9 GTA IV Stutter Fixes

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06-10-2010, 12:11 PM
SlipperyDuck

9 GTA IV Stutter Fixes

9 possible fixes for GTA IV Stuttering. (STOLEN FROM STEAM FORUMS)

Around 40% of people who install GTA IV get the infamous and INCREDIBLY annoying Stuttering.

Unfortunately, those who fix it tend to fix it in different ways.

Here is a compilation of various fixes I have found around the internet that have worked for at least one person each; including me.

A funny coincidence is that most of the people with this problem have high-end systems.

How to add stuff to your GTA IV command line:
If you are using GTA IV Steam Edition:
Go to your Steam Library, right click on GTA IV, go to Properties, click Launch Options and put stuff in there.

If you are using GTA IV Retail:
Go to your GTA IV Shortcut, right click, click properties and put the commands in the target path AFTER the text that is already there. Do not delete it or you will break your shortcut.
Alternatively...
Go to your GTA IV main folder (look in program files/steam/steamapps/common if you are using steam), create a text file called "commandline.txt" and put the commands in there.

Note: The following are arranged by estimated number of people who's problems were apparently was fixed by the solution as of the time this was posted.

1. The famous memrestrict and restrictApp combo.
Put the following code in your GTA Command Line:

Code:

"....LaunchGTAIV.exe" -memrestrict xxxxx -restrictApp 0

[*] Replace xxxx with your VIDEO CARD's memory (vram) multiplied by 1024 squared. For example, if you have 512 megs it would be 512 x 1024 x 1024.

2. Vsync, On.
Simply turn Vsync in the game on. Works for a lot of people.

3. Windows Event Log service, off.
Go to your Task Manager, click Services, right click "Windows Event Log" and turn it off. Dunno why it works, but it does.

4. Windowed mode, on.
Add the following code to your command line.

Code:

"....LaunchGTAIV.exe" -windowed

[*]Yeah, you have window borders and it's annoying. However, not just does this fix the stuttering for a lot of people, it improves the FPS by a lot and decreases a lot of bugs and issues people encounter with the game.
Why so buggy, fullscreen?

5. Play in offline mode.
When Rockstar Social Club pops up and begs for your username and password like a banned World of Warcraft junky, click the "Play (Offline)" button.
Yeah, you can't wait three and a half hours for some other people to show up and play a deathmatch, but it works for quite a few people.

6. Use Memturbo 2/3/4 to optimize your PC and stuff.
For some people, the stuttering is caused by a memory leak unlike the usual ones.[*]Download Memturbo 2, 3 or 4, install it, set both the sliders on the main menu to 50 megs, go to options or configure and make sure "Don't recover unless CPU usage is below..." is unchecked.

7. Make sure that your computer isn't melting the ice caps.
Is your computer overheating?
A lot of people have this problem because they have their computers in an airtight granite case in the bottom of a hollowed out volcano.
Use a program like CPU-Z to monitor your computer's various temperatures and make sure that they aren't on Space Heater mode.

8. Make sure your ATI drivers are not 10.3.
For those of you people using Radeon 5xxx like me, Catalyst 10.3 murders GTA IV for some stupid reason. Update, silly.

9. This worked for me. Limit your FPS.
Ever wonder if your computer is too fast? Well, for GTA that can happen. Use the following command line to limit your FPS. Yes, your FPS will drop sometimes, but it has gotten rid of stutters completely for a few people.

Code:

"....LaunchGTAIV.exe" -refreshrate 50 -framelimit 1

Note: If you're having texture problems, some of these might fix your problem too.

I hope this helps!
06-10-2010, 12:15 PM
SlipperyDuck

Re: 9 GTA IV Stutter Fixes

Keyboard stutter GTA IV issue from another site:

Quote:

USER: levymetal
hey mate, i know it's only been a week, and i'm new to the forum, but have you found any solution to your problem yet? i'm experiencing input lag worse than yours... gta 4 runs great, i can sit there moving the mouse around and it's smooth as anything, i can drive the car forward no worries, then i try to turn while accelerating and the whole game freezes for 3-6 seconds. i only bought this computer yesterday, $2000 and i can't even play gta 4! arrrrrrggghhhhhh. the only other game i have atm is NFS shift, and that seemed to play ok. i'm going to get some more games and try them out, i have a feeling it's gta 4 related though. i tried different keyboards / usb / ps2 and nothing worked.
__________________
System: LLAMAMASTER
CPU
i7 930 Motherboard
Gigabyte UD3R Memory
OCZ Platinum 6GB (7-7-7 1600mhz) Graphics Card
Gigabyte GTX 460 1GB OC
Windows 7 64bit Monitor

USER: levymetal
just a little update, i did 2 things that have pretty much fixed the problem.

first was to use -memrestrict commandline, that fixed it a little. details on how to do that can be found here: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=404147

second, and what really fixed it for me, was to redefine controls. for some reason, any 'typed' key makes the game freeze. remapping WSAD to the arrow keys completely fixed the stuttering. and even with WSAD now unmapped, if i press them, the game will start to lag. weird :S. i might try and get a controller to see if i can play with that.
06-10-2010, 02:08 PM
pmurgs

Re: 9 GTA IV Stutter Fixes

I had the stutter when GTA4 came out. It tried all sorts of things to fix it and none of the command line options helped me, but in the end going from 2Gbs memory to 4Gbs solved it. Also moving from a 32bit version of windows to 64bit definitely lessened the stuttering.
09-10-2010, 10:21 AM
s3xy_j0nny

Re: 9 GTA IV Stutter Fixes

Quote:

Originally Posted by SlipperyDuck

second, and what really fixed it for me, was to redefine controls. for some reason, any 'typed' key makes the game freeze. remapping WSAD to the arrow keys completely fixed the stuttering. and even with WSAD now unmapped, if i press them, the game will start to lag. weird :S. i might try and get a controller to see if i can play with that.

Fixed, one time. I have a feeling it's because I am using a PS2 keyboard instead of USB. Will try that as well, but as far as stuttering goes, remapping to arrow keys totally removes the stutter on my machine. Thanks Lee - you're my GTA IV hero.