GTA IV Freezing Issues with Win 7

[ResidentWeevil2077]

I recently installed Windows 7, as my installation of Vista had a major issue with SP1 (a BSOD was caused even after SP1 installed successfully, and Startup Repair only offered to perform a System Recovery - one that meant reverting my PC to pre-SP1 Vista...). This was unacceptable for me as I wanted to play GTA IV on my PC. Annnnndddddd because Rockstar Games decided to make gamers need SP1 in order to play GTA IV, I just decided I may as well upgrade my OS to something more usable. I have no issues with all my other games I had installed before I upgraded to Win7, however with GTA IV the only issue I have - albeit however minor it is - is causing me to not want to play GTA IV...

 

The issue I'm having is with stutter and freezing - it's like my system hangs for a couple seconds then resumes and then freezes again and then resumes play. It's an annoyance that detracts from gameplay, and I realize it must be an issue between GTA IV and Win7 - I have the latest drivers for my GPU, which also passes the minimum requirements for GTA IV. I Googled this and so far haven't found anything much that could solve my issue.

 

This is my setup as of 31 March, 2010:

 

-AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ dual-core CPU

-XFX Radeon HD 5670 512 MB GDDR5 PCI-e GPU (Catalyst v.10.3)

-3072 MB DDR2 PC5300 RAM

-Windows 7 Home Premium (Version 6.1 Build 7600)

-Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Music PCI APU

 

 

EDIT: I have not yet installed the 1.0.0.4 patch for GTA IV BTW...

 

EDIT 2: I installed patch v.1.0.0.4 that I d/led from FileFront, and now my game works fine. This thread can be ignored lol.

Edited April 1, 2010 by rob_b