GTA Vice City was built on the RenderWare game engine (specifically version 3.x). At the time, DirectX 8.1 was the industry standard for handling multimedia tasks, specifically 3D graphics and audio, on Windows XP and Windows 98 systems.
When Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released in late 2002, it arrived at a pivotal moment in PC gaming history. The graphical landscape was shifting rapidly, and the bridge between the PlayStation 2 architecture and the Windows PC environment was built upon a specific piece of software: . gta vice city directx 8.1