It took Rockstar almost two years to release GTA V on the PC. And while we don’t agree with the way the big company treated PC gamers, we can say that it was – somehow – worth the wait. GTA V on the PC looks beautiful, performs incredibly well, and is this far one of the – if not THE – top optimized PC games of 2015.
As always, we used an Intel i7 4930K (turbo boosted at 4.2Ghz) with 8GB RAM, NVIDIA’s GTX690, Windows 8.1 64-bit and the latest WHQL version of the GeForce drivers. NVIDIA has already included an official SLI profile for this title in the latest WHQL drivers; a profile that offers exceptional SLI scaling. Thus, you won’t have to mess with third party tools (like the NVIDIA Inspector Tool).
Grand Theft Auto V is powered by the next iteration of the RAGE Engine, and the PC version supports both 64-bit operating systems and DX11. What’s really incredible here is that GTA IV – a game powered by an older build of the RAGE Engine – runs and looks way worse than GTA V.
In order to find out whether the game scales well on a variety of CPUs, we simulated a dual-core, a tri-core and a quad-core system. We did not use the game’s in-game benchmark tool to measure performance. Instead, we decided to drive across the city at both night and day. Moreover, we used the following settings (Very High settings) at 1080p.
To our surprise, GTA V ran extremely well on our simulated dual-core CPU. Our framerate did not drop lower than 49fps while driving across the city. Do note that we had Hyper Threading enabled as GTA V seems to ‘love’ multiple threads. What this means is that those with weaker CPUs will be able to enjoy Rockstar’s open-world title (those wishing for constant 60fps with such CPUs will have to simply lower some settings that affect the CPU usage, like population density).
Our minimum framerate was increased to 59fps as soon as we simulated a tri-core CPU, and to 62fps when we simulated a quad-core CPU. Unfortunately, the performance differences between our simulated quad-core and our hexa-core systems were minimal. However, GTA V scaled on all twelve threads, proving how efficient and flexible RAGE Engine has actually become.
What also surprised us was the fact that our GTX690 had no problems at all with the game’s Very High settings (and Textures). Even though the required VRAM exceeded what was actually available, we did not notice any major stutters while driving across the city. Moreover, this game performs and looks miles better than Watch_Dogs; a game that was advertised and promised to be the showcase for current-gen open-world titles.
We’re pretty sure that by now you can understand why GTA V is proclaimed as ‘one of the most optimized PC games of 2015.’ And if the game’s spectacular performance wasn’t enough, Rockstar has included one hell of graphics options to tweak. You can almost adjust anything; from the AA level to Grass quality, Ambient Occlusion and Tessellation. As we’ve already said, there are sliders for Population (density and variety) and Distance Scaling. Furthermore, Rockstar has included some Advanced Graphics Options (though we strongly suggest enabling them only if you have really high-end GPUs or SLI/Crossfire configurations).
Graphics wise, GTA V is the most beautiful open-world game to date. There is no doubt about it; GTA V is graphically glorious and is more than capable of displaying really spectacular ‘eye-candy’ scenes. Rockstar has used high resolution textures on pretty much all surfaces. A beautiful day-night cycle showcases the game’s dynamic shadowing and lighting system, most light sources cast shadows (as do your vehicles’ headlights), and the main characters are highly detailed.
Unfortunately, however, there is no option to turn off Chromatic Aberration (though it’s not as overused as in most other titles). And while the game for the most part looks really sexy, we do have to note that we noticed various pop-ins of objects (not as awful as those found in Assassin’s Creed: Unity, but still). Also, it appears that AF is not compatible with the game’s POM solution (an issue also found in the first Crysis game that was later resolved by a modder).
All in all, Grand Theft Auto V performs amazingly well on the PC platform and is the best looking open-world title to date. Rockstar has outdone itself, offering a PC version that is simply… glorious. Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most optimized PC games of 2015, runs surprisingly well even on modern-day dual-core CPUs (provided that HT is enabled), and comes with one hell of options to tweak (including mouse raw input and FOV slider for the game’s First-Person perspective).
Enjoy!Congratulations Rockstar, you’ve finally redeemed yourself for GTA IV’s abysmal PC port
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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I’m blown away by this game. Driving around the city at 60fps is such a rush. Will try the online mode after I get more familiar with the game.
Does anyoane else have the fps drops when driving at high speed? I even lowered the graphics but I still have thiss issue. My rig is i5 4440 + GTX 760 + 8 GB DDR3
GTX 760 is your problem. Throw it in the trash.
A 760 is a great card.
It is not a great card it is just a decent card at best. A great card is GTX 980/970/R9 290x.
Hey FatterThanFat, suggestion, go outside and get a life, maybe that way you can learn to properly interact with other human beings, byt the way dont even bother responding, I NEVER readed any garbage answer to my comments, get laid.
Insecure 760 owner detected.
i have i7 3770k CP disabled and GTX 680 DC2TOP and i have better FPS than i5 4440+GTX 970 Zotac
I don’t think you realise how well your I7 is doing and somehow claiming you’re beating a 970. i5 4440 is one of the lowest end I5’s.
i said in the following combo that specific GPU+CPU i didn’t said that my GTX 680 beats GTX 970 🙂
I want to get one though GTX 970 ASUS Strix version
Those are high-end cards that come with a hefty price tag for an average consumer. The 760 for it’s price is great and offers great 1080p performance as well. I’ve seen lots of “advice” such as this where a person asks for help and the only response is “get a better pc” when in reality the issue is completely different.
Yeah, great for throwing in the wastebasket.
I smell you have at most GeFoce 460.
can you ty using msi afterburner and monitor you temps and see if there are any spikes while playing the game?
I use this tool and while I can’t say anything about the temperatures (didn’t pay attention to them), after a few hours of continuous gameplay, it jumps from 7,2 to 7,8 GB of RAM consumption (out of 8).
while i dont know the normal ram consumption for gta ( it ought to be high) , the sudden jump may be due to some backgrround scheduled task. try cutting all background tasks before runnin.
Also termal throttling is a possibility
Try turning off vsync
I tried. I have minimum 50 fps even while driving at high speeds.
i had that too. for me it was MSAA and Soft Shadows, instead of MSAA i used FXAA but on 2k resolution (DSR) and turned SS to soft instead of softest or PCSS or…
I tried FXAA + DSR and it looks better than MSAA alone, but unfortunately my 680GTX is not good enough for that feature (speed and vram wise). Amir, what GPU you have ? 970/980 GTX?
same cpu as you have (default clock 3.4ghz) and a 970
It works so good here on my GTX 680 2GB very high-ultra fxaa 1080p 60 FPS all the time not a single fps drop not even 59 lol!!!!
amazing job R* i love you!
PS: My CPU helps a lot i know blah blah
how the f’, it runs like sh*t for me it stutters, how can some lower systems than mine run at 60, i smell bulls**t
lol
easy bro
use iCafe drivers
and indeed maxed out with FXAA don’t have a single problem 60+ not even a single 59
PS: I love my PC for what it can do 5k$ were not spent for nothing at that time!
what iCafe drivers ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_0ZxD8xHoo
GeForce iCafe 347.26 WHQL Driver
trying them out now, thanks. Tu nu esti roman ?
Yes i am but not 100% half i am born in Borderlands =P
can;t get it working smooth at 60fps no matter what i do not even on lowest settings possible, with vsync set to half, 30 fps it’s perfect.
ok…. 😐
i installed windows 10 and now it’s working perfect at 60, i don’t know what it was before, maybe my windows got f. or some bad driver. Now it’s great, i can;t believe it runs so smooth 🙂
Can i run it all low maybe i will lower res to 1366×768 ? My PC specs: AMD Athlon 2x Dual core 3.2ghz /3.4ghz , 6GB of Ram , Amd r7 240 4gb ddr3 and 1 T hdd ? Atleast 30 fps all low
Draw distance is extremely impressive in this game.
http://postimg.org/image/9493p52pj/full/
http://postimg.org/image/7b670thiv/full/
IMO the best looking sandox right now
But something is wrong with transparency AA (I switched it in Nv control panel). Grass blade are way too thin
http://postimg.org/image/3zwa7vb25/full/
http://postimg.org/image/oditpisal/full/
http://postimg.org/image/ek1mcpq65/full/
http://postimg.org/image/bwc62cx4t/full/
And BTW guys, gamepad in this game is a nice feature, car driving is much better with analog sticks and triggers.
Personally I tried 2 gamepads, first is Xbox360, and 2’nd new XboxOne gamepad, and I need to say, that this new xboxone gamepad really shine in this game, the difference in responsiveness compared to original 360 gamepad is noticeable. Also I suggest lowering control sensitivenes in 3d person view (it’s first slider in gamepad settings) from “50%” to “0%”, it helps becuse default settings are way too high :),
i never liked how you have to press a button to accelarate i prefer pushing the thumbstick forward.
Hi. What is that setting called reflection msaa. l never saw 1 single game using it.
smoothing reflections on cars is it’s job. no working on mirrors but on cars and water
you can max this 1080p/60fps in ultra on a gtx 770 heck my gtx 660 sc can run this high/med settings
youtube video coming 🙂
game shines on 2k + resolution. it works better than MSAA on this game and less resource hungry, atleast for me.
wow specs?
3570k and a 970, same as before. and i can’t run watchdogs 60fps even on high
cuz’ you have only 4 cores 😉
I have 50-79 fps on Ultra in WD no problem 😉 but i have Phenom II x6 only OC’ed to 3.86GHz + R280X Black XFX
When New Games coming its mandatory to have at least x6 😉
especially for Win10 + DX12 Games
“don’t believe benchmarks”… yeah some random guy on the Internet is should certainly be more trusted than every single benchmark website on the web…
Here scr. from my GTA5 on Ultra 1792:1344 85Hz ->
For now i have to try run it with RadeonPRO + SweetFX 😉
Amir is your 3570l OC’d? Mine is, just wondering if it might make a difference.
no, mine is default clock. 3.4ghz and 3.8 on turbo
Get on that dude, mine is at 4.5ghz. Do it for the chicks
:)) i will but i need a better mainboard and a better cooler which i don’t have the money right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2mB0BmeJN4
Enjoy !
I will do 1440p/60 + FPS and 4K/maxed out 30 FPS!
GTX 680 2GB!
That’s how you should optimaze your game ubisoft
And that’s how Ubisoft and other companies should treat their franchises – give gamers room to soak in the current game instead of squirting out sequels every year with semi-sequels(e.g the upcoming AC Chronicles) in between.
+
They really need to stop assassin franchise for like 5 year
Very well optimized compared to GTA4.
Everyone says the pc version is glorious and made by jesus himself in youtube the console fanboys are mad in the comments and downvote the videos.
AHAHHAHAHAHA
Like i said when this comes out the butthurt will last for years.
Arsonall lol
ill take his opinion over the dudebros in youtube. Like solidrev or hard8times
Lol
Grassgate is over. PC wins with an entire countryside
http://abload.de/img/grassfujtc.png
Grassgate is over. PC wins with an entire countryside
Anyone noticed the lack of pedestrian on the roads.It looks rather empty.Would have loved to see more people on road like watch dogs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCJatcbKTFU
Put population density and variety to max and you should see a lot more in single player. They are locked to about half settings on GTA Online due to the servers though.
Already on max.
i raised the settings still strong 60 FPS !
amazing game !
I used to own gtx 690 and have to say that gtx 980 is much stronger. That alone, I won’t even comment on x2 gtx 980.
If anything better comes out, I will be selling them.
F*** IT!
I am buying this game tomorrow!
Uptil now I was like R* don’t deserve mah money….but I can’t resist anymore after seeing all the vids and this performance analysis!
I believe my PC will handle it pretty well…(i7 4770K@4.2GHz, GTX770 4GB, 8GB RAM@2133MHz)
LoL,ofcourse it will handle it perfectly,mine is running the game with 50-59 fps at high-very high settings(without msaa) and i have an i5-3470@3.6 and a gtx 660ti 2GB.
I have 2500k 3,3ghz and gtx 970 g1 gaming. Will it run it on max settings 1440p DSR with FXAA and not any better? That what i read from the comments i see from people who have similar pc to mine
disagree that the game looks and performs better than watchdogs, then again i have a decent system that can run both without a problem. watch dogs has many visual aspects that gtav cant touch.
I have a r9 270x with an amd a4 5300 and it works horrible :/
Would I need a better processor? (As they were mentioning in the article about CPU usage and such)
It’s an Intel i7 3770k
not quite sure it is the best looking open-world game to date… AC U, as badly optimized as it is may outclass it in this department, until Witcher 3 comes out that is.
I got a 4670k+gtx 770 (pretty much the same thing as a 680), what kind of perf should I expect at 1080p?
I am contemplating getting a 690 but the vram seems questionable. How did the game kept playing with just 2gb of vram? I use a 290x and the vram usage is ridiculous at 3100mb or 3.2gb of vram just shy of topping the 4gb on the card. Also I have two machines one with 16gb ram the other with 8gb both uses 290x the ram usage on one goes to almost 11gb ram while the other hovers around 5 or 6gb. I don’t turn everything up though I rather have a smooth play than the eye candy.
i have toshiba satellite 1800-400
128 mb ram
celeron 800 mhz
15gb hard drive
windows me
agp 8 mb vram
can i run gta 5 ultra
yes , on constant 100 fps