GTA IV playability

[indianarchie]

My PC has the following specs:

Intel P4 3.0 GHz with hyperthreading

Intel 965 Mobo

ATI HD 4830 512 MB video card

2.5 GB RAM

80x2 HDDs (one SATA, one IDE)

Windows XP SP2

Samsung T220 22' LCD

Will my PC run GTA IV with these specs? The minimum requirements state that it needs a dual core PC. Will mine work? Also what is the deal with service pack 3 for Win XP? Will I need to install it over my SP2 or will SP2 also work? I am hoping to run this game in 1680x1050 native resolution.

http://grandtheftauto.ign.com/articles/news/1726/GTA-IV-PC-System-Requirements

I have the same query for these games as well:

Crysis Warhead

Gears of War

Bioshock

Batman Arkham Asylum

NFS Shift

Edited December 9, 2009 by indianarchie

[Tripredacus]

These specs seem fine. Nowadays, the CPU isn't a big deal for game playability. At worst case, you might just have to drop some of the details down if you encounter any game lags. The video card is the real minimum requirement. Memory, as far as playability goes, is more so on the speed of the RAM than the amount. For example, I was able to play Crysis on the following specs:

Intel D850MV motherboard with Intel P4 1.7GHz (no HT)

512MB RAM @ 800MHz

Radeon 9800XP 256MB AGP 2x

And my current config is able to play Far Cry 2 with these specs:

Intel 865GBF motherboard with Intel P4 2.0GHz (no HT)

1.5GB RAM @266MHz

Radeon X1650 HD PRO AGP 8x

In the above configs, you may be surprised to find out that the 512MB running at 800MHz outperformed my current config of 1.5GB at 266MHz.

Basically, your main point of concern is the video card. If you experience problems, you can change the game settings or upgrade your hardware.

[Zenskas]

My PC has the following specs:

Intel P4 3.0 GHz with hyperthreading

Intel 965 Mobo

ATI HD 4830 512 MB video card

2.5 GB RAM

80x2 HDDs (one SATA, one IDE)

Windows XP SP2

Samsung T220 22' LCD

Will my PC run GTA IV with these specs? The minimum requirements state that it needs a dual core PC. Will mine work? Also what is the deal with service pack 3 for Win XP? Will I need to install it over my SP2 or will SP2 also work? I am hoping to run this game in 1680x1050 native resolution.

http://grandtheftauto.ign.com/articles/news/1726/GTA-IV-PC-System-Requirements

I have the same query for these games as well:

Crysis Warhead

Gears of War

Bioshock

Batman Arkham Asylum

NFS Shift

Firstly you can just install SP3 over a SP2 install and not loose any setting/data. I would recommend installing SP3 ASAP.

GTA4 will probably not run alright at all. I know Bioshock, Batman and NFS will run good on at least med settings at 1680x1050 and Crysis at around medium settings. But GTA4 is a very CPU dependent game and a P4 3Ghz will slow it right down. An AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (even faster than your current CPU) only gets around 8.1FPS on average! And that is with a GTX 280 running at a lower res than your 22inch monitor. With a cheapo dual core CPU it gets over 20FPS. Although this is on max settings, you would be lucky to play at 1024x768 with low-medium settings. It is a console ported game and today's consoles have more CPU power than GPU so the games are designed to use more of the CPU power.

These specs seem fine. Nowadays, the CPU isn't a big deal for game playability. At worst case, you might just have to drop some of the details down if you encounter any game lags. The video card is the real minimum requirement. Memory, as far as playability goes, is more so on the speed of the RAM than the amount. For example, I was able to play Crysis on the following specs:

Intel D850MV motherboard with Intel P4 1.7GHz (no HT)

512MB RAM @ 800MHz

Radeon 9800XP 256MB AGP 2x

And my current config is able to play Far Cry 2 with these specs:

Intel 865GBF motherboard with Intel P4 2.0GHz (no HT)

1.5GB RAM @266MHz

Radeon X1650 HD PRO AGP 8x

In the above configs, you may be surprised to find out that the 512MB running at 800MHz outperformed my current config of 1.5GB at 266MHz.

Basically, your main point of concern is the video card. If you experience problems, you can change the game settings or upgrade your hardware.

Like I said, GTA4 is very CPU dependent and single core CPU's don't cut it any more. Not sure about the speed of RAM helping that much either. Most people would not notice the difference between 1066Mhz DDR3 RAM and 2000Mhz DDR3 RAM in game-play. The reason your newer PC is outperformed by the older PC with faster RAM is because the GPU in the older PC is a good bit faster than the GPU in your newer PC.

Also I really don't think everyone wants to watch a slide-show of a game (or reduce IQ so far that it looks 6yrs old) as I don't think you could get more than 20fps on either of your PCs at med settings on a 22inch screen. So basically as far as GTA4 goes he's probably not going to be fine

What I can say to help though is firstly you have done a good job getting a decent vid card (HD 4830) and a good amount of RAM. Because you are running a 965 mobo you can upgrade to a good dual core CPU like any of Intel's C2D E6xxx series CPU's and gain a massive increase in performance in GTA4. So long as you have the latest BIOS version then even a quad core CPU would work for you like a Q6600.

Edited December 11, 2009 by Zenskas

[cluberti]

Agreed - the reason Rockstar recommends a quad-core CPU as part of it's minimum specs is because this game is *heavily* multithreaded, and the more cores you throw at it the better it runs. There's a lot going on under the hood, so to speak, that aren't graphics-related at all. As Zenskas previously pointed out, on a single-core P4 with Hyperthreading it's likely to run very poorly (I've seen this on my own P4 3GHz machine with a 9800GT - it barely gets 7FPS in normal gameplay). However, on a Core2Quad 9550 system with the exact same video card, it runs quite well at 1680x1050.

[Tripredacus]

The reason your newer PC is outperformed by the older PC with faster RAM is because the GPU in the older PC is a good bit faster than the GPU in your newer PC.

Also I really don't think everyone wants to watch a slide-show of a game (or reduce IQ so far that it looks 6yrs old) as I don't think you could get more than 20fps on either of your PCs at med settings on a 22inch screen. So basically as far as GTA4 goes he's probably not going to be fine

What I can say to help though is firstly you have done a good job getting a decent vid card (HD 4830) and a good amount of RAM. Because you are running a 965 mobo you can upgrade to a good dual core CPU like any of Intel's C2D E6xxx series CPU's and gain a massive increase in performance in GTA4. So long as you have the latest BIOS version then even a quad core CPU would work for you like a Q6600.

Actually, in my initial tests, both my "new computer" and my "old computer" had the same video card. The only reason why I have a "new" computer is because my old motherboard died. Everything else (well besides memory) was the same. I only recently upgraded the video card.

I'll have to pick up GTAIV soon and see how it works for me.