The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    GTA 4 HDD Speed

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by Shaythong, Dec 7, 2010.

  1. Shaythong

    Shaythong Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    6
    Messages:
    397
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I'm just wondering whether 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM would really make a big difference in GTA 4? Since the maps are pretty huge and I'm not really sure how well the game is optimized.
     
    Shaythong, Dec 7, 2010
    #1
  2. RainMotorsports

    RainMotorsports Formerly ClutchX2

    Reputations:
    565
    Messages:
    2,382
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Im not sure if there is a later patch since I ran it but the port was HORRIBLE.

    CPU bottle necks and the basic quad core requirement are the main issue. I don't believe you will find an HDD upgrade to be satisfying and same goes for any minor differences in GPU. if the CPU cant keep up everything is bottlenecked around it.

    In the desktop arena a test was done with i believe 13 CPUs and a couple of GPU's. Brought overclocked dual cores to their knees and the graphics cards had alot less to say about frame rate than the cpu. I never felt I had issues with the hdd data loading.
     
    RainMotorsports, Dec 7, 2010
    #2
  3. tuηay

    tuηay o TuNaY o

    Reputations:
    492
    Messages:
    3,711
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    GTA 4 has been much better with the new patchs. I went from a 7200 RPM drive to a SSD. I did not notice a increase, in loading overall. Still the CPU is the thing.
     
    tuηay, Dec 7, 2010
    #3
  4. Mythdat

    Mythdat Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    110
    Messages:
    449
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Going from a 5400 RPM HDD to an SSD made no difference for me. It's all about the CPU.
     
    Mythdat, Dec 7, 2010
    #4
  5. DCMAKER

    DCMAKER Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    116
    Messages:
    934
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I don't know if it would make any differance. I went from my laptop 7200rpm internals to my 1TB 7200 RPM external, which is a lot faster and i never see any difference in any of my games. When loading screens come up for any games i barely see the HDD lights flash so i doubt it. I remember back in the day (ten years ago) faster hardrives made the world of a difference but now i do not know what the bottlenecks are.
     
    DCMAKER, Dec 7, 2010
    #5
  6. XTC

    XTC Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    3
    Messages:
    43
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    it's only insanely(!!) cpu heavy. and that is because it's not optimized well at all. i can play it on my laptop, but with high/medium mixed settings.. and sliders less than halfway iirc.. u'll have to fiddle around with the settings a lot unless u've got a quad core.

    when i got a quad core for my PC (not the laptop obv.) it simply made all the difference in the world. could get the sliders at least two times higher, at the same time having better fps than on dual-core with lower settings.

    eflc's tbogt felt smoother than IV for me, can't say the same about tlad, seems to be related to timecyc.dat values at least.
     
    XTC, Dec 7, 2010
    #6