Support NeoGAF

[PedroPanache]

I've found shadows to be really dodgy and problematic. Just simply moving the camera will cause certain shadows to flicker on and off. For example, in Lester's clothing factory, the shadows cast from the blinds in his office will flicker on and off when moving the camera around. Messed around with plenty of settings and can't seem to fix that inconsistency. The other thing is that the brightness at night has a tendency to go up and down with camera movement as well.

 

[Enco]

It's the DOF I think which blurs a few meters away from you.

Yup, you are right, problem is the DOF looks good at times.

Coo, I'll try disable it later tonight. It's a nice effect but not worth it if it's causing my problems.

 

[shiyrley]

Try disabling your other outputs in your sound options in the control panel, setting your headset to default.

You can change your output setting in the voice chat portion of the settings menu, but I'd imagine that is limited to voice chat.

Spoiler

Friends don't let friends buy headsets on PC. I hate seeing people waste money

"Genesis HX77 headset has real surround system, provided by 8 independent speakers with subwoofer"

Oh man, this is not good.

It fixed after the patch, but thank you.

Also, what would you buy instead of this? Do you hate all headsets and only like speakers, or do you hate surround headsets? lol

 

[CyanideFuse]

It's possible the problem is the GPU driver. Have you tried to use Display Driver Uninstaller to completely remove the GPU drivers and install a fresh copy?

It keeps slipping my mind to do. I will make sure I do this today.

I assume there is no way to back up nVidia control panel profiles that I have specifically set up for games and that these will be deleted upon removal of the driver?

 

[teokrazia]

So how are recording options?
Can use them to take simple gameplay footage or is more comfortable to go through ShadowPlay?

 

[Unain]

i5-2500k @ Stock (need to get a new cooler for some overclocking)
8GB Ram
Geforce 770 GTX 2GB

Graphics
Vsync: Off
FXAA: On
Sliders all 100%

Texture: V High
Shader: High
Shadow: High
Reflection Quality: High
Reflection MSAA: Off
Water: High
Particles: High
Grass: High
Soft Shadows: NV PCSS
Post FX: High
Motion Blur: Off
DoF: Off
AF: 16x
AO: High
Tessellation: High

Advanced Graphics
High Detail Streaming while flying: On
Rest of the options: Off

Pretty much 60 fps everywhere. A little dip to 55 here and there, but hardly noticable. Rockstar did an awesome job on the scalability of this game.

 

[buenoblue]

Im preferring post fx on normal, looks so much sharper. Getting solid nearly silid 60 on 780ti sli i7 2600 @4.5 at 4k. Most settings on very high.lovely looking game.

 

[daninthemix]

Just saw this optimisation guide which might be of use. Checking it out now.

 

[garath]

It's not owed to us. We don't expect the same from AMD. I'm sure he's working on it and he will have it out as soon as he can. He has put out very in depth guides and the amount of options in GTA probably takes a ton of time to sort through at that level.

Oh absolutely. I'm not disappointed in Andy. It's a monumental task. I'm just disappointes in general. I still haven't gotten my own settings dialed in yet and I could use the breakdown

 

[Rur0ni]

Indeed, this guide is incredibly challenging. Between the 130 or so settings, influence of one setting on another, the need to restart the game, and the constantly changing game world, comparisons and benchmarking are extremely difficult. Even with Director Mode and quick saves you can't guarantee an unchanged experience, and Director Mode's fixed times prevent you from checking out some stuff and accurately gauging its impact.

So far I've taken GBs of screenshots, done hundreds of manual and automated benchmarks, and recorded nearly 500GB of video footage in an effort to accurately measure visual changes and performance. I believe I've now got a good grasp of what everything does, but even now when I'm writing I still find myself needing to go back to retest something or grab a new angle in shots to better demonstrate the changes.

I really want to finish it, but there's no point doing it half-assed.

Safe to assume these findings will result in updates to GeForce Experience profiles?

 

[AndyBNV]

Just saw this optimisation guide which might be of use. Checking it out now.

There's some good info in there, though some conclusions, such as the one for Distance Scaling, are incorrect. This is why I've been working non-stop since Tuesday morning (after staying up until 4am on Monday to verify drivers and GeForce Experience functionality...) to test every setting in every scenario.

Safe to assume these findings will result in updates to GeForce Experience profiles?

Yes, changes are already in the works. Pre-release access was heavily restricted and I was unable to do the foundation of the GeForce Experience work myself. This also prevented me from doing pre-release work on the guide.

 

[oneils]

I finally got a reply to my support ticket (GTA V Launcher always stops working).

Here was the reply

Hello OneilsGAF,

We apologize for the extended response time.

We can certainly understand your concern and we are sorry to hear that you are facing this issue with a few of our customers. In-order to resolve this issue, we request you to install the latest patch which resolves the issues with the launcher crashing. If you have already downloaded the latest patch then kindly uninstall and reinstall the patch.

Please refer the following link for more details regarding latest patch:

https://support.rockstargames.com/hc/articles/205509157

If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact our support team again.

Anyone know how to reinstall a patch in steam? The update I got from steam did not fix anything yesterday. But the support team is asking me to reinstall it. I can't really figure out how to do that.

 

[hepburn3d]

For those getting an aiming crash whilst driving ie first heist mission. Either don't use aim in a car after using a throwing item or make sure you aim with a pistol before getting into a car after having used throwable items. Not a fix but will stop the crashes until there is patch

 

[Rur0ni]

Yes, changes are already in the works. Pre-release access was heavily restricted and I was unable to do the foundation of the GeForce Experience work myself. This also prevented me from doing pre-release work on the guide.

Awesome. Love the support.

 

[FakeWayne]

Overclocked at all?



Common misconception. 4096MB - 512MB = 3584MB of fast VRAM. That's abbreviated to 3.5GB by many, which is correct, but not 3500MB since there is 1024MB to 1GB.

Thanks for clearing that up. Makes sense now. I guess it's safe to assume that's not why I'm getting drops to 53 every now and then. Honestly, the only reason I'm probably noticing it drop is by seeing the fps counter in the corner go down. I'm probably just nitpicking.

 

[garath]

Indeed, this guide is incredibly challenging. Between the 130 or so settings, influence of one setting on another, the need to restart the game, and the constantly changing game world, comparisons and benchmarking are extremely difficult. Even with Director Mode and quick saves you can't guarantee an unchanged experience, and Director Mode's fixed times prevent you from checking out some stuff and accurately gauging its impact.

So far I've taken GBs of screenshots, done hundreds of manual and automated benchmarks, and recorded nearly 500GB of video footage in an effort to accurately measure visual changes and performance. I believe I've now got a good grasp of what everything does, but even now when I'm writing I still find myself needing to go back to retest something or grab a new angle in shots to better demonstrate the changes.

I really want to finish it, but there's no point doing it half-assed.

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I really appreciate the hard work you put into it. It is an incredibly challenging task. Your farcry 4 guide was invaluable in dialing in the settings and given the scope of this game it seems a near impossible task to do the same in GTA V without your expertise.

Rest assured, there's no disappointment in you, simply a desire to see the fruits of your labor

 

[Betta Lines]

Which setting are you using for this?

Well the point is that it doesn't matter, as long as I get the black screen. There appear to be three results to applying a setting change:

1) it applies without any fuss, (e.g. FXAA, density/variety sliders, DOF, AO),
2) it momentarily goes to a black screen to apply (e.g. Reflection Quality, Shadow Quality, Soft Shadows, Water Quality)
3) it asks for a restart (e.g.Texture Quality, Shader Quality, Particles Quality, Grass Quality)

It might be different for others, but it seems like changing anything in the second category restores my framerate to 60 when drops start to occur - and it is not the difference in quality that is making the difference, it is the black screen (because I change the setting back immediately and the framerate remains at 60). It's like the black screen is clearing a cache or something.

 

[Alo81]

Indeed, this guide is incredibly challenging. Between the 130 or so settings, influence of one setting on another, the need to restart the game, and the constantly changing game world, comparisons and benchmarking are extremely difficult. Even with Director Mode and quick saves you can't guarantee an unchanged experience, and Director Mode's fixed times prevent you from checking out some stuff and accurately gauging its impact.

So far I've taken GBs of screenshots, done hundreds of manual and automated benchmarks, and recorded nearly 500GB of video footage in an effort to accurately measure visual changes and performance. I believe I've now got a good grasp of what everything does, but even now when I'm writing I still find myself needing to go back to retest something or grab a new angle in shots to better demonstrate the changes.

I really want to finish it, but there's no point doing it half-assed.

I'm legitimately stoked to read this. It sounds like you're going all in on this, and I'm certain your effort will be appreciated by many. Looking forward to it!

 

[Blak_Status]

So just an update, been about 4 hours using this fix I found.

So far NO crashes, not from aiming, not from character switches, not from anything else. Works perfectly. I don't really know what it did, but it works.

Short version is this:

• Open GTAV directory
• Find and delete the following items
• GTAV.exe
• GTAV Launcher.exe
• x64b.rpf
• common.rpf
• Go back to Steam and "verify integrity of game cache"
• It'll redownload the missing files, probably like 300mb
• Boot up the game and hope for the best

I can only guess it's from something getting fucked up during Steam's decrypting or pre-load. I don't know why it works but it does (at least for me).

I'm still getting crashes

 

[CHC]

I'm still getting crashes

Ah sorry to hear that. It worked for me and some others (for now) but there's still no getting around the fact that the game is unstable.

 

[iNvid02]

There's some good info in there, though some conclusions, such as the one for Distance Scaling, are incorrect. This is why I've been working non-stop since Tuesday morning (after staying up until 4am on Monday to verify drivers and GeForce Experience functionality...) to test every setting in every scenario.

they should let you stamp ANDY'S in front of Nvidia optimisation guide

 

[Kezen]

I can't believe Andy is the only one working on performance guides. It's a frightening amount of work for one man.

Ideally this should be Rockstar's job.

 

[Xyber]

Finally did a really long benchmark going through all areas. Started right outside the city and drove in, went up and down the busy streets as fast as possible. Then I hit the countryside and ended up in the desert by Trevor's house. Drove to the lake and took a boat for a while, finally ended up in a plane that I spent about 4 minutes in.

My framerate held up really well in all areas.

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
 78454,    846188,  66, 188, 92.715

The only spikes above 50ms in this image where from when I entered and exited the menu to set a waypoint.

The whole test took place in daytime, sunny weather.

My current settings http://imgur.com/a/8AYcg

i7 4770K@4.3GHz
970@1480MHz boostclock
8GB RAM
Win 8.1
Installed to SSD

 

[diggmcbadass]

So after some computer troubles, GTAV stopped working on my main profile. It used to work fine before, but now I need to log over to a different profile to get it running. Uninstalling everything, manually deleting every registry entry about rockstar or gta or max payne 3, deleting appdat\local\rockstar, deleting documents\rockstar still does not fix the issue for my main user. I don't have any special chars in my user name even (five non-special letters) and the game used to work before my computer went down. The only thing I might have lost in my computer crash is my documents and my previous steam install, but I don't run GTA from steam. The reason I think it's relevant, is because I do run Max Payne 3 from Steam, and that does not work either because Social Club refuses to load.

So now I'm left with either waiting for Rocstar to fix their launcher (unlikely since they haven't been able to for the eight years this piece of shit has been out), create a new profile from the ground up and lose every preference I've set for the past six or so years, or play GTA on my special dedicated GTA user and lose the convenience of alt tabbing to all my other properly configured software quickly.

Either case, Monday I'm buying a baseball bat and a plane ticket to Scotland.

 

[Corpekata]

Well the point is that it doesn't matter, as long as I get the black screen. There appear to be three results to applying a setting change:

1) it applies without any fuss, (e.g. FXAA, density/variety sliders, DOF, AO),
2) it momentarily goes to a black screen to apply (e.g. Reflection Quality, Shadow Quality, Soft Shadows, Water Quality)
3) it asks for a restart (e.g.Texture Quality, Shader Quality, Particles Quality, Grass Quality)

It might be different for others, but it seems like changing anything in the second category restores my framerate to 60 when drops start to occur - and it is not the difference in quality that is making the difference, it is the black screen (because I change the setting back immediately and the framerate remains at 60). It's like the black screen is clearing a cache or something.

I understood that, I just was asking because I didn't want to go through every option to see which did the black screen thing when I try it out next time.

 

[Fantasmo]

I fixed the crashing by downloading it again. Playing 2 hours now no crashes. I guess verifying the files in Steam doesn't really work.

 

[Betta Lines]

I understood that, I just was asking because I didn't want to go through every option to see which did the black screen thing when I try it out next time.

Well I gave an example in my first sentence (soft shadows), so I thought you required a more detailed explanation

 

[Corpekata]

Well I gave an example in my first sentence (soft shadows), so I thought you required a more detailed explanation

D'oh, glanced over it.

 

[Alo81]

So after some computer troubles, GTAV stopped working on my main profile. It used to work fine before, but now I need to log over to a different profile to get it running. Uninstalling everything, manually deleting every registry entry about rockstar or gta or max payne 3, deleting appdat\local\rockstar, deleting documents\rockstar still does not fix the issue for my main user. I don't have any special chars in my user name even (five non-special letters) and the game used to work before my computer went down. The only thing I might have lost in my computer crash is my documents and my previous steam install, but I don't run GTA from steam. The reason I think it's relevant, is because I do run Max Payne 3 from Steam, and that does not work either because Social Club refuses to load.

So now I'm left with either waiting for Rocstar to fix their launcher (unlikely since they haven't been able to for the eight years this piece of shit has been out), create a new profile from the ground up and lose every preference I've set for the past six or so years, or play GTA on my special dedicated GTA user and lose the convenience of alt tabbing to all my other properly configured software quickly.

Either case, Monday I'm buying a baseball bat and a plane ticket to Scotland.

I know its an unlikely thing, but if you use MacType you need to disable it for the social club launcher to work.

 

[reektann]

I'm loving the intermittent out of memory crashes when you totally aren't.

 

[diggmcbadass]

I know its an unlikely thing, but if you use MacType you need to disable it for the social club launcher to work.

I don't. I've checked all the other programs from those lists as well. And I'm not getting launcher crash actually, I'm getting an error about wrong version of social club, regardless of which version I use (and even though that version is functioning properly on a different profile.)

 

[Dave_6]

Indeed, this guide is incredibly challenging. Between the 130 or so settings, influence of one setting on another, the need to restart the game, and the constantly changing game world, comparisons and benchmarking are extremely difficult. Even with Director Mode and quick saves you can't guarantee an unchanged experience, and Director Mode's fixed times prevent you from checking out some stuff and accurately gauging its impact.

So far I've taken GBs of screenshots, done hundreds of manual and automated benchmarks, and recorded nearly 500GB of video footage in an effort to accurately measure visual changes and performance. I believe I've now got a good grasp of what everything does, but even now when I'm writing I still find myself needing to go back to retest something or grab a new angle in shots to better demonstrate the changes.

I really want to finish it, but there's no point doing it half-assed.

I appreciate your hard work more than you could know! Just another reason why I'm happy I switched to team green late last year. Looking forward to your guide once it's done!

 

[CyanideFuse]

Today has been a crash-free 99% non-stutter experience. Regarding non-stuttering: The only problem is that I cannot pinpoint what the reason is, if any, as I made two changes today:

Completely cleaned out GPU drivers and reinstalled
Added an additional 8GB RAM from my other PC as a test

 

[plagiarize]

Just did a couple of comparative benchmarks using the ingame benchmark of SLI x 3 on vs SLI off. Is there an issue with the benchmark beyond it crashing after completion? I haven't played much of the game yet, (trying to hit that sweet spot) so if the benchmark isn't a good indicator of how the game runs I'd like to know.

Average framerates came out about the same, and the SLI performance indicator showed all three cards were working. Buuuut...

SLI Off:
Avg: 77.979 fps
Min: 46 fps

Frametimes

SLI On:
Avg: 75.978 fps
Min: 34 fps

Frametimes

Gsync couldn't even smooth that out. The benchmark ran significantly smoother on one card. The stuttering during the second half of the benchmark (fighter jet through car chase) was horrendous with SLI on.

I've been trying to find a good set of settings for 3D as well, but so far I've not managed to get something that stays anywhere near 60. I'm going to keep tweaking though.

 

[LilJoka]

It keeps slipping my mind to do. I will make sure I do this today.

I assume there is no way to back up nVidia control panel profiles that I have specifically set up for games and that these will be deleted upon removal of the driver?

Yes the profiles get deleted, but that may be part of your issue.

Just did a couple of comparative benchmarks using the ingame benchmark of SLI x 3 on vs SLI off. Is there an issue with the benchmark beyond it crashing after completion? I haven't played much of the game yet, (trying to hit that sweet spot) so if the benchmark isn't a good indicator of how the game runs I'd like to know.

Average framerates came out about the same, and the SLI performance indicator showed all three cards were working. Buuuut...

The benchmark is broken until you complete the opening missions.

 

[texhnolyze]

I never experience any crash with this game on my PC, but my game sometimes stutter while driving after a long session of gaming (about 2-3 hours).

 

[plagiarize]

Yes the profiles get deleted, but that may be part of your issue.



The benchmark is broken until you complete the opening missions.

Is that just the crashing though, or does it effect the performance during the benchmark? I have to quit the game after the benchmark to turn SLI on and off anyways. If what happens to the framerate during the second half with SLI on is just a glitch, I need to change how I'm benchmarking.

 

[Ragus]

How can I read the ingame benchmark? Fraps viewer doesn't seem to work with it.

 

[LilJoka]

Is that just the crashing though, or does it effect the performance during the benchmark? I have to quit the game after the benchmark to turn SLI on and off anyways. If what happens to the framerate during the second half with SLI on is just a glitch, I need to change how I'm benchmarking.

Just the crashing. Wouldnt know if performance is impacted.

 

[Stitch]

jeckop on Guru3d managed to get RadeonPro working with GTA V
http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=5052190&postcount=27

This fixed several problems for me. With Vsync I was stuck at 59FPS. I tried several things, that Custom Resolution Tool for example, but nothing helped.
I tried disabling Vsync ingame and forcing it through the Catalyst Control Center. Well now my FPS was at 60 but for some reason I got tearing. lolwut

I tried borderless window mode. That actually fixed it but had a different problem. The games wasn't running smooth anymore. There was some heavy stuttering.

So I had to use fullscreen with vsync which got me stuck at 59 FPS. Also the game didn't use triple-buffering so sometimes the game would drop to 30 FPS. To fix this I had to alt-tab when I started the game.

But with RadeonPro this is all fixed. Buttery smooth 60 FPS with no weird framedrops to 30 FPS 😀

 

[Smokey]

Seems like the game won't kick up it's GPU usage unless I throw a bunch of AA at it. If I only run FXAA my usage is in the 60s or so. Even when I have tons of AA enabled, it's not as smooth as it was on day 1 where things were in the 90%+ range. I know it's not CPU related because my utilization is in the 50ish% range.

I'm at the point now thought that I just disable the overlay and play. Bless GSYNC for coming through for me.

 

[Slackbladder]

Excuse me whilst I take a BIG dump on this game. Doing the FIB heist with the dump truck and the game freezes when it goes to Micheal at the end every.fucking.time. Tried 5 times now. Always freezes the game. I take it all back. Performance is shit.
Now, what can be done? Check install using 1 of the 7 fucking discs the game came on? Why isn't there an online check for the games data from their fucking servers?
Edit: I'm not the only one. R* Support

 

[kamspy]

I was using DX 10.1 to avoid freezing/crashes, but after experimenting I found that just turning off tess stopped all my crashing.

I tried:
-Dropping settings and vRAM usage.
-Borderless fullscreen (which dipped my fps)
-DX 10.1, worked, but I lost DOF and didn't want to
-Verify Cache
-DDU driver reinstall process

Got a 4 hour session in yesterday without a hiccup. Been fighting with the crashes since launch and finally found what I think is the key solution for my set-up.

AMD 1100t
GTX 680 2GB
8 GB system RAM
Windows 8.1

Running everything on High, no MSAA no advanced settings. Tess off, everything else on. Variety slider at 50%, other 2 maxed.

Mostly 60fps now during gameplay. PostFX seems to kill me at night, which is to me where it's effects are the least noticeable.

 

[lordfuzzybutt]

Excuse me whilst I take a BIG dump on this game. Doing the FIB heist with the dump truck and the game freezes when it goes to Micheal at the end every.fucking.time. Tried 5 times now. Always freezes the game. I take it all back. Performance is shit.
Now, what can be done? Check install using 1 of the 7 fucking discs the game came on? Why isn't there an online check for the games data from their fucking servers?
Edit: I'm not the only one. R* Support

Same here, annoying is put it kindly.

 

[jaypah]

My whole rig shut down at the exact same part of the exact same cutscene. I hear my fans spin up and then it does a complete reboot, no bluescreen or anything. Skipping the cutscene lets me play just fine but it killed during another cutscene. This is fresh RAM and a fresh 290x. God I hope it's not my PSU...

 

[noomi]

Hey thanks for the post Andy, and for letting us know. I will update the OP with your guide as soon as it hits, many of us are very excited to read it

Light on updates today guys, will try and catch up later if time allows.

Some good fixes throughout the thread that I want to add to the op, along with lots of other useful information.

 

[Coolbgdog12]

jeckop on Guru3d managed to get RadeonPro working with GTA V
http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=5052190&postcount=27

This fixed several problems for me. With Vsync I was stuck at 59FPS. I tried several things, that Custom Resolution Tool for example, but nothing helped.
I tried disabling Vsync ingame and forcing it through the Catalyst Control Center. Well now my FPS was at 60 but for some reason I got tearing. lolwut

I tried borderless window mode. That actually fixed it but had a different problem. The games wasn't running smooth anymore. There was some heavy stuttering.

So I had to use fullscreen with vsync which got me stuck at 59 FPS. Also the game didn't use triple-buffering so sometimes the game would drop to 30 FPS. To fix this I had to alt-tab when I started the game.

But with RadeonPro this is all fixed. Buttery smooth 60 FPS with no weird framedrops to 30 FPS 😀

Thank goodness. I've been suffering with that 59hz crap. Now I'm about to launch the game and try. To make it even better, I'm now going to be playing this game on a 4.4 I5 4690K coming from an Intel Pentium G3258.

 

[jim2point0]

So far I've taken GBs of screenshots, done hundreds of manual and automated benchmarks, and recorded nearly 500GB of video footage in an effort to accurately measure visual changes and performance. I believe I've now got a good grasp of what everything does, but even now when I'm writing I still find myself needing to go back to retest something or grab a new angle in shots to better demonstrate the changes.

Just wanted to thank you for all the work you do. I referenced that Far Cry 4 guide every damn day when I was doing my 5K screenshot gallery. Very useful when trying to maximize image quality with acceptable performance.

Whenever I list the reasons why I stick to nvidia cards, I'm going to add "Andrew Burnes" to the list of features.

I'm at the point now thought that I just disable the overlay and play. Bless GSYNC for coming through for me.

I do the same. I can live with my FPS being in the 45-60 range. But if I have an FPS overlay on my screen, I'll watch it and obsess over why I might not be hitting 60 all the time....

 

[Alo81]

I don't. I've checked all the other programs from those lists as well. And I'm not getting launcher crash actually, I'm getting an error about wrong version of social club, regardless of which version I use (and even though that version is functioning properly on a different profile.)

For that, I'd recommend trying to uninstall social club using something like Revo Uninstaller, and do an aggressive uninstallation that clears out ALL files related to it. Then reinstall the one that comes with the game. Hope you can get it figured out bud.

Seems like the game won't kick up it's GPU usage unless I throw a bunch of AA at it. If I only run FXAA my usage is in the 60s or so. Even when I have tons of AA enabled, it's not as smooth as it was on day 1 where things were in the 90%+ range. I know it's not CPU related because my utilization is in the 50ish% range.

I'm at the point now thought that I just disable the overlay and play. Bless GSYNC for coming through for me.

Are you setting the game to prefer maximum performance in the drivers?

 

[nkarafo]

Is there any good comparison article with the PS4 version and this one?