GTA 开发者称实现 30 FPS 是最后一刻的挣扎

Published Oct 22, 2026, 11:27 AM EDT

Rajarshi Acharya is a writer at DualShockers who has been covering video games professionally since 2021. His work spans news, guides, features, and editorial coverage across open-world games, RPGs, immersive sims, and major releases, with Grand Theft Auto and Rockstar Games among his primary areas of expertise.
Before joining DualShockers, Rajarshi built his experience across several gaming publications. He has written extensively for Sportskeeda, where he also managed teams of writers, and has contributed to Deltia's Gaming, where he similarly handled team management alongside his editorial work. He has also written for CharlieIntel and KeenGamer. Over the years, his work has ranged from breaking news and major industry developments to guides, features, and long-running franchise coverage. Rajarshi holds a B.A. (Hons.) in English from the University of Calcutta and an M.A. in English from Rabindra Bharati University.

Today, October 22, marks the 25th anniversary of Grand Theft Auto 3, the game that brought Rockstar's crime sandbox into a fully 3D Liberty City and changed open-world gaming forever.

To mark the occasion, Obbe Vermeij, a former Rockstar North dev, spoke to iGrandTheftAuto about his experience developing the 2001 PlayStation 2 classic, revealing just how difficult it was to get the game running properly.

According to Vermeij, GTA 3 frequently ran at just seven or eight frames per second during development, and the team initially feared they might have to settle for 20 FPS. It wasn't until the very end of production that they finally managed to hit 30 FPS, a figure that might sound fairly modest by today's standards.

GTA 3 Was Running At Just 7 Or 8 FPS During Development

Working on a game that barely managed seven or eight FPS was difficult enough, but frequent crashes made things even worse. Driving around Liberty City or testing a mission wasn't exactly straightforward when the game was in such an unstable state.

If you're an avid fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, Obbe Vermeij needs no introduction. He's the former technical director at Rockstar North, the studio behind the GTA games, and is credited on every major title from GTA 3 to Chinatown Wars. What's made him particularly popular among fans in recent years, though, is his habit of sharing behind-the-scenes stories and trivia about these games on social media, often revealing details that even longtime fans might not know.

As Vermeij recalled, "It was only at the very end we got to 30 frames per second, but most of the time when you’re developing, it’s more like 7 or 8 frames per second."

GTA 3 was developed by DMA Design, which would later become Rockstar North, back in the RenderWare days, when Grand Theft Auto was known primarily for its sandbox gameplay rather than the immersive, cinematic experiences and detailed open worlds we've come to associate with the series today.

Rockstar hadn't yet become the industry giant it is now, and the hardware limitations of consoles like the PlayStation 2 meant developers often had to make compromises when it came to graphics, performance, and features.

Part of the problem was simply that there was no previous 3D GTA to build upon. The original Grand Theft Auto and GTA 2 were top-down, 2D experiences that had already established the series' sandbox formula, but translating that formula into a fully 3D world was an entirely different challenge. Vice City and San Andreas would later benefit from the foundations laid by GTA 3, but the team developing the third game didn't have that luxury.

That also meant the developers could not always tell whether the ideas were actually fun. Vermeij said it was unusual to finish a mission without the game crashing, which is hardly ideal when those missions involve high-speed chases, navigating heavy traffic, dealing with hostile NPCs, and everything else happening around the player.

The freedom that made Liberty City so exciting in 2001 was also what made it difficult to put together. As Vermeij put it, "You kind of can’t really judge how good the game is until it all comes together."

The uncertainty wasn't just confined to the programmers, though. Vermeij remembered GTA 3's showing at E3 2001 as a disappointment, leaving the team wondering whether they had misjudged the project altogether. Looking back, it's easy to assume that everyone at Rockstar knew they had a hit on their hands, but that wasn't how it felt to the people making it.

The Game Only Started Feeling Special Near The Finish Line

The turnaround came in the final months. About six months before launch, Vermeij said, "We got the frame rate up, we got most of the bugs fixed, the music went in, and all of a sudden it was like polishing a gem." Once those pieces were in place, the experience began to resemble the GTA 3 people remember today. Before then, even the developers had been looking at incomplete parts rather than the whole thing.

One of the things that made GTA 3 special was that you didn't really have to do anything in particular to enjoy it. You could simply steal a Kuruma, tune into Chatterbox FM, and spend the next half an hour driving around Portland, getting into trouble with the police. Or you could just go on a rampage, experimenting with the different weapons and vehicles to see how much chaos you could cause. Cheats made things even more fun. You could spawn a Rhino tank and use its cannon to launch yourself over the broken Callahan Bridge, reaching Staunton Island long before you were supposed to.

Vermeij remembered GTA 3's showing at E3 2001 as a disappointment, leaving the team wondering whether they had misjudged the project altogether.

The missions were obviously important, but much of the fun came from messing around in Liberty City and seeing what happened. And that's exactly what I spent most of my time doing when I was around eight years old.

The music in particular was more than something added for atmosphere. GTA 3's stations helped make Liberty City feel like a place with its own personality, whether Claude was cruising across the Callahan Bridge or fleeing the police in a battered taxi. It's what made me fall in love with Scarface and become a lifelong fan of Giorgio Moroder in the first place.

Every song on Flashback FM comes from the film's soundtrack, composed and produced by the legendary Italian musician. Rockstar has kept radio and licensed music central to the series ever since, right through to the recently announced GTA 6 soundtrack album and the game's new heavy-metal radio station.

However, there was another surprise waiting after launch. Vermeij recalled that GTA 3 did not immediately appear to be the overwhelming success it would become. Its sales continued over time as word spread, rather than peaking briefly and disappearing. That gave the team a chance to realize just how many players had connected with its unusual mixture of freedom, chaos, and storytelling.

With GTA 6 set to launch on November 19, 2026, it's remarkable to think how far the series has come since the days of GTA 3. Rockstar now has considerably more resources at its disposal, but Vermeij's recollections offer an interesting look at a time when the studio was still finding its feet in the world of 3D games.