Why does my GTA 4 look like because of sketchy textures?

I recently got GTA 4 and you may have viewed the post as soon as i got it claiming it ran like , but i discovered that i just needed to avoid using the availablevidmem command at 2.0 because i only had 2GB's of RAM and it ran like because textures had to bounce between RAM and GPU VRAM, so i stopped using the command and now i get fine FPS (20-35) and figured out it wasn't that my CPU or GPU wasn't strong enough to run it, but that i needed more RAM, or that's what i thought. I do however have textures that aren't fully loaded until you stand in one place for a couple of seconds, and this goes on anytime and everywhere, with no loss of FPS, and mainly crappy textures that make this beautiful city look like crap unless it's in a screenshot. I am using 195.62 drivers which as you know support ThinkPad Quadro's finally, no overclocking. What i really can't fathom is that i see videos on youtube, numerous ones in fact, where people are playing it on mine, and even lesser hardware, with full vision and trees that look as they should, and most importantly, they are all 256MB cards that i've seen these videos on, and most are using only 2GB's of RAM. I initially thought the sketchy texture loading was because of lack of RAM, but i am beginning to think it is something else, can anyone explain to me what the solution could be, other than "throwing better hardware at it" which i already know isn't the main problem.

 

Overclocking?

What happens when you overclock the GPU, does it get better?

Maybe you should overclock the FSB (not just for the extra CPU speed but also to make the shared ram faster for your video card).

 

No it doesn;t get any better, i've tried, and seeing as i have an affected G86 GPU, i don't want to very frequently, but i'm going to install 186.81 drivers tonight, then i'll try overclocking the FSB.

 

Isn't it the G84M core not the G86?

Anyway, I guess you shouldn't overclock the GPU if you have that chip.

Does it happen if you increase the settings?

 

The core of his Quadro is pretty much directly based off the 8600M GT...

Anyway, I suggest you lower the settings in small increments, and see if it happens less. I think I get what you mean, and I think the same thing happens on my 8600 GTS if I have something like Texture Filter Quality too high.

And also, how did you get it to run so good on your Thinkpad? It runs like crap on my laptop, even though my specs are pretty much on par with yours...

 

So I'm right, it has a G84 core, not 86.

 

He must have named it incorrectly then, probably a typo or a mistake.

 

Well maybe i will lower texture filter settings then, but doesn't texture filter settings just translate to AA and AF, i installed 186.82 drivers and saw no improvement to the textures problem, i also heard that the problem is from textures that aren't loading fast enough into RAM cache, so i tried SysTweak which automatically clears RAM cache and optimizes it, but it didn't help and actually slowed my system down, i do however have a 1GB Turbo Mem (first generation) module that i took out because i saw no difference between boot times, but do you think i could get textures stored on that with a program or anything? I've also tried lowering all settings to lowest and i still have the same problem... 186.82 did seem to solve the problem in the beginning but i think it was just a placebo because the same thing started happening as with 195.62 drivers, i don't have any file hosting accounts on a website to post a screenshot, but maybe i'll get one and show you just how good it can look if all textures are fully rasterized. It's a pain to see the potential of something and just know what you are missing, because it does take away from the beauty of the game when roads just get randomly grey, or sometimes some textures don't load at all, like when i pop up at Schottler Hospital from passing out, the bushes in the area where the concrete benches are, never load.

 

I wish i could get it to even play, the textures are all messed up just like the OP describe. Hope you get the game working for you atleast.

 

Well, how bad are yours? In my situation, if i stay in one spot for a few seconds allowing every texture to be rasterized, then the game looks really great, like when i push people off the cliff near that car repair shop.

 

I don't know how it runs so good... Your 3650 uses DDR2 VRAM however, that may have something to do with it, and my 570M (8600M GT) uses GDDR3 VRAM, which can impact performance as much as 20% vs. DDR2 VRAM. You should be able to play it fine though, theres a youtube vid of a guy playing it pretty smooth on his ThinkPad T400 albeit a LOT lower settings than i play with, (60 detail distance), very fine looking though, wish i could get the textures all looking like his. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5ml7gpj_P8
He's using even lesser of a card than yours, a 3470!

 

Looks like this video
width='425' height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2mzfBVfb6is&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2mzfBVfb6is&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='425' height="344"></embed></object>

 

oh wow.... my problem seems trivial compared to that... almost just an annoyance to me.

 

The new 195.64 Driver from nvidia fixed the problem, i was using modded Desktop ones. I have a GT 130M with DDR3 in a GX403 MSI.

 

I was about to say update your drivers. My 8600 GTS used to do that when I was running 163.71. As soon as I updated to 195.62, it was fixed.

 

I know about the whole GDDR3 vs DDR2 thing, but I have the feeling that something isn't right.

I can set it to low, and it still sucks. But the framerate is different when it's on low. It's better, but it jumps around. For example, when I'm driving on the bridge, the framerate will go slow fast slow fast, so everything else appears to be slow motion, then normal, the slow motion, then normal, and it happens every few seconds. I have just about given up on this game, while I have this laptop anyway. I guess I'll just have to wait until I get a Clevo sometime in the middle of this year.

 

I heard stuttering like that has to do with power management, but only heard this for nVidia GPU's and Powermizer, there is a program to turn Powermizer off but i don't know what could be causing your stuttering. I had that exact same annoying problem when i played GTA SA on my ThinkPad T43 with an ATI X300... sometimes it would appear and sometimes not. Try disabling every process that is running except obviously processes necessary to run the OS, and from msconfig.exe try disabling every startup processes, then try it and if the game runs smooth, allow startup processes to run one by one until you pinpoint what is conflicting with the game, i know it's tedious, but GTA IV is pretty fun.

 

Well, I am only running 45 processes, and nearly all of them are critical to the OS.

I only have two start up programs. >_> Oh well, I'll try it anyway.

 

Right, just disabled the one start up program that can be disabled, which was my Synaptics driver, and it did absolutely nothing. I'm starting to think avast! is the problem.

We're getting pretty off topic here, I really should post my own topic about this.

Anyway, it would be nice if the OP could post a screenshot.

 

Thought i just made a breakthrough, turned out adding a little more VRAM but not too much with the command line, improved things, but i sitll get the stuttering after 5 mins, thought it was the GPU downclocking due to heat, but i Alt+Tab'ed out of it for a few mins to let it cool down, went back in, but still was stuttering, so GPU downclocking is out of the possible problems list. Enabling Medium quality and 2 density shadows made it smooth and popup was eliminated!! I was extremely happy... for a few mins, then the stuttering started again, the cycle of 30FPS down to 1-2, then back up to 30FPS, but if i stay in one place FPS are constant at 30-40, so i'm beginning to think the culprit is RAM again, i may have bad RAM ,but i tested it, and it was fine, might do a full Memtest86 test.. or lack of RAM might be the problem since the stuttering is there even when lowering or increasing settings to full. I'll probably get a 2x4GB set, costly but what the hell. This is beginning to be one of the most finicky games i've ever played, and horribly coded despite numerous patches, considering somehow shadows gave no hit in performance and actually improved it for a few mins. The game is always good in the beginning however, which to me indicates too little RAM, since the OS consumes more RAM the longer it is operating, albeit minute amounts, it may be maxing out my already minimal GTA IV RAM.

 

I think I'm having the same problem as you are.

 

God damn it, you have 4GB's of RAM though... so how the hell am i going to solve this. Have you tried using the commandline.txt trick? I found that using "availablevidmem 1.5" has worked better for me since it allows 1.5 times more VRAM than you have currently to be sucked out of RAM, this may help your problem. However this guy has the same problem as me and claims the problem was that using an x64 OS "...made GTA 4 use more memory than it supposed to..." and that installing Vista x86 fixed the problem completely, but i am using Windows 7 x86 and still have this problem. Also, he was playing even before any of the major performance fix patches were released. I might try reinstalling the game, but i need to ask, can you activate GTA 4 offline?

 

You can't activate it offline.

And I'll give the commandline.txt a try.