According to developer Rockstar, the update "prevents Gamespy's servers from being overloaded and therefore reduces the impact on those servers that were causing the game to stutter and lock up."

Added the company: "We continue to monitor the performance of the game both on and offline and will provide further updates as necessary. We want to assure everyone that, together with our hardware partners, we continue to strive to give our fans the best possible interactive entertainment experiences possible."

Original Story: A patch for Rockstar North's PlayStation 3 edition of Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, X360) is slated to arrive later today, reports Eurogamer.

The download is said to "hopefully" resolve the reported freezing issues as well as improve multiplayer performance by reducing server load. Though functional at times, the game's multiplayer component has been inaccessible to some PS3 users during peak times.