Extreme FPS stutter, audio glitches, low RAM usage, loading abnormalities on 3D era GTA games

[froggofruit]

Never had this problem before, I've cleared the entirety of GTA: VC on this same machine so I have no idea what's going on.

For context, my machine can run GTA V on max settings with little to no frame drops (and at least a constant 60) so I'm 90% sure this is some kind of compatibility issue. I swapped my SDD out a while ago and I installed GTA: SA, played for a bit, game worked totally fine, come back a few weeks later and try booting the game and it's completely unplayable

I tried reinstalling GTA: VC today and booting it up, for the first few seconds the game seemed normal, mouse was moving freely in the menus, but then a few seconds later I got hit with a massive FPS drop, and from that point onwards everything was stuttering, it was nigh impossible to navigate the menus and my mouse clicking wouldn't work at all, I tried loading into the game and the opening cutscene had no audio at all, yet weirdly also no FPS drops, when the next cutscene was supposed to load (meeting Ken Rosenberg and travelling to the meet at the docks where the drug deal goes wrong), the game just hung on a black screen with the text on it (vice beach or something I don't remember). I waited for a while but nothing worked at all, so I just fast forwarded. Once the actual game world had loaded and that segment where Ken drives back to his office after escaping, the FPS stutter came back and everything was running at like 10 fps, there was also no audio, and the game just refused to exit the cutscene (wasn't frozen but whatever triggers the end of the cutscene wasn't working). I've tried several different solutions online but nothing seems to work, I've rebooted the game several times and reset my PC, still nothing.

I'm completely stumped, does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be causing these issues? I can post specs if needed but I'm pretty sure it's on the software side.

[froggofruit]

Forgot to mention, when exiting the game it just hangs on the "Greetings from Vice City" screen, I have to actually manually close it with task manager.

[Chatblanc]

i have some of the problems listed above too, but not always, seems like with the advancements of Operating Systems they stop running old programs, such as old games like vice city :( .
most people seem to get the game running again by getting patches, which were made by the community, but i guess you've done that too so so all i can think of is running the game on compatible mode with the patches installed or get an older os, Also never play with the frame limiter off.

[froggofruit]

Tried some patches, game won't even load the first cutscene now, there's probably some software or option that's causing this issue but I just can't figure out what

[froggofruit]

Mouse doesn't work in game at all either

[froggofruit]

I also noticed that the RAM usage is about 83mb (out of 16gb)

[Chatblanc]

well i guess we should kiss the game goodbye and just replay it on our memories, unless you get the android version which makes you a mobile gamer, cringe.

[Anxious One]

Originally posted by froggofruit:

Forgot to mention, when exiting the game it just hangs on the "Greetings from Vice City" screen, I have to actually manually close it with task manager.

Hello. Turn on game's frame limiter. Have same issue.

[Redstorm]

Originally posted by Bombur:

Originally posted by froggofruit:

Forgot to mention, when exiting the game it just hangs on the "Greetings from Vice City" screen, I have to actually manually close it with task manager.

Hello. Turn on game's frame limiter. Have same issue.

This. Some of the issues you've listed is what normally happens when Frame Limiter is off. If you want to quickly fix it, then just turn Frame Limiter on. However, if you're like me and you're not a huge fan of 30 fps (which is what you get with Frame Limiter on), then there are simple mods/patches/fixes you can download that will give you a solid 60 fps consistently while also not messing with your game.

Don't know for sure about some of the other big issues you referenced though. Not sure if it has been mentioned or not, but have you tried installing the main Vice City patch? It fixes a lot of bugs and makes the game operate a lot better just in general.

[Chatblanc]

Originally posted by AidanVega:

Originally posted by Bombur:

Hello. Turn on game's frame limiter. Have same issue.

This. Some of the issues you've listed is what normally happens when Frame Limiter is off. If you want to quickly fix it, then just turn Frame Limiter on. However, if you're like me and you're not a huge fan of 30 fps (which is what you get with Frame Limiter on), then there are simple mods/patches/fixes you can download that will give you a solid 60 fps consistently while also not messing with your game.

Don't know for sure about some of the other big issues you referenced though. Not sure if it has been mentioned or not, but have you tried installing the main Vice City patch? It fixes a lot of bugs and makes the game operate a lot better just in general.

what do you use for 60fps?

[Redstorm]

I use the VC Limit Adjuster script file; it came packaged with the Vice City patch I previously referenced along with a bunch of other useful files/fixes. You might need to download CLEO first for it to work possibly.

Here's the link to it:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=706270825

To get the consistent 60 fps, in the Limit Adjuster config file, set the "Frame Limit" under the VC section to 105 (which is the 'code' for 60 fps).


The reason this 60 frames adjustment works whereas just turning off Frame Limiter as a whole doesn't is because although the game can indeed handle 60 frames, it cannot handle anything beyond that from what I've heard, so that's why just having Frame Limiter off in the settings makes the game run terribly. Capping the game at 60 fps however keeps the game running smoothly.