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    Grand Theft Auto 4 Running Poorly

    Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by Jcpbe, May 21, 2012.

  1. Jcpbe

    Jcpbe Newbie

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    Hi all, this is my first post so I hope this is in the right section.

    I recently bought an Alienware M14x R2 and I am absolutely thrilled with it. However, I recently tried playing GTA4 on it and was staggered by how poorly it ran. Even on medium settings my FPS did not go above 25. I've heard that GTA4 is poorly coded for the PC and such, but is there any way I can increase performance?

    Specs:

    CPU: i7 3720qm @ 2.60 GHz (I am not sure on how to overclock this to 3.5ghz as advertised, perhaps someone could give me some pointers?
    GPU: Nvidia 650m 2GB
    RAM: 8GB.


    With these specs I would have thought GTA 4 would be able to run pretty smoothly, especially seeing as Skyrim runs at Ultra with no hiccups whatsoever.
     
    Jcpbe, May 21, 2012
    #1
  2. eats7

    eats7 Notebook Evangelist

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    From what i remember, gta iv is a pain to get running properly. there was a few threads around here about ways to get it working that i was apart of. try searching or if that doesnt work try searching my old posts.
     
    eats7, May 21, 2012
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  3. nuaron

    nuaron Notebook Consultant

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    well i read somewhere it required whitelisting the game in nvidia control panel. try that /
     
    nuaron, May 21, 2012
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  4. bigtonyman

    bigtonyman Desktop Powa!!!

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    yea GTA 4 is a really crappily coded game, and combined with optimus makes lots of problems. There is a few work arounds in a few threads somewhere, but you could start by using the guide in my sig to whitelist the GTA 4 .exe file and see if that helps at all. :)
     
    bigtonyman, May 21, 2012
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  5. eats7

    eats7 Notebook Evangelist

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    once you get it working though it runs rather nicely.
     
    eats7, May 21, 2012
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  6. CGSDR

    CGSDR Alien Master Race

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    The whitelist will not work, because I have this same problem, fortunately I found a solution, and that solution can be found in this link: GTA4 Solution & Benchmark, however you still see that it warn that you have exceed the memory limit but at least it allow you to change the setting around, the link also contain the benchmark I test after I got it work properly. Hope that help.

    Oh, one more thing I also like to mention is that, the GTA4 I had is a DVD version.
     
    CGSDR, May 21, 2012
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  7. WCFire

    WCFire Notebook Evangelist

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    Might seem obvious, but I had similar issues with GTAIV and they were fixed when I updated the game to the latest patch.
     
    WCFire, May 21, 2012
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  8. mudfl4p

    mudfl4p Notebook Enthusiast

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    it's not your computer and it's not that gta iv is badly coded game, it's just a port, meaning it came out on console and they wanted to make more money so they brought it out on pc without any modifications they just ported it over, there are some tweaks around it to make it run good but it's quiet hard
     
    mudfl4p, May 22, 2012
    #8