GTA4: Freezing on cutscenes :(

[WastedJoker]

The first couple of cutscenes in GTA4 went ok but ever since the one where Nico fends off to the two loan sharks in Roman's office, every cutscene freezes.

The video stops but the sound continues for a short while before it too stops.

I have to force the PS3 to shutdown by holding the standby button.

Normal game action is fine, it's only the cutscenes which are affected.

Is this a PS3 problem or a GTA4 problem? No other game has had any problems on my PS3.

[Alfista]

i heard some 60GB PS3 versions do this... Is yours 60 gb?

[WastedJoker]

Nope, it's PAL 40GB.

[morphen]

huh, it's supposed to only be a 60GB version issue... downblow for ps3 owners :/

I have a xbox360, but never got around to buing more than burnout ;)

[Bhav]

The first couple of cutscenes in GTA4 went ok but ever since the one where Nico fends off to the two loan sharks in Roman's office, every cutscene freezes.

The video stops but the sound continues for a short while before it too stops.

I have to force the PS3 to shutdown by holding the standby button.

Normal game action is fine, it's only the cutscenes which are affected.

Is this a PS3 problem or a GTA4 problem? No other game has had any problems on my PS3.

Try deleting the game data and reinstalling it.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

As Bhav said. With these issues being widely reported on what USED to be the GTA's home console - I am sure a patch will be rolled out ASAP.

[jonmoseley8]

Yep, Rockstar say to delete the game data if it freezes.

Rockstar has said you should erase your game data and reinstall Grand Theft Auto IV if your PS3 freezes during gameplay.

The US PlayStation forums picked up on the issue and linked the problem with 60GB launch models of the console.

One commenter called the technical support lines and followed the steps above and has had no problems since.

This problem seems to be far from common, with only a tiny portion of the Internet reporting issues; the official European PlayStation forums make no visible mention of it.

Have you been having issues, Eurogamer reader?

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=134790

I've experenced it once whist at the end of "Blow Your Cover". :(

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

huh, it's supposed to only be a 60GB version issue... downblow for ps3 owners :/

I have a xbox360, but never got around to buing more than burnout ;)

It's not just any specific PS3 model freezing.

Mine has frozen as well (40GB).

All console's are suffering, just looks like some poor R* testing again.

[ReAnimation]

It's not just any specific PS3 model freezing.

Mine has frozen as well (40GB).

All console's are suffering, just looks like some poor R* testing again.

My Euro 60Gb was freezing up on the mission 'Uncle Vlad' last night. I tried 3 times to complete that mission but it just froze up at different points during it. In the end I got fedup and turned it off!

I guess with a game as open as GTA it's going to be hard to iron out all of the bugs, I certainly wouldn't like to be one of rockstars programmers with all these random lockups happening across the platforms.

[Malbojia]

Whats even worse one of my 60gig NTSC model cant even see the game when loaded in. Tried all my other PS3 games. Blu-ray drive worked no problem. My 40gig NTSC see's the game. But freezes up on the intro screen.

I brought the game back to the store twice. Getting really annoyed at the issues.

[Ricardo Gil]

It's not just any specific PS3 model freezing.

Mine has frozen as well (40GB).

All console's are suffering, just looks like some poor R* testing again.

Agreed, I had a freeze too on my 60GB during a loading screen. One of my friends was there and said it happened on his 360 too during the game.

So it's just probably the game, not 360/PS3 related.

[WastedJoker]

Thanks guys! At least it's game-related and not something hardware (and expensive!) related :)

I'll delete the game data and reinstall. I hope it doesn't lose my save games!

[WastedJoker]

Reinstalling worked :shiftyninja:

[Hani]

i really can't believe they were dumb enough not to notice this

[NextGen_Gamer]

So far I have had zero problems with my copy of Grand Theft Auto IV. I have an 80GB model that I bought back in November 2007. Has there been any reported problems with the 80GB model?

Also, I find it curious that re-installing the game data seems to fix the problem. That to me says that some of the files being installed to the HDD are getting currupted in the process. This would just be another sign that Sony (as well as Microsoft) should really add some sort of defragmentation option to their console. No matter what kind of file system you are using, eventually files will get fragmented, and it would be nice to have a way to fix that without re-installing entire game data or deleting save game files.

[Jaggedtooth]

I have the 1st gen. PS3 (80GB Model) and haven't experienced any glitching or freezing in the game at all. I haven't gotten too far into the game though but I have spent around 8 hours of doing missions and haven't had any problems yet (knock on wood). I'm sure the freezing issue is priority #1 on Rockstar's list of things to do. I found these articles online: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/02/take-two...ing-fix-for-ps3 and http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52445 . Hope this helps!

-Jagged

Edited May 2, 2008 by Jaggedtooth

[EnzoFX]

Someone suggested that the files may be fragmented on the hard drive. Do you guys download a lot of stuff onto your HDD's? Could also explain you being fine with your 80gb. I.e. the bigger space: less likely to be fragmented.

R* recommends you guys delete internet cache, uninstall/reinstall, among other things, all of which sound like hdd performance issues I think

[L3thal Veteran]

The game doesn't even start on my 60gb PS3. It will copy over all the files for 5+ minutes and it will sit on "Starting new game" forever and ever and it won't go past it.

Oh well...

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Someone suggested that the files may be fragmented on the hard drive. Do you guys download a lot of stuff onto your HDD's? Could also explain you being fine with your 80gb. I.e. the bigger space: less likely to be fragmented.

R* recommends you guys delete internet cache, uninstall/reinstall, among other things, all of which sound like hdd performance issues I think

I think right now they're just grasping at straws and basically telling you to do everything you can yourself that doesn't involve releasing any patch.

Not because they don't want to release a patch, but they probably don't know whats up therefore if people start coming forward saying "turning off x helped" and what not, it will help them.

Effectively we're brainstorming just now with R* to help them find what the hecks wrong :/

[Invizibleyez]

I have the 1st gen. PS3 (80GB Model) and haven't experienced any glitching or freezing in the game at all.

You do know that the PS3 1st gen did not come in 80gb right?

A quote from wikipedia:

The PlayStation 3 was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November 17, 2006 in North America, and March 23, 2007 in Europe and Oceania, with two stock keeping units (SKUs): a basic model with a 20 GB hard disk drive (HDD), and a premium model with a 60 GB HDD and several additional features. (The 20 GB model was not released in Europe or Oceania.) Since then, the console has had several revisions made to its available SKUs and has faced stiff competition from the other seventh generation consoles. As of December 20, 2007, the PS3 is in third place in home console sales for its generation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation_3

[ReAnimation]

For those of you having trouble starting up the game, try signing out of the PSN, GTA4 should then startup properly.

My PS3 was fine apart from a handful of random lockups, but I've got about 20% complete and GTA won't load up now unless I sign out of the PSN. If I stay signed in GTA will get past the normal loading screens and then get to the point where it loads your save point, then it'll just stay on that load screen and do nothing.

Since I learned of the sign out trick, GTA so far seems a lot more stable.

Rockstar (and/or Sony) really need to sort things out with this game.

[L3thal Veteran]

GTA IV has been working flawlessly after signing out of the PSN network. I still find it awkward how being online causes it to not work.

Thanks for the tip.