ZolikaPatch – Graphics & Gameplay Fixes

Aims to fix & improve a vast collection of things in GTA IV, such as restoring vehicle shadows in the Booth Tunnel and heli spotlights, fixing cutscene zoom and stutter at high FPS, improving loading times, fixing SMPA60 errors, fixing VRAM issues on patch 7 and below, and removing the requirement to log into Social Club to play Multiplayer.
The mod also adds various new vehicle functions that car mods can use and add support for, such as rotating steering wheels and shaking engine blocks.
Changes/options:
– Added a vehicles.ide flag for Hakumai’s popup headlights (+popuplights)
– Added a vehicles.ide flag for police sirens (+siren)
– Added car shadows in Booth Tunnel, helicopter spotlights and lampposts
– Added full compatibility with the game files from the latest Steam release, fixing the crash when bringing up the phone and the missing radio textures
– Added support for a rotating steering wheel for custom cars
– Added support for all APC features, explosive shotgun and explosive sniper for IV and TLAD
– Added support for customizable popup headlight open angles
– Added support for engineblock part of cars that support it, making them shake like they do in V
– Added support for plane parts, with moving ailerons, rudders, elevators and propellers
– Added support for the droppipebomb_icon texture for the pipe bomb in base IV
– Allows entering raw hashes into .ide files if you add “hash:” before the hash (in unsigned decimal) to get around the character limit in .ide entries
– Allows the game to run through PlayGTAIV.exe so you can run patch 7 or 8 through Steam
– Allows the game to run without LaunchGTAIV.exe/PlayGTAIV.exe
– Decrease loading times to San Andreas levels
– Fixed almost every crash method used in Multiplayer
– Fixed bikes sliding more easily above ~80FPS
– Fixed cutscenes having jittery camera motion at high FPS
– Fixed cutscenes zooming in at high FPS
– Fixed driveby shots not hitting the center of the crosshair when high above ground level (e.g. on top of Algonquin buildings)
– Fixed kickbug because of PCIDs matching
– Fixed mouse movements having a deadzone
– Fixed random crashes when flying planes
– Fixed reverse lights being cast in the middle of the car’s hood
– Fixed scratches and bullet holes not appearing on certain TBoGT or modded cars
– Fixed some objects (e.g. bollards) not casting shadows
– Fixed the 20+ second wait before the game starts up
– Fixed the crash on versions older than patch 8 when exiting the benchmark
– Fixed the crash when switching episodes mid-game
– Fixed the crash when starting cutscenes as a ped model
– Fixed the crash when using SuperLOD as a ped model
– Fixed the fade-in for buildings when they change LOD in 1.0.6.0+ (patches below 1.0.6.0 already had this)
– Fixed the foot position on chopper bikes in patch 5+ (was previously TLAD-exclusive, now ported to all episodes)
– Fixed the freeze after completing Concrete Jungle with EFLC radio stations
– Fixed the game being sped up slightly in some cases due to timing issues
– Fixed the game speeding up above 300FPS
– Fixed the SMPA60 error
– Fixed the standing still animation for bikes during a phone call (patch 5 and up only)
– Fixed various ways in which other players can directly mess with you in Multiplayer, such as teleporting you or removing your weapons
– Fixed vehicles freezing mid-stop
– Fixed VRAM issues above 2GB on patch 7 and below
– Fixed VSync locking to a lower FPS than your refresh rate on Patch 7 and below
– Increase car models limit from 205 to 1024
– Increase PtrNode limit to prevent random crashing with a lot of objects spawned
– Increase the maximum amount of cars with different models loaded at one time from 50 to 100
– Load DLCs in base GTA IV (like if you had bought them from GFWL)
– Option to enable night shadows for buildings and other static objects
– Option to force all lights to cast shadows (e.g. hotdog stands, some of the Booth Tunnel lights)
– Option to have borderless windowed mode
– Option to have more accurate MP sync when players are far away
– Option to make both car headlights have individual lights instead of one combined one
– Option to make reflections reflect all map objects at full quality (including objects such as benches, street lamps, etc.)
– Option to move the savegame and settings files from AppData to the game folder
– Option to override the path gta.dat is loaded from to quickly change between modded and non-modded files
– Option to remove IV’s error messages so one can get actual crash dumps instead (or have the game continue running if it was a non-fatal error)
– Option to remove pausing if the game window’s not in focus
– Option to remove static car shadows from all cars
– Option to remove the arbitrary height cutoff from distant lights
– Option to remove the draw distance from static vehicle shadows
– Option to skip the intro & menu
– Potential performance boost by removing leftover nonfunctional debug code (patch 4, 7 & 8 only)
– Reimplemented the game’s memory allocator, reducing RAM usage, allowing for higher game limits with limit adjusters and eliminating SMPA errors
– Removed all extra file dependencies, allowing you to launch 1.0.8.0 and below without DFA, gta4Browser, binkw32, etc.
– Removed the arbitrary height cutoff from vehicle imposters to make the city look more lively, similar to V
– Removed the gradual light intensity change for lampposts and building windows, instead instantly toggling along with their actual light source at 6:45 and 19:15
– Removed the limit of 4 liveries for cars
– Removed the mod checks from 1.0.4.0, allowing you to access Multiplayer (though there is no crossplay with 1.0.7.0+ users)
– Removed the mod checks from 1.0.7.0, allowing you to see and join 1.0.8.0 lobbies
– Removed the mouse acceleration from sniper rifles
– Removed the savegame CRC check, allowing you to load other people’s savegames
– Removed the signature check from .sco files
– Removed the Social Club login requirement so you can play MP even if you skip login on patch 4 and below, or use Play Offline on patch 7
– Removed the “update or sign out of LIVE” popup in GFWL when running patch 5 and below, making Multiplayer possible on all pre-patch 6 versions
Supports all versions, the mod automatically patches your game to be compatible.

Credits:
RealZolika1351