GTA IV PC
polycounter lvl 9
Soo, anyone here played it yet? Sad to say, this has to be the worst port ever 
I bought it a couple of days before release trough steam but sadly its unplayable on my computer. My rig can run Crysis on high and still this game is telling me to run everything on low and 800x600 res ;o Even with these low settings its bugged to hell and back everything that isnt withing 2 yards of me is transparent.
Just trying to vent abit here, i was sooo looking forward to this game and it was the only one close to getting me to buy a 360 for the money i dont really have.
Alot of forums are FULL of upset gamers, most notably the steam forum wich is just spammed to hell. I even read that steam is offering refunds to those affected the most. Anyway, anyone else able to play this yet? Does it work on your rig ?
I bought it a couple of days before release trough steam but sadly its unplayable on my computer. My rig can run Crysis on high and still this game is telling me to run everything on low and 800x600 res ;o Even with these low settings its bugged to hell and back everything that isnt withing 2 yards of me is transparent.Just trying to vent abit here, i was sooo looking forward to this game and it was the only one close to getting me to buy a 360 for the money i dont really have.
Alot of forums are FULL of upset gamers, most notably the steam forum wich is just spammed to hell. I even read that steam is offering refunds to those affected the most. Anyway, anyone else able to play this yet? Does it work on your rig ?
Replies
Hopefully they'll patch it up soon. The sooner they do then i'll have every single GTA to date
RMN20 Windows Vista: Need to have Service Pack 1 or higher to proceed.
RMN30 Windows XP 64 / Server 2003: Need to have Service Pack 2 or higher to proceed.
RMN40 Windows XP: Need to have Service Pack 3 or higher to proceed.
DD3D50 D3D Error - DirectX 9 video card required
TEXP110 D3D Error - Failed to create texture - Please restart the game
DWIN20 D3D Error - Failed to query memory. Please re-start the game.
DD3D10 D3D Error - Please re-boot your system
DD3D10 D3D Error - Please re-boot your system
DD3D30 D3D Error - Please re-boot your system
DWIN30 D3D Error - Please re-boot your system
DD3D20 D3D Error - Please re-install the game and/or re-install DirectX
DWIN10 D3D Error - Please restart the game
DD3D60 D3D Error - Shader Model 3.0 or higher is required
DD3D70 D3D Error - Unable to retrieve D3D Device. Please re-boot your system
GPUP10 D3D Error - Unable to retrieve D3D Device. Please re-boot your system
TEXP20 D3D Error - Unable to retrieve D3D Device. Please re-boot your system
TEXP30 D3D Error - Unable to retrieve D3D Device. Please re-boot your system
TEXP80 D3D Error - Unable to retrieve D3D Device. Please re-boot your system
DD3D40 D3D Error - Unable to retrieve device capabilities. Please install latest video card driver and/or re-install DirectX
TEXP10 D3D Error - Unable to retrieve device capabilities. Please install latest video card driver and/or re-install DirectX
DD3D80 D3D reset failed - Please restart the game.
STRB10 Failed to delete file - Please re-boot your system
RMN10 Failed to read file - Please re-boot your system
STRM10 Failed to read file - Please re-boot your system
STRM20 Failed to read file - Please re-boot your system
BNDL10 Failed to write file – Please re-boot your system
STBF10 Failed to write file – Please re-boot your system
VOIC10 Fatal voice chat error - Please restart the game
RESC10 Out of video memory - Please re-boot your system
BA10 Out of virtual memory - Please re-boot your system
EA10 Out of virtual memory - Please re-boot your system
TEXP60 Unable to create color render target - Please re-install DirectX and/or install the latest video card driver.
TEXP70 Unable to create depth render target - Please re-install DirectX and/or install the latest video card driver.
AE10 Insufficient Memory to Start Game - Please close some applications and restart the game
PC10 Unable to retrieve D3D Device - Please reboot your machine or reinstall your display driver
TF10 Unable to write to disk - Please restart the game
WS20 InitWinSock failed - Please re-boot your system and/or re-install the game
WS30 InitWinSock failed - Please re-boot your system and/or re-install the game
Thats a nice little list of known errors for this 2 days old game ;p Now some of these are of course quite forgivable like needing a DX9 card and pixelshader 3.0 and such but still.
Sometimes gamers piss me off to no end.
I got it on Steam and had a couple hiccups getting it to run but now that it is, it runs GREAT and looks AWESOME.
Stop putting all the blame on Rockstar. Seriously.
Update to Service Pack 3.
Update your drivers.
Do NOT try and run the game past medium settings, no PC on the market today really can.
All of the errors listed have to do with PC hardware issues and not being completely on the ball with your machine and keeping it up to date. Well, most. Should you HAVE to be this strict with your computer? No, you shouldn't. But its not really up to anyone but yourself to make sure that you are.
The port, for me, is fantastic.
The controls are awesome. Independent Radio is awesome. The graphcs are awesome. And holy. fucking. shit. is that video editor the bee's knee's.
Seriously, try and overlook the TECHNICAL hurdles and get in to the game so you can enjoy it. It took 30 minutes of my time to Google solutions, test, reboot and load the game once it was installed - thats not a lot.
Dont give me the "GTA 4 isn't the problem, your PC is" line. This is obviously poor coding and a rushed port for the christmas rush, and everybody at Rockstar should be ashamed.
Maybe if they didn't force me to install 50 fucking updates at the start (R*SC for vidoe which look boring as fuck? GFW, AGAIN? FLASH?!) it would run ok...
Trust is this is an awful port and there is nobody to blame but the devs...
reports from my co-workers have really put a dampner on my enthusiasm to buy this, so far terrible performance is the norm
[ame]
odium: I lol @ your comparison of GTA4 to Crysis. Really. I actually laughed out loud.
Entity: Problem here, I believe, is that this was developed for its main SKU and ported to PC (360->PC) unlike other guys (re: my lol's @ odium).
Is this a perfect PC port or game? HELL NO. Were there hurdles to get it going? Yes.
Is it awesome and fun once you are up and running? Yes. Does it run like butter on DECENT machines? Yes.
This is why I dislike a lot of PC gamers, or at least how they rationalize online. We're gaming on an unstable platform with an insane amount of variables. There are BOUND to be problems. Sure, the developer should catch most of it, but be prepared for updates & patches when PC gaming. I thought this was a no brainer.
Anyway, back to awesome video editing and mouse control I go!
I also think it's a valid point to compare it to Crysis. GTA4 first ran on the 360 which isnt nearly as powerful as a PC that is required to play Crysis full spec, wouldnt it be safe to assume it should run GTA4 fine?
Yet GTA4 comes along, and lets face it, it was never the best looking game, and yet... I cant run it on medium detail with more than 15fps...?
Face facts here... If that really is 100% correct, they fucked up,. BIG STYLE. I paid a LOT of money for my pc. Who the hell is gonna pay MORE just to play GTA4, at a really shitty frame rate...?
Thats right, keep on blaming the users...
Explain how my 4gig system ram, quad cored CPU, SLI rig cant handle GTA4 and maybe, just maybe, I'll be willing to listen...
And yeah, if a PC can run crysis at max with a good frame rate, it damn well should be able to run GTA4. If not i would call that a pretty terrible port.
Pretty much ALL of the games I have played with have had their share of issues. Did it hinder my experience? Not at all, no. Is it fair that I, we, are to expect this sort of thing? No, probably not.
The Crysis to GTA4 PC comparison made me LOL because one is developed for the PC first, by 'technopheliacs' that get off on high-end system specs and high-end resolutions (both 2D & 3D). My machine ran that great, but it was developed for a PC first. Sure you can view an island from far away, but mipped terrain, instanced tree's and retarded AI is hardly worth the excitement.
GTA4, on the other hand, is developed for the consoles first and is an entirely huge open world with a LOT more to its horizons than islands & tree's. So of course theres draw backs to the overall quality bar of the art & presentation of that art, in this game. They found their limits and developed with in it.
Porting something of this nature, I am sure, was no easy feat and while I do agree that it could have been in the oven for a couple more weeks, I am quite happy with the purchase. Issues or otherwise.
I am not dismissing that this is a faulty port. It is. I am just surprised at the reactions I am reading online. Its as if this is the first time people are experiencing a poor port.
Anyway, I was a dick in my earlier post so I apologize. I am just a bit tired of reading a lot of PC gamers reactions as of late (the Spore DRM issue really set me off).
Joe, way to stay relevant and in context. Twit.
No idea. My 3GB dual-core 3gz 8800gtx does it on medium really well. (I hope you're not trying to push for high-specs in the menu where theres a warning that says not to do that).
The simple fact is that up until now there was only ONE release that was as as bad, and that was COD:WAW. But this? This is just broken. FACT.
GTA4 deserved all the time and experience in the world. It would of been so huge for the PC. Instead, its broken, a mess, and to be honest I would be ashamed to ship this product.
Er, every game has mipping. Quite sure you missed the point. What they're displaying vs. whats happening in GTA is quite different so both handle those mips differently.
World At War? Another (PC) game I saw one problem with, and that was ragdolls that never completely settled. I just never finished the game because it was boring as hell
I must be lucky. GTA's broken, sure (fact!, ha..) but there's fixes if you look online. Perhaps Rockstar (Toronto?) is embarrassed, but at least a few of us are enjoying it.
It definitely sounds like different experiences we're having. And by the looks of things, your PC is a lot more powerful than mine so I am quite surprised at what you've gone through. Hopefully you've looked online for solutions and come back to it when its patched and good to go.
I 100%ed it on 360... I only have it for mods to be fair.
PC developers are well aware of the many combinations of hardware/software/drivers/operating systems, and for years have been testing their products on as wide a range of computers as possible to assure quality as far as possible.
It's always rushed ports which are poor quality, running at considerably lower frame rates with considerably more bugs. The original Halo port for PC was the same. This smells of a rushed release for the Xmas market. There is no excuse for the amount of bugs that GTA IV PC appears to have, across the board on many different machines, hardware and software.
Hell, Fallout 3 had its share of crashes and freezes, but I only heard a few people mention those, and Fallout 3 sold hundreds of thousands of copies already. If hundreds and thousands of people have bought GTA IV PC and there's a considerably larger number of complaints about bugs and instability, then it's a pretty safe bet that the port is poor.
Adam: Not sure why you're getting so defensive about this...?
If a pure PC release like Doom 3 had shipped with a vast amount of graphics glitches, crashes and corruption, it'd be condemned nearly instantly. Just because it's a port of a "fun game" doesn't excuse it from bad programming or lack of rigorous testing.
That's my opinion on it anyway.
Here's my experiences with the graphics settings.
1st time loading up the game, naturally like others i thought "settings to max then" as my pc is no slouch, q9550 GTX280 4GB DDR3. Unfortunately as soon as the intro got to the end where it's showing the city getting closer i got massive stutters, followed by a game crash. I was a bit shocked, so i decided to turn everything down to 0 and started slow increases to isolate performance hogs.
Turns out having textures at maximum is soley responsible for the massive stuttering when you pan around, with this set to medium i have absolutely no sutttering at all. The Render quality is fancy talk for AF, quite simply the higher you set it the higher the AF goes. According to R*, console GTA uses the minimum setting for this so anything above that is better than consoles. At the highest setting this only knocked 2 off my FPS and it makes all the textures look a ton better, as high AF generally does.
So far so good, at 1600x1200 with medium textures and max AF the game was looking good and playing quite acceptably (60-70fps outdoors). Next up were the distance sliders. Again according to R*, anything above 22 view distance is better than the console versions, i found 55 to be a nice value for visual/performance balance. Detail distance i have set to 75 as this doesn't effect fps as much, and i like the small details to not pop in as badly.
I'm not sure what vehicle density does but it probably increases the amount of traffic, going by it's name anyway. R*'s guide on this is ambiguous. I just have this set to 50?
The shadows option is the snake in the grass. You'd figure it would be for the shadows we are used to from console versions, but it's not. It's new dynamic shadows added especially for the PC version, and it sucks FPS bigtime. If you suffer bad frames, turn this off completely and it will get a lot better. Once you turn it on depending on the situation (night time = bad, many cars = bad) you can lose anywhere up to 20fps! Now i personally i don't see much of a difference between visuals at the min<->max settings on this, but FPS suffers more and more the higher you go. Either turn it on and go for something low like 3 and suffer a significant FPS hit, or leave it off completely. I like it, so i have it on 3.
With these settings it runs for me at between 15fps in an absolute worst case scenario (rain, night time with many many dynamic lights, lots of peds, lots of cars and in a detailed street in city centre) to 55 in your average street during the day. If i turn shadows off, it never drops below 25, rarely past 30.
For me it's playable with these settings which are quite high, all except the textures. I wouldn't say it's "acceptable" performance for the visuals, but crysis has spoiled us in this regard. If they managed to implement the DOF filter they have on in cutscenes in the normal game, and motionblur too with the same performance, i'd lap it up.
Edit - Apparently, for nvidia users some new drivers give increased FPS as well. http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=380047&st=20
I remember when i bought Vampire the masquerade: Bloodlines, that game was really really buggy and it suffered ALOT in sales because of it and it was the biggest reason why troika closed down. But really it took alot less tinkering to play through VTM then it has so far with GTA and i havent even done a single mission yet :x (VTM is AWESOME btw, one of the best RPGs of all times.)
Anyone else have that problem ?
interesting read I've found over at IGN, hopefully a decent patch will be out soon to fix these problems.