v0.1.7 - Touch controls

Touch controls

Play on a phone or tablet with a touch screen. The game sees the touch controls as a controller, so you get analog movement and camera, the console controls and the controller's help messages.

• Move: put your left thumb down anywhere on the left half; a stick appears there. Push it to the edge to run.
• Look: drag anywhere on the right half; the camera turns as fast as your finger moves.
• Big buttons named for what they do, which change with what you're doing:
  • on foot: FIRE, AIM, JUMP, ENTER, COVER, RELOAD, CROUCH, LOOK BACK, PHONE, PICK UP and switching guns
  • in a vehicle: GAS, BRAKE, HANDBRAKE, EXIT, SHOOT, LOOK BACK and the radio
  • in the pause menu, the map and the phone: a big d-pad with SELECT, BACK and the tabs
• Each button has its Xbox letter beside it, so the game's "press Y" messages still make sense.
• Slide your thumb from one button to the next without lifting it.
• The pause menu's Controls page shows a picture of the touch layout.
• The hub works by touch: tap to choose, swipe to scroll.

The Touch: On / Off button next to Fullscreen turns them on or off, and the browser remembers your choice. They're on by themselves on touch screens.

The touch controls were tested with simulated touches, not yet on a real phone or tablet. Phones also need a browser that can run the game at all: open check.html on the device first. iPhones and iPads can't run it yet.

Updating

Unzip over your old folder or next to it; the installed game and your saves stay in the browser. If you host the game for others, restart the server with the new files, and players should reload once (Ctrl+Shift+R).

v0.1.6 - Episodes

Fixed

• Episodes are found again. Since v0.1.5 the hub's Episodes page didn't see an episode package put in the install folder, and the install screens showed 0 free space. Both work again.

Playing the episodes

You need the Xbox Live packages for GTA IV from your own Xbox 360 (on its drive: Content/0000000000000000/545407F2/00000002):

Episode	File (no extension)	Size
The Lost and Damned	B66716ED23BE790FCF1210AB932119501DC7405E54	about 1.8 GB
The Ballad of Gay Tony	C7CE183800831B6FF277AAFC71B9B904C676354154	about 1.9 GB

1. Start the game once, then put the package in the release's web/files/install/ folder (not game-files).
2. In the hub, open Episodes and press Enter to install it (each adds about 2 GB to the browser's storage).
3. Pick the episode on Home and play.

Tested: The Lost and Damned installs in seconds and plays. The Ballad of Gay Tony uses the same steps but hasn't been tried yet.

Updating

Unzip over your old folder or next to it; the installed game and your saves stay in the browser. If you host the game for others, restart the server with the new files, and players should reload once (Ctrl+Shift+R).

v0.1.5 - Play over the internet

Playing from a server over the internet

If you host the game on one computer and play it in a browser on another (over an HTTPS tunnel or a domain), it now starts and installs properly instead of sitting on a black screen.

• Faster start. The game engine is sent compressed (66 MB → 14 MB), and the loading screen shows how much has downloaded, the speed and the time left.
• Much faster install over a slow link. The disc is read over several connections at once with read-ahead. On a link that gives about 0.7 MB/s per connection, the install went from about 0.2 MB/s (hours) to 4–7 MB/s (about 20–25 minutes).
• No more "The install stopped / Failed while reading …rpf". A dropped download is retried instead of ending the install, and the downloaded disc data is no longer all kept in memory.
• No more "Pthread sent an error" or "waiting on run dependencies: loading-workers". The game's threads now start from a copy of the engine script the page already has. Before, each one downloaded it again over the network.
• No more black screen during the install. The loading screen stays up with the install's progress until the menu is ready.
• Playing on the same computer that runs the server is unchanged.

To play from another computer, the page has to be opened over HTTPS (for example through a tunnel); plain http:// only works on the computer running the server. The browser also needs about 7 GB of storage for the install.

Saves and your install carry over: download the new zip, unzip it and use Play GTA IV from there as before. If the page doesn't start after updating, reload it once with Ctrl+Shift+R (Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac).

How to play

1. Install Python 3 (python.org; on Windows tick Add python.exe to PATH) and Chrome or Edge.
2. Download gta4-web-v0.1.5.zip below (not "Source code") and unzip it.
3. Put your own GTA IV (USA, Xbox 360) .iso and Title Update 8 in game-files/.
4. Double-click Play GTA IV (Mac: right-click > Open the first time).

No game files are included. Web port by itzzace, built on Liberty Recompiled (OZORDI), LibertyRecompAndroid (vaduur), the PS5 port (elripalda) and ReXGlue. GPL-3.0.

v0.1.4 - Cutscene faces

Cutscene faces fixed

• Faces no longer go missing in cutscenes after the intro. In the apartment cutscene at the end of the first drive ("The Cousins Bellic"), Niko's and Roman's faces could vanish, leaving their teeth and eyes floating. The game rebuilds the heads' vertex layout in the same spot in memory once the intro's characters are unloaded, and the web renderer kept using the intro's old layout for the new heads. Each new layout is now kept separately, so the heads draw correctly.
• The intro, lighting and performance are the same as v0.1.3.

Saves and your install carry over: download the new zip, unzip it and use Play GTA IV from there as before. If the page doesn't start after updating, reload it once with Ctrl+Shift+R (Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac).

How to play

1. Install Python 3 (python.org; on Windows tick Add python.exe to PATH) and Chrome or Edge.
2. Download gta4-web-v0.1.4.zip below (not "Source code") and unzip it.
3. Put your own GTA IV (USA, Xbox 360) .iso and Title Update 8 in game-files/.
4. Double-click Play GTA IV (Mac: right-click > Open the first time).

No game files are included. Web port by itzzace, built on Liberty Recompiled (OZORDI), LibertyRecompAndroid (vaduur), the PS5 port (elripalda) and ReXGlue. GPL-3.0.

v0.1.3 - Performance

Runs much better, especially on slower computers

• Far less memory: the game's tab used about 14 GB of RAM; it now uses about 3.5 GB. Computers with 8 GB can run it.
• Smoother driving and busy streets: each frame draws less and every draw costs less. On a fast Mac, swerving through the docks went from about 34 fps to a steady 60.
• No more freezes when a new scene loads (they were up to a quarter of a second).
• Slower computers get lighter settings automatically: the first time the menu opens, it looks at your computer's processor and memory. On a weaker one it starts with a shorter Draw Distance and fewer cars and people. You can change them in Display at any time, and settings you've already chosen are kept.
• On a simulated low-end computer the intro now averages about 58 fps, against 45 before, with no long stutters.

Saves and your install carry over: download the new zip, unzip it and use Play GTA IV from there as before. If the page doesn't start after updating, reload it once with Ctrl+Shift+R (Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac).

How to play

1. Install Python 3 (python.org; on Windows tick Add python.exe to PATH) and Chrome or Edge.
2. Download gta4-web-v0.1.3.zip below (not "Source code") and unzip it.
3. Put your own GTA IV (USA, Xbox 360) .iso and Title Update 8 in game-files/.
4. Double-click Play GTA IV (Mac: right-click > Open the first time).

No game files are included. Web port by itzzace, built on Liberty Recompiled (OZORDI), LibertyRecompAndroid (vaduur), the PS5 port (elripalda) and ReXGlue. GPL-3.0.

v0.1.2

A bug fix release.

Fixed

• Imported Xbox 360 saves now show up in the game. Before, Import Xbox 360 Saves said the save was imported but the game's Load menu said there were none. Now the game finds them and loads the newest one when it starts. If you imported a save on v0.1.1, import it again.
• Saves from a 360 set to another language (for example Spanish) are read too.
• Starting play.py from GitHub's Source code download now tells you to get the release zip, instead of opening a page that doesn't load.

How to play

1. Install Python 3 (Windows: tick Add python.exe to PATH) and Chrome or Edge.
2. Download gta4-web-v0.1.2.zip below (not "Source code") and unzip it.
3. Put your own USA Xbox 360 disc image (.iso) and Title Update 8 (TU_1A581VI_000000K000000.0000000000205) in game-files.
4. Double-click Play GTA IV (.command on a Mac, right-click > Open the first time; .bat on Windows).

Coming from an older version? Unzip this one and move your files from the old game-files folder. Your install and saves stay in the browser.

Bringing a 360 save over: in the hub, Saves > Import Xbox 360 Saves > Choose Files, and pick the save file (for example SGTA400). Use Load Saves From a File only for a .zip made by Download Saves.

No game files are included. Web port by itzzace, built on Liberty Recompiled (OZORDI), LibertyRecompAndroid (vaduur), the PS5 port (elripalda) and ReXGlue. GPL-3.0.

v0.1.1

A bug fix release.

Fixed

• Clicking on the loading screen, or pressing keys and clicking in the hub, could drop the page into a black fullscreen. Fullscreen now only comes from the Fullscreen button in the top right.

How to play

1. Install Python 3 (Windows: tick Add python.exe to PATH) and Chrome or Edge.
2. Download gta4-web-v0.1.1.zip below and unzip it.
3. Put your own USA Xbox 360 disc image (.iso) and Title Update 8 (TU_1A581VI_000000K000000.0000000000205) in game-files.
4. Double-click Play GTA IV (.command on a Mac, right-click > Open the first time; .bat on Windows).

Coming from v0.1.0? Unzip this one and move your files from the old game-files folder. Your install and saves stay in the browser.

No game files are included. Web port by itzzace, built on Liberty Recompiled (OZORDI), LibertyRecompAndroid (vaduur), the PS5 port (elripalda) and ReXGlue. GPL-3.0.

GTA IV on the Web v0.1.0

The first release: GTA IV (Xbox 360) in your browser.

How to play

1. Install Python 3 (Windows: tick Add python.exe to PATH) and Chrome or Edge.
2. Download gta4-web-v0.1.0.zip below and unzip it.
3. Put your own USA Xbox 360 disc image (.iso) and Title Update 8 (TU_1A581VI_000000K000000.0000000000205) in game-files.
4. Double-click Play GTA IV (.command on a Mac, right-click > Open the first time; .bat on Windows).

The first start installs the game into the browser (a few minutes, about 8 GB). After that it starts in seconds.

In this release

• The game recompiled to WebAssembly and drawn with WebGPU, matched to the Xbox 360's look
• The hub: Home, Display, Game, Episodes, Saves, Achievements, About
• Keyboard and mouse or a controller, with prompts for PlayStation, Xbox and Switch pads and keyboard keycaps
• The pause menu's Controls page for each controller and the keyboard, put into your own copy of the game's menu textures when it installs
• Browser saves with download, load from a file, and Xbox 360 save import
• Loading screen with progress, fullscreen, FPS counter (F8)

Not yet: Safari, Firefox and iPhone / iPad browsers can't run it. Open http://localhost:8765/check.html while it runs to check a browser.

No game files are included. Web port by itzzace, built on Liberty Recompiled (OZORDI), LibertyRecompAndroid (vaduur), the PS5 port (elripalda) and ReXGlue. GPL-3.0.