My copy of Grand Theft Auto III for the PC runs poorly. Even on the
lowest possible display settings, gameplay is slow and choppy.

System requirements for GTA3:

Minimum               Recommended           My System
--------------------  --------------------  --------------------
96MB RAM              128 MB RAM            256 MB RAM
450MHz P3/Athlon      700 MHz P3/Athlon     750MHz Duron
16MB Video Memory     32MB Video Memory     32MB Video Memory

My video card, by the way, is an ATI Radeon VE, if that matters.
Anyway, as you can see above, the problem is probably either my
processor or my video card. I'm not going to buy both a new CPU and a
new vid card, so I want to know in your (hopefully) well-thought-out
opinion:

1.) Which component is more at fault for the poor performance, and
2.) What I should upgrade to in order to make the game run smoothly.

I'm not worried about ridiculously high resolutions and special
graphical effects; I just want the thing to run at normal speed. I
know enough about computers to have custom-built several systems,
including the one in question. So, I'd appreciate an answer with a
reasonable amount of explanation and supporting evidence.

Thanks!

---

Request for Question Clarification by nishka-ga on 24 Jan 2003 22:08 PST

Hello eller!

I'd love to help, but I'd like to get some additional information on your system:

1.  What operating system are you running?

2.  Do you have the most up-to-date drivers on your system?

3.  Is there any point in time that the game is not choppy?  

4.  Are other games this bad?

---

Clarification of Question by eller-ga on 25 Jan 2003 08:54 PST

Wow, thanks for all the comments and help. Here are a few details for
anyone that's interested.

My OS is Win98 SE.

I do have the most up-to-date drivers.

The game's choppiness correlates directly with the amount of rendering
it's doing (i.e. the more characters on-screen, the worse it does)

No other games are this bad, then again, I don't own any games with
similar requirements.

My ATI card is AGP, and I'm using an Abit KT7 mobo that, off the top
of my head, I think has 2x (maybe 4x) AGP.

Nothing's running in the background. I run a tight ship around here :)

My HD is in tip-top shape, as far as I know, although it is only a
5400 rpm model.

BIOS settings are optimal, as far as I can tell.

Anyway, the consensus seems to be that my video card is the culprit,
which is what I would have guessed. I started to make a list of all
the comments that I found helpful, then realized that each one was
very informative and helpful in and of itself. Thanks to everyone who
had something to say, especially to those who provided links and
anecdotal info as I requested. I consider my question answered, but I
don't really know who should get credit, since multiple researchers
were involved. So, I guess, you guys should fgure it out among
yourselves. Rock Paper Scissors, maybe? I dunno. Thanks a bunch
though!

Have you thought of calling the manufacturer of the game?  There may
be some sort of incompatibility you're unaware of.

jbf777-ga

...and make sure you've downloaded any patches for the game

I'd say the most likely culprit is your video card. The ATI Radeon VE
is essentially a slimmed down version of the regular Radeon card,
aimed more at an office market than a gamer's one. As explained in
this Tom's Hardware review, the VE version is missing chips
responsible for 3D lighting effects and textures.

Tom's Hardware Review:
http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/20010316/atiradeon-05.html

You clearly have enough RAM, and the 750MHz Duron should be at the
very least enough speed for the game. Not knowing the full details of
your system (type of RAM, hard drive speed, operating system etc.) I'm
wary of listing this as an "Answer", but I'd place my money on your
video card as the bottleneck for this game.

Dave Bug
Google Answers Researcher

(If you find this a satisfactory answer and worth your List Price, let
me know and I'll repost it as an "Answer." If you'd like further
clarification, ask away.)

Oh I love GTA3 soooo much!

I had a very similar problem with the game on my former system
however. It turned out the culprit was my video card, a TNT2. Despite
having the required RAM, it just wasn't really up to it. I have since
upgraded my computer, and now use a GeForce2 which handles the game
just fine. And most other games I want to play.

So I suspect davebug's answer is probably spot-on!

Regards,
sycophant-ga

A few comments from a PC technician (me):

Firstly, Every game and every system are a different situation.

In your case, I would make the following suggestions/comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU

Please keep in mind that a Duron 750 isn't necessarly the equivalent
of a P3/Athlon 700 that the game requires. In some games a P3-700 and
an Athlon-700 aren't even equivalent. Have a look at the banchmarks
shown in these links, which helps to illustrate some of the
differences:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20010108/duron850-07.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20000828/athlon-08.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20000720/celeron-07.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20000619/duron-08.html

As you can see, at any given speed level, a Pentium IV, III, or Athlon
are generally faster then a similar speed Celeron or Duron.

So that could be part of the problem. Some games are very heavy on the
CPU (example: Half Life due to the heavy AI in the game)

Some games are a lot less CPU dependant.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Memory:

Games often list a rediculously low minimum amount of memory. In fact,
so does almost all software. Would you run Windows 2000 or XP with
only 128 MB of RAM? No. But you could.

The amount of memory you need varies based on your operating system,
but I generally recommend an absolute minimum of 256MB to run Windows
9x or 512MB to run XP. In fact, I noticed a good speed increase when I
took my P3-500 from 256MB to 512MB. And that's just for Windows.

Games are often less system memory dependant then other applications,
but if you speed up your system, the game will get faster.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Video card:

Again, here you have a processor and memory. Often more memory beyond
32 MB doesn't help as much as a faster GPU. You don't mention if your
card is AGP or PCI, but if it isn't AGP, it should be. Look for an AGP
card in the GeForce 2TI, 2GTS, 3TI, or 4TI series, or an ATi Radeon
9000 or better (9000,9500,9700 and the pro versions).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free resources:

Another killer is free resources. You could have a killer system, but
be running to much startup and background software. Keep it to a
minimum. If you're in Win 98 or ME or XP, pressing control-alt-delete
will show you a list of running programs. While XP has lots of
"processes" that need to be there, 98/ME don't list those, just the
programs. In 9xME you only have to have explorer running. Everything
else, even systray, can be prevented. On most systems, ideal resources
can be attained and still have explorer, systray, and a few others
running.
In 98, ME, and XP, use the utility "msconfig" to display a list of
startup programs that are being loaded. And look for stuff to disable.
Bad culprits? Any adware, or spyware, any file sharing programs,
hardware utilities for your mosue, keyboard, viedo card, etc., message
software like ICQ and MSN, useless stuff like WinAMP agent and
RealPlayer quickstart, Office FindFast, and so on. If you're in
Windows 98/ME, pressing windows key-break (or opening the system
section of the control panel) goves you the system properties. Go to
the performance tab and see what your free resources is. It shouldn't
be less then 90 percent after you've just finished booting. In XP, you
don't have the resource issue that 98ME have (resources are limited
and can be drained away when programs close.) but it still doesn't
hurt to aim for 30 or fewer running processes. Hit control-alt-delete
and go to the perfomance tab in Windows XP to see this number.
Ask youself: Do I need this program running while I play my game?
Usually the answer is no.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hard Drive:
Be sure your hard drive is fully scandisked and defragged. Use
norton's versions if you have them (from the Norton Utilities).

Always keep about 500MB free, in addition to the settings below:

In Device Manager:
98/ME - go to performance. Virtual memory. Set minimum and maximum to
the same number, usually around 500MB is OK, but you can experiment.
In XP, you need to open the system properties again (window-break)
click on the advanced tab, click on performance setting, click on
advanced tab, click on virtual memory settings, and do it there. It's
been my experience that XP manages it on it's own much better then 9X,
so this isn't as great a tip.

Also, if you're using an old, slow hard drive, that can hurt too. Try
to have at least a 5400 RPM drive, preferably 7200. An old 4400
bigfoot drive just doens't cut it.

If you have a DMA 66 or faster controller available, use it. Find out
from the manufacturer if you need to manually enable the faster
transfer for your hard drive.
Even if you don't have a DMA 66 or better drive, or controller, use
DMA100 cables anyway. It helps.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BIOS
There are some settings in the BIOS that can make things faster. The
key would be to check that your hard drive access isn't being limited,
and your memory speeds, and video card slot settings are good also.
There are numerous guides available online that discuss the various
options.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lastly, keepnig your system properly cooled never hurts


I hope this has been informative for you.

sparky4ca-ga

though both upgrades will improve the performance of the game, its
almost certainly your graphics card. it has a decent amount of video
memory... plenty really, but it lacks the processing muscle to do any
graphics tasks. For the type of computer you have, the best bet is a
Card with a geforce 440 mx graphics chip and 64 mb of ddr ram. This
should cost between $70 and $100 and should make the game perform
well, and is a good match for your system. If you plan to later
upgrade your processor as well, then I would recommend the
higher-powered Geforce 4 Ti4200 graphics card, which should cost
somewhere around $150-$200. Any ATI graphics card older/slower/worse
than the Raedeon series of graphics chips will perform poorly for any
3d games. You processor, though not particularly speedy, will play the
game adaquately if you get a graphics card upgrade.

Most people would have tried this by now, but just in case (since
nobody else mentioned it!) Try reinstalling the video drivers in same
mode.
Reboot, tap f8 as it's booting up until you get the boot options menu.
If f8 does not work, try holding down shift (this only works in 98.)
Select safe mode with the keyboard, press enter.
When safe mode's loaded, right click my computer, properties, device
manager.
Click on the plus sign next to display adapters, right click your
card, remove.
If it appears more than once, make sure you remove all of them
(sometimes conflicts do this.) After this, reboot to normal mode, let
it reinstall, then run windowsupdate.microsoft.com

You say you've installed the latest drivers, does this include your
motherboard drivers (Via 4-in-1's) available at:
http://www.viaarena.com Those drivers will help performance greatly.
You should also download wcpuid from http://www.h-oda.com/ and insure
that your video card is running at agp 4x. If you do decide to make an
upgrade I would suggest something in the range of the nVidia Geforce
4-Ti4200 (The 128mb version), which is about $130 depending on what
brand you get and from who.
http://www.gameve.com/store/gameve_viewitem.asp?idproduct=739&showit=1
is a good place, though you might look elsewhere on
http://www.pricewatch.com and I would suggest verifying the seller's
integrity at http://www.resellerratings.com

- Bryan