Grand Theft Auto IV

What works

• Single player (several missions)
• Social Club
• Running on a system with multiple monitors at different resolutions.

If using a video card with more than 2GB VRAM, consider using the following launch options:

-norestrictions -nomemrestrict -percentvidmem 100

What does not

Poor performance. 

The solution was described in "Workarounds" section.

Workarounds

A vanilla install uses a cloud save system that's dependent on GFWL. It is necessary to have an account to run the game.

To avoid making a xbox account, I used xlive.dll to remove the extra DRM. However, this does break the multiplayer.

If you're experiencing poor FPS after trying the launch options mentioned above, try some of the following:

• Disable vsync in game and/or by using the "-novblank" launch option
• Disable precaching using the "-nocache" launch option (this may hinder performance on some systems).
• Turn "Shadows" down/off (shadows in this game will cause stuttering on even the best systems).
• Turn "View Distance" to something < 50 (Like shadows, setting this too high will hurt performance on any hardware).
• Make sure you CPU scaling governor isn't set to "powersave".

What was not tested

I didn't test Multiplayer, but I assume it would work as the Social Club and GFWL (Games for Windows Live) work; assuming you're willing to make an xbox account.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU: AMD
• Driver: open source

Additional Comments

Games for Windows - LIVE does not work under Wine. GFWL components will crash any game that use the service. The only thing to do about it is to cut XLive out using XLiveLess Patch.

INSTRUCTIONS

1) Download the latest XLiveLess patch from here.

2) Unpack xlive.dll into the game folder.

XLive is out and the game launch is unobstructed. Please note that from now on the online play via GFWL is disabled so as to prevent cheating.