What it does
Open the game's archives, look inside every file and change them safely. SparkIV reads the files of your own copy of the game; it contains no game data.
Archives
Browse the IMG and RPF archives of GTA IV, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.
Cutscenes .cut
Plays the cutscenes with cast, camera, lights, sound and location, lit and shaded the way the game does it.
Models .wdr .wdd .wft
Models in 3D, with their textures and shaders.
Textures .wtd
View and export the textures of a dictionary.
Animations .wad
Play the animations of a dictionary.
Audio .ivaud
Listen to sound banks, including multichannel tracks, and export them.
Scripts .sco
Decompiled or disassembled mission scripts.
Collision .wbn .wbd
See the collision of the map.
Editing
Replace and import files in an edit mode. The original of every file is backed up before SparkIV first writes to it.
Get started
A legally owned copy of GTA IV or Episodes from Liberty City for PC is required.
Download
Get reditec.SparkIV-win-Setup.exe from the releases.
Install
Run it. As the app isn't signed yet, Windows may warn you: choose "More info", then "Run anyway".
Open your game
SparkIV finds the game folder or asks for it. New versions install with one click and show what's new; the channel is set in Settings → Updates.
What's new in 0.9.0 Alpha 4
Released on November 2, 2026. Cutscenes come much closer to the game, the intro plays in its right places, and loading and playback are far smoother.
- Highly experimental: a running time of day that follows playback, with an adjustable start time. So far cutscenes were tested mainly at noon, so other times of day can look noticeably wrong.
- Switching between sections and seeking no longer stutter or flash; loading is much faster and uses far less memory.
- Busy scenes, like the intro's harbour, play much more smoothly.
- Scenes that play in several places, like the intro, show each section in its own place, with the city's skyline from the ship's deck.
- Faces move like in the game, and shoulders, forearms and necks twist as in the game.
- Water, sky and sun shadows are closer to the game, and The Lost and Damned's cutscenes have their clouds.
- Lamps have their soft glow, lamp glass glows as in the game, and windows mirror their surroundings.
- Surfaces shine and show their bumps as in the game, and buildings are drawn as far as in the game.
All versions: changelog · release on GitHub
Where it's heading
Version 1.0 will be the first that fully supports GTA IV on PC:
- every file of the game opens;
- all cutscenes look as they do in the game;
- export, edit and import, compatible with OpenIV's openFormats.
Known differences from the game are tracked in the issues.
Open source
SparkIV is free software under the GNU General Public License v3.
It was started by aru in 2008 and carried on by Ahmed Walid and Silent Spud; reditec has rebuilt it as a WinUI app since 2026. Contributions and bug reports are welcome on GitHub.
