[mkey82]

I doubt that's a game related problem.

[sebkulu]

Hi,

And what about if you have a 2GB videocard (670 GTX in SLi setup, WITH PROPER SLi Bits 0x42500045), and you still get Textures pop'up?
Moreover, can't be hardware related, 'cause game runs on a hyper-threaded quad core (so 8 "logical" cores) with affinity set to use only physical cores, dropping the logical ones... and on the memory side, 12GB are present... even the drive can't be suspected of slowliness, 'cause it's a SandForce controller based SSD.

Ok, my GTA IV is modded like hell with HD Textures for almost entire city (pc/data/maps weights 6.92GB out), carpack which replaces almost all cars (but a lightweight one with models going from 1MB to 2MB max), and Maxed out ENB Settings with SSAA (doubled resolution at 3840x2160 inside rendering buffer, scaled down to 1920x1080 inside output buffer, reduces aliasing A LOT if your hardware is capable of rendering game fast enough with that resolution)

I also have some sounds replaced, but not too much, like storm, guns, subway, and truck horn, and some scripts; but that's not what consumes the most memory...

Let's get straight down to the point, which is that I can't play more than 30min without having textures begginning to pop all over the place, finishing by crashing my game when entering a cutscene... or going out of it...
I tried, I think, every (commonsense and fitting to my setup) commandline out there, without any success, 'cause texture pop'up WILL happen, that's just a matter of time...

So, would anyone of you have the slightest idea of how to make the damn game stop to popping textures like hell, and to stabilize it (not crashing when loading cutscenes)?

With -nomemrestrict commandline, time to get pop'ups is shorter
Without commandline.txt, game is quite stable, without texture pop'up, for about 30min, then apocalypse begins... ^^
With -memrestrict xxxxxxxxx commandline (based on my setup, tried from 600000000 up to 1500000000, 'cause my ingame memory usage is 1405MB), I do have textures pop'up right from begginning, but that doesn't help for game stability since it crashes the same manner as it would do without any commandline, approximately after 30min of playing, when entering or going out from a cutscene...

Are we condemned not to use any modified car in vehciles.img? (please note that even with the original vehicles.img file, I still get textures pop'up... but less than with my carpack, and game gets a little more stable for a longer time)
I also have read that some ENB makers (GioNight, DP3seant, and Legacyy) don't have this problem with a GTA IV that has been modded like hell (like mine), and with 400MB+ carpack... is that even possible???
If so, how the hell do they acgieve this?

Thank you for having read my looooooong post

[PrometheusX]

Simply, the texture pop is caused from the vehicle pack. Just make a new .txt file on the game directory, named commandline, then copy/paste the following into it:

CODE

-availablevidmem 2.0 -percentvidmem "100" -novblank -norestrictions -noprecache

[sebkulu]

Hi, and thanks for the quick reply and trying to help me.

But have you read my post entirely bro'? :-)

What you posted here won't solve my problem at all :-)
And believe me, I know how to make a commandline, I even explained the differences between switches I tried (I did not mention ALL tests I've done though...)
As for the carpack, I know it's diffucult for the 3D Engine, which hasn't been designed that way, to forceload bigger textures/models than initially planned, but I'm telling to myself that if others REALLY can play flawlessly with a 400MB+ carpack, I should been able to do the same...
But I'm really begginning to think it's not even possible to come close to something that would work without any glitches with all that modding... already without modding, the game has never been shining for its examplary behaviour, so... :-p

I was just hoping someone had been in the exact same situation, and did find a way to get rid of that damn popping problem.

And by the way, you should not advise other people to use the switches you mentionned in their commandline, not knowing precisely their hardware setup, especially these ones:
-noprecache: my own experience tells me it worsens textures pop A LOT
-norestrictions: completely useless for people having videocards with 1GB+ VRAM
-availablevidmem x: same as above, useless if VRAM >= 1GB
-percentvidmem x: same as above (switch initially planned to restrict VRAM usage or force complete usage of it)

[mkey82]

You're off in many regards:-
1. the game can not use CF/SLI setups effectively; don't know about your bits, but nobody posting here in 4 years has made effective usage of multicard setups with this game. Maybe you're the first one, in that case congratulations are in order
2. CPU performance is determined by more then the number of cores, especially with a game that uses only three of them; in other words, a heavily overclocked dual core is going to run the game a lot better then any mediocre quad core
3. you should never assume that this game should run as well or better then on someone else's similar setup (more so since most youtube performance vids are nothing but daydreaming,)
especially not in cases where the game is changed heavily, it's unstable enough out of the box
4. from my experience noprecache does essentially nothing, I consider it to be one of those placebo command line switches, so I'll take your sentiment about it with a bit of salt; maybe more testing is in order
5. norestriction can be useful on any setup, especially when the game does not detect the GPU properly on sandybridge/optimus setups

Now, onto your problem. From what I can see, you have used memrestrict correctly, however you should not mix that switch with others, like the norestrict ones; it's usually best used on its own.
Your first obvious step is to revert back to the vanilla game and see if that leads to stability. Install patch 7, that one should reduce memory related problems.
After that, add mods in small amounts at the time and test after each step to see where major instability is introduced.

This post has been edited by mkey82 on Wednesday, Sep 19 2012, 05:34

[PrometheusX]

I had been in the same exact situation. Well I did have IV with vehicle pack mods + icenhancer + various mods installed before, and the texture problem occurring to me. After narrowing it down, I found that it's the vehicle pack that's causing the pop-ins. So I searched for a solution, and apparently that commandline actually fixed the problem. Vanilla only though, didn't work with EFLC.

Did you try that commandline setup? it's not completely necessary to know the hardware setup in such situation, it's not like it's going to blow up your PC or anything.

[sebkulu]

Hi there guys, nice to see GTA forums are still that much active even 5 years after game has been released!!!
And BIG thanks for trying to help me out here

@mkey82:
1. Sorry but you're wrong pal, LordNeophyte, the famous HD Textures modder, talked about discovery for the rights SLi bits on 3D Forums.
What you gotta do is not so difficult though, just export your SLi driver profiles with NVidia GeForce SLi profile Tool (find it here: GeForce SLi profile Tool), then export your profile to a location you can find, open it, search for "LaunchGTAIV", then search for the value Setting ID_0x1095def8 and replace 0x03400405 with 0x42500045, then save the file as a new one, import it with SLi profile Tool... and voilà! Done, enjoy 95% more FPS.
Don't know if this could be applied to CF though...
Thread where I did find the info: 3D Forums
So, congrats are in order, but not for me, more for the one called "boxleitnerb"

2. I agree, that's why my i7 950 is clocked up to 4.0GHz

3. I also agree, just wish to know if someone has REALLY been able to get rid of that problem, being able to maintain that level of eyecandyness given by real cars, HD Textures, Maxed out ENB's, various scripts... and if so, how he did it...

4. You're probably right, that was my impression when I tried to use this switch, but I never tried it alone, that's why I specified this was from MY experience

5. GTA IV detects my GPU correctly, and reports the right amount of VRAM, whether I use the -norestriction switch or not, alone or not, it doesn't help :'(


So, I already tried using memrestrict alone, doesn't help either, it could also be with another switch, no changes.
Reverting to Vanilla back WILL give me some stability back, but hey, that's not what I'm looking for.
What I'm looking for, is to try gaining stability WITH a full-modded game, 'cause that's why I bought GTA IV for some monthes ago during Steam sales, and that's also why I downgraded game to 1.0.4.0 and why I won't upgrade it to 1.0.7.0 back

Get me right here, I'm NOT looking for 24/7 stability, I know I won't have it... :'( even if I would love to, and that, secretely, I'm still hoping it will happen ^^
But at least for an one hour game session, being able to enter/get out from cutscenes, and without having textures disappearing all over the place.
I know you're right, and that the only way to get real stability is to revert to Vanilla back, but that's simply not what I bought GTA IV for, and not my goal also


@PometheusX: Yup I did my friend (try using your commandline, that I, by the way, already tried before even posting here )
And that doesn't help neither
Have you REALLY got rid of the Texture pop problem by maintaining ENB, HD Textures, Carpack, and others eyecandy things? Really? With version 1.0.7.0 or 1.0.4.0? (when you say Vanilla, you mean IV, correct? Not the Vanilla 1.0.0.0 version?)
If so, can you please tell me the following:
-Size of your vehicles.img file, with how many modded cars, and max modded-model size
-Size of your entire pc/data/maps folder
-ENB Settings, mainly:
#native resolution
#SSAA or not
#SSAO or not
#SSAO quality sampling and filtering
#Skylighting or not
#Skylighting quality sampling
#Shadow quality filtering
-Ingame graphical settings:
#Textures quality
#Water quality
#Reflexions quality
#View distance
#Details distance
#Traffic level
-And, finally, the settings of your TrafficLoad.ini

THANKS A LOT IF YOU DO dude


@Everyone: If you're interested in seeing my ingame videos taken with FRAPS, I can upload them somewhere. Beware though, as those are uncompressed 1080p vid's, weithing about 1GB for 2minutes... to keep the good visual quality as seen on my screen. And if I do, that will take some time ^^
And if you like what you see, I would gladely share my personnal ENBsettings.ini used with Gionight's Best ENB.

Here's a little preview screenshot:



PS: Sorry for the looooooong reply, did have to compile a bunch of information in a one-shot post

[sebkulu]

PrometheusX: I'm giving another shot to the commandline you mentionned above, just to test it... wanna see how much time it gives me before Tex'pops
Perhaps will it give me a little more time

[mkey82]

95% more FPS? Have you actually tried running two comparison benchmarks with SLI on/off?

[sebkulu]

It's 95% more than one single vCard, not than a not properly set SLi with 0x42500045 SLi bits, which would more likely be around a 70% improvement.
Sorry, I have not been clear enough.

As for me, currently running between 35 and 50 FPS, previously about 20-35, outside, daytime, in TimeSquare.
Same ratio in front of Bohan safehouse.

I'm about to run a timed test with above mentionned commandline. Hope to see some improvements

[sebkulu]

About same as before, maybe a little improvement over no commandline, or memrestrict only.
At least, I don't have textures popping right away as I do when using memrestrict switch, which gives me generally little longer gameplay though.

So, after 30min + 2 cutscenes, tex begin to pop, 3rd cutscene begins to be hard to get loaded, but did. Then went through it, out of it, textures gone, and reappearing slowly as I drive around, but now always with a noticable delay.
Finally, after 45 minutes, entering 4th cutscene was almost a no-go, and getting out of it left me dead with a black screen

So I killed process from task manager.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I get the same behaviour with 2 versions of drivers, latest ones (306.23) and previous WHQL ones.

[mkey82]

I perfectly understood what you said and I'd still like to see some comparison benchmarks with SLI on/off.

[PrometheusX]

I'm using Ultimate Vehicle Pack v9, which has more than 150+ modded vehicles. You should try it, it's pretty good.

I play at High settings, View Distance = 50, everything else maxed out.

[sebkulu]

@mkey82: Ok, will do that tonight to report exact gains between Single/misconfigured SLi/properly configured SLi

@PrometheusX: Ok, but you didn't answer the most important questions though

Did you really get rid of textures pops? Can you go through every cutscene without any glitches? Does your game crash eventually?

And, very important info:
1. Size of vehicles.img file
2. Size of pc/data/maps folder
3. ENB Settings
4. TrafficLoad.ini settings

Thanks a lot for your future answer.

Edit: Ah, and almost forgot, also you hardware setup (mainly CPU/GPU/RAM), and version of your display drivers

[aryoseno11]

HELP!! not working!!!!
intel core i7
nvidia gt 430
8 GB RAM

[mkey82]

If it's not working, it's not working. memrestrict is not guaranteed to have effect.

[CTCCoco]

This helped me a lot. Thank you.

[aryoseno11]

intel core i7
nvidia gt 430
8 GB RAM
windows 7 ultimate

the game stutters!!!!!my PC does not overheat! i have no mods other than scripthook, and simple native trainer.
oohh one thing, in next month, i will upgrade my pc to GTX 470. will it helps?

any help will appreciated!

EDIT:
i think my graphics card is bottlenecking my CPU.

[MuffinMachine]

I am attempting to play this through Steam and the commandline fix does not seem to be working. I have my graphics as low as they will go on everything.

Is there anything to this other than creating the file commandline.txt and typing in -memrestrict 188743680?

[Cottontop3000]

Hi everyone. I wanted to ask if you think the memrestrict lines will help with my fps with the system I've got. Or if my system is limited in some areas?

OS Version: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium, Service Pack 2, 64 bit
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 7
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 8190 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 120, 1024 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 595471 MB, Free - 306893 MB;
Motherboard: Gateway, FMCP7AM
Antivirus: McAfee Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware, Updated and Enabled

I've got most of the settings in-game set pretty low, and I'm getting about 25 fps according to fraps. I'd like to have the detail though. Also, do you all play with anti-virus and firewall on?

Thanks for any help you can give me. Oh, in the multiplayer free modes, I often get higher fps (sometimes 40-50fps). Do you know why? Is it just because the number of cars and peds are set low or something?

Again, thanks for any help.