Performance testing. Grand Theft Auto V. Graphics. Settings Guide. Performance testing Optimizing GTA 5 for a weak processor

It's no secret that the fifth part of the legendary GTA series of games turned out to be a real masterpiece and created a sensation in the world of computer games. It made an already great project ideal, gave players new opportunities, incredibly expanded the game world and provided a much more exciting and varied plot. However, unfortunately, not all gamers are able to enjoy the gameplay, because the game’s demands on the computer are simply sky-high. And if you do not have the most modern components of your PC, then there is a possibility that this game will slow down very much. If you want to avoid this and still play GTA 5, optimization is your best option. The fact is that you can configure both the game itself and your system in such a way as to increase the performance of this masterpiece and make it work on your computer. How to do this? In the case of GTA 5, optimization can be multi-level, but you do not have to use all the levels - just constantly check if you have achieved the desired result before moving on to the next stage.

Game graphics settings

In GTA 5, optimization usually starts with settings directly in the game itself. If you want to get the perfect image that will blow your mind, then you will need to set all the settings to maximum and you will be able to admire the stunning quality of the graphic performance. However, this joy will not be granted to everyone - as was said earlier, the requirements of this game are very high. That's why you need to optimize - this means that you will lower the graphics and other settings in the game to improve its performance. So you sacrifice graphics to be able to play on a weaker computer. Naturally, this step is not suitable for everyone - some people do not like to lower the graphic settings, as they believe that they paid money for the game for a reason, but to get the most out of it. Moreover, in some cases, in-game settings alone will not do. And then for GTA 5 optimization takes on a much greater scope.

Drivers

The first step to enjoying the game is to update all drivers, especially for your video card. Optimizing GTA 5 for weak PCs may well work, since users do not always update the drivers themselves, and if the game performance is not too high, then there is a possibility that after updating the drivers it will improve. In fact, it has been reported that some gamers have even been able to fix persistent crashes and freezes using drivers alone, so this step should be high on your list. You can update drivers either manually, that is, by downloading and installing them yourself, or using special software. So, optimization of GTA 5 for weak PCs will go much faster.

GeForce Shield

This item applies exclusively to owners of nVidia video cards, because it is related to services GeForce Experience. If you have studied all the requirements necessary for GTA 5 and they correspond to your computer, but at the same time this project still does not want to work well for you, then the reason may be in a service that automatically tries to stream the gameplay without notifying you about this. Naturally, such an operation takes up an impressive part of your computer’s resources, so there is significantly less left for the game itself than we would like. So make sure that the streaming feature is disabled, and if it is enabled, change the settings and prevent it from ever being automatically activated. If you want to stream your gameplay, you can do it manually in the way that is most convenient for you. As already mentioned, the requirements in GTA 5 are very high, so it is unlikely that you will be interested in streaming at all on a weak computer.

Installation paths

As you know very well, the developers of this game force users to register in their special program Social Club to be able to safely play licensed versions of projects. However, the problem with the fifth part may occur due to the fact that the program and the game, which are connected to each other, are located on different drives of your computer. This slows down the gameplay, and you should take care of it - optimizing GTA 5 for a laptop or weak computer means that you transfer the program to the same disk where your game is stored. However, this is not so easy to do, because the game will continue to refer to the previous location of the program, and instead of a faster process, you will get no process at all. To avoid this, you need to command line arrange a link between the new location of the program and the old one. This will help, and you won't even need a patch to optimize GTA 5, since everything can be done by yourself.

High priority game

How else can GTA 5 be optimized? AMD video cards do not have the same problems as nVidia models, so you should pay attention not to video memory, but to something completely different. The fact is that the operating system automatically distributes priorities to programs running simultaneously, that is, the higher a program is in the list of priorities, the more resources it gets. And your game may not be in first place, which will deprive it of the necessary resources. This situation can be corrected by manually setting GTA 5 to the highest priority. If you have the necessary knowledge, you can even create your own config that will automatically give the game the highest priority when you launch it, so you don't have to do it manually every time. This is another process that goes into optimization in the case of the GTA 5 game. The PC also has such a thing as a page file, and you will have to work with that as well.

Swap file

So, you have already gone through many steps of the process called GTA 5 optimization. Have NVidia cards had problems? They have already been decided. The drivers were not installed? Everything is already in order. What else can you do to make this game function much better for you? You can increase for the disk the game is located on. The fact is that it requires a very large amount of memory to run, and you need to create an appropriate reserve, which is the paging file. It is usually set at the medium standard level, but you should at least double it to make it max. This will provide much more impressive performance for your game. You don't even need a program to optimize GTA 5, since you have already managed to learn everything without any untested third-party files.

Dual channel memory mode

This item is quite simple to correct, but is not very clear for those users who do not understand how computers, in principle, function. There is nothing wrong with this, because not everyone has to be a genius and understand the entire internals of your PC, for most people this is a common tool. However, if you need to optimize its performance, then you need to either understand the issue yourself, or trust the professionals or the practical guides that they compose. So if the performance of this game is low, you should check your settings. RAM and make sure that it works in dual-channel mode. There is no point in explaining what it is, and also how this mode differs from others, this information will not help speed up the game, just correct this drawback and enjoy the result.

RAM frequency

Many gamers are guided solely by the amount of RAM, where there is one rule - the more, the better. And this, in principle, is the correct approach, since basically it is the volume that plays a decisive role. However, if there is a question about optimization, and your RAM seems to meet the requirements, but does not show the result you need, then it is worth thinking about some other parameters. For example, when you restart your computer, you can go to BIOS settings, where you can find the item “RAM frequency” - here you need to adjust the frequency in accordance with that declared by the manufacturer. The fact is that an incorrectly set frequency can negatively affect the functioning of your RAM.

Radio

Another reason why your game may be unnecessarily slow is the radio. The game contains a large number of different radio stations, which are supplied with the project client. You can turn them on in your car and enjoy listening without compromising your performance. But there is a feature that allows you to add your own songs to listen to in the game, and this is what can negatively affect how you play the game. You need to abandon your own music and remove from the folder all the files you added there. But that's not all - you will need to run manual search to this folder so that the game can make sure that there is nothing there, since otherwise it will still send requests there, which will take up your computer's resources.

Grass and other beauties

As mentioned earlier, this game is simply incredible detailed graphics, the landscapes here are simply beautiful, and even the movement of grass and foliage is literally amazing. But all this can negatively affect performance even if you turn all settings in the game to minimum. Here everything can lie in one MSAA setting item, which greatly slows down the performance in order to make the elements of the surrounding world more realistic. Edit this setting, and you will immediately notice an increase in productivity.

Autorun

Well, the last thing you need to do is clear the autorun menu. This menu is responsible for which programs automatically start when you turn on the computer. They all consume resources and are placed in the priority queue higher than the game that launches later. Clean the autorun menu and periodically check if anything unwanted appears in it to ensure that GTA 5 functions perfectly on your computer. That's it, optimizing your computer for playing GTA 5 has come to an end - you can enjoy the results.

If you are experiencing FPS friezes in GTA V and you have a monitor that supports G-SYNC, just try turning it on. They say it eliminates it completely. Well, for those who, like me, don’t have this technology, welcome to the guide.

Inherent Guidance

READ THE LAST SECTION OF THIS GUIDE IMMEDIATELY

GoTo "What's the trick?" It contains the summary of the entire manual. Everything between this section and the last is now useless observations and reasoning. If I have time, I will remove unnecessary things or even rewrite the manual.

Loading textures instead of micro-freezes FPS ( FPS drops to 0)

I'll tell you about the most interesting things right away :)
I did not test this setting without all the other tweaks, which will be discussed later, but I noticed that it sharply nullifies all micro-freezes, but sometimes textures are loaded on the fly instead, for example bushes - first the simpler texture is displayed, then the normal one.
It's about the parameter "Image Resolution Scale". When I set the value 5/4 (1.250) , FPS stuttering is gone. Before this, I had already applied some of the tweaks, which will be discussed further, but that’s not the point. If I set the default value, the friezes return. I checked it many times by turning it on, off, restarting and not restarting the game.
You can use other values, but everything above 5/4 (1.250) will reduce FPS, and anything lower will degrade image quality.

My configuration on which it worked

CPU: Intel Pentium G4500 @ 3.50GHz (onboard GPU disabled in BIOS)
Video card: Palit GeForce® GTX 980 Super JetStream 4Gb
Motherboard: MSI H110M PRO-VH (MS-7996) with latest BIOS version 2.30
RAM: DIMM DDR4, 8GB (2x4GB), Kingston HyperX Savage Black, HX421C13SBK2/8 2133 MHz Dual channel CL13
OS: Windows 10 x64 with all updates as of January 20, 2016.
SSD: 512 Gb OCZ Agility 4

Windows 10, GTA V and Steam on SSD.

The video card is connected to a Samsung UE40ES7507U TV (60Hz) via HDMI in PC mode through a Pioneer VCX-421 AV receiver with the video signal passing through.

Game settings in the panel NVidia control

More details about this + general optimization tweaks that you can’t do without in another guide - which is essentially an integral part of this guide.

Here I will only give screenshots of the settings. Please note that the settings must be specified for gta5.exe, NOT for gtavlauncher.exe.

However, if you use ShadowPlay but don't need or particularly need the background recording feature, I would recommend turning it off. Especially if you have an SSD, as this can contribute to its accelerated wear:

Regarding autoloading, everything is simple - nothing extra. This is what it looks like for me.

How to increase FPS by digging in the settings

First of all, lower your requirements. Disable everything related to post-rendering, anti-aliasing (including FXAA and MSAA), draw distance, screen resolution, and texture quality. The game has a special video memory usage scale (displayed directly in the settings window in the game), based on which you can easily select the appropriate settings for your system. One more important point is the choice of used DirectX versions. DirectX 11 requires much more computer resources to operate than DirectX 10.

If you have set everything possible to the minimum and still do not get the number of displayed frames per second that is comfortable for the game, then do not despair! Let's try to dig into the software settings for your video card. In addition to the usual device management tools (like the NVidia Control Panel), there are also special software, created to optimize the performance of your video card in modern games. For NVidia video cards this program is called GeForce Expirience, video cards from AMD use an analogue - AMD Catalyst or Radeon Software Crimson Edition. Both of these programs do an excellent job of optimizing the operation of the video card, which should significantly increase the FPS of GTA 5 PC.

It is also, of course, worth stopping all programs that consume computer resources. This means: browsers, streaming programs, other games, and the like. If your GTA 5 is terribly slow, then look at the “task manager” and the quick access, most likely you will find a lot of programs there that take away precious processing power from the game. There is an even more radical method (which, however, does not guarantee success): save all the information you need to some external media and completely reinstall Windows. Believe me, even heaven, even Allah, does not know exactly how much various information junk has accumulated on your computer, especially if you have not really cleaned the system for any long time. A new system, not yet clogged with garbage, will always work faster and more stable than an old and cluttered one.

Programs to increase FPS in GTA 5

FPS Booster

The FPS Booster GTA 5 program will most likely be the answer to the age-old question: how to increase FPS in GTA 5. This small utility disables some GTA 5 processes and also increases the priority of the game when allocating computer resources. The program really works, which we tested experimentally. GTA 5 FPS has increased, on average, by 20-30%, without any particularly noticeable deterioration in graphics. You can download the latest version of FPS Booster completely free of charge from our website.

Extreme Low End PC Settings

This program, or rather, GTA 5 mod for weak computers, allows you to reduce the game settings even lower than allowed standard tool GTA settings 5 pcs. According to the author, this utility is capable of providing a more or less comfortable game, even on computers with only 2 Gb RAM, which is much lower even minimum requirements GTA 5, officially announced by Rockstar Games. You can also download this program absolutely free from our website. This patch for GTA 5 for weak computers will probably be your last chance if nothing else has helped.

If even after all the steps described above, you were still unable to play Grand Theft Auto 5 to your satisfaction, then all we can advise you is to donate your antique computer to some museum and still buy something more modern .

Guide to optimizing GTA: San Andreas for MTA: SA and SA-MP multiplayers.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas appeared on store shelves 5 years ago, but to this day, the final series of a large-scale trilogy (from GTA 3 to GTA SA) is popular among the global online community of Grand Theft Auto fans.

The popularity of San Andreas is supported not only by a huge segment of various modifications, but also by alternative multiplayer games released by the Multi Theft Auto and SA-MP teams. However, San Andreas is the most resource-hungry (in terms of system resources) of the entire GTA line, based on the old game engine (starting with GTA 4, Rockstar Games uses absolutely new platform RAGE).

Modern computers can easily play multiplayer MTA: San Andreas and SA-MP at comfortable settings. What should those who have old or rare computer configurations do? They also want to join the multiplayer environment of GTA players, and often they do this by appearing on servers, lag terribly (not only because of high ping), moving through frames (slow motion effect). There is no pleasure in playing with such “recruiters/pingers”, that’s why they don’t like lagers. However, not many lagers know how to optimize their computers to significantly reduce lag, or even play without lag at all.

Below in this guide, I will describe in detail a whole range of measures that will allow you to significantly improve the performance of your desktop dinosaurs. All of the recommendations described below can be mixed or selectively applied to your computer configuration.

Since this guide is the same for optimizing GTA: San Andreas, there are some differences between the two multiplayers (in fact, we will optimize the game for them): MTA: San Andreas and SA-MP. The main difference between them is the comfortable FPS level. To play MTA: San Andreas, your FPS must be at the level of 30-45, and for SA-MP you only need 25 FPS.

Some of you may be thinking: "Oh! I need to optimize the game less for SA-MP than for MTA: San Andreas." Don’t rush to settle on SA-MP, as this is a very mediocre multiplayer with a bunch of bugs, desynchronization commands (which de facto puts the opponent at a disadvantage), and terrible synchronization of weapons/player movement/vehicles. Based on our six years of experience playing every GTA multiplayer (ever created), we bet on MTA: San Andreas as it is a true SA-MP killer. Everything there is so simple and perfectly synchronized that all previously released multiplayer games, compared to MTA: San Andreas, seem like dirty Chinese fakes. Therefore, your and our choice is MTA: San Andreas!

By the way, MTA: San Andreas and SA-MP can be installed in the same folder with the game, they do not conflict. So let's begin.

Our goal is to achieve a stable and optimal FPS (frames per second), as well as an attempt to slightly reduce the ping.

To play GTA multiplayer, you need a clean (if possible licensed) copy of GTA: San Andreas without any modifications or changes vehicles, sounds, skins, weapons, animations, cleo-scripts and other “improvements”, remember, your computer is old. In a word - default GTA: San Andreas. Various modifications only make things worse, so don't expect any major improvements unless you've completed the first and most important conditions this guide. If you are sensitive to modifications, install two copies of the game: one for playing single player with your favorite modifications, and the other, a clean copy for playing MTA: San Andreas multiplayer.

1. We need a clean, unmodified copy of the game GTA: San Andreas.

Great, you have installed a clean one copy of GTA: SA, and now we will carry out the initial optimization of the game by adjusting the graphics and sound options.

Let's start with the graphics changes. We go into the game, select Options, look for Display setup (graphics settings), then Advanced. It’s with these options that the fun begins.

We set the following settings:

• Draw distance: 0
• Frame limiter: OFF
• Widescreen: OFF / Off (for regular monitors); ON / On (for widescreen monitors)
• Visual FX quality (visual quality of textures): LOW / Low
• MIP mapping (textures with different details): OFF / Off
• Anti aliasing: OFF / Off
• Resolution: 800*600 16, where 16 is the color depth. This resolution is suitable for regular monitors, but for widescreen monitors it should be set to 720*576 16.

2. Set the minimum graphics settings.

Sound is a sore spot in GTA: San Andreas. Sound effects seriously load your computer (especially rain), creating lags, so here we can recommend a moderate or drastic method increase FPS. We go into the game, select Options, look for Audio setup, set SFX and Radio to 1 or 2 notches. A radical method of sound optimization - SFX and Radio to 0 divisions or completely disabled sound effects and radio in the game. Turning off the sound significantly increases FPS, allowing you to achieve a stable FPS value.

3. Use a moderate method of adjusting the sound, by setting SFX and Radio to positions 1-2, or use a radical method, by completely turning off the sound, setting the SFX and Radio values ​​to 0.

We continue to move towards achieving our goals. The first and easy stage of optimization of GTA: San Andreas is behind us. Steps 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 will focus on additional increase computer performance.

Let's go to root folder with game: C:\ GTA San Andreas\* find the stream.ini file, open it with notepad, change the value in the memory and devkit_memory lines from 13500 to 5000, save.

4. In the stream.ini file, change the values ​​in the memory and devkit_memory lines to 5000.

Terrible problems with sound can be solved either by disabling SFX and Radio (step 3), or by infiltrating the system with a few mouse clicks.

Click Start -> Run -> dxdiag-> Sound-> Level hardware acceleration reduce from full acceleration to standard or base acceleration.

If you are the unfortunate owner of a cropped pirated version of the game, or, on the contrary, a joyful owner full version GTA: San Andreas, you may encounter problems with the game suddenly slowing down or crashing when boarding a vehicle. This problem was resolved in the game patch version 1.01. But if you don’t have the patch, use the following recommendation. Find the two-letter files (CH, CO, CR, DS, HC, MH, MR, NJ, RE, RG, TK) in the \GTA San Andreas\audio\STREAMS\ folder and delete them except the AA file. You may not have all of these files, but only some from this list (this is due to the trimmed version of the game). Now you have gotten rid of freezes when boarding a vehicle, and the radio will play from your tracks, which will play by default (you can put your tracks here \Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\GTA San Andreas User Files\User Tracks\) .

5. The problem with sound can be solved in the Sound tab by going to dxdiag and reducing the full hardware acceleration to standard or basic hardware acceleration. And the problem with the brakes when boarding a vehicle can be solved by deleting 11 two-letter files in the STREAMS folder, except for the AA file.

It seems that everything has been done to optimize the game? No! There are still several important steps ahead that will help get rid of the lags of the archaic exhibit.

Let's move on to the software that makes the hard life of the player in MTA: San Andreas multiplayer easier. Below we will look at the GTA texture optimizer, updated drivers, as well as programs that affect the performance of your old computer and the simplest way lower your ping.

In 2007, Plodders created a utility for AIT racers: Race. The utility helped improve performance so much due to 50% texture compression that it began to be used on weak and medium-sized computers. The productivity boost created by GTAShrink is simply amazing!

The utility is unpacked into the root folder of the game, run GTAShrinkerWin.exe, specify the path to the root folder, click on Shrink and wait. The program will create a lightweight version of gta3.img (405 Mb), and the original gta3.img (903 Mb) will be automatically saved under the name gta3_ORIG_BAK.img. At any time, you can return the original texture resolution. To do this, you need to re-run GTAShrinkerWin.exe, specify the path and click Restore.

6. Use .

For next step optimization, we will need the latest drivers Nvidia video cards and ATi. In your video card drivers, set the settings to increase performance and be sure to disable vertical synchronization. Here is an example for Nvidia.

7. Download the latest drivers for your video cards and set parameters there that will increase the performance of your video card.

Have you ever wondered why you lag so much and your computer slows down? Okay, you and I know that your car belongs in a museum or in a landfill, but still, why are you delaying? Surely, with the launch of MTA: San Andreas or SA-MP, your favorite Internet messenger is running, your browser is open on some page, while you are chatting nicely on Skype and at the same time downloading/uploading files via torrent or ftp. Stop. Your computer is working hard, overheating, trying to complete the tasks assigned to it, and now you’re planning to play. At the same time, everything running applications, clog your Internet channel, and the modest resources of your computer are given to them, and not to the game. That's it!

Before playing, be sure to disable all applications that consume traffic and computer resources. The maximum you can afford is running multiplayer and TeamSpeak / Ventrillo (Skype is strictly contraindicated for you, as it seriously loads your computer). Modestly, but what do you want? If you want comfort, focus on performance, not quality. God forbid you record video using FRAPS (the program records video in uncompressed form, taking up a huge amount of disk space.). If such a need exists, try some great alternatives for older computers: or. If possible, take screenshots using these programs rather than using the built-in screenshot options in multiplayer.

8. Before starting multiplayer, be sure to turn off all third-party applications, including Skype, ICQ, torrent, browser and others. To record videos and screenshots, use programs for older computers: or.

Okay, now you know the 8 basic steps to optimize GTA: San Andreas. My computer allows me to play quite comfortably at 25-45 fps, both in MTA: San Andreas and SA-MP.

And if you know any other optimization methods, .

Soon, my desktop dinosaur will go on a well-deserved rest, and its place will be taken by new system. Best choice is buying a new computer, but if you don't have that option, try all eight steps.

Are you having any performance issues with GTA V on your personal computer? Have you already tried all the typical solutions like downgrading and got no results? If so, then you are in luck, because below we have collected all the solutions to problems that are not on the surface. It is this text that will help you squeeze 100% efficiency out of your computer if all else fails.

Important: Before you apply any changes to your configuration, make sure you have done backup copy settings and know exactly what you are changing and where. Everything is as usual here: if you play too hard, you can break something.

Drivers

In order not to run around the Internet looking for a driver for each component, download this free program, which automatically scans the system and updates all drivers to the latest version.

After downloading, scan your system. It usually takes 5-10 minutes
- After scanning, you can easily update all drivers with one click

GeForce Experience driver problem

Now restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Problem with installation paths

Just remember this trick with Rockstar Social Club. If you move it (probably it), then remember the original location in which the files were located. For example, let’s imagine that the Rockstar Games folder was located at C: Program Files, and you moved it to the “G” drive simply “to the root”. This is just an example and your actual folder paths may differ and are what you should use.

Once you have moved the folder to its new location, launch a Command Prompt with Administrator rights and enter the following command:

mklink /d “C:Program FilesRockstar Games” “G:Rockstar Games”

This command will make a shortcut to the old location, and it will point to the new one. This way you can get rid of all problems if the game does not find the necessary executable files.

High priority game process automatically

However, you have to do this every time, which is not so convenient. There are two ways you can set these settings automatically.

First method:

Create a txt file with the following content:

And save it with the extension .bat. Run this file every time you want to play because it will automatically set all the priorities as needed in one click.

The second method works with any GTA version V on personal computers, so for many it will be preferable. Create a txt file with the following content:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 “CpuPriorityClass”=dword:00000003 “CpuPriorityClass”=dword:00000005 “CpuPriorityClass”=dword:00000005

Save it as a file with the reg extension. Now back up your registry, you know how fragile it is! Now run the created file with administrator rights and add data to the registry (Windows will ask about this). After this manipulation, priorities will be set automatically every time you normally start GTA 5. The Reg file can now be deleted.

Setting up the swap file

Open Control Panel on your PC, then go to the System tab (usually located in the field group System and Security), and select Advanced there. Pay attention to the Virtual Memory option - click on the Change button.

If GTA 5 is installed on a specific local drive, then you need to make the pagefile there. In other cases, the paging file size is configured in the system options described in yours.

Set the initial size to the "system recommended" value. Or set it to "maximum" to double the size. Do all this in the properties of a specific local disk.

This should resolve low memory issues.

RAM in dual channel mode

Slow RAM

If you see a discrepancy, restart your PC and enter the BIOS. Here you can adjust the “speed” of the RAM. If it was not possible to install it manually, you should set other options in the XMP column.

Radio

MSAA and grass

The game crashes in in-car aiming mode

These little tricks should help you get rid of performance problems in GTA 5. Good luck in the vastness of San Andreas!