GTA III (PC) Problems...

[Vetius]

Hey,

When playing GTA III, gameplay seems to be very skippy and ghosty-like, (unsmooth movements of cars and people), especially during crashes. Everything is turned down to low as far as graphic intensity goes, my computer stats are below. What's the problem, besides sluggish processor speed?

P3 - 600MHz
384mb SDRam
32mb ATI Radeon Video Card
Windows XP Pro

Thanks.

 

[ECO]

Originally posted by Vetius
...gameplay seems to be very skippy and ghosty-like

The gameplay is probably skippy because of either a lack of processing power or combination of processor, videocard and FSB speed, but I can tell you that the game seems to be ghost-like because you have "Trails" enabled under the game's display options.

 

[ECO]

What might also be factor is that you really have a Celeron and not a Pentium 3 as you have indicated. There are bastards out there that attempt to pass systems as genuine Pentiums but are really selling Celerons. Celerons are would-be Pentiums that didn't meet the required clock speed and are provided less memory cache.

I've had a Celeron in the past and had many problems with it, especially with games.

 

[omgsoup]

here's what you do. its going to cost about $179, but you'll love me for it.

step 1: go to powerleap.com
step 2: order a 1.4 GHz PL-iP3/T
step 3: wait
step 4: install
step 5: enjoy. well, you could also plop down about $130 for a GF Ti200/500 (or an equivalent ATi i suppose), and that'd help too.


the 1.2 GHz PL-iP3/T is faster than a P3 1GHz.
you can see here

 

[Vetius]

Haha...

Well, I turned off trails, and yes it solved the ghost-like problem, but the game is still a bit skippy. I know I have a P3 rather than a celeron because I got it from Dell, and they don't screw around over there, (last time I checked). Thanks for your help guys.

 

[Geffy]

if you read one of the either help or readme then you will know that it says that sometimes if there are partial pauses in game play that this is due to the game not being able to access the hard drive fast enough. They recommend Defrag. So would I.

 

[robin.munro]

Also

Disable any background serviced that have a habit of playing around with the HDD, (page file, antivirus ect.) - Plus if you are downloading at the time that can really make the machine jumpy.

 

[mistajohnson]

You may also want to try the new game update. Take2 recently released a version 1.1 patch for GTA3 that allows you to copy all sound files onto your hard drive for faster in-game access. You're still required to have the CD in for the game to start but this may speed you up a bit.

 

[AmarSingh]

im a tad off topic here, but there is a program called virtual drive that creates virtual cd rom drives on your computer so that you can run any game from a cd image instead of from the cd. if you have lots of hard drive space to spare then it is awesome. there is a free trial at the site.