One of the big promises for GTA: San Andreas was that the game would have radically increased draw-distance - even “three times that of GTA: Vice City.” This means that you’d be able to see farther, and would have less buildings, trees, etc. suddenly “popping up” as you drive.
Of course, once the game was launched, it turned out that it had problems running on all but the most recent Playstation consoles. The blame has been diverted and passed around, but the final concensus seems to be that all PS2 DVD lasers but the most recent consoles simply aren’t “strong enough” to keep up with the constant disc accessing implemented by the game.
For some people, this translated into the game being unplayable, as “disc read errors” continually crashed the program. Others get near-constant slowdown, or “choppy” gameplay and low framerates.
Though I have one of the oldest model PS2 consoles, I’ve had a satisfactory game experience thus far, EXCEPT for the draw distances. It’s actually pretty ridiculous - things like buildings and trees often pop up at the last second only when I get near then while driving around. Flying is absolutely nuts - the drawing-in of the textures or foliage is actually so slow that it “races” me as I fly over, “growing” to keep up with me.
Yeha, if you drive fast enough. I would have done without BMX bikes if they had fixed this. Same old “blue sheet” Appearing underneath you as you drive. Very disapointing.
I haven’t encountered the “blue sheet” yet - i’m not sure what you mean, though, so it may just be a question of terminology.
My performance has been pretty bad with the draw-ins and pop-ups - even when I’m running on foot sometimes, it’s like the system is struggling to render the stuff before I run INTO it.
The absolute worst was the other day when I started a mission, and in the CUT SCENE, the other guy was invisible for the first 3 seconds of the cut scene before magically popping in.
PaulFitzroy Have you been playing it long enough?
I have the pop-up problems on my PS2 (about 1 year old), on a friend’s PS2 (3 years old) and on another friend’s PS2, which is about 2 months old.
I think the problem is not the type of PS2 you have, but the game just demands too much bandwidth that the PS2 can’t deliver.
The previous version already used 99% (Vice City) of the PS2’s capacity.
GTA San Andreas has 3 times as much environment plus a boatload of extra vehicles and characters.
I can understand they wanted to release it, but they would have better waited for the PS3.
I have very high hopes for the next installment as the PS3 will have much more bandwidth.
The only problems I encountered was while flying jets or other high speed planes. Generally I’d be looking at a clear path when suddenly a tree would appear in front of me and I didn’t have time to dodge.
Other then that I’ve had no problems with GTA:SA and I’ve played through it twice.
I have a version one PS2 and haven’t had much in the way of problems. Generally the draw distance is fine with only occasional problems flying, but it seems like there are pop-ups or some sort of draw priority that gets me every once in a while. Say I’m driving really fast down a street, decide to cut through a yard, and I crash into empty space at the edge of the yard. I’m wondering what the hell just happened just as the graphics engine catches up and draws in the low wall running around the yard. D’oh! Doesn’t come up often, but pretty frustrating when it does. Still a completely awesome game, though.
I just have problems with things popping up while driving fast. Or in some cases the road not being drawn. It’s not a blue sheet, but it’s not the real road either. Running into invisible walls sucks, and trees appearing suddenly while flying isn’t fun either.
I bought my PS2 about 5 months after it was released. Not sure if it’s the original model, but I’ve had DRE with other games. I can hear the PS2 straining to read from the disc. It’s kind of sad, I pity the poor PS2 and will put it out of its misery soon by getting a shiny new mini-PS2.
I have a really old PS2, and it had no real problems with it. Once I hit a wall that just popped up in front of me, but for the most part the draw distance was quite good.
Ok, flying planes low over land in the southwest part of the map wasn’t all that easy, because I didn’t have much time to avoid trees as they popped up. I don’t think I ever overran the machine’s ability to draw the terrain, though.
My biggest peeve with the game was the pathetic AI for the opposing gang members when you’d start a turf war. Better than half the time they’d get confused by elevation changes and wind up running halfway across the map away from you rather than attacking you, but if you left the disputed turf you’d lose. Or really weird things would happen, like they’d get stuck on something, and you’d look at them with the sniper rifle, and you’d see them falling over and over through stairs or the sidewalk.
That and something from some of the last missions:
Sweet in the later turf war missions. He’d walk in front of you so you couldn’t shoot the nice row of suckers marching toward you, or he’d stand behind you and start shooting you in the back, or he’d just stand there getting shot for no apparent reason. Eventually I had to jump in a car and take off before he could get in. He was safe if you left him on Grove street, and though it told you to go collect him it still let you complete the missions.
Yep, the gang wars really pissed me off more than any terrain errors. Plus the zoning was a little off, there’s one zone that’s just a tiny sliver up north, and another that’s almost entirely a building with hardly any street area for gang members to pop up.
Is it possible that there’s something related to the loading speed that causes the gang members to have problems with the terrain? I can’t see how these problems got past the testers, unless they’re not problems on the newer PS2.
