FINALLY! I WAS ABOUT TO GO NUTS! BUT I MADE IT!!!
IT WORKS IT WORKS 100 f*ckING PERCENT!!! 100% WORKING AND STABLE!
GUYS all your worries have an end. Well at least for all guys with NVIDIA cards since I wasnt able to test this approach on ATI or something. Just when i was about to throw that damn ugly looking default-set-motherf*cking-ressource-hungry-piece-of-sh*t-game of GTA4 away... I FOUND THE SOLUTION!!! BASICALLY BY TOTAL ACCIDENT! BUT IT WORKS!!!
FOLLOWING PROBLEMS SOLVED/FEATURES:
- SHOWING ALL TEXTURES!!!
- STARTS UP PERFECTLY! NO CRASHES!
- NO GLITCHES!
- SHADOWS LOOK O.K. NOW (STILL NOT NICE BUT O.K.)
- RESOURCE-HUNGER STILLED!!!! EVERYBODY CAN RUN IT!!
- FULL DETAILS! FULL VIEWING DISTANCE!
- HIGH QUALITY RENDERING & TEXTURES!!
- ANY RESOLUTION YOU WANNA HAVE!
ADVANTAGES:
- YOU DONT NEED NO NEW DRIVERS! NO BETA DRIVERS NOTHING!
- YOU DONT NEED .NET FRAMEWORK 3.5!
- RUNS ON "LOW" - PCs PERFECTLY AND TOTALLY SMOOTHLY +35 FP/S
HOW? You ask how? I'll tell you right now!!
THE ULTIMATE GET-YOUR-FKN-GTA4-RUNNING-GUIDE!
1. INSTALL: Install the game fully & sign up for all the sh*t they want you to sign up for. (You NEED the Rockstargames SocialClub Account!!!)
2. SHORTCUT: Do as described in many of the posts around here... CREATE A SHORTCUT OF YOUR LaunchGTAIV.exe and put it nicely on your desktop.
3. OPENING: Rightclick that motherf*cker and go to properties!
4. CODING: ENTER THE FOLLOWING PART OF THE CODE AFTER THE PATH: -windowed <---------- THIS IS CRUCIAL!!!
5. RESOLUTION: Behind that enter YOUR CHOSEN RESOLUTION like this: -width=1680 -height=1050 (You can chose ANY resolution you want as long as your VGA and Monitor support it.)
6. DETAILS: Behind that CHOSE YOUR DETAILS with the following piece of code: -texturequality=2 -renderquality=4 -detailquality=99 -viewdistance=99
7. SAVE THAT: In the end your commandline should look something like this (with your proper specifications ofc):
"D:\Games\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto IV\LaunchGTAIV.exe" -windowed -texturequality=2 -renderquality=4 -detailquality=99 -viewdistance=99 -width=1680 -height=1050
8. CONNECT: Startup this stupid Rockstargames Social Club and LOG ON! IT's CRUCIAL THAT YOU HAVE AN ACCOUNT AND ARE LOGGED ON!
9. DON'T: Do not start the game through the provided button in the up-popping menu of Rockstargames Social Club. Just minimize it to the tray.
10. PLAY: Start the game through your shortcut of LaunchGTAIV.exe and ENJOY THAT MOTHERf*ckER!!!!
NOTICE: You can put in ANY resolution you want, chose ANY detail-level your machine can handle, put in ANY viewdistance you like and the game will run it properly and FAST!
RESULT: I really dont have something you would call a High-End-Top-Notch-PC! Just an average AMD 64x2 4000+ with an average if not old NVIDIA Geforce 8800 GT (256MB) and 2 GB of DDR-RAM BUT the game runs PERFECTLY and ABSOLUTELY SMOOTHELY on my machine.
SO THE BEST OF IT: EVERYBODY CAN USE THAT APPROACH AND DOESNT NEED TO BELIEVE THE CRAP ROCKSTAR ' S BEEN TRYIN TO SELL YOU. Game from the future designed for future PC's with uptodate hardware MY ASS! THEY JUST DIDNT PUT IN ANY EFFORT TO CODE THAT GAME PROPERLY!!!!
SCREENSHOT: Here is a screenshot from my machine in 1680x1050 with FULL details and FULL viewing distance. You can see the helicopters, the Getalife-sign - EVERYTHING!
Well it does not matter since the COMMUNITY did the work for em and PROVIDED THEMSELVES with the game THEY DESERVE!!! Enjoy this Guide of mine I really hope it works for all of you as well as it does for me.
Feel free to ask if you need further help, comment and say tnx if this worked for you.
Hope you enjoy motherf*cking GTA IV!!!