Widescreen Gaming Forum

I know threads like this have no chance of stopping any time soon...

...but the Mods are watching. ;)

It's the same ol' "buy it then get home and download it for the crack." for me.

Here's a better idea - instead of downloading the whole thing, just get the crack. You'll save lots of time, and you won't strengthen the piracy scene.

Ya maybe... as long as i have it when i'm ready to play. I never let my new games connect to auth servers.

but the auth.+ cd thing stills puzzles me...

Unwilling to 'discuss' the issue, thank you General for the heads-up.

Another case in point: 2K immediately lost my potential sale for Bioshock when I installed the DEMO and instead of running, it terminated with a SECUROM error. Why would I buy the full product if the free sample won't even work?

The worst part is the god damn rootkit that is installed. "developed to enable users without Windows administrator rights the ability to access all SecuROM features."

Found this on XtremeSystems.

Today Rockstar Games released quite a hefty FAQ on the installation process :

[code]Quote:
- Activation via Internet (1x per system, no limits, Fallback for systems without web access)
- Copy protection Securom: The original disc is required for playing (Execpt: Download version of GTA 4, for example from Direct 2 Drive)
- Requirements for playing (singleplayer): Games for Windows Live account for saving/achievements (1x free creation), original disc, Securom runs in the background
- Requirements for playing (multiplayer): Active internet connection, Games for Windows Live account, For uploading videos: Rockstar Social Club Account.
- If you don't have web access or don't want to connect your gaming PC to the Internet, Rockstar wants to offer a not yet specified system to activate GTA 4 via another PC with web access. Details are supposed to be available on launch.
- For the normal GTA 4 (PC) version with disc installation, activations are unlimited. But the original disc is required for playing.
- This does not apply for legally downloaded versions of GTA 4: Depending on the vendor the following is possible: Five parallel installations with the possibility to revive a "freeâ€

GFW Live does not mean it has to be online.... simply that you must log into the interface for saving.

Good Lord that FAQ is even worse than the info in the news story. :( I have no interest in this product at all now.

This is another perfect comparison to illustrate why I've fallen almost completely in love with GOG.com: Buy, install, play. The way it should be.

Rockstar, guess who's getting a broadband connection to my wallet?

Rockstar, guess who's getting a broadband connection to my wallet?

Not Rockstar?

Which is a shame, as they've always done fairly well at their PC conversions in the past.

Houston, we have some problems:
http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Random-Ravings/20-Easy-Steps-to-Starting-GTA-IV-on-Your-PC

So happy I grabbed L4D on Black Friday. I guess Fallout 3 is the only other big game eligible for purchase this quarter.


thanks to Osuperman for the link

Nobody is going to want to buy this game thanks to their amazing amount of bloatware. But wait, they'll blame their lost sales on PIRACY.

I was going to pick up my copy today... Until i read some stuff on gta forums.

Seems that a lot of folks that meet or exceed the recommended specs are still getting very very poor performance.. the best i could see was a user with a higher-end qud core and a 280gtx and although his bench gave him 46fps average, his settings were fairly low. Most options to mdeium and all sliders less than 50%.

A lot of users are also getting missing textures http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/6383/gtaivlx2.jpg , BSOD's, GFWL issues (big shock), and even authenication issues.

Now surely a good number of the problems i read of are due to people not reading the specs and maybe using old drivers or something, and I could see the Securom servers getting pretty bogged-down on release day.

Still, the users having few or no problems seem to be few.

So i went to my game store and got a refund.

Maybe after R* releases a patch (which they've never been good at) and perhaps some video drivers will remedy the textures issue.. but so far this is one GTA I'll skip :(

this makes me a very sad panda. I've always LOVED the GTA games and I thought that with every itereation R* did a better job with the PC version each time.

Starting to think we'd be better off if Take2 sold to EA.

I'm going to go find a corner to cry in now.

Nobody is going to want to buy this game thanks to their amazing amount of bloatware.

*raises hand*

But wait, they'll blame their lost sales on PIRACY.

If there's much piracy, they have every right to do so. If you think there's something wrong with them blaming lost sales on piracy, that's yet another reason not to steal the game. If nobody buys the game, but nobody pirates it either, then they have nothing to blame but their own doings.

I'm having a great time with the game ...
There were some hoops to jump through whilst installing but once that was done all was good for me.
It looks great in my opinion ... way way better than it did on the 360 and of course we have keyboard and mouse controls ... :mrgreen:
I didn't need to change any settings it automatically started in TripleHead ... 8)

Anyway ... some info ...

THE GRAPHIC SETTINGS OF GRAND THEFT AUTO IV PC

Most users using current PC hardware as of December 2008 are advised to use medium graphics settings.
Higher settings are provided for future generations of PCs with higher specifications than are currently widely available.

Graphics settings are limited by system resources by default. 256MB video cards force minimum settings by default.
If a user bypasses these safety measures using command line arguments and exceeds their system resources, the users gaming experience may be compromised.


Video Mode
Resolution scaling effects water, reflections, shadows, mirrors and the visible viewable distance. The resolution settings relate to the amount of available video memory. At 2560*1600 the game will require 320MB of video memory in addition to all the memory required for content. At 800*600 the game will require 32MB of video memory in addition to the content. Medium resolution settings are recommended for most users as higher settings are only usable if there is available video memory.

Texture Quality
Texture quality affects the visual quality of the content of the game. High setting for textures will require 600MB of video memory at a setting of 21 View Distance in addition to the memory taken by the Video Mode. A medium texture setting is recommended for most users.

Render Quality
Render quality is the texture filter quality used on most things in the world rendering. Most people would know this as anisotropic filtering. Medium settings are recommended for most users and will provide filtering beyond what the console versions can execute.

View Distance
View distance scales the distance in which different objects in the world such as building and cars are seen. Raising this option increases the distance in which high quality objects must be loaded and will increase the memory it requires. Restrictions are established to ensure the game runs optimally for most users. A setting of 22 or more will provide PC users an enhanced experience over the console versions.

Detail Distance
Detail distance scales aspects of the environment that the View Distance setting does not including vegetation, trash and other moveable objects. A setting of 10 would be the equivalent to the performance on a console. This setting has little effect on memory.

Vehicle Density
Vehicle density scales the traffic density of the traffic in the game. It has no effect on the mission vehicles or difficultly of the game, but can have a significant impact on CPU performance

Shadow Density
Shadow Density controls the number of shadows generated for positional lights in exterior environments. These shadows are exclusive to the PC version and can have a major impact on CPU and GPU performance.

Crossfire/SLI
With the latest ATI driver (8-11 series) the game supports crossfire modes (ie. 4870x2)
SLI is currently unsupported. Support will be added through a future game patch as well as an updated Nvidia driver.

From the readme ...

6) KNOWN ISSUES
_______________________

NVIDIA:
General:
Occasionally the tree leaves will appear as square boxes.

6000/7000 series cards:
Cars do not show damage.
Changing the resolution or minimizing the game can sometimes result in visual
corruption. You can restart the game to resolve this issue.

ATI:
General:
A slightly visible diagonal line appears across the screen.

1900 or less series cards:
Cars do not show damage.

3600 series cards:
Can show very noticeable banding.

3870 X2:
Rain drops show up as bright white / red dots on screen

Crossfire game side bugs:
Interior and Night time shadows blink until approached.
When transitioning from interior to exterior the screen will pulse with different
intensities of light for a few seconds.
On occasion the water will jitter rapidly.

12) COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS
_______________________

Tools:
-benchmark: Runs the benchmark tool and immediately exits game.
-help: Display list of all command line options

Graphics:
-renderquality: Set the render quality of the game. (0-4)
-shadowdensity: Set the shadow density of the game. (0-16)
-texturequality: Set the texture quality of the game. (0-2)
-viewdistance: Set the view distance of the game (0-99)
-detailquality: Set the detail quality of the game. (0-99)
-novblank: Disable wait for vblank (No Vsync)
-norestrictions: Do not limit graphics settings
-width: Set width of main render window (default is 800)
-height: Set height of main render window (default is 600)
-safemode: Run the graphics in the lowest setting possible
-frameLimit: Limit frame to interval of refresh rate
(ex If refreshrate is 60HZ –frameLimit 1 = Locks down to 60HZ)
-refreshrate: Set the refresh rate of main render window
– Warning - Monitor must support (ex. –refreshrate 60)
-fullscreen: Force fullscreen mode
-windowed: Force windowed mode
-availablevidmem: Set amount of physical Video Memory(ex. –availablevidmem 0.9)
-percentvidmem: Percentage of video memory to make available to GTA

Audio:
-fullspecaudio: Force high-end CPU audio footprint
-minspecaudio: Force low-end CPU audio footprint

System:
-noprecache: Disable precache of resources
-nomemrestrict: Disable memory restrictions

Glad you like it. Your surround screenies sure are incentive. However I was (still am) so mad at games requiring a mere online login to just let me play, that I think I'd rather pass on this one for the sake of my mental health.

* The Windows Live update supports Vista 32bit only. If you have Windows Vista 64bit, you can not play.

No kiddin'. Microsoft rulez.

(Cunning move from Rockstar this time around : the buzz is not about how "violent" their game is anymore, but how broken/tiresome installation is. Wow.)

Glad you like it. Your surround screenies sure are incentive. However I was (still am) so mad at games requiring a mere online login to just let me play, that I think I'd rather pass on this one for the sake of my mental health.

Well you only have to login to windows live and that can be offline ... mine did it automatically and I haven't logged in to the R* Social Club.
That said your mental health is pushed to limits whilst installing and getting into the game for the first time.

(Cunning move from Rockstar this time around : the buzz is not about how "violent" their game is anymore, but how broken/tiresome installation is. Wow.)

he-he ... that made me laugh ... :lol:

Um, no Vista64? With those system requirements, is that some kinda joke??

I, for one, refuse to go back to a 32bit OS. Vista really needs 4+gb IMHO.

Well mine's downloading off Steam now. 16GB.
In the words of George Michael, "I gotta have faith... (faith, faith)"

Thanks a bunch, eZ` (zee? zed? Eez?)

I had almost erased that guy from my memory.

Thanks a bunch, eZ` (zee? zed? Eez?)

I had almost erased that guy from my memory.

Haha, there's nothing wrong with a bit of George Michael ! His , erm, hobbies aside.
And it's "easy". So zee. :D