GTA IV optimization on G73JH

Lately I've been playing my way through the campaign of GTA IV.

I've done a lot of playing around with the graphic settings (both in 720 and 1080p) and found that to get any quite decent frame rate, I need to have my settings pretty much at the lowest.

Lowest setting for everything: Render quality, Texture quality, car density = 0, etc. Everything on low, EXCEPT for the resolution, which I leave at 1920x1080

However, I've seen a couple videos around the forum like this one that make me think I'm doing something wrong. I'm just wondering if anybody has some good tips for getting the most bang out of the G73 on this game.

Thanks, here's the vid, taken from this thread:

6/12/10 by Quagmire LXIX: EFLC The Ballad of Gay Tony mission "Kibbutz Number One" Gameplay. 10.6 Leaked CCC. Stock GPU clocks.

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Hello joncom. What is it like for you when you set the exact same settings I have in the game? Do your FPS look similar?

There are microfreezes when I play (always in daylight haze) while driving and I just deal.
If you run HWiNFO32 while gaming in GTAIV, you'll want to close that.

Also, keep in mind the vid is EFLC, not the original GTA IV with DLC. My understanding is that EFLC is a little better optimized from its port, "little"

Q

 

I keep my stuff at high and densities around 40-50, and I get a steady 35 fps unless it is foggy at night in a shadowed area when I'm blowing things up. Pretty sure I'd get 45 or so by lowering the res to 1600x900.

I do get microstuttering while flying a chopper fast, no idea why.

 

are you sure you are running on High Performance Mode? most FPS issues are related to that. The laptop should have no issues giving you decent playable framerates on high settings

 

What are your exact settings. I didn't see them in the other thread, but I can tell you have set your configurations a little higher than I have.

I ran GTA IV with fraps on my current configuration, "zeros" with 1080p. I get no higher than 31. It almost seems to be capped. And I also get little microfreezes, here and there, making fraps-FPS drop to about 15, but otherwise, it usually hovers around the higher part of 22-31.

Not running that.

I don't even break 31 FPS on low-low settings. I'm at 1080p 60Hz so it's not an issue of Vertical Sync, which would cap me at 60. I don't get it.

Yep. High Perforance mode.

I know my laptop should be at least better than what I'm seeing.

In an attempt to optimize my graphics, I added a file called "Commandline.txt" in my main GTA IV directory with the following content:

Code:

-norestriction
-nomemrestrict
-availablevidmem 1000
-percentvidmem 100

-renderquality 0
-shadowdensity 0
-texturequality 0
-viewdistance 0
-detailquality 0
-novblank 1

Hey Quagmire, what is the name of the screen capturing software you used to make your video?

 

Settings are at the 27 second mark of that video you pointed out

I use a camcorder, not screen capture.

You have that game patched right? GTA IV has patches to my understanding.

Q

 

Oh right, haha. I forgot you showed your settings in the vid.

Using the commandline.txt to change a few settings, such as disabling the game's precaching, it seems to be running smoother now, even on High Texture/Render Quality.

Still, I do not break 31 frames per second. In fact, I'm closer to 24...

It seems this is pretty common for this laptop? I mean, should I expect much more from it?

Quagmire, you look (and I'm guessing obviously) to be getting around 30 FPS, a decent frame rate, and you're using Medium/High settings. Whereas mine are on high/high right now.

I'm happy with how it's performing now anyway. I'm not sure why, but it certainly wasn't performing before I posted this thread.

Thx