GTA4 and its CPU intensive needs

[Gabb]

So yes a lot of buzz on this months biggest PC game ( that being GTA4 of course ), and pretty much everyone knows by now that the game is very CPU intensive. A lot of reviews I read had a test setup similar to mine ( q6600 at 2.4 ghz with a 8800 gtx or 9800 gt ) and it was stated that this setup really is only capable of running at medium settings to get "decent" fps which I am guessing is around 32 fps average. Since GTA4 is so CPU intensive I was wondering just what other higher end processors can handle this game on high or very high if there is even one that exists yet?

Anyone try out this game with a high end quad core ( Q9xxx ) or perhaps the new Core i7? If so let me know your results, I Haven't been able to find any professional benchmarks just yet.

 

[Jorsoft]

I'm interested too I was hoping to be able to play well on my rig but I've heard the same sorts of things. Decent bench marks are, oddly enough, hard to come by for this game.

 

[Oreo]

I play it with most the settings up on my dual core and yes there are slow downs but not when you expect them. e.g. it wont normally slow down when theres a massive gun fights and explosions, but when your driving down the road. But its still really playable !

 

[dario03]

Does it actually take advantage of the dual cores?

 

[Gabb]

Does it actually take advantage of the dual cores?

it not only takes advantage of dual cores, but quad cores as well which is why a quad core q6600 processor is listed under the recommended requirements

 

[dario03]

Woops I did mean quad cores. Well thats cool that it takes advantage of them. But does it use them a lot? Like didn't Supreme Commander use quad cores but only 2 cores got heavy use...

 

[Druid]

How come the pc version of this game requires so much crap if it runs on those consoles. Are there graphics just a bunch better? I can't see that driving the processor need up, but I don't know what else there could be.

 

[Gabb]

How come the pc version of this game requires so much crap if it runs on those consoles. Are there graphics just a bunch better? I can't see that driving the processor need up, but I don't know what else there could be.

the graphics do look a lot better, not necessarily in terms of better quality textures, but more resolution, shadows, traffic density, and draw distance. The consoles run at 30 fps at 1280 x 700ish resolution ( roughly half as many pixels ) without these extras, so running the game at 60 fps at 1680x1050 with these extras are going to demand some serious horse power...

oh and the 2 programs the game requires you to run in the background to play isn't exactly helping things ( 3 if its steam bought )

PS: Supcom did use quad core but didn't really take advantage of them as well as GTA4 did, I would call Supcoms quad core support very weak, theres an article somewhere that does some professional testing to show how minimal it is

 

[rayzolight]

is there anything that can be done to allocate more cpu resources to the game while in play?

struggling through it with my E6750 (not OC'd)

 

[synergy]

Well, I might try it out and post some results. Is it a DX10 game or only DX9? If it is DX10 I'll put it on Vista and see what quad and 4gb of RAM can do for it.