GTA IV ..BETTER PERFORMANCE on PC !!!!!!

[stitch2333]

good day all i have posted this here today in hope that in following these steps you will be able to get the  most out of your GTA IV on any pc

 if there is anything more i can help with find me on FB " ö-Stitch Customs-ö "
or email me [email protected]

STEP ONE
the "commandline.txt"
make a new .TXT and name it " Commandline.txt "
then copy and paste the following into it exactly how it is


-norestriction
-nomemrestrict
-availablevidmem "1.1"
-percentvidmem "100"


put the .txt into the main directory of GTA IV where the GTAIV.exe is found
and then run the game as normal this already should help performance a great deal on any pc

percentvidmem "100"
the 100 is 100% of video memory to be used

availablevidmem "1.1"

the 1.1 is how much video memory can be used
example if it says 1.0 GTA can use the full G/card memory
if you set it at 2.0 GTA will think you have double
ie. if you have a 512mb card and set it 2.0 GTA will think you have 1024mb available
so it is best to set it to 1.1 as setting it to high can slow the game down

the other settings in the file are just to take away the limitations and allow GTA
 to use all of the RAM instead of letting windows steal half of it
and the other setting there will allow you to set the graphics in the game
higher than normally allowed
..this is only usefull if you have a super pc but otherwise all the settings
 combined will make gta run smoother .....
simply put the Commandline.txt file into your GTA IV main directory


STEP TWO
go to google and search for a program called game booster
its free to download and generally helps most games improve on perfomance
i have tested it and still allows you to run GTA IV online and MP with a tiny bit less lag

STEP THREE
ALWAYS make sure GTA IV and ALL drivers are fully up to date especially graphic card drivers......
then the most important part .....DEFRAG your entire PC download a descent registry cleaner
something like "ashampoo" or "amust" clean the registry
after clean and defrag set windows to scandisk and select auto fix errors so it will ask you to restart
then instead of a simple restart...SHUT down and give the pc a cold boot
let the scan disk complete and then give Windows a few minutes after loading to sort it self out
 when everyhting seems stable and idle give it a normal restart and it should be done
...i recommend these steps for any pc about once every two months
....once a month if you use the hard drive and delete things often

STEP FOUR
after loading GTA IV press ...alt Tab and go to task manager and change the priority of
 "GTAIV.exe" and "LAUNCHGTAIV"
 to high OR above normal (different_from_pc_to_pc)

i never benchmark my pc or gta ....i judge everything by my own eyes and gameplay
not fps numbers ....so i believe all these steps really help alot
...especially on slower pc's but even on faster pc's it helps a tone not only
with GTA IV but with all your games......
this will help with making the game run faster but as far as LAG goes
i am still looking into how to fix that although i am quite sure it is due to my
slow internet speed......as i experience no such problems when i run GTA IV on HIGH settings
and only in MP do i have bad lag problems and my net speed is slow
so i think it has to do with that, when my cap kicks in i'll be able to test
that theory better.

ENJOY !!!!

\m/

ö-STITCH-ö

[stitch2333]

just another thing i have come across thanks to    
MonkeyMhz   and   elecg2  (GTA FORUMS)

for X64 users
i think this should only help for nvidia cards
ati should already be alright

but i did notice some smoother difference in performance

Go to GTAIV folder, go into common, then shaders.

Backup everything in there <- !!!

Then copy the contents of " win32_30_atidx10 " , and paste them into " win32_30_nv8" . Or just rename the folders, whatever makes you happy

the pc i am running is

AMD 6000+ @ 3.0ghz
4gb DDR2 ram
POV 9800 gt 512mb gddr3
win vista ultimate x64

aside from the texture quality setting being at medium i now run all settings at high
and the game runs smooth .....although multiplayer is a different case


something else i found to work quite well witch i would only recommend for those with descent graphic cards

* AFTER completing all the above steps ......ALL OF THEM ...
go to the gta options and select " auto configure ".....then set the " texture quality "  to " medium "
choose medium or low if you get the warning about exceeding the memory ....if you have a really good graphics card and dont get the warning after choosing auto config then play the game and see.......but i suggest choose auto config and test it out then change settings from there till you reach desired performance .....but start with changing the texture quality

[Flat Face]

Thanks for this mate

Guys i met this dude on IV MP, he's pretty cool and told me he found something to get better performance out of IV, I asked if he could post them here and he obliged

[Rainbow]

Does that commandline.txt work for other games aswell aslong as you put it in the folder of the .exe?

[Noah]

Did this work for anyone?

[JustCaus3]

hmm  i guess i could try this out... i have about 30 to 40 fps and a little bit more could come in handy 

[stitch2333]

yes this has worked for alot of people ...the only way to know is to try

and if you already get a high FPS it would only help a bit more

and im not sure this commandline.txt would work for every game out there if your are lookig for command lines for other games try and google it but the other steps especially the defrag portion will help all games

it was my pleasure posting this ...whatever i can do to help the gta comunity

[FIGHTER]

about that vram isnt right. also this is copied from some site. i ahve used it and it works but that thingy about vram isnt right that will means i need to put that on 4.0 which didnt work. if you put it there on 0.60 or soemthing it worked for me.

[XTO --]

Franco uses that commandline and instead of 40~45 fps he has around 55 or 60 if i can remember well

[Franco]

Mine has a bit more stuff, and I don't use only the commandline 

[stitch2333]

to: fighter

about the vram
no where did i say i figured all this out my self of course it comes from another site but that is how internet works spreading the infomation around so everyone can get a hold of it and on top of that there is still a choice wheither to use it or not plus all the extra steps i added there are to help improve the performance on your pc witch are pretty basic common things such as defraging you hdd

1.0 means that it will use all of the vram available 2.0 means that gta will think there is double so 4.0 will make gta think there is x4 as much example if you have a 512mb card and set it to 4.0 gta will think you have 2048mb and will cause problems, again all these setting can differ from pc to pc everyone has a different setup if you set it to 0.6 and that works for you then great but according to the article i got the command line from that will only mean that gta now thinks you have 0.6 of your existing vram to use ....

best setting is at 1.0 but i listed 1.1 because it gives me better performance when i push it "a little" i have a 9800gt point of view card wich is a stock card with no extra cooling and it still handles the boost fine a 9800 gt from asus or a company that overclocks the card and adds better cooling should handle 1.1 or 1.2 perfectly so if you have to set it to 0.6 then either your settings are wrong somewhere or your card isnt that great

and if you look at the post from franco there is your proof that the command line has increased his fps

[FIGHTER]

iahve 4870HD crossfire 1GB i think thats enough though. well i read something better somewhere. will try to fin it 

[creativegta]

Windows 7 64bit

Made my fps go from 40-60fps down to 25-30fps, Not recommended for Win7 x64.