[OrangeTE37]

I'm playing GTA IV on my 14" Sony VAIO C-Series laptop. Here are the specs:

14" LCD display (1600x900)
Intel Core i5-2410M (2.30GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.90GHz)
4GB RAM
500 GB Hard Drive
AMD Radeon 6630M 1GB Hybrid Graphics

.....and I'm currently playing GTA IV on medium settings. I notice some slight lag when there's heavy traffic around me or when it rains. How can I make GTA IV run more smoothly on my laptop without having to lower my settings?


I'm playing GTA IV version 1.0.4.0

[cornflakes4u]

You're already using the patch that gives the best performance. Good.

Try out some commandlines like 'memrestrict' (more info) or 'availablevidmem'. More info here.

Other than that you can defragment your HDD, update all drivers and read this topic: Ultimate GTAIV Performance Fix.

[OrangeTE37]

Hmm, this is really strange. I tried playing GTA IV with the highest settings possible, and I didn't notice much of a performance difference compared to medium settings. I then changed the settings to the lowest possible (stuff like shadow quality are turned off), and to my surprise, it didn't have a significant impact on performance. It seems to run a little smoother at low settings, but I feel that it's even worse than playing at the highest settings cause sometimes textures don't even load.

I tried using the -memrestrict command, but that didn't seem to make a difference =/ I'll try defragmenting the HDD, and if that doesn't help then I'll try the GTA IV performance fix. Thanks for the links

[unc13bud]

turn vehicles down to 1, both distances to 10, shadows off

[OrangeTE37]

I tried lowering the graphics settings, but the textures still don't seem to load. Any other fix?

[luceberg]

I think your game is cpu limited, since you get lag when it is busy. That is the best it will play on that laptop. If you have Windows 7 64bit, then use the commandline -reservedapp 0 will smooth things out a bit.

[OrangeTE37]

I turned vehicle density to 1, so basically there's almost no traffic at all, and textures still don't load (even on low settings).

[hellfire500]

Laptops aren't for gaming, desktops are. I have a fairly powerful laptop, that would satisfy recommended requirements, but I've never even though of using it as a game platform. I use my laptop for studying and work, I suggest everyone to do the same.

[OrangeTE37]

QUOTE (hellfire500 @ Monday, Jan 9 2012, 23:38)

Laptops aren't for gaming, desktops are. I have a fairly powerful laptop, that would satisfy recommended requirements, but I've never even though of using it as a game platform. I use my laptop for studying and work, I suggest everyone to do the same.

Yea I know, I would definitely choose a desktop over a laptop anyday, but seeing as I'm in University now and have to travel around a bit and stuff, there's really no other option. I wish I could have a desktop in my dorm and laptop to carry around, but unfortunately I ain't no baller

[TopHat01]

QUOTE (OrangeTE37 @ Monday, Jan 9 2012, 09:06)

I turned vehicle density to 1, so basically there's almost no traffic at all, and textures still don't load (even on low settings).

Show us a screenshot - are entire textures completely missing or are they just loading in slow/pop-in? Unfortunately pop-in is somewhat normal for GTA IV - but if entire textures are missing and never load in, try re-installing the game.

[oh8gdk]

QUOTE (OrangeTE37 @ Friday, Jan 6 2012, 14:28)

I'm playing GTA IV on my 14" Sony VAIO C-Series laptop. Here are the specs: 14" LCD display (1600x900) Intel Core i5-2410M (2.30GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.90GHz) 4GB RAM 500 GB Hard Drive AMD Radeon 6630M 1GB Hybrid Graphics .....and I'm currently playing GTA IV on medium settings. I notice some slight lag when there's heavy traffic around me or when it rains. How can I make GTA IV run more smoothly on my laptop without having to lower my settings? I'm playing GTA IV version 1.0.4.0

hellfire500: bs. there are plenty of laptops out there that whip the crap out of most pr0-g4ym3r desktops. They just aren't cheap, you need to drop 3k into one minimum.

But as for the original question: No, the game is not CPU limited, an i5-2410M manages just fine if you have HyperThreading enabled. And AMD 6630M is more than sufficient for running the game on high settings since it whips my GT 240 with DDR3 out of the window anyday. And my setup is a i3-2120, 8GB ram and GT 240 and I can do 1280x1024 at high settings just fine.

I suspect that what ever software has been provided (if any AMDs solutions I've had the pleasure of using have been retarded) for switching between the integrated and discreet gpu's just simply defaults to power saving mode and unless you define PROGRAM ON PROGRAM basis that you'd like to have some graphics power in use, you won't have it. The integrated Intel GPU is just fast enough that you haven't noticed anything yet.

That's how it went with my HP which has an integrated HD4250 and a discreet HD6470M. Didn't notice anything until I threw something a bit heavier at it that it wasn't all there. 3DMark was sneaky enough to enable it itself. ATI/AMD just hasn't yet gotten it's driver sh*t together.

And DO NOTE, the game wants at least 3 cores, virtual or otherwise. DO NOT TurboBoost into single-core mode. GTA 4 is something of a rarity, a program that actually threads.

This post has been edited by oh8gdk on Wednesday, Jan 11 2012, 09:17

[illegal_luggage]

Your laptop should be good enough for atleast medium settings but GTA IV is funny with ATI cards. Trying new drivers for your graphics card might help.

[Extronic]

QUOTE (oh8gdk @ Wednesday, Jan 11 2012, 12:14)

QUOTE (OrangeTE37 @ Friday, Jan 6 2012, 14:28) I'm playing GTA IV on my 14" Sony VAIO C-Series laptop. Here are the specs: 14" LCD display (1600x900) Intel Core i5-2410M (2.30GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.90GHz) 4GB RAM 500 GB Hard Drive AMD Radeon 6630M 1GB Hybrid Graphics No, the game is not CPU limited, an i5-2410M manages just fine if you have HyperThreading enabled. And AMD 6630M is more than sufficient for running the game on high settings since it whips my GT 240 with DDR3 out of the window anyday.

6630M has DDR3 memory too. And i wouldnt say its enough to play this game smoothly. Its just a middle class video card.
From my experience: i used to play GTA IV 1.0.7 on a Acer laptop that had the same i5-2410M, which is alright, i guess, and more powerful 6850M graphics, the settings were all high except for medium water and reflection quality. Even with that setup, the game ran at only 20-25 fps with occasional drops to 15-17 fps during the intense scenes. The drops were annoying enough itselves, however, sometimes textures were loading slowly, causing stupid pop-ups.

So, what may help a bit:
-noprecache
-no_3GB (win 7 64bit)
-novblank
-framelimit 1
-minspecaudio (doesnt matter in case of laptop audio)

Also, as someone has noted before, you may want to play with -memrestrict and -availablevidmem (could be more than 1.0 because of DDR3) settings.

Also, i got rid of the bloom effect, i dont see why do we need it at all. Brings you 2-3 fps more:

QUOTE

Navigate to Grand Theft Auto IV\common\data\ folder. Locate the visualsettings.dat file. Check if the file is marked read only. If it is, remove the read only attribute. - Open visualsettings.dat with a text editor. Search for the following lines: --- misc.BloomIntensityClamp.HD 10 --- misc.BloomIntensityClamp.SD 10.00 Now carefully change these two lines to the ones given below: --- misc.BloomIntensityClamp.HD 0 --- misc.BloomIntensityClamp.SD 0.00 - Save the file

And last, but not least, to prove you that the bottleneck here is a video card: use MSI Afterburner software to overclock it a little bit. Ive changed memorys clock from 800 to 875Mhz and core clock from 675 to 750Mhz respectively, the fps rose up to 28-33, providing pretty smooth gameplay with little to no drops. You have to watch the temperatures in order to avoid overheating, though.

This post has been edited by Extronic on Wednesday, Jan 11 2012, 15:16

[forumhookers]

GTA IV has bugs in it.

And while playing GTA 4 you may experience some lag while driving cars. You may think that your graphics card need to be upgraded.

But that isnt the problem. GTA 4 can even run on 512mb card.

So there is a fix for that. Let me tell how to do .

You have to disable Windows Event Log in order to get your GTA IV work properly.

You can disable that by following this.

Goto Run and type msconfig

and then choose services and then uncheck Windows Event Log and then press apply.

You have to do restart you computer inorder to apply the setting.

Now GTA 4 can run smoothly

[unc13bud]

i ran gta IV fine with 256mb 8600gt (32 shader cores)

QUOTE

I tried lowering the graphics settings, but the textures still don't seem to load.

take out the commandlines and restart. and you are NOT USING ANY MODS are you? a LOT of people have been coming in here lately and wasting our time with modded game questions... just saying.

[Godgeneral16]

i bought GTA 4 today and when i runned it for the first time it start to lagg if i wanna steer, accelerate or brake.
i restarted my laptop. the game still laggs while steering.

My specs are:

- Intel Core i7 - 3610QM, 2,3 GHz
- 4GB of RAM
- 500GB HDD
- nvidea geforce 610M 2GB

running game on high, medium or low graphics wont changes it.
please help me quick.

[luceberg]

Have you updated to the latest patch?

[Carl CJ Johnsons Brother Brian]

You should install patch 1.0.4.0 if you haven't installed it already. You can download the patch here.

[Brainsick]

He might be talking about the lag when pressing keys on your keyboard caused by windows event log. go to services, disable 'windows event log', restart your pc and give the game a try.