GTA IV in 2026 is the best it's ever been

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FusionFix has been hard at work fixing up the craptastic PC port from Rockstar, and it’s progressing nicely.

Combined with DXVK and Steam’s fossilized shader cache on Linux it is a very very good, and stutter free experience on adequate hardware (Euphoria physics and their LOD system still require very high IPC performance, X3D CPU recommended).

Next release will have FPS independent physics simulations, instead of being hard locked at 30 calculations per second internally, which will transform the whole game feel and make it truly feel like a modern title. Progress on that can be tracked here:

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Recommended setup:

  • Modern up-to-date Linux distro

  • AMD RNDA2 or newer graphics card (for RADV ACO compiler + Steam fossilize/shader cache support)

  • Zen 3 or better CPU, X3D CPU for zero CPU stalls
    Mods use FusionLoader that runtime traversals .img files, combined with the LOD system this takes a lot of CPU
    Euphoria physics also have to do their dynamic calculations
    Might be a old title, the CPU requirements are no joke
    Which is the reason the Euphoria physics engine was heavily simplified in later titles

  • TLC NVMe SSD for fast LOD asset loading

  • Official Steam version of GTA IV

  • Steam launch options set to:
    WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8=n,b" %command% -norestrictions -nomemrestrict -managed

  • Latest FusionFix release:
    Release GTAIV.EFLC.FusionFix v4.0.5 · ThirteenAG/GTAIV.EFLC.FusionFix · GitHub

  • Latest Various Fixes (FusionLoader variant):
    Release GTAIV.EFLC.Various.Fixes v2.2 - Hotfix · valentyn-l/GTAIV.EFLC.Various.Fixes · GitHub

Don’t bother with NVIDIA or Intel graphics, or on Windoze. Can’t take advantage of Steam shader cache there, and thus it will stutter like crazy.

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Meh?

I played the first two 2D GTA games back in the 90’s but I never even bothered with any GTA after I played Vice City back in college.

It just didn’t interest me anymore.

I was bored once and bought GTA V, but immediately returned it when I found out it required me to create a Rockstar account. I don’t do accounts or forced launchers.

Chances of me trying GTA VI when it launches are next to none as well. I have more interesting titles to play.

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You’re missing out man!

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Hey, cousin, It’s me, Roman! Let’s go Bowling!

Or piza

or a settlement needs your help

Or whatever.

Apart from that, was a fun game

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I played vice city, which I loved for the style, the sound, the era and the small map.

V I played on console but was so disapointed. Driving is no longer fun, shooting auto aim is horrible, map is huge but boring and dead. And too huge to memorize every single street like in vice city.

IV I never played beacuse of the hip hop ghetto gangster style. Maybe I give it a try. Because VI will suck hard. The company basically became, what they made fun of in V.

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V I played on console but was so disapointed. Driving is no longer fun, shooting auto aim is horrible, map is huge but boring and dead. And too huge to memorize every single street like in vice city.

Driving is no longer fun

Driving can be fun in V Online with the new drift mode, and certain cars like the Tampa GT. There’s a lot of lore to it, and it has changed a lot with recent updates.

map is huge but boring and dead

GTA V Online adds a lot of content in the game, making the world feel less “boring and dead”. It can be fun in private sessions, and does not have to be pay to win if strategized well:

Passive income strategy can be achieved in GTAO in about a month of playing, once all businesses are setup, fully upgraded and you have the mansion. Then one can play the game for fun again, do the side missions, without having to worry about making/running out of GTA$ cash. Also there’s a new GTA V Online DLC dropping that ties story mode and GTA Online together in about a few months from now (summer), owning the mansion before then will definitely help.

Would recommend playing it on PC with a controller as input (with auto aim/targeting on) in a private session, or crew you trust. Avoid the public lobbies at all cost, only modders and ragebaiting griefers to be found there. PC has the best graphics. Always set a frame limit, otherwise the RAGE engine bugs out, between 75 FPS and 120 FPS. Set frame limit to 60 FPS when doing missions with someone else, peer-to-peer system bugs out otherwise. DLSS/FSR set to Native AA on 1080p, set to Quality on 1440p, set to Performance on 4K.

IV I never played because of the hip hop ghetto gangster style. Maybe I give it a try.

Never heard IV being referred to as “hip hop ghetto gangster style”; it has that element, however that’s not the main premise of the plot.

Because VI will suck hard. The company basically became, what they made fun of in V.

We’ll see. Lots of YouTube grifters calling it “woke”, if they really tone the satirization of American society down then that’s a shame.

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To be fair, I hate almost all open world!
I think most open world maps are a waste of time and boring.
I have a job, I don’t want to work when I come home.
IMHO good open world is Zelda breath of the wild. You did not need a map, something interesting everywhere so you could just go into one direction and it did not matter. Simply good level design and not procedurally generated trash with some hand placed stuff thrown in. VC was so small that I knew the streets, the actual driving was fun, even the stunts and taxi missions.

GTA online I would not touch with a five foot pole.

Woke I don’t see as a problem. But it is way to much money involved, so my guess is they will play it save and have no teeth.
Biggest problem I see is the time we live in. IMHO, V mostly made fun of social media, the rise of Insta, and how it turned society into even worse self-absorbent, narcissistic people with main character syndrome. They also made fun of capitalism. They did it by turning it to 11, hyperbole is a good comedic device. Problem with that now is, that our reality has become 11.
Another problem is what are the topics they should make fun of? Trump? Iran war? AI?

Only topics I can think of are good old capitalism, bro culture and onlyfans.
I sincerely hope to be wrong and VI turns out to be a fun game.