GTA III and Vice City texture popping and random lag

[candle_86]

So I'm having an issue with my XP retro box and these 2 games. First system specs

Pentium 4 3.4 Northwood
2gb ddr500 ocz gold
MSI 865PE Neo2-V
ATI X850 XT running catalyst 7.1
Windows XP Pro SP3

I'm using the retail CDs with the latest patches applied.

Now GTA 3 is worse but both it and vice City give me random texture pop in, not like the lod map is lagging, like it's a blank nothing then suddenly textures appear on the road and buildings. I also get the game dropping to 1-2fps when this occurs.

I don't remember this happening back when these games where current and this machine destroys what I used back then, aka I had Duron 1600 and mx440.

Anyone got any troubleshooting ideas on this one?

 

[biffzinker]

Have you tried the last driver release for the X850 XT?

Catalyst Software Suite Revision 10.2

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/legacy-graphics/ati-radeon-x-series/ati-radeon-x8xx-series

 

[candle_86]

Have you tried the last driver release for the X850 XT?

Catalyst Software Suite Revision 10.2

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/legacy-graphics/ati-radeon-x-series/ati-radeon-x8xx-series

No because the latest release has issues with table fog

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

No because the latest release has issues with table fog

Likely a compatibility issue. Since the requirements are so low (700 Mhz 64 mb of vram etc) My guess is driver issue.

I would suggest making sure if your system is an AGP rig that AGP fast writes is disabled and to make sure the in game frame limiter is turned on.

 

[candle_86]

Likely a compatibility issue. Since the requirements are so low (700 Mhz 64 mb of vram etc) My guess is driver issue.

So try an older driver?

I do also have an older HP in the closet but it's alot of work for one game.

It's specs are
Athlon XP 2100
1gb ddr266
GeForce FX 5200

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Go into the motherboard BIOS look for "AGP Fast Write" or something similar and disable it its meant for really OLD graphics cards and can cause issues in GTA.

As for the driver i would try an older driver from say 6 months further back and see what happens.

Could also try lowering your memory speeds the OCZ 500 if running at those speeds might not be 100% stable. GTA games are finicky as hell so small time stuff like that can cause problems. hell even Rockstars modern games can be picky with hardware and memory speeds / stability.

 

[Regeneration]

Old GTA titles have some issues with modern hardware and software.

There are 3rd party patches available to address those issues:

https://thirteenag.github.io/wfp

https://gtaforums.com/topic/669045-silentpatch/

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Old GTA titles have some issues with modern hardware and software.

There are 3rd party patches available to address those issues:

Widescreen Fixes Pack

Plugins to make or improve widescreen resolutions support in PC games, add more features and fix bugs

thirteenag.github.io

SilentPatch

These games are surely great, nonetheless they have some issues. This modification attempts to fix some of them. Featured fixes: GTA SA: (last update: 22.02.2020) Fixes which are bolded are supported in 1.0, Steam and Rockstar Games Launcher versions. Other fixes require 1.0. 14ms frame delay has...

gtaforums.com

Yeah well an X850 and a P4 arent exactly modern hardware nor is Win Xp lol. But if on truly modern hardware yeah those fixes are basically 100% mandatory

 

[candle_86]

Old GTA titles have some issues with modern hardware and software.

There are 3rd party patches available to address those issues:

https://thirteenag.github.io/wfp

https://gtaforums.com/topic/669045-silentpatch/

I would if I was using modern hardware, my XP machine is so I can experience games as I kinda did originally. It's the same reason I have an Athlon 700 with GeForce 2 GTS running 98.

Go into the motherboard BIOS look for "AGP Fast Write" or something similar and disable it its meant for really OLD graphics cards and can cause issues in GTA.

As for the driver i would try an older driver from say 6 months further back and see what happens.

Could also try lowering your memory speeds the OCZ 500 if running at those speeds might not be 100% stable. GTA games are finicky as hell so small time stuff like that can cause problems. hell even Rockstars modern games can be picky with hardware and memory speeds / stability.

I'll turn off fast writes, set ram to 400 though it's stable, I let it complete 48 hours of memtest and install cat 6.2.

Frame limiter is off as well so I'll enable it.

 

[Apocalypsee]

I would if I was using modern hardware, my XP machine is so I can experience games as I kinda did originally. It's the same reason I have an Athlon 700 with GeForce 2 GTS running 98.

I'll turn off fast writes, set ram to 400 though it's stable, I let it complete 48 hours of memtest and install cat 6.2.

Frame limiter is off as well so I'll enable it.

Older GTA have some problems when disabling frame limiter. You can disable them but turn on Vsync so the framerate wont go too high causing the texture popping in. I'm still playing those two games on way modern hardware without the issues. Crazyeyesreaper already pointing to AGP fast writes, and make sure you run driver sweeper (old verson of DDU for XP) before installing newer/older driver. Old ATi driver can get nasty with leftover drivers.