Why was GTA IV so poorly optimized when it came out for PC?

I still remember how badly the game ran on nearly all computers when it came out. I never quite understood why. Isn't the whole point of porting the game to PC to make sure it runs good on an average computer and not only on high-end builds?

I don't know if that's the case with GTA V, since I don't care enough to find out, but the question still stands as it's definitely not just GTA IV that had this problem. Is this a common occurence with videogames nowadays?

 

Most games that get ported over to PC end up being poorly optimized, most of the time the developers are quick to upload a patch to make it playable but other times, the developers don't care and will just never fix it. That luckily wasn't the case for GTA4.

 

I'd say that isn't really the case anymore. For example, many Japanese companies end up porting their games on PC, and they all made some really good ports. However, ports that end up being made by a third-party company or by someone not caring much about PC (I'm looking at you Activision), are almost always bad and sloppy.

 

Ya I was mostly talking about Activison. Call of Duty is always so poorly optimized when it gets released for pc.

 

Activision still do a better job at optimizing their games when compared to Ubisoft. Try to name at least one decently optimized Ubisoft game after 2012, I doubt you'd be able to.

 

I think it is because of the great differences between consoles and PCs. Consoles are known to have less powerful and different hardware compared to PCs, and since many games are first optimized for the hardware of the console, it will run into problems when trying to run it on a completely different hardware. Also, consoles all have the same hardware, unlike PCs which have multiple combinations of parts from different companies. Because of this, it would be hard to make sure the game is optimized for every combination of hardware possible.

 

Totally agree. Consoles stick with the same video card, and PC usually have different video cards, meaning it may be harder to create an optimal game.

 

I honestly have no idea, but I can say that it definitely had a lot of bugs, one which isn't still fixed to this date is that playground glitch which throws you in the sky. Do you know it? Haha, it's fun sometimes, but it kills the realistical vibe of this game.

 

I don't know but the performance was terrible. Could be, as previous posters said, because of the difference between PC's and the consoles of that generation. Maybe it was difficult to port. Anyways, they seem to have gotten their stuff together with GTA V, so it's all good now.

 

I reckon it could be due to time and also the makers rush into doing the conversion to the PC port and sometimes it does not work well as most games tend to demand more megabytes or rams, which can use a lot and causes the game to not work at times. I reckon the video cards are different and the PC uses more of it and the console does not have bugs as much as the PC version and the PC may not play the game at times which can be annoying when trying to play the game. I think when bringing the game to PC the developers need to think about how they will do it and make it appealing, and easy to play so people do not need to tweak the game or set it up so it works.

 

Because Rockstar has forgotten about where they used to launch their games the first time. They no longer consider PC a worthwhile market and they prefer releasing their games on consoles. I really disagree of their choice of making Red Dead Redemption console-exclusive, for example. They don't care much about PC users anymore.

 

It was just a bad port. And modern machines have issues using it because, as far as I know, it was not at all optimized for Windows 8, because Windows 8 hadn't come out at the time.

 

Probably because they focused primarily on the console version, and rushed a bit the PC installment to get it done in time for the official release. That's usually the case with poorly optimized games. It has been improved since it's first release but, I think, that there's still room for further improvement and optimization.

 

To make GTA a PC game instead of a console exclusive would have been a massive challenge to rockstar, and considering the time sale they would have been working on, I don't think they did too bad of a job to be honest.

Especially considering the fact that with every patch and update that gets released it will continue to improve aswell, I don't think many people complained to much, they was just glad to have at last seen a PC version of the game as promised.

 

Well, Rockstar learned from their mistake. Even though GTA IV was a bad port when it came out they made sure to not screw up with GTA V this time. They delayed the release a bit and it was worth the wait.

 

I agree. A lot of people were moaning because it was getting delayed but when it did come out it was definitely worth the wait.

Rockstar couldn't really win to be honest, they bring a game out on time and get called because it had bugs that needed sorting, or bring it out late to get it right, and then get called because it's behind schedule...

 

I agree as well but since people who use XBOX and PSP have increased in their numbers, I think they don't bother much about how it runs on PC when they're making so much money on other devices anyway.

 

I honestly think some games really don't belong in the PC, with its mouse and keyboard. GTA is one of them, you can't really drive properly using the keyboard. Resident Evil 4 too, because of the poorly optimized settings when it came to the PC. With driving and 3rd person games, I honestly think it's better to have a video game controller so you can maximize your video game experience. I dunno, with GTA 4, I never truly felt like I was roaming the streets of Liberty City, like I did in San Andreas.

 

I remember it too. I think it was because it was directly imported from the console version. Later on, rockstar released a free patch and game started to run much better, at least on my computer.

 

Well, we can't blame the developers for this. The size of the game is much more than average PC game size and the minimum requirements are much higher than any other game. These things may be the cause of poor performance.