Windows XP Problem with GTA: Vice City

[PCaddicted]

I have the game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on my Windows XP Service Pack 3 system but it doesn't run very smoothly. It jams from time to time. Sometimes it even crashes. I can't understand why this is happening, because I also play GTA: San Andreas on my PC and this one works fine. Vice City and San Andreas have similar system requirements so it can't be a problem related to hardware(heating, bad ventilation, dust) or system resources. The CD that I use for playing the game(genuine) is in good condition. I have no mods for Vice City. My system specs are: Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core 2.5 GHz; Graphics board: ATI Radeon HD 4670/4650 1Gb; 2 Gb of RAM. Please help me.

 

[Expert]

Vice City was always buggy and crashes whether you use legal copies or copies that do not require a CD

When you say it crashes, I understand
When you say it doesn't run "smoothly", I don't understand

Not running smoothly indicates you may have a graphics problem
Did you accidentally plug your monitor into the motherboards onboard graphics adapter by mistake? (If you have such graphics)
I have done that a few times myself

Drivers up to date?
Game drive defragged?
Windows debugged or reinstalled?

If you simply meant the game locks up or crashes, that is normal for that game

 

[PCaddicted]

"Not running smoothly" means that it jams frequently(sometimes for several seconds), but it is responsive .
"Crashing" means that it becomes unresponsive and I have to use Ctrl+Alt+Delete.
It has no graphics-related bugs on my PC.
I've heard of a way to prevent it from crashing. This involves launching the game, using Alt-Tab to jump to the desktop, opening the Task Manager, selecting the "Processes" tab, right-clicking the gta_vc.exe process, selecting "Set Affinity" from the dropdown menu and making sure all boxes except "CPU0' are unticked. I've tried it and it works.
The game still jams from time to time, but now it functions better than before.