The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

GTA III is the reason I got san andreas, and then GTA IV. VERY impressive for its day

 

Sorry but GTA4 was NEVER that impressive IMO. There weren't any better looking open world games at the time, I'll admit, but I remember the graphics being no better than average even then. It was in many ways a step backwards from San Andreas. The game lacked a lot of mechanics that were present in previous games, and introduced a lot of mechanics nobody asked for or wanted. I'll grant you, it was a great game. But you seem to see it through rose colored glasses, while I remember it leaving a bad taste in my mouth. It was not well made by my standards of quality. GTA5 is another story entirely. Fantastic design. Thought was put into every facet. GTA4 felt like it could use another year of development.

 

LOL!!! I meant III was good for it's day GTA IV was simply another awesome game (To me)

 

III was one of a kind when it was released. It's the grandfather of an entire style of gameplay, not to mention the leading edge of an era of gaming. Very few games can claim to have been as influential.

 

Very good blog article on the ins and outs of optimisation for GTA5:
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/grand-theft-auto-v-pc-graphics-and-performance-guide

tl;dr grass quality is the number 1 performance hit, above more predictable stuff like MSAA and distance scaling.

 

The game is incredibly well optimised. Beautifully so even. My friend with a Q6700 and GTX650 can get it nearly maxed with the right settings lowered. Nearly indistinguishable from mine maxed out. Very impressive compared to GTA4 which still runs worse...

 

In terms of graphical efficiency and optimisation, definitely a better port than 4. In terms of difficulty of installation, at least via Steam it's also better - in terms of bugs, not sure, time will tell.

 

It's not much buggier than GTA4 was upon release. It was barely playable due to all the gamebreaking issues. Took more than a year worth of patches to get it in proper playing shape... In GTA V I've had a few hard crashes and some invisible NPCs in cutscenes but no real bugs. Everything works as it should. Can't say the same about GTA4. Particularly the game being stuck in "drunk cam" which was meant to foil pirated versions of the game, but ended up affecting legit owners as well. I didn't play it for the first 6 months I owned it because of that.

 

"I am the Turd of death!"
Ha ha!!! That line alone was worth the $60 for the game. I'm friggin dying here lol.

 

The bugs I'm talking about are after clocking nearly 40 hours in the game within a few days off, haha. Lots of leaving it run on busy scenes while I sleep as a heat stress test for my PC. It pushes everything hard, and definitely uses multi-core. Lots of RAM usage as well. Already seen 3GB, a tie with the level "Reckoning" from the original Crysis that showed a drastic difference when moving from 4GB to 8GB of RAM. From horrible hitching to smooth, just like that.

I have found one directly game breaking bug so far, which is a bummer. I await the next patch which I'm sure will be out soon. It has been reported in forums already. There are also a few performance issues in certain situations, lots of stuttering at the beginning of cutscenes, when a slightly slower fade-in would have fixed it, and other things to that effect.

That said, the game does run incredibly well and has some of the best graphics available in a 3D video game, bar none. Rockstar are true masters at their craft. I am enjoying it immensely. It is the best GTA since Vice City. San Andreas didn't have the right feel and GTA 4 was ruined by the cellphone mechanic IMO. Vice City and GTA V have a sense of purpose and urgency. The characters are more likable and the plots a little more movie-like.

 

I found my mouse performance went to hell, acceleration was all wrong, jittering all over the place when it definitely wasn't the mouse at fault - had to change from 'windows' to 'DirectInput' to fix that - I'm very pleased that such an option made it into the options menu, but arguably it shouldn't be necessary to change in the first place

It is a stunningly good looking game I have to admit - I can't max every detail and in scenes with very large view distances my frame rate is VERY uneven (as in drops from 50s/60s to teens) so must be me running out of video memory but hardly surprising as I tweaked the settings to be pretty much exactly 3.5GB on the slider.
The soundtrack is the best there's been in a GTA game since Vice City as well imo, though of course VC's is unlikely to be topped (again imo). The real Kenny Loggins as the 80s rock station DJ? Yes please

Have yet to play much SP other than the intro, having spent a few hours dossing in the multiplayer - had some fun times hijacking a jet from the compound before realising I was totally unprepared for flying it (at least while dodging bullets from all angles), as well as some comical races. The survival minigames seem absurdly hard though - 20 rounds apparently and we can never make it past 5, not as just 2 players anyway. Perhaps it'd be easier with lots more of us. As for the half-hour of barenuckle speedboat boxing me and a couple of mates had, it's been a while since I laughed that hard at a video game. Pot luck as to who got catapulted out the back of the boat when we crested a big wave. After all, isn't having fun the whole point of a video game?

 

The options menus are actually impressive. It's got all the signs of a full dedicated PC build, not a port. I actually tuned mine to just under 4GB of VRAM usage. Literally everything perfectly maxed except no AA. I've played enough of the game(about 50%) to confidently say it performs just fine. The GTX970's "3.5GB" doesn't seem to be a problem here... so far. Just take it up to the limit and back one of the inconsequential sliders or settings down a notch to create a little cushion. I'm sure someone could prove me wrong, but I haven't noticed any telltale signs of being out of video memory. Very smooth throughout Probably 30-70FPS depending on the scene. Average of 40-60ish, which is perfectly fine for me in this game, considering it would take some effort to build a PC better than this. I am quite proud of this one

I agree that Vice City had by far the best soundtrack, but GTA V finally comes close to matching it. It has the most music easily. It also has the best gunplay, driving physics, and mission structure IMO. It gives me everything I need to have fun and lets me without forcing me into anything. The map is also substantially large and densely detailed. It's no doubt one of the best games in a long while.

 

I haven't had a utility running in game to monitor VRAM usage but if I had to guess at what was going on when I approached the military base I'd would say out of video memory - that said, I'm pushing more than double the pixel count you are on the same graphics card. Using more than 4GB at 2560x1440 was a pretty big challenge up until recently, so you would have to push the game fairly hard to do that. Maxing the settings at 3840x2160 from what I've read does seem to need between 6 and 10 GB depending on who you ask. Hopefully in an ideal world it'll run well enough with 8GB GPUs and AMD will get MST sorted out with the 300 series so I can run a pair of those. The more random bugs I experience with my 970 in MST the less sure I am that switching to nvidia was really the way to solve the problem.

 

Hey guys need some help just manage to snag 3930K and ASUS Sabertooth x79 off ebay for £350 for my new build am doing...

Whats better GTX Titan or 2 x 680s In SLI or a single GTX 970..

Titan Cost: £400 - Used

GTX 680's Cost: £250 - Used

GTX 980 Cost £470 - new

Am not fussed on the price but seeing a mixed bag when it comes to benchmarks, i know of all issues in sli and a dont mind running them and waiting for drivers ect.. psu i got is more than enough to power all of the solutions...

just need a second opinion...

 

In a game where SLI scales really well, the two GTX680s will be faster, but given the reliance on SLI scaling, the considerable extra heat and potential noise, lack of video memory and older hardware (both in actual age and the design) means that I think the 970 is probaby the better buy. GTX980 is a lot more money of course but is hands down better in all areas, never mind the advantages of being a single card. Forget about the Titan, the 980 is better. For that sort of money you may as well take the 980 new over a Titan used. Titan X would be a different story, but you're not going to see one of those for 400 quid any time soon...

 

GTX 980 it is then

 

Since we're currently enjoying GTA, I thought you guys may get a kick out this. I certainly do LOL!
http://tumblr.forgifs.com/post/117580010944/cat-smacks-dog-wasted-gta

 

That meme has been going on for quite a while now - really laughed at quite a few of them
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wasted


Looking forward to Project CARS, been waiting for another good racing simulator on PC for a long time and the game looks very nice. Just as well though, looking at this:

In my humble opinion, PCracing games need very good frame rates to feel smooth. Basically, 60fps or go home. Doing that at 4K is going to mean two Titan Xs, and even then they're only just going to manage - frame rate will probably dip into the 50s on a fair few occasions.
Both multi-GPU setups scale just under 70% though, so hopefully newer drivers post-launch might bump that up a bit, especially in AMD's case, who can often achieve 100-105% at high resolutions. If that happens, two 390Xs might stand a good chance.

As for lower resolutions, at 2560x1600 it'll still need two GTX980s - at 2560x1440 two GTX970s might do but only if overclocked. At 1920x1080 a single Titan X is just about hanging in there with a minimum fps of 57. Really it'll need to be SLI with 780Tis or 970s or better.

Of course, if you're happy with 30fps, or if there's a detail setting you can cut to massively improve frame rates, I'm sure it'll get much easier. At max detail though, this one's shaping up to be quite a workload.

 

Mmmm, that "Project Cars" looks pretty good! I'll have to keep its demand in mind, when I consider the GPU upgrade in a few months. We'll see how things go though lol

Renting my own apartment could prove challenging :S

 

As if GTA V wasn't already ridiculously detailed at first glance, here's a list of stuff I never even knew about.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/30/100-little-things-in-gta-5-that-will-blow-your-mind?page=1

I am absolutely blown away by the love and care Rockstar have put into this game. It is truly a masterstroke of game development.

I have been watching Project Cars for some time. The community around it though seems especially elitist. I'd be interested in seeing what it becomes in the future. It takes a very much Microsoft Flight Simulator-esque approach to graphics. Basically, as realistic as possible, damn the system requirements. Flight Simulator X is still uncompromisingly demanding to run, and approaches near photo realism with the latest add-ons. I want to see what can be done with Project Cars on a home PC.