The former author of GTA 3 again shared an interesting detail regarding the development of the game

We are talking about difficulties with long loading of models.

Programmer and ex-Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij shared another interesting story about the creation of GTA 3. It is related to the open world of the game and the detail of the models. According to Vermeil, the team couldn’t fit the entire game map into the PS2 console’s memory, so they had to load the data from a DVD. To increase loading speed, models that were close to each other on the map had to be placed close to each other on the DVD itself. This trick allowed us to speed up loading.

But even the above actions were not enough, since users would somehow see poor detail of buildings and missing parts of roads. So the team decided to simply slow down the protagonist, Claude. To achieve this, Portland’s road routes were rerouted to prevent vehicles from accelerating too quickly. In addition, air resistance was increased by 5% in problem areas.