GTA4 on PC!

yoyo

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Its confirmed to have SecuROM which will be present in the Steam version as well

Source


Rockstar Talks GTA IV PC DRM

Not buying so! Ironically this will be cracked the day after I'd say, and its not the first game to use those triggers so I don't see why it would stall a pirated release, I honestly would think developers would have more of a cop on and actually try encourage people to purchase the game, this clearly isnt...

Nick

PogMoThoin

yoyo wrote: »

Not buying so!

Me neither!

the_syco

I'll be buying it. But I wonder if the serial will work with the non-drm "copy" :cool: of GTA4?

PogMoThoin

Its leaked, Wahey

kermitdfrog

PogMoThoin/yoyo - I take it neither of you actually read how and in what form they are using SecuRom then? Just because EA are judgemental, controlling c*nts doesn't mean everyone is. If we take RockStar's word for it (and that's all we have to go on thus far) then it's a much fairer use of it.



Still can't understand why any publisher would want the negative reaction of using it though, having seen what's happened with Spore etc.

the_syco

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Its leaked, Wahey

What is it? Two 7GB DVD's? Gonna buy it, anyhoo's, when I get a machine to play it.

PogMoThoin

kermitdfrog wrote: »

PogMoThoin/yoyo - I take it neither of you actually read how and in what form they are using SecuRom then? Just because EA are judgemental, controlling c*nts doesn't mean everyone is. If we take RockStar's word for it (and that's all we have to go on thus far) then it's a much fairer use of it.

:rolleyes: Nope, its worse than what EA use, they just lie and pretend it isn't, Securom must be running at all times or the game crashes, read these:

20 Easy Steps to Starting GTA IV on Your PC

See this about USA PC version:

A mere day after release, countless bugs and problems have plagued buyers of the PC version of GTA IV. Here's a list of some of the worst atrocities, as described by forums, users, myself and my customers at EB Games/Gampspote:

* The crash-to-desktop bug is rampant, a "fatal zlib20 error". No known solution yet.
* Securom must be running at all times while the game is running. Closing it results in the game closing too.
* SecuROM will often crash, resulting in your game not starting at all.
* The reason the menu screen was black for me for so long is because it must download a file every time you start the game, since the menu background is actually an online updating news page.
* The Windows Live update supports Vista 32bit only. If you have Windows Vista 64bit, you can not play.
* The game does not support, nor recognise, SLI card set ups of any of the Geforce 8600 or 8800 card series.

More to come. If the **** doesn't hit SecuROM, Microsoft and Rockstar squarely in the face, I'll be very surrpised. And very dissappointed.

From what I've read its a very poor console port, very heavily cpu bound and runs like an unpatched Crysis. No option in video settings for AA........I was right

It sure sucks to be an honest customer, glad I'm not buying it

MOH

kermitdfrog wrote: »

PogMoThoin/yoyo - I take it neither of you actually read how and in what form they are using SecuRom then? Just because EA are judgemental, controlling c*nts doesn't mean everyone is. If we take RockStar's word for it (and that's all we have to go on thus far) then it's a much fairer use of it.



Still can't understand why any publisher would want the negative reaction of using it though, having seen what's happened with Spore etc.

I read Rockstar's PR last night, it had convinced me against my better judgement. Seemed a reasonable compromise - one time activation, possible from a different PC if the one it was installed on didn't have net access, unlimited installs, and possible to lend/sell it on. Much as I hate Securom, it doesn't have a lot of the usual bull.

But now I'm having second thoughts - I'm hearing all this stuff about having to set up a Live account *and* a Rockstar Social Club account, just to play the thing in single player? Both of which appear to be causing issues.

And that's before you get to the game itself. Even without the daft specs (core duo minimum, quad recommended, 16 gig of disk space??!), it sound like performance is dire (could partly be down to people not reading the min specs properly), and it's buggy as hell. You've got to ask why the release date was being pushed back if it's as bad as it sounds - what were they doing?
Strange that there was no pre-load on Steam - what's the point if you have to download 18 gig on release day?

Odd too that none of these issues seem to have cropped up in any of the reviews pre-release.

Probably get a better picture of the state it's in today as more people install it.

ScumLord

It's not looking good for this game. Constant crashes even in the menu. :eek:

I was going to buy it this evening if I could but I'm also near the minimum specs.

Core 2 duo E6600
2gb ram
Radeon X1900XT 512mb

I'll be upgrading ram and graphics this month, maybe I should wait.

delly

I misread the specs in a moment of madness and ordered online, and I only have a poxy P4 3.6 HT :eek:

ScumLord

delly wrote: »

I misread the specs in a moment of madness and ordered online, and I only have a poxy P4 3.6 HT :eek:

Ya never know. :pac:

I've been waiting for this game for over a year and now I'm not sure about it. I might just upgrade me computer this weekend and see how the dust settles. I'm not as egar to get lumped with another bugy game after Codwaw.

delly

ScumLord wrote: »

Ya never know. :pac:

Well thats what I'm hoping. I already have 2gb's of ram and a 8800GT, so i'll fire it up at the lowest res and go from there.

PogMoThoin

MOH wrote: »

And that's before you get to the game itself. Even without the daft specs (core duo minimum, quad recommended, 16 gig of disk space??!), it sound like performance is dire (could partly be down to people not reading the min specs properly), and it's buggy as hell. You've got to ask why the release date was being pushed back if it's as bad as it sounds - what were they doing?

I was quoting some1 from XtremeSystems who has a quad at 4Ghz with a HD4870, Here......49% cpu usage :eek: drops to 10FPS :eek:
No hope for lower spec'd pc's then so.

Azza

This is now the most demanding game on the PC to run.

The story so far with my legit purchased copy for €35.00 in Game. The whole secure rom issue does not bother me. I have never had any issue with the software side of it and this game does not have activation limits.

Long install, its about 10-15 minutes on a second generation 74GB Western Digital Raptor but its no where near as bad as Gears of War. In fairness its like 16GB to install from 2 DVD's. I already had a Windows Live account so that was not an issue and I don't recall it been hard to set one up. However I did have to update Windows Live outside the game as there is a known issue with updating inside the game (It actually tells you this in fairness). The updating was quick and painless although there was a short detour to the Xbox Live site to agree to new terms and conditions. Registration for Rockstars Games Social Club was painless and simply to tie it in to your Live account. You also need to enter a cd-key for a one time authentication over the internet.

You need to launch the Rockstar Games Social Club application to start the game but you don't need to log into Rockstar Games Social Club to play the game in single player. You need to be logged into Windows Live to able to save the game and get achievements tied into you Windows Live account. You can still save the game if your not logged into live but you can not use those saves when you do log into live. You need to be logged into both Live and the Rockstar Games Social Club to play mutiplayer and you need to logged into the social club to upload movies online.

Now after getting the installation out of the way the first major problem I had was that I could not log into the rockstar social club from the application but I could login directly from the website. However I don't think this would enable to play online. Windows Live had no issues.

In game the controls are perfect with either the Keyboard/Mouse combo or an Xbox 360 controller.
Indepdence raidio works fine and its nice to able to listen to your own tunes when driving along at high speeds.

As for performance. E-gad this game is a killer, makes Crysis look like Peggle to run. You need about 800MB of video ram to be able to turn the draw distance up to 100% and with a 4870 with its 512MB of GDDR5 I was only able to get about 50% distance. I could max out everything else except textures which with my graphics card could only be be set to meduim.
If you have only 256MB of video ram appartantly the max settings you looking at is 800x600 on low quality settings.
The lack of anti-aliasing is a small dissapointment but I don't think a game not having anti-aliasing automatically means its a crap port and should be pirated. At this stage very few will be able to run the game at high resolutions without it anyway. Ran into graphical glitchs with shadows on sloped roads. The extra traffic density you can enable also causes alot more accidents among the AI drivers :rolleyes:

Quad core is a must. People with quad cores are apparantly reporting 80% usuage across all 4 cores and this game is a certain case of lower clocked quad cores outperforming higher clocked dual cores. Running on a 3.0Ghz Core Duo with a 4870 512MB and 4GB of 1066Mhz Ram on Vista Ultimate 64bit I was able to play at 1280x1024 playable but it was not silky smooth by any stretch of the imagination.

The finger of blame for the insane system requirements is being pointed at Euphoria physics engine that powers this game. This is the same engine LucasArts did not want to bring to the PC with The Force Unleashed game saying it was two demanding for the average PC. This could be argued proves them right. One could equally say the Euphoria physics engine is a un-optimized disaster compared to the commonly used Havok Physics engine (Yeah for the Irish physics software).

Remains to be seen if driver updates and patches improve performance at all. But the question remains how could the game be made run on the PS3's and Xbox 360's when much more powerful PC's are brought to there knees.

PogMoThoin

So You can only play at 1280x1024? You've got a 24' monitor, right? Bet that looks crap.

I've actually decided to forget about this game, it no longer interests me. I was expectin it to be bollox, and it is judging by the sound of things.

ScumLord

Azza wrote: »

Quad core is a must. People with quad cores are apparantly reporting 80% usuage across all 4 cores and this game is a certain case of lower clocked quad cores outperforming higher clocked dual cores. Running on a 3.0Ghz Core Duo with a 4870 512MB and 4GB of 1066Mhz Ram on Vista Ultimate 64bit I was able to play at 1280x1024 playable but it was not silky smooth by any stretch of the imagination.

I thought it wouldn't run on 64bit vista?

Azza

My 24" is bust so I'm back to a 17" lcd 4:3 screen. Will get another 24" next week. The bigger the screen the worse it will look arlight. Less of an issue on console as the futher back you are the less pronouced the jaggies are.

Yes it runs on Vista 64bit fine. Not sure about XP 64bit.

PogMoThoin

Is 1280x1024 the best it'll play at tho, how do you reckon it'd play at 1920x1200 with a single 4870?

cherryghost

having problems now, its all across the board.... i have

intel core 2 2.53 o/c to 2.76
2gb ddr2 ram
9800gt

and... this is what i get, on ANY settings, at ANY resolution....

One is not amused whatsoever. Rockstar, you're going in my enemy list.

delly

cherryghost wrote: »

having problems now, its all across the board.... i have

intel core 2 2.53 o/c to 2.76
2gb ddr2 ram
9800gt

and... this is what i get, on ANY settings, at ANY resolution....

One is not amused whatsoever. Rockstar, you're going in my enemy list.

Jesus, thats pretty bad. Makes me think I'm gonna have trouble with the logo screen at 1fps.

cherryghost

i already had that problem, crashing on logo. turns out you have to set rockstar social club to offline mode, as the rockstar servers are down, and it must check for status that certain point.

on top of all that, a windows live update is required to play, 30mb, which, in turn, causes x64 users unable to play online, as the windows live update isnt compatible with x64 OS's.

Seriously guys, this is the SHODDIEST port of a game I've ever seen in my life, its not even funny the amount of things gone wrong.

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showforum=233

Just a small sample of the problems everyones encountering.

the_syco

cherryghost wrote: »

on top of all that, a windows live update is required to play, 30mb, which, in turn, causes x64 users unable to play online, as the windows live update isnt compatible with x64 OS's.

Ultra-fucking ghey!

TerrorFirmer

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Is 1280x1024 the best it'll play at tho, how do you reckon it'd play at 1920x1200 with a single 4870?

If its struggles at 1280x1024, it would be a slideshow at 1920x1200...thank god I opted for the 1gb 4870 last night (also 1920x1200 here)

cherryghost

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

If its struggles at 1280x1024, it would be a slideshow at 1920x1200...thank god I opted for the 1gb 4870 last night (also 1920x1200 here)

a lot of people reporting 10-15fps too on the 4870 1gb version. its most definately a software problem.

TerrorFirmer

delly wrote: »

Anyhow, i've preordered and judging by the specs, my P4 3.6ghz PC with a Nvidia 8800gt should be fine.

P4? Bad enough in most new games, let alone a disasterous port like this....if people are reporting problem on Core2's clocked to 2.7Ghz and Quads, the P4 will barely string, seeing as it's probably about the same as a 1.6Ghz Core 2...

Check out this, Look at Supreme commander, heavily CPU dependant as GTAIV seems to now be - the E2160 is almost twice as fast and is currently the slowest, most crippled Core 2 based CPU still retailing. So all in all, your P4 is probably closer in performance to something like the yonah based Celeron 420...

New cpu time friend!

death1234567

Its a very sad day when rockstar who started out in Pc gaming treat Pc gamers so badly. Given just how much money they have its ridiculous. They did not need to release this game early to get the Xmas market as it was going to be a be hit anyway. My preordered copy is on the way in the post and I don't know if I'll install or wait for patch(es).

My Spec.
Intel QUAD 2.4ghz
4 GB DDR2 RAM
ATI 4850 512mb
22" screen

Disgusted.

MOH

BIt confused - one of the big deals of the DRM being different was that while it required online activation, you could do this from another PC if the one it was installed on didn't have net access.

But don't you still need to have this R* Social Club thing running (and Live?) in order to play single player? So how do you get that set up and running without net access?

cherryghost

the social club doesnt need to be online for single player, tried and tested my friend. also, as long as live signs in, even in offline, its ok. but you still need the 30mb live update to play....

MOH

cherryghost wrote: »

the social club doesnt need to be online for single player, tried and tested my friend. also, as long as live signs in, even in offline, its ok. but you still need the 30mb live update to play....

Ah, OK, thanks. So theoretically it's possible to install and play on a standalone machine, but practically impossible. Glad I cancelled that pre-order, they might have this mess sorted in a month or so.

Like the pic

Azza

In answer to your question Pog about going to 1680x1050 I don't think my PC will run at that resolution at current high-ish settings. I'm probably going get a quad core soon but realistic people with high end rigs are only going be able to achieve 1680x1050 on high-ish settings but not ultra high. It will be next generation graphics cards (perhaps even 2 gens from now ) that will make this game fly. This game is apparantly highly dependent on the CPU and user reports from some fourms claim it works well on the new Intel I7 processors.

While texture corruption issues are annoying and unacceptable as is the x64 mutiplayer issues. They will probably be addressed in a patch soon but again its another example of game being released before it was ready. But so many games are these days. Also its worth noting that SLI is not working with GTA 4 yet but Crossfire is. Again its not uncommon for Crossfire or SLI not to work out of the box with new games and require driver updates.

However it appears that on medium settings that game is still better looking than the console versions and settings above that where designed for future PC's. Like Crysis. And like Crysis if this is the case the developer should of made that clear before the game was released. Rockstar have released a statement saying the highest settings are designed for future computers but I believe they only released the statement after the dissatisfaction expressed with the games current performance.

Still people expect to be able to play the latest games on the highest settings so perhaps Rockstar should of just named the medium settings high, high as very high, and put very high as ultra high with a big flashing neon light beside saying warning do not use. This is something Crytek regretted not doing with Crysis and the reason why they renamed the settings in Warhead to stop people from trying to run the game at settings they where only mean't to play in the future (we are finally getting to that stage 18 months after release). Again I feel this should be made very clear before a games release if a developer is designing a game with the concept of its highest settings being unplayable on current hardware.

They should of made it clear where the console equivelent settings so us PC gamers could say aha! so this is what settings we are ahead at.
I have read but can't confirm myself (I swapped my PS3 version for another game) that the draw distance of 10/100 is where the console versions where set to.

I know there is a great game waiting to be played here and I have other games so I can be patient and wait for a patch and driver updates and to me its not the end of the world. No one should have too though so I can understand the frustration some people are feeling.