Whats up with my 5870?

[claypigeon101]

Hey guys, this might be a game-specific question I don't know, but I have a 5870 1gb 850mhz stock and I've got GTA4 on Steam,
Basically I'm struggling to make it look good at all, see my sig for specs but quickly i've got a 3.4ghz AMD 965 quad, 1gb 850mhz 5870, 2x2gb ddr2 6400, and a quick F1 spinpoint HDD...

I've got details on medium or low, draw distance about 30% and detail distance and car detail about the same, vsync on or off doesnt make much difference cos i dont get much about 40fps in 1920x1080, thats playable enough but its not constant and drops down into the twenties...

surely my rig can at least play medium settings fine @ 1920res? or am i missing something?
not much going on in the background, even webroot anti virus is on 'game mode' so no executable things going on in the background.

is it my rig, or is it just steam?
thanks

 

[Garonazz]

Its not your systems fault, GTA4 is just one of the crappiest optimized games on the market.
You know who to blame.

 

[Liquiduk]

Its not your systems fault, GTA4 is just one of the crappiest optimized games on the market.
You know who to blame.

This.
A bit of advice, if you see a game with the same kind of gaphic capability and it is performing well compared to the one performing badly (xD) then it will likely be down to a poorly optimazed game

 

[claypigeon101]

I've got Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, HAWX, COD5, Arkham Asylum... ALL running 1920x1080 and at either high or max settings, so i blame the game. shame, cos i really wanna play it. probably save it til i get an nvidia card, that might handle it a bit better just cos developers love nvidia to bits. i wont be getting an nvidia card any time soon mind... maybe christmas

 

[Confused Stu]

Don't expect a graphics card change to make any improvements in GTAIV - that game is actually CPU bound on 99% of systems. I know the benchies are quite old and the hardware mentioned out of date, but these show what I mean:

CPU scaling: http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...ark-review-with-13-processors/Reviews/?page=2
GPU scaling: http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...Ati-and-Nvidia-graphics-cards/Reviews/?page=2

Short version is, once you get past a certain graphics card (usually around a 4870) having a faster card won't make a difference because your CPU will be the thing determining your frame rate. The only difference a higher graphics card than your 5870 will do is if you go for a 2GB card, it won't be any quicker but it will unlock the higher graphics settings in the menus.

GTA4 was the only game my [email protected] + 5870 combo struggled with on one screen (1920x1200). My new 2600k @ 4.6 + 2x5870 handles it better but outdoors in the game I still see the wrong side of 40fps at times (but now I am playing at 5760x1080).

As the others have said, the game is badly coded, heavily reliant on the CPU and doesn't even seem to use it efficiently (i.e. increasing CPU power doesn't improve game performance correspondingly). My advice, set the graphics to a level you can live with and just play the game - I want to hate it but it's just too much FUN!!!

 

[V F]

It sickens me at times when you see games like this perform so bad on the PC for todays hardware and the majority of games thats coded for consoles that only has 256MB.

Imagine if game devs actually optimized PC games/ports like they did for consoles or should I say made it to it's full potential.

MX vs ATV Reflex is another shoddy poorly ported game. It looks worse on the console because it has no anti-aliasing.

 

[claypigeon101]

Tru dat. Thanks for all your input guys. Although however Confused Stu... yes I have a 5870 and that doesn't matter that much I might as well have a 4850 or something...but I've got a Phenom2 965 quad core running at stock 3.6ghz for goodness sake?? Mad times. Maybe if I up clock the card to 900mhz and take the phenom to about 4ghz, i've got watercooling so i should be fine.
So it's definitely not my 2x2gb pc2 6400 ram?