GTA IV PC Release Plagued with Show-Stopping Issues

So, Grand Theft Auto IV was finally released for the PC yesterday, and what isn’t much of a surprise is that it’s proven to be one of the buggiest game launches of the year. People are comparing it to the original Crysis, but I don’t recall that game getting quite this much flack. Problems include missing textures, a non-launchable game, settings that can’t be changed, et cetera.

Even the Steam forums, an unofficial spot for chat, has seen its share of heated debate since the launch, resulting in what I’m sure is the most-active sub-forum currently there. So, what’s Rockstar’s excuse for the flopped launch? They don’t seem to have one, but they do offer word of advice for those experiencing performance issues:

“higher settings are provided for future generations of PCs with higher specifications than are currently widely available.“

That seems a bit strange, given the game is essentially a console port, and its graphics are nowhere near as good-looking as, say, Crysis Warhead, Call of Duty: World at War, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2… games that work just fine on good detail settings on mainstream computers. It seems this is due to a poor coding job, because there’s no way the graphics in this game are that intensive. As we can see with games like STALKER: Clear Sky, it’s not only “console ports” that can suffer this issue. That game also offers horrible performance even on the highest-end machines (especially using DX 10 lighting)”.

Rockstar is actively working on rectifying the issues here, though, and it really shouldn’t be that long before a patch is released. If you own the game and really want to enjoy it, it might actually be a good idea to wait for a fix so that you can avoid frustration.

Problems range from dire performance issues to numerous error codes to a lack of SLI support, with scores of unhappy users flooding forums with their “broken things” laundry lists and Steam even going so far as to start offering refunds for unhappy downloaders. The main bone of contention seems to be with the game’s graphics settings. Even powerful PCs are being forced to run the game at low settings (and even then, there are numerous texture errors).