GTA IV, PC specs and costs?

[Bullseye 5]

Hello there,

I want to build a computer that will run GTA IV on max settings with a good framerate, I'm looking to spend around £500 (GBP) or less even

Just wondering if any of you run GTA IV and specs you have.

Thanks in advance.

~John~

Edited November 11, 2012 by Bullseye

[Orgcon 11]

YOU DON'T WANT GTA IV! IT IS QUITE DEFINATLY CRAP!!! I SHOULD KNOW, I OWN IT.

But to answer your question, there is no affordable computer fast enough to run GTA VI on max at a constant 60FPS. Especially at £500, add another 0 and maybe.

But there is no harm in upgrading your PC anyway.

Recommended specs for most current games are;

3Gb < CPU Quad or Dual

1Gb < VRAM (Graphics Card) (I recommend Nvidia as some ATI cards are software nightmares if you don't have an ATI MoBo)

4Gb/8Gb/16Gb Ram (Depending on MoBo and OS)

150/250Gb OS HDD (faster loading than 500Gb) (or SSD if you can find a good one for cheap) secondary HDD can be any size.

Windows 7 (don't be fooled by the charms of Win8! Great for tablets, rubbish for desktops!)

meshcomputers.com is a good place to start looking. But I recommend pricing parts separately before buying custom builds.

Edited November 11, 2012 by Orgcon

[RG 1]

See if you can get Mini-Me to post his £1000 rig; he runs IV on max settings at a reasonable framerate, but his game bugs out even more than mine does. As Orgcon said, you really don't want GTA IV

[Bullseye 5]

Ok then, so I am definitely out in the cold here, see we had a power cut because a mouse chewed though some wires on another appliance, there was me thinking my PC would be ok, but since then it's stuck in this constant loop, I've tried memory sticks, because that was the problem before, but this time a memory stick didn't fix the issue, I can't imagine what it could be, I had already purchased GTA IV at this point, my PC died the night before GTA IV came through the post, I guess that's another £14.99 down the toilet :'(

This PC was running GTA VC with the BTTF mod quite merrily and also BTTF LC

*Edit*

I guess this short article says it all :/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/12/gta-...sk-for-refunds/

Edited November 11, 2012 by Bullseye

[♠Grim♂ Reaper 1666◙ 17]

i remember when i first started playing gta iv with a 9600 gt and it was as laggy as hell, bt then i put a 80mm case fan in and volia it ran it ok on average settings. i would reccommend trying to get the parts at a good price, because just assuming one shops price is the same as the next is never a good idea. i personally prefer amd cpus and use a nvidia geforce gt440 1024mb gddr3 .

my gta iv is not buggy apart from the lod issues when going at really fast speeds, you should also recognise that i use vsync to keep the framerate inline with my tvs refresh rate because otherwise you get vertical tearing.

which city do you live in the U.K anyway considering i live in Hull and have a fairly local computer parts store which parts are usually cheaper there then places like currys and pcworld. fact is if your computer case is still good and your monitor thats part of the costs cut out and if you already own your operating system another cost cut out.

[Bullseye 5]

Hello Grim

I live in Norwich, I have have a brand new monitor, the case is getting on a bit, but I guess it's just a tin box really?

However, I only have a win XP OS disc :/

~John~

[Orgcon 11]

If your PC still runs, DL this software and post the results

(You could do it through Run Commands but its harder to copy and paste whats in the window)

[archer9234 20]

I'm able to run the game at 60fps with my 24gb ddr3 ram, gtx 570, and a intel i7 2.6ghz. But there are sections of the map that will lag. Because those idiots at R* didn't optimize crap. Which is why the game runs on PC's s**tty to begin with. But my rig cost $1200 for me to build. My setup just barely allows 65fps (in the main map). In the lag sections it drops to around 25fps.

[Bullseye 5]

That's not good, is there a chance that R* will be rectifying the issue??

From what I hear, there are games that have more detail ect than GTA IV, but don't require anywhere near the real system requirements for GTA IV, I guess that's what happens when they rush things so much :/

~John~

[Dave27 1]

The best way to play IV is turn down the stupid shadows. Just have them on low thats what I did when I used to play it. Everything else ran on high (not very high).

Mine ran really well until my motherboard packed in. That was An AMD 64x2 3gb (I think) with 8gb ram and a too ran a geforce 9600gt. Main hdrive was 160gb and there was a 500gb and a 2tb drives as well

[♠Grim♂ Reaper 1666◙ 17]

its funny, my old comp had a amd athlon 64x2 3200+ 3.2 ghz with 8gb of ddr2 ram. which could run gta iv just fine, but now i use a amd athlon ii 260 with 3.1ghz and 2x 2gb of ddr3 ram (1333mhz) and my gt440 which runs gtaiv better than my old comp simply because the memory is faster so it uses it better. and these optimization issues sounds like skyrim with its ultra laggin areas of the game.

i never run above 30fps on games but thats because i use a hd tv as my gaming screen so when i let the fps roam uncapped i get vertical tearing, so i use nvidia vsync to keep my picture quality up.

while i'm at it can i wall mount a tv that says it can't be wall mounted and yet the holes just have circular tabs glued over them?

[archer9234 20]

Well he did say play the game at maximum. Of course turning things off improves the framerate. R* doesn't patch anything after a certain point.

[Orgcon 11]

Its all about GPU rather than CPU, thats why I suggested an Nvidia 9600gt. They are 'cheap as chips' and have 1024Mb vram. You could get 2 and run them in SLI, but only if you have 2 PCI-e slots obviously.

4Gb RAM is the bare minimum to have, but if you're running XP then the OS will only ever use 3Gb of it (MAJOR BALL SUCKAGE!!!).

I have a Core 2 Duo 1.8Gb currently, and I can still run GTA IV on high at an above average framerate due to the fact that I have an Nv9600gt with 4Gb RAM.

But like I said, its better to price up parts separately than to buy custom builds.

[uokka 117]

As Orgcon has already said, there is no PC (affordable) to run GTA IV @ max setting with pleasure. But since the PC conversion takes much much more resourceses (all settings @ very high) than on console, its no wonder current PC setups can't take it.. Would be nice if those guys who are working on advanced shaders would create something actually useful, rather than only create grafix that are screenshotable @ 5 FPS.

[♠Grim♂ Reaper 1666◙ 17]

it is not just the amount of ram you should look at because the faster it runs the more efficent it is because it frees itself up, so 4gb of memory becomes more effective.

[Bullseye 5]

I'm on the road to having my PC up and running again, sure a much more viable way, I'll just have to not bother with GTA IV ha ha!

Seeing as people are spending colossal amounts of money and still getting laggs and freezeups :/

Thanks for the heads up guys!

~John~

[♠Grim♂ Reaper 1666◙ 17]

its not that bad, and i don't think that you miss out on much by using the lower settings, i believe that i use the medium settings on some parts of the game and high on others. if you want a demanding game on high settings then you should look at crysis.

Edited November 17, 2012 by ♠Grim♂ Reaper 1666◙

[Dave27 1]

Strangly crysis runs better on my pc than gtaIV?

[♠Grim♂ Reaper 1666◙ 17]

considering gta iv was a port and crysis was designed around pcs what do you expect.

[archer9234 20]

Crysis runs at 70FPS on my system. I never had a slowdown. R* really needs to not fail with GTA V.