GTA 4, how will it run? :/

[iWearShortz]

Okay, whenever I used to purchase games it would always be for the Xbox as I could rely on the framerate etc. But because I've been told by some friends about the "steam sale" I thought I'd give GTA 4 a go and bought it because TF2 ran quite well on it. After viewing a number of posts I'm getting very worried that it's going to run terribly. I'm saving for a new laptop which could more than handle GTA but for now, can my desktop handle it? here are my specs;

4GB RAM
1TB Memory
Intel Core i3 Processor
Intel core HD integrated graphics
3.40ghz


I'm worried. Any and all help is appreciated.

 

[Aastii]

It probably can't because of your integrated graphics, not unless you have all lowest settings and set your resolution to 800x600, which will mean playing with blocks rather than smooth sprites, textures and environments

 

[iWearShortz]

It probably can't because of your integrated graphics, not unless you have all lowest settings and set your resolution to 800x600, which will mean playing with blocks rather than smooth sprites, textures and environments

Oh dear :-(, what about my current laptop?

Quad-core AMD Phenom II X4 N930 CPU
AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5470 graphics
4GB RAM, 320GB HDD

Acer Aspire 5553

 

[Aastii]

Again, held back by graphics, though it will perform better than with the integrated Intel. Plus the game is very CPU heavy, so you will have better performance from that too

 

[iWearShortz]

Again, held back by graphics, though it will perform better than with the integrated Intel. Plus the game is very CPU heavy, so you will have better performance from that too

Wow. Just tried to run it on my Desktop, wouldn't even start, tried 4 times and when I pressed start I opened task manager it wouldn't respond -_-. Re-downloading onto my laptop and hoping for the best.

 

[Aastii]

I'm really not surprised, you need a card that is equivelant to a 7900/8600GT, your Intel isn't even close to it. The 5450 should be able to play it though as I said on low settings

 

[G80FTW]

I'm really not surprised, you need a card that is equivelant to a 7900/8600GT, your Intel isn't even close to it. The 5450 should be able to play it though as I said on low settings

I doubt a 7900 could even run GTA4 on lowest let alone an 8600. I got 25FPS with my 8800GTS 320MB at medium settings with my i7 and the 8800 is significantly more powerful than the 8600 or the 5470 for that matter.

Your going to need more of a gaming computer to play that game smoothly, even with all its patches its still a poorly optimized game but with the right hardware it will run fine.

And your core i3 will do better with GTA4 than the quad core Phenom. Because the i3 is faster per core than the Phenom and GTA4 wont use more than 2 cores.

Bottom line, you MIGHT be able to play GTA4 with that AMD setup, but you wont be very happy with it and I would be surprised if you got playable frame rates even on the lowest settings without having to turn the resolution down to 800x600.

 

[Aastii]

I doubt a 7900 could even run GTA4 on lowest let alone an 8600. I got 25FPS with my 8800GTS 320MB at medium settings with my i7 and the 8800 is significantly more powerful than the 8600 or the 5470 for that matter.

Your going to need more of a gaming computer to play that game smoothly, even with all its patches its still a poorly optimized game but with the right hardware it will run fine.

And your core i3 will do better with GTA4 than the quad core Phenom. Because the i3 is faster per core than the Phenom and GTA4 wont use more than 2 cores.

Bottom line, you MIGHT be able to play GTA4 with that AMD setup, but you wont be very happy with it and I would be surprised if you got playable frame rates even on the lowest settings without having to turn the resolution down to 800x600.

Few things

1. 7900 is the minimum system requirements.
2. An 8600GT is about on parr with a 7900GTX, more powerful in most applications than the 7900. The 5450 however is less powerful than an 8600GT by a noticable margin, which I would put my bottom dollar on it the bottleneck, not the CPU
3. GTA4 does use all 4 cores on a quad core and so is one of the programs where the Phenom II x4 will beat the i3 (Assuming it is SB, there are few that it does)
4. My Tri Core Phenom II 720, even when locked at a tri core, had the game maxed with a small overclocked (2.6GHz to 3.2GHz)

 

[G80FTW]

Few things

1. 7900 is the minimum system requirements.
2. An 8600GT is about on parr with a 7900GTX, more powerful in most applications than the 7900. The 5450 however is less powerful than an 8600GT by a noticable margin, which I would put my bottom dollar on it the bottleneck, not the CPU
3. GTA4 does use all 4 cores on a quad core and so is one of the programs where the Phenom II x4 will beat the i3 (Assuming it is SB, there are few that it does)
4. My Tri Core Phenom II 720, even when locked at a tri core, had the game maxed with a small overclocked (2.6GHz to 3.2GHz)

Gta4 doesnt use more than dual core, trust me dude. Few games actually make use of quad core and in 2008 when this game came out almost no game was multithreaded at all.

 

[Aastii]

Gta4 doesnt use more than dual core, trust me dude. Few games actually make use of quad core and in 2008 when this game came out almost no game was multithreaded at all.

You are correct that few games make use of quad cores, you are wrong however to say that they only use 2 threads and you are wrong to say that GTA4 does not get an advantage from quad core processors.

Games generally use 3 threads because they are ported from console, notably the Xbox 360 which only has a tri core CPU, which programmers will develop on for two reasons. Firstly, it uses DirectX, secondly, it is less powerful than the PS3, so by coding for that and then porting, it is less work and means they don't have to make a game and work out how to find that extra bit of optimisation or what can be taken out to make it run on less powerful hardware. Yes, there are some that use just 2 threads, but most use 3 for that reason.

And GTA 4 does use 4 cores. Even without citing a reference look at the specs, recommended is a quad core rather than others which say Intel dual core or AMD tri core (As Intel don't do tri core). To seal the deal though:

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...ark-review-with-13-processors/Reviews/?page=2

http://benchmark3d.com/grand-theft-auto-iv-benchmark/2

 

[SuperDuperMe]

Gta4 doesnt use more than dual core, trust me dude. Few games actually make use of quad core and in 2008 when this game came out almost no game was multithreaded at all.

Totally untrue, i went from an e6600 to a q6600 and even before overclocking i noticed a difference in fps.

 

[G80FTW]

You are correct that few games make use of quad cores, you are wrong however to say that they only use 2 threads and you are wrong to say that GTA4 does not get an advantage from quad core processors.

Games generally use 3 threads because they are ported from console, notably the Xbox 360 which only has a tri core CPU, which programmers will develop on for two reasons. Firstly, it uses DirectX, secondly, it is less powerful than the PS3, so by coding for that and then porting, it is less work and means they don't have to make a game and work out how to find that extra bit of optimisation or what can be taken out to make it run on less powerful hardware. Yes, there are some that use just 2 threads, but most use 3 for that reason.

And GTA 4 does use 4 cores. Even without citing a reference look at the specs, recommended is a quad core rather than others which say Intel dual core or AMD tri core (As Intel don't do tri core). To seal the deal though:

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...ark-review-with-13-processors/Reviews/?page=2

http://benchmark3d.com/grand-theft-auto-iv-benchmark/2

Well let me rephrase my statement then.

GTA4 only uses 2 cores on my i7. (it displays it as about 13%)