A fan-created modification for Grand Theft Auto V has reduced the game’s installation size from more than 100 gigabytes to just 2.5GB, dramatically cutting storage requirements but significantly lowering visual quality and performance. The nearly 13-year-old title from Rockstar Games has grown in size over time due to regular updates, with current recommended specifications listing 105GB of storage on a DirectStorage-compatible drive.
The mod was demonstrated in a video shared on social media by a creator known as Synth Potato. Despite the drastic reduction in file size, the altered version of the game remains partially playable. However, the fictional state of San Andreas and its characters appear heavily degraded, with flattened textures, missing environmental detail and animations that frequently stutter. Frame rates in the demonstration drop into single digits.
To achieve the smaller footprint, the mod removes large sections of the in-game map along with certain missions and audio files. The result includes extensive clipping and noticeable graphical artifacts. Still, some core gameplay elements remain functional, with footage showing a player driving vehicles, firing weapons and skydiving, albeit with laggy controls and reduced responsiveness.
The experiment comes as storage hardware costs remain elevated, driven in part by demand from artificial intelligence data centers. Gamers increasingly face trade-offs between maintaining large game libraries and investing in higher-capacity drives. While some users report acceptable performance on traditional hard disk drives, others rely on NVMe solid-state drives to minimize loading times and stuttering.
See also: Fan-made Mod Expands Military Presence in Red Dead Redemption 2
Rockstar’s official specifications for the latest enhanced edition recommend significant storage capacity, underscoring how modern updates have expanded the game’s footprint. In the original article, the author noted that “less dramatic cutbacks would have yielded a more appealing solution to rising storage prices,” highlighting the tension between affordability and performance. On consoles, such deep modifications are not possible, though a recent patent filing by Sony has outlined a potential cloud-streaming approach aimed at reducing local file sizes without increasing latency, a concept that could influence future titles such as the next installment in the franchise.