[Xtreme2damax]

Does anyone have any tweak guides for Grand Theft Auto 4 which contain tweaks that actually work?

GTA4 is running like crap irregardless of the settings I use, so far I've only installed patch 1.0.3.0.

I get about 20- 28 FPS, with it dipping low in certain areas. I was just wondering if there is any worthwhile tweaks or user made optimizations which give a decent boost in performance.

My system specifications: Core2Duo E8500 @ 3.16 Ghz, Nvidia Geforce 9800 GT (512 MB), 4 GB DDR2 Ram.

I'm using Windows 7 and Nvidia Forceware 191.07 for my graphics card drivers.

 

[masta.g.86]

I think the latest patch is 1.0.4.0.

Turn shadows completely off. (This only affect dynamic shadows and ironically, makes the game look better. Well, to me at least. Sizable performance increase, especially on dual cores.)

The best way to improve performance in that game is to play on a quad core. The game runs 60fps @ 1920x1200 nearly all of the time for me. The only reason for the occasional, minor dip seems to be from my video card. I suppose if my card had more VRAM it wouldn't have the occasional dip.

 

[PCXL-Fan]

I will save you my son. (this is a joke, a bit of sarcasm, i'm not claim to be the all knowing one stop source)

First off its your choice or not but nvidia released a gta specific driver geared specifically towards gta4. It will outperform all other drivers in gta4 including the very latest released this month, because it is hacked to specifically be geared towards gta4. Of course all other games may likely suffer a bit as a consiquence as this driver is a little old.

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_gtaiv_downloads.html

Then there is this guide here: (They also have a video tutorial on youtube)
the Best GTA 4 Tweaks, Mods and Optimization guide | Multiplayer File Check*Fix - T3ch H3lp | All the latest in Technology news - T3ch H3lp | All the latest in Technology news

The rapidshare contig.exe file is a mini defrag program that can target a single folder or parent folder. I didn't download the rapidshare one, i just got mine off of the official microsft webpage (just google it)

The i downloaded Game Booster (google it) (which can toggle on/off unnessesary services in xp and vista while playing a game) (maybe w7 now though haven't checked)

They mention a other download called "fps fix" towards the end that supposedly improve fps greatly and show an imbedded video of the improvement it offers (a +20% fps improvement) by replacing certain files with modified ones, but i didn't bother download or try it out, as i didn't necessarily utterly trust this blog that the rapidshare file is safe/virus-free/backdoor-free and haven't gotten around to researching it enough to rest my concerns.

All this is a mish mash of stuff they mentioned in their youtube tutorial (which i haven't posted), and their blog guide. All have benefitted me except for the last one, which i didn't bother trying.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Having a quad core CPU and a graphics card with alot of VRAM seem to be the two keys for this game. This is the complete opposite of most other things, where the actual power of the CPU (per core) and power of the GPU itself are what matter.

That being said, I still haven't played the game for more than five minutes, and I bought it when it was released for full price. I don't like it much (part of that is due to all of the issues it had/has, and part is maybe because I'm tired of the series after the first three). I really wish you could transfer games on Steam to other accounts. I'd probably even give it away for free versus leaving it sit to waste when I'll never play it. That's really the only major flaw Steam has to me.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

forceware 195 and multithreaded tweaks improve GTA4 performance.

..so does disabling those epic fail shadows.....

Also, if you use nhancer, there is a profile available for GTA4 which enables AA and removed that crappy blurr.

 

[bkwegoharder]

The nhancer thing adds blur. There is no anti aliasing in GTA 4 unless you use Boris' enbseries supersampling mod. To turn off blur just go into the game options and turn definition on.


Make sure you keep view distances low, the consoles had a low frame rate for the game as well, and they ran with extremely low settings compared to what this pc version lets us do. They use a view distance at max 21, and for the detal distance the max is 10, the settings change dynamically based on the way the game is performing on the consoles though. Leaving shadows off is also good way to improve performance like others said. As you can see the view distance for the consoles are low and it still looks good on the consoles, after you get to about 40 on the sliders there isn't much of a difference in visuals so remember to be easy on them, having them real low gives you better performance without much of a visual hit.

The settings that don't effect performance much compared to everything else is the reflection resolution, Water Quality, texture quality and texture filter quality.

 

[PCXL-Fan]

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

The nhancer thing adds blur. There is no anti aliasing in GTA 4 unless you use Boris' enbseries supersampling mod. To turn off blur just go into the game options and turn definition on.

only if you use 4x or higher.

seems gta engine scrambles the colour samples >.>

 

[Densetsu]

"Ultimate" Graphics Tweak

GTAForums.com -> Ultimate Graphics Tweak

"Ultimate" Graphics Tweak is a little modification which allow you to enable improved post processing effects like Motion Blur and Depth Of Field.
It also smoothens dotted shadows and jaggy edges while keeping whole game sharp and clean. As a result game feels like a movie, and is
visibly smoother even at low frame rates (15-25FPS).

GTA Environment mod

GTAForums.com -> GTA4 environment mod [REL]

What this mod does:
- All weather types edited for every hour of the day to create a better realistic environment.
- New shadow calculation and sun reflecions.
- Gradient sky for sunny and extra sunny with no clouds,
- Added realistic fog for rain, drizzle and foggy.
- New cloud texture and stipple texture.
- Better water reflection and colour.
- All trees edited to match the environment.
- Compatible with the ultimate graphic tweak with and without DOF/motion blur.
- Easy install and uninstall

 

[fagoatse]

Google xliveless to remove that epic fail xlive malware.
defrag game dir with contig.
use gfx tweaks densetsu have posted
some cmd's might help.
turn off horrible paint-made shadows
patcg to 1.0.4.0
use gamebooster
don't force AA, it will only make it slower(no diff in quality)

I get ~60 fps with everything maxed(sliders are not maxed but at least as twice or more as console's settings), no shadows and texturs on medium. 1680x1050.

 

[Xtreme2damax]

Is there any actual tweaks that specifically improve performance? I don't want to sacrifice quality just to get the game running halfway decent.

 

[Xtreme2damax]

Is there anything at all that help improve performance on this game short of buying a top of the line video card and quad core processor?

The tweaks Densetsu linked to, while helping improve the look of the games cause a slight drop in performance. This game is so ass backwards that lowering the settings do not help improve performance and actually makes it slightly worse.

I feel like punching a Rockstar employee in the face for this atrocity that not even the beastliest of machines can achieve a solit 60+ FPS.

 

[Densetsu]

Well, the only thing that helped me get a good FPS boost is the newest patch which adds the option of removing the shadows. Removing them gives you about a 15-20 FPS boost and, suprisingly, the game looks better without them.

 

[Xtreme2damax]

Unfortunately I already tried disabling shadows and it barely makes any difference in performance.

 

[Densetsu]

Well, umm, ditto then.

 

[Xblade]

So basically GTA4 runs like crysis without the extremely sexy graphics?

SW: Force Unleashed's senior?

 

[Xtreme2damax]

Actually it runs worse than Crysis, the developers must of been smoking crack when developing this unoptimized piece of crap and they don't seem interested in fixing their mess either.

They could release a patch to fix these performance issues and make the game run much better, but I'm sure graphics card manufacturers such as ATI and Nvidia have Rockstar in their pocket.

I'd hate to break the news to ATI, Nvidia, and Rockstar, but I can not justify spending money for a new graphics card just to play this unoptimized piece of crap, so they will not get any of my money.

Anyway isn't there something out there which gives a significant performance boost without lowering any settings? Any user made patches in the works that will help improve performance since Rockstar isn't willing to do the job themselves?

 

[PCXL-Fan]

xtreme you tried all the things i mentioned?

 

[Xtreme2damax]

I updated my GTA4 install to 1.0.0.4 last night. Patch 1.0.0.4 was just released yesterday, supposedly people have spotted achievements for the Lost and the Damned and Gay Tony.

I'm not sure if those fixes will work now with patch 1.0.0.4. I also don't want to bother uninstalling my drivers just to replace it with an older Vista driver.

 

[Xtreme2damax]

It seems the Rockstar Games Social Club application has a massive memory leak. I was wondering why my system was so sluggish so I checked the task manager and saw the RGSC application was consuming over 1GB of ram, more like 1.5GB of ram.

There is someone who is claiming they are getting better framerates than I am on a lesser system. They are claiming they are getting 30+ FPS constantly. I get about 60 FPS in the apartment but as soon as I head outside it drops to 23 - 30 FPS irregardless of my settings.

Can anyone post links for all the patches for GTAIV?

Thanks.