GTA 4 is one of the most high-profile projects of the last decade. Without exaggeration, we can say that they were waiting for him, as the second coming. To begin with, the game appeared on consoles, and only six months later it somehow hobbled to PC players. And then many of them met with a monstrous amount of problems. But first things first.
Background
It is worth noting that, despite the fact that the game was obviously doomed to popularity, it came out completely failure. The very first version was simply terrible both in terms of the graphic component, and in terms of optimization in general. After releasing GTA 4, Games Rokstar put a bold blue blot on their reputation sheet. Already in the first days after the start of sales of the game, various computer forums began to fill up with themes with the same name: "I can not start GTA 4." The game scolded users as soon as it could, starting from obscure mistakes in Chinese, ending with claims to incorrect components of files, even if the game was officially purchased. But that is not all. It’s one thing if you enable Crysis on a non-top-end computer, increase all possible parameters to the maximum and watch an amazing slide show. And another thing is to fight over the question: “How to launch GTA 4?”, Launch it, wringing all my nerves, and see the blurry textures and graphics of the times of 2000-2003. This was manifested both at the very minimum settings and at the highest, and the game unnecessarily consumed resources, and even the bold 8-nuclear computers of that time were not enough for a comfortable game, at least 60 frames.
Patches - it's your time
But gradually the situation has changed. “Rockstar” came to its senses and began to release countless patches that only exacerbated the problem, causing even more questions: “How to start GTA 4?”. The most common errors when starting "GTA 4" versions 1.0-1.3 were errors associated with incorrect localization and installation of any mods. The game is built so that if you intervene in any of its files, then it simply will not start, and this is fraught with a complete reinstall. Fans of mods often observed errors of dll files of libraries GFLW. But, with the release of the following updates, the question is: "How to run GTA 4?" began to lose its relevance. The salvation thing was the command line - the so-called commandline. This is a text file in the main folder with the game. It prescribes certain parameters that can stimulate its performance.
But with new patches, new problems came (so-called critical errors). Many turned to forums with the question: "How to run GTA 4?" with an error of depth of objects. But with the release of the most extreme patches of versions 6 and 7, these shortcomings were successfully eliminated. And playing became more or less comfortable. But then again - not without a fly in the ointment.
The biggest problem at the moment is identified already at the beginning of the installation process, and it lies in the fact that the installation file swears at an unknown system, and this trend can be traced to licensed copies of both the game and Windows itself. But, well, the problem is solved by simply installing the installation package with Windows XP SP 3 / Vista SP 1. If we talk about freezes, then in the latest versions of the game they appear only because of gamers' excessive enthusiasm for various game modifications.