HD 6870 lags in GTA IV?

Alienware M17x Soft-Touch, Stealth Black
Intel Core i7 2670QM 2.2GHz (3.1GHz w/Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz (2DIMMS)

Any idea why it lags every 3 sec in GTA IV when it's supposed be able to run on high settings?

 

you make sure you are running on the discrete card?

 

I think so. When I right click desktop and chose the graphics card option or whatever, it shows that I'm using high performance GPU option

 

hmm have you played other games with no problems?

 

Yeah, I played MW3 on highest settings without any problems.

 

hmm, gta 4 is poorly coded, i tried it at one point and it didn't work maybe ill try it again and see what settings I can get

 

Been doing some research and some ppl say that if you switch from unganged mode to ganged mode in BIOS, it should run smoothly. I didn't see it in there though... do you happen to know what those are and where to change the settings?

 

hmm I have never heard of a setting like that even in the unlocked bios wonder what it is.

 

3 second lags? DPC latency or throttling perhaps?

 

It's one of the most poorly optimized games ever. There are so many problems with it. Try reducing the draw distance. It's not your GPU or CPU. It's the way the game loads stuff in real time off the hard disk I suspect. It keeps having to re-query the hard disk for distant draws and I believe this is why you see the lag every few seconds.

I haven't played it for a long time but I am sure that was my issue. Of course my hard disk is non SSD, if yours is installed on a SSD then that may not be the issue - but I bet it is!

 

Does anyone think it might be the RAM problem? Maybe 4 GB isn't enough?

 

nah its not the ram, games don't use that much RAM hmmm what are your exact framrates?

 

it's been 50 something when I run benchmark. When i played the DLC version, the game runs smoothly... Would it be the game's problem?

 

might be. Have you tried reinstalling it?

 

I have the 6970M and went out and brought the new (but old) GTA IV games in one package.

Really was hoping that moving from my Core 2 Quad desktop to the Alienware would fix the frame problem, but hasn't.

I am sure the way the game is coded is the problem, as others have said. If you search the net, then it is a common answer to the problem. The solution, well is there every going to be one?

I have GTA IV for Xbox 360 and seems fine, although the graphics are not that great compare to the PC, and thats why I want to play on PC instead due to the greater flexibility.

 

Yeah... still the same

 

sounds like a coding issue then if you aren't having problems in other games. when I had the game installed, I couldn't even get it to run so at least its working ok for you there