Can I run GTA 4 on my laptop computer?

You should be able to, although GTA IV is a very CPU limited game, so the dual core of that sandy bridge CPU might bottleneck your performance quite a bit.

GTA IV loves quad cores, so a laptop with an i7-2xxxQM or i7-3xxxQM will fare better.

Your GPU and RAM are adequate for this game.

Minimum System Requirements

OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
Memory: 1.5GB, 16GB Free Hard Drive Space
Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended System Requirements
OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
Memory: 2 GB (Windows XP) 2.5 GB (Windows Vista)
18 GB Free Hard Drive Space

Check out this website if you want to be sure:-

Can You RUN It | Can I run that game | Game system requirements

You're going to have to lower quite a few details.

Basically, it will lag.

smarteyeball said:

You're going to have to lower quite a few details.

Basically, it will lag.

Contrary to popular belief, a large number of modern laptops (especially ones with the i7 quad cores and NVIDIA or AMD middle/high range graphics cards) are capable of semi decent gaming.

The only issues to look out for would be heat generation and manufacturer specific throttling quirks. Some (Acer and Dell in particular) of them put in place overzealous Frequency Throttling mechanisms to prevent the CPU and/or GPU temperatures from rising to uncomfortable levels, but levels that are still within the normal operating temperatures of the Laptop.

A good cooling pad and laptop placement will help to alleviate those issues.

The gulf between mobile gaming and desktop gaming has narrowed considerably since the dark days of the early 2000s where a desktop was the only way to game.

ineedpie said:

@solarmystic: Thanks! I've checked the CanYouRunIT? website and it says my computer is between the minimum and Recommended requirements.

@smarteyeball: Thanks! How low can I go to get it to run smoothly?

Do you think buying the game will be worth it?

I've the game running on the laptop with much more inferior system specs (Click on "My system specs" at the bottom of my post if you want to know more) with the following settings and it runs quite nicely at round 30 - 40 FPS and still looks decent enough to me:-



You should be able to use those settings as a baseline for your own laptop.

ineedpie said:

@solarmystic: Thanks! I guess i should be happy now :P
Btw- Thats nice of you to take a picture from your game

The biggest FPS killer in GTA IV is without a doubt, the shadows. Turn them off for a massive performance increase.

It is due to Rockstar's sloppy porting work that Shadows are actually run on the CPU(!) and not the GPU, and that is why a Quad Core CPU is recommended for the game.