Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 896MB Review

Grand Theft Auto IV

Due to the limitations the game puts on the graphics presets and how they can be adjusted, we decided to tweak our install. To do this we added a .txt file within the main game install folder with the command parameters –norestrictions and –nomemrestrict. In addition to this, we added the -availablevidmem (+memory multiplier) to effectively fool the game into thinking 512MB and 896MB cards were in fact able to access about 1GB of memory. Unfortunately, this means a 512MB or 896MB card will in fact be accessing slower system memory to make up for the discrepancy but that is a necessary evil to get comparable results. Finally, view distance was limited to 50%. Here are the full settings we used:

In this test we didn’t use the built-in benchmark but rather used a 10 minute gameplay sequence during in-game daylight conditions of which approximately 6 minutes were spent on foot while the remainder was spent driving. Basically, we find the in-game benchmark isn’t worth spit. All results were recorded with FRAPS.

1680 x 1050



1920 x 1200



2560 x 1600



Grand Theft Auto just doesn’t seem to play nice with any card. Where the ATI cards make extremely good showings for themselves in the lower resolution testing, they are quickly overreached by the GTX 275. All in all, we were disappointed in the GTX 275’s performance in this test.