Is GTA V More CPU Or GPU Intensive?

Rockstar first released the Grand Theft Auto Series in 1997, which became one of the most popular games in 2000 with the release of GTA 3, the first game with a third-person perspective and an open world map.

With every new release, the franchise has grown, and today, the latest in the series is Grand Theft Auto 5, which was first released in 2013 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, before being launched on PC in 2014.

Originally released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, GTA 5 was remade for PC and had some visual enhancements. It was an old title when it was released on PC, so Rockstar had to make some changes. Furthermore, the game was released at the time with a minimum requirement of a quad-core processor and a Core i5 3rd generation CPU for higher graphics. 

In today’s topic, we are going to uncover and see is GTA V more CPU or GPU intensive and if the updated version of the game still uses the same requirements.

IS GTA More CPU OR GPU Intensive?

GTA 5 is much more CPU intensive compared to GPU, as it is playable on a 512MB GPU and will still run fine without LAG or anything at the lowest settings and resolution, however, the CPU plays a much bigger role in it.

The console version of GTA 5 was a no-brainer for people with consoles as they just had to buy a CD and, BAM, there you go, now you can easily play the game on your PC at a constant 30FPS, which was still more than good at that time. 

Users enjoyed the game, and after 2 years, it was released on PC. Rockstar made some enhancements to the game with the patches, including effects, faster loading times, and a more detailed environment.

In 2015, the game required a quad-core CPU and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 9800 graphics card at a minimum for a constant 30 FPS gameplay, though it may run on lower hardware as well. 

You will be warned about low performance and other issues including FPS drops and stutters as you try to open the game for the first time on a CPU with 2 cores and a graphics card with less VRAM. After clicking the OK button, the game begins.

The game needs more capable hardware in order to load those textures. The worst thing that you will experience with a low-end CPU, aside from stutters and FPS drops caused by GPU texture loading, is It turns out that whenever the textures fail to load, they are completely gone, and the ones that are loaded will also glitch and disappear, making the experience even worse, rendering the game unplayable.

Using VSYNC or increasing CPU usage for the application does help, but it doesn’t help much because they were still missing after the game release. 

GTA V Updated System Requirements:

In recent years, Rockstar has released many patches for Grand Theft Auto 5 that include bug fixes, performance improvements, and updates to the game, which makes it quite significant that the game now requires more capable hardware in order to run at good settings and FPS.

Although the system requirements have not changed nor did Rockstar announce it, after playing on the old requirements, it is just ok, meaning it does not run too bad or too well with all the improvements in the performance of the game.

If you haven’t played GTA 5 yet and want to play it without a heavy PC, the good news is that you can play it with a good experience depending on your hardware.

If you have at least a quad-core CPU and a decent GPU, then you can play this game without any issues, but if you don’t, then I recommend that you change your PC or hardware.

How Much RAM Is Required For GTA V

It is also said that at least 4GB of minimum RAM is required for it, but that is not true because if you run it on 4GB of RAM, there can be massive stutters and the texture disappearing issue, so a minimum of 6GB will be good enough, but 8GB is recommended for the highest settings.

In a conclusive way, if you are running the updated version of the game on the previous version of the requirements, then it will not be good and I recommend at least a 2nd Gen Core i5 CPU or I3 (I5 is better) with 6GB of RAM and a decent 1 GB graphic card like HD 7570 for a playable experience, and anything above this will result in higher performance of the game.

Final Words

You would probably aware with the question now is GTA V more CPU or GPU intensive. Before buying or downloading a game, it is important to check its requirements if you are playing it for the first time.

Giving you an idea of your PC’s capability to play the game you are downloading, but beware because most of the requirements on the internet are outdated.

If the requirements of a game are too old for your PC, no need to worry, you still can run it on your PC with a good experience. However, if they are high, then first check them out.