A few problems

[davesta]

Okay, so I just bought myself pretty much a new PC to play this game. Here are the specs:

Windows Vista 32bit SP1

AMD X2 6000+ 3.1GHz

4GB RAM (3GB recognised)

ATi 3850 512mb

Resolution 1600x1200

And let me say that the game now looks beautiful and plays well at full resolution. Huge upgrade from my old 7900GT.

I do however have a few problems. Firstly, since reinstalling Windows, I have no idea where mine and my brother's old savegames are. I saved my old C drive, so everything is there, but I can't figure out where the hell they are.

Secondly, although I'm getting some pretty good framerates, every 10 seconds or so the game slows right down to unplayable levels for a couple of seconds, then speeds up again. I have checked program manager and there doesn't appear to be anything running which could be doing this (it's a clean install anyway) so I have no idea what the problem is.

I have downloaded and installed all the latest drivers etc (including ATi's newest driver).

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Edit: I have also tested the game at 1280x1024, 1024x768 and 800x600 and I still get exactly the same FPS drop.

Edited December 11, 2008 by Davesta

[WharHammer]

Okay, so I just bought myself pretty much a new PC to play this game. Here are the specs:

Windows Vista 32bit SP1

AMD X2 6000+ 3.1GHz

4GB RAM (3GB recognised)

ATi 3850 512mb

Resolution 1600x1200

And let me say that the game now looks beautiful and plays well at full resolution. Huge upgrade from my old 7900GT.

I do however have a few problems. Firstly, since reinstalling Windows, I have no idea where mine and my brother's old savegames are. I saved my old C drive, so everything is there, but I can't figure out where the hell they are.

Secondly, although I'm getting some pretty good framerates, every 10 seconds or so the game slows right down to unplayable levels for a couple of seconds, then speeds up again. I have checked program manager and there doesn't appear to be anything running which could be doing this (it's a clean install anyway) so I have no idea what the problem is.

I have downloaded and installed all the latest drivers etc (including ATi's newest driver).

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Edit: I have also tested the game at 1280x1024, 1024x768 and 800x600 and I still get exactly the same FPS drop.

Hay

You have basically the same system as me there, exceppt for the ram, tell me, are u having any issues with horrible looking shadows????

I still havnt found a fix for the huge fps drop. Hopefully the patch will help.

Let me know if u find anything

[Mehhh]

Have you tried amd website ? Lookt at the new fusion, amd overdrive and ati overclock utility ?

Now that isnt to say I'm suggesting you OC your hardware but ... I know someone told me about that, I've used the fustion utility which basically just shuts down processes as you select the advanced tab and select a profile or I guess you can edit/create one...

Thing is, pending your choice, it will shutdown things like antivirus, firewall etc, I re-enable my firewall thats jus too risky.. Otherwise you can disable services (if you know which ones are ok to disable) otherwise this program does it and allows system stability still

I can't say I've noticed much difference maybe a lil ..

Also can't use the overdrive utility unless you have a 7xx series chipset, which I think is only the newer phenoms and so on ...

Actually Dave I was lookin at cpu upgrades.. I think your type will fit mine cuz mine they are still x2 BUT I noticed the 3.1 has a higher thermal wattage 125W as opposed to what I was thinkin, the 2.9 that has 89 or less .. Logically I was thinking that TW had to do w/ wattage consumed & heat produced, that the higher the wattage, the more heat .... So w/ a cpu thats only 1.2 GHz less but a TW diff of 36 seemt pretty significant, then w/ the possibilty of being able to OC enough to match or exceed w/ still less heat... I dunno ..

Um, your save game "file", what OS were you using before ? same ? If so then it should be in something like "yourusername\AppData\Local\Rockstargames\GTAIV\savegames.."

Keeping in mind most of these folders are "hidden", so need to tick "Show hidden system files" in "Folder options", under "Tools" in one of your folder browsers (ie ..My Computer)..

Windows doesnt want to display "savegames" via search in the bar so ...

[davesta]

I managed the find the savegames after a lot of searching (thanks for your advice on the hidden folders. Why the hell did they decide to do that in vista?) so that's all good now. I'll try and find a fix for the framerates, but hopefully the patch will fix that. If I do find a fix, I'll let you know WharHammer. And yes my shadows look pretty horrible. At the moment though, that's the least of my issues...

Actually Dave I was lookin at cpu upgrades.. I think your type will fit mine cuz mine they are still x2 BUT I noticed the 3.1 has a higher thermal wattage 125W as opposed to what I was thinkin, the 2.9 that has 89 or less .. Logically I was thinking that TW had to do w/ wattage consumed & heat produced, that the higher the wattage, the more heat .... So w/ a cpu thats only 1.2 GHz less but a TW diff of 36 seemt pretty significant, then w/ the possibilty of being able to OC enough to match or exceed w/ still less heat... I dunno ..

I don't think it has anything to do with heat as the framerates drop pretty much instantly when I start playing.

The 6000+ is actually a fantastic processor. I've noticed a huge difference over my old 2.0GHz 3800+ with every game I've played since I got it. I don't know if you'd get the same performance even if you tried to overclock a 1.8GHz.

Edited December 12, 2008 by Davesta

[Mehhh]

Cool, glad you found it, well they do that on any of the OS's, "hide system files" cuz they're afraid "you'll" FUBAR the OS, heh..

???

No I wasnt talking about heat in reference to the game Mate, I just meant in general, if you OC a device generally voltage is increased and in doing so, there is more heat, sometimes OEM cooling devices are sufficient to a degree but ...

I was jus sayin, it loox like the 3.1GHz I was looking at had a vaule of 125W, the 2.9GHz had only 89W, so I figured I could just kick up a 2.9 to 3.1 w/ potentially less (TW) than starting off w/ a 3.1GHz that is already 36(TW) higher... That was all ..

I've updated to those beta 3 Nvid drivers Orly told me about and I patcht a couple other things, used amd fusion to make a profile to disable non-essential services, then used Riva (updated) to tune my card & even call an xtra 40MB of sys ram for textures, its no super computer but I upped the settings some and it ran pretty dogon good, nothing disappearing .... I'm more interested now in modding tho ..

[davesta]

At the moment I'm in the process of reinstalling my game (for the 4th time thanks to the Securom error again) but when I finish installing that, I shall try the patch and let you know if it has improved the slowdowns.

No I wasnt talking about heat in reference to the game Mate, I just meant in general, if you OC a device generally voltage is increased and in doing so, there is more heat, sometimes OEM cooling devices are sufficient to a degree but ...

I was jus sayin, it loox like the 3.1GHz I was looking at had a vaule of 125W, the 2.9GHz had only 89W, so I figured I could just kick up a 2.9 to 3.1 w/ potentially less (TW) than starting off w/ a 3.1GHz that is already 36(TW) higher... That was all ..

I've updated to those beta 3 Nvid drivers Orly told me about and I patcht a couple other things, used amd fusion to make a profile to disable non-essential services, then used Riva (updated) to tune my card & even call an xtra 40MB of sys ram for textures, its no super computer but I upped the settings some and it ran pretty dogon good, nothing disappearing .... I'm more interested now in modding tho ..

I see what you mean.

You probably would be able to overclock a 2.9GHz to the same speed (I thought you were talking about a 1.9GHz cause you said "So w/ a cpu thats only 1.2 GHz less"), but to be honest 0.2GHz probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

[Mehhh]

What securom error are you gettin ?

Mine has no such errors anymore, even w/ modding, I HAVE NOT & dunno if I will install that patch, it snds like quite a few ppl are having the patch make no visual or very lil visual difference, some w/ mods said the game was gettin funky, it makes me wonder if its more of or atleast includes more securom crap, as I read up on sucrom, apparently those who institute it can alter its properties, basically offering customized updating..

Like I say, I don care about pirating, copying all that crap, anyone can check my account at the local gamestop & verify I bought it, gheez.. I jus like to be able to do really cool things like we have w/ past GTA games and other games as well .. I even edited peds file, this is what I got las night

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/2845/ladycopwc3.jpg

It was like 1am so I dint stay on up to keep testing.. Ofcourse not having installed that patch, I wasnt able to save so ... but I'm checkin on that..

Yea, on the cpu, I was mixing hex & decimal counting, which hex is 0-9, a-f... Hey I'm finishing up a networking class now so w/ all them dang-gon numbers, my cables get a lil twisted pair, I mean "wires get crosst",

[davesta]

What securom error are you gettin ?

Mine has no such errors anymore, even w/ modding, I HAVE NOT & dunno if I will install that patch, it snds like quite a few ppl are having the patch make no visual or very lil visual difference, some w/ mods said the game was gettin funky, it makes me wonder if its more of or atleast includes more securom crap, as I read up on sucrom, apparently those who institute it can alter its properties, basically offering customized updating..

Like I say, I don care about pirating, copying all that crap, anyone can check my account at the local gamestop & verify I bought it, gheez.. I jus like to be able to do really cool things like we have w/ past GTA games and other games as well .. I even edited peds file, this is what I got las night

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/2845/ladycopwc3.jpg

It was like 1am so I dint stay on up to keep testing.. Ofcourse not having installed that patch, I wasnt able to save so ... but I'm checkin on that..

Yea, on the cpu, I was mixing hex & decimal counting, which hex is 0-9, a-f... Hey I'm finishing up a networking class now so w/ all them dang-gon numbers, my cables get a lil twisted pair, I mean "wires get crosst",

Reinstalled the game, applied the patch, everything was exactly the same as before. Unbelievable.

I have emailed rockstar, hopefully they should get back to me soon before another week goes by without me being able to play the game.

[Mehhh]

Well Dave, dont give up so quick, heck I've received more "help" from other gamers and from doin my own research than relying on tech support, it took them about a 3 or 4 days to reply & they simply acknowledged what I already knew, & provided an additional unlocky key, but mine was already unlockt, I emailed the key to them ... It dint address the prob so...

All I seen you say in the initial post, as you found the saves, was that your frame rate was low, is that still unresolved ? And then in the other post on up you said you got a SUCROM error but never said what the error was specifically... If you dont want anyone else's help then ok .. otherwise need some specifics .. I know its proly pisst you off immensely but I'm tryin to help out...

Edited December 13, 2008 by Mehhh

[davesta]

Well Dave, dont give up so quick, heck I've received more "help" from other gamers and from doin my own research than relying on tech support, it took them about a 3 or 4 days to reply & they simply acknowledged what I already knew, & provided an additional unlocky key, but mine was already unlockt, I emailed the key to them ... It dint address the prob so...

All I seen you say in the initial post, as you found the saves, was that your frame rate was low, is that still unresolved ? And then in the other post on up you said you got a SUCROM error but never said what the error was specifically... If you dont want anyone else's help then ok .. otherwise need some specifics .. I know its proly pisst you off immensely but I'm tryin to help out...

I found the savegames, and I reinstalled the game, which got rid of the securom error (it was something to do with having a different version of Visual C++ after I tried reinstalling the ATi drivers). The only problem I now have is with the framerate drop. The game drops to about 1fps every few seconds, which is completely unplayable. However, I have now found after installing more games that excatly the same thing happens with GTR2, so this problem is not specific to GTA IV.

If anyone happens to know what the issue is, though, please let me know. I'm really not willing to reinstall windows again especially if i don't know if it will solve the issue. Is it a hardware problem? Perhaps it is caused by having too much RAM for a 32bit OS? Just a thought, I really don't know what it could be...

[Mehhh]

I had some pretty rough slowdowns, I can't say for sure if its driver, mem or what have you... Thing is, the game does run on my pc enough for me to pretty well play it w/out compaining and its only 2GB mem and cpu slower than yours, how our cars compare I dunno ..

I'm guessing your display signal is digital (DVI)...

What settings do you have the game set to ?

I've certainly lowered mine to make it abit easier on my pc..

What processes are running "in the background" .. Have you tried amd fusion ? I'm guessing you also have been to amd site to get vendor-specific drivers, uninstalling old ones first ..

Edited December 14, 2008 by Mehhh

[davesta]

I had some pretty rough slowdowns, I can't say for sure if its driver, mem or what have you... Thing is, the game does run on my pc enough for me to pretty well play it w/out compaining and its only 2GB mem and cpu slower than yours, how our cars compare I dunno ..

I'm guessing your display signal is digital (DVI)...

What settings do you have the game set to ?

I've certainly lowered mine to make it abit easier on my pc..

What processes are running "in the background" .. Have you tried amd fusion ? I'm guessing you also have been to amd site to get vendor-specific drivers, uninstalling old ones first ..

Like I said before, I've tried it at medium settings and lowest settings on all resolutions and I still get exactly the same framerates.

My monitor is indeed DVI.

I've run the game in windowed mode with task manager next to it and tried shutting down all processes and services except those needed for Windows to run and still no luck. I've tried AMD Fusion and dual core optimizer and installed all of the latest AMD and ATi drivers.

When I say slowdowns, I don't just mean 5-10fps, I'm talking 1fps here. Completely unplayable, every 5-10 seconds. The strange thing is that only certain games are doing it. San Andreas, Vice City and GTA III all work perfectly, so does rFactor and Live for Speed. It's only GTR2 and GTA IV which have the problems. Obviously I haven't tried Test Drive Unlimited because those bastards at Securom only give me a limited amount of activations.

I'm going to try removing one of the 2GB strips of RAM today to see if it's that which is causing the problem. I really hope it isn't, for obvious reasons, but if it isn't then I have no idea what it could be...

[Mehhh]

Like I said before, I've tried it at medium settings and lowest settings on all resolutions and I still get exactly the same framerates.

My monitor is indeed DVI.

I've run the game in windowed mode with task manager next to it and tried shutting down all processes and services except those needed for Windows to run and still no luck. I've tried AMD Fusion and dual core optimizer and installed all of the latest AMD and ATi drivers.

When I say slowdowns, I don't just mean 5-10fps, I'm talking 1fps here. Completely unplayable, every 5-10 seconds. The strange thing is that only certain games are doing it. San Andreas, Vice City and GTA III all work perfectly, so does rFactor and Live for Speed. It's only GTR2 and GTA IV which have the problems. Obviously I haven't tried Test Drive Unlimited because those bastards at Securom only give me a limited amount of activations.

I'm going to try removing one of the 2GB strips of RAM today to see if it's that which is causing the problem. I really hope it isn't, for obvious reasons, but if it isn't then I have no idea what it could be...

K, when you had the game running w/ tskmngr open did you look at your performance tab to see what resource useage was reported ? I can't recall right off what my cpu useage was, I'm sure its up there like most ppl's but memory useage has usually been "reported" 1.6-1.85 GB out of 2GB .. keeping in mind however that windows uses superfetch to load data into memory thereby "using memory" whether an application is actually using it or not. I think the game itself aside from RGSC, uses about 1.1GB or less that is idle tho..

Even w/ no applications running, win reports only a few hundred MB of memory as "free" since its filled the rest w/ data it "thinks" I'll need soon.. Some ppl say disabling superfetch may help, others say keeping it enabled helps, I can't say its help or hurt, other than, its hurt w/ applications that run or perform a function according to a set value that demands a certain amount of "reported" free ram.

Do you have, what is it, ati catalyst, I thought some ppl reported issues either needing to remove it or to update it or something to that effect ..

Have you run DxDiag to see if any probs reported & what your approx total video memory is ? Mine is approx a lil less than 1.3GB I know these things are intensive when it comes to textures and graphics memory useage, I used Riva to tweak my graphics card to OC it, and provide about 40MB additional system ram for textures.. I could proly benefit for more system ram, if not jus for that purpose dunno..

I'm not familiar w/ rfactor or live for speed, I think I had GTR2, hmm ... seemed like it was, dint play it much but ran fine ... The other GTA games, (w/out mods) would run flawlessly on my older system too, ofcourse those games were not as intensive as this'n..

Is that video card a new one you just bought or it came new in the system ? Have you checkt the bios for any optimization options for your video card like any speed settings etc (I'm assuming its PCIexpress) ?

Have you tried googling for problems similar to yours w/ your type of hardware ?

Do you have any mods or cracks installed ?

HAve you installed the patch to the game ? I have not .. some say it makes no difference, some are having problems, some w/ mods I guess..

Edited December 14, 2008 by Mehhh

[davesta]

K, when you had the game running w/ tskmngr open did you look at your performance tab to see what resource useage was reported ? I can't recall right off what my cpu useage was, I'm sure its up there like most ppl's but memory useage has usually been "reported" 1.6-1.85 GB out of 2GB .. keeping in mind however that windows uses superfetch to load data into memory thereby "using memory" whether an application is actually using it or not. I think the game itself aside from RGSC, uses about 1.1GB or less that is idle tho..

Even w/ no applications running, win reports only a few hundred MB of memory as "free" since its filled the rest w/ data it "thinks" I'll need soon.. Some ppl say disabling superfetch may help, others say keeping it enabled helps, I can't say its help or hurt, other than, its hurt w/ applications that run or perform a function according to a set value that demands a certain amount of "reported" free ram.

I didn't look at memory usage, but I noticed that both processor cores were being used pretty close to 100% and were not affected when the game started to slow. I don't know what superfetch is, so I don't know how to disable it. I did notice, though, that removing 2GB of ram didn't have any effect on performance at all.

Do you have, what is it, ati catalyst, I thought some ppl reported issues either needing to remove it or to update it or something to that effect ..

Have you run DxDiag to see if any probs reported & what your approx total video memory is ? Mine is approx a lil less than 1.3GB I know these things are intensive when it comes to textures and graphics memory useage, I used Riva to tweak my graphics card to OC it, and provide about 40MB additional system ram for textures.. I could proly benefit for more system ram, if not jus for that purpose dunno..

My total memory seemed to be about what I'd expect. I haven't tried removing catalyst, I thought that would make the game not work at all? I shall try it tomorrow. I don't think my GPU needs overclocking - the game runs pretty smoothly between slowdowns. I doubt they are being caused by the clock speed being too low...

I'm not familiar w/ rfactor or live for speed, I think I had GTR2, hmm ... seemed like it was, dint play it much but ran fine ... The other GTA games, (w/out mods) would run flawlessly on my older system too, ofcourse those games were not as intensive as this'n..

The thing that I noticed was that LFS and rFactor are digitally distributed versions, therefore I did not have to install them as they were still there on my hard drive (I use a seperate partition for games) only activate them. These games ran fine. GTR2 was installed from a DVD, and this is the other game with the problem. Having said that, the older GTA games were also installed from DVDs and I don't have any problem with them... I was thinking it may have had something to do with the install...

Is that video card a new one you just bought or it came new in the system ? Have you checkt the bios for any optimization options for your video card like any speed settings etc (I'm assuming its PCIexpress) ?

I just bought the card, it's PCIe. I doubt it is anything to do with optimisation, surely then it would run slowly all of the time?

Have you tried googling for problems similar to yours w/ your type of hardware ?

Do you have any mods or cracks installed ?

HAve you installed the patch to the game ? I have not .. some say it makes no difference, some are having problems, some w/ mods I guess..

No results on google, this problem seems to be pretty unique. No mods or cracks, patch installed.

Thanks for the help and support but... I'm all out of ideas.

[Mehhh]

Sorry, I know its like being askt 20 questions ... I hate being askt again and again & not finding a solution..

Superfetch is a service Vista uses to "increase performance" by pre-loading data you used often, into memory so instead of the cpu goin to the drive, locating data, loading it into memory & starting up, its already in memory.. Like I say some say its good for games, bad for games or no effect.. Services are found in "administrative.."\ services .. YOu can enable/disable services and customize whether they start manually, automatically or not at all.. I don think sfetch is proly causin the problem, jus during "brainstorming" you try to think of software/hardware thats related to the thing you seem to be havin trouble w/..

I lookt around & there are some hits/misses I guess..

Is your low rate present in single/multi or both ?

Not sure about the catalyst, it jus something I member my eyes running across during the last week+ of hunting through problems & solutions of mine & other ppl's.. It may have been a reference to updating it or removing entirely I can't remember .. If you have a legit copy of the game, its installed properly, activated, meet requirements of the game, hmm maybe not have any dvd duplication software or any malware etc, all other hardware is in good working order & all drivers updated, then I dont see why you'd be getting 1-2 fps in single plyr ?, especially when your pc has a fast cpu, good mem and well I dont know anything about the graphics card.

[davesta]

Okay, so I tried installing the graphics drivers that came with the card (after cleaning my PC of the old ones) and it made no difference. I then tried installing Vista basic x64 on my PC as dual boot, installed nothing but drivers and the game, and exactly the same thing happens and all i have to show for it is a broken keyboard which I smashed with my fist.

I can therefore only assume that my graphics card itself is causing the problem. Should I try sending it back and asking for a replacement?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139628 - this is my exact card. Does anyone else have problems with it?

[davesta]

Okay, so I tried installing the graphics drivers that came with the card (after cleaning my PC of the old ones) and it made no difference. I then tried installing Vista basic x64 on my PC as dual boot, installed nothing but drivers and the game, and exactly the same thing happens and all i have to show for it is a broken keyboard which I smashed with my fist.

I can therefore only assume that my graphics card itself is causing the problem. Should I try sending it back and asking for a replacement?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139628 - this is my exact card. Does anyone else have problems with it?

After 2 weeks of pain - turns out it was my processor. The new one which was working before I upgraded my motherboard, memory and GPU. I've put my dad's processor in there for the moment until I get a replacement.

As is the way with PCs though, when you fix one thing another goes wrong. My TV card has now stopped working for no apparant reason. But I guess that's a problem for another forum.