Why is GTA 4 so laggy on my PC?

Why the hell is this game soo f'ing laggy? I play other games like L.A Noire, Alan Wake, Mafia 2, etc and they aren't laggy. Any ideas? I have to play on medium settings to get a playable frame rate.


This is my PC spec

AMD FX 8350
ASUS ASUS M5A97 R2.0 Motherboard
AMD HD Radeon 7950 3GB
16GB Corsair DDR3 RAM
1TB 7200rpm Wester Digital HDD
128GB SSD Samsung
650W SeaSonic PSU

Because gta 4 is so poorly optimised that even powerful graphics cards such as the 7950 cannot provide a smooth frame rate. I believe its the same for Nvidia cards, but AMD cards are hit slightly harder.

It is a demanding game but seems strange that your having issues only with GTA?

Your not running any profiles in your gfx setting or anything obvious like that?

Its a pants game uninstall it and profit.


Ive ran it on my 3570k around 4ghz and gtx 580 and it ran just under 60fps with dips below 60.All that with 2009 textures,drawdistance and no MSAA.Now go play Just cause 2 and watch in amazement as how it looks literally 4 times as good and hardly ever drops below 60.

Looks like grey brown turd anyways without AA.The only saving grace was putting down drawdistance to 40% or so.


And im betting it is your CPU.I wont waste my time on trying it again at 4.6ghz as it looks awful.Rather wait a year for GTA V.

Runs fine maxed out on my system Great game with mods.

Check that your card is ramping up to full speed and not using crippled core and memory clocks.

Other than that, it should run fine - I run it without issues with a 2500k and 6950...

Because you have not patched the game (and probably neither has anyone else)
It runs fine, looks fantastic (IMO) and great fun online. Turf war with 4 people driving around in 1 car is fun - just not when you get RPGd by the other team

i5@4ghz, 8gb, GTX670.


1.0.7.0, texture mods, ENB

A few screenshots - 1440p

My rig runs it superb, 60+ fps everything maxed. Wasn't the case on my 6850 and 7950 though, ran like ****, so it's just one of the few cases of AMD being unoptimal cards for the task, you'd need Nvidia and preferably an Intel CPU to get a silky experience from IV.

Not to say that the game isn't a poorly coded piece of trash though, it shouldn't have trouble on an AMD, that's half the market...

Runs okay on my 6xxx. Go buy Saints Row, much more fun.

Andy_pandy said:

Why the hell is this game soo f'ing laggy? I play other games like L.A Noire, Alan Wake, Mafia 2, etc and they aren't laggy. Any ideas? I have to play on medium settings to get a playable frame rate.


This is my PC spec

AMD FX 8350
ASUS ASUS M5A97 R2.0 Motherboard
AMD HD Radeon 7950 3GB
16GB Corsair DDR3 RAM
1TB 7200rpm Wester Digital HDD
128GB SSD Samsung
650W SeaSonic PSU

Click to expand...

Try with shadows at medium/low or disabled. Those induce stuttering/lag.

Omaeka said:

My rig runs it superb, 60+ fps everything maxed. Wasn't the case on my 6850 and 7950 though, ran like ****, so it's just one of the few cases of AMD being unoptimal cards for the task, you'd need Nvidia and preferably an Intel CPU to get a silky experience from IV.

Not to say that the game isn't a poorly coded piece of trash though, it shouldn't have trouble on an AMD, that's half the market...

Click to expand...

Ran fine on my 6950 as well.

My system runs it absolutely fine. GTX 480, i7 930 4ghz and 6gb ram. Make sure you have the latest drivers. Updating my drivers massively improved the performance, though that was back in 2010

Calin Banc said:

Try with shadows at medium/low or disabled. Those induce stuttering/lag.

Click to expand...

I find this too.

I'm on the 13.1 whql drivers for my 7970 with an i7 [email protected]

i tried experimenting with a few drivers but the 12 series gave me texture corruption.

anyway op just disable shadows for an instant performance boost.

edit: fully patched to 1.0.7.0 btw

I could run GTA 4 perfectly smooth enough with a ATi 3870.

Phil2008 said:

I could run GTA 4 perfectly smooth enough with a ATi 3870.

Click to expand...

Works great on my rig in my sig as well.

Because your CPU is pants

kohlditz said:

Runs okay on my 6xxx. Go buy Saints Row, much more fun.

Click to expand...

Gotta agree with this

Played through GTA IV recently, and ran fine for me unpatched

bunnox said:

Because your CPU is pants

Click to expand...

The 8350 is a decent CPU mate, but some games are anti-AMD in certain regards, GTA IV is definitely geared towards Intel, it was completely unplayable for me until I dropped a FX-4100 for a 3570k.

The fact that I saw little or no improvement going from a Q9550 @ 3.4ghz / HD5870 to 2700K @ 4.6ghz / GTX680, tells you everything you need to know.

I'm usually not one to use the term 'console port' at the slightest hint of a game failing to meet my stringent PC expectations, but this game is a proper console port, i.e. dog****.

Runs fine on my system with everything maxxed out.