Colin McRae Dirt (1)

zytok

zytok

zytok

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wanted to get in the mood a bit for the new F1 Game by playing a few driving games so loaded up DiRT (the first one) for the first time in ages. I was surprised to see that despite being a fair few years old now, it doesn't seem to run overly well on my rig (Overclocked Quad and a 5850). Using fraps it seems to run at around 35-40fps at 1920x1080 with everything maxed. Playable of course but not as smooth as I would like and not as smooth as DiRT 2 or GRiD which both run at 60+ maxed out.

Anyone else noticed this?
 
The early incarnation of this engine was buggy, you will find issues. Try changing the sound from hardware to software and see if it makes any difference, also try going down from ultra quality options to high/very high and see if that changes it too. There was a 'hack' to change some of the installed files over with those from GRID, which did help performance, but I can't remember which ones right now.

It's still a great game, I remember first seeing the graphics on the demo on my new pc (at the time!) and being amazed.
 
If anything I think the graphics in DiRT 1 are superior to GRiD and DiRT 2 and the choice of tracks etc is certainly better than 2. Was just surprised to see it running a tad juddery on a fairly high end system.
 
DiRT 1 was a bit rubbish for MP though. iirc you could just race against an invisible opponent on a stage.
 
Yep, MP was useless anyway. OP, try the tips I suggested above and see how you get on, there's certainly some sort of bug with the sound on some systems that causes stuttery performance.
 
DiRT 1 didn't seem to make as much use of a GPU as DiRT2 did. DiRT 1 used CPU more then their other latest racing games.

Its a very good game, the graphics still look good to this day. Grid runs like a hot knife through butter and DiRT2 was the same.

DiRT 1 wasn't so optimised but at 35 - 45 fps at 1080 thats still rather good. I still play DiRT from time to time, picked it up off Steam for £2, even though I've got a boxed copy somewhere....

I'm sure F1 2010 is going to be smooth, and well playable on your rig.
 
much talk on Codies forums from 2007 about poor performance with X-FI sound cards which I have so will mess with the sound settings a bit as suggested.
 
from Codies forums:-

"So it appears that using sound hardware dramatically drops the minimum frame rate, dragging the average down.

It also appears that the game can only be played online - going offline (or blocking DIRT with a firewall) halves performance"
 
suggestions seem to be using software sound with DSP off or low even if you have an X-Fi/Audigy. Alternatively updating the open AL files in the DiRT folder with newer ones from Creative/OpenAL.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
have same sound card and fine
Click to expand...

depends what you mean by "fine" mate. Like I say it's hardly a major issue getting 40+fps at 1920 maxed out but would like 60 if it's achievable by altering a couple of settings.

edit. Well tried updating OpenAL, didn't make too much difference tbh. Also tried software sound and it did improve things a little. Put the quad upto 3.2GHz from 2.67 and disabled in game motion blur. Forced 16xAF through CCC to get rid of the blurry textures and everything looks a lot sharper. Everything on Ultra/High with 2xAA (down from 4) and seem to be getting around 55 with the odd drop to 40 rather than 40 with the odd drop to 30. Looks nicer imo and runs a little better though it's still not as silky as GRiD or DiRT 2. Might just be the early incarnation of the engine as suggested.

Also there are handling patches out there to fix the grip and brakes if anyone's interested.
 
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