Vice City PC - stuttering to a halt?

Thrasher

Hi all,

Considered this the best forum for this question as there are other Vice City posts:

I got Vice City last week, and am running this on a PC with OK Specs (1800XP+, Ti4200, Audigy2). When I start off, the frame-rate is quite good, even with the detail set to high. However, after a few minutes driving around, the game starts to stutter more and more (sometimes up to 5-6 seconds between frames) with the sound "stuck" on the same clip.

While GTA3 was never lightning fast, this problem never occurred.

I have uninstalled, defragmented, reinstalled, defragmented, run the game, defragmented textures... but nothing seems to improve this.

Any ideas (could this be a glitch in memory, sound card?)
Anybody else experiencing similar problems with Vice City on PC?
Any help appreciated (10 hours wasted on this already...)

Thanks!
/Thrasher

Creamy Goodness

this might be a long shot but maybe patching the game might help if ya havn't already!

PiE

Try lowering the games draw distance and deselecting Frame Limiter?

amp

Another long shot, but something that made GTA3 (I don't have VC yet) a lot quicker for me, was turning off Anti-Aliasing.

Mind you, my Geforce 2mx is obviously far inferior to a Ti4200, hence the long shot.

77horses

I got Vice City last week.

Runs smooooooth.

I have a Presario 2500 Laptop Compaq
512 Ram
2.8 Pentium
64 Video Card

And runs so nice.
Nice game. Try to expand the memory....

Phryxus

i don't know about anyone else but the main problem i've been having with this is sometimes it takes ages to load up a game (like 3 minutes) and things like curbs and small buildings are not drawn at all, the patch didn't do a thing and the whole loading thing only happennes on savegames from later in the game. it sometimes takes ages to load after video sequences as well.

i'm running
athlon 1.73
512mb ddr
gf4 ti 4600

i'm running it at the highest settings possible and it only ever skips when the chopper is close to the ground and that ring of dust appears where it lands

LoGiE

Do you use winXP? and have a program running in your taskbar that messures your CPU temperature and fan speeds? (I use PCalert4 which came with my MoBo) Shut down the program and see if the problem stops. I suffered this stutter problem with Freelancer and found the above was the problem.
Hope its some help.

Thrasher

Hi all,

Thanks for all the quick response on this one...
Unfortunately, trying the above also did not produce results.
(I'm envious of anyone who can run this on a laptop!!)

Even with changing the screen size, resolution (16bit), and draw distance, this problem persists... still starts to stagger after a while. (The 2nd/3rd mission with the Riot is impossible - too many voices..... grinds to a halt...)

I'm also using 98SE and have 512MB... thanks anyway!

Cheers,
/Thrasher

SantaHoe

I've got an XP1800 aswell, less ram and an gf4mx... runs nice'n'smooth for me at 1024x768x32.
The only stuttering or pausing I get is when the game periodically checks to see if the CD is still there (which it is)... laggs me out at the most unfortunate times, naff cd protection.

eyerer

try turning off the 3d sound or turning sound off altogether and see if it solves the problem, audio can be a big drain on processor resources

if you have 256mb memory consider doubling it

Makaveli

Does sound like it might be the sound card.
Try with eyerer said, if that doesnt work, maybe try update the drivers.
If you have more than one cd-rom drive try it in the other one. I've found that some games run better on my cd-rw than on my dvd drive.


[edit]DVD drive is faster than cd-rw.[/edit]

DRakE

runs great for me, 800x600

1.3ghz
512ram
geforece 2 pro

cant help you

Thrasher

Thanks guys,
Will try a few of the above... have also sent question to Take Two support (first time I ever needed support to set up a game... *sigh* must be getting old!)

Thanks to all for input - greatly appreciated.

/Thrasher