Since reports of freezes are taking over the internet (here in Holland it reached the frontpage of the main news site) there's probably a lot of people looking for this.

Take Two has published this list. It's for PS3, but most things also help for the 360 version, although there seems to bess less problems with that:

Please run through the following, go through in order.

1) Delete the game's install data. This is done via the PS3 options. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Game' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Game Data Utility' Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, from the menu select Delete. This will delete the game's install information.

2) Delete the game's save files. To delete any save files you will need to do the following. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Game' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Save Data Utility' Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, and from the context menu select Delete.

3) Disable your Internet connectivity for the PS3. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Settings' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Network Settings'. Now scroll down to the Internet connection option and press x, now select the disable option. Once this has been done unplug the ethernet cable if you are connecting to the Internet if using this.

4) Disable the console's information board. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Network' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Information Board', highlight this and press triangle. From the menu select 'Do not display' Press X to confirm this.

5) Disable Media Server functionality. Scroll to Settings, now scroll up / down to 'Network Settings' select Media Server connection. Once this has been done press triangle and change the option Disabled.

6) Delete all of the system's Internet cache. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Network' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Internet Browser', highlight this and press X. Once you browser opens press the triangle button once, from the new menu highlight the 'Tools' option and press X. Scroll down the menu until you reach 'Delete Cookies' and press X. Confirm the files deletion. Repeat this for 'Delete Cache'.

7 ) Turn off the PS3 screen saver. Use the cross media bar to scroll to 'Settings', select 'Display Settings'. Now highlight 'Screensaver' and set this to 'Do not use'.

8 ) Once this has been done, manually restart you PS3 by holding down the power button for 5 seconds it will beep once and then shut down. Release the power button and re-press it and hold for about 5 seconds. The system will then boot and reset all display settings. You will be prompted to reset your display settings to how you require them.

9) Once restarted please try the game again, you will be prompted to reinstall.

Once the game has started please turn off the following features:

1) The game's auto-save. Press Start, Game, and locate the Auto-save option. Turn this off.

2) Turn off the game's flicker filter. Press Start, Display and locate the Flicker Filter option. Turn this off.

3) Turn off the controller vibration feature. Press Start, Controls and locate the vibration option. Turn this off.

Wow, is it really that big of a problem on the PS3? That sucks.

Looks like instructions to compile a linux packed... or to fix a game installed on a PC...

That sucks. I didn't think many people had this problem.

This is why it rocks to have outdated tec :D

Maybe they should have better called it Grand Freeze Auto IV (aka GFA IV) instead ? :)

I never knew R* could make an even more broken game then the GTA games on the PS2, but then they made bully on the 360, then they top it off with GTA4. I wonder if they even test the games before they send them out, the game freezes every time you try to play it, then it freezes when you try to go online and freezes when you try to do anything else.

They also made the game completely boring to play offline after you finish the story, each time you die you lose 10k cash, and i only have 600k and one RPG round cost's 5k. Its fucking retarded, and there is no way that i have found to make mass amounts of Money like you could in the other GTA games.

I can't even find the Hunter, which makes me think its not in the game and doing the Brown Thunder mission was the best part of this game.

Good lord you have to turn off rumble, and delete the cookies (which in themselves demand basically nothing)

Is this all just an effort to make as much space for the game to run as possible?
Should everyone be deleting their other game files? (Yes I know they will not affect the RAM or whatever it is that it needs)

no prob with 360 version yet! I might rent it for PS3 just to see what happens!

man i just got this problem now my PS3 is freezing everywhere i go on it and why do i have to delete my game saves....i worked soooo hard....18 hours thats not cool