>I picked up GTA IV this morning, and by some odd cooincidence also had today off. I popped it in, it did a file copy to the HD (about 5 to 10 minutes) which is like 3+ Gig.

I got in it and it looked blurry… I checked the box, 720p, 1080i, 1080p… and then I checked the TV – 720p. There were no settings in the game (guess I’m too used to PC games) so I went out to the main PS3 menu. There are normally settings when hitting /_\ but not in this case – nothing relevant other then it’s a parental control level 9 game 🙂

In any case I finally weeded through all the tiny text in the back of the game manual to find the technical support line. I got through after not too long (they’ll probably get a bunch later on) and spoke with the guy. I was skeptical at first because he told me it was the display settings of the PS3. He told me (in a cockney accent) that I’d need to set it to 1080p. I said I was in 1080p and the main menu was displaying in 1080p, so I knew it was working. He put me on hold to check.

Apparently in the display settings you can check all the boxes for the resolution(s) your TV can handle. I had 720p, 1080i, and 1080p checked. Per his instructions I unchecked 720p and left 1080i/p.
Saved, went back into the game… and voila 1080p.

So if you’re experiencing issues with GTA4 getting HD res, you need to take 720p out of your settings. I assume they’ll fix this with an update down the road, but if you’re checking it out day 1, you may want this handy little tidbit.

*sidenote*
After some additional confusion regarding the multiplayer aspect, simply press Up on the D-pad and then X when the phone is up to get the sub-menu.

Check out the Getting Started in Multiplayer for GTAIV PDF. It’s got both PS3 and XBox360 but I bet XBox Live users didn’t have such a difficult time with it 😉