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GTA IV Max Settings

JOSNOR

n00b
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
12
hi, im just wondering what is the cheapest card that will run gta iv at max settings smoothly and what cpu would be needed thanks joe.
 
the problem with GTA4 is that its a cpu hog. any card can actually play the game almost maxed out as long as you have a processor that won't bottleneck it. the i7 2500k or 2600k with its high IPC performance and high clocks should help out a lot though i stopped paying attention to the game about the time the i7 920 came out and if i remember correctly it was a huge performance boost with that processor compared to the C2Q's.
 
Doesn't support multi GPU either.

A 6950 will handle it a max @ 1080p, won't handle resolutions higher than that. My 6970 has trouble with GTA IV at 2560x1600. It's still playable but doesn't give ideal performance...
 
sirmonkey1985, you still need a strong card to max this game.

and yeah the game is not optimized all that well as even with my 2500k at 4.2 and gtx570, it will drop into the 30s at times on max settings. keep view distance down though and it helps a lot.
 
I don't think there is a card yet that can really max it out smooth, in game at 1920 + 1080. 7970 looks like a good card for gta4. The benchmark is easier to max out than the actually playing the game. sirmonkey is right too you really need a good cpu also.
 
I don't think there is a card yet that can really max it out smooth, in game at 1920 + 1080. 7970 looks like a good card for gta4. The benchmark is easier to max out than the actually playing the game. sirmonkey is right too you really need a good cpu also.
a gtx570 can max the game out just fine. the areas where it drops down into the 30s is because of the crappy optimization on the cpu side of things. in other words if I drop the res to 800x600 then the framerate remains the same in those spots so a 7970 wold make no difference.
 
sirmonkey1985, you still need a strong card to max this game.

and yeah the game is not optimized all that well as even with my 2500k at 4.2 and gtx570, it will drop into the 30s at times on max settings. keep view distance down though and it helps a lot.

wow i'm surprised i figured the 2500k would finally be the one processor that would allow you to max the game out.. i know my phenom II x4 940 choked to death on that game, even my 8800GT wouldn't hit 100% load but i could never get more than 15fps at minimum settings or maximum settings.
 
lol, I can be at 80fps and turn the corner and hit 35fps. again though just turning the view distance down will make a huge difference.
 
a gtx570 can max the game out just fine. the areas where it drops down into the 30s is because of the crappy optimization on the cpu side of things. in other words if I drop the res to 800x600 then the framerate remains the same in those spots so a 7970 wold make no difference.
I don't think your really maxing the game out smooth on a 570. I bet it plays a lot better if you back settings off a bit. You almost have to average 80fps to make up for the drops. I get 80-100 fps at airport and it drops to 40s in other places. If I push settings higher its not really smooth. My cpu usage never goes to 100%
I bet a i7-3960x and a ati7970 would really max the game out smooth.
 
I don't think your really maxing the game out smooth on a 570. I bet it plays a lot better if you back settings off a bit. You almost have to average 80fps to make up for the drops. I get 80-100 fps at airport and it drops to 40s in other places. If I push settings higher its not really smooth. My cpu usage never goes to 100%
I bet a i7-3960x and a ati7970 would really max the game out smooth.
AGAIN its the cpu that causes the low framerates with a gtx570. I already said that I can lower the res to 800x600 in spots where the framerate is low and nothing changes. of course your cpu usage does not get to 100% as the game only uses 4 cores.
 
Hmm thanks for the advice, doesn't relay seem worth the effort for a 3 year old game. Guess il just keep hold of a ps3 for gta :/, also has any one had any look with saints row 3, I can almost play it, but not quite, I have a 2.8 ghz dual core amd and a he 4800. For me there doesn't seem to much difference in performance between min and max but it dips to low to play, does this mean it's my CPU or both haha, Might try and over clock it to if It gives me that little push needed to be playable, i read somewhere that it only uses two cores so I might give it a go
 
Hmm thanks for the advice, doesn't relay seem worth the effort for a 3 year old game. Guess il just keep hold of a ps3 for gta :/, also has any one had any look with saints row 3, I can almost play it, but not quite, I have a 2.8 ghz dual core amd and a he 4800. For me there doesn't seem to much difference in performance between min and max but it dips to low to play, does this mean it's my CPU or both haha, Might try and over clock it to if It gives me that little push needed to be playable, i read somewhere that it only uses two cores so I might give it a go

if you have the old athlon dual cores then yeah i'd say its the processor. if its an athlon II or phenom II then overclock the processor as much as you can.
 
The game is very poorly optimized and you need to do some tweaks to get it working correctly if your using crossfire with 2GB cards. As the game thinks your vram is 4GB. You need to add something like limitvideomem .50 or something like that to the end of the target. I forget to be honest as it's been about a year since i played through those games.

You can crank the game on max settings even in eyefinity but you will need to keep the sliders modest for a few things like view distance etc... I never played it on a single screen but I'd have to believe with a good cpu and good system ram along with at least a 6950 you should be able to max it at 1080p.
 
I maxed this game out with a GTX260 easy, and this was almost 3 years ago. (1680x1050)

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1033879736&postcount=25

Just gotta have a CPU that can crank.

My current GTX570 eats this game up at the same res.

If your only getting 56fps in benchmark then you must have unacceptable game play. And if sliders are not up all the way you are not maxing the game out.
I am sure the game will run good with settings backed off a bit but you are not maxing out the game smooth. If your getting dips in the 30s in car then low flying in the heli will be getting lag.
 
see signature , at 1920 x1200 i get a full capped 55 FPS no dips max detail and fsaa.

Is this game capped at 55?
 
see signature , at 1920 x1200 i get a full capped 55 FPS no dips max detail and fsaa.

Is this game capped at 55?
sorry but there is no way that you never dip below 55 fps on all max settings. and how do you have fsaa in gta 4?
 
GTA plays like crap with fps in the 30s. Its a lot smoother with settings backed off a bit.
 
sorry but there is no way that you never dip below 55 fps on all max settings. and how do you have fsaa in gta 4?

yes i never go below 55 , its like stuck at 55?

here is my video card overclock specs

Core 1100
Core clock 925
shader clock 1850
memory clock 2250
 
GTA plays like crap with fps in the 30s. Its a lot smoother with settings backed off a bit.
yep and UnrealCpu is living in a fantasyland claiming to never dip below 55fps with all max settings. I just fired up the game and there are spots where I am in low 30s doing nothing. if I turn view distance and shadows down then it goes to 70 fps in the exact same spot. so again he he does not have every setting maxed like he is claiming.
 
yes i never go below 55 , its like stuck at 55?

here is my video card overclock specs

Core 1100
Core clock 925
shader clock 1850
memory clock 2250
I dont care how high your gpu is clocked. the game will dip into the 30s with ALL settings maxed on your setup and that is a fact. the places where it dips down has almost nothing to do with the gpu anyway.

so again you do NOT have EVERY setting maxed if you never dip below 55fps. that is impossible.
 
here is all maxed settings at the beginning of the game. lol, framerates can go from 80 fps to 35 fps just going around a corner in this game with ALL settings maxed. and that is with a gtx570 and 2500k at 4.4.


anyway, here is ALL maxed out.







now the same spot with view distance and shadows turned down a bit.


 
yep and UnrealCpu is living in a fantasyland claiming to never dip below 55fps with all max settings. I just fired up the game and there are spots where I am in low 30s doing nothing. if I turn view distance and shadows down then it goes to 70 fps in the exact same spot. so again he he does not have every setting maxed like he is claiming.
I have over 2000 hrs in on gta4. I can crank the settings and the game will play but its a lot better with higher frps and settings backed off a bit. Especially playing the game for long periods of time and in noose with low flying.
I always thought if I got a better gpu I could max the game before you said the cpu was the bottleneck.
CPU usage is really low in the benchmark 32%. I wanted to see what my usage is in game but Core temp only tells what the max temp was and not load. I read gta only uses 3 cores.
This is my benchmark I did on a fresh install,it ran nice. http://www.xfire.com/profile/tom455olds/screenshots/?view#117250298
full settings I used. http://www.xfire.com/profile/tom455olds/screenshots/?view#117250297

If I play the game on those settings it runs, but its not the greatest. A lot better backed off a bit.
 
GTA 4 uses up to four cores. the game runs pretty good for me with view distance at 50 and with both night shadows and shadows on medium.
 
yeah my shadows are not on high, so i am getting good FPS, the benchmark i got 69fps,
 
yeah my shadows are not on high, so i am getting good FPS, the benchmark i got 69fps,

On my max settings everything high 16fsaa everything maxed out on the bench mark i got 67 or 69 fps i cant remember
again the game does not have AA options. you really need to double check your facts because you have been way off in this thread. at least you finally admitted that you did not have everything on max when you were claiming to never go below 55fps but you are still just guessing at some of your claims.

EDIT: and I get basically the same thing as you do in the benchmark
 
Last edited:
Statistics
Average FPS: 66.98
Duration: 37.03 sec
CPU Usage: 53%
System memory usage: 27%
Video memory usage: 94%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1200 (59 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: Very High
Reflection Resolution: Very High
Water Quality: Very High
Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x16
Night Shadows: Very High
View Distance: 100
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
Video Driver version: 285.62
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 4.80GHz

File ID: Benchmark.cli
 
This game has too much optimization problems. I lowered the resolution down to 800x600 and still got the same framerates as on high resolution with a GTX460 1GB. It's clearly CPU limited, as a result of bad programming.

Seeing how draw distance affects gaming performance, the problem is the algorithm used for controlling objects on screen. Probably bad bandwidth optimizations, too much cache failures and who knows if they are navigating objects more than one time in every pass.
 
This game has too much optimization problems. I lowered the resolution down to 800x600 and still got the same framerates as on high resolution with a GTX460 1GB. It's clearly CPU limited, as a result of bad programming.

Seeing how draw distance affects gaming performance, the problem is the algorithm used for controlling objects on screen. Probably bad bandwidth optimizations, too much cache failures and who knows if they are navigating objects more than one time in every pass.

I am sure once Ivy hits the road and 2012 gpu are released you will see 60fps, just like metro 2033 on dx 11
 
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