After so much time after the game's release, you don't know what to do when does GTA 5 lag on PC? Indeed, the game turned out to be not as well optimized as Rockstar promised, so now we will deal with the fact that how to remove freezes in the game on your own.
To begin with, I would like to note that the solution to such problems has already been described several times on our website, I would especially like to draw attention to in the game and of course. But what to do if these methods did not help or the computer on which the game is running can confidently be called not weak? This is what we will talk about now.
One way that should help is correct graphic settings in Game. We recommend setting the graphics settings to standard and then disabling them completely. Vsync (vertical sync), tessellation and use FXAA instead of MSAA. In this case, after starting the game, open the task manager, find in processes GTAV.exe, press RMB and choose high priority. This helps not only to get rid of friezes and lags, but also protects against missing textures on the card; you need to set the priority every time you start.
As you know, GTA 5 on PC is very demanding on RAM and sometimes all the troubles (lags, freezes and even crashes) can happen if there is less than 6 GB. In this case, it is necessary configure virtual memory (swap file). It is necessary for the system to move information from RAM to a reserved space on the hard drive and have access to it at any time.
Opening Control Panel - System. Go to the section Additional system parameters, in the tab Additionally find the section Performance and press the button Options. Choose Disk C, press change and set the maximum available size in megabytes, then save and restart the PC.
The last option for resolving the issue is, which have been developed in huge numbers recently. The fact is that almost all of them are based on third-party utilities - SweetFS, ReShade or ENB, which will allow you to change or adjust the graphics as desired.
Without much hesitation, we recommend installing the mod, for which to work correctly you will need to work on replacing graphics files using the editor. For example, you can choose any of the different settings - for weak, medium and powerful PCs, so that freezes and freezing should disappear into oblivion.
You didn’t have time to get a powerful computer before the price of components doubled, but you still want to play blockbusters and cool new releases? We will try to help you! Read our new anti-crisis section “60 FPS”. In it we will try to teach you how to properly configure demanding video games for weak PCs.
First of all, you need to figure out how bad everything is with your “car”. So first, let's remember the system requirements for Grand Theft Auto 5.
Minimum system requirements for GTA 5
Operating system: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 64 Bit Service Pack 2
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz / AMD Phenom 9850 @ 2.5 GHz
RAM capacity: 4 GB
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 1 GB / AMD Radeon HD 4870 1 GB
Sound card:
65 GB
So - above you see the computer configuration, which necessary to run Grand Theft Auto 5. If your PC does not meet even these minimum requirements, then even if you can play it, it will be with great difficulty. And no amount of fine tuning will help here. In this case, try one of the cloud gaming services. In the Russian-language segment of the Internet, the largest representative at the moment is Playkey.
Operating system: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1
CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2 GHz / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4 GHz
RAM capacity: 8 GB
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2 GB / AMD Radeon HD 7870 2 GB
Sound card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible
Free hard disk space: 65 GB
If you have a computer similar in configuration to the recommended system requirements, then you should run Grand Theft Auto 5 at least on high settings and in FullHD resolution (1920x1080 pixels). However, it is not a fact that the game will produce a stable 60 FPS with all the “beauties” turned on. Therefore, it will also be useful for you to find out which graphics options can be sacrificed in favor of which ones so that it looks beautiful and the frame rate does not sag.
Well, of course, this material will be most useful to those who are between the minimum and recommended requirements. That is, those who have a processor more powerful than the AMD Phenom 9850, but weaker than the Intel Core i5 3470, and a video card more powerful than the AMD Radeon HD 4870, but weaker than the AMD Radeon HD 7870, and so on.
Setting up GTA 5 graphics
The following lists all the general and advanced image settings in Grand Theft Auto 5. Some of them affect performance more, some less, and some have no effect at all. We tried to briefly describe the essence of each of these parameters, as well as give advice on optimizing them.
“Video memory” and “Ignore suggested restrictions”
The “Video Memory” parameter displays the amount of graphics memory currently consumed by the game. In theory, it should not exceed the available size for your video card, otherwise the main RAM begins to be consumed. However, most players write that even if GTA 5 uses twice as much as you have, the game still works quite stably. Therefore, you can safely enable the “Ignore suggested restrictions” option.
DirectX version
depends on the year of manufacture of the video card.
Not everything is obvious here either. There are three DirectX rendering options to choose from: 10, 10.1 and 11. The game was originally designed for the latest version, which is why it is the most stable. All visual effects are also available on DirectX 11. In theory, he is also the most demanding. However, a significant drop in FPS when choosing this option occurs only on very old video cards (manufactured before 2012). Therefore, if your video card is not very powerful, but quite modern, then definitely choose DirectX 11. Otherwise, try all the options.
Permission
Performance Impact: average.
Setting your screen to its native resolution (usually 1920x1080 for desktops and 1366x768 for laptops) will give you the sharpest images. If you don't have a very powerful system, you can seriously increase the number of frames per second by lowering the resolution by a couple of orders of magnitude. Just don’t overdo it - otherwise you simply won’t see most of the beauties of GTA 5, even if you set the other parameters to maximum. Personally, I would recommend that you always set the default value, and it is better to slightly sacrifice those settings that have a more serious impact on the performance of the game.
Update frequency
Performance Impact: absent.
Here, always feel free to set the standard value for your display. Most often this is 60 Hz. If you put less, the game will not become faster, but it will be worse for your eyes. You can Google this topic if you want to know more about the connection between vision and screen refresh rate.
Smoothing
Performance Impact:
FXAA technology - low,
MSAA technology - average (consumes a lot of video memory),
TXAA technology - high.
Anti-aliasing itself usually slows down the game quite a lot. If you are the owner of a weak video card, then choose either the FXAA option or turn it off completely. If your video card is not so weak and it has at least 2 GB of RAM, then you can try MSAA - it provides a much smoother picture without “ladders” at the edges of three-dimensional objects. But you can hardly afford TXAA technology if you read this guide ☺
Vertical Sync
Performance Impact: absent.
In theory, it makes no sense to turn this option off, since it won’t make Grand Theft Auto 5 go any faster. However, it would be best to leave it turned off first to measure the maximum frame rate in the game, and then choose one of two corresponding options: 50% if the FPS almost never exceeds 30 frames, or 100% if the game produces at least 40 frames. and on average - closer to 60.
City population
Performance Impact: low.
In GTA 4, the lower this parameter was, the faster the game worked. At first glance, in the fifth part everything is arranged the same, but in reality the impact on performance, as it is not surprising, is not so great. If you completely turn off the population, then there will be almost no people and cars on the streets, and you will win a maximum of five frames. If you set it to 75%, then GTA 5 will slow down by only a couple of FPS, and Los Santos will already become much more lively. Therefore, we recommend that you always set this value. As a last resort - 50%.
Population variety
Performance Impact: low.
Video memory consumption: high.
The variety of the population is the number of variants of different models of people and cars you will encounter during the game. The parameter should be set below 75% only if you have less than 1 GB of video memory. In all other cases, there will be no difference in the stability or speed of GTA 5.
Focus scale
Performance Impact: low.
This is actually the draw distance. It’s just that the guys from 1C screwed up a little during the translation (by the way, this is not the only incorrectly localized parameter). The lower the setting, the less detailed the 3D surroundings in the distance will be. However, in the game itself, due to the characteristics of the graphics engine, the difference between 0% and 100% is not noticeable. Therefore, you can either win a couple of frames and turn it off if you have a very weak computer, or set it to 75-100%.
Texture quality
Performance Impact: practically absent.
Video memory consumption: high.
The higher the value, the sharper the textures in the game, and the more beautiful 3D objects will look. Practice shows that setting a value lower than “High” only makes sense if you have little video memory. In all other cases, leave it at “High” or “Very High”.
Shader quality
Performance Impact: average.
The more advanced shaders used in a game, the more high-tech the image will be. If the power of your graphics adapter is low (closer to the minimum system requirements), then we recommend setting the shaders to standard quality to gain 7-8 frames. But GTA 5 will look very mediocre, since shaders affect almost the entire graphics of the game as a whole. If you are lucky enough to have a sufficiently powerful video card, then set the value to “High” or “Very High”, and preferably lower one of the more resource-intensive settings.
Shadow quality
Performance Impact: high.
The first parameter from the list that really seriously affects performance. There are only a couple of frames of difference between the Standard and High Quality options. But if you set the quality to “Very High”, then FPS can drop by up to 15 units! Be that as it may, there is practically no noticeable difference “by eye” between very high and simply high beauty values. Based on all of the above, it would be best to set the shadow quality to High, rather than Standard or Very High.
Reflection quality
Performance Impact: high.
If you want the game to look at least decent, never set the “Standard” option here. In this case, instead of natural reflections in mirrors, glass of houses, the surface of reservoirs and car bodies, there will be some kind of primitive dregs. If you slightly raise the reflection quality value to the “High” option, then you will only lose 2-3 frames, and GTA 5 will immediately become much more enjoyable to play.
However, this setting seriously slows down the video of the game if you try to set the options to “Very High” or “Highest Degree”. As with most heavy graphics settings with a high impact on performance, you are unlikely to be able to afford this if you are reading this text.
MSAA for reflections
Performance Impact: low.
Video memory consumption: high.
MSAA for reflections is an anti-aliasing effect for reflections. Surprisingly, this option in the game is not too resource-intensive. While in most other games everything is exactly the opposite. Rockstar programmers simply amaze with the quality of optimization in the version of GTA 5 for personal computers. Another thing is that it is almost impossible to notice any difference between the completely disabled parameter and the “MSAA 8X” value. Except on a huge screen and in 4K resolution. But this “stray” eats up a lot of video memory. Therefore, it is better to never turn it on.
Water quality
Performance Impact: low.
Here, too, everything is clear and simple. The higher you set the quality value, the more beautiful the water in the game becomes.
The most reasonable option is “High” quality. If you set it to “Standard”, then all the bays, channels and waves of the Pacific Ocean will look too miserable, and you will only gain a couple of frames. If you set the quality to “Very High”, then “by eye” there will be no noticeable difference, but you will lose four frames.
Particle quality
Performance Impact: average.
Grand Theft Auto 5 introduced many high-tech effects such as volumetric smoke and fire, dirt flying out from under the wheels of cars and motorcycles, and simply stunning explosions.
All this beauty, of course, affects the operation of the game, but it affects it moderately. Therefore, if you have a computer with a configuration closer to the recommended requirements, you can safely set “High” or “Very High” particle quality. And if everything is really bad, leave “Standard”.
Grass quality
Performance Impact: high.
Probably the most gluttonous parameter in the game. If you have hardly the minimum configuration required for GTA 5, then you can set it to “Standard”. Walking through the green surroundings of Blaine County will certainly be a pain, but you will gain a lot of FPS. If the video card’s power is approximately halfway between the minimum and recommended, then feel free to set the value to “High”. The “Very High” and “Highest Degree” options eat up resources very seriously, so use them only if you are absolutely confident in your “vision”.
Soft shadows
Performance Impact: average.
Remember the “Shadow Quality” option that was higher on the list? “Soft shadows,” as you might guess, are directly related to him. If “Shadow Quality” has a very strong impact on performance, then “Soft Shadows” is rather average. And even if in the first case you set the value to “Standard”, then using this setting you can make them more attractive by simply selecting options such as “Soft” or “Softer”. Higher values already reduce FPS quite a lot, so we won’t recommend them to you. However, of course you can try.
Setting up special effects
Performance Impact: high.
Another parameter related to special effects. However, while “Particle Quality” controls the processing of particle effects, “Special Effects Settings” determines the quality of post-processing effects. And there are a great many of them in the game: this is Bloom (glow), and depth of sharpness, and blur when driving a car, and sun rays, and fog, and much, much more.
Here, as always with resource-intensive parameters, we advise you to set the value no higher than just “High” so that it looks beautiful and GTA 5 does not slow down.
Motion Blur Level
Performance Impact: absent.
This setting does not affect performance in any way, so you can set it to your taste. And its essence, we think, is absolutely clear from the name.
Depth of field effect
Performance Impact: very low.
Blurs the background of the landscape when driving a car, or while aiming.
If you enable this option, it will be easier for you to focus on certain elements of the environment or targets, and you will only lose 1-2 frames. So bet as you wish.
Anisotropic filtering
Performance Impact: very low.
Thanks to this technology, textures that are at an angle from your field of view remain sharp. Just five years ago, the use of anisotropic filtering could seriously degrade the gameplay and reduce the frame rate. However, in recent years, video cards and game engines have learned to work with it just fine. Therefore, we advise you to try turning this parameter on to the maximum. It is very unlikely that you will lose more than 1-2 frames.
AO Shading
Performance Impact: low.
Also known as SSAO. This varies from game to game, but in general, AO Shading has a fairly large impact on performance. But not in the case of the perfectly optimized Grand Theft Auto 5. In general, the essence of SSAO is that it allows all highly detailed objects in the game to cast shadows on themselves.
Tessellation
Performance Impact: low.
Since GTA 5 uses this technology quite a bit, its impact on performance is not too great. For example, if you set a high value, the relief of palm tree trunks will become more voluminous. Also added to the details are various cobblestones and stones, as well as waves on the surface of reservoirs.
It is best to either turn off tessellation completely if your “machine” can barely play the game, or turn on “Very High” quality. There will be no difference in FPS loss (3-4 frames), and the picture in some places will become much more saturated.
Additional image settings
There are five parameters here that affect performance differently. Since the effect of almost all of them is not particularly noticeable, and the essence is clear from the name, we decided to simply give a couple of tips on which of them to include and which not:
Long shadows. More precisely, “full-size” shadows. Turn it off only if you have a very weak PC.
High definition shadows. A rather voracious parameter that does additional shadow processing. On configurations closer to the minimum requirements it is better to turn it off, and closer to the maximum requirements it is better to turn it on.
Loading more detailed textures during flight. Not really “textures”, but 3D objects in the environment when your character is flying on a plane. Surprisingly not too demanding an option, so you can try enabling it.
Increased loading distance for more detailed objects. Requires a lot of resources. If you are reading this text, turn it off.
Length of shadows. Another incorrectly translated parameter. This is not the “length” of the shadows, but the “draw distance” of the shadows. The game does not slow down too much, so you should only turn it off on very weak computers.
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Thank you for reading this voluminous material! We hope you found it useful. There are many more interesting and educational things planned for our blog in the future. Visit our main website, play games there, even if you have a very weak computer, and don’t forget to go for a walk!
For all gamers who have experienced stuttering in the game Grand Theft Auto V, this article is dedicated to you, full of tips on the topic “What needs to be done to improve performance in GTA V on PC?” Surely every player dreams of GTA V playing very smoothly on his computer, without FPS drops or freezes. But it doesn’t always work out the way we want, and for a number of reasons, GTA 5 slows down for some players.
So, how can we increase FPS in GTA 5 so that everything is better than it is now? The question is right on target, since on this page we aggregate all the information on increasing the number of frames per second in the game. On this page you will find the answer to this question.
Some players may remember that back when GTA IV was released, computers of that time had performance problems. The fact is that GTA is an amazing game, which is an integral part of the modern gaming industry and very often sets new “ceilings” of requirements for user computers.
Below we have written a list of tips that will inevitably lead you to increase frames per second in GTA V.
0. To begin with, it would be fair to see if your computer meets GTA V's minimum system requirements:
System: Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 (64-bit OS only)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz (quad-core) / AMD Phenom 9850 (quad-core) @ 2.5 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphic arts: NVIDIA 9800 GT with 1 GB video memory / AMD HD 4870 with 1 GB video memory
Disk: 65 GB
It must be remembered that the ports of the GTA V release to PC were mainly due to optimization of the game for the platform, so the requirements should be taken seriously.
1. Lower the graphic settings by going to the appropriate item in the game settings. Try resetting everything to the lowest setting and slowly increasing the settings until you achieve the desired performance.
Fortunately, the game has a lot of different graphic settings and you can adjust it to slightly reduce the quality while increasing the number of frames per second.
The video memory indicator should be green. Otherwise, the brakes in the game are quite justified by insufficiently powerful hardware.
New graphics card drivers will provide more optimized game graphics processing.
3. Before starting the game, turn off absolutely all programs and all tray software. Check the task manager to make sure nothing is loading the system there. If there are processes that are “loading” the system, deal with them.
4. The game has very good textures and takes up about 60GB in total. For this reason, for GTA V to perform well, it must be installed on a good quality disk (preferably an SSD, of course).
The game is also demanding on RAM. If you don't have much RAM, be sure to increase the page file on your computer!
5. Those who play on a computer should be advised to first of all follow step 1, ensure the laptop has good cooling, and also set the maximum performance mode in the Power Consumption settings. It would be a good idea to make sure that the game runs on a discrete video card and that everything is fine in the nVidia control panel with the game settings.
6. If you have not reinstalled Windows for 1.5-2 years and have installed a large number of games/software during this time, it would be better to reinstall the system. Windows tends to become cluttered and slow over time.
You can view solutions to many other technical problems in GTA V at
Although the developers from Rockstar have already released the second patch for GTA 5 on PC, but still players continue to encounter problems, bugs And mistakes.
Many players complain that GTA 5 starts to slow down some time after its launch. One of the reasons may be the banal memory leak.
And if you couldn’t find your problem and a description of how to solve it in the previous one, then maybe this article can help you.
We also remind you that Rockstar tried to solve the problem with CPU load for PC versions of GTA 5, releasing a patch. Therefore, first make sure that patch 1.01 downloaded, and your video card has the latest drivers and the latest version of DirectX installed.
Download video card drivers for GTA 5
Video card manufacturers have released updated driver versions specifically before the release of GTA 5:
- Nvidia GeForce Game Ready 350.12 for GTA 5
- AMD Catalyst 15.4 Beta for GTA 5
Minimum requirements:
- OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 64 Bit Service Pack 2* (*when running on Vista OS, it is recommended to use an NVIDIA video card)
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz (4 cores) / AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor (4 cores) @ 2.5 GHz
- RAM: 4GB
- Video card: NVIDIA 9800 GT 1GB / AMD HD 4870 1GB (DX 10, 10.1, 11)
- Hard disk space: 65GB
- DVD drive
- OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1
- Processor: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHz (4 cores) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHz (8 cores)
- RAM: 8GB
- Video card: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD7870 2GB
- Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 Compatible
- Hard disk space: 65GB
- DVD drive
LIST OF TECHNICAL PROBLEMS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS
There is not enough disk space to unpack GTA 5Perhaps you want to install GTA 5 on a small SSD, but the unpacking process is interfered with by Steam files located on the same drive.
Then you need to create a Steam directory on a larger disk. Then copy “C:[Your directory]Steam Steam Appsdepotcache” to the new directory you just created and restart Steam.
Steam should detect the new directory and continue the process of unpacking GTA 5 onto your small storage device.
How to solve the memory leak problem in GTA 5
- Enter the "Settings Panel" and select "System".
- Advanced Settings – Virtual Memory.
- Uncheck Automatic file size management for all drives.
- Select the drive where the OS is installed.
- Click on the system size control icon, then set the setting and click “Ok” until the end.
- Reboot.
- Disable or lower performance-intensive settings.
- Use FXAA, not MSAA.
- Disable Vsync.
- Disable Tessellation.
- Launch the game.
- Open Task Manager.
- Right click on GTAV.exe in the details section.
- Set the priority indicator to “High”.
If the game is very slow even at low graphics settings, then there are several ways to slightly improve FPS:
- Minimize the game and open the task manager.
- Set the maximum priority to the GTA 5 process in the manager.
- Open your GTA 5 profile in NvidiaInspector and force v-sync to be enabled.
- Enable triple buffering in GTA 5 profile in NvidiaInspector.
- Disable vertical sync in the game settings.
This guide is intended for those who have lags or freezes in GTA 5. If this guide did not help you, then the problem is in your hardware. In this guide, I will try to describe all the ways to increase game performance that I have ever seen on the Internet.
Basic steps
In order for the game to use the maximum resources of your machine, you need to have a minimum of programs running, my minimum is Steam and Skype. Nothing extra. Let me remind you that browsers eat up a lot of RAM, especially Google Chrome. As soon as the game starts, in the task manager, set the gta5.exe process to high priority, and all processes associated with social club and GTAVLauncher.exe to low priority. Priorities must be applied on every run.
Nvidia users
For NVIDIA users, I suggest doing the following:
It is necessary to update the firewood, then:
- Open your GTA 5 profile in Nvidia Inspector and force Vsync on
- Enable triple buffering there
- Disable vertical sync in game settings
- Close wmpnetwork in task manager
- Stop NvStreamSvc (We can disable this service through the service manager. In the start menu, enter “services” in the search bar, open the service manager, find Nvidia Streaming Servise and disable it)
- In the start panel write "command prompt"
- Run as administrator
- In it, enter: sc stop NvStreamSvc
- Next enter: sc config NvStreamSvc start= disabled
- Press exit and you're done!
If you have an HDD hard drive
Many users experienced low performance due to the fact that they used the HDD as a storage location for the game. There is no such problem on SSD drives. I offer you a method that helped me personally. We do defragmentation using Auslogics Disk Defrag. I’ll explain why to do defragmentation, firstly, it helps to process information from the disk more quickly. If you have a hard drive indicator light, try to start driving a car quickly in the game and see what happens to the indicator. I also want to say that the default windows defragmenter does not cope with its task, which is why I advise you to use Auslogics Disk Defrag. Then download from the official Microsoft Windows Sysinternals Contig website, install it, transfer the exe program to the root folder with the game, make a shortcut to the exe programs, open the shortcut properties and in the object line after the quotes separated by a space write -s, as shown in the screenshot. Launch the shortcut, wait for the process to complete, you can play.
Also download Cache Boost Server Edition, the program is easy to use and allows you to eliminate RAM leaks.
