Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) - retro GPU test

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

 

Year of construction: 2008
Genre: Action / Racing (Cars) / 3D / 3rd Person
developer: Rockstar North
Publishing house: 1C 

 

Where can you steal dozens of cars a day, beat up passersby, shoot prostitutes and make money selling drugs? In what game can you shoot a police squad with impunity with a grenade launcher, and a minute later have a quiet dinner at the nearest pizzeria? The Grand Theft Auto series is known for its scandalous nature and enormous scope for creativity.

However, in GTA 4 there is no absolute permission - this time the game follows the rules of real life. Real police officers, a natural city, the harsh rules of the criminal world allow only one alternative: adapt or die!

THE GRAFICAL PART

This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.

Supported OS and graphics API

Grand Theft Auto IV only runs on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Other operating systems are not currently supported and are unlikely to receive support.

 

The preferred and primary graphics API for multiplayer Grand Theft Auto IV is DirectX 9.

Game engine

Grand Theft Auto IV It is based on the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine. "Rockstar Advanced Game Engine" is a full-featured game engine that contains a graphics engine, physics engine, sound engine, animation engine, game artificial intelligence, networking, scripting language and other components. The audio engine and network code were developed by Rockstar North staff, and all other components were developed by Rockstar San Diego staff.

Since the engine was aimed at use in games that have an “open seamless world”, the main advantage of the engine is its ability to efficiently handle large game spaces. So, when the character moves through the level, the engine constantly and dynamically adds some objects and removes other objects. The developers reported that for this it was necessary to develop a reliable engine memory manager that could constantly distribute and delete objects from RAM without fragmenting it.

 

RAGE uses the external physics engine "Bullet Physics Library", which is free software. The developers devoted a lot of time and attention to the physics of cars, which they tried to make as close to reality as possible. This system takes into account the weight of the car, the traction force of the tires and other characteristics. The behavior of the car depends on the surface on which it is driving, as well as on weather conditions.

 

To animate humanoid characters, “euphoria” is used, a software component that automatically creates character animation on the fly. "euphoria" was developed by NaturalMotion and has been used as a permanent feature in RAGE since Grand Theft Auto IV. 

Advanced Game Settings

Grand Theft Auto IV has a very wide range of graphics settings, thanks to which you can adjust the game's performance to almost any modern gaming configuration. The only graphical flaw Grand Theft Auto IV is the lack of full-screen anti-aliasing.

 

Below we have provided screenshots of the game at various graphics settings, where our readers can see the difference between the minimum, medium and maximum graphics quality settings. 

Various quality modes

 The difference between the different quality settings in Grand Theft Auto IV is quite significant. 

Comparison of FullHD and 4K

In 4K, Grand Theft Auto IV looks much better than in FullHD, the clarity is noticeably higher and the lack of anti-aliasing is less noticeable.

General visual design and game physics

Grand Theft Auto IV was a real computer monster for its time. The game required more than 1,5 gigabytes of video memory, which was inaccessible to gamers of that time; moreover, for the game to be comfortable, it required the presence of 4 cores, which “advanced” owners of gaming PCs could afford at that time. And now, after so many years, the average gamer can finally run this game on their PC without any infringement on the graphical component.

 

 

Next, we will move directly to gaming tests and determine what impact this game has on modern computer hardware.

TEST PART

GPU test

All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. The average and minimum FPS were taken as performance indicators. Below is a video of the test segment: 

Our graphics cards were tested at separate screen resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1600, and 3840x2160 at very high and maximum graphics quality settings allowed by Grand Theft Auto IV. AMD CrossFireX and SLI are fully supported by the game. Graphics cards are limited by the capabilities of the CPU.

Testing at resolution 1920x1080

    

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

  

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level. 

Testing at 2560x1600 resolution

    

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1600

 

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level. The optimal solutions will be  Radeon HD 7850 or GeForce GTX 750 Ti.

Testing at resolution 3840x2160

   

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2160

 

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon R9 270 or GeForce GTX 660 level. The optimal solutions will be  Radeon R9 285 or GeForce GTX 760.

Testing of video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the program MSI Afterburner. The indicator was based on results on top video cards from AMD and NVIDIA with separate screen sizes 1920x1080 and 2560x1600 with different anti-aliasing settings.

Testing at maximum memory GPU quality settings

 

The recommended amount of video memory usage for a resolution of 1920x1080 will be 1280 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560x1600 - 1536 MB of video memory, and for a resolution of 3840x2160 about 2048 MB of video memory. 

CPU test

We tested processor dependence on 16 models of basic configurations that are relevant today. The test was carried out in those places where the video card value for the game is minimal and its load was less than 99%, this time at a resolution of 1920x1080 with maximum graphics quality settings. 

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080

 

The CPU performance in the game is sufficient for all models.

Loading of processor coresat maximum quality settings 1920x1080 Intel% 

 

Loading of processor cores at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 AMD% 

 

Grand Theft Auto IV is disproportionately capable of supporting up to 6 processing threads, but only fully utilizes 4 processing cores.

RAM test

The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 7 5960X@4.6 GHz with 16GB DDR4 2400 MGz pre-installed memory. The entire used operational memory was taken as an indicator. The RAM test on the entire system was carried out on various test benches without launching third-party applications (browsers, etc.).

Testing the game's RAM consumption at various quality settings 

 

As we can see, with various quality settings, the amount of RAM consumed in Grand Theft Auto IV is at the level of 1200-1400 megabytes.

Testing system RAM consumption  

 

On a 6GB system, Grand Theft Auto IV consumes about 3.3GB of RAM. In the presence of a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was 3.5 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, the total memory consumption was almost 4.21 gigabytes. And with 32 gigabytes of RAM, the system consumes 4.9 gigabytes of RAM.