Grand Theft Auto IV – Problems?

Kindly, my Uncle and Aunty bought me Grand Theft Auto IV for my PC as a Christmas present, and as a ‘thank you’ for sorting out their PC woes.

The other day I twittered about how I could not understand what all the fuss was about, as my PC seemed to run the game fine, with no issues whatsoever, however I have been playing the game for a couple of hours tonight and now I do understand.

Here are the specs required by GTA:IV as shown here

Supported Operating Systems

• Windows Vista (plus Service Pack 1)
• Windows XP (plus Service Pack 3)
       plus DirectX 9
       plus Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5

Minimum

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
• Memory: 1.5GB
• Free Hard Drive Space: 16GB
• Video Card: 256MB Nvida 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900
• DirectX 9 compatible Stereo Sound Card
• Keyboard
• Mouse

Recommended

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
• Memory: 2GB (Windows XP) 2.5GB (Windows Vista)
• Free Hard Drive Space: 18GB
• Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870
• DirectX 9 compatible Surround Sound Card
• Keyboard
• Mouse

Now my gaming PC meets these requirements, here are my specs

Operating System

• Windows Vista 64bit (plus Service Pack 1)

Hardware

• Processor: AMD Athlon X2 2.8Ghz
• Memory: 8GB
• Free Hard Drive Space: 647GB
• Video Card: 1GB Nvidia GTX 280 (lightly overclocked)
• DirectX 9 compatible Surround Sound Card: Creative X-Fi Audio Extreme
• Keyboard – Saitek Cyborg
• Mouse – Microsoft Sidewinder

 

Night scenes cause a little lag, especially when in areas with lots of shadows.  However, when the in game weather engine kicks off with some rain, the game becomes almost unplayable – and that's when travelling on foot!  When there is rain, and you are behind the wheel of a car, at night with rain coming down, the game is almost unplayable.

Now, as you may or may not know from previous articles on this blog, I heavily optimise my operating system, and this computer, having just been reinstalled, is completely optimised for gaming.  I can run Crysis happily at 1680x1050 with all settings maxed out in DX10 mode with no noticeable lag, however GTA:IV is a very different story.

I am a very unhappy chappy, and had I paid for this game myself, rather than having received it as a gift, then I would be asking for a refund from Rockstar.

I really hope that Rockstar, who took six months to port this game from console to PC, pull their thumbs out of their collectives arse’s and release a few fixes soon.

Here are a few informative GTA:IV links -

• Rockstar’s GTA:IV Support page
• Voodoo Extreme article
• Kotaku article