Grand Theft Auto IV

[Jarnis]

Grand Theft Auto IV is back on the PC and it's still just as politically incorrect as always. Drive-by shootings? Check. Drug deals? Check. Bank robberies? Check. Driving over old ladies? Check. Heck, it even lets you try some drunk driving. PC version has received some bad word of mouth over bugs and performance problems, but it's mostly just whining over the somewhat high demands it puts on your PC hardware. Okay, so it's not perfect - it's close enough.

Full Story: http://www.yougamers.com/reviews/221...theft_auto_iv/

[Unregistered]

I also liked gta IV and only thing that annoys me is those object that suddenly appear in front of you or those walls that are not supposed to be there and you can walkthrought them. if i remmember correctly my view distanse was ~45, but i dont think that is the issue. Issue is that somehow object are not drawn fast enought and those wall that are not supposed to be there are just something that is not drawn at all (small objects that would not stop you walking throught them). I run nearly year old system ( qx9650 with 3870x2 + 6gb mem ) and it plays fine with medium, unfortunately my radeons memmory prevent me from getting higher. Never had a crash or anything that would be major flaw, once i thought i had but it was only insanely long loading session (5-7 minutes) when i rigged a car with bomb (you know the mission when you get there).

i somewhat agree with 9/10, but maybe i would have gone with 8/10 (havent beaten the game yet) since i dont understand why nico need that cash? He cant buy anything but cars and some small "services". Buying businesses and safehouses was the best thing in gta:s, why did they remove that =(. Now money is just a "bonus point". So in gta IV something totaly went to wrong direction imo. That one thing would have made game to 9/10 to me.

[Jarnis]

Well, there is the achievement for gathering up half a million.

I also ended up spending some on body armor and ammo, but later in the game money becomes pretty meaningless.

If you end up with walls appearing out of thin air, your hard disk is most likely fragmented or otherwise slow - the game streams a lot of stuff from HD and I could imagine that you would get "stuff appears too late" if hard disk becomes a bottleneck.

[Unregistered]

Just a heads up, but the console versions use medium texture settings. You'll see that running at 720p w/ view distance at 22 and textures at medium the game uses ~380mb of video memory which in line with the 512mb of RAM on the consoles. The PS3 runs at a slightly lower resolution of 1024x600 (no doubt a GPU limitation rather than RAM or CPU) but it amounts to largely the same.

The above settings are according to Rockstar and in reference to the 360 version, by the way. I assume the same applies to the PS3 with the exception of resolution.

[sMull]

Funny how the reviewer lists a long list of problems and bugs, says the game requires a beast of a machine to run, installs a crapload of unnecessary programs and the game doesn't even have AA, and yet he still says "it's a good port". You haven't see good ports my man, this one is atrocious.

[NukemNazi]

It really does seem like Rockstar wanted this game out for the holidays and rushed this one too much.

[Jarnis]

Funny how the reviewer lists a long list of problems and bugs, says the game requires a beast of a machine to run, installs a crapload of unnecessary programs and the game doesn't even have AA, and yet he still says "it's a good port". You haven't see good ports my man, this one is atrocious.

I enjoyed playing it, actually more than on Xbox 360. I saw nothing fatally wrong with it while playing on a suitable machine and the bugs were mostly irritants - happening rarely enough not to interfere with the fun.

"Requires a fast PC to run" is not a good reason to cut down score - it's something that should be mentioned, but it's not a reason to call a game bad.

("Requires a fast PC to run for no reason" is another story, but GTA IV has some rather good resons for the requirements)

[Neeyik]

Funny how the reviewer lists a long list of problems and bugs, says the game requires a beast of a machine to run, installs a crapload of unnecessary programs and the game doesn't even have AA, and yet he still says "it's a good port". You haven't see good ports my man, this one is atrocious.

Depends on what you mean by a good port - is a bug-free translation of a console title that offers no concessions or bonuses to PC gamers a good port? Is a bugged translation of a console title that provides notably graphics and additional functionality a bad port? Is the requirement of AA needed to be a good port or even just a good PC title?

[Unregistered]

I wouldn't call it a bad port as much as a testament to just how powerful the PS3 and 360 really are, and even compared to today's PC hardware.

That's not to say that there's nothing wrong with the port (requiring superfluous external programs to run a game is ridiculous) but I think many people are still disregarding the fact that you need no less than 400mb of video memory just to run the game at the same detail settings as the 360 version (as confirmed by Rockstar themselves). Coupled with the fact that the PS3 and 360 CPUs are still very fast compared to current PC hardware, it only stands to reason that you need at least a 3.2ghz tri-core (in the 360) equivalent to run the game at a steady 30fps. The proof lies in the fact that we already know that the game is very CPU dependent.

According to a Capcom technical paper, the 360 CPU is roughly equivalent to a 3.2ghz Extreme Edition Pentium 4. How much that is in Core 2 Duo terms I don't know, but I would wager that it's somewhere in the region of a 2.6ghz.

So, long story short, you need at least a 512mb video card and ~2.6ghz Core 2 Duo just to match the 360 in GTA4 in pure processing power. And that's without taking into account architectural differences like cache sizes and bandwidth, having to run on top of an operating system, differences in API, etc.

It may not qualify GTA PC for a great port, but I certainly don't think it's a bad one.

[sMull]

Well the PC version looks much better than the console versions, and plays it at 30+ fps considering you have the system, but i still think it's badly optimized. A good port is one that uses the strengths of the platform, yet there is no AA support in the game. There are also numerous crashes and bugs, plus as you said the crapload of programs you need to install. This to me is an example of a sloppy rushed port, and a sign of the little respect Rockstar have towards the pc gaming community. Personally i am buying this through eBay when it hits $10, does not deserve any more than that considering the multitude of DRM free, bug free and polished games you can buy today.