Topic on Talk:Grand Theft Auto IV

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The keyword there is "should" - this downgrader was specifically made to attempt to resolve issues I've come across while watching and helping others use the current downgrader tool.

For one, it seems like it offers *too much* choice. I've frequently seen people get confused and not know what to do when they get to either the version select screen, or the mod select screen. The mod selection is also fairly easy to mess up by a beginner, by installing incompatible mods or not installing essential ones (ZPatch comes to mind, a downgraded game might not even run without it and the only thing telling you this is a small warning on the very right side of the mod list that you have to hover over to pop up) and overall the tool seems to blast people with too much information at times. This is good for experienced people but not so much for a newbie who just wants to get some essential fixes that are only available via downgrading.

The bundled mod list also currently bundles some outdated versions of important mods, this can obviously be fixed down the line but currently ZPatch and Shader Fixes Collection are both missing some fixes (Shader Fixes had artifacting in water on V103 which is what the downgrader currently has, and ZPatch fixed sniper rifle mouse acceleration as well as various issues in cutscenes at high FPS since the v6.9.8.2 version that's currently packed in)

It's also fairly heavy in terms of filesize and amount of files modified (though this is to be expected with the amount of mods you can pack in with it) which has made it receive criticism by other modders for replacing too many files, and complicates the repair process if one downgrades their game in place without making a backup and then Steam updates it for example.

The automatic savefile downgrading does make it have a leg up against any simple archive, though, and that's something that should be taken into consideration.

The downgrade archive that I linked tries to fix the above problems in various ways:

- It goes the entire opposite route with choice, just giving you a basic 1.0.8.0 game with essential fixes included, aiming to make downgrading the game a quick and painless process

- The bundled mods are always kept up to date, I push a new version of the downgrade archive every time I release a new update to ZPatch or IV Tweaker

- The mod only overwrites what's absolutely required to properly run a 1.0.8.0 game (GTAIV.exe and PlayGTAIV.exe) and has minimal bloat, compared to the downgrader tool which at the most basic settings replaces 80-100MB of extra files. It also doesn't add or replace any DRM related files as ZPatch makes that unnecessary, specifically binkw32.dll, DFA.dll, gta4Browser.exe and gtaEncoder.exe. This as well as the inclusion of IV Tweaker should also make the game somewhat more compatible with certain "CE-exclusive" mods, such as ones that modify script.img or american.gxt (both which the downgrader always replaces) and makes it trivial to fix a game that got corrupted from a Steam/RGL update (you can simply re-extract the archive and everything works again)

- To add to the above point about game files, IV Tweaker is bundled in the archive, and the two optional mods on the page are specifically configured to load from IV Tweaker, making neither Shader Fixes nor pre-CE FusionFix require any files to be replaced. This also means less of a chance that an update breaks them.

I've just seen various people describe downgrading as a "hassle" because of the above issues, and so I wanted to remedy that. Whether this archive actually succeeds at doing so is up to the users to decide as I'm not exactly the average GTA IV player, I just brought it up here so it can be discussed and added if it does. The best solution in my opinion would be if the downgrader tool had an "easy install" button of sorts, but that's neither here nor there.