DescentBB

I'm having problems with GTAIII for some reason and wondered if any of you guys had ever got the PC version and played it. Since I don't have a PS2 of my own I figured what the hell, I have Vice City on PC and it is fun as hell and I've already beaten GTA3 on the PS2 at a friends and loved it. It's been over two years since then and I've really wanted to play it again.

Basically this is whats happening. I've installed the game on my computer. I've patched it to 1.1, i've also copied all the audio files from disk 2 to my audio folder in gtaIII dir. The game runs, but whats bugging the hell out of me is it seems like when its loading textures it does a start/stop stutter like the FPS are dropping way low. I've used 3DAnalyze to try to fix this as suggested on a board and Fraps to view how many fps I'm getting and its over 40-50fps most of the time, sometimes 30-35 but when the stutter happens it drops to like 19/18 etc....

Sifting through GTA bulletin boards I've found that tons of people had the same problem I'm having, then there are those that reported no problems at all.
All the solutions given I've tried and trust me, it wasn't easy because the majority of the files that were linked weren't even hosted anymore and searches didn't turn up multiple instances of some of them sooo....

I've used the FPS fix, doesn't work, plus I don't want things to be removed to speed up performance. I've downloaded the audio fix, doesn't improve it. I think I'm angry because GTA: Vice City runs flawlessly on my computer and GTAIII doesn't for some reason....

Computer:
Intel P3 1.0ghz
Windows XP Professional (SP1 all updated/patched etc.)
512mb PC133 SDRAM
GF FX 5200 256MB (56.72 WHQL)
Re-installed DX9b

GTAIII Settings:
1024x768x16
Draw Distance: Full
Trails: off
Frame Sync: off
Frame Limiter: on (If this is off sometimes the FPS drop to 7-8. )
Using RivaTuner to launch game with an AboveNormal System Priority.

The game performance is the same no matter what resolution I have it at it still does that stutter. I've had it at 640x480x16 (lowest) all the way up to 1280x1024x32 and it runs exactly the same. Same with the draw distance set all the way down as compared to all the way up.

I have the same problem with all the settings on low as I do on high and I should be able to have all the settings on high with no problems...

Theres something I noticed about the game once you've installed it, patched it and ran it for the first time that Vice City doesn't do. When you go to start a new game it says something to the effect that its compressing or converting textures for optimal performance with my card. Not exactly like that, but something along those lines. This I think leads to the problem, but I'm not sure if theres a way to turn texture compression off in the game or what. It's almost like it's trying to cache everything and it just screws up gameplay. *shrug*

I've also read that gta3 wasn't designed to handle hardware t&l very well on the PC. 3DAnalyze was supposed to emulate software t&l but I don't know if it disabled hw t&l, which I've heard improves gta3s performance. However I have no clue how I would do that on my card.

I've spent probably 3 days trying to get this damn thing to run properly but so far every avenue has lead to a dead end....

I've had some experience with this problem on my old system.

Tbird 950
512MB of ram
Geforce 4 Ti4400
windows 2000

The only way I got around the stutering was to turn off ACPI in windows. This got most everything on its own IRQ. Once I did that it ran very smooth.

Unfortunatly its not an easy solution.

Can you explain how to do that?

Tyranny wrote:Can you explain how to do that?

one starts with format c: ...

you need to reinstall windows.

its an odd bug.

I assume its the same as 2k.

In the Device Manager under COMPUTER
ACPI... should come up.
What you want to do is double click on the ACPI
Go to the Driver tab
hit the update driver button
hit next
choose the "select from a list of known drivers"
hit next
now click the "show hardware of this class"
From inside the "standard computers" there should be a "standard computer"

select that and hit next.

That will bring on a slew of reboots and driver installs.

BEWARE doing this will also kill your computers ability to shut itself off. You will have to manually hit the power button when turning it off.

Hrm...not exactly the solution I was looking for and frankly not really worth it for one game. Wonder if anyone else has anymore suggestions...

check the readme on the disc, i had a problem with it too, it was buggy, and instead of letters, it would have a bunch of little boxes, i used a link that the readme gave me and ran the patch and voila it worked!

That has nothing to do with it. Thats a bug with XP where gta3 has trouble properly executing some directX command.

It was a known issue and MS released a patch that fixed it. GTA3 has no graphical errors for me, no problems rendering or what have you, its this stupid stutter effect thats driving me nuts.

You'd think if I can run BF1942 at 1024x768 with graphics on high, this game would be no problem. It isn't exactly like it pushed the envelope as far as eye candy goes. Vice City runs fine, thats what makes me mad, and Vice City has improved graphics compared to GTA3.

The suggestions I was hoping for were ways to perhaps disable texture compression? perhaps gta3 doesn't do it properly on the PC.

A way to disable hardware t&l on a nvidia card somehow? etc...etc..