System Requirements
Minimum
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CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2,40 GHz (4 CPU) or AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core (4 CPU) @ 2,5 GHz
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RAM: 4 GB
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HDD: 65 GB
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GPU: NVIDIA 9800 GT 1 GB or AMD HD 4870 1 GB
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OS: Vista, 7, 8 (64-bit only)
Recommended
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CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3,2 GHz (4 CPU) or AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4 GHz (8 CPU)
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RAM: 8 GB
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GPU: NVIDIA GTX 660 2 GB or AMD HD7870 2 GB
Testing was performed on a system with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 CPU with 4 GBs of RAM and an Asus Geforce GTX 650 Ti, running at a resolution of 2048x1152. A review copy has been provided by Andytizer.
Video settings
While Grand Theft Auto V does offer quite an extensive list of options, some of the more subtle post process effects, such as the chromatic aberration, cannot be disabled. The game also includes some more uncommon options, such as the game pause when out of focus, which forces the game to use less power from the CPU while idling, and some startup settings. Otherwise, no other options truly stand out.
Most notifications can easily be disabled, along with any elements which are part of the game's main UI system, which does certainly allow for a far more immersive and customizable experience.
By default the subtitles and other elements which are part of the UI might be a bit too close to the edges of the screen, however, the game does provide a safezone setting, which should very slightly help solve this issue.
Field of View
Even though the game does feature a field of view slider, it's limited to the on foot, first person camera mode. The first person driving mode is not affected by this setting. The field of view slider is not numbered, which makes it harder to pick a more specific and suitable value. The standard field of view should be around 85 degrees.
Andytizer
Modder DrDaxxy has created a modification in which one can set a specific field of view setting manually. Again, this only affects first person camera mode (not driving), and it remains to be seen whether Rockstar recognises modding of files in manner. This mod modifies game memory and could result in a ban, use at your own risk. Full instructions can be found on the main PCGamingWiki article. The results can be seen below (images used with permission):
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_74/sml_gallery_1_74_298161.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_74/sml_gallery_1_74_113253.jpg|963|542|Max default (85° H), while aiming|100° horizontal, while aiming[/compimg]
Texture Quality
On the Normal setting, most ground textures will have a very washed out look, while on the higher quality settings the textures start looking far more sharper and a whole lot more detailed. Even when using the high quality textures, the overall framerate hit should be pretty minor. The textures play a big part into how the game does look, along with the shader setting.
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_621036.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_315589.jpg|963|542|Normal|Very High[/compimg]
Cars will also look slightly different, notice the tires, although the reflections themselves matter more than anything else.
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_441356.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_632477.jpg|963|542|Normal|Very High[/compimg]
Even at the highest settings, most textures don't look as great as they should be, although while playing the effect isn't as noticeable.
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_34544.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_632477.jpg|963|542|High|Very High[/compimg]
Shadow Quality
The differences between Normal and Very High aren't overly large. On Normal most shadows usually look really good, on Very High the shadows do have far less jaggies and they also affect some of the more distant elements. The soft shadow setting also does slightly help, while not being too performance intensive in itself, it can be found under Graphics, Soft Shadow, the Soft value has been used in some of these screenshots. The long shadows setting isn’t as performance intensive, but again most changes are minor at most and very difficult to spot.
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_303822.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_753620.jpg|963|542|Normal|Very High[/compimg]
On the other hand, high resolution shadows are a framerate killer, most differences are pretty hard to spot and otherwise there’s not much point in using this setting during usual gameplay. The shadow quality setting can be left on High if there's any performance issues, High and Very High shadows don't differ as much.
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_1051971.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_1255006.jpg|963|542|Normal|Very High[/compimg]
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_229727.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_839214.jpg|963|542|Normal (Soft Shadows)|Very High (Soft Shadows)[/compimg]
Reflection Quality
Reflections play a very important role in Grand Theft Auto V, they can completely change the game's entire mood and look to a greater effect. However reflections at the maximum setting can be quite a huge performance killer on lighter systems, a value of High should probably be used instead, they do however, give the game a far more well defined look, while adding some more subtle details to certain objects which can change how some environments might be perceived.
The MSAA setting can be quite performance intensive when set to it's maximum value, there doesn't seem to be much point in using it. Car mirrors do not cast their own reflections, even though most mirrors in the game are able to, none of the settings appear to affect them.
Reflections also do apply to most characters, most notably while being wet, and even the eyes themselves will change depending on the setting. However, Michael doesn't seem too happy with his new look, can't blame him though, he's wet. Most cars in the game will display a far more cheaper look on the Normal setting, similar to Michael's jacket.
Water Quality
Rather self explanatory, there's a very minor framerate hit as a whole.
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_1648306.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_883780.jpg|963|542|Normal|Very High[/compimg]
Depending on which reflection setting is being used, most objects should be cast on the water's surface.
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_1765421.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_1648306.jpg|963|542|Normal (Reflections)|Ultra (Reflections)[/compimg]
[compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_191377.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_72/gallery_371_72_72838.jpg|963|542|Normal (Reflections)|Ultra (Reflections)[/compimg]
Grass Quality
The grass setting mainly affects the density of the grass itself, instead of the actual quality.
On the Ultra setting grass may also begin casting it's own shadows. While the framerate hit is pretty small, lesser systems might not be able to cope with the higher settings. It's best to set it to High, if there's any problems, otherwise it shouldn't be too bad.
Performance analysis
Most players should be able to comfortably play the game at a stable framerate even on the normal settings, while possibly bumping up the shader and texture settings up to High, in order to make things look less washed out, seeing as those two settings mainly change the overall look of the game. Even on such a system the game does behave fairly well.
However, sometimes some of the loading screens do tend to get quite long, but they don't honestly really get in the way too much, this problem could probably be mitigated by running the game on an SSD, although that would be a very expensive solution. There were also some issues while alt tabbing, as the game may sometimes fail to fully recover, however, switching back to the windowed mode and back to the fullscreen mode can help.
The MSAA antialiasing mode is incredibly performance intensive, any values over X2 were overkill on this system. NVIDIA's TXAA can only be enabled once the MSAA setting has been set to it's minimum value. Most, if not all the advanced video settings are incredibly performance hungry, the extended distance scaling setting is another large framerate killer, there were no real differences while using it.
On weaker systems, closing any background software might be necessary, due to the very intensive way most resources are handled. Leaving a browser open may possibly interfere with the game's framerate, causing it to even possibly strutter due to the already limited memory. When out of focus during a loading screen, the game might pause itself for an indefinite amount of time, this can however be disabled from the options menu.
The Post FX, Tessellation and NVIDIA PCSS settings can also pretty demanding, the tessellation itself isn't very noticeable and NVIDIA's PCSS might behave rather poorly.
Andytizer
Grand Theft Auto V for PC is a well-optimised game, especially compared to how abysmally GTA IV's port ran on PC at the time of release.
For more in-depth graphics card benchmarks, be sure to see these links:
Controls
The game does feature quite a few options just for the controls, most, if not all keys should be rebindable and otherwise the controls menu is pretty complete. However, there are some issues with the mouse controls, for the most part aiming never truly felt as precise as it should have been. Even the keyboard settings have some small issues. Certain keys are bound into some rather awkward positions by default, and even the controller somehow managed to suffer from the rather awkward and cluttered control scheme. The weapon's wheel system can very often get pretty fiddly to use, and often feels very wonky when compared to the far simpler systems which were present in the previous games.
Andytizer
Thankfully switching between controller and keyboard is totally seamless. You can go from playing on a keyboard with keyboard and mouse prompts, and as soon as one nudges the controller, all the icons will be replaced with the appropriate controller icons. I tended to enjoy first person shooting controls with keyboard and mouse, and then switch to controller for driving and flying.
Audio
The dialogue boost setting is fairly self explanatory, along with the newly introduced custom radio station. Windows shortcuts can be created into the appropriate folder if needed in order to save up some space.
Conclusion
While the game might certainly not be a poor release, Grand Theft Auto V suffers from quite a few technical issues which might constantly get in the way of the player. The game is plagued by a fairly large amount of serious issues, however even though the game does perform amazingly well, some of these issues do add up quickly, certain features either downright not working properly, or behaving incredibly poorly.
PC Reports are a series of quick first impressions regarding the technical aspects of a PC game. This report was written by PCGamingWiki contributor RaTcHeT302 and edited by Andytizer. For an up to date account of Grand Theft Auto V fixes and improvements, please visit its respective PCGamingWiki article.
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