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Modder Renders Vice City Inside GTA III Inside San Andreas

The creator used in‑process rendering that shares San Andreas’s Direct3D device to draw playable legacy GTA engines into live GPU textures.

Overview

  • A modder known as Dryxio has posted videos showing Vice City running inside GTA III while GTA III itself runs on a TV inside Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, producing a stacked, playable display.
  • The setup runs the older games inside the San Andreas process and writes their output directly to GPU textures rather than playing back pre‑recorded video.
  • Players can switch control between San Andreas’s protagonist and embedded protagonists without pausing the San Andreas world, and each embedded game supports its own saves and progress.
  • The publicly shared mod package does not include GTA III or Vice City files, so users must provide original game assets to use the demo; this remains a community mod rather than a Rockstar release.
  • The work builds on earlier fan reimplementations and a February 2026 port by the same creator and highlights how modders are preserving and experimenting with classic GTA engines ahead of the new franchise entry.