-2

I would like to be able play GTA:4 on my PC, however my computer's specs are not the best.

I have an Intel Pentium R Dual Core e5200 2.50 ghz (Overclocked to 3.41 GHz) with:

  • ATI Radeon HD 4300 512 MB
  • 2GB DDR2 RAM.

But it still cant support higher resolutions in some games. Which should I upgrade first, the GPU or RAM (I.e. which upgrade will give me the most benefit at this stage?) I think my CPU is OK to play games with.

Improve this question
7
  • 5
    Making a quick check on the provided specs - You are going to need to upgrade everything (CPU, GPU, RAM, motherboard maybe) if you want to really boost your performance. Your CPU and GPU are quite old and would greatly benefit from an update. Be ready to shell out around 500 $, if you decide to upgrade everything.
    – 5pike
    Commented Jul 31, 2013 at 6:21
  • What games are you interested in running?
    – Sadly Not
    Commented Jul 31, 2013 at 6:23
  • 1
    This question is quite specific, maybe you should rather ask something more general like "How to figure out which hardware changes affect gaming performance most?"
    – Zommuter
    Commented Jul 31, 2013 at 6:24
  • 3
    possible duplicate of Which is better for a Gaming PC Graphics Card - more RAM, or faster GPU? and How can I determine the bottleneck in my gaming rig? and Determining if a game is CPU- or GPU-limited
    – Zommuter
    Commented Jul 31, 2013 at 6:25
  • 1
    Not really a duplicate - the linked questions aren't about system RAM, and they're vague compared to this question which lists specific hardware.
    – Daniel Lubarov
    Commented Jul 31, 2013 at 23:46

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

From the info you provided, your GPU is the more likely bottleneck. A lot of things could cause lag, but these are the most likely scenarios:

  1. The game needs more than 512 MB worth of buffers to run at higher resolutions. If you're running at 1680x1050 for example, two screen-sized buffers with a 4-byte encoding will take 13 MB. But that's just the minimum; more buffers are required for textures, reflections, modern lighting techniques and so forth. As you increase the resolution, GTA might be trying to upload higher-quality textures to your GPU. Some buffers might end of up in system memory, which tends to be much slower for the GPU to access.

  2. Your GPU just doesn't have the processing throughput required to run GTA's fragment shaders at a high resolution.

If you want to be certain about where the bottleneck is, try some GPU profiling software.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.