GTA 4 Why do we put up with this crap?

Keep calling me an idiot, I don't care. The fact that I torrent every game and only buy the good ones should say something.

Congratulations on being a fucking pirate douchebag.
 
Stereophile said:
It's one in the same. The vast majority of their revenue is from consoles. It's a real dick move, but they don't care how it runs for PC users. It was a ca$h in. How else to explain the overall lack of polish ? It feels like an alpha release. Like how previewers stated it ran back in summer of 2007 before the delay.

They may know it's not profitable to make a decent PC port. But you'd think with as much money as they made, they could afford to subsidize the PC a little, if only to maintain reputation and corporate goodwil. The VC and SA ports weren't miracles but they weren't as terrible as GTA4. Rockstar should be ashamed of themselves.

I hope someone brings a class action lawsuit against their asses.
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Actually that would contradict the theory of them trying to turn PC gamers into console gamers. The whole point is that they intentionally make the port run shitty, at least on less than monster computers of present day standards. Thus encouraging the gamers to either go buy a console or upgrading, if the customer choose upgrading, then at least the devs have supported the hardware market, which in turn supports the dev. It all makes sense when you think about it.
 
theNoid said:
Buy console games for a console.
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I did the same. Some games are better on the PC, others on the Xbox. Mostly due to poor effort/resources on porting.

Unfortunate really. Used to be an equal share of games being released on both targeting that specific platform. Now most developers are shifting the majority of resources for consoles and PC ports are outsourced in many cases.

KB/M is a hard thing to give up, and others it's way to much. However I get a chuckle out of every time I see someone excluding an xbox because most games will be on the PC eventually. The reason being is look at the end result. You get a game delayed for several months that runs worse than what it did on a console that is 25% of the speed of a gaming PC, the opposite why many want to run it on a PC (outside of input options). There's no excuse why it should be the case but that's what we get.

Makes it allot tougher at choosing multiplatform titles. For example L4D on Xbox 360 was a good option for me since many of my friends on that platform purchased it (ie I still favor the keyboard and mouse for shooters but can live with it to play with friends), however I avoided it like the plague as Value has a bad history of support on the console (TF2 still waiting on any updates or DLC for over a year) where as my PC version received newer maps, weapons, and all of them all for free. So for valve games, PC is a must.

I still upgrade my PC, but not nearly as much. Upgraded my machine on a regular basis since Doom I and Warcraft I. If someone would have asked me 4 years ago if my primary gaming platform would have been a console I would have laughed and lost allot of money.

Most of the xbox experience is tied with friends, so if you don't have any that own one or enjoy multiplayer it will probably be a lackluster experience. Many of the same features are free on the PC, but it's standard and organized better. Similar to if you play with all the same friends on the PC. I'm sure you have ventrillo/teamspeak installed/configured, use the friends list within steam or tell your buddy over chat the ip, and keep up on drivers/updates. The nice thing about the console, regardless of your skill level or laziness, everything is updated automatically and the multiplayer experience is stream lined. IE I can see what game and server by friend is playing an join that game without even saying a word (ie like Xfire), I can start chatting with him without calling him prior to launch ventrillo or TS. Don't have to wait for him to go to fileplanet or etc to download the latest patch and/or etc.
As mentioned all this is available on a PC, but comes standard on the console. So for me working in IT, it's nice to spend more time gaming then having to walk through/wait for people to get to the same level.
Not for everyone. Just sucks that having a PC is drawback in certain AAA releases.
 
reclinerhead said:
Keep calling me an idiot, I don't care. The fact that I torrent every game and only buy the good ones should say something.

Congratulations on being a fucking pirate douchebag.
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Say, do you get points from the publishers for sticking up for them so much? Do they send you a free game?

I go to many different forums and I have never seen the kind of hate that is often displayed here for pirates. Get a life! Is that guy hurting you in any way? Is he taking money from your pocket? If not then stfu. I swear some of y'all sound like RIAA spokesmen. I am not advocating piracy in any way but, mind your own damn business, you are no longer the hall pass monitors in elementary school.

All of the above being said, R* screwed the pooch on this one. There is simply not enough going on in this game for it to run the way it does on decent hardware. I have a X2 6000+ with 4 gigs of ram and a Geforce 260 as my gaming machine, this game runs like complete crap on it (and yes, you self righteous schmucks I paid for it!). I can play with the settings a bit and make it almost bearable but this game really feels like a crappy beta release. It is such a damn shame too because it has so much potential. Until R* gets its crap together I will not be playing anymore of their games. They screwed me on Bully and now they have screwed me on GTA IV. Enough!
 
MaddogJew said:
Say, do you get points from the publishers for sticking up for them so much? Do they send you a free game?

I go to many different forums and I have never seen the kind of hate that is often displayed here for pirates. Get a life! Is that guy hurting you in any way? Is he taking money from your pocket? If not then stfu. I swear some of y'all sound like RIAA spokesmen. I am not advocating piracy in any way but, mind your own damn business, you are no longer the hall pass monitors in elementary school.

All of the above being said, R* screwed the pooch on this one. There is simply not enough going on in this game for it to run the way it does on decent hardware. I have a X2 6000+ with 4 gigs of ram and a Geforce 260 as my gaming machine, this game runs like complete crap on it (and yes, you self righteous schmucks I paid for it!). I can play with the settings a bit and make it almost bearable but this game really feels like a crappy beta release. It is such a damn shame too because it has so much potential. Until R* gets its crap together I will not be playing anymore of their games. They screwed me on Bully and now they have screwed me on GTA IV. Enough!
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what about the draw distance?

there's like 14,343 things going on at once in the background, people walking around, cars driving around, etc.
 
MaddogJew said:
Is that guy hurting you in any way? Is he taking money from your pocket? If not then stfu.
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Well, yeah, actually. Game revenue pays for patches and development. The reason developers don't want to spend as much effort on PC ports and games is because people pirate them. If there was more at steak, they'd put more effort into them. Honest people like me still pay 50$ for the game, but because so many other jerks pirate game instead of buying the ones they can afford, I get a whole lot less quality and support for my money. In fact, the only reason pirates have games to pirate is because everyone else pays for the game for them.

It's not like music or movies. Piracy has a very strong negative impact on PC gaming. If anything can kill it, piracy will.

Also, most online communities are very hard on game pirates. Maybe not GameFAQs or 4chan, but most of the people who hang out there are idiots anyway.
 
Wow, and yet just days ago I was questioned as to where I have seen people admit to piracy... Apparently I read the goddamn threads, and use my memory. Just check out this thread.. Actually READ what people are saying... Then come ask me again where I see people admitting to piracy, and I'll help pull your head out of your ass. :rolleyes:

On topic, the game runs flawlessly for me.. as did every other GTA game I've bought and played on computer. Having no proof or facts, I still believe 98% of all "problems" people have with their computer games can be directly caused by improperly configured computers, out dated drivers, spyware/viruses, or general computer ignorance... All of which are NOT THE GAME DEVELOPERS fault.

I'm off to spend a few hours enjoying GTA 4, and perhaps finish the video clip I have been working on in the video editor and upload it to the web. No shit for me to put up with... :confused:
 
Did R* release alot of patches to fix GTA SA? I think they made enough money off of that title to fund more of an effort than they came through with. Publishers don't patch games because... they can, and you can't do anything about it either. If you don't buy the game, they will blame poor sales on piracy and not on the fact that they made a crummy product. You will just keep giving them your money over and over again. It really reminds me of battered wife syndrome. They are in this business to maximize profits, they could give a rats ass if you have fun or not, they just want your money. As long as suckers shell out the money for unfinished games like this one, then they will never change. Why should they? They have your money. When they release the next steaming pile of crap you will buy that one too. So get over yourself. Piracy has nothing to do with it.
 
MaddogJew said:
Did R* release alot of patches to fix GTA SA? I think they made enough money off of that title to fund more of an effort than they came through with. Publishers don't patch games because... they can, and you can't do anything about it either. If you don't buy the game, they will blame poor sales on piracy and not on the fact that they made a crummy product. You will just keep giving them your money over and over again. It really reminds me of battered wife syndrome. They are in this business to maximize profits, they could give a rats ass if you have fun or not, they just want your money. As long as suckers shell out the money for unfinished games like this one, then they will never change. Why should they? They have your money. When they release the next steaming pile of crap you will buy that one too. So get over yourself. Piracy has nothing to do with it.
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it's called gaming business for a reason, they are there to make money.

name one company that doesn't care about their profits and instead cares about the customers...
 
Because you already paid your $50 for the game.

R* wins.

Ojax; I'm playing GTA IV on a two week old computer (in sig), and it is the only game I have played yet that doesn't run smoothly; If Crysis can run at 60 FPS, GTA IV should be running at 120.

GTA IV is the victim of so many things that Rockstar did wrong, such as poor or flat out lack of optimization for one. As far as I know, GTA games will be a console exclusive buy for me from here on out.
 
Hulk said:
it's called gaming business for a reason, they are there to make money.

name one company that doesn't care about their profits and instead cares about the customers...
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None, which is why we should DEMAND a finished working product. If their motive is to rip us off, then why should we ostracize those who won't pay for it? Which is more intellectually dishonest? Those who rip off the consumer, or those who rip off the company who is ripping off the consumers? I remember hearing these exact same arguments in 1985. Piracy didn't kill the industry then (and it is one hell of a lot larger now) and it won't kill them now.

But hey, anything the game companies do is ok right? They can rob us with impunity. I have little sympathy toward them if someone reciprocates.

I'm out of $85 dollars (GTAIV and Bully) and I have no recourse against them. All I can do is hope that they will actually fix something, anything (unlike most of what they have done before). I'm screwed and so are you.
 
MaddogJew said:
But hey, anything the game companies do is ok right? They can rob us with impunity. I have little sympathy toward them if someone reciprocates.

I'm out of $85 dollars (GTAIV and Bully) and I have no recourse against them. All I can do is hope that they will actually fix something, anything (unlike most of what they have done before). I'm screwed and so are you.
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I haven't pirated a game in months (too many on backburner lately) but when I see threads on EVERY pc gaming forum bitching and moaning about performance and compatibility issues then i'll just jump on the bay and grab it first and see whether I'd even be able to enjoy the game before shelling out 50 bucks on it.
 
pigwalk said:
I haven't pirated a game in months (too many on backburner lately) but when I see threads on EVERY pc gaming forum bitching and moaning about performance and compatibility issues then i'll just jump on the bay and grab it first and see whether I'd even be able to enjoy the game before shelling out 50 bucks on it.
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or you could... maybe just ask around on forums for users that have similar hardware what kind of performance they are getting instead of stealing the game and justifying all the DRM crap and other nonsense they throw at us?
 
Add all the DRM they want, if I buy a game and DRM ever causes a problem, there are more than enough sources out there to circumvent. No 2 pc gamers are going to have the exact same setup so I'm not going to trust that your experience of the game will be the same as mine.

Demo's being released is a BIG step in the right direction. If a demo isn't released, it just makes me wonder what you're trying to hide.....
 
GTA series suck in general, I bought GTA3 for the PC, couldn't get into it and it looked like poop, I tried GTA:VC demo on the computer, again couldn't get into it and it looked like poop. Dunno why anyone would think after looking time and time again that GTA was or could be a good game on the computer.

I almost feel burned for buying GTA:VC for my PS2 for $2.50 a few months back, I still can't bring myself to even try it out!!

As for those who think pirating hurts revenue for patches, thats pure lies. EA (just one of the developers) has been known for years upon years to never update there lineups like the NFS series, you'd be lucky at best to get a single patch and even then it was usually something for network play which was already infected with mass cheating or no one even playing it. I can still go back to NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 on this system I have now and it runs like crap. Play NFS: underground/ Underground 2/ Most Wanted/ Carbon and all have hitching and stuttering which has NEVER been fixed. It seems with every iteration release it just gets worse and the developer does NOT care to fix it, just use resources on new projects.

Now what about releases that should of come to the PC, I still want to play The Darkness on the PC, and 2K games could of done it. Why 2K, why!?!?
 
Menelmarar said:
ALL of their previous PC releases have been buggy and had poor performance. Why would you expect any different?
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I finally got around to getting and installing it. It's not so bad.

Installed, started up, did the live offline account thing. Started right up, went straight to native 1920 resolution, I think the first game that has done this properly without me having to force it. Auto detected medium textures, and high rendering quality. Built-in benchmark registered 25.6fps average, and looked smooth and fluid.

Started the game, some of the animation was choppy, so I dropped the rendering back to medium and smoothed out. Can I really complain? My PC is over 2 years old, that should be ancient in terms of PC gaming hardware, and I'm running at high res and a decent level of graphics. I'm impressed actually.

Secondary display, with my IM/email aps and sidebar, showed the game maxing out both cores of my E6600, and I didn't watch to closely, but memory did get upto 88% while out driving around, it may have went higher, again, I wasn't watching it very attentively. Thank you Vista64 and 4GB memory.

Played for about 3 hours last night. Pretty slow start, and omg are the cards hard a bitch to drive. Going to take some getting use to their physics.
 
I'm actually starting to question the whole "badly optimised" thing much like I did with Crysis. A lot of people are starting to bleet this over and over but is the performance really that bad considering exactly what visuals we get for it?

I'm running it 1920x1200 with Medium textures and a pretty reasonable scale for view distance with max AF, and to be honest the game looks fantastic. All the previous GTA games sacraficed quality to obtain the large scale over which the games are set, however GTA4 boasts relatively high quality models and effects as well as being on a huge scale as well...

I think it's a return of "my computer cant run this in max settings, so it must be badly optimised" the same thing we saw with Crysis, both developers issues comments that the high settings are reserved for future hardware.

*edit*

Just for reference Vsync seems to be forced on, this may attribute to the low frame rates some of you are getting, if you do a search you can find how to set launch options for the game one of which is to force it off, this will give you a much faster frame rate in a lot of cases.
 
Frostex said:
I think it's a return of "my computer cant run this in max settings, so it must be badly optimised" the same thing we saw with Crysis, both developers issues comments that the high settings are reserved for future hardware.
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Not the same thing thoug, GTA4 runs horribly at lowest settings seemingly with anything else than quad cores which in no way seems reasonable. Crysis was very playable (except for the ice area) at medium settings with my mediocre gaming setup at the time, and I had no problem with that, it definitely was favored to high end systems but it still scaled OK. GTA4 only runs fair on high end no matter how much you slaughter the options. Anyway, im repeating myself, I guess we should hold our horses and hope this is some bad driver glitch or something that will be ironed out in a patch.
 
Game developers really need to just make releasing a demo standard procedure for all PC games. Obviously this won't prevent piracy; however, it will at least weaken the argument of "try before you buy" for pirating, since they can try a limited version to see how it runs on their system and if they like the way the game is set up. Of course, I am sure other excuses will be found.

Personally, I don't see why reading up on the game and user experiences won't suffice.
 
hfk said:
Not the same thing thoug, GTA4 runs horribly at lowest settings seemingly with anything else than quad cores which in no way seems reasonable. Crysis was very playable (except for the ice area) at medium settings with my mediocre gaming setup at the time, and I had no problem with that, it definitely was favored to high end systems but it still scaled OK. GTA4 only runs fair on high end no matter how much you slaughter the options. Anyway, im repeating myself, I guess we should hold our horses and hope this is some bad driver glitch or something that will be ironed out in a patch.
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This game does have dual core as min spec and quad core as recommended, the low end of the scale is here is a slow dual core system the high end is a fast quad core...

People are used to upgrading their video cards and putting in more RAM in order to get the most out of games but I feel that most people don't realise that the speed of the CPU is still important.

Either way it's a perception problem, people are surprised that they have to upgrade their CPU because they're not used to doing it. However it scales just like video cards do, only it's less visible to the user because usualy the limiting factor is the video card. With a video card so you can see your frame rate going down and down as games get better and require more GPU power, but with the CPU you don't really see it, until one day its the limiting factor and suddenly its a problem.

It's a bit like RAM usage, it's the same kind of thing, either you have enough RAM or you dont, theres no performance increase linear to the amount of RAM you have, if you dont have enough you get the pagefile swapping out data and making the game stutter, or you have enough RAM and that doesnt occur...kind of a logic on/off.

Anyway a medium speed dual core isn't really a harsh min spec, Assassins creed had a medium speed dual core as min spec when that was released a year ago.
 
I dunno man, R* recommends a phenom x3 on the AMD side and that thing isnt that quick at all. A core 2 duo at 3.6ghz should manage to close the gap a little more. Something just doesnt seem right. Hell even R* said there were performance problems and are going to release a patch didnt they?

fuck it, stop defending it with shit like "o its just your computer", why dont lower resolutions make it better???
 
The limiting factor is the CPU, the CPU isn't stressed any less when you lower the resolution, only the video card is. The CPU is doing the game logic, the AI and the physics (ragdols and particles) for the most part, lowering something like the amount of traffic is likely to help lower the load on the CPU but thats about it, most of the other settings wont ease up the CPU, maybe view distance to further lower the amount of trafic/peds being drawn.
 
My system can play it well with the high textures and sliders up (except view distance). Know the problem? I can't actually set it there unless I use a lot of command lines on the shortcut and log in to social club (yes you have to log in to social club for the command lines to work, retarded huh?). They tried to artifically gimp the in game graphics settings to stop an outcry... but the lame ass limitations are what is getting to me. Why must I log in to crap to play a single player game!!!
 
Jakalwarrior said:
My system can play it well with the high textures and sliders up (except view distance). Know the problem? I can't actually set it there unless I use a lot of command lines on the shortcut and log in to social club (yes you have to log in to social club for the command lines to work, retarded huh?). They tried to artifically gimp the in game graphics settings to stop an outcry... but the lame ass limitations are what is getting to me. Why must I log in to crap to play a single player game!!!
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No idea, but it's an incredibly sucky setup that I hope to never see happen again. The best thing they could do for the next patch is disable that "feature."
 
It seems to me this game relies to much on the cpu to do all work and the gfx dont give all its power, oppose to other games like crysis etc where gpu is #1 rather then having a quad.. here strange not :(
 
Mortuus said:
It seems to me this game relies to much on the cpu to do all work and the gfx dont give all its power, oppose to other games like crysis etc where gpu is #1 rather then having a quad.. here strange not :(
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Well this is where a i7 or 2 Quad xeons would really kick in. Yes its strange :/
 
jjz- said:
Personally, I don't see why reading up on the game and user experiences won't suffice.
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Well, how do you know who to trust? No one is going to have exactly the same tastes in games as you, so how do you know which random person on the internet is right? If you asked a lot of people they'd tell you Halo or World of Warcraft are the best games ever made, but they are pretty average IMO

As for reading up on the game, most of the big review sites seem to give high scores to hyped-up games whether they live up to the hype or not. It often just seems like an extension of the publishers/developers PR campaign, rather than an unbiased article or review.
 
still doesnt give you a right to steal something .....

and general consensus of Halo and WoW are that they both suck balls.... so i'd say the internet community was spot on about those games (as they are about 95% of most game releases...)
 
You know what, besides graphical glitches mine isnt running bad at all. It stays mostly above 30 never seen it below 28ish. Its fun!

My cpu is 3.6ghz dual core e7200.

Im trying to figure out what kinda graphical settings i can play with using my 4870 512mb
 
I was playing at 1680x1050 with everything as high as I could set it on an overclocked Q6600 and GTX260. The benchmark was running at 43fps. In game it was slower but it wasn't THAT bad. I never disabled the replay feature either.

The reason I uninstalled it is that the game looks like ass without anti-aliasing. Some games look fine without it but GTA is nothing but a jagged mess at this resolution. I didn't expect to have the same nasty filter on the shadows that the consoles had either.
 
Wow. This thread is intense. So happy I was on the Q6600 side of the "Q6600 vs. E8***" fence. Runs great for me on the rig in my sig @ 1680x1050 with max settings.

Quad cores people, they have been around for awhile. Get one.
 
If only I had the money to get a Quad CPU, lol.

I choose to replace my 8600GT with a 9800GTX+ come this holiday, and leave my C2D 2.33GHz in service

I guess this game is not for me then. Though I still wish they had some kind of demo rather than leaving everyone guessing how their system is going to perform.
 
Frostex said:
I think it's a return of "my computer cant run this in max settings, so it must be badly optimised" the same thing we saw with Crysis, both developers issues comments that the high settings are reserved for future hardware.
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The reserved for future hardware is just a copout as who in their right mind is going to buy a game thats already a year old to play on hardware that won't be released for another year? Its in the developers best interests to release a game that is optimized for current gen hardware.
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
still doesnt give you a right to steal something .....

and general consensus of Halo and WoW are that they both suck balls.... so i'd say the internet community was spot on about those games (as they are about 95% of most game releases...)
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11 million wow subscribers beg to differ ;) Even check out the two biggest game sites (gamespot and IGN), and you'll see the readers gave it a 9.1 and 8.3 respectively.

I didn't say it makes it okay to pirate the game (which isn't stealing btw, it's copyright infringement), but when game devs provide no demo you are basically gambling with your $50, since you can't rent or return PC games. It's easy to see how that doesn't seem very attractive to gamers.
 
jjz- said:
Personally, I don't see why reading up on the game and user experiences won't suffice.
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How can I say this....because a good percentage (has to be at least 50%) of pc gamers are blathering idiots. Not you, not me, not a lot of people in this discussion....but it's hard to argue that people who automatically throw out "poorly coded" "bloat" "console port" when they cant turn everything to max on their pc (which is either just below or just at the recommended specs) are complete morons. It's a pretty shitty reward for a dev who has an eye to future replayability to be crapped on in this manner. Everyone did it to Crytek, and look what the reward was - Warhead, which looks a good deal worse than Crysis. Now everyone is doing it to Rockstar. Surprise, surprise.

Also....to everyone complaining about AA. Google yourself up some knowledge about how much video memory AA uses. Then google yourself up some 3d models and look at the size of them versus their complexity. Then try to imagine a whole city's worth of models, plus top quality car models. Then call up Nvidia and AMD and ask them to put 4GB of video ram on their next generation of cards. Oh, and a 1024bit memory interface. Of course when it comes out the resounding cry from the masses will be "too fucking expensive!!!!!".
 
travbrad said:
11 million wow subscribers beg to differ ;) Even check out the two biggest game sites (gamespot and IGN), and you'll see the readers gave it a 9.1 and 8.3 respectively.

I didn't say it makes it okay to pirate the game (which isn't stealing btw, it's copyright infringement), but when game devs provide no demo you are basically gambling with your $50, since you can't rent or return PC games. It's easy to see how that doesn't seem very attractive to gamers.
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are you an MMORPG fan? i know many of them just like WoW... so fan reviews of the game might still be really accurate, even if your tastes are different....

and yea... user experiences, especially on forums of websites like [H] (imho, the users here give the best opinions of games...), anandtech, techreport, etc etc etc are usually *spot on*, especially if you observe them for 2-3 days after a game is released, you usually get a very accurate impression of a game...
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
are you an MMORPG fan? i know many of them just like WoW... so fan reviews of the game might still be really accurate, even if your tastes are different....

and yea... user experiences, especially on forums of websites like [H] (imho, the users here give the best opinions of games...), anandtech, techreport, etc etc etc are usually *spot on*, especially if you observe them for 2-3 days after a game is released, you usually get a very accurate impression of a game...
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Oh I definitely agree you get some pretty good opinions from the more tech oriented communities. When you said "online community" I thought you meant the whole online community. Even on sites like [H] you'll find widely varying opinions though, and it can be difficult to figure out who you're likely to agree with.

As for the MMORPGs, I guess I'm not really a fan you're right. I've tried a few and have only actually enjoyed one. This over inflating of game ratings isn't restricted to a specific genre though. Also, while WOW and Halo (the examples I used) were really overrated IMO, I have to give kudos to them for at least offering demos/free trials. That's really all I'm asking for. I wouldn't even mind paying $5 to play the first 25% of the game or something, just to see if it's worth buying.

Only about 5 years ago almost every game had a demo before it was released, which was a really nice way of deciding which games to get, and seeing if they would perform up to your expectations. Unfortunately game demos seem to be less and less common these days, which does make some people resort to pirating the full game.
 
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