GTA IV has some weird coding. It's coded to resolution - so if you lower the resolution, it cripples aspects of the engine. The engine assumes that you want to downgrade features based on the resolution. This seems to be having major, major consequences.
Most people find this somewhat bizarre and I think it is clearly leading to the problems that the game is having.
I can report success in dropping the resolution down to 1024 x 768 and then faffing about with it on 1680 x 1050 to shunt the graphics engine up into gear.
I can now play it very well on my PC, but I had to do a lot of faffing about to trick the engine.
I think the engine needs coaxing into shaking off the built-in throttling that Rockstar put in (for some strange, strange, retarded reason).
Faff about enough and you should get it running okay - then you can start pushing the settings up.
I now play it fine on:
Medium texture quality
High render quality
50 view distance
50 detail disance
25 vehicle density
16 shadow density
I can nudge these suckers up - but I am frightned the engine may collapse on me and leave me at square one.
Most people find this somewhat bizarre and I think it is clearly leading to the problems that the game is having.
I can report success in dropping the resolution down to 1024 x 768 and then faffing about with it on 1680 x 1050 to shunt the graphics engine up into gear.
I can now play it very well on my PC, but I had to do a lot of faffing about to trick the engine.
I think the engine needs coaxing into shaking off the built-in throttling that Rockstar put in (for some strange, strange, retarded reason).
Faff about enough and you should get it running okay - then you can start pushing the settings up.
I now play it fine on:
Medium texture quality
High render quality
50 view distance
50 detail disance
25 vehicle density
16 shadow density
I can nudge these suckers up - but I am frightned the engine may collapse on me and leave me at square one.