Difference between revisions of "Grand Theft Auto IV"
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===Algonquin Bridge lag issue=== | ===Algonquin Bridge lag issue=== | ||
If you're experiencing significant FPS drops only on the Algonquin Bridge with an '''Intel i7 processor''', try installing Process Lasso, open it, launch GTA 4, alt-tab out, right click then set the affinity of gtaiv.exe to "Avoid Non-Physical Cores", as well as setting the "Priority Class" to High. | If you're experiencing significant FPS drops only on the Algonquin Bridge with an '''Intel i7 processor''', try installing Process Lasso, open it, launch GTA 4, alt-tab out, right click then set the affinity of gtaiv.exe to "Avoid Non-Physical Cores", as well as setting the "Priority Class" to High. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===Game Fails to start=== | ||
+ | |||
+ | There is an issue in which the Steam Version of the game (And possibly non-steam) will fail to start. The Rockstar Social club login pops up, but after you sign in, or go offline, the game fails to start. This is caused by an out of date Games for Windows Live Client. You can download the client [http://www.xbox.com/en-US/LIVE/PC/DownloadClient here]. You may have to start run this program each time you want to play. | ||
==System Requirements== | ==System Requirements== |
Revision as of 19:21, 20 June 2012
USES GFWL
Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is an open world action-adventure game published by Rockstar Games. Two DLC sets have been released so far: The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.
The game was written primarily for consoles and the PC port is not of a high quality. However, for those who can get it running, there are many mods availible, some of which provide spectacular game and graphic improvements and alterations.
Patches
It is useful to know that, when patching, you only need to install the version you need, rather than all previous patches beforehand.
Non-Steam Version
Tweaks
Command Line
By creating a file called "commandline.txt
" and saving it to your root game folder /GTAIV/ (where GTAIV.exe and LaunchGTAIV.exe are found), you can alter the way your game runs. If you are using Steam, go to the game's properties in the library view, select 'Set Launch Options' and enter the commands separated by spaces.
The table below describes the majority of commands usable in the game's command line file.
Command Line | What it does | Example Usage |
---|---|---|
width | sets the horizontal resolution | -width 1280
|
height | sets the vertical resolution | -height 720
|
texturequality | changes texture quality low/med/high (0-2) | -texturequality 1
|
shadowdensity | adjusts shadows thrown up by car lights (0-16) | -shadowdensity 3
|
renderquality | adjusts the render quality of the game (0- 4) | -renderquality 3
|
viewdistance | adjusts the view distance (0-99) | -viewdistance 25
|
detailquality | adjusts the detail distance (0-99) | -detailquality 30
|
norestrictions | removes memory restrictions on graphic settings | -norestrictions
|
novblank | removes good ole v-sync | -novblank
|
safemode | runs GTA 4 with everything set to as low as you can go | -safemode
|
fullscreen | runs GTA 4 fullscreen | -fullscreen
|
windowed | runs GTA 4 windowed | -windowed
|
availablevidmem | allocates some system ram as additional vram | -availablevidmem 1.5
|
percentvidmem | how much vram of your gpu GTA 4 can use, 1.0 will be all of it and 0.5 will be half | -percentvidmem 0.5
|
frameLimit | limits your framerate to the refresh rate | -frameLimit 1
|
refreshrate | adjusts the refresh rate (oddly enough) be careful do not set a refresh rate your monitor can't do | -refreshrate 60
|
fullspecaudio | enable high-end cpu audio | -fullspecaudio
|
minspecaudio | enable low-end cpu audio | -minspecaudio
|
noprecache | turns precache off | -noprecache
|
nomemrestrict | turns all memory restrictions off | -nomemrestrict
|
benchmark | starts the in game benchmark and then quits the game | -benchmark
|
help | lists the commands and usage but doesn't look as snazzy as this | -help
|
Fixing Memory Leaks
There exist a series of tweaks by Rockstar to resolve some memory leaks. If you encounter stutter and other performance issues after running the game for a while, consider trying one of these in your commandline.txt file, depending on the texture quality you have selected in the game settings:
- Low textures,
-memrestrict 209715200
- Medium textures,
-memrestrict 314572800
- High textures,
-memrestrict 629145600
No Intro Fix
Save Game Data
Issues and Fixes
ATI Rain Effects Glitch
There is a problem with ATI 69xx (6950, 6970, 6990) cards and drivers at the moment. (And there has been for some time.) The rain shader in GTA IV causes spontaneous red, green, sometimes white starbursts while it is raining. Don't worry! These aren't really artifacts, but a shader bug.
There is a quick workaround. It involves disabling the lighting shader on rain.
- Open your GTA folder (Usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto IV\GTA IV)
- Navigate to common\data\visualSettings.dat and open it with your favorite text editing software.
- Scroll down to line 20 or so under "#Values for rain GPU particle effect" and change "rain.UseLitShader 1.0" to "rain.UseLitShader 0"
- Play your game!
Algonquin Bridge lag issue
If you're experiencing significant FPS drops only on the Algonquin Bridge with an Intel i7 processor, try installing Process Lasso, open it, launch GTA 4, alt-tab out, right click then set the affinity of gtaiv.exe to "Avoid Non-Physical Cores", as well as setting the "Priority Class" to High.
Game Fails to start
There is an issue in which the Steam Version of the game (And possibly non-steam) will fail to start. The Rockstar Social club login pops up, but after you sign in, or go offline, the game fails to start. This is caused by an out of date Games for Windows Live Client. You can download the client here. You may have to start run this program each time you want to play.
System Requirements
Mac/Linux
It is possible to run GTA IV on *nix systems via Wine. It is suggested that you run the game using Wineskin.
Ensure that you run LaunchGTAIV.exe
rather than GTAIV.exe
when starting the game, or you will encounter anti-piracy game effects. You are advised to run the latest update of the game (1.0.7.0 as of 12 May 12).
XLiveLess
NB: Xliveless will disable multiplayer mode
Due to current limitations, GFWL will not work (Wine is not yet fully compatible with .NET 3.5), so an XLiveLess fix must be applied to the game for it to work.
- Download the XLiveLess
xlive.dll
file: xlive.dll 0.999-beta7 29 May 2010 - Place xlive.dll in the root game folder:
- For Steam users, this is
/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Grand Theft Auto IV/GTAIV
- Otherwise, it should be something like
/Program Files/Grand Theft Auto IV/GTAIV
- For Steam users, this is
Invisible fonts glitch
When using Xliveless some users have reported that the game menu text disappears.
To fix this follow these steps:
- Backup
fonts.dat
andfonts_r.dat
, located at - Download the GTA IV font pack: http://www.mediafire.com/?futz7h44s425gz6
- Copy the two files found in the downloaded font pack to
Fixes
- Anti-piracy mode
- If you still encounter game effects such as constant drunkness (dizzy camera), spontaneously combusting cars, the game most likely is running in anti-piracy mode.
- To prevent this, try installing the razor1911 GTA IV crack (get the right one for your GTA IV patch version)
- GTA4Browser
- You will probably find that gta4Browser crashes at launch.
- Therefore, rename the gta4Browser.exe file found in the root game folder to something else to prevent it from being run.
- DirectX errors
- You may encounter multiple error windows at launch or during gameplay.
- Some users found that removing the d3dx9 winetrick solved many of these issues.
- Video freezes
- Sometimes GTA freezes in video sequences. This happens only in videos.
- You can skip the videos with left mouse button.
Performance Optimisation
When running the game, use command line modifiers to optimise performance:
- At the least, use
-norestrictions -nomemrestrict
- If the game fails to work for some reason, try
-windowed
or-safemode
To experience performance, set DirectDrawRenderer to opengl and apply the lowest game graphic settings.