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Grand Theft Auto IV PC Now Available

Added by Jeff Gerstmann on Dec. 3, 2008

36 comments

The boys are back in town.

Yesterday was the day for GTA IV on Steam, and the game is also popping up in stores this week, as well. I had originally hoped to actually play the game last night, but instead spent a good long time watching Steam download the game. It's around 15GB, which is computer talk for "big."

Of course, it's big in scope, too, and it's gotten a bit bigger on the PC with additions like a doubled multiplayer count and a video editor that lets you toss together replay clips for... well, I'm not actually sure what that's good for. The clips that Rockstar released to showcase the editor seemed kind of plain. Plus, GTA IV's not really the wacky sort of game that needs a replay editor. We'll see, I guess, if anyone does anything rad with it.

It also sounds like there's a group of users having a lot of trouble getting the game going or that the system requirements are quite a bit higher than advertised if you want the game to look decent. For the record, here's what Steam is reporting on that front...

OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / Windows XP - Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4GHz
Memory: 1.5GB Vista / 1GB XP
Graphics: 256MB Nvidia 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c Compliant Card
Hard Drive: 16GB of Hard Disc Space
Sound Card: 5.1 Channel Audio Card

...requires a 5.1 sound card? Hmm... yeah, that seems like an error. If not, I guess I'll have to rush out of the house when I get home tonight to buy a sound card. I'm still rocking onboard sound.

I'm pretty excited to play GTA IV again, as I haven't really touched it since April or May. But if the game chugs as badly as a lot of people are claiming, it could be a pretty disappointing return to Liberty City.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Have any of you taken the plunge yet? If so, how's it running?

Filed under : Grand Theft Auto IV

36 Comments

Foxillusion
on Dec. 3, 2008

Runs fine on my machine. But, my computer is a beast, and I'm enough of a nerd to swap out hardware very frequently to keep it current, so I can't speak for less-awesome PC's.

Kibblez
on Dec. 3, 2008

Cool beans. I'd also just like to mention that I think Jeff's review of the console versions was spot on.

dtran1212
on Dec. 3, 2008

Death_Burnout
on Dec. 3, 2008

Well ok heres a thing, sometimes in GTA IV and any GTA you'll often encounter these super awesome accidents, or things that happen by chance, like when you bail off a bike and hit something in such a freak awesome event of timing, most of the time no one else will see that other than you, and that can be really annoying, so having something like that where i can save it would be totally awesome.

Im extremely tempted to get it again for the PC, but i aints got no cash right now.

PlasmaBeam44
on Dec. 3, 2008

My PC has more than what is advertised to run GTA IV and my PC can't even run World of Warcraft at the highest settings. Your going to need a beast of a machine to get GTA IV running as well as the 360 and PS3 versions.

Hamz is online
on Dec. 3, 2008

I haven't taken the dip into the GTA4 pool yet, i've heard stories of technical issues that are borderline game breaking for some people. That and i tend to get through half of any GTA game and just stop due to boredom. Might get it later down the line.

majnuker
on Dec. 3, 2008

Sick shit. was waiting for this to happen.

*Begins download*

artofwar420
on Dec. 3, 2008

Player1
on Dec. 3, 2008

This is a amazing game. For anyone who missed it on the consoles I would 100% recommend to check this out.

TaintedSun
on Dec. 3, 2008

@ ditran1212 - Perhaps the idea of saving paper, gasoline, and time?

Edit -

Uh, anyone who had planned to run games on their PC should have better specs than those, I don't understand the concern.

TrueEnglishGent
on Dec. 3, 2008

Been playing it, it's a messy port though. As many of the same bugs that affected the Console version and the graphical options kinda suck.

Big Warning though, it takes a pretty good gaming PC to get the game to look as good as the console version. Sadly the lack of AA and V-Sync means I'd recommend folks keep to the console version.

smithy1983uk
on Dec. 3, 2008

for me its running ok specs are q6600 @ 3.0ghz, 4gb ram ,ati 4870 512mb vista x64 sp1 geting around 45fps and looks good i am waiting for december the 7th as ati are ment to be bringing the 8.12 drivers

the thing about it tho it does like alot of video memory it even has a little couter so you know if you have put the gfx up to high not had a look at multi player yet

DJDarkViper
on Dec. 3, 2008

Plasmabeam, what are your system specs? I have some pretty mid-ranged stuff by todays standards and WoW runs perfectly fine on the highest of high settings.

im rocking a Q6600 Quad Core (2.4ghz) and a e-GeForce 8800 with 3GB of memory. Not difficult to obtain and getting pretty cheap in thsi day and age.

StaticFalconar
on Dec. 3, 2008

depending on your mobo, some onboard sound is 5.1

ahoodedfigure
on Dec. 3, 2008

If it does require 5.1, just turn your monitor all sepia and pretend it's in the silent pictures days.

breton
on Dec. 3, 2008

Sounds like it was a shoddy port. Every forum I've went to has been flooded with complaints about graphical and framerate issues. And not just with minimum requirements. But maybe that's just a loud minority...

daniel_beck_90
on Dec. 3, 2008

everyone should give this game a shot , specially those who have not played the console version .

onClipEvent
on Dec. 3, 2008

There are plenty of negative experiences when it comes to system specs, check out Blue's News' comments about the game:
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=93717
The game is a CPU hog, and requires a good quad-core to get good framerates. Plus, don't even think about playing in highish resolution with high texture quality (1920x1200+) unless you have more than 600MB of video memory. Rockstar quote: "At 2560*1600 the game will require 320MB of video memory in addition to all the memory required for content."
Oh, and SLI is not currently supported, Crossfire is OK.

warxsnake
on Dec. 3, 2008

lets just say its not going too well for gta4 pc. no thanks to GFWL. and how you are required to use Social Club

Also the game practically requires a quad core.

Pop
on Dec. 3, 2008

wow the system specs are off the chart... screw that what is that a 800$ computer? No it's not gonna work!

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