Rockstar Games "Considers" GTA V Wii U and PC Versions

[Ikaruga]

Originally Posted by Steevo

Aren't you the same guy who .......


http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...89#post2676789

I happen to know from my friend that the passwords were indeed all salted (which I even mentioned later in that thread), so I was curious about why people give credit to a bunch of characters posted on pastebin. I'm also pretty far from being a security expert so I couldn't tell by just looking at it for a few second, and If I don't see through something immediately, I always ask people who might know better. I think there is no shame in that, and I don't even want to know what kind of bad intentions you might have when you bring up such a subject"

Originally Posted by Steevo

What kind of computer are/were you running exactly. I had a quad core with 4GB of RAM and a 4850 1GB edition that I overclocked.

It ran medium high settings at 40-60FPS on my machine at 1920X1200, and more when I got my 940 and 5870.

I can't tell you but it was something quad core with a g92 based nvidia card (iirc a 9400+9800GTX), but I obviously didn't try to run it on a Pentium3 or on a badly configured PC just to have basis for complaining later on the Internet.
I build PCs and sell them, so I never have one for a long time except my own PCs which are usually only for messing with the OS, for watching movies or browsing the internet and that kind of stuff, (or to play games like chess or quake, indie games or old console games on emulators which are not require a fast computer), so I don't remember but I know that i had 10-15fps spikes when the code crapped itself.
I also worked as a game developer a very long time ago, and yes, my knowledge is probably obsolete by now, but I can still tell when I see a shitty code.

Rockstar makes awesome game designs, and GTA3 or 4 was a lot of fun, I loved them, but the code was an abomination in both. It's like the NFS series, choppy and unresponsive, it will never run well, no matter what hardware you might have.

[shb-]

Dont know what those bastards are thinking. GTA IV looked like crap on consoles, and godlike on good PC. I have no doubt V will look crappy on consoles too. So thats really stupid to leave game like that, and dont use its full potential.

[Prima.Vera]

I don't understand the pirating thing. Last time I've checked, the console games were even heavier pirated than the PC ones...

[techtard]

If they don't release on PC at launch, then just wait until it's super cheap on Steam during a sale.

[Ikaruga]

Originally Posted by Prima.Vera

I don't understand the pirating thing. Last time I've checked, the console games were even heavier pirated than the PC ones...

Indeed consoles are more pirated by the number, but don't forget that publishers are selling about 400-450 million game copies on the xbox360+ps3+wii annually, so they might be still better off financially. Perhaps the pirated percentage is much higher on the PC compared to the retail sales.

[lyndonguitar]

Originally Posted by Ikaruga

Indeed consoles are more pirated by the number, but don't forget that publishers are selling about 400-450 million game copies on the xbox360+ps3+wii annually, so they might be still better off financially. Perhaps the pirated percentage is much higher on the PC compared to the retail sales.

True, PC piracy is more rampant imo. PC piracy is easier and more people have Computers at home than Consoles. Pirated games doesn't even have proper statistics so you never know whats being pirated other than looking at torrent sites, you don't know how many have exchanged files through HDDs/pendrives or are burning alot of backups and sells them for a living.. from my experience PC has more piracy, Almost all the guys I see, plays pirated games on PC while most of the console users buy legit games. with the exception of a few who knows the hard process of pirating console games.

Still I don't like that they only "Considers" a PC version. a big slap in the face of PC gamers.

[KissSh0t]

Hi I'm Rockstar Games and I might want to make money.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Ikaruga

I can't tell you but it was something quad core with a g92 based nvidia card (iirc a 9400 9800GTX), but I obviously didn't try to run it on a Pentium3 or on a badly configured PC just to have basis for complaining later on the Internet.
I build PCs and sell them, so I never have one for a long time except my own PCs which are usually only for messing with the OS, for watching movies or browsing the internet and that kind of stuff, (or to play games like chess or quake, indie games or old console games on emulators which are not require a fast computer), so I don't remember but I know that i had 10-15fps spikes when the code crapped itself.
I also worked as a game developer a very long time ago, and yes, my knowledge is probably obsolete by now, but I can still tell when I see a shitty code.

Rockstar makes awesome game designs, and GTA3 or 4 was a lot of fun, I loved them, but the code was an abomination in both. It's like the NFS series, choppy and unresponsive, it will never run well, no matter what hardware you might have.

Then, as we have said, something was wrong with your computer, because I played it on a much weaker system and it ran fine.

[Ikaruga]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Then, as we have said, something was wrong with your computer, because I played it on a much weaker system and it ran fine.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the computer. The entire internet was full of complains about the horrible performance on the PC, and now (after you already tried to offend me) you trying to convince me that I just made it up. It was 4 years ago, I don't forget things in 4 years. I saw the game on a lot of systems, and you telling me that all of those had some hidden problem, what only appeared in GTA and nothing else?
Again: I dumbed down the graphics to the absolutely possible minimum just to see what's happening, and it ran super smooth 70-80%, but still had fps "low spikes", probably because the CPU was struggling with cache misses or thread overheads of the badly optimized game code or it was just simply horribly ported code (but these are just guesses tho).

I just Googled some, and I see they made a patch later, which addressed some of the performance problems, so I might download it again sometimes and give it a try to see if anything is changed.

ps.: and btw, it was the very same sad story with L.A Noire on the PC, which I returned after 3 days for the same reason.


edit: my English:/

[KissSh0t]

I'm going to back Ikaruga, GTA4 ran horrible on lot's of high end PC's at it's release, it also runs poorly on pretty good systems years later.

GTA4 was a console port is a console port is a console port is a console port is a console port..

I expect the same with GTA5

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Ikaruga

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the computer. The entire internet was full of complains about the horrible performance on the PC, and now (after you already tried to offend me) you trying to convince me that I just made it up. It was 4 years ago, I don't forget things in 4 years. I saw the game on a lot of systems, and you telling me that all of those had some hidden problem, what only appeared in GTA and nothing else?
Again: I dumbed down the graphics to the absolutely possible minimum just to see what's happening, and it ran super smooth 70-80%, but still had fps "low spikes", probably because the CPU was struggling with cache misses or thread overheads of the badly optimized game code or it was just simply horribly ported code (but these are just guesses tho).

I just Googled some, and I see they made a patch later, which addressed some of the performance problems, so I might download it again sometimes and give it a try to see if anything is changed.

ps.: and btw, it was the very same sad story with L.A Noire on the PC, which I returned after 3 days for the same reason.


edit: my English:/

People complained for two reasons. They set the game to max settings and it ran poorly or they watched the framerate counter and the moment it dropped below 60FPS(or whatever random threshold they picked) they complained. Neither of these point to the game being not optimized or having poor code. If it was not optimized, I wouldn't have been able to play through it without issue on a 3 year old processor and a mid-range GPU without issue. But then again I played the game, I didn't sit watching the framerate counter.

Originally Posted by KissSh0t

I'm going to back Ikaruga, GTA4 ran horrible on lot's of high end PC's at it's release, it also runs poorly on pretty good systems years later.

GTA4 was a console port is a console port is a console port is a console port is a console port..

I expect the same with GTA5

Of course it ran poorly on high end systems when it was released, the developers said it would. They didn't do what most devs to do and cap the setting just to give the illusion of optimization. They let the user adjust the settings as high as they wanted. This WAS A GOOD THING, but people ended up bitching about it because their PC couldn't max the game out. More developers should do what Rockstar did. However, most devs are now too scared to deal with the backlash of people not being able to max out the game and complaining about it, so they cap setting, or in some cases don't even allow us to adjust setting at all.

To say all console ports are the same is inane. GTA allowed a huge range of adjustments to get the game running smoothly on wide range of different hardware. That is a sign of effort on the devs part. However, there are other console ports that have extremely limited amount of adjustments. We get shit ports with graphics adjustment options that consist of "Low" "Medium" and "High" and that is, or even some that give no adjustment at all other then resolution. Those are shit ports, not GTA. GTA allowed the game to be adjusted to run a huge range of hardware, and it did run well on even lower end systems, and looked good too.

[Ikaruga]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

People complained for two reasons. They set the game to max settings and it ran poorly or they watched the framerate counter and the moment it dropped below 60FPS(or whatever random threshold they picked) they complained. Neither of these point to the game being not optimized or having poor code. If it was not optimized, I wouldn't have been able to play through it without issue on a 3 year old processor and a mid-range GPU without issue. But then again I played the game, I didn't sit watching the framerate counter.



Of course it ran poorly on high end systems when it was released, the developers said it would. They didn't do what most devs to do and cap the setting just to give the illusion of optimization. They let the user adjust the settings as high as they wanted. This WAS A GOOD THING, but people ended up bitching about it because their PC couldn't max the game out. More developers should do what Rockstar did. However, most devs are now too scared to deal with the backlash of people not being able to max out the game and complaining about it, so they cap setting, or in some cases don't even allow us to adjust setting at all.

To say all console ports are the same is inane. GTA allowed a huge range of adjustments to get the game running smoothly on wide range of different hardware. That is a sign of effort on the devs part. However, there are other console ports that have extremely limited amount of adjustments. We get shit ports with graphics adjustment options that consist of "Low" "Medium" and "High" and that is, or even some that give no adjustment at all other then resolution. Those are shit ports, not GTA. GTA allowed the game to be adjusted to run a huge range of hardware, and it did run well on even lower end systems, and looked good too.

I'm pretty sure that you have no idea what you are talking about. Please, don't get me wrong, I don't want to judge or offend you in any way (more like an envy perhaps), but I'm 99% sure that you must be a very casual gamer, who simply not able to see or appreciate smooth and responsive gameplay, and you can enjoy playing even if the game runs choppy, but unfortunatelly, not all of us like that:/

Grand Turismo 4 on the PS2, Star Wars on the Gamecube, etc.. I could make and endless list here with Console or PC games with good code/optimization, but GTA4 would be never on that list, ever.
Also the fact that it's not really a city simulation at all, you go around a block and everything randomly respawns if you go back, some ancient console games had "deeper" simulations in them.. The driving physics and car handling felt better and more realistic in ps2 games too, so that can't be that demanding as well, not to mention that endless number of games can handle 3-4 times more NPCs more efficiently on hopelessly weaker CPU's while still delivering better visuals ...

The whole thing is a joke game code wise. The faster you drive, the more apparent how badly is optimized, it gets choppy quickly, the camera movements are linear, erratic and harsh, the control is jerky in lags, it's a horrible code in every way... soon as you run the game the whole system just begging you to stop the torture.

It had an awesome game design and brilliant content and I bought it because of that, but the coders do not deserve my money and they are truly lucky that we have such powerful computers nowadays.. because it run like crap, there is no other way around that.

[...PACMAN...]

I wish they would consider Red Dead Redemption, a game that would be awesome with some PC sauce smeared all over it

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Ikaruga

I'm pretty sure that you have no idea what you are talking about. Please, don't get me wrong, I don't want to judge or offend you in any way (more like an envy perhaps), but I'm 99% sure that you must be a very casual gamer, who simply not able to see or appreciate smooth and responsive gameplay, and you can enjoy playing even if the game runs choppy, but unfortunatelly, not all of us like that:/

Grand Turismo 4 on the PS2, Star Wars on the Gamecube, etc.. I could make and endless list here with Console or PC games with good code/optimization, but GTA4 would be never on that list, ever.
Also the fact that it's not really a city simulation at all, you go around a block and everything randomly respawns if you go back, some ancient console games had "deeper" simulations in them.. The driving physics and car handling felt better and more realistic in ps2 games too, so that can't be that demanding as well, not to mention that endless number of games can handle 3-4 times more NPCs more efficiently on hopelessly weaker CPU's while still delivering better visuals ...

The whole thing is a joke game code wise. The faster you drive, the more apparent how badly is optimized, it gets choppy quickly, the camera movements are linear, erratic and harsh, the control is jerky in lags, it's a horrible code in every way... soon as you run the game the whole system just begging you to stop the torture.

It had an awesome game design and brilliant content and I bought it because of that, but the coders do not deserve my money and they are truly lucky that we have such powerful computers nowadays.. because it run like crap, there is no other way around that.

I'm definitely not a casual gamer, in fact I'm the exact opposite, a rather hardcore gamer.

I think at this point you are beating a dead horse. You've had 3 very respected memebers, who have huge amounts of knowledge, tell you the game runs fine and you are wrong. From the beginning your argument has been borderline offensive, you constantly want to say that I don't know what I'm talking about. How about you make an argument without insulting the other persons intelligence? Why not make a factual argument instead? You want to talk about me not knowing what I'm talking about, when you admitted you haven't even played the fully patched game. I bet you didn't even know that turning off the scene recording feature drastically improves performance, which is on by default, even in the unpatched version?

The fact is, if you ignore the notion that you absolutely have to max out the settings for any game to be enjoyable, a notion that most casual gamers have but not hardcore gamers, then the game was very well optimized. If you look at the wide range of hardware that the game will run on, the game is very well optimized. Optimization isn't about getting max setting to run on the current highest hardware, it is about getting the game to run on low end hardware, and Rockstar did that, and it does run smoothly. I've even pointed out the exact hardware I ran the game on when it was smooth, and you still go on. You talk back and forth, contracting yourself. You say you remember 4 years ago perfectly, but then when asked what hardware you ran the game on you can't remember. Give it a rest and drop it, you're wrong, get over it.

[bpgt64]

I really don't understand why they don't just do a flat license for the game. Cross platform, require always on DRM tied to a licensing system like steam. If you want the offline version, enjoy your console.

[cdawall]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I'm definitely not a casual gamer, in fact I'm the exact opposite, a rather hardcore gamer.

I think at this point you are beating a dead horse. You've had 3 very respected memebers, who have huge amounts of knowledge, tell you the game runs fine and you are wrong. From the beginning your argument has been borderline offensive, you constantly want to say that I don't know what I'm talking about. How about you make an argument without insulting the other persons intelligence? Why not make a factual argument instead? You want to talk about me not knowing what I'm talking about, when you admitted you haven't even played the fully patched game. I bet you didn't even know that turning off the scene recording feature drastically improves performance, which is on by default, even in the unpatched version?

The fact is, if you ignore the notion that you absolutely have to max out the settings for any game to be enjoyable, a notion that most casual gamers have but not hardcore gamers, then the game was very well optimized. If you look at the wide range of hardware that the game will run on, the game is very well optimized. Optimization isn't about getting max setting to run on the current highest hardware, it is about getting the game to run on low end hardware, and Rockstar did that, and it does run smoothly. I've even pointed out the exact hardware I ran the game on when it was smooth, and you still go on. You talk back and forth, contracting yourself. You say you remember 4 years ago perfectly, but then when asked what hardware you ran the game on you can't remember. Give it a rest and drop it, you're wrong, get over it.

Heck I am going to give it a shot right after it finishes downloading. Since my GTX470's are sitting in the closet waiting on the new motherboard testing with a single GTX280. That is even of the same era as the game release.

[Ikaruga]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I'm definitely not a casual gamer, in fact I'm the exact opposite, a rather hardcore gamer.

.........no comment

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I think at this point you are beating a dead horse. You've had 3 very respected memebers, who have huge amounts of knowledge, tell you the game runs fine and you are wrong.....................You want to talk about me not knowing what I'm talking about, when you admitted you haven't even played the fully patched game.

I don't know how it runs now, I never sad I do, but who cares? We were talking about the release state, and it was nothing but a big megapop into the CPU when it came out, and the entire Internet agreed except you. This whole thread is about the release of the next version and (as how I also did in my first post) we are talking about our experiences about the last release, and we were drawing conclusions... You and only you who is talking out of context now about the patched game, whatever improvement that might have (if any) was irrelevant until you brought it up. (and more to that, you are using it as one of your base argument to pick on me...enough said.)

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I've even pointed out the exact hardware I ran the game on when it was smooth, and you still go on. You talk back and forth, contracting yourself. You say you remember 4 years ago perfectly, but then when asked what hardware you ran the game on you can't remember.

The hardware I had was way above the minimum requirements, and I also tested on many other machines (more than 5 for sure).

Originally Posted by newtekie1

The fact is, if you ignore the notion that you absolutely have to max out the settings for any game to be enjoyable, a notion that most casual gamers have but not hardcore gamers, then the game was very well optimized. If you look at the wide range of hardware that the game will run on, the game is very well optimized. Optimization isn't about getting max setting to run on the current highest hardware, it is about getting the game to run on low end hardware, and Rockstar did that, and it does run smoothly.

Again, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You are contradicting the opinion of the entire world. For example, you might say that Idtech or Unreal engine games are optimized in a way that they scale quite well and they run smooth with the right settings, but GTA4 ran horribly when it was released, and this is a fact. It simply ran like crap on anything but high-end hardware, and it's your flawed perception to blame if that crap was smooth for you. I just quickly Googled some release-reviews for you, allow me to not bring up the endless raging threads on the Rockstar and other gaming forums, because this would become a book.

Gamespot: "Performance issues prevent this lazy PC port of a superb console game from being the best Grand Theft Auto yet."
IGN: "Yet with the PC version, you're going to need a particularly powerful machine to see it in all its splendor at a decent framerate, as even on our system (Core 2 Quad 2.40 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 768 MB GeForce 8800 GTX with Vista 32) we were having performance problems even after toning down a few of the settings, and some of the effects"
Videogamer: "Instead of re-treading old ground, we'll rundown how the PC version of GTA 4 has been handled, including the performance on modest gaming rigs, and the extras that Rockstar has included. Performance first then, and this is probably our biggest concern with the port. To put it bluntly, you're going to need a very beefy machine to get the game running well. Even the game's suggested settings caused our quad core, 8800 GTX equipped machine to struggle, and this was after we'd lowered the resolution to well below our monitor's native resolution."
Goo: "Ironically, just a couple of days after handing in my review of GTA IV, I managed to get it working on my machine. I accomplished this feat by running in a small window – 600x400 to be precise. My frame rates are hovering somewhere in the twenties, though when a lot of stuff is going on in the game I’ve had it fall even lower than that. Keep in mind that this is with a system matching the minimum system requirements. Why I had it run for one brief, shining moment in full screen and with high frame rates (up around 50FPS or so) but have been unable to repeat that performance, I don’t know. Why the second patch, which came out recently, seems to have reduced my frame rates slightly (though that’s largely by feeling as I haven’t measured it) I also don’t know. Why I’ve got a friend with a quad core machine and paired SLI videocards, and he’s doing only marginally better than I am, I also don’t know. I’m sticking with my initial review opinion that GTA IV is among the worst console ports ever, and that its graphics engine, while doing plenty of snazzy things when it’s running right, is a bloated, inefficient resource hog, but for those who are interested I can now give a review on the actual gameplay. I’m also going to add that if you do have the urge to buy GTA IV that you do so from somewhere that will allow you to return it. Fair warning."
Worthplaying:"It's simply laughable that in this modern age, we find a top-shelf game that does not look as high-quality as some of its peers (Fallout 3 or FarCry 2 are vastly superior) requires more hardware behind it to get it to acceptable levels; with a dual-core CPU and 1GB of video memory in my machine, I still can't get more than half of the capabilities from GTA IV."
Atomicgamer: "And for the hardcore gamers who find all this child's play, then they still probably won't be too happy with the feel of the controls or the shoddy performance. It's kind of a lose-lose for Rockstar at this point, and it's too bad, because GTAIV is a wonderful game that doesn't deserve the problems this PC port has."

Originally Posted by newtekie1

From the beginning your argument has been borderline offensive, you constantly want to say that I don't know what I'm talking about. How about you make an argument without insulting the other persons intelligence? Why not make a factual argument instead?

I beg your pardon? Are you trolling me? Let me explain it to you with your very first opening nonsensful post in this thread:

"If all you idiots cared about was the ability to run it on max settings on your mid-range hardware, then the only thing Rockstar would have had to do to optimize the game would be to limit max settings. Make what they called medium the max, and you all would have been happy. The game would have run perfectly fine on mid-range hardware on "max" settings. And you all would have talked about how well "optimized" the game was. And it still would have looked way better than 720p Low settings we got on the consoles."

You are right tbh, because I was indeed an idiot when I went down to your level and started arguing about simple well know facts. Please don't waste your time to reply, I love TPU because it's the best PC enthusiast site on the net, and I don't want you to ruin this great experience for me, so - sadly - I had to put you on /ignore. I hope there are no hard feelings in you because I don't harbor any, and allow me to wish you good luck and all the best from now on. Bye.

[happita]

Sorry to bring this post back up, but I found a snippet of news today that seemed a tad interesting. Looks like theres a petition for this game to come out on PC. Reminiscent of what happened with Dark Souls...and if it does go through, it better be a proper port Rockstar. None of this unoptimized GTA IV garbage.

[Steevo]

Originally Posted by Ikaruga

I'm pretty sure that you have no idea what you are talking about. Please, don't get me wrong, I don't want to judge or offend you in any way (more like an envy perhaps), but I'm 99% sure that you must be a very casual gamer, who simply not able to see or appreciate smooth and responsive gameplay, and you can enjoy playing even if the game runs choppy, but unfortunatelly, not all of us like that:/

Grand Turismo 4 on the PS2, Star Wars on the Gamecube, etc.. I could make and endless list here with Console or PC games with good code/optimization, but GTA4 would be never on that list, ever.
Also the fact that it's not really a city simulation at all, you go around a block and everything randomly respawns if you go back, some ancient console games had "deeper" simulations in them.. The driving physics and car handling felt better and more realistic in ps2 games too, so that can't be that demanding as well, not to mention that endless number of games can handle 3-4 times more NPCs more efficiently on hopelessly weaker CPU's while still delivering better visuals ...

The whole thing is a joke game code wise. The faster you drive, the more apparent how badly is optimized, it gets choppy quickly, the camera movements are linear, erratic and harsh, the control is jerky in lags, it's a horrible code in every way... soon as you run the game the whole system just begging you to stop the torture.

It had an awesome game design and brilliant content and I bought it because of that, but the coders do not deserve my money and they are truly lucky that we have such powerful computers nowadays.. because it run like crap, there is no other way around that.

Driving physics? Seriously?

How about this, a 33Mhz processor with 512KB of RAM and 8MB ROM can calculate in 4 dimensions (X,Y,Z, T) 100 times a second and produce a sub inch accurate position in real life and account for where you are now and where you are going. While its driving real life things.

They have more damage to cars in GTA than in most racing games, and don't use a silly three pass render of car bodies that are simple glossy.

There are more cars, people, interactions, world, and game than what a simple go fast and win game has.

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=378730

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...TAIV+benchmark


Damn, so in 2008.........

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Ikaruga

...insert nonsense here...

I'm not going to waste my time writing out a long response to you anymore. You don't listen, so there isn't much point. You've had 3 respected members tell you you are wrong. Ignore me if you want, I don't really care, you likely won't be posting here in a years time because people like you that don't like to accept knowledgeable people's advice don't tend to stick around here.

And I'm sorry if you felt offended when I said you were an idiot for thinking the game should run on max settings on your mid-range hardware. If I had known you were one of those idiots I wouldn't have said that...wait...yeah I would have.

[NeoXF]

I look over GTA IV... then look over Sleeping Dogs... then try to look back at GTA IV, but can't, and start violently vomiting everything I've eaten in the last 2 weeks. No, just no, fuck you Rockstar.

[Ikaruga]

Originally Posted by Steevo

They have more damage to cars in GTA than in most racing games, and don't use a silly three pass render of car bodies that are simple glossy.

There are more cars, people, interactions, world, and game than what a simple go fast and win game has.

Are you implying that the damage calculations are continuously running even after the collision event what's caused them? But anyway, you didn't need to damage anything, it was choppy without it. The driving experience is one of the major point of the GTA series, and doing it fast and smooth shouldn't be irrelevant imo.

Originally Posted by Steevo

There are more cars, people, interactions, world, and game than what a simple go fast and win game has.

Yea, it's like a little old version of Sim-City running somewhere inside right? Unfortunately NO:, it's a streamed (and truly awesome!) big city indeed, but that's mostly just graphics (hence I dumbed down the gfx for my tests) but it's spawning randomly almost everything around your from a very short distance (except the few things required for the current or global missions).
Try to do some damage to static objects (destroy fences, lamps, etc) or hit an NPC and go around the block (or just go a few hundred meters away in game terms), they will all get removed and things will get reseted to their original state. It's nothing serious happening about the "world" calculation wise.
Handling a few NPCs and undamaged cars around the player while driving peacefully without any prior damage should be a walk in the park for CPUs like they had in the system requirements, especially that we are talking about rather very simple NPC's, (but even if they are not simple for some hidden reason , they are certainly not really more sophisticated than games like Shenmue2 and the others already had a very long time ago on hopelessly weaker CPUs). But anyway, I think the NPC part of the code is quite good because I remember that I altered some .dat file which increased the number of NPCs by a huge percent and I was amazed how cool was it, and how little it affected the performance (sorry I don't remember how I did it:S). The "bad" code was somewhere else, probably the graphics engine itself.

ps.: BTW, I downloaded again in Steam and the current version is running better now. It's still not awesome imho, but it's a lot better than the version we had at release.