Deceiving title aside,
Today, or yesterday... the 3rd of December, Rockstar released GTA4 for the PC. And me like the giddy, gaming fanatic went out after work and picked up a copy.
After reading through the recommended specs -
OS- Vista: SP1, XP: SP3
Memory- 1.5g Vista, 1g Xp
-16gig free on hdd (I know, what the fuck. largest game i've ever come across)
Video card- 256mb Nvidia 7900 or ATI equivalent
processor Intel core 2 duo 1.8gig (Which is nothing really)
-Thought, yeah... my pc should run this like a dream, After all Farcry 2's specs were far higher and I still ran it on a high medium without hassle
[url]-http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169239-[/url]
Link to farcry 2 recommended specs
But, to continue the story. I get home, get upstairs, throw the game in... sit through the LONG install (The ps3 took maybe 15 minutes to install... the PC version took somewhere between 25 and 35 minutes.. Again, What the fuck), Then dealing with the "Sign up for the rockstar social club, Or we'll fucking kill you" crapolla and then the windows live junk, I finally get to hit the large
"PLAY"
button... And, much to my surprise... it didn't work. "Why have you forsaken me Khorne!!?!" (Opting to not start screaming "KHANNNNNN!!, as it wouldnt of made much sense)
i cried, warranting a visit to my room from my worried mother.
The reason why it didnt work. Vista's grand DEP (I have honestly never heard of it up until this point) claimed that the GTA4 application was "A threat" and that if it where to run then the sky would turn a horrid shade of crimson and the world would be plunged into 1000 years of darkness...
(Nothing against Vista, but... what the fuck, it wouldnt even let me put it in the ignore section of the DEP... and there was no way to turn it off without the console...)
So, after a quick "GTA4 doesnt work" Google search i fixed it. So, again i reached for that blessed "PLAY" button... and the game started, and i got michael hunters "The Soviet connection" (GTA4's main theme) along with the Rockstar logo... then
It crashed..
After repeating my earlier cursing of my fictional yet bloody thirsty god i attempted to fix the problem, and after fifteen minutes of trawling forums full of disgruntled GTA fans i found the solution.
-Insert Legend of Zelda Item acquired music here-
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=nGE0P_jWWSg&feature=relatedPROTIP: Dont release a game that an estimated 6 million people purchased, that requires them all logging onto a single server at once... it doesn't work.
So, after logging out of the Rockstar social club (I found it ironic that the program which it made me install and made me make an account on was the program that stopped the game from running) I managed to start the game up...
Opening sequence, first line of dialogue "Daddy's back, bitches", opening frame of Nico banging on the captains door. This is when i started to worry a bit... the cut scene ran well, but it seemed laggy/choppy... I thought nothing of it, Cut scene continued... my worries increased, the choppyness stayed and increased as theywalked outside the ship, drunk roman appears, game starts...
And, much to my agitation... it ran like dogs balls.
Now, you might be saying to yourself (If you bothered to read this far). But Jager, perhaps your system isnt powerful enough...
To which I would answer, "Man, fuck you... my system is plenty powerful. The benchmark tool (Which is built in) said so, hell, it auto sets the settings onto a high medium (Which you always notch down a bit to improve performance).
Now, I'am not talking the occasional stutter... I'am talking control lag, stutter and just overall terribleness
SO, I jumped into the graphics options and turned everything down a bit... NOTHING, it still ran like shit.
SO, i CRTL+ALT+DEL and open the system processes, then gave GTA4 a "Realtime" priority with the memory which has worked for heaps of games that ran a bit sluggish (Mass effect).
Yet still the game ran terribly... So i jump out and turn off all my background app's (15 programs... ish) YET there is still no improvement. So, out of frustration i turn the games settings onto low and restart it...
AND STILL, IT RAN LIKE SHIT. Now, I asked myself (Out loud of course, the cat was in the room and I felt like announcing my problems to him)
"How the fuck Rockstar could do such things, Mr. Kitty"
It conjured up memories of crysis and its staggering requirements... But crysis still ran really well on medium and it looked a million bucks... but at least with Crysis you knew what you were getting into... it was "Fuck, why is this running like shit" it was "Wow, it actually runs pretty well on medium"
Then i found this
http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=378730
Top bit, ignore the crap below...
Why would you make a game that is intended for "Future systems" when we live in the here and now, and when the fans have waited so long for GTA4's PC debut... and are now being forced to wait (Or shill out a grand for a new systems bits, but from alot of reports this doesn't do shit)
...Now, my spirit has been crushed and I'm current lodged in a "disenfranchise with the gaming world" grove, wondering why I went out and bought a game that I wont feasibly be able to run for a year, maybe two...
Yet, I cant bring myself to make plans to return it. There might be a patch that fixes this shit storm... but there might not be... All I'm left with is a 100$ game (Australia gouges you on the price, the sellers get off on it or something) that will now just be something to look at and wonder "What if" followed by "Fuck you Rockstar".
if you called the ye ol' rule of TL;DR, then here is the short of it.
GTA4, says it can run well on Jagers system... yet doesnt, after much hassle and pain.
Jager is now drawing up plans to launch a one man assault against Rockstar australia (as it is the closet Rockstar office)
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ibsVtVI5B2A&feature=relatedENDING THEME SONG
(Just change anything after the words "Good times" with "Rockstar fucking us over")
