed. Now the shadowmap res needs to be upped and some sort of edge AA or DOF to hide jaggies. Stronger DOF for the background vista which in turn will make the contrast jaggies between front and background objects hard to see.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I wonder if GTA4 will be as mod-friendly, since it's using the new engine. Weren't most mods for the previous GTAs mostly renderware hacks?
 
Well the filechecker system is obviously there for multiplayer sake, but seems to be easy enough to bypass. At least I played some Bob Da Base II the other day with some guy who had a SMG that shot rockets.
 
tongue_of_colicab said:
You know, that is actually how the x360 version also looks! I first also thought it was a problem with the pc version, untill I saw the x360 version for the first time this week and that actually has the same jaggy perforated shadows.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is correct, and I think everyone were hoping for improved shadows in the PC version.

Or at least an option to turn them on if you have superiour hardware.
 
pjbliverpool said:
What rig do you have now? As long as you have a powerful CPU (tri or quad core) then you should be capable of getting performance as good or better than the 360 version with only a modest GPU as long as you keep the settings equivilent.
Click to expand...


I have an 896 MB Geforce GTX 260, 4 GB of ram and a Q6600. After tooling around with the settings for a bit last night, I discovered by lowering the view distance significantly and raising the texture settings to high, the game actually runs smoothly at 1600 x 1200. Not perfect, but better than I expected. I feel my previous post was a bit harsh, especially regarding the lack of AA. While there isn't any settings to enable it, I've found a great deal of improvement by running it at 1600 x 1200 as opposed to my prior 1280 x 1024. But, provided I was still using my old video card, I would still be complaining about rampant jaggies. So it's understandable to see a bevy of people yelling about it. I forgot to mention how enabling motion blurring makes the game look like a blurry abomination, while not worth sacrificing the clarity of not enabling it. It's a pity because motion blurring is a nice effect.
 
Ink said:
I forgot to mention how enabling motion blurring makes the game look like a blurry abomination, while not worth sacrificing the clarity of not enabling it. It's a pity because motion blurring is a nice effect.
Click to expand...
There is not toggle for the motion blur in the game, just the general screen blurring effect. I agree that doesn't look good generally, but since I run a good bit over than native resolution of my plasma and hence everything gets downscaled to that, the effect works quiet well for me.
 
kyleb said:
There is not toggle for the motion blur in the game, just the general screen blurring effect. I agree that doesn't look good generally, but since I run a good bit over than native resolution of my plasma and hence everything gets downscaled to that, the effect works quiet well for me.
Click to expand...

Unless Inks talking about the horrible screen blur (Ctr-P I think). Thats definatly an abomination! I don't mind the actual motion blur that kicks in at high speed. Its pretty nice IMO even at the low framerates my system kicks out.
 
Ink said:
I have an 896 MB Geforce GTX 260, 4 GB of ram and a Q6600. After tooling around with the settings for a bit last night, I discovered by lowering the view distance significantly and raising the texture settings to high, the game actually runs smoothly at 1600 x 1200. Not perfect, but better than I expected. I feel my previous post was a bit harsh, especially regarding the lack of AA. While there isn't any settings to enable it, I've found a great deal of improvement by running it at 1600 x 1200 as opposed to my prior 1280 x 1024. But, provided I was still using my old video card, I would still be complaining about rampant jaggies. So it's understandable to see a bevy of people yelling about it. I forgot to mention how enabling motion blurring makes the game look like a blurry abomination, while not worth sacrificing the clarity of not enabling it. It's a pity because motion blurring is a nice effect.
Click to expand...

You need a widescreen monitor man ;)

Nice system though, I expect with that setup you can get some nice results which would indeed make you wonder what all the fuss is about! Its us "poor saps" with dual cores that are getting screwed!
 
pjbliverpool said:
You need a widescreen monitor man ;)

Nice system though, I expect with that setup you can get some nice results which would indeed make you wonder what all the fuss is about! Its us "poor saps" with dual cores that are getting screwed!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm scratching my head too. I posted my benchmark results in the previous few pages, and the performance seems to be pretty reasonable given what's on the screen and the resolution it's running. The game seems smooth and plays well. It feels very much like the previous GTA games when you are running or driving through the environment, even though the graphics and resolution have increased.

I can't be the only one, so it looks like anyone with two cores is experiencing their performance dropping off a cliff.
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
Yeah, I'm scratching my head too. I posted my benchmark results in the previous few pages, and the performance seems to be pretty reasonable given what's on the screen and the resolution it's running. The game seems smooth and plays well. It feels very much like the previous GTA games when you are running or driving through the environment, even though the graphics and resolution have increased.

I can't be the only one, so it looks like anyone with two cores is experiencing their performance dropping off a cliff.
Click to expand...

But it is strange, going by benchmark scores my E8400 @ stock matches or beats many quad cores CPUs. Kinda strange. :???:
 
pjbliverpool said:
Unless Inks talking about the horrible screen blur (Ctr-P I think). Thats definatly an abomination! I don't mind the actual motion blur that kicks in at high speed. Its pretty nice IMO even at the low framerates my system kicks out.
Click to expand...


I use it... I just cant stand the jaggies. Now if the bloom shader/motionblur shader could be tweaked to bloom/blur edges more... I guess I am not qualified anymore to be a graphics connoisseur... :cry:
 
Huh I tried running without restrictions to see high quality textures on my 8800gt, but got ugly texture texture pop-in. Do you not with your 512mb card?
 
kyleb said:
Huh I tried running without restrictions to see high quality textures on my 8800gt, but got ugly texture texture pop-in. Do you not with your 512mb card?
Click to expand...

Nothing at all. Well out of some hours of play I saw a couple of textures fade in in 2 instances at max settings. I got 4GB RAM to, maybe that makes the difference and that ATI cards are better at swapping.

I running now with above console settings (a bit higher) and actually enjoying a good 30-60fps with avg ~40fps so far and some dips down to 25fps in some hotspots and situations.

Still got textures on high as there is no returning back to medium for me! ;)

having a blast with this game. Driving drunk has a really cool effect and people hanging on the doors when driving another one. This apart from some really nice music.

Dunno if it's the default quality, the -fullspecaudio or X-Fi custom settings I have but a lot of the music sounds like Super Audio CD music of good quality.

EDIT: I also turned off the recording system ingame in the settings game tab. Dunno if it really helps but it might reduce the RAM/VRAM usage.
 
 
Nebula said:
Some of the screenshots of the config I settled for (the above mentioned). I tried to capture a video with fraps but framerate went from 40fps to 20fps!
Click to expand...

Hey man, what did you do to the shadows? They actually look half-decent now! :p
 
Hmm, maybe the latest ATi drivers and patch fixed some things up?

It certainly fixed my detail streaming issue.

Or maybe this in a game file?


# imposter.backgroundColor 0.20 0.20 0.10
imposter.backgroundColor.red 0.20
imposter.backgroundColor.green 0.20
imposter.backgroundColor.blue 0.10
imposter.shadow.blendRange 24.00
imposter.shadow.blendBias 64.00
imposter.shadow.size1 1024.00 <--
imposter.shadow.amt1 12.00
imposter.shadow.size2 512.00 <--
imposter.shadow.amt2 64.00
 
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