Grand Theft Auto IV is a sprawling 2008 open-world action-adventure set in a detailed Liberty City where players spend most of their time driving, completing story missions, engaging in third-person shooting, and freely exploring. Most players treat it as a single-player experience, often returning years later with community mods that restore smoothness, fix bugs, and improve visuals on modern systems. The RAGE engine's age shows immediately in vanilla play: frequent micro-stutters during fast motion, inconsistent frame delivery in dense traffic, and high CPU overhead from poorly threaded draw calls and physics. In the high FPS scenario, the goal shifts from raw frame-rate chasing to perfect frame pacing and responsiveness. The engine was built around a 30 FPS console target, so sustaining stable high refresh rates requires removing internal limits via mods such as FusionFix and translating the old DirectX 9 calls to Vulkan with DXVK. These fixes dramatically lower stutter and CPU usage, but the game still leans heavily on single-thread performance for traffic density, explosions, and streaming new parts of the city during high-speed chases. Visual upgrades through additional mods can add load, yet the primary pain point for high-refresh players remains jittery frame times that make vehicle handling and aiming feel imprecise. Common misunderstandings include assuming a strong GPU alone will solve everything or that the game will run perfectly out of the box on new hardware. In reality, overlooking CPU thread efficiency and skipping the essential mod stack often leaves players fighting the same hitching they hoped to escape. Before choosing a PC for this scenario, understand that stable, low-latency frame delivery matters more than peak settings or sky-high average frame rates. The right hardware paired with those targeted fixes transforms GTA IV into a much more modern-feeling experience focused on responsive controls and uninterrupted immersion in its dense, lively world.