GPU: R9 290 4GB

CPU: i5-3570 3.4ghz

RAM: 8 GB

It runs perfectly fine on foot, but driving too fast at night makes it get pretty choppy, and during the day it's literally impossible to drive with any degree of accuracy, which makes some of the missions a little bit difficult. I've got most things set to High, with stuff like shadows, particles and distance scaling set as low as they can go. I feel like I've seen people report better performance on worse setups than mine, so I'm just wondering if I can do anything to smooth the framerate out that'll benefit other games too, or if I just have to swallow my pride and dial the settings back.

What AA setting are you using and how high is your draw distance? Turning those two down might help.

@splodge: My AA is at 2X and the draw distance (assuming that's the distance scaling?) is right down. Since it only seems to happen when I'm driving somewhat quickly, I'm wondering if it's just the game trying to load new areas in and getting choked up somewhere along the line, since on-foot stuff is perfectly smooth, even when I had my settings jacked way up.

I'd put money on the processor. I'm 8GB RAM and debating whether it would help but don't see how. Remember hearing about how a lot of open world city games rely on processor (i.e. its what caused AC:Unity to perform so badly) processing population density / draw distance etc so could try toning those down?

Post-fx seems to give a huge hit, try lowering it to very-high or high, I also was having problems with grass of all things... smooth 60 FPS all around but all I had to do was go to a grassy area and it would tank to mid 40's... and I have a pretty beefy system, 4790K, oc 980 and 16 GB RAM.

then I lowered grass to very-high and ticked msaa down from 4 to 2 (with mfaa enabled on control panel so I'm supposedly getting 4x quality at 2x performance), I think that it may have something to do with all the grass getting anti-aliased, now it seems to be smooth all around.

@the_nubster: What resolution are you playing at? (Also always add your resolution.)

Yeah I dunno, I have a 2500k and a 760 and I get better performance than you, although I do have my 2500k running at 4.4ghz, so maybe it is just your cpu.

@alexw00d: Hmm, interesting. Maybe it is time to invest in a new CPU, then. I put this computer together when it was running a 7870, so it was built around that idea.

@hassun: 1920x1080. Oopsies!

@onarum: I've got everything to the lowest it will go and it's still chugging to an unplayable degree. I just realized that I didn't download the GTA5 driver though, so I'm going to give that a shot and see how it goes.

@the_nubster: idk.. doesn't make sense that even with everything on low it still is unplayable with your specs, an i5 running like at a 1 GHz higher clock shouldn't make that big of a difference... yeah try the driver and see if it helps.

How are your temps? it could be the case that either the gpu or cpu are overheating and some throttling is happening.

@the_nubster: I heard the specific drivers that have been released for the game improve performance a fair bit.

That GTA launcher is a big CPU hog. I'd try changing its priority to low in the task manager and setting the actual game to high. (This might not work, but it did something for me, it's just a weird troubleshooting thing).

I noticed in the nvidia Geforce Experience they recommend Distance Scaling at 100%, Extended Distance Scaling at 30%, and extended shadows at 30% instead of all maxed out, so I adjusted that and gained about 10-20fps. I took distance scaling down to 30 too since I couldnt tell that maxing it did much and gained about 10 more fps.

@the_nubster: This Digital Foundry article might help you find some clues as to what the problem is. It does seem like the game is quite CPU dependent.

Stuttering during high-speed driving would indicate to me that it's perhaps running into streaming issues. Maybe your hard drive is the bottleneck.

Hard drive is indeed a prime candidate with games like this, especially if it seems like lowering (most) of your graphics settings isn't making much of a difference. When you're driving, the game will likely need to dip into your hard drive for new assets far more frequently than when you are on foot. If your hard drive can't keep up with that demand then it will start to stutter (if you alt tab out to Resource Monitor when this starts to happen you will probably see a spike in Hard Faults on the memory tab).

If this is the cause then lowering most of your graphic settings often won't help very much, but lowering texture quality probably will as it should reduce the amount of data the hard drive has to hand off to the game.

Is your GPU overheating? Or your processor? How many processes do you have going in the background?

I'm hesitant to place the blame on your memory but 8GB on a Windows OS isn't that safe IMO (I'm sure it's actually fine for most but 16GB gives much needed extra comfort). I'd monitor the temps of your GPU and your processor as more load is placed on them. Listen for fans that start to whir faster in your computer. As far as an HD goes, I'm playing all of my games off of a 7200RPM Seagate 1TB and this game runs just peachy for me. I have a 4690k, 16GB, and a R290 (DCUII).

What brand is your 290? Is it a stock AMD? Those are notorious for heat mismanagement. With a game like this it wouldn't surprise me one bit to hear that it's chugging.

Download a program called HWmonitor. It should show you the heat off both your processor and your GPU. Start the game up, alt tab out, and check on the readings.

@kane_233: it is a stock card. When I got it, I actually left the side of my case open for ventilation, but until now, the heat has never been an issue. I'll try that program and see what it says post-driver update.

Heh, I'm running the game off of an SSD and exceed the recommended specs and this crap still happens to me. Tried updating drivers, etc. The game is running poorly for a decent portion of people, and it's a bug that Rockstar already knows about. I'm sure we'll get a patch sometime by December (going by Rockstar timetables.)

Honestly, it shouldn't. I'd recheck to see if your processor is seated correctly and/or if the thermal paste was applied correctly. Outside of that, check your temps as well. I suspect that some of those out there with poor performance aren't checking everything. It's just hard for me to fathom simply because it typically happens to me.

For example, I just downloaded the new drivers now for the first time. I've been running the game on the older drivers. So we'll see how thisi pans out.

I have the same CPU (stock speeds) and a 970 GTX. No problems with everything on very high for me. Video memory is a problem on ultra, but it's only the GPU getting strained.

Try running something like MSI Afterburner to check how your hardware is getting loaded. Just run the game, and alt-tab when your framerate is dropping - check out what's maxing out at that time.

This is why I don't think I could ever get into high end PC gaming. The increase in performance/graphics is great, but the stuff in this thread would make me crazy. And its not that I don't understand any of this stuff, the fact that I do is the part that would make me crazy.

@kane_233: So, downloaded the driver and gave things a go post-update, with a bunch of things open on my second monitor to keep an eye on performance, including HWmonitor. I played it a bit with everything as low as it could go and didn't fall below 60 the entire time I was playing, so I put all of the settings back up to how I had them normally; most things are on normal, distance and pop. variety are about 30% and density is maxed. MSAA is on and FXAA is at 2X (or the other way around, I forget which is a toggle). Tesselation is high, shadows are on the AMD setting, textures are very high and whatever else is left is on high.

Memory maxes out around 6 GB, so that's not an issue. My CPU is being used to about 95% and no higher, so it's possible that may be holding something back (I'm assuming it doesn't go to 100%). My graphics card hovers around 88-90 degrees during normal play, and 94 at max if I'm making a point to cook it down the highway at full-speed. However, I'm getting slightly over 60 FPS most of the time and the lowest I noticed it go was 45. Whatever was giving me a hard time is still at work, clearly, but it seems like the driver update made it a billion times more stable than it was.

Sounds like a slow HDD to me. Someone already suggested this a few hours ago, not sure if you saw their post or not.

Also make sure high resolution shadows and long shadows settings are off

That actually hinders cooling as it ruins the airflow of the case.

Do you have the new beta drivers installed?

I have the same CPU (OCed to 4,2 Ghz though) and a 7970 and I get a solid 60 fps (except some weird micro stuttering which seems to be independent from what settings I choose).

I was was on some older diver version before that and I had dips into the 40s all the time.

Other than that, yeah the game's real heavy on the CPU. Wondering how i5s compare to i7s in this one.

It's the thrill of the chase man! Seeing if your system can handle the latest games or seeing if your under performing system can play the latest games with just changing around a few settings in the game or on your gfx panel.

It's the equivalent to Dark Souls with money equaling souls.

What if I blow a fan into it. What then, Mr. Smart Guy.

@the_nubster: Are you by any chance running the game windowed border-less? I tried this, and the game ran much slower than in full-screen.

@saik0u: I definitely am running it windowed borderless. I wonder if that changes the priority of it? I made the game high-priority and the launcher low-, previously they were both the opposite of that. Hopefully changing it to full-screen will give even more of a gain.

Yeah, windowed/windowed borderless causes some pretty severe stuttering and a significantly lower framerate for me.

@the_nubster: low spec computer guy here. Me personally I'd ditch the Anti-aliasing and see if that helped.

On a side note I had this same exact problem with GTA 3 on the pc with a Pentium 2 computer about 15 years ago, I fixed the problem by buying a ps2.

Processor, you want about 4ghz.

Mess around with your AA, distance sliders, post and turn off the advanced graphics.

Or you you could look into overclocking and bring the chip over 4ghz, then your system should run it great. I think that is dependant on if your chip is a K though.

Tried your advice, can confirm: PS2 fixed the problem.

But really, whatever it was, a mix of the driver update and settings and the full-screen thing has me at a comfortable level. Thanks all for your help!

@the_nubster: good old ps2 always does, glad you got it running smooth.

@the_nubster: What kind of Hard Drive do you have? Is it a 5400rpm or 7200rpm? Maybe you've even got an SSD.....

It's a 7200 RPM Seagate 1TB, I believe. Seems to be doing its job now.

Ok, well if all is well then enjoy this bombass game.

Anybody see what I did there? Anyone?

Skip advanced graphics and set grass to normal and shadows to soft or lower. Then tweak to your liking after that.

It's your processor. I'm running a GTX 770 SC Edition on 8gb of RAM and i have an i5-3570K. I was having the same issue until I tweaked the settings. I'm at 1080p 60fps (almost steady, just polishing out a few odds and ends with hitching while I drive) with my textures and reflections very high, but things like tessellation off. Make sure you turn on "Ignore Suggested Limits" too, for some reason I've found that to make your performance worse.