USE DXVK (low fps/stutter fix)

[HaskaMoosic]

i have no idea how so many people are unaware if this but with this small fix i can crank graphics settings all the way up and maintain stable framerates well over 60fps on my system (im averaging over 100) and you dont even have to downgrade, im running the latest version of the game.
It seems the issue with gta 4 is that it does not play nice with the DirectX renderer and this fix forces the game to run in Vulkan.

download dxvk:
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases

1) place dxgi.dll and d3d9.dll in your GTA IV directory

2) create a new txt document and add the lines:
dxgi.maxFrameLatency = 1
d3d9.maxFrameLatency = 1

3) rename the txt document dxvk.conf and place it in the gta iv directory

4) in your gta iv steam launch options add the line:
-availablevidmem 4096

DONE

some extra things you can do:

make sure the steam overlay is on for this game and the screenshot button is assigned to a key if you use a controller (this stops the controller stutter glitch that makes the game unplayable)

go into the stream.ini file located in steamapps<common<Grand Theft Auto IV<GTAIV<pc and change each of the numbers in there from 204800 to 409600 (this makes gta 4 use 4gb of ram instead of the default 2gb)

[marcelinho]

i installed dxvk but the game looks the same

[Wild Dog]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kitto:

i installed dxvk but the game looks the same

Dxvk won't change or improved graphics per se. It will make the game run better on lower end machines

[HafoHD]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Wild Dog:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kitto:

i installed dxvk but the game looks the same

Dxvk won't change or improved graphics per se. It will make the game run better on lower end machines

any machine

[Caten]

Hey, when I put d3d9.dll into my GTAIV folder, the game crashes without an error message. I get a black screen for a few seconds and then it just closes. I've also tried downgrading the game and added mods but same thing happens. I'm using rtx 3060 laptop, win11

[ExcessiveGBH]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Caten:

Hey, when I put d3d9.dll into my GTAIV folder, the game crashes without an error message. I get a black screen for a few seconds and then it just closes. I've also tried downgrading the game and added mods but same thing happens. I'm using rtx 3060 laptop, win11

Did you put this file as well? dxgi.dll

[Caten]

Opprinnelig skrevet av ExcessiveGBH:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Caten:

Hey, when I put d3d9.dll into my GTAIV folder, the game crashes without an error message. I get a black screen for a few seconds and then it just closes. I've also tried downgrading the game and added mods but same thing happens. I'm using rtx 3060 laptop, win11

Did you put this file as well? dxgi.dll

Yeah, The game doesn't work unless I delete d3d9.dll. Which is I'm assuming the main file that runs this whole thing.

Edit: Forgot to mention I did use 32bit files and I tried version 1.7.3 and 1.10.3. Same thing happens.

Edit 2: Turns out iCEnhancer 3.0 comes with d3d9.dll that works for me. Fixed my performance issues.

[Markie]

After some extensive testing, I've come to the conclusion that DXVK 1.9.4 seems to be the best version to use in GTA IV at the moment.

It is a major release, new enough to have bugfixes for some issues which could happen in this game in particular but also older than the 1.10+ versions which seem to perform worse on it for some reason.

Compared to 1.10.3, GPU usage on 1.9.4 is lower on average and CPU usage seems to be about the same except that microstutters while roaming around the city and having LOD pop-in are noticeably less frequent and frame drops when crossing a bridge into the main island and having traffic generate in front of the camera are far less agressive, with stutters during police chases also happening less often, which means there's probably less strain on the CPU as well then.

DXVK 1.9.4:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2860075067

DXVK 1.10.3:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2860075052

EDIT: DXVK 2.0 just released and it is entirely superior to any previous DXVK versions in GTA IV.

[jack19944]

I place dxgi.dll and d3d9.dll from x32 in Grand Theft Auto IV directory but game crashes on loading screen .
i have GTA IV on Rockstar Launcher not on steam
my PC
Ryzen 5 2600
GeForce GTX 1060
16 GB RAM
whan should I do to make this work?

[ExcessiveGBH]

Opprinnelig skrevet av jack19944:

I place dxgi.dll and d3d9.dll from x32 in Grand Theft Auto IV directory but game crashes on loading screen .
i have GTA IV on Rockstar Launcher not on steam
my PC
Ryzen 5 2600
GeForce GTX 1060
16 GB RAM
whan should I do to make this work?

Make a commandline.txt file put these CMD"S in.
-norestrictions
-nomemrestrict
-refreshrate 120
-percentvidmem 100
-noprecache
-availablevidmem 12228

Also make a customer resolution in launch options.

[diego96]

Do NOT add too large of a number to -availablevidmem because it WILL screw your settings up and force disable night shadows. Add something like 70 (it works in multiples of 32, I think).

OP should change that immediately.

[ExcessiveGBH]

Opprinnelig skrevet av diego96:

Do NOT add too large of a number to -availablevidmem because it WILL screw your settings up and force disable night shadows. Add something like 70 (it works in multiples of 32, I think).

OP should change that immediately.

I have no issues at all, night shadows works

[João13]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Markie:

After some extensive testing, I've come to the conclusion that DXVK 1.9.4 seems to be the best version to use in GTA IV at the moment.

It is a major release, new enough to have bugfixes for some issues which could happen in this game in particular but also older than the 1.10+ versions which seem to perform worse on it for some reason.

Compared to 1.10.3, GPU usage on 1.9.4 is lower on average and CPU usage seems to be about the same except that microstutters while roaming around the city and having LOD pop-in are noticeably less frequent and frame drops when crossing a bridge into the main island and having traffic generate in front of the camera are far less agressive, with stutters during police chases also happening less often, which means there's probably less strain on the CPU as well then.

DXVK 1.9.4:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2860075067

DXVK 1.10.3:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2860075052

Interesting, I'll try it. I was playing with 1.10.3 and I was having drops to 35-40 fps walking around town, even though I played the game several times. Let's see if it will work better, since my setup works very well. Thanks for the tip.

i3 10100F
8GB DDR4 (1x8)
RX 6600

[Gumisiek]

HOLY MOLY, I've spent literally tens of hours trying to make this game working on stable 60 FPS and nothing really helped even though I tried pretty much every single method I've found in the Internet plus a couple of my own ideas. But this one seems to work fine, I've only tested it for a couple of minutes, but I have stable 65 FPS on High settings and when I set View Distance, Detail Distance and Vehicle Density to 100 (which isn't really recommended) it sometimes drops to 59 FPS, but only for split second, wouldn't notice if I haven't had FPS counter on.

It seems that after almost 15 years of waiting I will be able to comfortably play this game (which is one of the very best in the series), big "Thank you" to you and the author of the dxvk.

[toobad]

The Vulkan api, in my experience, is hit and miss in this game, it causes frametime instabilities and hitches, the FPS lock and VSync don't work correctly. Also AMD software, which actually can make the game look better (with better texture filtering and anti-aliasing), can't be used with Vulkan. Vulkan is not a silver bullet, just sayin.

[EASY PETE]

Shame it came to this "new complete edition" my ass