Grand Theft Auto IV: The Complete Edition - Vanilla, 60 FPS, Smooth Gameplay Guide (For Nvidia, G-Sync/G-Sync Compatible Users)

This guide is for people with relatively decent hardware (at least 10's series Nvidia GPU and a CPU similar to Ryzen 1600 and it's Intel analogue), who wants to play this game as smooth as possible, in the game's current condition, without changing any gamefiles or using any mods.
Here will be used only native Nvidia Tools (Nvidia Control Panel).

Introduction

Not far ago I performed an upgrade of my system and the most significant change for me was a 1440p monitor.
One of the first games I tried to play on my new big screen, was GTA IV.
As time flies, nothing changes and in it's current state, without any adjustments, this game is a mess (if we will speak about how it performs on ANY hardware).
I never liked to perform any modifications with the game files and I know how much better and playable this game is with community modifications (a big respect for the community), but I set myself a goal to achive maximum possible with the vanilla game, using only native Nvidia Tools.

And spoiler, spoiler - I achived a satisfactory result (at least for myself).

Issues

We will not talk much about how this game was poorly ported on the PC.
At the maximum settings it can make my RTX 3070 drop the FPS to 40's.
Most unoptimised settings are:

• Night Shadows
  
• View Distance
  
• Detail Distance

These settings make struggle your entire PC, because the game doesn't know how to use PC resources properly.

No antialiasing at all - no native in-game antialiasing options make game look very choppy.

Another issue is - instabilities on High FPS which may lead to many in-game bugs, including zoomed in cutscenes (as I searched trough the Reddit, some missions are unpassable on High FPS).
The adviced FPS is 60.

And the most annoying issues are - Frametime spikes/Stutters/FPS drops
In my opinion, ingame VSync is poorly implemented and only add problems such as very big input lag and most of all - more FPS drops.

Making It Better (Almost Perfect): In-game Settings

I will start my ajustments with the in-game settings, as I always prefer to restart a game after making any changes while I am playing, not testing (after this we will go right to the Nvidia Control Panel).

As a testing area I used Algonquin Bridge, as for my PC this area appears to be most demanding (after riding a couple of hours and performing ajustments) and easy accessible from the start of TBoGT campaign (click on the image for full resolution):





These are my ingame settings:



Lets run trough some of the settings:

Shadows: I very like Very High Shadows and in my opinion, this setting is not as crucial for the performance, as many people declare.
If you have a modern hardware, the game will not use it properly anyway.

By other side, Night Shadows afected my FPS stability, so I turned them OFF.

Vehicle Density: I always try to ajust my settings with the Vehiche Density at 100, as this setting affects gameplay.

View Distance/Detail Distance: these are the culprits of most of the issues.
I think it will be cool to have them on 100, but these settings are unstable and lead to Frame Drops.

Why 45 and not default, 50, 65 etc...?

As I performed many tests on the Algonquin Bridge, with and without Wanted Level these values appear to work best on my PC (without noticeable Frame Drops).
At 50 I already had issues while ramming cop barricades.

I advise to you to test it yourself, on your PC, ajusting it by 5.

Other Settings are maxed and the refresh rate was set to maximum available.
I will explain later why.

Making It Better (Almost Perfect): Nvidia Control Panel

The last step to optimize GTA IV will be configuring Nvidia Control Panel settings for this application.
Start Nvidia Control Panel application and access:

Manage 3D Settings section -> Program Settings -> Add -> Grand Theft Auto IV (we need gtaiv.exe) -> Add Selected Program (click on the image for full resolution):



From here we will start our configuration.
(Note: I did not used Nvidia Image Scalling, as I did not liked the implimentation with this game)

The settings we are looking for:



Antialiasing: On;
Antialiasing - Transparency: 8x (supersample);

These two settings will help to add a respectable Antialiasing (in comparison with it absence) to the game.

The following section can result many discussions as many of options, logically may seem contradictory:

Low Latency Mode: Ultra;
Max Frame Rate: 60;
Monitor Technology: G-Sync/G-Sync Compatible (depends on your hardware);
Preferred Refresh Rate: Highest Available;
Threaded Optimization: On;
Vertical Sync: On;
Virtual Reality Pre-Rendered Frames: 2;

I set Low Latency Mode on Ultra as it limits the number of created frames.
In reality, what I felt in this game and many others - Low Input Lag and Smooth for 60 FPS mouse movement (you can compare it with in-game VSync to feel the diffrence);

Max Frame Rate on 60 - Self explanatory, we need 60 FPS be a maximum value, not 61, 62 etc...;

Monitor Technology: G-Sync/G-Sync Compatible: limiting to 60 FPS never be perfect, so there sometimes will be 59-60 FPS transitions (frame buffer is not ideal);

Preferred Refresh Rate: Highest Available and Vertical Sync: On - We want to use Nvidia Control Panel VSync, as I think it works better, that in-game one.

First of all, as I am using G-Sync Compatible monitor (59-60 transitions will be more smooth), it will drop the refreshrate anyway, by itself.
We want also VSync be used, to make framerate spikes less noticeable.
Without it, the game will be choppy and frame drops could be felt more strongly.
If we will set in-game refresh rate to 60Hz, VSync will automatically lock FPS under a couple of frames under current refresh rate, otherwise G-Sync will stop work, as it has its range.
We don't want it, so we are not limiting the refresh rate trough panel:
It works in 48 - 165 FPS range (in my case), we also enable VSync and set FPS cap to 60, so all of them are working (if I understood correctly, at least I felt it by gameplay).

Threaded Optimization: On - honestly, never felt much diffrence.
This setting intends applications, that use limited number of cores, to use more resources of your CPU.
To understand if it is working, there should be performed more precise testings.
Anyway, this setting makes no harm - so we enable it.

Virtual Reality Pre-Rendered Frames: 2 - another setting, that reduces latency, by making frame buffer smaller (as I understood).
The default setting is 1, so I increaced it to 2.
There will be a little more input lag, but not as noticeable in comparison with in-game VSync.

Honestly, this looks a little bit contradictory, as I set Low Latency to Ultra and after this I make frame buffer larger, by increasing Pre-Rendered Frames count.
Why just not to set Low Latency Mode to ON (medium setting)?
You can try it yourself, on Low Latency Mode set to ON, mouse input lag is very noticeable in comparison with Pre-Rendered Frames: 2.
But with Pre-Rendered Frames: 2 frame drops/spikes are less noticeable.

Nvidia Control Panel by itself is a very powerful tool.
I know, that there are other more powerful tools, but I am used to NCP.

Making It Better (Almost Perfect): Side Note

Side Note:

I tried to explain things with my words, but honestly, it looks like a science for me and I did not understood it on such level, to explain it to others.
I am not claiming, that things in reality works this way, but in my opinion - I felt the diffrence (maybe placebo).
You can additionaly search on Reddit why FPS Drops happen (59-60 for example), there are people, that can explain in more professional way.
In short, any artificial limit may lead to FPS Drops as Frame Rate is more like a traffic.
Hardware is capable to reproduce more frames and when it reaches our limit, drop happends as hardware produced more frames, but there is no "space" for it and it should wait.
To eliminate this effect, there is such thing as Buffer, but very large buffer creates input lag.
I did not used Tripple Buffering in this configuration (I tested it versus Pre-Rendered Frames: 2 and liked current configuration more), as I read on Nvidia Forum, that G-Sync basically acts as Double-Buffer and there will be no benefits from Tripple.
I don't want to teach you anything with guide, I'd liked if you tested this configuration and shared your opinion.

Afterword

After many hours of diffrent configurations, finnaly - I was able to play this game smoothly.
I was shocked, how pleasantly it can be, after some of the tweaks using in-game settings and a native Nvidia Control Panel.

I always liked Grand Theft Auto series and I think Rockstar creates iconin games.
Unfortunately, until GTA V there was no nice ports for the PC's and Grand Theft Auto IV, in my opinion is the worst one, if we will talk about technical performance. Most of all, because of it's unpredictability.
I played this game on many diffrent CPU/GPU combinations: Athlon X4 730/Radeon HD 5770, i3-6300/GTX 1060, Ryzen 1600/GTX 1080 and currenly on Ryzen 5600/RTX 3070 and there are always diffrent results, regardless of the setup.

Despite all these difficulties and bugs, this game is beautiful.
My favorite game in Grand Theft Auto series is San Andreas for its fun atmosphere, opportunities to entertain yourself, the plot, alive characters and world.
I always looked with a litte bit of doubt on GTA IV.
But after trying it once and focusing on the plot, I can say - Niko Bellic is one of the most alive and honest charachters, the world is very alive, despite in San Andreas are more ways to entartain yourself.
He is very similar with Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2 - he is a simple, not the smartest man full of brutal power and the game plot itself is a pure, dirty criminal drama.
This game deservs a full remastered, but not such crappy port.

Thanks to all who visited this guide, I wish you a good time on the streets of Liberty City and not only.
I will finish it with the quote of one of the most famous people I know, which very well reflects my feelings about Grand Theft Auto IV:

"Like it says in the book, we are blessed and cursed. Same things make us laugh, make us cry" - El Grande Smokio.

[Mr. Bond 007]

Thanks bro. I followed every single step but I don't recommend the option "Highest Available" in "Preferred Refresh Rate" from the NVIDIA PANEL because of the graphics. You may get better resolution if you already modify the panel to get graphics in 2K or 4k even that your monitor has only 1080p resolution.

Of course, you shouln't push to the limit and get the 4K because that really affect your Fotograms Per Second, but nowadays your hardware can get the best resolution possible on GTA IV and still get the 60 FPS.

[Jabba the Nutt]

look up dxvk. it doubles your fps if your gpu can run the vulkan api.

[zombiemincaftr]

Im not sure about this, my only problem was having to make a file to increase the vram available in the settings.

[gunitmob411]

Bro wrote like 4 conclusions

[IFong]

Game runs at like 2fps when i start it so i cant even access the in game settings. what do i do?

[VissGaming]

Thanks for the guide, my game runs great now!

[Polyflame]

For the Nvidia control panel part, what should I do if I am on a PC with an AMD graphics card? Is there any guidance you can give me on that?

[crit.]

*you saved every gta playa

[crit.]

Not gonna lie, you're a life saver.

Before following your steps, my GPU (NVIDIA GTX 1650 4gb) heat was counting from 39% to 69-75% and the fan made a lot of noises (and also my pc was burning like a cooker stove).
After this, my gpu and all specs counted from 75% to 40-47% and it was no noise after all.
Sadly I can't use it as a cooker stove for more morning breakfast)))

Thank you so much, dude. You saved me a lot.

[macNcheeZ]

bro i get like up to 400 fps all the time on my 3060 12 gb. i play with the enhanced graphics on, no need to twweak anything else. everything is off for me excpet for enhanced grapics for gta4 its in the menu for pc.