GTA V JRD's first impressions

[JRD]

First of all, I want to post my system specs.

Recommended specs
CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHZ (4 CPUs) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHZ (8 CPUs)
RAM: 8 GB
OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB / AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB

My specs
CPU: Intel Core i3 2120 @ 3,30GHz (Dual core)
RAM: 8GB
OS Windows 7 64 bit
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 2GB DDR5

I am nearly at the recommended specs so I was hoping to run the game at "High/Very high" with good FPS but not at "ultra". Apart from the number of cores, my CPU is processing it at 3,30GHz, so I thought it should be fine and since the game looks really good, I thought it would make for an amazing visual experience.

As I fired the game I let it set the specs and was a little surprised to see I'm running it on "normal", which is the lowest setting, with no VSync or anti-aliasing, minimum draw distance and minimum population density and at 800 x 600 resolution.  ????

I decided to give it a go and see what the game looks like on that auto settings. I run a benchmark test and got decent 60 FPS with some stuttering when flying and a low of incredible 19 FPS  ???

Nope, not good, not good at all.  >:(

After a few tweaks I decided to change only one setting, resolution, and moved the bar up one notch to 1024 x 768 and what a surprise. Benchmarking returned an excellent FPS rate of 90 with a minimum of 39, which is quite smooth. Very little suttering when flying but nothing game breaking.

The sad part is that it seems to get worse sometimes, specially after a long gaming session, and stuttering occurs when driving fast, but only on those occasions, and it can be managed by slowing down a bit or just randomly walking or even restarting the game to clean memory caché.

Now, as I free roam LS, I try to change only one option (like shadows) and play for an hour or two and see what happens, then another one, play another couple hours and so on.

But for my overall experience with how the game looks....... Wow  ???... it looks amazing  8). Los Santos is incredibly detailed and alive. Even if I'm not playing it on "ultra" or even "High", I find myself staring at the landscape and light effects and the details on buildings and people and my jaw drops.... I'm drooling.  :-X . Looking down at the city from the Vinewood sign at night and seeing those tiny little lights moving as cars drive by at the freeway is fantastic. Not only that but the level of details in every corner is incredible.

The city is very similar to the Los Santos I remember from GTA San Andreas but bigger. Los Santos itself is as big as the three cities in GTA:SA plus it's rural and desert areas. Add the rest of Baine county and you see how big the game is compared to San Andreas. Having said that, it is not huge. I believe Just Cause's 2 map was much bigger but it doesn't mean you will run out of space easily in GTA V. One of the first things I did in GTA V was to get a car and drive around the map to unfog it and see how big it would be. I was not impressed but it was really fun. Yesterday I got a blimp and for the first time I managed to fly around the map and it does feel quite big indeed and with enough diversity in environments to make a fantastic playground.  :-X

Driving is the one thing that got me really impressed apart from graphics. Driving in GTA IV was awful. Cars felt like boats on jello and racing was a nightmare. The action camera behind the car was loose and slow and I found myself adjusting the camera with the mouse very often. Now cars respond very well to you if you get a decent car, which is easy to find pretty much anywhere in town. Get a sport car and you will be good to go. I'm happy that different sport cars do handle differently too so you can feel like you get something different when switching cars. Some models are still there like the Sabre and Inferno or the Voodoo so it feels like coming home to a familiar game.

Mission design is the same as always. Quite restrictive as to what and how to do things and lots of chases and crazy stunts. That's how GTA has always been and one minor downside in my opinion but I can live with that given the ammount of side activities you have. But in-mission checkpoints have put a smile on my face... what a relief. Back in GTA IV you already could retry the mission without driving back to the mission giver (oh, what a pain  :D ) but you had to replay it all (maybe there were checkpoints on a few missions but just a few and quite far from each other)... having checkpoints reduce frustration levels immensely... why did it take so long Rockstar.... why??

Finally, having multiple characters to play as is a great idea. GTA has always created complex characters and if mission design is quite restrictive characters are always deeply written making you connect to them and the story. I only have Franklin and Michael available but it does change the game a lot. :-X 8)

[PZ]

Looks like you're enjoying the game, JRD - there is lots to explore!  My favorite area so far is the desert of the north.

I can't imagine not having checkpoints. I'd have given up on the game after my first failure  ???

[Art Blade]

Enjoying it already, JRD? :) Hey, try boating and then diving. Underwater is a world of its own. Careful not to drown and not to whet the appetite of those local sharks, though. :-D

[Binnatics]

I wonder what the bottleneck is that causes the stuttering in your system. Maybe the CPU, having only 2 cores. The game seems designed for multiple cores. Very strange that with a higher resolution it gives you better framerate. Maybe it makes the system calculate the downgrade, making it more complex to perform? Try 1080p and see what it does.
You can also preset the FPS goal. For example, letting the game aim for 30FPS will probably save calculating power for other stuff, making it less demaning and more fluid. My game aims for 60FPS auto. It drops occasionally to 50, and sometimes even 30. But I think that is a flaw in the game engine rather than a too demanding moment in processing. It seems to happen when I do a burnout on rough terrain, as if the dust is taking too much processing. But it also seems not to happen every time with dust clouds.
Anyway, I think fooling around a bit with the settings, especially the FPS goal, would probably take the stuttering away.

Great that you joined in this wonderful world, hope you enjoy it a lot! And hope you come check online soon too 8)

[Art Blade]

JRD, for grass and shadows use the lowest settings. That should boost your performance significantly.

[JRD]

I agree with Binn - the number of core my be the cause of the stuttering. I isn't too bd though and most of the time I can still control my vehicle without problem. Every now and then it gets too harsh though.

Thanks for the tips guys. @Art... I'm all "normal" and I've only changed resolution, which made a good difference so I'm keeping it.  :-X

I just played a Heist - the jewlery. I like how you can choose between "loud" and "sneaky" approaches (or whatever the choices are) and also pick your crew based on their skill and cut. It adds some immersion to the game.

Another thing I found quite different from early games is police behaviour... these guys are BRUTAL. I mean, I get one star for stealing a car and all of a sudden I have a three star wanted level and a chopper chasing me  ??? . Losing the cops is much tougher and once they engage you... violence and guns blazing. I managed to get rid of a 4 star chase but only after 20 minutes of desperate driving.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I found that cheaping out on the crew you pick can be bad. I think it was the same heist, the jewelry store, where I went with the cheaper hacker and he couldn't, well, hack it lol. Halfway through, the alarms go off, and well, so much for sneaky.

After that, I went with more qualified people who demanded a higher cut.

I had to reload a save game a couple times to get that one driver who you meet randomly out on the highway when playing as.... I forget the names already, the crazy guy. Anyway, first time I stopped to pick her up (she's the one in the car crash and half dead) I pulled the car I was in well off the road. After the cut scene, I go to get back in the car, and it's now 50 feet down the road and parked in the middle lane! I dodge traffic to get it, but she didn't and got wasted by a truck or something. Next reload, I didn't get her back to the house fast enough and she died en route. Third time she wasn't there, I think it took a couple more tries to finally get her in the car safely and dropped off. But she was a decent getaway driver for the heists after that.

[Art Blade]

There is a tips and tricks topic.. with all information needed regarding crew and additional members and much more. It isn't wise to use the cheapest guys as it isn't wise to use the most expensive guys.

Spoiler

Cheap ones will cost you dearly because they screw up and may even die which means they need to be replaced with more expensive but still inexperienced ones while the most expensive ones take far too big a bite out of your cake. :) The extra and cheap guys will always stay alive and learn (become experts) so in the final heist you'll have a good crew and a good share for yourself.

[JRD]

There were three roles to assign people to: driver, gunman and hacker. I thought I 'd be doing the driving by switching to Franklin and an experienced gunman wasn't necessary because I was going in sneaky so I chose the cheapest guys. Since I wanted a good hacker to get me more time to get the goods from the store I picked the female hacker, which asked for a bigger cut. No regrets. I had enough time to clean all jewels from the store and left with the clock still running, no alarms went off.  8)

As I was driving to the rendezvous point one of the guys on the bikes died... not sure what happen actually or maybe it was supposed to be like that, scripted event perhaps? Anyway, the duffel bag he was carrying was recovered and his cut split between those who made it so all ended well (to us, of course).

I will read the Tips and Tircks session carefully later but thanks for the heads up. I guess it all comes down to balancing the crew with your strategy. If you are going stealth, no need for an expensive weapons specialist unless things go sour in which case you will want to handle the situation.

[Binnatics]

I also took the cheap hacker first. I wanted him because he was the guy I met at the life invader office. Found it a good idea to have him gain experience along the way. That was a bad decision indeed. I didn't need the extra time so the fact that he screwed up didn't bother me much, but on the next heist I tried him again. There he screwed up even worse. Don't remember which heist it was, but from that moment on I chose someone else. I remembered back then how he asked me to get rid of all the porn spam on his computer... lol a hacker who can't keep his own desktop clean ::)

Anyway, as a gunner I always hired Packy. He isn't cheap, but he's good. And he's Packy after all ;)

[Art Blade]

Anyway, the duffel bag he was carrying was recovered and his cut split between those who made it so all ended well (to us, of course).

That isn't entirely correct. If a heist crew member dies, his share will be sent to those he left behind, i.e. you don't get it. If you hadn't recovered the duffel bag you would have had to give his share from whatever little you had made which means even less for you.

Basically you're best off if no one dies and if those are always on the team so they keep racking up experience (you'll see that message towards the end of a mission, how every AI crew member gets XP) -- you'll breed experts but their share will always remain the same. It doesn't matter if they're not that good at the start of the game because the heists aren't that demanding, either, but will become a better crew member for the next time.  ;)

Binnatics, Rickie Lukens is the name of the hacker. He will barely make it during the jewelry heist but he will make it and learn from it. Next time he'll be a bit better but won't be perfect, indeed, yet still good enough to make it. And he keeps improving. In the end he'll hack expertly. And will still be damn cheap ;)

[Binnatics]

Well, took too long for my taste so I ditched him >:D

[Art Blade]

 

[JRD]

I guess the, let's say, demise, of that particular crew member was a scripted event. I believe that because it also triggered dialogue between Michael, Franklin and the third guy. I clearly remember him saying "I got his bag" to which Michael replied "Ok, good so we didn't lose anything. Bigger cut to the rest of us" or something along those lines. Besides, upon checking the earnings from the heist there were no mention to "dead guy's cut to his family".

If I understood it right, this particlar jewelry heist is a story mission, sort of a tutorial to Heists, which runs in parallel to main story missions, so it may have a different outcome. From now on (still stuck with Trevor while Michael and Franklin lay low) I believe Heists will pop up as side quests to raise money and can be done at any moment and then, if a crew member dies, then it's like Art said. Once a guy is gone, his share is not split between the remaining crew members.

On a sidenote. This is probably the most mature rated GTA game I've played to this date. In previous games there were drugs and sex but not like that. The main character never used drugs - in GTA:SA Ryder, Big Smoke and Sweet, are shown smoking dope and I remember one cutscene where Ryder passes the blunt to CJ and he says no. Same goes to Nico and Tommy Vercetti. In this game I had Michael hallucinating after smoking some special s#!t from a guy downtown, using his son's bong and even eating a peyote at the top of that mountain with the cable car - he turns into an eagle and flies high... literally!  :-() . Sex is also much more splicit in GTA V. There's this scene where Franklin helps the photographer film some celebrity having sex and a cutscene where Trevor is banging a girl in the kitchen. Ever since Vice City you could get a hooker, park on a secluded place and see the car shaking. But this time you have a menu to choose from and there are noises.... lot's of noises and dirty talking  :-[ 

[Art Blade]

and first person  :-D (choose 1stP before you pick a service because you can't change from 3rd to 1st when it's on)

[JRD]

and first person  :-D (choose 1stP before you pick a service because you can't change from 3rd to 1st when it's on)

You dawg!!!  :-()

[Binnatics]

 

I think it was already available in GTA III. I think you had 4 or 5 different hookers there. Here, you got dozens to choose from :-D

In online, you can even invite hookers that you like enough to your appartment... like real time hot coffee 8)

[Art Blade]

 ^-^

[fragger]

Next step on the road to sexual gaming realism - your character picks up a STD 8-X

[PZ]

 

[Art Blade]

that's virtually impossible. :-D

[Binnatics]

 

I can imagine Franklin scratching his balls all the way until he starts loosing focus while driving and swearing in the middle of the road... then needs to see a doc and finds out all about the itching... :-D