How to make GTA IV: The Complete Edition perfectly playable in 2025

This guide will walk you through installing some basic fixes and modifications for GTA IV. Once installed, many of the issues that plague the Complete Edition will be fixed and your game should run smoothly again. Furthermore, you will be able to enjoy all of the original radio songs.

Introduction

In order to improve your GTA IV experience in 2024, I will guide you through the following six steps:

1. Fusion Fix
   
2. Radio Restoration
   
3. Modifying "stream.ini"
   
4. DXVK translation layer [advanced]
   
5. Using DSR/VSR Super Resolution [optional]
   
6. In-game settings recommendations

I have tried to make these instructions as clear as possible. If you have any suggestions on how I could further improve my guide, feel free to leave a comment.

Fusion Fix

The Fusion Fix is an essential fix for many problems players of the vanilla version of GTA IV are facing. It offers a plethora of fixes as well as additions that greatly enhance your GTA IV experience. Above that, all options are neatly integrated in the in-game menus in the most recent versions of the Fusion Fix (no .ini file adjustments necessary anymore).

I would like to point out some of my personal favorites:

• lighting now works correctly (i.e. neon lights in Hove Beach, Rotterdam Tower at night, etc.)
  
• field of view can be adjusted
  
• screen filters can be adjusted or removed (Default, Off, IV, TLAD, TBoGT)
  
• console gamma can be activated (less washed out colors)

This is just a very, very short list and there is so much more to Fusion Fix. I highly recommend you take a look at ThirteenAG's Fusion Fix github page and browse through all the fixes and additions for yourself.

Download

You can download Fusion Fix on ThirteenAG's github page: https://github.com/ThirteenAG/GTAIV.EFLC.FusionFix#gtaiveflcfusionfix

Click on "Download: GTAIV.EFLC.FusionFix.zip" and wait for the download to start.

Installation

After you downloaded "GTAIV.EFLC.FusionFix.zip"...

• unzip "GTAIV.EFLC.FusionFix.zip"
  
• copy all files into your GTA IV root directory
  (\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto IV\GTAIV)

Recommended Settings

If you installed it correctly, Fusion Fix will have added additional options to the "Controls", "Display", "Graphics" and "Game" menus. Feel free to change all these options to your heart's content, but here are my personal recommendations for an improved vanilla-like experience:

Controls

Raw Input: "On"
Always Run: "Off"
Cover Centering: "Off"

Display

Motion Blur: "On"
Bloom: "On"
Console Gamma: "On"
Screen Filter: "Default" (or "Off" depending on your preferences)
Depth of Field: "Low" (higher values are distracting while flying)
Tree Lighting: "PC+"
Tree Alpha: "PC"
Definition: "On"

Graphics

Shadow Filter: "CHSS"
Sun Shafts: "On"
Antialiasing: "SMAA"
FPS Limiter: "60"
FOV: "0" (vanilla)
Lamppost Shadows: "Off"

Limiting GTA IV’s FPS to 60 or below is critical for avoiding game-breaking bugs!
Without this limit, you may experience zoomed-in cutscenes, physics glitches (especially during mini-games or while riding a motorcycle), and other unpredictable issues. I personally use Rivatuner Statistics Server (bundled with MSI Afterburner) to cap FPS, but standalone RTSS or other tools like NVIDIA Control Panel’s frame limiter are also effective.

Do not skip this step - it ensures a smoother and bug-free experience!

Game

Skip Intro: "On"
Skip Menu: "Off"
Windowed: "Off"
Windowed Borderless: "Off"
LightSyncRGB: "On" (only works with Logitech hardware)
FPS Counter: "Off"
Cutscene Letterbox: "On"
Cutscene Pillarbox: "On"
Alternate Dialogues: "Off"

Radio Restoration

As you may know, Rockstar Games removed about 50 radio tracks from the game after re-releasing it as The Complete Edition. In this step, we will restore those lost songs.

Download

You can download the GTA IV Complete Edition radio downgrader on nexusmods: https://www.nexusmods.com/gta4/mods/234

Select "FILES" and download the latest version of "Radio Restoration" by clicking on "MANUAL DOWNLOAD".

Note that you must have a nexusmods account and be logged in to download the file.

Installation

The installation of Radio Restoration is pretty straightforward:

After you downloaded "Radio Restorer.rar"...

• unpack "Radio Restorer.rar"
  
• copy the "update" folder into your GTA IV main directory
  (\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto IV\GTAIV)

Modifying "stream.ini"

This file changes how much RAM GTA IV is allowed to use. Increasing this value will reduce texture issues for many people. If you change the value to "409600", GTA IV will be able to use up to 4GB of RAM (which, to my knowledge, is the maximum it can use since it is a 32-bit program).

You don't need to download anything here, as the "stream.ini" file is already inside your GTA IV "pc" directory (\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto IV\GTAIV\pc).

Modification

Inside your stream.ini, change all values to "409600".
Your stream.ini should now look like this:

virtual		409600
physical	409600
virtual_optimised	409600
physical_optimised	409600

DXVK translation layer [advanced]

Explaining how DXVK works is a bit difficult, but I will try my best anyway:
GTA IV runs on DirectX 9, but DXVK is a translation layer that allows GTA IV to run in Vulkan instead, which can dramatically improve performance. Vulkan is an API similar to DirectX or OpenGL (actually Vulkan is a successor to OpenGL).

This step is a bit more difficult than the others, so I consider it advanced and only recommend it to people who know what they are doing. Also, make sure your graphics card supports Vulkan. Any GPU released in the last 10 years should, but since GTA IV is already 15 years old, I cannot simply assume that you have such a card.

Preparations

If you install DXVK without changing GTA IV's startup parameters, it won't detect your VRAM correctly and you'll be stuck at low settings and even lower resolution with no way to change them.

To avoid this, open GTA IV's Steam properties (right-click on GTA IV in your library and click "Properties..." or click the gear icon on your GTA IV overview page. In the "Launch Options" box under "General", add the following text:

-availablevidmem 16376

Note that you will need to adjust the -availablevidmem value to match your graphics card's VRAM. If you are unsure, start GTA IV and go to the "Graphics" menu. You will see your available VRAM in green text at the bottom:

For example, my GTA IV graphics menu shows "Resource Usage 1259 / 16376 MB", so I use 16376 for the availablevidmem command.

Downloads

You need to download two files for DXVK to work properly. DXVK itself and the DXVK config file (otherwise you may not be able to select the correct resolution for your display).

DXVK download:

You can download DXVK from Philip Rebohle's github page:
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases

On this page, you will see the latest version of DXVK. Scroll down past the list of improvements and download the ".tar.gz" file without the "steamrt-sniper" suffix.
For example, at the time of writing this guide, DXVK's latest version is 2.3 so you would need to download "dxvk-2.3.tar.gz".

DXVK config file download:

You can download the config file from the same github page:
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/blob/master/dxvk.conf

This page may look confusing to some because the download button is not immediately obvious. You can either press the three little dots at the top right of the screen and select "download", or use the little download icon below (also on the right, just above the first line of code).
Each download button should download a file named "dxvk.conf".

Installation

Installing DXVK is not too difficult, but it is not as straightforward as the other improvements in this guide. I will start with DXVK itself and then go into detail about the config file.

DXVK installation

• unpack "dxvk-2.3.tar.gz" or whatever version you downloaded (depending on which file archiver you use, you may need to unpack the file in two steps like "dxvk-2.3.tar.gz" → "dxvk-2.3.tar" → "dxvk-2.3")
  
• open the "x32" folder (even if you have a 64-bit version of Windows as GTA IV is a 32-bit program)
  
• copy "d3d9.dll" into your GTA IV root directory
  (\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto IV\GTAIV)

DXVK config file installation

• copy "dxvk.conf" into your GTA IV root directory
  (\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto IV\GTAIV)
  
• open "dxvk.conf" with Notepad or any other text editing program
  
• press Ctrl+F and search for "d3d9.forceAspectRatio" (without quotation marks)
  
• remove the number sign (#) at the beginning of the line (otherwise it is interpreted as a comment)
  
• add your display's aspect ratio inside the quotation marks (typical desktop monitor resolutions such as 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160 have a 16:9 aspect ratio)
  
• save the file

Your "dxvk.conf" should look something like this:
Make sure to remove the "#"at the beginning of the line and to add your display's aspect ratio.

Using DSR/VSR Super Resolution [optional]

To improve GTA IV’s visuals and reduce jagged edges, you can use Nvidia’s Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) or AMD’s Virtual Super Resolution (VSR). These features allow your GPU to render the game at a higher resolution (e.g. 4K for a 1080p monitor or 5K for a 1440p monitor) and then downsample it to your screen’s native resolution. This process significantly improves image clarity by eliminating aliasing.

How to enable DSR (Nvidia GPUs):

1. Open the Nvidia Control Panel
   
2. Navigate to "Manage 3D Settings" → "DSR - Factors"
   
3. Check the 4.00x option for 4x upscaling
   
4. Set "DSR - Smoothness" to 0%
   
5. Click "Apply" and select a higher resolution in-game

How to enable VSR (AMD GPUs):

1. Open AMD Radeon Software
   
2. Go to "Display" → "Virtual Super Resolution"
   
3. Enable it and select a higher resolution in-game

As you can see, I’m able to select a 5K resolution (5120 × 2880) in GTA IV’s settings menu after enabling DSR, even though I only have a 1440p monitor (2560 × 1440).

Things to keep in mind:

• Higher resolutions will impact performance siginficantly, especially if your GPU already struggles with GTA IV on your monitor's native resolution.
  
• Ideally, you should always go for 4x upscaling because it perfectly matches the width and height ratios, meaning each pixel is sampled four times. Lower scaling factors may cause some blurriness.
  
• For best results, pair DSR/VSR with Fusion Fix’s SMAA anti-aliasing for even smoother edges.
  
• If your Nvidia GPU supports it, consider using 2.25x DLDSR instead of 4x DSR. It offers similar image quality with significantly better performance.

In-Game Settings Recommendations

As you may know, GTA IV is notorious for having poor performance even on high-end hardware. While the Fusion Fix and DXVK improve performance quite drastically, you can boost GTA IV's performance even further by tweaking some in-game settings. You can also use these settings if you have decided not to use DXVK and need the extra performance to maintain consistent frame rates.

Reduce View and Detail Distance

While I play with each distance slider at max, many people tend to decrease both the "View Distance" and "Detail Distance" sliders to improve performance. I do not think this is necessary, as the steps I have explained above will already noticeably improve performance. However, if you really need to squeeze every last bit of performance out of GTA IV, feel free to turn the sliders down.

Disable Anti-aliasing

GTA IV never had anti-aliasing. So turning off the option added by Fusion Fix won't result in a sub-vanilla experience. However, the image will become more unstable in motion.

Turn down Shadow Filtering

While the "CHSS" option added by Fusion Fix is a neat effect, turning this option down will increase GPU performance

Congratulations, you did it!

Congratulations, you should now have a perfectly playable version of GTA IV with no severe stuttering, zoomed-in cutscenes, lighting bugs, or other issues. You should also be able to use console gamma and other graphical effects that were previously unachievable.

Additionally, your radio stations are now complete again and all cut songs are restored.

If you have problems with any of the steps in this guide, feel free to leave a comment. I will try to help you.

Otherwise, please like this guide and add it to your favorites if you found it helpful, thanks!

Screenshot Gallery - GTA IV in 5K

If you’d like to see how GTA IV looks with these enhancements, I’ve uploaded a series of 5K screenshots on Flickr, showcasing the game with Fusion Fix, DXVK, and DSR scaling:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spoggi99/albums/72177720323725268/

I continuously update the album with new screenshots from my playthrough.

[Kelawaikas]

Just checked it again with MSI Afterburner overlay. The game doesn't seem to be bound by my computing power. The GPU usage remains exactly the same while CPU goes up but not dramatically. Makes me wonder if it's even possible to fully optimize this game without rewriting the code from scratch. I hate lazy ports, i hate the antichrist

[Kelawaikas]

my game's lagging when i'm riding a boat and looking at the city shore.

[mondlichtchiller]

Radio Restoration mod is not available anymore on nexusmods

[AllTheColors]

@Spoggi99 I was having the same stuttering problem as @Hybrid_Hawkins and I was able to fix it by going into game settings and setting Windowed and Windowed Borderless to on. No idea why that worked but it did. The only problem with this setting is if you're typing in another window, the game still reacts. Like as I'm typing this, the game window is scrolling through options as if it is still focused. So just gotta limit how much you do outside of the game while those settings are on.

[k]

{LINK REMOVIDO}http://downgraders.rockstarvision.com/ here you go

[liquidnads]

The Radio Restoration mod is no longer available

[Alex]

great guide

[Spoggi99]

@nelbert Steam achievements are not affected and will work properly. Existing save games will also work fine!

[nelbert]

Do these mods affect Steam achievements? Will all of these mods also work safely with existing saved games as well?

[𝒮𝑒𝑒𝓈𝒽-𝑀𝒶n]

@Spoggi99 i am still facing problem regarding the problem of invisible environment even after downloading fusionfix and extracting it in a proper manner. What shall i do now?