GTA 4 FPS Issues

S

-Sn1PeR-

2[H]4U
Joined
Dec 26, 2002
Messages
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I can't seem to break the low 30's @ 1920x1200 even with everything on low. I'm running a [email protected] with a 5870 and 4GB of RAM. Is it time to get an i7? What gives?

Please post your settings!
 
You are definitely limited by your cpu. I have tested the 5870 with both the q6600 and the i5-750, and even at similar clock speeds (3.4-3.6) the i5-750 runs the game with far less slowdowns. I wouldn't worry about getting a new cpu yet though, as this is one of the only games that I have seen be so CPU-intensive. In most other games the 5870 should fly with the q6600 at 3.4.
 
What kind of fps should I expect at my resolution if I upgrade to an i7? I do think I am also cpu limited in BC2 and Metro 2033.
 
not breaking the 30's on all low isn't because of your CPU, that doesn't make any sense.
 
osmt2 said:
You are definitely limited by your cpu. I have tested the 5870 with both the q6600 and the i5-750, and even at similar clock speeds (3.4-3.6) the i5-750 runs the game with far less slowdowns. I wouldn't worry about getting a new cpu yet though, as this is one of the only games that I have seen be so CPU-intensive. In most other games the 5870 should fly with the q6600 at 3.4.
Click to expand...

This is not the case with GTA IV. Patch 6 has drastically reduced the performance of every system along with image quality. If you don't believe me, head over to gtaforums.com and check it out.

These are the patch notes right off of steam:

Rockstar Games Social Club
Remove Rockstar Games Social Club application
Separate RGSC application no longer required to launch game
Social Club login now occurs during the launch process

Shadows
A new, less memory-intensive, and better-looking scalable shadow solution has been implemented
Enhanced Night Shadows added with user-selectable level of detail (replaces Shadow Density)

Performance
Rendering optimizations have been made to improve performance, particularly when enabling shadows
User-configurable graphics settings have been added for shadow control
Improved memory management

Multiplayer
Enhanced security to isolate users from cheaters and hackers

Episodic Content
Provide in-game support to purchase "The Lost and Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony"

Bug Fixes
Vehicle shadows re-enabled between 8pm and 6am
Fix floating street textures
Pedestrians in vehicles appear further out from the player to allow for long range sniping
The Moon has been implemented with simulated lunar phases
RESC 10" error fix for specific hardware configurations

I don't understand why they would implement this "fix". I was able to play the game on High on my Lenovo Y550P, now i can only put it on the lowest settings.

Buildings and other objects pop in instead of materializing. (I agree its not a proper way of explaining it, but thats the best way I can put it. You have to play the game pre- and post fixed to see what i am talking about.)

The "new" shadows look even worse than the shadows they used pre-patch and look then times worse. One annoying feature is that every character's shoes don't draw shadows. It looks like Nico and the pedestrians are floating a few inches off the ground.

I have no idea why they would release this, it's unacceptable from Rockstar.

Does anyone else have something to chime in about the game?

Note: Do not bash the game, everyone has there own opinion but this is a problem and lets keep it civil.
 
Yes he's right, the new patch runs it shittier. I asked my niece why the fuck it was running more boggy. :|
 
patch doesnt seem to play nicely with i7 chips

check how many cores the game is using... if something looks weird, play with the affinities
 
I kind of feel bad for people having issues, mine seems to be working fine. I'm running at 5040x1200 all high, with x16 AA and still getting playable frames. I did end up cutting it back to 8x to avoid slow downs during bigger scene's, but it's doing really well. 920/5870
 
How much texture flickering and pop-ins are you getting, Oldie? I think that's a pretty universal issue right now. Whatever this new patch did, for better or for worse, the texture pop-in is terrible.
 
I wouldn't call it horrible, but it's definitely there...even in cut scenes. I've probably gotten in 2 hours today (don't trust my steam profile, I alt-tab a lot), and I've seen it about 6-7 times off the top of my head.
 
Well that new patch helped performance, but it's still noticeably lower than it was before this new episodic content patch hit. I'm just going to sit tight and not play this game until Rockstar fixes it for real... Just Cause 2 is keeping me plenty busy.
 
So does disabling HT improve things for i7 owners? I don't have it installed ATM...
 
I'm convinced I'm cpu bound. After looking at Oldie's settings and the fact that he is running the exact same gpu that I am this makes me wonder -- if I bite the bullet and upgrade to an i7 will my fps really double? My gpu is hardly ever maxed out, but my cpu is pinned when I play. I get about 23fps when driving around if I use high textures, medium everything else, night shadows off, 40/40/40 detail/distance/traffic and 4x Aniso. When I get out and walk around it goes up into the playable 40 range, but driving is always 23-33fps max.
 
A Q6600 is fine for this game. Runs fine maxed out, the problem lies in the new patch. Looks like it cut easily 5-7 fps off just from my trained eyes.
 
If anyone else is having problems the solution for me was to turn shadows completely off. I can run everything else on high and stay above 30fps for the most part. It does take some dips every now and then, but it's playable at around 30-35fps when driving.
 
shadows and reflection resolution are GTA 4's most performance killing settings imo

with your system I'd think it should be able to run at least High shadows. I'm not so sure about reflection resolution but I had it at low in GTA 1.02 and now have it off in GTA 1.06 with an E8500 @ 4.1 and 4870 512.
 
udneekgnim said:
shadows and reflection resolution are GTA 4's most performance killing settings imo

with your system I'd think it should be able to run at least High shadows. I'm not so sure about reflection resolution but I had it at low in GTA 1.02 and now have it off in GTA 1.06 with an E8500 @ 4.1 and 4870 512.
Click to expand...

Hrm. The reflection setting doesn't seem to effect my fps much. I just tried off (usually run it on high) and it went up maybe 2-3fps. If I put shadows on low instead of off my fps drop to 18-23fps when driving during the day.
 
Here's what I've done that successfully helped to alleviate some of the graphical problems that were plaguing the game for me. (most notably the terrible pop in of textures)

Make a commandline.txt (put in main EFLC directory) with these settings inside:

-norestrictions
-nomemrestrict
-availablevidmem 1.2 (do research to see what works best for your video card here)
-memrestrict 629145600

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=446046

Then I followed these steps from this forum and am using the graphics tweak mod NEAR setting - doesn't run quite as smooth as GTA IV patch 5 did but it's MUCH better than vanilla patch 6/7 EFLC. Try it out - hope it works.
 
Sn1PeR, you should definitely be getting better performance than that. I run GTAIV on my setup. The only real difference in our setups is that you have 5870 and I have a 470. Below are my benchmark results. MY CPU is not overclocked. I had been advised to turn clip capture off when running mine. The other variable might be view distance and details....

Statistics
Average FPS: 37.21
Duration: 37.76 sec
CPU Usage: 79%
System memory usage: 71%
Video memory usage: 70%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 (59 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: High
Reflection Resolution: High
Water Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x4
Night Shadows: High
View Distance: 30
Detail Distance: 70

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Home Premium
Service Pack 2
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470
Video Driver version: 197.41
Audio Adapter: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
 
CrashingBeaker said:
Sn1PeR, you should definitely be getting better performance than that. I run GTAIV on my setup. The only real difference in our setups is that you have 5870 and I have a 470. Below are my benchmark results. MY CPU is not overclocked. I had been advised to turn clip capture off when running mine. The other variable might be view distance and details....

Statistics
Average FPS: 37.21
Duration: 37.76 sec
CPU Usage: 79%
System memory usage: 71%
Video memory usage: 70%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 (59 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: High
Reflection Resolution: High
Water Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x4
Night Shadows: High
View Distance: 30
Detail Distance: 70

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Home Premium
Service Pack 2
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470
Video Driver version: 197.41
Audio Adapter: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
Click to expand...
thats a pretty low score and I beat that with my E8500@ 3.6 and much slower gtx260. you really need to oc that cpu because at 2.4 most higher clocked dual cores will easily surpass it. also why is your refresh rate at 59 instead of 60?


Statistics
Average FPS: 45.86
Duration: 37.11 sec
CPU Usage: 95%
System memory usage: 66%
Video memory usage: 94%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: High
Reflection Resolution: High
Water Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x4
Night Shadows: High
View Distance: 30
Detail Distance: 70

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional

Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
Video Driver version: 196.34
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8500 @ 3.16GHz

File ID: Benchmark.cli
 
Last edited:
Statistics
Average FPS: 40.27
Duration: 37.24 sec
CPU Usage: 79%
System memory usage: 75%
Video memory usage: 88%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: High
Reflection Resolution: High
Water Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x4
Night Shadows: High
View Distance: 30
Detail Distance: 70

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate

Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Video Driver version: 8.14.1.6105
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

File ID: Benchmark.cli

The problem is at these settings just standing still outside in the real game yields 25-30fps... not a very realistic benchmark. I'm shocked your dual core and 260 beats my quad and 5870 with only a 200mhz clock difference.
 
I haven't seen many AMD system scores, so here's mine. I'm using the -norestictions command to allow maximum settings. The scores are extemely close to what I experience in actual gameplay.

Statistics
Average FPS: 40.53
Duration: 36.37 sec
CPU Usage: 70%
System memory usage: 48%
Video memory usage: 96%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1200 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: Very High
Reflection Resolution: Very High
Water Quality: Very High
Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x4
Night Shadows: Very High
View Distance: 100
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Video Driver version: 8.14.1.6099
Audio Adapter: Speakers (ASUS Xonar D1 Audio Device)
AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 940 Processor

File ID: TLAD-Benchmark.cli
 
Statistics
Average FPS: 60.75
Duration: 37.20 sec
CPU Usage: 68%
System memory usage: 52%
Video memory usage: 85%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: High
Reflection Resolution: High
Water Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x4
Night Shadows: High
View Distance: 30
Detail Distance: 70

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Video Driver version: 8.14.1.6099
Audio Adapter: Speakers (ASUS Xonar D1 Audio Device)
AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 940 Processor

File ID: Benchmark.cli
 
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I guess the most important thing to check here is that everyone who submits a benchmark is running the latest version of the game. I'm running the Steam installed version all patched up to current. 1.0.6.0

With that said, why on earth could I be getting 20fps less than you with the same gpu? Is a [email protected] vs. a phenom II [email protected] that big of a blowout, or do you think your memory bandwidth @ 1066 has something to do with it?
 
-Sn1PeR- said:
I guess the most important thing to check here is that everyone who submits a benchmark is running the latest version of the game. I'm running the Steam installed version all patched up to current. 1.0.6.0

With that said, why on earth could I be getting 20fps less than you with the same gpu? Is a [email protected] vs. a phenom II [email protected] that big of a blowout, or do you think your memory bandwidth @ 1066 has something to do with it?
Click to expand...

I'm using the Steam copy, so it's at the latest version. I think it's a combination of additional CPU speed, the fact that I also overclocked my IMC and L3 cache to 2.6Ghz, and additional memory bandwidth. Core2 Quads have a higher memory latency due to the fact that the northbridge is separate from the CPU.
 
Q6600 is still one of the better CPUs out there, and has stood the test of time. Overclocking gives it even better legs. I know first hand.
 
hey, if u got a physx card, or using a reg vid card as physx, disable it. Seriously, I get crappy frames when I try to use another vid card as physx.
 
OP, turn off shadows completely (day and night time)

I went from getting 25-45fps to getting 50-70fps with the latest patch installed.

Interestingly enough, I was logging my system while running it last night and my GPU usage each went from 70-85% with shadows enabled down to around 40-55% with the shadows turned off (which tells me that I 'should' be able to use them without any performance hit). CPU usage didn't really change between the two settings
 
BM00 said:
Make a commandline.txt (put in main EFLC directory) with these settings inside:

-norestrictions
-nomemrestrict
-availablevidmem 1.2 (do research to see what works best for your video card here)
-memrestrict 629145600

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=446046
Click to expand...

you might as well do some voodoo raindance hopping in circles around your rig while chanting at your monitor. the first 2 options you used are in direct contradiction with the next, they actually cancel each other out. the only one that really does anything is -memrestrict, it literally limits you to 629145600 bytes of vram. this works because they really can't handle those 512mb+ vram sizes, even though they have the balls to demand it the engine chokes on its own math. that's why the dev sticky recommends you to use this flag alone, since it runs in conflict with the others.

to confirm this you can set an osd to watch the vram usage rise - as soon as you hit this wall the stuttering starts, because it can't keep up with the loading/purging of new data. people can argue that a faster proc would fix this, but even if you lower your distance settings so that you run at <100%, with high enough quality textures and shadows to fill the ram it still happens.

-Sn1PeR- said:
I guess the most important thing to check here is that everyone who submits a benchmark is running the latest version of the game. I'm running the Steam installed version all patched up to current. 1.0.6.0

With that said, why on earth could I be getting 20fps less than you with the same gpu? Is a [email protected] vs. a phenom II [email protected] that big of a blowout, or do you think your memory bandwidth @ 1066 has something to do with it?
Click to expand...

because gpu processing power contributes absolutely nothing to the game, besides vram for them to dump blatantly mismanaged textures and shadows onto. all you can really do is throw cpu cycles at this engine, so the more efficient and higher clocks the better. watch your gpu temps, that's why it stays icy cold while your proc runs balls to the wall.

this is what happens when you shoehorn hd assets onto engines made for consoles, with no gpu optmisation whatsoever, most of your hardware gets wasted and you're just chugging through all the rendering with brute force. I just tried getting back into the original since I thought about getting eflc, and remembered why I never finished it. after all this time they still haven't got their acts together, 6 patches later and it still runs like shit. why should capable rigs have to play with low distance, and shadows degraded or off? makes no sense. you can use mods and driver based aa to polish this jagged turd, but that's about it.

sure you could throw an i5/i7 at it, but what would be the point? I wouldn't bother wasting this kind of hardware on the rockstar xbox emulator.
 
Quote from the linked forums...

"If you disable hyperthreading on an i7, you might as well have just gotten an i5 750, it's like a waste of $100 dollars."
Click to expand...

...is completely incorrect.

While Intel had good intentions with reintroducing HT with i7, it still has not been implemented properly, and just like with the P4 series, it has predominantly shown to actually slow things down, not speed them up.

This applies to both games and apps outside of gaming.

The few apps (games or not) that might show any "improvement", the "increase" is so negligible, that you'd not even notice. Otherwise, it's just a "dead feature" that unfortunately does not result in anything but a loss of performance 99% of the time.
 
PainInverter said:
Quote from the linked forums...



...is completely incorrect.

While Intel had good intentions with reintroducing HT with i7, it still has not been implemented properly, and just like with the P4 series, it has predominantly shown to actually slow things down, not speed them up.

This applies to both games and apps outside of gaming.

The few apps (games or not) that might show any "improvement", the "increase" is so negligible, that you'd not even notice. Otherwise, it's just a "dead feature" that unfortunately does not result in anything but a loss of performance 99% of the time.
Click to expand...

So... do you agree with the statement about getting an i5 instead? Your reasoning seems to back that school of thought.
 
i just bought this game off the crazy deal on steam...i have an i5-750 @ 3.78ghz coupled with a 5870. unfortunately its going to take me 2-3 days to even d/l the friggin thing because i only have a 1mb up/1mb down connection...

ill chime in with my results once its done. :D
 
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