Very low FPS - GTA 4 Complete Edition

[7euner]

I am so close to giving up - but maybe I am lucky one of you have worked it out with a simular setup.

First my system:
AMD Ryzen 5600G - drivers are updated
Memory DDR4 - 16 Gb shared memory - Memory for GPU has been set to highest setting in Bios which is 3 Gb
Windows 11

I am trying to get GTA 4 Complete Edition running at decent FPS. I am using Rockstar Launcher if that has any significanse.

Without doing anything, I get 20-30 fps. 30 in apartment, dropping to low 20s when outside.

I have tried to install DXVK, but this has a negative effect. FPS drops to 10ish. I have tried different versions - 1.x - 2.x with or without commandline.txt.
I have tested a lot of ingame graphics setting, without getting any significant improvements.
I can see that the game is running on Vulcan.

GPU is immediately has a workload of 100% after starting. I reckon that this number should be much lower, given that GTA is 2008 game. I suspect this being the bottleneck, but have no idea of what to do about this.

I have read everything I can find about this, but does not know what else to try - Am I missing something? Are there any difference in running complete edition or not?

Any suggestions?

[Blisto91]

GTA IV is a game that have already received quite a lot of attention from the side of dxvk in regards to performance, so if you are still having issues with latest version then i imagine there isn't a lot to do.
Only thing i can think of is for you to try a master build which might lower vram usage, but not sure it would do anything. You can download it here https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/actions/runs/11272783417

[7euner]

Tried the master build, but no improvements, as expected.
I find it very hard to accept that a 2008 game is practically unplayable in 2024.

Thx Egon :-)

[Ammar-Sadaoui]

unplayable

this game works better with dxvk than directx in Windows

you should blame RS for a bad port

[K0bin]

How fast does it run without DXVK? @7euner

[7euner]

How fast does it run without DXVK? @7euner

Without 20-30. With around 10.

[K0bin]

Try running it on Linux. AMDs Windows Vulkan driver isn't great.

[koffiato]

I've recently played this game on my laptop with AMD APU. The in-game sliders have absolutely massive impact on performance where just maxing them out drags performance down to 50-60 FPS on my desktop even.

If you haven't tried already, try using lowered quality values of 21 in View, 10 in Detail Distance. And I suggest not going above console value of 33 for the Vehicle Density slider. If you haven't got FusionFix yet, get it. It'll disable headlight/lamppost shadows by default and it'll make the game almost twice as fast if the Night Shadows setting is enabled (and it'll look more similar to the console versions.

Doing these, I could eek out playable 30FPS@720p with a 4500U. 5600G should achieve so much more.

[7euner]

Doing these, I could eek out playable 30FPS@720p with a 4500U. 5600G should achieve so much more.

I was expecting to play at 1080p, but at 720p and your suggestions it does get decent framerates. Now I then have the problem with stuttering. Still it is disapointing, and with a 100% GPU usage something must be wrong.
Thx for your input.

[mirh]

The most problematic settings seem actually the ones above the sliders.
The integrated Vega 7 may be comparable to 2009 high-end gpus (but with a slower memory) but it's not like even then people were anywhere near maxing it out.

[7euner]

I installed it on my laptop - a Lenovo with AMD Ryzen 5 4600H, but with Geforce GTX1650. I just wanted to see how that would work out, compared to my desktop. To my big surprise, it runs with a very high number of FPS - with high settings, I can easily get 60+ at 1080p. Have not tried too many setups yet, but I guess that the game really dislike AMD/Radeon. There should not be that big of a difference.

[mirh]

A laptop 1650 is almost thrice the power of your igp (coincidentally 60 is that proportion to 20).
If installing dxvk makes you altogether slower, that does seem something worth investigating (I feel too dxvk isn't the smoothest when you are gpu limited on potato gpus) but otherwise just being slow seems normal.

Are you using 24.9.1? And is there any chance you could try on linux?

[7euner]

> A laptop 1650 is almost thrice the power of your igp (coincidentally 60 is that proportion to 20).
I guess I dont know what hardware I have. I remember that the 5600G outperformed some cheaper Geforces, but I see now that the difference here is gigantic. I just tried running the game @1080p with same settings. Standing at a busy intersection, I get 15 fps with Radeon, and close to 90 with Geforce. What a difference.

> Are you using 24.9.1? And is there any chance you could try on linux?
Yes to 24.9.1 and I have not linux installed, so I dont want to try!

[mirh]

Ok actually, be it as it may that perhaps your system may not be as performant as expected (single-channel ram, overheating, or whatever), the fact that dxvk may be slower is not a you problem.
#2187
#3267
#4000
https://old.reddit.com/r/dxvk/comments/161uqta/dxvk_poor_performance_on_gta4_less_than_25_fps/
It's not the first time that it is reported, and I believe the common thread is playing with potato cards and 1.0.8.0 shadows (but I don't think it can be blamed on low vram, because 3GB should be more than enough for medium settings in 1080p).
This being confirmed even on linux, at least as late as of last year.