Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Version and Platform Differences

This is a sub-page of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

To do: A lot. This guy's videos will help though.

San Andreas has so many ports, versions, and subtle changes between them that it could give Skyrim and even Grand Theft Auto V a run for their money. But not Doom. Never Doom.

Platform Differences

San Andreas has been released on about 10 different platforms over the years, and with all of these releases, there are a lot of subtle (and not as subtle) changes to the game.

For consistency's sake, comparisons will be based on the PS2 release. If a certain port is specifically based on another port, it will be noted along with any port-specific differences.

PC

This will cover general PS2 to PC differences. See below for differences between the Retail and Steam PC versions.

General

• The moon has correct phases on the consoles but not on the PC - it is either always a full moon or the moon is not visible at all.
• There is generally more rubbish and shrubbery on the PC version, mainly for visual effect, and most notably in Los Santos - Grove Street certainly has more "scenery" on PC. However, there are significantly fewer parked cars and car spawns in general on PC compared to the console versions.
• When entertaining prostitutes in a vehicle, the moans from CJ and the girl have been removed, but the vehicle still makes bumping sounds.
• The ambient lighting on the PC version is more life-like (comparatively at least) verses the console versions' more "smoggy" look. This is particularly evident in Los Santos which features a distinct orange tint during the day on PS2.
• There are less pedestrians in the PC version (notably if you go near Gant Bridge).
• The parachute animation in the PC version is static even when tilting left and right, while the PS2 version displayed it properly.
• The "Cars Drive on Water" cheat has been cut. It's unknown if this was intentional or not.
• AI drivers will get extreme road rage and drive after/into you if you bump into them more often on PC.
• The co-operative play modes in the console versions were removed from the PC version. Code does still exist for a 2-player pool mini-game though.

Vehicles

• Some large trucks have double-rear wheels on the consoles, but not on the PC version. This did indirectly fix a visual bug where the double-rear wheels would only leave single tire marks on the road though.
• The code used for helicopters' rotor blade rotating effect is bugged, making it not work properly.
• Some cars such as the Bloodring Banger and Sandking have missing decals due to incorrect alpha.

Missions

• The targets in the Beefy Baron side mission are referred to as "Berkley's delivery vans" as opposed to "Berkley's Topfun vans" like on PS2.

Los Santos

• The statue at the Atrium (where the mission "Just Business" takes place) can't be destroyed on PC due to a bug.

San Fierro

• The Shady Industries building in San Fierro was changed to Solarin Industries on the PC, although the various vans around San Andreas maintained the Shady Industries logo and were not changed.
• Hemlock Tattoo in San Fierro has a unique tattoo selection unlike the PS2 version.

Las Venturas

• The original PS2 version has an additional Pay 'n' Spray garage located in The Camel's Toe, Las Venturas, right next to the parking lot. It repairs vehicles just like any other Pay 'n' Spray, but it's not marked on the radar map and it doesn't work properly: when entering with a vehicle, the camera doesn't position itself outside-and-behind the player like in the other Pay 'n' Sprays, and the player has a chance of falling through the floor and into the blue abyss when on-foot inside. Rather than being fixed, the garage was completely disabled on the later PS2 releases and the ports, which was done by simply putting a static garage door over the entrance, however, this quick fix resulted in the oddity of the player sinking through the floor if positioned against the entrance, although the player can simply jump out.
• There are a large number of objects in Las Venturas missing from the PC version, mainly outside the Four Dragons Casino and The Visage. This seems to be a simple omission from the map as they are still in the game.

Version Differences

This is where it gets messy...

PC

San Andreas is so good, it gets to be released on PC twice! Once in retail (June 7, 2005), and once again digitally on Steam (January 4, 2008).

Retail - 1.01

The 1.01 patch was released on August 10, 2005. It fixed several bugs and added a couple of features, along with completely disabling the infamous Hot Coffee content.

The official notes indicate the following additions and changes (any spelling or grammar errors are as-is):

ADDITIONS
*Added support for 720p and 1080i HDTV resolutions.
*Version Number displayed on game title screen.

BUGS FIXED
*Issue fixed on machines where the OS has been updated (one OS installed over top of another) and has 2 registry keys that point to the users "My Documents" folder (we incorrectly used to assume the Win2000 folder, now correctly uses the last installed OS folder) - users know this as "user account period bug".
*Crash when entering advanced display options with only 32 meg of video ram (32 meg of video ram is not supported and will only allow use of 640*480 in 16 and 32 bit. At this resolution it is likely you will see the "Black Roads" LOD problem). We do NOT however disallow machines with 32 meg of video ram from running GRAND THEFT AUTO: San Andreas.
*Crash when entering advanced display options on a dual monitor machine after :- starting game on primary monitor in maximum resolution, exiting, starting again in maximum resolution on secondary monitor. Secondary monitor maximum resolution had to be greater than maximum resolution of primary monitor.
*Destroyed cars now are correct colour.
*Dirty cars now able to get clean.
*Numpad 5 key is now mappable when re-defining controls.
*Issue on all machines where certain collisions caused parts of the audio system to crash (sound effects, cutscene audio - only radio keeps going) - users know this as "Rain / Thunderstorm bug".
*Improvements to DVD streaming.
*Audio problems in interior / exterior transitions and getting in / out of cars fixed.
*Some fixes to ensure reverb is not present at certain save points.
*Improvements to dance game timings.
*Crash occuring when using "user radio files" while the frame limiter is disabled.

Retail - 2.0

Version "2.0" of the game is effectively just a retail release of v1.01 in pretty much every way, except the version number on the main menu will say v2.00 instead of v1.01. It does, however, also make modding effectively impossible as it will check the size of the gta3.img file, and if the sizes don't match up byte-to-byte, it will cause the game to crash (coincidentally, all Hot Coffee assets were removed with this release). Also, saves from previous versions are incompatible. Good update.

For the remainder of the article, v1.01 will be referred to as v2 for sanity's sake since they are almost identical.

Steam - "3.0"

Ah shit. Here we go again.

The Steam release, also known as v3.0 according to the menu, is a very interesting story indeed. Firstly, the fact that it even calls itself v3 of the game is very misleading, as it has almost none of the additions from the retail release patches (apart from the .img check/lack of modding, the removal of Hot Coffee assets and the exploded cars fix for some reason). Rather, it's evidently based on the Xbox version of the game on account of some Xbox-exclusive quirks such as smaller subtitles/radio headers and a similar save menu. It also has its own slew of unique bugs...and fixes.

These changes include:

• Two bug fixes exclusive to the Steam version: Shooting weapons while on a jet pack will no longer have the weapon icon disappear while doing so, and a bug that made some objects change its lighting when switching from armed to unarmed was fixed as well.
• Steering with Mouse is enabled by default.
• The frame limiter is slightly broken, as rather than locking the game at 25 FPS when enabled, it locks at 26 FPS, which actually makes it slightly choppier.
• While semi-inherent to a game being on Steam, this release introduces DRM, meaning you must be online/have Steam open to play the game at all.

Steam - 3.1/newsteam r1

Also known as newsteam r1, this was an update for the Steam version released on November 7, 2014. The update is rather infamous for a number of reasons.

• Most infamously, a whopping 18 tracks were cut with this update due to Rockstar no longer wanting to renew the licenses for them. One of the cut songs was Killing in the Name Of, which actually has a small snippet played when a date goes wrong. To replace this, Rockstar simply has the same date music play regardless of if it's going well or not.
• The game now has support for XInput controllers now, such as Xbox 360 pads. Previous versions had wonky analog stick support, meaning you could not do things such as move the camera with them. For some reason, the UI still shows generic "JOY#" words instead of graphics for the actual corresponding buttons, and the triggers didn't support different amounts of pressure for driving, meaning you can only go full speed when using them. Also, there is no support for rumble.
  • Support for DirectInput pads has been removed as well.
• Support for 5:4 resolutions was removed for unknown reasons.
• Version numbers are no longer displayed on the menu.

Steam - 3.2/newsteam r2

Rockstar released another update one month later, known as the newsteam r2 update. Not much was changed with this except that 16:9 resolutions were finally added in...but bizarrely, the vertical ratio has been shrunken slightly, meaning everyone and everything looks subtly more squished than they did before.

Surprisingly, both the .img check and DRM were removed with this update, meaning it could be (partially) modded again and no longer required an internet connection at all times.

"Remastered" Version

In October 2014, the original Xbox 360 emulated version was replaced with a "remastered" version built off the mobile port; this version also replaced the PS3 emulated version on December 1, 2015, although the version released on PS4 uses the emulated PS2 original as a base. Despite being considered a "remastered" version by Rockstar, this has several issues not present in the original or mobile releases.

Bugs

• Ambulances and planes tend to disappear before arriving near the player if the game is played in 16:9 ratio.
• Driving too fast causes vast amounts of graphical garbage (Xbox 360) or white blobs (PS3) on the left side of the screen.
• The original Xbox 360 release had poor optimization that was fixed about a week later.
• Reuniting the Families and Air Raid no longer allow the player to skip cutscenes.
• A lot of audio randomly cuts out or does not play at all.
• Damaged car parts change color.
• The flight training mission freezes on the second screen unless the "OK" button is rapidly mashed, which otherwise prevents any sort of further progress in the story. This is mostly an issue on the Xbox 360 version, but some people have reported it happening on PS3 as well.
• Weapons can no longer be seen through windows.

Removed Songs

A number of tracks were removed, presumably due to expired licensing deals.

Playback FM

• "Critical Beatdown" by Ultramagnetic MCs

K-DST

• "Runnin' Down a Dream" by Tom Petty
• "Woman to Woman" by Joe Cocker

Bounce FM

• "Yum Yum (Gimme Some)" by Fatback Band
• "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" by Gap Band
• "Running Away" by Roy Ayers

Radio Los Santos

• "I Don't Give a Fuck" by 2Pac
• "Express Yourself" by N.W.A.

Radio X

• "Hellraiser" by Ozzy Osbourne
• "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine (this also affects the "bad date" cutscene).

K-JAH West

• "Don't Let It Go to Your Head" by Black Harmony
• "Ring My Bell" by Blood Sisters

Master Sounds 98.3

• "Express Yourself" by Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band
• "Rock Creek Park" by The Blackbyrds
• "Funky President" by James Brown (can still be heard inside casinos)
• "The Payback" by James Brown
• "The Grunt" by The JB's

Other Changes

• Due to the lack of a frame limiter feature, Carl has a drastically slower swimming speed, meaning certain missions (such as the triathlon) are nearly impossible to beat.
• Audio was down sampled and changed to mono, resulting in various audio artifacts, with the PS3 version having even worse audio quality.
• OG Loc has a different, glitchy texture for his beanie in the cutscenes. This is because the texture is from an earlier design that had him wearing a bandana on his head, which was only seen in an early screenshot of the PS2 version. His in-game model uses the normal texture though.
• Cars now have a rather selectively applied shine effect.