Do NOT buy GTA IV for PC

[Lord Chambers]

It seems inspired by the art direction in Big Rigs.

 

[Turok]

Just get GTA 1, it run find on your pc.

 

[User was nabbed fit]

I don't know what PC MaskedPlayer is playing on (underneath the recommended requirements?), but it doesn't look like that on mine (i.e. it looks normal). It is horribly unoptimized, but eh, it's still GTA 4 too... meaning you can still have fun if you're a fan of the series and you like the changes.

 

[ghostdog]

Many people have these missing texture problems, the game is horribly optimized. They are caused from memory leaks, especially if you don't have a lot RAM. You could play with everything looking fine and after a while you could have textures missing.

The game is good, but the port is hideous and I really don't like Rockstar's attitude towards the PC users. They refuse to accept the fact that their port is badly optimized and their comment that the game is meant to be played in full details only with "future PC's" is completely retarded. Also they released a patch that seems to produce more bugs than fixes. Not to mention the absolutely horrible DRM.

 

[DraQ]

They are caused from memory leaks, especially if you don't have a lot RAM.

Don't u no it? Memory leaks r caused by having 2 much RAM!!!11 :shock:

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

I don't know what problems you guys have, GTA4 runs perfectly on my Sexbawks 360.

Oh wait. You're one of these losers who went for the shitty PC port? Ehh HeeeeeHeeee!

 

[inwoker]

Weren't you PS3 elitist?

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Weren't you PS3 elitist?

I once was. But I sold it and changed to SexBawks. Made even a decent profit.

 

[Amateur]

I'm sorry but your 8600 gt (any version of 8600) is a very low level card and with that card you should not expect good playability from the game.

Moreover your card is way inferior to gpus in both consoles.


New age games play well on it???

Sorry but again I know what 8600 is and I know how it performs in Crysis.
By lowering resolution, effects and adding the motion blur you may think that your card plays Crysis well, but the fact is even 9800GTX is struggling to play it with a steady 30fps on high settings at decent resolutions.



GTA 4 may have performance issues but let soemone having decent hardware make that comment...

Is it so wrong for a man to get a low-end card that is adequate, rather than wanting the best? After all, games for me are only a way of passing a little time. I generally don't play much on weekdays, and play for an hour or so on a weekend, and that's it.

The wrong thing was for Nvidia to label such a low level card (equal or worse then X1950 pro (pro NOT xt, xt is way better) which was released in 2006 ) as a DX10 midrange card. 3800 series and 8800GT's were were the real midrange cards (8800gt was better) and these were the cards exceeding consoles.

Unfortunately it is not important if you play the games for 1 hour or a whole week, if you want to play some fancy games like GTA 4 with eyecandy you need to have decent hardware. It is a sad fact of that industry. They are greedy ....

Right now you can get an HD4850 for under 150$ which would kick ... (not the highest settings for some new titles of course) for that price.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I'm sorry but your 8600 gt (any version of 8600) is a very low level card and with that card you should not expect good playability from the game.

Moreover your card is way inferior to gpus in both consoles.


New age games play well on it???

Sorry but again I know what 8600 is and I know how it performs in Crysis.
By lowering resolution, effects and adding the motion blur you may think that your card plays Crysis well, but the fact is even 9800GTX is struggling to play it with a steady 30fps on high settings at decent resolutions.



GTA 4 may have performance issues but let soemone having decent hardware make that comment...

Is it so wrong for a man to get a low-end card that is adequate, rather than wanting the best? After all, games for me are only a way of passing a little time. I generally don't play much on weekdays, and play for an hour or so on a weekend, and that's it.

The wrong thing was for Nvidia to label such a low level card (equal or worse then X1950 pro (pro NOT xt, xt is way better) which was released in 2006 ) as a DX10 midrange card. 3800 series and 8800GT's were were the real midrange cards (8800gt was better) and these were the cards exceeding consoles.

Unfortunately it is not important if you play the games for 1 hour or a whole week, if you want to play some fancy games like GTA 4 with eyecandy you need to have decent hardware. It is a sad fact of that industry. They are greedy ....

Right now you can get an HD4850 for under 150$ which would kick ... (not the highest settings for some new titles of course) for that price.

What a complete load of bollocks. Go and check out the GTA forums and report back. If you do not find masses of people with excellent systems making similar complaints I will have to confirm the doctors report that you are retarded, sir.

The 8600 gt is better than the GPU's in the consoles, has more VRAM, better VRAM. And please do not even attempt to say that GTA4 has excellent graphics, it doesn't. There are many other games with superior graphics and better performance. The GTA PC port is simply atrocious. Stop blaming PC owners and start blaming Crapstar.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Jesus Christ, when a nongamer finds a game that he likes, he will not let go.

My brother did a 7 hour nonstop play of GTA IV on my PC today, starting from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM, only pausing to bring his lunch in front of my PC, and then continue playing it while eating.

I have never played any game for more than 2 hours, and even that would be stretching it.

See, I don't play these Saint's Row/Mafia type games, but I still don't understand the appeal of them. Many of the missions in these games involve doing minor errands like driving someone to some place and then driving back.

And people get a big kick out of it. I mean, this game seems more like a simulator, because rarely do you get missions that involve solving an actual problem or completing a challenge of any sort. I see that his time spent on the game is mostly driving a car, listening to the music on it, handling phone calls from different people, picking up the virtual girlfriend and driving her to some place of amusement, checking emails on the in-game computers, and that's it. Where does the 'game' come into it?

I saw that there was this part where he had to take down some lookouts on a roof. In order to do it, he had to go to a rooftop, snipe them from there, and then come back down. What's the catch here? Those lookouts will not be able to fire back at you. And there is no failure or consideration for failure. Nor are you told that there is a possibility of not going to the rooftop. The game's compass directs you there as the part of the mission, and then you come back.

Everybody is entitled to their opinions, but someone please explain it to me: How is this a game? How is all this fun, when you are merely following a Simon Says series of commands? How can you make a game that has no game in it and yet have it receive adulation from all critics and gamers (even the niche ones, so to speak)?

 

[Turok]

GTA IV shadows are ugly as hell. And it has the most painful HDR lighting I have seen.

8600 GT

Why would somebody buy that piece of shit?

Dude, mid-2007 it was so tempting, considering the price.

The 8800s were 3 times as expensive.

And I had only intended to catch up on 2006 and pre-2006 games, (though even newer games like Bioshock and World In Conflict ran perfectly at highest settings). It was more for gaining back the years I lost rather than preparing for the future. For the games that I wanted to play, it was perfect.

Besides, does it matter when even new-age games run well enough on it? For all that talk about the system usage of Crysis, it looked and ran great on my PC. I just turned off the awful-looking motion blur which also ate up resources. And that's it.

Is it so wrong for a man to get a low-end card that is adequate, rather than wanting the best? After all, games for me are only a way of passing a little time. I generally don't play much on weekdays, and play for an hour or so on a weekend, and that's it.

Also consider that much of my time is spent on DOSbox games as well. It would be a grave tragedy to drop big money on a 8800, and yet only use such a computer for playing DOS games.

Buy a console, hack it via firmware and enjoy games, there is no pc release since the war bethwhen microsoft and sony, everything is just multiplatform and ports, that mean your game will be always maded thinking that a 10 years old kid going to play it.

 

[janjetina]

It seems inspired by the art direction in Big Rigs.

Now I see what they modeled that planet module vehicle from Mass Effect on.

 

[DefJam101]

 

[doctor_kaz]

Gotta chime in to agree with the OP. This is one that you shouldn't be buying. It is, indeed, very poorly optimized. Lots of games that look better on my system like Crysis and Fallout 3 also run a lot better. And that is just one of many, many problems.

 

[Dmitron]

Hmm, I just helped a friend install this on his 8600 based system.

At the lowest settings..it was only playable at 800 x 600...

He has a high end Quad core processor and 2gig + ram.

 

[Satori (original)]

I have a 3.2 Dual core, 2GB RAM and an 8800GT and while the textures and shadows etc aren't exactly mind blowing, the framerate has always been constant which is all I care about since I feel stuttering is a massive if not the biggest joy-killer.

 

[User was nabbed fit]

Hmm, I just helped a friend install this on his 8600 based system.

At the lowest settings..it was only playable at 800 x 600...

He has a high end Quad core processor and 2gig + ram.

The 8800 GT seems to be really a minimum these days to play on high and at comfortable frame rates. Mine's still going great, I see no need to replace it with a Geforce 260 or 280; I think I'll just wait for the next generation to come out (DX11 support).

 

[Dmitron]

Hmm, I just helped a friend install this on his 8600 based system.

At the lowest settings..it was only playable at 800 x 600...

He has a high end Quad core processor and 2gig + ram.

The 8800 GT seems to be really a minimum these days to play on high and at comfortable frame rates. Mine's still going great, I see no need to replace it with a Geforce 260 or 280; I think I'll just wait for the next generation to come out (DX11 support).

Sure, I'm running an 8800gtx and all the new titles play smoothly at high settings. DX10 is a shame, I'm happy with DX9 for now.

In the context of GTAIV though..an 8 series card, even if it is a mid range card like the 8600, being forced to run at lowest settings 800x600 to be playable? What a fuck-up.

 

[Burning Bridges]

From what I hear, this one seems to be a real flop.

I only hope that Mafia 2 will not be a letdown (looking good so far but it's multiplatform too).

 

[Trash]

The game underneath is still brilliant and I'm playing it with a lot of enthousiasm. It's a rather logical evolution on the previous GTA games and to me is really the best so far.

The DRM however is atrocious and the port is shittily done and unoptimised. With less than a Gforce 8800 I wouldn't bother. Buying the xbox version was a solid purchase, but I'm happy I didn't spend a dime on the pc version. Still, being able to finally see Liberty City in high rez and be able to read the text messages and stuff is a lot of fun. (don't have a HD tv)

 

[Wyrmlord]

From what I hear, this one seems to be a real flop.

Well, actually, I was a little put off by the filler content in the game. And just as much by how much of the game is merely a tutorial for itself.

But damn, there are a large number of amazing missions in this game.

There is a Heat-style bank robbery, which involves the whole process of robbing the bank, and then being ambushed by police on several fronts, and what ends up is a whole battleground, with all the criminals and policemen taking cover and putting each other on heavy fire, with cars blowing up, and everything. It then goes into the subway station, and then to other places.

Or a chase mission on a motorbikes which go through metro tracks and having to avoid trains as they keep on coming.

I just have to say that there are some great set pieces and superb missions in this game. The kind that you'd be lucky to see once or twice in a game. But they come one after another in GTA 4.

I have to hand it to GTA 4 for the fact that it can create great moments without making it scripted. When a car chase goes into an opposite lane, the cars going in the other direction skid and turn over, and they fly over in your direction. Sometimes a truck will invert on you.

And there are missions where it does not spell things out for the player, and has him figuring things out on his own. A sniping mission involves luring a person to a window to kill him. As you zoom in with your sniper, and look around his apartment through the window, you can see his phone number written on the phone. There is an in-game mobile phone, that you manually use. The usage of it is not based on scripted events. It can be used any time for any reason, for any number to your knowledge. Calling him up brings him to the window, and you snipe him.

It is rare rare thing for a game to offer so much quality AND content. And moreover, the missions are augmented by the versimilitude of the world. It's one thing to have a mission that involves finding the Jewish mafia's penthouse on a large building, and killing all of them. It's another when you go through the whole seamless process of going through the world, outfitting yourself for it, going up there, doing your job, dealing with cops who surround you from all corners of the building, and getting the hell out of there. Best thing is that there is no "in-between" save, so you either do it right or not at all.

On TOP of that, the game is funny. Stuff with Burger Shot's Heart Stopper Burger or the popular show "America's next top hooker" or characters like Bernie Crane and Brucie, there is good presentation on top of that substance.

It's only a pity that this game starts off with several hours of errand missions, requires installation of several other software before playing it, and is unoptimized. So while I still stand by saying, "Do NOT buy GTAIV for PC", I have to add, "Buy it if you have a console or play it on a friend's."

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

From what I hear, this one seems to be a real flop.

Well, actually, I was a little put off by the filler content in the game. And just as much by how much of the game is merely a tutorial for itself.

But damn, there are a large number of amazing missions in this game.

There is a Heat-style bank robbery, which involves the whole process of robbing the bank, and then being ambushed by police on several fronts, and what ends up is a whole battleground, with all the criminals and policemen taking cover and putting each other on heavy fire, with cars blowing up, and everything. It then goes into the subway station, and then to other places.

Or a chase mission on a motorbikes which go through metro tracks and having to avoid trains as they keep on coming.

I just have to say that there are some great set pieces and superb missions in this game. The kind that you'd be lucky to see once or twice in a game. But they come one after another in GTA 4.

I have to hand it to GTA 4 for the fact that it can create great moments without making it scripted. When a car chase goes into an opposite lane, the cars going in the other direction skid and turn over, and they fly over in your direction. Sometimes a truck will invert on you.

And there are missions where it does not spell things out for the player, and has him figuring things out on his own. A sniping mission involves luring a person to a window to kill him. As you zoom in with your sniper, and look around his apartment through the window, you can see his phone number written on the phone. There is an in-game mobile phone, that you manually use. The usage of it is not based on scripted events. It can be used any time for any reason, for any number to your knowledge. Calling him up brings him to the window, and you snipe him.

It is rare rare thing for a game to offer so much quality AND content. And moreover, the missions are augmented by the versimilitude of the world. It's one thing to have a mission that involves finding the Jewish mafia's penthouse on a large building, and killing all of them. It's another when you go through the whole seamless process of going through the world, outfitting yourself for it, going up there, doing your job, dealing with cops who surround you from all corners of the building, and getting the hell out of there. Best thing is that there is no "in-between" save, so you either do it right or not at all.

On TOP of that, the game is funny. Stuff with Burger Shot's Heart Stopper Burger or the popular show "America's next top hooker" or characters like Bernie Crane and Brucie, there is good presentation on top of that substance.

It's only a pity that this game starts off with several hours of errand missions, requires installation of several other software before playing it, and is unoptimized. So while I still stand by saying, "Do NOT buy GTAIV for PC", I have to add, "Buy it if you have a console or play it on a friend's."

Go out and immediately buy Vice City and San Andreas then. Friends of mine who have played these and also GTA4, say that 4 is the worst of the lot. This has been a fairly unanimous vote too. So if you enjoy 4...

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

GTA4 is miles behind San Andreas. Easily the best of the games. And it's about niggers.

 

[thesheeep]

This is a serious question:

What is it that makes GTA IV worse than San Andreas?

Besides the additional software and the poor performance, of course.