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[DodgyGeezerFella]

Looks like theres a new PC patch coming up any day now, and holy fuck, it sounds like theyve been busy, and the games about to run a shit ton faster -

Rockstar Games Social Club

• Remove Rockstar Games Social Club application

• Separate RGSC application no longer required to launch game

• Social Club login now occurs during the launch process


Shadows

• A new, less memory-intensive, and better-looking scalable shadow solution has been implemented

• Enhanced Night Shadows added with user-selectable level of detail (replaces Shadow Density)


Performance

• Rendering optimizations have been made to improve performance, particularly when enabling shadows

• User-configurable graphics settings have been added for shadow control

• Improved memory management


Multiplayer

• Enhanced security to isolate users from cheaters and hackers


Episodic Content

• Provide in-game support to purchase "The Lost and Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony" (Not available in Russian/Japanese Versions)


Bug Fixes

• Vehicle shadows re-enabled between 8pm and 6am

• Fix floating street textures

• Pedestrians in vehicles appear further out from the player to allow for long range sniping

• The Moon has been implemented with simulated lunar phases

• Fixed garbled text in Japanese Multiplayer menus

• "RESC 10" error fix for specific hardware configurations

So, Social Club thing no longer needed, YIPEE, Shadows (probably the biggest frame rate killer) sound like theyve been completely re-done, and lol, new moon cycles ? Awesome.

 

[Baloonatic]

Looks like theres a new PC patch coming up any day now, and holy fuck, it sounds like theyve been busy, and the games about to run a shit ton faster -



So, Social Club thing no longer needed, YIPEE, Shadows (probably the biggest frame rate killer) sound like theyve been completely re-done, and lol, new moon cycles ? Awesome.

Sucks that the port was sloppy in the first place BUT pretty cool that they're still working to make it better and didn't just abandon it.

 

[subversus]

Wow, that's good. I bought it not so long ago and being enjoying the hell out of it. But perfomance is abysmal in some places (foggy weather for example). I hope this patch will fix that.

 

[Asparagus]

Very nice, I've been putting some more time into it as well recently so looking forward to the patch.

 

[AgentOtaku]

Well well well ...looks like I might reload my PC version yet again to see if its yet worth a damn

If it still isn't, then I'm just buying the Episodes disc on 360 or PS3

 

[forknknife]

Cool, I rebought it for PC because I no longer have my ps3 with me and was quite bummed when I saw that it ran worse on my brand new laptop than on my ps3. Let's see if this changes all that. I think the game is ACE by the way, I don't get some of its harshest critics (while I also laugh at the 10 and perfect review scores like IGN and the rest)

 

[Dennis]

LOL, the new patch. Too little, too late. The ENB series mod takes a massive dump on Rockstars own attempt to improve the game.

 

[forknknife]

LOL, the new patch. Too little, too late. The ENB series mod takes a massive dump on Rockstars own attempt to improve the game.

well... I'd say let's wait and see what they did first

 

[subversus]

Cool, I rebought it for PC because I no longer have my ps3 with me

Haha, same here. But it runs better on my PC than on PS3 and in higher resolution/with more details etc. Except for those times when fog covers the city - then it's just bullshit (about 15 fps).

 

[subversus]

LOL, the new patch. Too little, too late. The ENB series mod takes a massive dump on Rockstars own attempt to improve the game.

Not in the framerate department. But I guess you don't care since you're runnig it on crossfire

 

[Rubezh]

Does anybody have experience of buying DLC on GfWL? I'm seriously thinking about picking up the two episodes but I've only bought DD stuff on Steam and EA Downloader before. Can I just pull up the GfWL bar within GTA IV and download it from there?

 

[Dries]

Just got an update on my 360 too. No idea what it does.

 

[DodgyGeezerFella]

Does anybody have experience of buying DLC on GfWL? I'm seriously thinking about picking up the two episodes but I've only bought DD stuff on Steam and EA Downloader before. Can I just pull up the GfWL bar within GTA IV and download it from there?

Theres a R* bloke on the forums at GTAForums.com, someone asked the same question and his response was -

If you already have GTA IV installed, sign into GFWL and apply the update when it becomes available.

When the DLC is released on GFWL - Marketplace, you will be able to purchase/redeem/download the episodes from within the GFWL interface or through the GTA IV front end menu. If done this way, you will be able to select any of the three games without having to start a new game.

If you purchase EFLC on disc, it will install in it's own directory and you will not be able to play the original GTA IV unless you quit out of EFLC and load up GTA IV.

 

[Salmonax]

YES to that PC patch. The game actually already runs much, much better than it originally did for me, but fixing the shadow issue would be pretty huge.

 

[Rubezh]

Theres a R* bloke on the forums at GTAForums.com, someone asked the same question and his response was -

Thanks, that's fantastic. Looks like I'll be getting it on GfWL then. I've never liked splitting my DD library accross different distribution services but it might be okay if it can all be done ingame.

 

[forknknife]

What about Steam, will it update by itself like it does with Valve games? Also, is the DLC available on Steam? Never checked since I still haven't finished it.

 

[Oreoleo]

What about Steam, will it update by itself like it does with Valve games? Also, is the DLC available on Steam? Never checked since I still haven't finished it.

No, but it will update automatically in-game when you load it up like any other GFWL or 360 game.

Edit: The DLC will be available through the in-game marketplace. Supposedly there is going to be a standalone release of the Episodes on Steam like there was for 360, but it won't be able to tie to your main GTA4 game.

 

[DodgyGeezerFella]

What about Steam, will it update by itself like it does with Valve games? Also, is the DLC available on Steam? Never checked since I still haven't finished it.

If they've submitted it to Steam (like they have the previous patches i think), then it will auto-update through Steam, otherwise GFWL should update it.

 

[DigiMish]

What are the trophies that they added?

 

[Oreoleo]

Looks like the patch is up on Steam (And I was wrong and won't update through GFWL when you launch the game).

 

[subversus]

wow this patch is f-ing GOOD! It improves perfomance greatly and shadows look like shadows now. Now the game looks much better that its console versions.

 

[AgentOtaku]

Yeah I'm currently reDLing/reinstalling my Steam version (5 hours to go), so I'll give some impressions on performance increases as well...

 

[Melhisedek]

Is the game GPU or CPU bound?

 

[AgentOtaku]

Is the game GPU or CPU bound?

big CPU whore

 

[Felix Lighter]

If this patch makes a significant difference, I might just buy the PC version from Games for Windows. It's on $15 right now.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-US/games/pages/sales.aspx

 

[Oreoleo]

big CPU whore

Yup. One of the few PC games that really REQUIRES a quad core to play with any kind of stable framerate.

As for the patch, I'm not sure there are performance improvements per se, but they reduced the amount of video ram shadows require by about 50MB which you can reinvest in textures, reflections etc. I guess in that sense there is an improvement.

Also, whatever they did, D3DOverrider works with GTA4 now. I wonder if anti-aliasing is possible now as well? Someone with an Nvidia card and Ntune should try it out report back

 

[Felix Lighter]

Yup. One of the few PC games that really REQUIRES a quad core to play with any kind of stable framerate.

As for the patch, I'm not sure there are performance improvements per se, but they reduced the amount of video ram shadows require by about 50MB which you can reinvest in textures, reflections etc. I guess in that sense there is an improvement.

Also, whatever they did, D3DOverrider works with GTA4 now. I wonder if anti-aliasing is possible now as well? Someone with an Nvidia card and Ntune should try it out report back

That's unfortunate. I guess I just saved $15

 

[Oreoleo]

That's unfortunate. I guess I just saved $15

It's not like it runs terrible or anything. But if you don't have a mostly modern rig it isn't really worth it.

 

[StevePharma]

What are the trophies that they added?

Same as the 360-ones. No MP-trophies, all bronze.

 

[psy18]

How good are the expansions? I heard Ballad of gay tony is better.
Should I skip lost and damned?

 

[Goldrusher]

How good are the expansions? I heard Ballad of gay tony is better.
Should I skip lost and damned?

Get both.

 

[Chris R]

Same as the 360-ones. No MP-trophies, all bronze.

So glad to hear no mp trophies. IV has some serious bullshit mp trophies (Wanted and AWP)

 

[Najaf]

How good are the expansions? I heard Ballad of gay tony is better.
Should I skip lost and damned?

The Ballad of Gay Tony gives you more fun in the long run (i.e. things to do after you finish the story). Parachutes, armored car, attack helicopter, phone-in car of choice delivery, and some fun guns.

Lost and Damned has a better story, I believe, and provides a better once through experience. Once I finished though, I never went back.

I recommend both. In the end though, for my mess around sessions, I only load up BoGT.

 

[state_vector_collapse]

Both expansions are great. But what they really do, is make you appreciate the vehicles.

In the original game, I quickly got tired of driving long distances and then dying in a mission, only having to drive all over again. So I started using Taxi's all the time. It's great being able to use vehicles and just enjoy the sights as you travel to your next mission, thanks to the checkpoints. What a shame they can't be retro fitted to GTA vanilla, as I do keep going back to it.

I think it will be quite a while before there is a gameworld I want to spend as much time in as this one.

 

[psy18]

Will get both expansions. Thanks guys!

 

[AgentOtaku]

Yeah, seems they did optomize the PC version quite a bit more!
Those frequent dips were it seemed as if the game was poorely loading in assets are pretty much gone
Shadows look ALOT better ...like seriously!

Benchmark gives me an average of 51fps with console-esque settings

 

[Visualante]

That's unfortunate. I guess I just saved $15

Played most of it on a low end dual core. GPU is more important, you can tweak the settings to make it run fun.

 

[KillerAJD]

Ugh, nothing I do seems to fix the horrible performance. Even dropping the resolution to 1024x720 doesn't make it any more stable, and this is with dropping EVERYTHING to medium settings. It sucks, because before the patch I was fine with the mostly 25-30 fps I got, and this was with stuff set to high and at 1080p!

 

[MazingerDUDE]

The res remains unchanged, no added AA either.

Disappointing, but not unexpected.

 

[AgentOtaku]

That's cool, thanks for letting me know!
I was just about to check to see if the thread on Beyond3D was updated actually...

 

[zero margin]

Out of the blue decided to get vanilla GTA IV for PS3 today. Haven't touched it since first week on 360, if nothing else it's a lot of gameplay for $30. Seems like it's a little smoother or has added touches in this version compared to the 360. Maybe I'm trippin'.

 

[Oreoleo]

Out of the blue decided to get vanilla GTA IV for PS3 today. Haven't touched it since first week on 360, if nothing else it's a lot of gameplay for $30. Seems like it's a little smoother or has added touches in this version compared to the 360. Maybe I'm trippin'.

IIRC, PS3 version runs at a lower res but has additional anti-aliasing compared to the 360 version.

 

[Red]

Played through GTA IV and both episodes on 360 a few months ago. Just got the PC version through the D2D sale and decided to try it out. Booted up, patched through GFWL and saw the night shadow option in graphics, so I assume I have the new patch. Problem is the game looks like garbage, horrible aliasing all over the place, far worse than when I played through on 360. Was there a blur filter on the console release or something? I'm running at 1280x720.

Other problems include horrendous pop-in, an issue present on 360 but nowhere near the level I'm seeing on PC. If I turn the camera fast enough I can see literally the entire city appear before me like a pop-up book. It's disgusting. Objects are constantly sparking into existence from nothing and there are entire sections of geometry that aren't appearing at all, so there are huge gray blotches all over the place.

That's not to mention the stuttering whenever I pick up speed. I go any faster than the traffic on the street and suddenly the world is jerking around like I'm running the wrong way on a treadmill.

I have a Radeon 5870 and an i7 920 OCed to 3.5 GHz. I knew GTA IV was demanding, but this is ridiculous. Is there a way to fix these issues?

Played around a little bit more. The jerkiness in the car seems to be caused by the sensitivity of the camera when using a mouse. I think I'll have to stick to a gamepad for this one.

Gray blotches also get filled in after playing for a minute or so. Pop-in is still a big issue, as is the aliasing. Can anyone point me in the direction of some good graphics mods for this game? I found out that "P" activates a blur filter, the same one I'm assuming was applied to the console release. On one hand, it alleviates the jaggies, but on the other, it looks like I've smeared vaseline all over my TV. Are there any alternate solutions?

Benchmark is giving me 60+ fps with all settings but view distance (at 50%) maxed. In-game performance doesn't correlate, and I'm still seeing brief but significant fps drops when making fast turns or entering new areas.

 

[Oreoleo]

^^ For all the aliasing and what not, turn off the "detail" setting in the options. I also believe you can toggle it on or off in-game with 'p' but it might be something else. I have it turned off 100% of the time, at the expense of texture quality, but GOD that aliasing is awful.


As for the pop-in I believe that is hard-drive related and would more or less disappear with a SSD but I could be horribly wrong with that, might be RAM related as well (with your i7 I believe you use DDR3 RAM so I'm inclined to believe that is not really the case).

Edit: I see you found the 'detail' on your own. Unfortunately the new patch with the updated graphics broke all the graphics mods because they changed how the shadows are rendered so none of them work right now, afaik.

 

[Dark Stalkers]

Why is Republican Space Rangers so awesome?

 

[zero margin]

IIRC, PS3 version runs at a lower res but has additional anti-aliasing compared to the 360 version.

Gotcha, that makes sense. I guess the little things (bloody palm prints left on the hood of cars after they hit you for instance) were always there then and I just never noticed.

 

[Gully State]

IIRC, PS3 version runs at a lower res but has additional anti-aliasing compared to the 360 version.

Actually 360 version runs at higher res and has additional AA. The PS3 version gets the post processing filter.

 

[Oreoleo]

Actually 360 version runs at higher res and has additional AA. The PS3 version gets the post processing filter.

I was under the impression 360 had the "free" 2xAA and PS3 had 4xAA. Maybe I am confusing the 4x for the filtering. It's somewhere in this thread, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna look for it

 

[AgentOtaku]

I was under the impression 360 had the "free" 2xAA and PS3 had 4xAA. Maybe I am confusing the 4x for the filtering. It's somewhere in this thread, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna look for it

No AA. PS3 version does get the better shadows though. Not dithered like 360's

 

[Host Samurai]

I own both versions and I think the PS3 version looks better. Also, is it just me or are there more pedestrians in the PS3 version as well?