Grand Theft Auto 4 PC Release Plagued by Bugs

GTA IV - PC is a buggy piece of shit.
(current patch 1.0.2.0)
It's bad enough you have to download Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, which just adds more unnecessary updates that aren't useful to anyone with a brain.

But the game runs Games for windows - LIVE in the background, A Presentationfontcache.exe process, a terrible social club app (poorly written I might add), and a command prompt.
These 3 things together (minus the process) = hell for any gamer. And that isn't even the bugs in the actual game itself.

First, the game all together runs extremely slow, from the menu to the loading screens -- it's a major resource hog, which is often misinterpreted as 'requires extremely high-end hardware due to it's awesomeness' bullshit which is really an excuse for bad programming.

Second, if you manage to get in game, you have to deal with a variety of hurdles, one of them primarily is Games for Windows - LIVE. This piece of trash app constantly harasses you to no end about updates that do not even exist for the game. If you manage to connect to LIVE in-game you must first load the game, use the in-game cell phone, pick a (non-dedicated, player-hosted) server, join it and either A. Crash in spectating mode, or B. deal with the terrible connection from the host.
It's a fucking TIME VAMPIRE.
If you can't connect to one of the servers, you guessed it, it pops you right back to the in-game screen and you must start the process all over again.
And if that weren't enough, the only thing you have to judge whether or not the server has decent ping, is represented by a visual aid for a 3 year old, Red = Bad, Green = Good...maybe.
This alone is enough to make someone want to drive a fork into their ear, and this isn't even the 'bugs' in-game.

I don't have enough room here so I'll simply say, avoid this trash till Rockstar gets their heads out of their pretentious assholes.

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I'm running a single core AMD 4000+, 2gb of ram and an HD 2600 XT. And I run the game on the recommended settings, high rendering, medium everything else. I'm getting 35-40 fps at night in the game. It runs fine for me.

Most people fail to realize rockstar said that this game maxed out wont run on current gen hardware. So set it at medium and it should run fine.

Now how did GTAIV manage to score a 92 on Metacritic with all these problems...
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/grandtheftauto4

Maybe the review copies weren't as fucked?

8 hours to download on Steam
1 hour to install .NET update, Google the 2 errors I got (mentioned in original story), and find a solution for the Social Club error
So, 9 hours from release and I was in the game no problem.

8800GTX, 3.25GB ram (4gb in WinXP 32bit), 3.0ghz dual-core). Feels like 30FPS @ modest settings

Shooting people with a mouse with the vanilla pistol is so fucking satisfying thanks to Euphoria character physics. Driving is, unfortunately, static as you use WASD but using the mouse to have full camera range is fucking brilliant. I suppose I could use a 360 Pad for driving but I'd lose the mouse control for viewing + shooting.

GTA4 gives me a nerd-boner so I was able to look past the hiccups.

Oh ya, F2 at any time for a seemless quick-save of the last 40 seconds for me to view & edit later in full 3D game space is not only awesome, its fucking awesome.

Bummer. I expected more out of Rockstar.

How do they plan a release like this without proper testing?

The missing textures are to be included as part of a $10 bonus features pack in the near future.

Sad, what things have gotten to. I used to expect pretty quality stuff from GTA series. Now that I think about it, the later versions had more and more stupid (avoidable, easily fixable) bugs.

Too bad, I was considering picking up GTA 4 (I try not to play many games lately), but now I'm glad I held off.

there are a few bits of info here:
http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Random-Ravings/20-Easy-Steps-to-Starting-GTA-IV-on-Your-PC

* The newest Geforce Drivers: version 180.48, are not compatible with GTA IV.
* The game does not support, nor recognise, SLI card set ups of any of the Geforce 8600 or 8800 card series.

Terrible performance on mainstream/enthusiast hardware
Missing Textures
Inordinate or unacceptable number of bugs
And the pre-release deal killer for me - Securom DRM.

RSC and Live Logins + Securom DRM?!?!! 3 seperate internet dependancies just to play a game that is a bug-ridden mess and has all the apparences of a 1/2 assed console port at this point. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

What's that you say Rockstar? Quack?

Are we so sure that ther eis an issue?

I really think this whole situation is user error and nothing else. "How do you know dumb ass?" well I will tell you.

To simulate the missing texture so called bug just do the following:

1. Make a short cut pointing to --> "C:\Program Files (x86)\Games\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto IV\LaunchGTAIV.exe" -norestrictions

* Note if you do not log in you will never get any comand args to work *

1.a To all those that are bitching this unlocks the game and allows you to do what ever you want, yes high settings.

* Note 2 - there is a reason the developer have locked out the high setting gamers just refuse to understand this *

2. You have to have a GPU that is no bigger than 512 megs of video memory

3. Just run the game in 1920x1080 on high setting and crank everything to max

* Note there is a red warrning telling you this is a bad idea, geez I wonder why *

4. Once you pass the first part and park your car leave the house and BONG witnes you basicaly overloading your GPU and the texture will jack up and disapear.

Basicaly you are killing your system its not a bug thats why there is a red written warning, the game has set your settings to medium, blah blah.

What do people think will happen if you set the game to a setting that does not pysicaly work.

As a developer I can only imagine what it is like to see these forums and threads. And yes if you have a 1gig card set to high like a 200 series nvidia card the textures are fine since it meets the reuierments.

Fancey all that, go ahead and check it out for your self its not a bug.

Im so glad I got it on Steam last night!
Ugh..

I do have a wicked system.. hope i dont have issues

I don't know why anyone is surprised really. GTA3 was slow as hell and had missing textures all over the place, esp. around the stadium. I know several people whose's Vice City saves corrupted, and even by the time San Andreas came out , it was still a big hog for the level of graphics. Controller support was sub-par too.

I'd always suspected that Rockstar just wrote a PS2 psudo-emulator rather then actually port the GTA3 engine (although technically that still counts as a port).

if you run windows update, like you should if you havent pirated it, you dirty, dirty pirate you, i dont see how you would run into the .net3.5 or sp3 issues

Ouch. Can you return games bought on Steam for a refund?

what a clusterfuck. it ran fine for me earlier once i disabled social club and installed .net 3.5 but now it is crashing with rmn40 again.

also, rockstar you suck ass for setting up that social club crap to auto-start on windows boot. seriously, eat a dick on that.

I'm on a core 2 duo, 4 gigs of ram and a 8800 GTS 512. I get 35-40 fps in the benchmark pretty much no matter what settings I use, which makes me a little confused. Badly optimzed engine perhaps?

I wonder if some of these bugs are because of the anti-piracy measures in the game... crack it? get shaky camera/cars, stuck at 30fps etc?

Find out in time which bugs are real and which are the pirates being messed with.

Get out a patch here, quick! Your fanbase is dying out.

A co-worker in the studio I work at claims he can only get 14fps on his Quad Core PC with a Radeon HD 4870 X2 Video Card. Hopefully the patch is soon, I know others who want to purchase this title on PC.

Yet another buggy game release to add to the growing list. Pathetic.

biggest fail in history of rockstar ever.

why did they release that game as final? they could have made a beta for preorders first and fix all those annoying bugs first and release it to the crowd in january or so.

i just don't get that.

thank god i also own the 360 version.

I recently took back a few DS games to gamestop to trade in for GTA4: (GTA4 was out of stock at gamestop and i did not purchase it)... I originally thought the fact that they were releasing a PC version of this great game was respectful alone (with added features, higher resolutions etc.) ... If the game is not quality then i call bullshit, I will pass this game and not purchase it if it is a mediocre release of a console game for the hardcore gamer (PC).

Thanks for the warning.

ps: the system reqs are not that bad, a mid range pc can handle them with ease. Its not the hardware causing the problems as stated. Its the poor porting to PC which is ridiculous, what the hell did they design this game on?

they release this as a buggy POS with insane system requirements....
I bet they blame piracy for bad sales!

You are getting 30FPS.

Performance is horrid on every machine, low or high spec'd

Sounds like the buggiest AAA title to be released ever.. see how the patches start coming out before I make my decision on getting it or sticking to the 360 version and declaring this a shit console port gone wrong.

I'll bet they took the time to make sure the DRM works flawlessly.

There's a surprise.

</sarcasm>