Cover-Credits:
There has been a lot of talk about GTA 5.5 and if you are wondering if it's a new game by Rockstar Games, it's not. GTA 5.5 is a mod specifically for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V. It's not available for consoles (PS, Xbox etc.). If you are interested in GTA 5.5, here's a quick guide to help you get started with modding your game.
What is GTA 5.5?
GTA 5.5 offers a significant upgrade to the game's visuals and gameplay. Expect features like improved graphics, weather effects, vehicle handling, and even new content like cars. It offers the same core experience as GTA 5 but with incredible graphical and gameplay improvements that you might enjoy. It's created by the modding community, not Rockstar themselves. While extensive, it's not an official expansion and may have bugs or compatibility issues so be warned in case you want to try it out.
Download Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/gta5/mods/275?tab=description
How to Install:
Use OpenIV to open the archives as shown in this folder and place the files in the corresponding locations within your GTA V directory.
Files located within update/update.rpf inside this zip should be placed inside Grand Theft Auto V/update/update.rpf
According to the official modding team for GTA 5.5, here's a full rundown of what you can expect from the mod:
World & Graphics
‣ More reflections
‣ Render distances increased for various lights - traffic, street, misc
‣ Street lights brighter and new dust effect added
‣ Everything crisper with more contrast and less gamma. Reduced ever-present fog to realistic levels and colour.
‣ Removed all camera effects from first person view
‣ Sunlight is much brighter, shadows darker
‣ Subtle heat haze effect added around peak times (midday) out in the country especially
‣ Rain thicker, effecting visibility a lot more and darkening the sky more. Thunder nights are dangerous
‣ Night times much, much darker, particularly in the countryside
‣ Waves a little bigger
Vehicles
‣ Complex, hand-crafted handling remodelling for ~85% of vehicles. Feel
the weight of the car and the tearing of the rubber...
‣ Complex, hand-crafted traffic systems across the world, heavily incorporating day & night cycles with busy rush hour traffic, quiet residential roads at night with lots of parked cars, and so on
‣ Carefully selected DLC vehicles added to traffic with paint variety, in some cases manufacturer paints for the real life version of that car. Also more variations of utility vehicles, limousines and motorcycles.
‣ New variations of taxi based on common LA taxi colours in real life
‣ A lot more taxis, especially at night in vinewood and other popular night spots
‣ Faster AI drivers
‣ Vehicle render distance increased
‣ Headlight, brake light, dashboard light etc casting distances and render distances modified to match real life, including for NPC vehicles
‣ Realistically intense neons & draw distance increased
‣ Powerful emergency vehicle lights which reach across streets
‣ Realistic light coronas - less noticeable normally but blinding during rain
Police
‣ Patrolling the streets in a variety of vehicles, mostly in tourist spots during the day and gang zones at night
‣ Realistic dispatch system that takes time to send units from around the city - no more teleporting police
‣ Chance to not even see police when low level wanted
‣ Evade wanted state by fleeing and then hiding
‣ Police carry a wider variety of weapons
‣ Forces are more diverse, with a range of police types from officers to detectives to SWAT to special agents
‣ Tactics improved - more likely to perform PIT manoeuvres and less likely to be easily outrun
Gangs
‣ Gangs take over parts of the city at night, mainly south central LS (davis, strawberry etc)
‣ Gang members likely to be found driving cool cars, with cool music and passengers
‣ Fights and gunfights break out often, with realistic popular street choice weapons such as machetes, glock18 and uzi and variation depending the type of gang - black gangs prefer machine pistols, chinese prefer higher quality, hillbillys use backwoods shotgun and such
‣ Fighting localised mostly to hood areas at night
‣ Complex relationship system - some gangs allied, some join fights but won't start them, etc
‣ Some may commit hatecrimes against gays
‣ General crime increased and complexity raised
Peds
‣ Higher density
‣ Complex, hand-crafted pedestrian systems also, with busy rush hours and a strong variation between day and night
‣ AI behaviour more random
‣ People converse faster and more often
‣ All people have a chance to carry a weapon, usually a taser or basic melee like broken bottle, but that grandma could be packing heat!
‣ Melee damage reduced to accommodate better melee fighting
‣ Weapon impacts reduced so that people die realistically
