Stuttering FIXED

[Dingus]

Ok folks after about an hour of screwing around I found the stuttering, for me, was caused by launching the game from Steam. Instead, with Steam running in the background, launch the game from SteamApps\common\Grand Theft Auto IV\GTAIV\LaunchGTAIV.exe . After doing this I get NO MORE STUTTERING OR LAG. Thought I would share and hopefully save someone else the headache of going through what I just did. None of the million other solutions posted worked (likely as they are for people with low end systems) and this is all that was needed running the below system. Settings maxed out @1080p, BTW.

Intel i7 930 @4GHz
Corsair ddr3 6GB @1800MHz
Corsair Force GS 240GB SSD
NVIDIA GTX 470 1280MB
Windows 8.1 x64

[Cat Fart]

Had the same problems, my rig is build for gaming and was really baffled...Just tried your work around and it fixed this odd bug.
Thank you Tim for doing all the problem solving & sharing the info.

[:::... FulVal85 [LMHT] ...:::]

this problem is happening also with other games (and only when are launched from steam client)... i think that we have to contact support...

[Cat Fart]

Good to know about the other games doing the same, Theif was studdering thing randomly now that I think of it, I even dropped the graphics settings down to the lowest it could go. I'm going to reinstall it and try this work around. That would save me a ton of cash because I was nearly out the door heading for another newer graphics card.

[:::... FulVal85 [LMHT] ...:::]

Nope, you can't use that workaround with steamworks games... all steamworks games can't be launched without steam client...

GTAIV is not a steamworks game...

[M. Walrus]

I Fixed my stuttering problem with GTA IV using this method also, over a year ago. Just tried the steam link and it still stutters in regular intervals and is unplayable. it's like a skipping record... but when using the shortcut to the exe file the game runs perfectly smooth

[TonyFSV]

Originally posted by Mordecai Walfish:

I Fixed my stuttering problem with GTA IV using this method also, over a year ago. Just tried the steam link and it still stutters in regular intervals and is unplayable. it's like a skipping record... but when using the shortcut to the exe file the game runs perfectly smooth

Can I ask you to check if steam overlay is enabled on your game. Make sure it's enabled globally or individually for the game, and if it's not, try enabling it to see if the game still stutters.

Last I checked, the game stuttered when I disabled overlay. It would be interesting to know your results. Also, what videocard are you running with it?

Thanks!

[Thgamer5456]

how do you enable it

[TonyFSV]

Originally posted by THGAMER5456:

how do you enable it

The overlay is on by default, so if you didn't change anything then there should be nothing to enable.

I did test again, and on my side, if I disable steam overlay, I do get stuttering within a few seconds of gameplay. Does anyone else experience this?

It's not random, it's a brief slowdown at regular intervals. Maybe once a second or two.

[M. Walrus]

TonyFSV:

Thank you for the suggestion, I turned on the overlay and the stuttering went away, though I had it disabled to prevent having multiple overlays conflicting with eachother as can often happen (steam, gfwl, mumble, etc.. it's all too much). There was curious performance with the overlay on though, namely I did a series of 10 benchmarks on each setting, one setting uses the regular steam link with the overlay enabled, and the other has the overlay disabled and the game is started from a shortcut to the program exe:

Results:

1. Overlay Enabled using Regular Steam Link:
--------------------------------------------------------------
65.56
64.76
64.03
63.05
64.26
63.35
62.55
61.40
61.47
60.83

2. Using non-steam shortcut to LaunchGTA4 exe:
------------------------------------------------------------------
65.37
64.59
64.59
64.60
64.96
64.53
64.25
64.18
63.66
64.10

Conclusion: some sort of conflict or memory leak is lowering FPS as time goes by while using the overlay, as the downward trend with the FPS benchmark results indicate strongly, the longer I played, the slower things got. This occured to a smaller degree with the non-steam shortcut, but not nearly as dramatically as with the overlay enabled. Disabling the overlay causes insane stuttering, so I guess the only way to play the game stable on steam is by launching the game from the folder instead of from within steam.


System Specs for Reference:
---------------------------------------
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
AMD Phenom 2 x4 955 BE @3.6GHZ
Nvidia Geforce GTX-480 w/ 1.5GB Vram (Driver version 347.09 WHQL)
4GB G-Skill DDR3-1600 RAM
ASUS M5A99X-EVO Motherboard
BenQ XL2420T 1920x1080 120HZ Monitor

My Nvidia Control Panel Global settings:
------------------------------------------------------
Max Render-ahead Queue - 1
Energy - Single Display Performance Mode/Maximum Performance
Refresh - Use Highest Available
Texture Filtering Quality - High Quality

Game settings:
--------------------
1920x1080 120hz everything highest quality except for:

Night Shadows Disabled
Detail Distance - 42
Car Density - 42

[TonyFSV]

That's really interesting. I have an AMD card (7870) so I guess overlay related stutter is not vendor specific.

I'll have to try this direct steamless approach myself sometime to see how I get on. Do you use any commandline options?

Thanks a lot for the info! I think people will find it useful, anecdotally at least.

[M. Walrus]

Nope, I dont use any command line options. I don't know that any are generally recommended nowadays, as the game runs fine besides the issue in this thread for me.

[onurguzel16]

Eventhough i disable Steam Overlay in GTA 4 game, i get massive stuttering on my high-end gaming PC. I also tried launching the game without Steam, directly using GTA 4 launcher executable. That didn't make much difference. And this is now even worse with the latest official 1.0.8 patch that brought additional stutters. The game is unplayable.

[Drowning witch]

Originally posted by onurguzel16:

Eventhough i disable Steam Overlay in GTA 4 game, i get massive stuttering on my high-end gaming PC. I also tried launching the game without Steam, directly using GTA 4 launcher executable. That didn't make much difference. And this is now even worse with the latest official 1.0.8 patch that brought additional stutters. The game is unplayable.

i have it as well. it's fine for 30 seconds, after I change any settings in the graphics options, even if I revert to the same exact ones. then 30 seconds later, stuttering again.

I made a video. is this the same type of stutter you get? check the last 30 seconds especially.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=03C8AIjcgBw

[onurguzel16]

Originally posted by Drowning witch:

Originally posted by onurguzel16:

Eventhough i disable Steam Overlay in GTA 4 game, i get massive stuttering on my high-end gaming PC. I also tried launching the game without Steam, directly using GTA 4 launcher executable. That didn't make much difference. And this is now even worse with the latest official 1.0.8 patch that brought additional stutters. The game is unplayable.

i have it as well. it's fine for 30 seconds, after I change any settings in the graphics options, even if I revert to the same exact ones. then 30 seconds later, stuttering again.

I made a video. is this the same type of stutter you get? check the last 30 seconds especially.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=03C8AIjcgBw

When compared to mine, your stutters are too less and too hard to notice. They're almost smooth especially until last 20 seconds of the video. And without knowing your PC specs, your details are maxed out as far as i see. I have a gaming rig and using moderate graphics settings, but still stuttering. It's such a problem beyond FPS and CPU/GPU utilization, it's such a stutter like out of sync during harddrive read like old GTA series with the same problem. But i don't know the exact reason.

The game is awful with those stutters that's all i know.

[Drowning witch]

Originally posted by onurguzel16:

When compared to mine, your stutters is too less and hard to notice. They're almost smooth especially until last 20 seconds of the video. And without knowing your PC specs, your details are maxed out as far as i see. I have a gaming rig and using moderate graphics settings, but still stuttering. It's such a problem beyond FPS and CPU/GPU utilization, it's such a stutter like out of sync during harddrive read like old GTA series with the same problem. But i don't know the exact reason.

The game is awful with those stutters that's all i know.

it's there with any settings. as I said, fine for 30 seconds after changing graphics, and then it starts stuttering like the end of my video.

i5 4670k@4.6ghz
gtx970@1.5ghz
16gb DDR3 2400mhz
Samsung 840pro 256gb SSD
win10 64 pro