GTA IV finally hit Microsoft’s other gaming platform the other day.
I use the term hit literally, since the landing was more of a crash as technical problems, connection woes, performance issues & missing textures are blighting a large number of users.
Hit the jump for analysis, amongst other tit-bits…
Problems with the game installation, Rockstar Social Club app just failing to work, Games for Windows failing to update properly (apparantly solvable by either downloading the recent stand-alone version or updating it in another game, such as Fallout 3) and numerous performance issues are blighting the game, with the latter being particularly bad, with word having it that even Core i7 machines with the latest Nvidia cards cannot touch the higher graphical settings – move over Crysis, there’s a new game-designed-for-2014-technology in town.
Missing textures, outlined here and here, can be sorted by going through the labourious process of installing the latest drivers for your card.
Voodoo Extreme has compiled a list of error codes likely to be encountered, along with a damning walkthrough of the games match-making/server browser (which makes Left 4 Dead’s current problems seem like a cakewalk) here.
In light of the too-numerous-to-list issues, Steam are issuing refunds on a case-by-case basis, as mentioned in the VE3D article, via their support system.
Strangely enough, if you are trying to run the game on Windows XP, you need Service Pack 3, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially if your machine is up-to-date but you don’t want to potentially break the OS with the unreliable upgrade.
All in all, Rockstar seem to have generated a shitstorm around this game, what with the earlier 3-stage DRM/online functionality revealed last week. Unfortunately, this a) wasn’t intentional and b) won’t drive sales. Here’s hoping for some patches and a more rugged support structure for required elements of the game, such as R*’s stupid Social Club app.