Grand Theft Auto Grieving Thread - Yep, I've been drinkin' again...

[The Last Stand]

Vice City had charm out the ass,

That's one of VI's uphill battles it would face upon release. Could the Vice City in modern times match up to the Vice City from the PS2? Not even just 1:1, that's impossible. It's that Vice City is one of THE most iconic open worlds yet because of its 80s aesthetic down to its soundtrack, pop culture references and grippy story. You'll have fans that have fond memories from the 3D era, fans that contributed to GTA Online's gigantic success, and the average gamer buying into the hype that R* developed over the years.

I feel that HD Vice City will be good enough, but not familiar enough to stick with players long term as its own entity. Sure, there MAY be some call-backs from the 3D Vice City, but that's the issue. I'm just thinking about Vice City from yesteryear.

 

[Haftag]

If I mis(labeled) one, I apologize. There's so many of them. I liked the grainy look of the French/German one.

You didn't, @Adash named two of the posters as favorites, you posted one among a batch, I did the other along with the Finnish looked slightly different from the Fre/Ger one.

Here's their website. DCA3.net. Comes with screenshots, download info, FAQ and credits. (Links are archived.)

I'm impressed that they reverse engineered the PC version into a Dreamcast port.

I'd love to see SA on the DC, but I think that might be asking too much.

IIRC, the original release of GTA III on PC wasn't even 1gb, so there'd be no problem to fit it on a GD, VC was slightly bigger, though I don't remember by how much (console versions of both are bigger), and had a few more additions like bikes and proper flying, hence why I'm currently wondering if that would be possible next. SA though, would probably be impossible, at least not in any reasonable time frame. It's ~5gb on PC (console versions are smaller!), and has many more mechanisms than any other GTA. LCS and VCS, especially the PSP versions,are closer to III & VC in size and complexity, but despite using a lot of the same assets, they use a different engine, kind of a precursor to RAGE, so who knows if they'll ever be ported, fan-made PC ports never made it out in full due to R*'s bullshit.

 

[The Last Stand]

IIRC, the original release of GTA III on PC wasn't even 1gb, so there'd be no problem to fit it on a GD, VC was slightly bigger,

A Dreamcast disc can hold up to 1GB of data, slightly bigger than a CD-ROM of 650 MB. GTA3 on the PS2 was released on a DVD-ROM, which can hold up to 4.7 GB. Even so, I don't notice any compression with assets/textures. I think GTA 3 on PC requires a minimum of 500 MB of free space, so this shows how talented that team is with compression and optimization.

VC was slightly bigger, though I don't remember by how much (console versions of both are bigger), and had a few more additions like bikes and proper flying, hence why I'm currently wondering if that would be possible next.

I think a VC Dreamcast port COULD be possible, but Vice City on PC is around 1.6 GB. They would have to compress further for it, but I'm sure they could do some tech wizardly to TRY. San Andreas, absolutely not. The whole world is streamed, unlike GTA3/VC's loading screens when traveling between islands. SA pushed the PS2 to its limits.

 

[Adash]

A Dreamcast disc can hold up to 1GB of data, slightly bigger than a CD-ROM of 650 MB. GTA3 on the PS2 was released on a DVD-ROM, which can hold up to 4.7 GB. Even so, I don't notice any compression with assets/textures. I think GTA 3 on PC requires a minimum of 500 MB of free space, so this shows how talented that team is with compression and optimization.

It actually is possible. Example: Pirated releases that were made to fit on a CD so bootleggers could spend less money creating copies, and to make it easier to download.
All they did was remove all the duplicate and dummy files that help make it faster to stream in data since the drive doesn't have to spin up as much (and also protect the disc from scratches).
Still wasn't enough, so a few radio stations were cut. However if Rockstar were to make the game for Dreamcast, it would be possible since it would be under 1gb even without radio cuts.

III on PC requires the disc in it to stream audio from, which is why it's split into 2 discs, the 500mb install disc with the game data, and the 200mb play disc that contains audio. So i don't really consider this insane optimization, it's just splitting the discs into two requiring you to stream from one. I assume they did some compression with game data however.

Then again, the guys porting to DC targeting ODEs and burned CDs, so they have to get it under the 700mb limit. That's pretty commendable since neither the PC port or the pirated release got away with it without any issues compared with the full PS2 version. They also REALLY have to optimize if someone is using a CD, since DC has half the RAM of PS2, so that requires more reading from disc.

Edit: Nevermind, they're not targeting CDs, they're targeting the size of the GDROM. Understandable, since 1. The GDROM reads at 12x speed compared to the PS2s 4x for DVDs, and Dreamcast's 4x for CDs. 2. It'd genuinely be a miracle if they got it on a CD, on Dreamcast, without ANY issues. Guess that's how they can get away with half the RAM. Still requires more optimisation for streaming.
So, they're targeting under 1gb, which is possible even on the original PS2 release, and of course on PC.

As for VC... removing all duplicates and padding would result in the game being 2gb in size for the PS2 release. The PC port requires 2 discs, each having 600mb. 1 for data to install (heavily compressed, decompressed and installed to hdd it's 1gb.... but i may be wrong on that. been a while since i've installed the original CD release) and 1 to play and stream audio. So I don't think it could be on Dreamcast unless some insane compression tricks were used. I mean, you could remove the opening intros (14 and 37mb for NTSC and PAL versions both on the same disc) but that wouldn't amount to much. Or, give up and use multiple discs.

Source:

This video is about VC, but he brings up III as well.

 

[The Last Stand]

It actually is possible. Example: Pirated releases that were made to fit on a CD so bootleggers could spend less money creating copies, and to make it easier to download.
All they did was remove all the duplicate and dummy files that help make it faster to stream in data since the drive doesn't have to spin up as much (and also protect the disc from scratches).
Still wasn't enough, so a few radio stations were cut. However if Rockstar were to make the game for Dreamcast, it would be possible since it would be under 1gb even without radio cuts.

Sure, but as you even mentioned, the duplicate files contain cutscene, radio stations files. So it COULD fit on a CD, but the pirated copies removed quite a bit of content for it to fit on a CD.

So I don't think it could be on Dreamcast unless some insane compression tricks were used. I mean, you could remove the opening intros (14 and 37mb for NTSC and PAL versions both on the same disc) but that wouldn't amount to much. Or, give up and use multiple discs.

That's an option, but that would be cumbersome. It's not like it's a massive RPG similar to Final Fantasy.

Thread tax: here's some unvisited places in GTA3's Liberty City.

 

[Adash]

Sure, but as you even mentioned, the duplicate files contain cutscene, radio stations files. So it COULD fit on a CD, but the pirated copies removed quite a bit of content for it to fit on a CD.

Never mentioned that. I said that removing all duplicates still wasn't enough for the pirates, so they removed radio station and other files.
Removing all duplicates in the PS2 release results in the size being 862mb.
For CD, you could probably play around with some form of lossless compression or removing unused assets. But I'm talking about the PS2 version, the PC port is what they're using, is around 782mb in size which is even less. It's definitely possible. Plus, the PC port has higher res textures, unlike the Dreamcast version, which is lower res (to save on VRAM usage), so that probably removed a lot of used storage. So it is possible, but the real issue is actually how fast the CD reads on Dreamcast. The pirated copies had 24x read speed (5mb/s) for PS2 CDs which made up for the removed duplicates, and the Dreamcast reads CDs at 4x, or 600kb a second. So it isn't possible not because of storage, but because of read speed.

Also, I thought this conversation was about fitting the game into a GDROM- oh the port doesn't even fully support GDROM... or any form of disc actually.

Well, I'm still hoping that they'll figure it out (i don't even know why, i don't even own a dreamcast lmfao)

That's an option, but that would be cumbersome. It's not like it's a massive RPG similar to Final Fantasy.

Yeah, so I'm of the opinion that VC isn't possible to port unless some large changes were made.

 

[The Last Stand]

You can ragdoll on demand in GTA V. What purpose does that serve? It's not like in Saints Row where there's a minigame that allows you to ragdoll into traffic for points.

 

[Spud]

You can ragdoll on demand in GTA V. What purpose does that serve?

It's fun, I would use it to throw myself off of stairs to larp as the Canadian prime minister personally, though it's weird that you can do it in single player but unable to do it in Online.

 

[William Murderface]

Something I had thought about might be a neat GTA (or clone) set up would be a single character and game setting over the space of years so the player could see real changes in the game environment. Something like Chapter 1 the character gets involved in a heist, gets busted, the loot is stashed away somewhere in the city. Chapter 2 is in the prison. Chapter 3 is the Prison Break. Chapter four is back on the streets but it's been like 10 years and the city has really changed. But he still can't get to the loot just yet and goes on the run in Chapter Five. Chapter Six is he's finally back after like ten more years and the city has changed some more. Each new time in the city bring new side missions and new characters to interact with.

 

[Adash]

You can ragdoll on demand in GTA V. What purpose does that serve? It's not like in Saints Row where there's a minigame that allows you to ragdoll into traffic for points.

It's fun, that's really it. I personally liked pissing off the cops that way by jumping into them.

Something I had thought about might be a neat GTA (or clone) set up would be a single character and game setting over the space of years so the player could see real changes in the game environment.

That's just Driver: Parallel Lines. Part of the game is set in the late 70s, the main character gets put in jail for about 30 years, and the rest of the game is played in the 2000s. It's funny that Driver was the one to try this; after nobody cared because of the shitshow that was Driv3r.

 

[The Last Stand]

Obbe Vermiji with another behind-the-scenes tidbit on the 3D era games. Cinematic camera angles were created for the purpose of riding trains, not necessarily being a homage to movie angles while driving cars.

When working on the train in gta3 I found riding it boring. I considered letting the player jump ahead to the next station but this would cause streaming issues. Instead, I made the camera switch between random viewpoints near the track. This made the ride more interesting. Somebody suggested trying the same in a car. I added the wheel cam, as well as the view from chasing cars. The team found it surprisingly entertaining so the cinematic camera stayed in.

The "streaming issues" may explain why when you use the cinematic camera, cars despawn from the player's POV.

 

[Haftag]

You can ragdoll on demand in GTA V. What purpose does that serve?

It seems the entire purpose of the ragdoll system and the over-complex animations in new GTAs (and I assume RDR), is to make you waste precious time, lose control, and die. The only game where it worked was Max Payne 3.

Something I had thought about might be a neat GTA (or clone) set up would be a single character and game setting over the space of years

That's just Driver: Parallel Lines

Mafia 2 is a bit like that as well, but it's only 10 years or so, there are clear changes in aesthetics and some cars, but not much else.

 

[W00T122122]

With the influx of H1B workers into Rockstar San Diego and New England, they have decided to rework the Florida map into India to better match the lived experience of their new employees.

 

[jje100010001]

Finally a quality Liberty City port to GTAV that doesn't add the city literally right beside Los Santos like this:

Hopefully they will continue working on making Liberty City feel more distinct from Los Santos in terms of world updates, lighting, etc.

 

[The Last Stand]

I can give DSP SOME slack for constantly mission failing and dying in GTA 3 on his first playthrough since GTA 3 is objectively harder than later entries. Over time, I'd think he would learn the mechanics and limitations of the game.

His second and third playthroughs, however, are hard to watch with his lack of skill and frequent bitter resentment.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Sony fans are adamant GTA6 will sell Playstations

That may have been the case 10-15-20 years ago but that's just not the case anymore. The whole games ecosystem has really shifted around in that time.

 

[The Last Stand]

That may have been the case 10-15-20 years ago but that's just not the case anymore. The whole games ecosystem has really shifted around in that time.

If they're fans of GTA, particularly GTA V, chances are they already HAVE a PS4/5. You have supply chains during COVID and inflation to thank for the lack of PS5s out in the wild.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

You have supply chains during COVID and inflation to thank for the lack of PS5s out in the wild.

There are millions of unsold PS5s sat on shelves around the world. It's not that people can't get one, it's that people don't want one.

 

[Bob Barbas]

Oh hey, didn't know we had a GTA thread.
I recently reinstalled GTA V to play GTAO mostly because friends convinced me to do it. I gotta say I didn't hate it as much as I remember.

That being said, I still think GTA IV is always going to be my favorite gameplay wise. Am I the only one that's really bothered by the fact that you can't even crouch in GTA V? Like I know people sperg about it not being realistic and in the end it doesn't REALLY matter, but it still annoys me.

Though on the other hand I absolutely hate the combat in GTA V, compared to IV. People complained about people being bullet sponges in IV but in V I've seen enemies take multiple shots in the head for no discernible reason before dying meanwhile I lose all of my armor when I get shot once by some faggot wielding a pistol. I wouldn't hate it as much if both parties were made of paper but the NPCs have invisible armor or some shit and it really fucking annoys me. At least IV has a healthbar so you can tell you're actually hurting them.

So I reinstalled GTA IV obviously and it was like night and day. I still miss the IV driving physics too. I know people bitched about it a lot but fuck dude the physics in IV were just so much better too.
It really reminded me of all the random shit they removed from V for basically no reason. Y'know like being able to fucking crouch?

 

[The Last Stand]

This song was reused in GTA: Advance as an instrumental. I just love the funky beat and simple rap about committing grand theft auto.