'GTA 5' Patch 1.01 Fixes Game Breaking Bugs And Performance Issues

An advertisement for Take-Two Interactive Software's "Grand Theft Auto 4" video game is seen on the side of a building in Los Angeles April 26, 2008. REUTERS/Lisa Baertlein Reuters

The PC version of Rockstar Games' critically acclaimed open world game "Grand Theft Auto 5" arrived more than a year and half after its console release. The wait has been worth it considering the host of new features and improvements to the game. The PC version of the game has now received its first patch less than a week after its launch. The update aims to address a number of issues reported by players about general performance, bugs and game crashes.

According to IGN, the patch 1.01 addresses a bizarre problem that prevented the game from being installed and run by gamers who had used anything apart from alphanumeric characters in their Windows usernames. The bug prevented the game installer from locating the path to the game's assets. Rockstar had earlier issued a workaround that required players to create a brand new Windows user account. Thankfully, the patch now saves affected users from taking the rather ridiculously inconvenient measure to play the game.

Another launcher based issue that made the game crash due to inordinately high CPU usage has also been addressed by the patch. Many players had reported unreasonable drops in frame-rate while driving through certain areas of the massive fictional city within the game. The persistent crashes associated with the Rockstar Editor have also been resolved. This should be welcome news for machinima creators, as this would ensure a smoother and reliable content creation experience.

Other minor but still visually disrupting problems fixed by the update include erratic bird flight patterns and issues with 3D meshes and textures that caused strange artefacts such as distortion of players' eyebrows and facial features in the PC version. Another important fix addressed the problem of losing vehicles bought within the game due to the garage being full, as reported by Gamespot.

"Grand Theft Auto 5" has received an overwhelmingly positive response from the PC gaming community despite being released ages after the console version and a host of crashes, bugs and performance issues. This is largely due to Rockstar Games' dedication to bringing genuine improvements to what's an exceptionally good PC port that genuinely leverages the potential of the platform.

Gamers have warmed up to additional features such as the first-person camera angle, the feature rich Rockstar Editor and improved graphics. All these addition have made the PC version look like the definitive edition of the game which is worth a re-purchase even for those who own the original console version. Moreover, the capability of the PC port to support 4K resolution, 3D and triple monitor setups, as pointed out by VG247, makes the latest version look much more than a simple port job.

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