The *Official* Colin Mcrae DiRT Thread

[Jono8]

Got the game today and its very very good, performance is great. I installed the 1.1 patch and realised that ultra settings made the shadows go no higher than 'high' (well, i could set them to ultra but they would reset). With ultra settings,4x supersampling,16x AF and at 1280x1024 i am getting between 40-60, normally sitting at the 46/47 mark, even in a 8 car race.however if i go into the video settings ini and raise the shadow to 4096 (proper ultra shadows) my framerate goes goes down to about 10 on all fronts.(30-50 fps, with a 36/37 avg). I'm not sure i can tell the difference and both settings seem perfectly smooth,but more fps is allways nice as you guys know.

Just wondering whether any of you guys in the know, know whether there really is any noticable difference in the quality and why it creates a 10fps hit.

 

[Snakey]

You got to make a new online account right there and then in the game first time you try to login.

yee i tried that but it said incorrect password

I dont see a 'Creat New Account' option anywhere...just login details

 

[Cyber-Mav]

as iv noticed with pretty much all the latest games, shadows are the single most thing that have the largest impact on performance in a game. dropping shadows down is best way to get good speed boosts.

 

[Jono8]

as iv noticed with pretty much all the latest games, shadows are the single most thing that have the largest impact on performance in a game. dropping shadows down is best way to get good speed boosts.

yeh, but i think there might be a problem with 4096 shadows aswell, because codemasters must have disabled it in *** oatch, because the only way to get it to stick is go into the ini,xml file. I honestly can't see a difference between the two, medium shadows look horrible but the difference between high and ultra shadows just doesnt seem to be there in my eyes.not worth the 10fps drop imo.

 

[Simonnn]

I've just got this, having bit of nightmare using keyboard so just ordered myself a 360 pad, hope it helps.

 

[Simonnn]

Forgot to ask also, is there any night time tracks? I haven't played very much at all so far

 

[R5GTT]

nope no night time tracks. Shame there isn't any snow or falling rain aswell, just wet roads.

 

[nands]

Is it just me or are the rally stages much harder than the race type stages? For example in the race courses I can usually get first place after a few attempts but on some of the rally courses (when I don't get terminal damage) I am finishing way down the leaderboard.

Maybe it is just the fact that you can see the competitors while racing so you know exactly where you are, I don't know.

Fun game though.

 

[.:MBK:.]

bugging me that my pad seems to reset after each race whilst using MT, is this a bug, my pad, or am i missing something

 

[Zogger]

So I got this today, overall not a bad game but it is a bit disappointing - mainly because of the ability to brake so quickly, and also the American accent. I played the demo so I did know what I was getting.

Still worth getting but it could be so much better if it handled like RBR and they had Nicky Grist back. Hopefully there will be some decent attempts to mod it while still maintaining balance with the AI and the different game modes, don't know how feasible it is though. At any rate it's promising that the official forum even has a section for people tweaking the game.

edit: oh and also I get a much more playable framerate with shadows disabled. Obviously not ideal but it makes a lot of difference framerate-wise. You can't change it in game but in the saved games folder under hardwaresettings, the config xml file has a line you can change from true to false to disable shadows

 

[.:MBK:.]

CM titles have never been after the sim crowd tbh, the mass arcade market is where cm titles have live for some time now

 

[Jono8]

Is it just me or are the rally stages much harder than the race type stages? For example in the race courses I can usually get first place after a few attempts but on some of the rally courses (when I don't get terminal damage) I am finishing way down the leaderboard.

Maybe it is just the fact that you can see the competitors while racing so you know exactly where you are, I don't know.

Fun game though.

lol i'm finding the opposite, i can win the rally stages much easier than the race courses

 

[eyetrip]

Sigh... it's a lovely cover to stare at luckily, cause until I hear back from Codemasters for a workaround to the emulation error I get from starforce that is all I can do.

Never again will I buy a game with this starforce crap on. Even if that game is Crysis!

 

[.:MBK:.]

think pretty much everyone bar codemasters has dropped starcrap..could be wrong though

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Sigh... it's a lovely cover to stare at luckily, cause until I hear back from Codemasters for a workaround to the emulation error I get from starforce that is all I can do.

Never again will I buy a game with this starforce crap on. Even if that game is Crysis!

I quite liked the demo and was thinking of buying the game, good thing I saw this post though, Starforce has ruined a couple of games for me. Maybe it was my choice of OS that ruined it... I'll still blame Starfarce though!
Can't believe it's still used actually, I've never seen a good word said about it.

 

[Jono8]

Absolutely loving this game. Runs pretty damn well with ultra settings,1280x1024,4xmsaa/16xaf, ive got to admit the image quality of the 8800 series is fantastic.

This is one of those games that reminds me why i bought a 8800gtx,Heres some screenies of me playing as a tribute to how god damn beautiful it looks:

 

[Jono8]

more for the road:

 

[eyetrip]

Hoorah! Found a no CD executable for it for patch V1.1. At least its not piracy, asI own the game

Now I can uninstall starforce and all is well!!!

 

[eyetrip]

Well, from the little I got to play last night, I would have to say I think I am going to enjoy this.

I was weary after the hendling in the demo, but handling seems fine for me now. Played the same track from the demo (the tar one around a short track - can't remember name of race) and was actually quite manageable. Ony spun out once, and within reason.

I did go through all car options quite a bit and change things like down-force, etc. Did not change any of the steering wheel options.

Tried a dirt track with the 4wd's and while the car did seem to fly a bit too much, it was fun and with practice I know I will get used to it. Played on Pro amateur and was in 2nd for a lot of the race.

Runs brilliantly with everything maxed, except shadows - not tried ultra shadows, but high more than good enough for me. This is at 1680 x 1050, 4 x AA

So its not all bad

 

[Cyber-Mav]

been playing this game a lot recently and have to just add that the graphics really are amazing on some of the tracks. i loved the gfx on the dakar racing levels, simply amazing.