Forums › Grand Theft Auto IV Forum › Grand Theft Auto IV PC Forum › GTAIV game crashes after a few minutes.. ...

GTAIV game crashes after a few minutes......

This topic is now read-only on GameSpot.
To post new messages, please visit GameFAQs and log in using the same email and password that you use on GameSpot.

plamberton

Oct 6, 2009 7:45 pm GMT
This is so freakin' annoying, I own this game on the 360 and never had a single problem. I pick this game up for the PC for a really sweet price and I can't play two missions in a row without the game crashing to my desktop. No error message or any kind of feedback. Sometimes the sound will stutter just before a crash but not all the time. As you can see from my sig this PC should easily be able to run this game quite well. So what is the problem is it the games latest 1.04 patch or maybe it's Windows LIVEs latest update. I have no clue. I can play a ton of other games on this PC with no problems so it's not a hardware or driver issue. BTW, I also have the latest WQL Nvidia drivers (190.62) installed.

---
Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4 Ghz, Asus P5N-E SLI mobo, 4 GB KINGSTON DDR2 RAM, 2 XFX 9800 GT 512 MB (SLI), WD 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, PCPNC 750 W PSU.
kevin_rhoads

Oct 7, 2009 4:11 am GMT
Actually some new drivers were released on the 5th. They apparently boost performance pretty well, so I'm getting them.
---
You don't stand a ghost of a chance!
plamberton

Oct 7, 2009 9:28 pm GMT
Shortly after creating this topic, I installed the newest drivers too (191.07) but they did squat to fix the crashing problems. I don't think they optimized this game well to work on PCs. While the game is running I notice stuttering frame rates, on the X360 frame rates were smooth. The only time the frame rate hitched was when you had a lot of vehicles exploding at once.

---
Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4 Ghz, Asus P5N-E SLI mobo, 4 GB KINGSTON DDR2 RAM, 2 XFX 9800 GT 512 MB (SLI), WD 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, PCPNC 750 W PSU.
kingddd

Oct 8, 2009 9:27 am GMT
Do you have SLI turned on because that might be the problem.
---
"Seeing is only just an impression, playing is believing." -Nintendo
plamberton

Oct 8, 2009 6:23 pm GMT
Yes I have SLI enabled, why doesn't the game support it? I never thought of that option but it's easy enough to switch off in the Nvidia control panel.

---
Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4 Ghz, Asus P5N-E SLI mobo, 4 GB KINGSTON DDR2 RAM, 2 XFX 9800 GT 512 MB (SLI), WD 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, PCPNC 750 W PSU.
kingddd

Oct 8, 2009 7:23 pm GMT
GTAIV does support SLI in patch 1 and driver 180.84 and above but it is buggy and the engine wasn't meant for sli.
---
"Seeing is only just an impression, playing is believing." -Nintendo
plamberton

Oct 10, 2009 1:40 pm GMT
Ok I turned off SLI, and the game crashed as soon as I stepped out onto the street from the safehouse. So in the Nvidia Control Panel I also noticed that Physx was turned on so I turned it off and put SLI mode back to on. With this configuration the game actually played the longest since the time I have had it. It did crash again but not for over an hour.

---
Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4 Ghz, Asus P5N-E SLI mobo, 4 GB KINGSTON DDR2 RAM, 2 XFX 9800 GT 512 MB (SLI), WD 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, PCPNC 750 W PSU.
plamberton

Oct 22, 2009 6:01 pm GMT
So I figured I would have better luck installing the new Windows 7 since Vista has been nothing but problems for me. Well guess what this game still crashes on me. This after I completely erased my main hard drive, installed Windows Ultimate 7 clean, got the latest drivers for my video card....latest Windows Gaming Live update as well as Patch 4 for the game. What more do I have to do to be able to play this game crash-free? What buy a brand new PC, well this one is currently 2 years old and as you can see from my sig it should be able to hold up awhile longer. I also spent money to get the whole systems hardware components fully diagnosed and found nothing wrong. In fact I can play most games problem free the ones that give me grief happen to be some of the best games out there to play. Maybe one day MS will design a version of Windows, that when a game or program crashes instead of listing an error message that only Einstein could understand, they will read in plain english and here's a great idea, pin-point in precise detail what made the game crash. No wonder I keep going back to console gaming.

---
Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4 Ghz, Asus P5N-E SLI mobo, 4 GB KINGSTON DDR2 RAM, 2 XFX 9800 GT 512 MB (SLI), WD 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, PCPNC 750 W PSU.
vals_evil_twin

Oct 22, 2009 7:53 pm GMT
Quote^
"So I figured I would have better luck installing the new Windows 7 since Vista has been nothing but problems for me. "

You would be certain of a good result by "downgrading" to XP, which runs this game rock solid.
Just make sure to jump through all the hoops: Service Pack 3, .NET3.5, fresh updated install of Windows Live with an Off-Line account. Should then be trouble-free.
plamberton

Oct 23, 2009 9:41 pm GMT
I had to downgrade to XP - because to me Vista was like the old Windows ME - a pile of crap. Video driver kept crashing playing games. When I went back to XP, the games didn't crash anymore.

What do you mean run the game with an off-line account, that means the games achievements won't be saved, I also have it linked to my XboxLIVE account. Are you saying Windows Gaming LIVE could be the problem. Can you play GTAIV without it?

I own other games that use Windows Gaming LIVE and they run perfectly fine eg. FEAR2, DOW2.

---
Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4 Ghz, Asus P5N-E SLI mobo, 4 GB KINGSTON DDR2 RAM, 2 XFX 9800 GT 512 MB (SLI), WD 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, PCPNC 750 W PSU.
vals_evil_twin

Oct 24, 2009 1:35 pm GMT
I'm glad you got GTA4 going, and Windows Live as well.

I had trouble getting GTA4 to run at first. I had an old installation of Fallout 3 with a Windows Live account, that seemed to be the trouble. Windows live has been upgraded since I installed FO3, and installing the update kept giving me GTA4 error messages until I created an offline account. Now save games go to a different location and I can't get achievements, but at least the game works.
plamberton

Oct 24, 2009 5:04 pm GMT
I didn't get GTAIV running in either XP or Windows 7 without crashing. How do you run the game with Windows LIVE turned-off? When I tried that I got a message that I can't save my games with it shut off.

---
Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4 Ghz, Asus P5N-E SLI mobo, 4 GB KINGSTON DDR2 RAM, 2 XFX 9800 GT 512 MB (SLI), WD 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, PCPNC 750 W PSU.
SmoboHash

Oct 24, 2009 8:11 pm GMT
I found a .dll file online called xlive.dll that stops the game from using Live without taking any features away (except online features, obviously.) Helped a lot when I had to mod my game to get it to run on my PC.
vals_evil_twin

Oct 24, 2009 10:54 pm GMT
I never got the xlive.dll file missing error message, but I know Gears of War and Fallout 3 had this problem.
I had no end of trouble getting GTA4 to work, most of the trouble was with Windows Live. AFAIK you must have Windows Live running, and it must be the latest, updated version.
I already had an Offline account from before, all I can remember is that you get an option very early on to create one, and it is not necessary to have an online account. You just pick a user name, and it creates a folder with that name in My Docs for your Saves.
Just so you know I am not blowing smoke here...I have a genuine version, not pirated or cracked. I have it running totally crash free on XP SP3 with .NET 3.5. When I installed GTA4, Windows Live prompted me to upgrade it to latest version. I then had the option to create an offline account. Which suits me I am not into the achievements thingy.

But it should be OK to have an on line account, that shouldn't have any affect on crashes to desktop. I think/ hope, LOL.
plamberton

Oct 25, 2009 2:41 pm GMT
I read this game still suffers from memory leaks which is not the fault of gamers PCs. I don't know how many hours I put into this game on the 360 but it only froze on me once. Here on the PC I can't even complete a single mission sometimes without crashing............it's crazy and driving me absolutely insane.

---
Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4 Ghz, Asus P5N-E SLI mobo, 4 GB KINGSTON DDR2 RAM, 2 XFX 9800 GT 512 MB (SLI), WD 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, PCPNC 750 W PSU.
Oct 30, 2009 4:11 pm GMT
I'm having a similar issue. I've tried everything I can think of including latest DirectX (Aug), latest ATI driver (9.10), latest sound driver, cleaned and reinstalled .NET Frameworks, and used the "Liveless" mod to disable Windows LIVE in the game. My game still crashes to desktop after varying amounts of time spent playing. I. CAN'T. TAKE IT ANYMORE. This game is so poorly made that I simply don't have time to list everything that has gone wrong. If anyone has any experience or suggestions, those who are suffering form this BS would welcome the help.
AMD Phenom II 955 BE
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P mainboard
ATI Radeon HD4890
4Gb DDR3 1600
2 x 250 Seagate HDD
750W Silverstone PSU
Windows XP SP3
Maim00

Oct 30, 2009 6:09 pm GMT
Dont know what to tell you. It runs fine on my P4 3.0G, xp, 8800gt and 4G of ram.
Malkovich_

Oct 31, 2009 1:28 pm GMT
This is what I did to get the game virtually crash free. In commandline I have

-novblank
-availablevidmem 1.1 <<<< For 512mb video card
-percentvidmem 100
-norestrictions
-minspecaudio
-noprecache

I downloaded memturbo, and set the autorecovery sliders to 51 and have that running in the background. When I start GTA, I ctrl + ESC to the desktop and end "Presentationfontcache" and the rockstar social club services. I dont know what presentationfontcache does but I do know it starts up when I run the game so I figure it's an unnecessary memory hog.

I also run the game on the lowest settings but that's because I only have a 2.6 duel core. Anyways with these settings the game pretty much runs flawlessly. Though it will still crash every once in a while but I guess that's the best I can get.

---
Malkovich
plamberton

Nov 1, 2009 12:54 am GMT
Well I have just about given up on the PC version. The 360 version while it's not as pretty, runs stable. I think I only had the game freeze up on me once all those hours I put into it. Both expansions ran flawlessly and I just finished the final "The Ballad of Gaye Tony" DLC without experiencing any problems. The last expansion had some great content, more varied and entertaining missions thanks to the great new weapons and vehicles you get to use and it also ties up all those lose ends from Niko's story.

---
Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4 Ghz, Asus P5N-E SLI mobo, 4 GB KINGSTON DDR2 RAM, 2 XFX 9800 GT 512 MB (SLI), WD 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, PCPNC 750 W PSU.