GTA 'Episodes from Liberty City' Hitting PC, PS3
By - Source: Tom's Hardware US
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32 comments
No longer an Xbox 360 exclusive after March. Come and get it, PC gamers!
Are you a PC or PS3 gamer who preferred your Grand Theft Auto IV experience on your non-Xbox 360? Right now, you've been missing out on some of the best downloadable content yet with the "Lost and the Damned" and the "Ballad of Gay Tony" expansions – but that will soon change.
It appears that the Microsoft exclusivity period on the GTA IV DLC will be expiring on March 30 as the "Episodes From Liberty City" – which contains both DLC packs – will be appearing at both retail and online for download on PSN and Games for Windows Live.
Expect the retail package to include both DLC packs and the online download to allow gamers to buy separately.
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How was the PC version compared to the PS3 version? (the only version I got to play for more then a few minutes)
I was thinking about buying the PC one since its much cheaper now, that is if its any good.
At any rate this is good news I guess?
With the track record Rockstar has at this point, I don't know why anyone would think that they'll ever make a decent GTA port. Remember how GTA3 ran on the PC when it was released? With GTAIV, I heard the rumors, but figured that I'd risk it due to the sale price. Never again.
You're kidding, right?
When GTAIV released it was playing at 38FPS at 1280x1024, on a C2Q OCed to 3.6GHz, paired with a GTX 280 for the GPU. Absolutely pathetic performance for the visuals offered.
http://forums.vr-zone.com/news-around-the-web/362187-gta-4-pc-cpu-benchmark-review-13-cpus.html
I have no doubt that you probably can run GTAIV at a decent framerate, but it's probably still under 60, and with a 50% view distance. I'd also hate to see what the min FPS values look like. Even with a complete monster system, with say a 5970 and 4+GHz i7 920, GTA would STILL stutter due to its poor system memory optimizations. Noticeably.
The shadows just downright piss me off. They have this sort of hashing to them, because they were designed to run with a post-processing filter.
Here's an example:
http://img183.imageshack.us/i/newbitmapimagemq7.jpg/
Due to this, if you run with AA on, depending on the AA method, the shadows look especially horrible... and could have a shimmering effect.
Gameplay is the same old stuff from the GTA3 series. Only, a little more story driven. The sandbox environment is actually LESS interesting than in previous GTA titles.
Good game my ass.
I bought it in March last year for PC via steam and by that time it was very playable on an old Athlon X2 5600. This is at lower settings with a Radeon HD 4830. IMO the view distance setting and some of the other graphics settings don't make a huge impact on the overall experience, the game is still fun. Upgrading to a Phenom II 940 brought my frame cap from 25 to 45 and sometimes higher.
4890 or better and a slight CPU OC will produce around 60 FPS @ 1920x1080 at higher detail settings.
The only problems I have with the game are
- P2P Multiplayer (Windows Live)
- Not only do you need a Live account, but you must also create a Rockstar Social Club account.
I bought it in March last year for PC via steam and by that time it was very playable on an old Athlon X2 5600. This is at lower settings with a Radeon HD 4830. IMO the view distance setting and some of the other graphics settings don't make a huge impact on the overall experience, the game is still fun. Upgrading to a Phenom II 940 brought my frame cap from 25 to 45 and sometimes higher.
4890 or better and a slight CPU OC will produce around 60 FPS @ 1920x1080 at higher detail settings.
The only problems I have with the game are
- P2P Multiplayer (Windows Live)
- Not only do you need a Live account, but you must also create a Rockstar Social Club account.
The game's still messed up because the most recent patch that they came out with, 1.0.4.0 is the worst one that they've released so far. You can see the road paint on the tires of your car now, You can only see Niko's shadow on the ground when driving a car now because they did a cheap quick fix for the motercycles shadow issues and the end result was them breaking the car shadows. They screwed up the optimization worse now then it ever has been with this most recent patch as well.
I could sit here and drag out more details but, I've wasted so much of my life trying to get that game to run properly by jerry rigging it with command prompts that "R*" them selves have asked people to do because their patches are shit and it's such a bad POS port that I'm done at this point but, nice try though.. Yeah it runs perfect what ever... The game is a POS.
Sorry to hear that. I don't have such issues with the 1.0.4.0 patch, the game runs pretty well.
That in it self is sad to I'll note. When you know what patches you can or can't play the game successfully on, that's pathetic. Half of the people that have GTA IV it's broke. The other half that have i, it works fine but with a catch, you have the road paint on tires glitch and the shadow glitch and that's a fact because every one that is on patch 1.0.0.4 has these glitches and its been proven so don't say you don't because, you do..
Anyway, I don't understand why the November update would be numbered lower than the previous one. 1.0.5.0 or 1.1.0.0.or even just 1.1 would have been better. Hopefully the issues will be fixed soon and no new ones will arise because the game worked so well with the previous patch.
Such is the life of a gamer. I lived through BF2 patch hell - when a patch breaks or alters your favorite game you never forget it, and BF2 had plenty of those.
as long as Platinum games (bayonetta) is not doing the port then the PS3 port will be fine
I apologize as well. I get a little to defensive when people say that GTA IV runs perfect. Yes, the patch naming scheme makes no sense what so ever. Also I really hope they get it fixed too because it's a really good game when it runs right. They've just broke it to a point on the PC to where it's a disgrace now IMO.