Why do I lag on gta 4 with these specs?!

Patch the game. Overclock the CPU. If you do both, you should be able to play at fairly high settings.

How can I patch the game? I got it through steam if that helps.

Hi  

Why = NOT enough graphics card...

All the best Brett  

But as I said above, i see people with a worse graphics card and same cpu but they get more fps.

But as I said above, i see people with a worse graphics card and same cpu but they get more fps.

Hi  

Most of those Youtube vids are fake...

All the best Brett  

If you got the game through steam, it's most likely patched. Download MSI afterburner and check GPU usage during lag.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/overview.htm

Actually GTA IV is a graphic-intense game. To run it smoothly at high details I guess you will at least need an HD 7950 or a GTX 660ti

^

BS. I run it fine on GTX 560 Ti on near maximum settings. That's at 1920x1080 and I get ~40 fps.

Take it easy. 40 fps for some players is not "smooth" and 60 is. Thats why I recommended the 7950 or the 660ti.

GTX 660 Ti/HD 7950 will not run the game on 60 fps. That game cannot be run at such frame rates. Not at maximum settings. I personally get CPU bottlenecked as my GPU isn't working at 100% during 40 fps.

Increase all settings to a reasonable level.Do NOT keep it at low,in my copy (disc version),increasing the graphics settings actually helped increase my FPS.Keep shadows on medium.What kind of Fps are you getting?Use MSI Afterburner to monitor GPU usage.Also try increasing your resolution to the max your monitor can run ,I read something about AMD cards using that trick.If you have any further problems,post back here.Hope this helps.Btw,I too have a 6850. 

You don't have enough hardware to compensate for the game being an egregiously poor console port. Best you can do is remember your struggle with GTA IV the next time Rockstar tries to sell you a game on your PC.

I overclocked my CPU to 4.4GHz and I raised my clocks on my GPU a little bit and my cpu is 96% usage and gpu is about 40% while playing. I run at about 25-35 fps on average and for me that is not smooth as it is not stable at all.

Minimize the game and check what's using up the CPU!

the only thing using up my CPU is GTA all I have open is steam, GTA, my anti virus. (AVG)

GTA is using up 90% of your CPU?