OmegaRED

We waited and waited and now it's almost upon us

Eurogamer.net has the first online review of the PC version.

Highlights

On the graphics and framerate...

On the multiplayer...

I'm so glad I snagged a 260GTX in time for this game

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Asmoday

It's about time!

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mkk

Some engine quirkiness is only natural to this series. I hope they've worked a little more on the controls this time, but I'm sure it'll be a great experience either way. The new method for evading law enforcement will probably have me owned big-time a couple of times in the beginning.

BlueMak

I much prefer this new system to the old of trying to locate the garage that will make them stop hunting you. At least it gives me hope that the police will not be the annoyingly appearing from everywhere due to magic, of the previous games.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Cow_160483

Haha lol
That happened to me a lot.
I am looking forward to this game on the PC its going to be grate.

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Decode!
Muhahahahah!

comp_ali

mmm Uses DRM securom
R* says game experience will differ in the cracked versions


Grand Theft Auto 4 PC Uses SecuROM DRM, Rockstar Addresses Common Complaints - Shacknews - PC Games, PlayStation, Xbox 360 and Wii video game news, previews and downloads

Congrats on the 260gtx dude ; )

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Stop It

I've heard that before, Codemasters tried it with Operation Flashpoint, it turned into an epic catfight between Codies and hackers and I think Op Fap went through 20 patches because of this system (FADE it was called) being the victim of the hacking community.

Rockstar, this wont work, unless if you want a massive fight with the hacking community that is.

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comp_ali

The game is out already I am looking for reviews , some people complain about the frame rates even running on a high-end rig.

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OmegaRED

So far the complaints I've seen were from people running 8800GT/GTX's or those with dual gpus (which aren't any use without driver support for the game), I hope there's no issues with the 260/280 cards as they have more memory and should be able to handle the huge textures in this game.

Here's a snip from the IGN.com review

There should be a few more reviews and possibly some benchmarks in the next few days. HardOCP for sure will test this game on the latest cards and drivers so we can see what kind of performance to expect.

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Rudick

What about HD4850, will it able to put acceptable frame rate @ 1360x768 res? How's the support for XBOX 360 controller?

Zardon

According to our reviewer, yes the 260 GTX handles it fine. read the review here http://www.gamingheaven.net/gaming-r...ml#post1198774

OmegaRED

Awesome! I'm betting that even bottlenecked by an Opteron and 2gigs of ram the 260GTX will pick up the slack and allow me to run high settings at 1280x960.

EDIT: Nevermind, looks like I might be screwed lol

from steam forums

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Zardon

what resolution do you game at and the guy in the quote panel, what was he trying to run (the res)?

From what im hearing it is quite CPU intensive but ive only ran it on skulltrail with 8 cores at 4.5ghz so its hard to tell. hopefully ill get some time shortly to give it a go on a few other systems in our offices.

dj_stick

I saw the game sitting on the bench at work, i think i'll have to pick it up, once I do I'll let you know how it runs on a quad xeon and 8800GT (Vista Home Premium only uses one CPU)

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BlueMak

I am glad I wasn't allowed by steam to buy it. The game looks a mess, crappy port in terms of performance and many many bugs, including several that don't allow you to start the game.
If you want to have some fun, check the steam forum of gta.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

BlueMak

It looks like the gods were on my side on this one and I didn't spend the money on this game. I have no reason to believe that all the posts there are ...wrong. It feels like a beta game from what I read.
Good thing I am not a reviewer. I would slaughter the grade for such a release.
Pity.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

OmegaRED

I "borrowed" a copy of GTA IV to see how it would run and I'm pretty disappointed; regardless of the settings used I got an average of 15fps driving around and 50-60 indoors. I tried high/high and then medium/medium and messed around with a bunch of the other settings it didn't affect the framerate. There is some kind of problem with the texture memory in this game as there was no discernible difference between 400mb and 800mb used.

My system is a classic case of bottlenecking gone wild, with an AMD dual core and 2 gig of ram beating back a heavily overclocked 260 GTX but bare in mind I am able to play Crysis, FarCry2 and Stalker: Clear Sky all in DX10 with high settings and framerates twice that of GTA IV. That's just not right

Despite my crushed enthusiasm I liked what I saw and given the likelihood of patches from Rockstar and Nvidia/AMD there's bound to be some performance improvements. If not, then hopefully future computer upgrades will make it playable. Rockstar definitely buggled the PC port of GTAIV and at this moment it's not worth the money, however, in time this will become the definitive version of GTAIV and we already know from the console version how good the story and multiplayer are so I have no problems purchasing this game in the next few days. It will be money well spent even if it's not playable for a 6 weeks or even 6 more months...I do feel bad for the people who believed the system requirements and expected to be able to play GTAIV today but found it to be otherwise

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OmegaRED

Essential reading!

How To Get GTAIV Running - Steam Users' Forums

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BlueMak

Rockstar is not known to release patches, you know that, right?

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Alex

No offense man but its just as well you aren't a reviewer because I don't think ive ever seen you say you like a game, its either DRM, bugs, performance or something else!

I bought GTA4 based on the Gamingheaven review and while im not getting huge framerates with my video card I played it on my friends system and he has a quad core at 3.2ghz with a 260 gtx (216core) and it was more than playable at a decent resolution.

Im enjoying it greatly right now.

BlueMak

More than playable at a decent resolution doesn't mean much. Even if I generaly accept it as accurate, how many people have a quad core at 3.2ghz?

Besides, performance issues are not the only thing reported as problematic at best.

Good for you and anyone else that enjoys the game.

I don't take offense by what you said about me, but you are mistaken. Plenty of occasions that I like and say it, a game. The thing is, I won't be nice to a company just because....pick whatever you wish. If the game has problems, they should be mentioned and the game be "punished" for this with the grade. Accepting a game because "it will be fixed", or because a fan favourite is behind the game (Rockstar in this case), shouldn't affect how you review it. If the game has problems, say it, not if and buts.
That's just me though.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

humonous

Are you referring to the GamingHeaven review? if so, I don't agree. I think its clearly mentioned that there are some performance issues with the game if you don't have a high end PC. John, the reviewer mentioned two systems and covered quite a lot of ground in a paragraph. I think its hard to go into detail on performance across a wide range of hardware in a game review as im guessing most game reviewers arent like the hardware guys, in that they only have access to normally one system.

I bought the game and im enjoying it. I knew it needed high end hardware and im lucky enough to have it, and im happy with how it runs. No complaints here, I think GH did a great job of the review. Killer game.

I think if you reviewed Bluemak nothing would get over 80% which isn't realistic. Some people don't care about DRM and wouldnt write something like "game has DRM, rating has gone from 90% to 50% etc".

Maybe you need to relax a bit

Knight_Breed

Well some mixed reviews there for sure

I will have to check it out myself heard great things about the console version. On frame rates I don't see an issue here as I only have a 19 inch monitor and like Crysis the resolutions I will be running should run smoothly.

Ohh and BlueMak is right about Rockstar and patches ... or lack of

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OmegaRED

Rockstar did patch the PC versions of GTA:VC and SA...but yeah I'm counting on AMD/Nvidia to deliver the real improvements. Rockstar will probably just fix any game breaking issues and ignore the performance problems.

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comp_ali

looks like after months of waiting we get less than expected from game that is full of 10/10 rating in console versions.

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BlueMak

I never mentioned GH. So please don't try to put words into my mouth.

I am glad you are having a great time with the game, many many people don't. Many can't even make the game start.

Also, saying I would lower the score due to DRM is complete and utter BS. I have never said that a game should score less because of the DRM. I have said that the reviewer must mention DRM if it is one that requires internet connection at all or if it is one known to cause problems. But NOT to change the game score because of this.
This of course includes GTAIV. I never mentioned the problem with the PC version being the DRM in it. I clearly said bugs and performance issues. So, again, please be more careful.


yes, if I were a reviewer, I wouldn't rate many games over 90%, but that is because I don't believe that games should be rated from 50-100% scale as it has become the normal for the last few years. But, relax, I am not a reviewer.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

mkk

It feels like the engine has a lot of the technology from previous games still in it, with new effects sometimes slabbed over the old in conjunction with the truly improved parts. There are some filtering effects going over the whole screen which may account for much of the performance load in higher resolutions, and the good old graphics annoyance of textures and surfaces sometimes not loading in until you're right at them is still here. Sometimes edges also stand out far far more than just for the lack of antialiasing, almost like if an object like a car in front of you in a certain angle was rendered in lower resolution than the actual pixels. Or more likely that there is a filtering effect running over its surface that exaggerates the aliasing. On overall it makes the graphics feel a bit messy and jerky on overall, and the appealing eye candy that certainly is very much there makes you wonder why.

Still the game has promise in the controls that are better than ever for this series and while it seems to take a while for the story to pick up it should be fun enough to play. You'll just have to get accustomed to the oddities, if your system can play it at all, and gnash your teeth at that stupid Rockstar Social Club that bothers you every time you're going to play singleplayer, and puts up an autostarting program that gnaws off 70MB of your RAM for no reason. Their protection scheme was less annoying than that thing.

BlueMak

Tell that to the people who have bought Bully for the PC.

(not me, I hate the game)

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Callandor

Just bought GTA IV now installing, brb with a review

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OmegaRED

Okay, okay, it's not that bad after some tweaking. I didn't have a framerate monitor going this time but I'd guesstimate I play it between 20-40 fps with the occasional stuttering during some driving. Here's my current settings.

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