Gran Turismo 4 (NTSC) is playable. [HOWTO] Best config to enjoy it.

[mroussev]

VUs Clamping Mode must be set to EXTRA to fix first letters to dissapear from some of the words in game. But this does not effect FPS. And from Speedhacks use the 5 ones with checkbox(Other hacks and MicroVU Hacks) .I think DX10 GSDX gives a little more perfomance than DX9 so i recommend it.Set internal resolution whatever you want as long as GPU can handle it (at 2x int res game uses almost all of my 512MB video memory! ). Everything else is on default. I use 480p from the game(NTSC only) for better graphics, it gives a little better performance than standart(a.k.a. less video memory consumption) but a make all colors a little greyed which i fix throught GSDX Color Adjustment.

[t-dome]

I want to congratulate the PCSX2 guys for their hard work, very well done!
PCSX2 1.0.0 at last runs GT4 very well on a medium-spec PC!

I just raced the Clubman Stage Route 5 (a night circuit with many lights) in arcade mode and it was very smooth - 57-60 FPS.

My config:
PCSX2 1.0.0, a stock Intel SB i3-2100 3.1 GHz dual core & HT, 8800 GT with old NVidia drivers, 8 GB RAM, Windows 7 64 bit, Xbox 360 wireless controller.

PCSX2 config:
-US BIOS v2.00 (2004)
-GT4 NTSC version
-GSdx SSE 4.1: Direct3D 9 hardware, Bob ttf interlacing , Allow 8 bit textures, PS2 native resolution
-GS window: Fit to screen/window (with the 16:9 setting explained below - I have a 16:9 TV).

I also activated the thread starter's tips which really helped boost up the speed:
-Speedhacks: EE Cyclerate 2, VU Cycle Stealing 2
-VU Clamping: Extra.

Ingame screen settings:
-16:9
-normal scan (not 480p or 1080i)
These 2 settings are important to reduce the interlacing flickering in races and the button lag in the menus, the latter induced by the speedhacks from above.
Strangely these 2 settings were the most important for a great display quality, on my full hd TV.

The are only minor issues:
-in the license tests, after failing one, the screen displays garbage but this is the only time and the Restart/Exit options still can be seen
-the image is a bit shaky in the menus, but not while racing
-no force feedback (who cares!).

I only finished the first 5 license tests and Clubman Stage Route 5 which should be a big performance hog, and until now the game worked flawlessly.

Cheers

Off topic: I really wish that the Linux version would run at the same speed )-: . Until now GSdx runs the fastest in SW mode, but it's still too slow in GT4.

[mroussev]

-no force feedback (who cares!).

You mean vibration? If yes, check your pad plugin settings. I am also with xbox controller and have perfect vibration.

Also you can try 2x ot at least 1.5x internal resolution,Your video card will handle it i think with no fps lost.

[t-dome]

You mean vibration? If yes, check your pad plugin settings. I am also with xbox controller and have perfect vibration.

Also you can try 2x ot at least 1.5x internal resolution,Your video card will handle it i think with no fps lost.

Brilliant, GT4 runs well with 2x now!

I also managed to enable FF in my controller; the strength just had to be increased, just like I had to in native Windows games. 50% means FF off, anything above enables it.
The wireless controller seems to have a higher threshold for FF effects because of the battery consumption (I had a wired Xbox controller before and 50% FF strength really meant 50%, not 0%).

[t-dome]

Could someone test Gran Turismo 4 on a HD 3000 or HD 4000 GPU under PCSX2 1.0.0?
I tried on HD 2000 but in Clubman Stage Route 5 it dropped sometimes to 30 FPS.

[marcelo_20xx]

After all this years, you guys have outdone yourselves, thanks you soo much for the hard work! Cant believe GT4 is so smooth and playable now. Years ago I tested many versions, plugins, tweaks, etc and couldnt get decent FPS. Now with my modest Q9550 at 2.83Ghz (stock speed), the game runs flawlessly nearly at 60FPS all the time and ocasionally dropping to a mere 51 when there is so much things in the screen.

Though this thread has an enormous amount of info on how to run this game at a decent speed, I can tell you, that you can still tweak your settings a little, so you can run the game just fine without having a killer CPU of 5Ghz+ or OC your PC to insane amounts. So without further ado I will post my findings and tweaks after many days of extensive testing of this title, all the test were made on the NTSC-U version of the game (sorry PAL owners).

* Lets start by setting the clamp modes to none in both the EE and the VUs, you will have the "letter missing" glitch in the menus but you will gain some FPS, If that bug annoys you then just put them to extra
* Previously it was stated that SuperVU have better performance than microVU in this particular game, but with the recents revisions, now you can safely switch to microVU and enable the speedhacks for it:"mVU Flag Hack" and the new "MTVU" to gain more FPS, at least for quad processors owners
* Next, in the Speedhacks tabs enable all hacks and set EE Cyclerate to 2 (this speedhack increases your FPS by a good amount) but DONT TOUCH "VU Cycle Stealing", otherwise you will get false FPS gains. i.e you will see 60FPS but the animation will be jerky (in fact that applies for many games too)

Then we need to tweak the GSDX plugin for optimal gameplay, also if your videocard support DX10/11 you are in luck because you will gain massive amounts of FPS, at least on older CPUs like mine

* Set the renderer to: DX10 or DX11 if your videocard supports it
* Set interlacing to: "bob tff" to help alleviating the shaking
* Put your internal resolution to 2x (dont be greedy here, we need the FPS gains)
* Enable Texture Filtering for a little eyecandy
* Enable "Allow 8-bit textures" if you see some lags while driving (since this games uses your VRAM intensively this can alleviate the stress on your videocard and prevent in some cases crashes)
* Enable HW Hacks, the sole reason to do this, is to gain more FPS by having a specific hack enabled. In the submenu set Skipdraw to "1" (this setting is critical when your frames drops in circuits that have light sources), I got constant 60FPS in Nurburgring with this hack, even when watching the sun.
* In game set the Brightness level to "0" and video output to Progressive 480p (not only this setting allow us to gain more FPS, yeah I tested with normal and I got strange lags and FPS drops, but in previous revisions it even prevented crashes!)

Finally copy your entire PSCX2 folder and name it, I dont know GT4, and run your game from there, so you dont mess changing the settings again, and leave your original folder for other games. Thats why I do and can play mostly at 60FPS, hope you liked the tips, and if you have any others, please share it!

One thing I was forgetting, if you have an Nvidia videocard, please do yourself a favor and disable Vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel AND enable the option "Wait for vsync on refresh" on PCSX2. Previously I was getting jerky gameplay in ALL games, no matter what settings I choose on them, until I found this option was the culprit.

Thanks again PCSX2 team!!!!

Tested on an Intel Q9550 2.83Ghz, Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 1Gb DDR3, 2GB Corsair RAM, PCSX2 1.0.0 PGO edition and the GSDX SSE41 in Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bits

[PCSX2_lover]

[PCSX2_lover]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXzgxQXDIXQ

GT4 1080p + g27

[mroussev]

I suggest to the do following to improve colors: enable Shade Boost and use 100 saturation,100 brightness and 35 contrast. Also load external shader and use Colored FXAA from here http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Custom-Shaders-for-GSdx . This reatly improve colors

[PCSX2_lover]

oh thanks
i already use shade boost. without it's too dark because of 480p mode, with defaults settings coulours are normal but it's a little blurry;

and i tried what you linked but i dont see any difference :3
the console tells me it s enabled but no differences