Rockstar patches GTA IV for PC

By Tom Bramwell Published 17 December, 2008

Tackles performance, input, stability.

Rockstar has patched Grand Theft Auto IV for PC to deal with "known issues including, but not limited to, performance, input functionality, and overall stability".

Despite strong reviews (including our own), the game has been rocked by stability issues and error messages, with some players unable to get the game working at all.

Our office copy, for example, simply didn't work, throwing up a fatal error message - one of many encountered by players.

Hence the patch, which has restored our office copy to life - yippee! - and also claims all of the following, lifted from Rockstar's media advisory:

  • Better memory management to improve stability, especially for players with lower-end machines
  • Added a fix for the ATI 1900 series video cards to improve stability and the visual quality of shadows
  • Custom graphic settings and multiplayer characters will now save
  • Several improvements to the Video Editor, including higher rendering quality, smarter naming of videos and better effects during replays
  • Mouse-based movements with sensitive mice or gaming mice will properly detect
  • CPU speeds will now query periodically rather than just at startup, resulting in smoother frame-rates
  • Fixed a crash after legal screen German customers were reporting

Rockstar also promises to continue to support the game through GTA forums and its own support site, where you can grab the 32MB patch file now.

Expect more patches to follow, however, as not everyone's problems appear to be solved, judging by posts on GTA.TV and GTAGaming.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Haloboy #1 3 years ago

    Yea but still, screw you Rockstar. You lied to us, YOU LIED!!

  • StooMonster #2 3 years ago

    Is this on Steam too?

  • viper_h #3 3 years ago

    lol EuroPAYmer

  • Snooz #4 3 years ago

    or €gam£r?

  • shadowaspect #5 3 years ago

    @ Ashcrapper
    Since they were able to review the game, I'm guessing the reference to 'office copy' is not a reference to the review copy.
    Edited by 1 at 17/12/08 @ 10:37

  • Darren #6 3 years ago

    When did this patch come out because I got this game yesterday morning and played it last night. After installing and then starting the game, I was prompted to download an update... was that it or is this a new update released today?

    I was surprised at how well the game ran at 1680x1050 on my ancient dual-core AGP setup but then I stuck with the auto settings (Medium textures and High rendering quality, draw distance 25, detail distance 37, vehicle density 26, shadow density 3) and the game still looked noticeably superior to both the 360 and PS3 versions, particularly with the post-processing filter on as that blurs the jagged edges. I'm not getting amazing framerates or anything, typically 20 fps, which might sound unplayable but the console versions had frequent framerate dips and they were perfectly playable IMO. I played for over four hours and didn't encounter any issues at all... no freezes, no crashes and no BSODs. Memory usage seemed to hover around 800 MB which works well on my 2 GB system.

    I was quite impressed with it to be honest although the pop in and texture fade in is more noticeable here and there's a feeling that the game could be optimised further. It's a terrfic game though... wonderfully atmospheric and immersive with some of the best cutscenes, voice-acting and memorable characters I've ever come across in a game of this type. Plays fantastically well with the wireless Xbox 360 controller too. :)

    That said, the enforced Rockstar Social Club thing is pointless really but accessing that and Games for Windows LIVE was easy for me since I already had accounts setup for both.

  • sifujames #7 3 years ago

    @ Darren

    Do you mind posted the spec of your PC? I'm interested as I've had to turn everything down to near zero to get a framerate that I'm happy with, and I'm using the following:

    Core2Duo 1.6ghz over clocked to 2.6ghz
    2gb DDR3 RAM
    512mb 8500GT

    And I've got GTA4 set to:
    800x600 @ 60hz
    Medium textures and rendering
    Draw distance 10
    Detail distance 15
    Vehicle density 15
    Shadow density 0

    Not an amazing system, but not a complete slug either. And yes, before anyone comments, I know I could do with a new vid card, but I can play Crysis and COD4 with only a few things turned down, so why do I have to have GTA4 looking like it's on the Wii?

  • swede #8 3 years ago

    Does it fix the problem with 360 wireless pad and the lack of analog functionality in the L/R triggers?

  • TurboBailey #9 3 years ago

    The Patch does make a little difference in performance - nothing major

    On my moderate system

    AMD 5000 Dual Core
    2gb DDR2 RAM
    Asus P5B
    Asus HD Radeon 4850

    I can get :

    Draw Distance 22
    Detail distance: 30
    Vehicle density 25
    Shadow density 1

    That setup maintains approx 28fps which is smooth enough for me. Frame rate increase in low detail areas, and also at night. Before the patch i was getting :

    Draw Distance 20
    Detail distance: 28
    Vehicle density 25
    Shadow density 0

    So dont expect miracles people
    Edited by 1 at 17/12/08 @ 11:54

  • hiddenranbir #10 3 years ago

    Is this a second patch?

  • Darren #11 3 years ago

    @sifujames - My current PC specs are:

    Athlon64 X2 4200+ dual-core CPU running at stock 2.2 GHz speed
    ASUS A8V-MX motherboard, VIA chipset
    2 GB DDR 400 MHz Kingston RAM
    512 MB Sapphire RADEON 3850 AGP graphics, overclocked to 709/939 MHz and using the latest Catalyst 8.12 drivers
    Creative Audigy 4 sound
    300 GB Maxtor Diamond 7,200 rpm 16 MB buffered SATA hard drive
    Windows XP SP3 (I do have Vista SP2 beta installed too but I don't like using it for games... it's too resource hungry IMO)

    I am getting a new PC sometime later this week though, the only real reason I decided to buy this game actually... a Core i7-920 with 6 GB of memory, Vista Home Edition 64-bit, X-Fi XtremeGamer sound and GeForce GTX 280 graphics so I wasn't too bothered about the performance of the game with my current PC. However, the game runs fine much to my surprise as I said although I'm perhaps more tolerant than others as 20-ish fps for a game is low by PC standards.

  • sifujames #12 3 years ago

    Cheers Darren, from looking at the specs posted so far, it's on the graphics card front that I'm getting killed - looks like I'll be picking up a new graphics card pretty soon then

  • hollowroom #13 3 years ago

    Yup, I've got the "stuck key" issue as well, with the car turning left constantly.

    So, so far I have got off the boat, met my cousin and driven repeatedly into a crane.

    Happily I have Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 to play, and both of these games seem to have gone through a QA process, so I'm not too bothered. I would like to play it at some point though..

  • Darren #14 3 years ago

    Ah yes... when I first played the game after installing and updating it, I noticed that I could hear the audio in the cutscenes fine and the music from the radios in the cars ingame but the ambient sound from the game world and chatty bits while driving around where gone... I only knew there was dialogue because I had subtitles on!

    However, once I quit the game and reloaded it the sound returned and was working fine the other two times I loaded the game later on that night. I've also forced high quality sound via the command line in the game's desktop shortcut. Seems to me that it was a one-off glitch for me, perhaps causing by the installation of the patch?

  • sifujames #15 3 years ago

    @STKD: Cheers for the info about CPUs doing all the work. Am slightly puzzled then as to why I'm having to turn everything down so much in comparison to the other specs posted, as apart from my GC, I'm not too far away from them. Maybe I'm just fussier about my framerate!!

  • Darren #16 3 years ago

    @STKD - What causes this memory leak... I played the game for three hours in one session and the memory only went up from 670 MB to 890 MB. I didn't have any crashes. Windows XP SP3 by the way.

    Is it related to specific operating systems by any chance, e.g. Vista 64-bit?

  • Darren #17 3 years ago

    @sifujames - With the default settings the game picked for me at 1680x1050, the built in benchmark returned 18 fps. However, I noticed that there was a hell of a lot of disc access during the benchmark and it appeared far more chuggy as result than the actual game experience which seems to be around 20 fps for me as I said earlier.

    Your graphics card is rather weak though, even a GeForce 8600 would struggle with this game. You'd be better off buying a 1GB RADEON 4850 or a GeForce GTX 260 (216) if you want to play at a higher resolution and detail settings. The game is very CPU dependent though so you really need a quad-core CPU to make the most of the game and get higher framerates.

    I've seen people posting framerates of 50+ fps at 1680x1050 with everything maxed except for the Draw Distance at 50 but that was on quad-core systems with a GTX 280 or RADEON 4870. I think with dual-core systems you're only looking at 30ish fps even with the top end graphics cards. I might be wrong though.

  • Bosh_Factory #18 3 years ago

    Regarding the issue with the stuck key / constantly rotating camera, I had this too. I fixed it by unplugging my analogue joystick so the only connected controllers were the ones I was playing the game with (mouse and keyboard).

  • hiddenranbir #19 3 years ago

    My GFWL didn't patch anything leading me to assume this is an old patch, announced very late.

    Games for Windows Live is the patcher for this game, not Steam.
    Edited by 1 at 17/12/08 @ 14:29

  • hollowroom #20 3 years ago

    @Bosh_Factory:

    That would be great if I had anything at all plugged in apart from the keyboard and mouse. I still get the stuck key issue regardless.

  • sifujames #21 3 years ago

    @ Darren: Cheers mate, might splash out on a new card in the spring, will see if any of the 9800 models are at a tempting price, or if the 260s have come down out of the clouds

  • budd #22 3 years ago

    Old news...

  • Golgo #23 3 years ago

    Nice of Eurogamer to mention in their glowing review that the office copy "simply didn't work", isn't it!

  • Nill #24 3 years ago

    Yeah, Kieron said himself that review scores are buyer guides.

    Giving a game that works like piss or doesn't work at all for so many people that it has caused a major Internet uproar 9/10, doesn't lend any credit to Eurogamer's reviewing system.

    But, I saw the light quite a while a go and never go by Eurogamer's reviews anymore, more than as very very general pointers.

  • swede #25 3 years ago

    Tried the patch, cant use a wireless 360 pad at all now! A patch that breaks more critical things than it fixes. Whatever next. Still waiting to play this game properly weeks after release. Whoever signed this patch off for release should be shot.

  • swede #26 3 years ago

    Copied from steam forum: WHAT A JOKE!

    Found that on the official Rokstar page:

    LOOK / SPIN / STUCK KEY ISSUES
    With the latest Title Update, some users are experiencing a Look/Spin/"Stuck Key" issue that interferes with user input. The workaround, described below, will restore Keyboard/Mouse and XInput (360) controller functionality. Support for DirectInput devices is currently limited.

    We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

    1. To fix the issue:
    1. Unplug any DirectInput controllers (gamepads, joysticks etc..)
    2. A2) Reboot your computer
    3. A3) Launch GTA IV

    I am getting this right? They tell me just to play the game without a gamepad (what makes driving a pain in the ♥♥♥;) and thats their only solution?