I’m sure that lots of you have been roaming around Liberty City for the past few weeks after the Android release of sandbox classic Grand Theft Auto 3. (Well, I’m sure that those of our readers who are 18 and above have, anyway. Wink wink.) You’ve probably heard that the settings file for GTA3′s graphics is easily found and manipulated by any text editor, but if you want something quicker and more accessible, XDA member “hacksteak25″ has a basic tweak app ready for your use immediately.

The app doesn’t do anything mind-blowing – it just sets a few of the graphic settings higher or lower as you like. The utility comes in handy for phones and tablets that are a little older: using the GTA3 Graphical Settings app, you can quickly change and launch the game, to see how much eye candy you can get away with before it starts to hamper performance. Settings files are automatically backed up, and should something nasty happen, the original (dull) settings are restored once you uninstall the app.

Rockstar was a little conservative with the graphics settings that it applied to all GTA 3 downloads – if you’ve got a dual-core processor and more than 768MB of RAM, odds are pretty good that the default settings aren’t using your phone’s full potential. And a lot of the additions really do make for a better gaming experience. GTA 3 isn’t exactly a supermodel my modern gaming standards, but the addition of basic lighting and higher resolution makes it look a lot better. If you’re in the mood to try out a bit of tweaking, install the sideloaded companion app today.

[via Droid Gamers]