# Vice City Help



## Mr.Vercetti (Jun 4, 2003)

I jus bought vice city and its great but after a few minutes of playing it starts to lag whenever the action heats up or i crash into another car the fram rate drops so much i fear its gonna crash.

Ive tried numerous methods such as changing my performance to application on my GFX card closing all back ground programs and all the suggestions on take two's tech support site. Ive managed to complete the game to 50% which i achived by trying to ignore the frame rate drops.

Yesterday i reformattedmy Computer in an effort to see any difference in the game. Well there was quite a difference in to first five minutes but then it started lagging again. can someone please help me out here im goin out of my freaking mind

My specs are

Genuine Pentium 3 1GHZ Processor
256MB RAM
Geforce 4 MX 440
AC'97 Onboard Soundcard
40 GB Generic HD
Windows Mellenium Edition

Big Thanks to who ever gives an answer


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## McTimson (Aug 16, 2002)

Well...those system specs are kinda borderline for Vice City. Upgrading any part of your system- processor, RAM, or video card- should help out a lot. 

Oh, have you upgraded all your drivers, like your video drivers?


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## Mr.Vercetti (Jun 4, 2003)

Ive upgraded and downgraded my video driver the thing that really puzzles me this problem occurs after 5 minutes of playing.
Anymore suggestions


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## McTimson (Aug 16, 2002)

When you reformatted, did you install all of your motherboard drivers as well? Make sure you have the latest video drivers installed, and the latest patch for Vice City.

Also, in Vice City, change the graphics options to the lowest settings, like the draw distance and such.


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## Mr.Vercetti (Jun 4, 2003)

Hmm Motherboard Driver havent tried that but does anyone know where to get them. ive got a generic motherboard (MS---). Does anyone know how i can find since i cant find out and where i can find drivers from.

P.S. Great site one of the best ive ever seen keep up the brilliant work


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## pillsforu (Jun 8, 2003)

I just got vice city. It installs and plays the intro video but locks up and locks keyboard at the title screen. It never makes it to the main menu. I have another computer in the house with simlar hardware specs and it works fine there. any sugeestions..what really pussles me is that a much more graphically "hoggish" game C&C Generals works fine? why not this game?
Athlon 2000+
windows 98
radeon 128mb graphics card
8x cd rom


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## Mr.Vercetti (Jun 4, 2003)

ok at least I can help you with that i think theres a fix here


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## Mr.Vercetti (Jun 4, 2003)

forgot to add if none of them work then try rolling back to older driver if that dont work your gonna have to wait until R* solve the problem


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## ricd (Jun 21, 2003)

Hello,
I have just finished the mission called 'Trojan Voodoo' and there are no more missions to go to, even though I have only completed 33% of the game according to the game stats!

I HAVE NOT CHEATED EVEN ONCE!

This happened last time and I heard that if you cheat you cannot complete the game, so I have restarted the whole game again and now I am where I was last time with no more missions to go to.

I thought it was because I cheated but it has happened again without cheating!

I feel ripped off!

The only letter or symbol of any type on the map is the 'V' symbol - the mansion I own. There is no pink circle here to do a mission.

There are no phone missions or anything, how the hell am I meant to do the game?!?!

I keep riding my PCJ 600 round all the islands and nothing is there on the map.

HHHHEEEELLLLPPPP!!!!


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## ricd (Jun 21, 2003)

I am an idiot. I found 'Bar Brawl' on the right as soon as you walk into the 'V' mansion. I was not looking around there enough.

Dur


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## McTimson (Aug 16, 2002)

After that, you can buy places, like the Malibu Club, the Cab Company, and the Film Studio, and they give you missions as well.


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## Dafoe (Jun 9, 2003)

Some GFX cards causes polygon crash during the game (as mine did). Have you tried the patch? 
Patch


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## SteveOreno (Jun 24, 2003)

Just wondering if anyone else has this problem: Whenever I get on a fast automobile, (i.e. Motorcycle, Banshee, ect.) I notice that some of the buildings look fuzzy and nasty. But once I stop and look at them for a sec, they seem to "refresh" and they look awesome. 

I don't understand why this happens. My system specs are more than adiquate. Could it be because Geforce ti4600 isn't a DX9 card? I have the latest drivers and all that. 

Any help or input would be cool.. thanks..

PS.
I maxed out my AGP aperture size to 256 MB to take advantage of my RAM. With 1 GIG of DDR there should be no refresh, should there?


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## McTimson (Aug 16, 2002)

Do you have the latest drivers for the video card?

Try setting the AGP aperture to the default setting, and see if it still happens.

Not sure if the "Frame Limiter" option in the Vice City Display menu would help, but I have mine set to "On" and I don't get anything. You might want to try that if it's not on already.


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## joeyicu (Jun 26, 2003)

sound.....
i have
athlon 633
geforce 4 Fx 5200 (i had a geforce ti 4600 before)
256mb ram
20gig hd 7600rpm
40gig hd 6400rpm
creative labs eax 5.1 suround card

i installed gta vc on the 7600 one and the frame rates r good...even at 800x600....i run it on 640x480x32 tho so it goes a little quicker......but gta has massive sound requirments so if u want to vastly speed up your frame rates.....go buy a new 5.1 or 6.1 soundcard...even if you keep your old speakers...my machine with its 633 will run many games with no problem......so this could be a big issues.....im suprised noone found this out....i had the same problem with gta 3 and upgraded the sound card and that fixed it......so yeah if you have 100 dollars to spare and cant live with the slow perfromance upgrade your sound card


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## joeyicu (Jun 26, 2003)

and btw frame limiter is not what he needs....its so if your computer outworks gta....like that ever happens tho


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## Reaperman (Jul 1, 2003)

Hey there,

I got a problem with Vice City, that is totally freakin me out. I need to pass the shooting range to "finish" the game (100 %), but I can´t do it, because the shooting range isn´t working. Well, it was working once, when I had to go there for Phil Cassidy, but it doesn´t work now. Each time I go there I can´t fire my gun fast enough to get the necessary 45 points, the gun fires much to slow, and I mean SLOW. You have 2 min. to get the job done, and the gun fires exactly 4 times!! What the heck is this? I don´t get it. It´s not a performance issue, the targets move by normal speed, the times counts down quiet normally, everything seems to be NORMAL, but not my fire rate. That is so darn frustrating. Does anyone have a clue what might be causing this problem and how to fix it? Already tried the patch, problem remains the same. Help would really be appreciated - BIG TIME!!

Signing off

Reaperman


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## wazup15 (Jul 13, 2003)

i have problem....i installed store bought version of gta vice city and got to the game fine.... 5 seconds in, the game suddenly freezes....i can hear the sounds, but the video just stops...i am forced to restart my comp and cannot return to windows xp...my comp specs are way more than sufficient for vice city, cept i have an ati radeon 9700, i installed the patch and tried just about everything else....no clue whats going on...any1 got any solutions to this prob?


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## McTimson (Aug 16, 2002)

Make sure you get the latest driver updates for your video card. Do a spyware check and a virus check as well.

It could also be an overheating issue - try running it with the side of the case off, and a fan blowing onto it.


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## damscoq (Jun 17, 2003)

Hi wazup15,

Have you installed new cars, or else...

Cause I had the same problem after installing new cars.
The main problem is the folder handling.cfg. In the list of cars, each empty lines must start with an ' ; ' And the last line must be empty.


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## lblackdust (Jul 2, 2003)

reaper man what are your sys specs?


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## ColdHaza (Jul 15, 2003)

Mr. Vercetti, i had that problem, all i had to do was reinstall the game, have you tried that.


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## Reaperman (Jul 1, 2003)

Hey Blackdust,

thx for your interest in my problem  , but I already solved it and I´m pretty happy about that. It just came to me I coud give the frame limiter a try. I had no problems whatsoever playing the game with the limiter being turned off. Except for the shooting range. It took me a while to figure that out. In my desperation I thought what the f**k, just give it a try and it WORKED!! I finished the shooting range with 58 points and now I am the proud winner of a great T-shirt!! Hahahaha. Just have a look. This is what you get for 100 %. Cool, ain´t it?? 










Thx again, stay cool!! Signing off

Reaperman


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## ViceMan (Jul 24, 2003)

I have a question, my pc spec is

Athlon XP 2200+,
GeForce 4 TI4600,
120GB HD
1 GB DDR 400 
14" Crappy monitor 

I have played the game roughly to about 40% / 50% and then visited my mum and dads. Changed the resolution to bigger than the 800 x 600 that my monitor will handle now cant change the settings back as the screen scambles.

Is there a way of altering the screen settings going through the user files???

THANX


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## lord hacker (Jul 25, 2003)

i am having problems with the sound in vice city. the sound effects are very low and and i can only hear them if i turn the music volume down almost all the way. i need a reply soon, so please hurry.


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## McTimson (Aug 16, 2002)

lord hacker, look here first.

ViceMan, I'm not sure...you could look through the Vice City program files if you wanted. It also might be somewhere in the registry. You could also just reinstall it, that should set it back to its' defaults. Be sure to back up your saved games though, just in case.


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## ricd (Jun 21, 2003)

Yeah man I stole it!

Check out the rocket bottom right, it is facing towards the helicopter for some reason but it did fire from the helicopter. The Apache is also armed with a machine gun too.

Its a bollock getting this because when you are at the army base and you turn your head, the helicopter disappears.

Took a few tries but its so cool once you nick it!


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## ricd (Jun 21, 2003)

Here...


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## ColdHaza (Jul 15, 2003)

to nick it, just go to the police station that you can go into and go into the locker rooms, and put the police outfit on. The soldiers will no longer shoot you


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## J-Radcliffe (Jul 28, 2003)

I just recently picked up Vice city and installed it. I made sure I had the latest video drivers and everything before playing. I even got the latest gfx crash fix. So I started playing and I went to do the first mission and I see the dreaded blue screan flash for a split second (not long enought to read it but long enough to know it was the blue screen of doom) then my computer was on its way to rebooting as I sat there puzzled. I tried changing around my resolution although the game should run fine because I have a radeon 8500 and a p4 2.4. i have no idea what the problem might be. I tried reinstalling without the gfx fix and that didn't help, I tried going back to a previous driver and that didn't work either. anyone know what the problem might be?


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## ViceMan (Jul 24, 2003)

If your using XP, set your write debugging info to complete memory dump... then you will be able to see your error message.

Its in system properties (left click on my computer select 'properties') and then the advanced tab, after all the select boxes.

Then at least you know what the probs are.. : )

have you had any other problems with other games?


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## J-Radcliffe (Jul 28, 2003)

No it only seems to be with Vice City. It's very strange. I have GTA 3 and that runs perfect.


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## J-Radcliffe (Jul 28, 2003)

Ok...the error message basically says this (I skipped some stuff in the beginning cause it said that windows had an error and had to restart): Check to be sure you have adequate disk space (12 gigs of space left) if a driver is identified in the Stop message, disable the driver or check with the manufacturer for driver updates. try changing video adapters.

Check with your hardware vendor for any BIOS updates. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press f8 to select advanced startup options, and then select safemode.

I don't really know how to do any of that stuff. but I checked all my hardware and it's all up to date with drivers.


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## qu1ksilver8 (Aug 14, 2003)

ok look i had this problem a while ago but i went on vacation now im back and i want answer please!! i played liek 60% of the game according to my stats...anyways one day i was playing and i was tired so i turned off the game...the next morning i try to play and NOTHING!!! all i see is the hourglass which is my pointer...den the hourglass goes back to my pointer and the game doesn't start!! i reinstalled liek ****ing 5 times and still nothing!! i patched everything the game just doesn't start up please SOME1 TELL ME WAT THE PROBLME IS!! IF U NOE PLEASE e-mail me with a reply as well as post a reply if you can because i might not see the reply please!! i want to finish this game!! thank you very much...


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## McTimson (Aug 16, 2002)

http://forums.techguy.org/t147219/s.html

Go through everything in that, make sure you have done everything there.


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## qu1ksilver8 (Aug 14, 2003)

yes i have done everythign in there. my computer is more then fast enough to play vice city, 1.3 ghz amd athlon processor, gf4 mx 440 vid card, 7200 rpm hd...that is all that really should matter, anyways i played it 60% complete one day the next day it donest start...there are no patches for the game cuz i already have 1.1 patch....i ahve the latest drivers...i mean i cna play new games like enter the matrix splinter cell so i dont think drivers is the problem either.....


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## qu1ksilver8 (Aug 14, 2003)

nevermind it turns out my set file in the gtavc user files was ****ing it up...i took it out, kept all the save games still and it started up liek normal....very strange though...


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## Iveoles (Sep 29, 2003)

I have recently upgraded my GeForce 4 440 MX drivers to the newest (13th August) and now my Vice City loads the intro movie, then a small loading screen and that is it. It will not show the start menu, please help

Regards

Adam


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## Guest (Sep 29, 2003)

there is new driver from nvidia thats the old one


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## Iveoles (Sep 29, 2003)

I beg to differ, on the main nVidia site they are the newest drivers, http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-2k_45.23 if you know of any other site please let me know. I realyy wanna play Vice City again.

Regards

Adam Greer


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