GTA IV Intermittent Lag on 8700M GT

I got GTA IV today but i have problems with it.

I'll be playing and all of a sudden the game would drop to about 2 or 3fps making the game unplayable and then the game would speed up after 2 min of lagging and go nicely for about 10 min before lagging out again.

It's not like i'm driving around or anything, i'd just be standing there beating the crap out of someone and the game would lag then speed up.

I even lowered the graphics to the minimum and it did nothing except make the game look crap. still lagged.

Is the 180.84 Drivers available for the 8700m gt yet?
Laptopvideo2go drivers gimme errors.

Here is the benchmark:
Statistics
Average FPS: 20.22
Duration: 37.38 sec
CPU Usage: 96%
System memory usage: 58%
Video memory usage: 100%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1152 x 864 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Render Quality: Medium
View Distance: 10
Detail Distance: 30

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Home Premium
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT
Video Driver version: 178.08
Audio Adapter: Speakers (2- Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80GHz

 

could be cpu throttling because of high temperature. What CPU do you have?

 

sorry but you lappy is not powerfull enough for this game,your settings are to high from what i can see in the benchmarks

 

Hi Moometal I think you have a very very weak cpu for GTA IV.
But 3 fps sounds like strange with those setting.

 

It's the cpu.
It cannot keep up with the graphics card.

 

I have a Intel Core 2 Duo T7100
My computer is in the minimum requirements.

It should be fine with the minimum settings and i've found taht i can take it up to the stats in the benchmark and then game will run smooth and then crap out.

So is my laptop just not powerful enough for even minimum settings or is there something else going on?

 

GTA:IV is highly unoptimised.

It only runs well on a corei7 and gtx280

 

you could over clock the cpu using setFSB that would help probably a bit. Gotta find the PLL number though.

 

@ratchetnclank
i'm not really looking for it to run amazingly, just a 20fps average is enough to keep me happy. Is that too much to ask for? lol

@naticus
i don't want to overclock, this CPU already runs very hot. thanks though

 

I agree, so your quality settings should be on Low instead of Medium, and maybe try lowering the resolution another notch. Your notebook is the bare minimum, so anything higher than the lowest settings won't work too well.

180.84

 

Not sure why yours is randomly lagging but this is what I did with my notebook with a fairly slow cpu.

I oc'd my cpu from 2.0 to 2.3GHz (that increased my average fps by about 8-10fps) and get about 28-35 average fps using the following settings... The game runs fairly smooth most of the time except when it's at night + raining at the same time. Drops down to 20fps but there's nothing I could do. Meh.

Video Mode: 1680 x 1050
Texture Quality: Medium
Render Quality: Medium
View Distance: 10
Detail Distance: 5
Vehicle Intensity: 10
Shadow Intensity: 0

Using 180.84 driver with maximum pre-rendered frames set to 1 (default is 3)
Added commandline.txt in the game folder as well:
(–noprecache -nomemrestrict -norestrictions -novblank -percentvidmem 100 -width 1680 -height 1050 -detailquality 4 -viewdistance 9 -texturequality 1 -shadowdensity 0 -renderquality 1 /high)

Saw this article just now as well.
http://filenetworks.blogspot.com/2008/12/possible-solutions-for-grand-theft-auto.html

 

@Kevin_Jack2.0
I tried lowering down to the minimum setting, 640x480 and everthing on low and 1 and shadows to 0, taht took me up to a nice frame rate but then it happened again. it just slowed down to 4fps and then after awhile it sped up again. Garh lol this is really annoying.

I also tried many drivers, the 180.70 driver was horrible, it got rid of the nvidia control panel and gave me 10fps and the game thought i had a super computer and won't settle less that the maximum settings in graphics. Now i'm back on my old drivers, going to try 180.84 now.

@maksin01
Garh you're lucky lol, i'm not planning to oc my cpu, i'll just try to fiddle aroudn and fix this. I'll try adding those commandlines, i currently use only novblank norestrictions and /high
I'll take a look at the article and try the 180.84 drivers
I'll also try using XP.

UPDATE:
So i downloaded the 180.84 drivers and also the modded inf but it couldn't install, it just said that nothing has been modified and it gave me the option of restarting now or later. Then Vista's Problem Reports and Solutions popped up and told me that "This problem was caused by a compatibility issue between this version of Windows and Age of Empires II Update v2.0a, which was created by Microsoft Corporation."
Lol, i don't have AoEII installed........

 

^^^ Possibly something wrong with your OS than?
Could you completely reinstall Vista?

 

CPU throttling, as Nimble said. Its getting hot and scaling down. Use a notebook cooler and RMClock to reduce voltage and to force a single multiplier so that the down scaling does not occur. Happens even on mine.

 

Turn off Clip Recording to save a few more FPS. Sorry to say but this game is heavily CPU dependent and especially the faster CPU you have the better you run the game

 

definately overheating, try forcing the fans to max speed before running game and get a notebook cooler.

 

Yes, you guys are right, the cpu is overheating lol.
How do i turn the fans on to max and will lowering the voltage lower the performance?

also will forcing a single multiplier so that the cpu does downscale damage the cpu and if not, how do i do that?

currently i've temporarily solved the problem by using ice ... lol

 

Using ice...?

 

Ice near electrical components 0.o

You're a mad man.

 

rofl. using ice? .

 

even puttin it on the outside is bad, condensation is evil.

 

yeah, it's pretty extreme.
I 'm just keeping it near the cpu fan so it sucks in cold air, but at 90degrees, it's evaporate any dew.

So about lowering voltage to the cpu, will that effect the performance of it?
Also, will forcing it to a single multiplier so that it doesnt down scale harm the cpu?

 

Lowering voltages decreases tempretures.

Here's a guide.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

 

At a current customer I work for I am provided with a Dell Optiplex 745. The default voltage was set to 1.375, I managed to undervolt it to 1.1875 and the temperature is now between 26° and 30° Celsius. If it wasn't for the power lights I would thought that the PC was shutdown

I managed to keep the temps of my X9100 below 105° Celsius during intensive CPU usage just by undervolting. Before that I would get temps over 110° Celsius which would lead to a system shut down (if cpu throttling is disabled).

 

Crist.. thats a lot of heat :S CPUs shouldnt hop over 85c.. be careful mate

 

Hopefully my laptop craps out before my warrantly expires, but as life goes, things never work out the way you want it to.

Anyways, i'm undervolting my cpu now ..... it's such a time consuming process.
So far i've managed to take off 5 degrees, pretty pathetic and i've already undervolted it by 0.125V. Hopefully my cpu can take more undervolting ......

 

Statistics
Average FPS: 24.10
Duration: 37.42 sec
CPU Usage: 98%
System memory usage: 77%
Video memory usage: 97%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1024 x 640 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Low
Render Quality: Low
View Distance: 2
Detail Distance: 2

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Business
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT [Dox Optimised 180.84: Alternative]
Video Driver version: 180.84
Audio Adapter: Speakers / Headphones (SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80GHz


Yeah i have the same processor. These settings run pretty nice.

 

i guess the settings i'm trying to run the game on is really over the top for my cpu lol. do you get these lags?

what is the temperature of the cpu when you're playing gta?

i've just managed to shave it down to 90 degrees celcius at 100% load
thats freaking 8 degrees off lol. trying with -0.1500v now.

 

I dont get those lags by the way. It runs smooth. Slight change in fps is noticed when going inside the house but thats the only thing.

Try Dox's 180.84 drivers.

I use a zalman nc 2000 cooler and i keep my temps below 70 degrees.

Im going to try a slight overclock on my graphics card too.

But my shadows look really bad in the game.

 

lol my cooler is a load of crap, got ripped by some asian dude.

anyways, the 180.84 drivers doesn't work for my 8700m gt, comes up with an age of empires 2 update error lol.

i think it's more my cpu than my gpu at the moment anyways haha. maybe it's time for a cpu fan clean.

also, i think the shadows are badly done or something, lots of people are saying it looks like crap. maybe the patch will fix it.

 

Ok so i was tweaking around again. The best playable graphics are this

Resolution at 1280x720 but make sure to turn off scaling in Control Panel.
Everything at 1

Vehicle density at 20

shadow density 0

I think the resolution makes the biggest impact on visual quality. I think i might be able to run texture at medium. Im not sure though. Fing r* locks the settings.

But yeah also try the -nomemrestrict and -norestrictions in your shortcut or make commandline.txt with them in it in your main game folder.

 

Hey, if its 100% distilled ice, it won't hurt anything... pure h20 is neither conductive nor corrosive. Its the stuff in normal water that does the damage. Watch extreme overclocking videos. The N2 they use builds up massive blocks of ice directly on the surface of harware. Wouldn't hurt!

Also, so long as your cpu does not reach tjmax, running the max multiplier should not hurt it. Generally, I prefer to stay 5-10C away from my TJMax.

 

Whats TJMAX?
Lol i am a newb.

I've shaved off about 15 degrees with undervolting.
From 1.1750V down 0.9750V. Currently doing a stability test on 0.9500V, been 22 minutes, so far so good.

@BilalL
when i've found my optimal cpu voltage i'll fiddle around again.

 

TJMax is the maximum safe operating temperature for your CPU, according to Intel Whitesheets. Desktop and many extreme editions are around 105C, most mobile chips are around 95C.

 

oh F*ck lol

My CPU now runs at 83degrees at 100% cpu load on vista and 80 degrees on xp ... lol

thanks guys, now let's wait for the patch and new drivers and hope for another fps boost.