Gta3 Pc Makes Me Cry

[adi]

I buy this game after my exams are over and think my systems up to spec (1.33 athlon, geforce2mx). It runs like a pig and the control system is soooooo messed up with my gamepad. Anyone else here had problems?

[DuDe]

Gameplay is alright, although I play with the keyboard. The frame rate is dodgy, but that`s suppose to be some kind of a known issue. Still, I`m thoroughly enjoying the game, it`s great.

[Josep]

err, yea, don't like it on my gf2mx too, thats why im getting gf4ti;) welll not the wholE reason, but ya know

[Trotterwatch]

I have set 3 different copies of this game up on 3 different systems:

My own:

Athlon 900mhz
384 ram
XP Pro
GF3 Ti200 (default clocking)
SB Live!
(XP D8 patch)

On this config, at 1024x768 32bit colour (max detail) and Quincux antialiasing the game is extremely playable (and smooth). Turn off Quincux, and the game gets even smoother.

The only things I have tweaked is the OS (turned off all un-needed services), and I have copied all the Audio files to my HD and installed the NO CD Crack. This stops the game jerking momentarily when changing radio stations.

Friend 1s comp:

P3 500
GF2mx
Win98se
196ram
SB PCI 128
(no background tasks bar explorer)

I am not going to pretend this game is silky smooth running on the said configuration, but the average framerate of 20FPS (tested with fraps) is well playable.

Friend 2:

P3-850
GF2 GTS
Win98se
SB Live!
(no background tasks, bar Explorer)

All details on max at 800x600x32 and the game runs smoothly for most parts, jerking only a little when police chases get more involved.



The biggest tweak for performance in this game (mostly on my friends systems) was to enable Direct Sound Hardware Acceleration in the sound options, and copying the Audio files to the HD.

[Trotterwatch]

Oh, and with regards to the control system.... either use the Keyboard, Mouse + gamepad (for when in the car).

Or change the controller setting to Classic, this will make the joypad rotate the character, instead of the default strafe motion.

[adi]

i fixed the controller and graphics problems, its smooth now at 800x600x32. takes far too much effort to fully optimise this game though, but once you start playing its amazing. i think my graphics card was the weak part of my system

[adi]

oh yeah trotterwatch, i've got windows xp professional as well. what 'unneeded' services did you turn off? can you keep them off permanently or just for gta 3?

[Trotterwatch]

Check these links out:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaks/winxp_services/index.shtml

By default WinXP has a lot of features enabled that you don't need. If in doubt about turning one off, set it to manual.

Also check out Power Options in the control panel and disable Hibernation if you don't ever intend to use it. Otherwise Hiberfil.sys takes up the same amount of diskspace as the ram you have.

[adi]

how much of a performance boost would you say you got by doing all these tweaks?

[Trotterwatch]

Not a massive boost, but you will get one. Basically disabling processes that you will never need will free up more memory, leaving you with more to run programs etc.

[adi]

yep, you're right. i did a clean install of xp and disabled index searching. its quite good in that my harddisk doesn't start whirring for no apparent reason anymore

[RPGlover12]

guys i need help with that game
i have specs p4 1.7, tnt2 m64 32 mgs , 256 and 60 gb hard what should i do to make the game run smooth and i have windows 2000 so what should i do plz help cause am going to die cause i can't play it good though :(

[Martin]

The gfx engine of this game is shite, enough said. Great game though :)

[Lex]

it runs great on my cousins athlon 1.4GHz with gf2 mx400 32mb ddr
128MB DDR WindowsME

[Martin]

Great? Yeah, that's the odd thing. Some people report it as running great, and some says it runs like shit (me included), hence the crappy engine.

[Slougi]

Not necessarily crap, but very buggy at least.

[Martin]

Well, that's a question of definition.

Dictionary says:

crap Pronunciation Key (krp) Vulgar Slang
n.
Excrement.
An act of defecating.
Foolish, deceitful, or boastful language.
Cheap or shoddy material.
Miscellaneous or disorganized items; clutter.
Insolent talk or behavior.

[Josep]

haha, ok lets not get to technical, soon Martin will be talking in pig latin and giving us the meaning of life;) j/k

hopefully they will make a few patches for peeps that can't play gta3 that well, same with MORROWIND, DAMN!:) even though it runs fine on mine;)

[sytaylor]

Originally posted by Martin
The gfx engine of this game is shite, enough said. Great game though :)

agreed :cool:

[h-e-l-l-o]

the game is awesome but now it doesn't works good,I really hope for a patch or {}:{

[Trotterwatch]

My system (mentioned in a previous post in this topic) isn't the best in the world, but even on the second island the framerate doesn't drop. It's odd, how it can work so well on one machine, and then so badly on another.

Morrowind also runs brilliantly for me, Antialiasing doesn't make any difference to the framerate (proving I'm CPU limited), however people with faster processors have been reporting pretty low framerates.

The main problem with Morrowind is the crash to desktop bug, which definately needs fixing. Originally I did also experience many hard crash bugs, but narrowed that down to overheating, since putting another fan in that problem has disappeared.

[Stalkid64]

It runs almost-perfect on my brother`s 1.3ghz, and like crap on my 1.5 ghz... which makes very little sense. I`ve heard that using the no cd crack or copying certain files to the hard drive can remove the occasional momentary stops while playing. Anyone tested those theories?

[Trotterwatch]

The NO CD crack works fine. Simply copy the entire Audio folder from the CD to to a folder in the GTA3 directory, then apply the crack.

The game now reads Radio Stations etc from the HD, which helps stop the constant pausing whilst the CD seeks to the tracks when in the car.

[adi]

the games engine is absolute crap. notice the difference in framerates when you look up at the sky and walk and then you look at a street and walk. it has a problem with rendering draw distances, no doubt about it.

[Trotterwatch]

No problems with me. This engine seems very tempermental however, so when I eventually reformat XP, I will no doubt start experiencing problems also!

Also, any game regardless will run faster when looking at the sky, or ground (only) simply because it doesn't have to render anything else. So to criticise the game engine on the grounds that it runs faster in those circumstances, isn't really a valid criticsm.

[Stalkid64]

It`s weird that it has so many problems though... the game *isn`t* all that complex for the most part (Driver and Midtown Madness both managed huge living cities on much lower specs), the textures aren`t exactly cutting edge... I haven`t encountered any radio-related pauses myself, just the odd few seconds of sudden freezing (usually when exiting a car), then everything is fine again. I have heard stories that this all may actually be due to the game storing data for the replay feature (see gta3.com) which sound plausible. Let`s face it, its hardly the greatest feature as it is. ;)

[RPGlover12]

should i upgrade to geforce 3 64 mgs to make that game run well on my pc i need it to run full speed
i have p4 1.7 , 256 ram , tnt2 m64 32 mgs should i make the card geforce 3 64 mgs to make it run full speed plz answer me guys

[DuDe]

Can anyone say : Console port?
That`s what usually happens with ports. I think that the only port that wasn`t really buggy was THPS3, and even that one had some shit related to it.

[Stalkid64]

That`s to be expected though. Coding for a set-spec console is bound to produce less junk than for randomly specced PC`s... they just needed to put a bit more effort in.