Personal Opinion: DiRT (PC)

[STEvil]

Scores are based on price payed.

Final $15/$60 (EB Games at Park Place Mall in Lethbridge Alberta).



I'm always looking for games that have an offroad racing aspect to them because for some reason the good ones are far and few between..

DiRT looked like it would fit the bill, its like Flatout 2 with more vehicle variety, but not much else.



Installation:

Installation takes quite a while then you NEED to reboot for the "protection" drivers. When the game loads it NEEDS the CD to be in the drive and takes forever to verify that it is actually there, then when that is finally over you finally get to play... or not.

I'm on Windows XP 64-bit which causes it to crash when Windows pop-up about programs accessing the internet comes up. Retry starting the game and away it goes this time, with the same disc check wait..

We can all congradulate Starforce for the disc check and start-up times.

So, now that I have the install details out of the way onto system specs:



System Used for testing:

Windows XP 64-bit
AMD Athlon X2 4200+ @ 2.64ghz
DFI CFX3200-DR
ATi Radeon X1950XTX @ stock
Gateway FPD2185W
4x512MB OCZ PC4800 Plat Ltd Ed rev 1.1 @ 220mhz 2-3-3-11-2T
OCZ 600w Powerstream
WD 120GB IDE HDD
BenQ DW822A DVD+-RW



Game Setup:
- You dont get to use your mouse in the menus. At all. Ever.
- Changing resolution and some graphics options causes game to restart causing CD-Check.
- Changing audio setup causes game to restart causing CD-Check.
- Bonus codes can be purchased. Yeah...



Performance:
Like most people I want to run the game at the native resolution of my monitor, and DiRT supports this pretty well allowing the user to select not only the proper resolution but then also includes an option to set aspect ratio below that... would have been easier to just set it along with the resolution but whatever.

As to actual game performance I find it lacked somewhat. Using mostly low settings at 1680x1050 and 2x Full Scene Anti-Aliasing I averaged 25-35fps. I suspect this is because of the Bloom HDR being applied (i'm assuming its Bloom..) which makes it extremely difficult to see a lot of the time, the depth of field option which cannot be disabled, and the bilinear/trilinear/anistropic filtering which cannot be adjusted from within the game. Particles effects used to show dust being kicked up by tires seem to have an impact on framerates as well. Certain programs in the background effect performance as well causing stuttering. BOINC and CoreTemp for sure, but even after disabling more programs and killing a few services the game still stuttered every now and then and also had this odd "molasses" effect which seemed to happen almost regularly once every 1/2 hour for roughly 2 seconds.

Just to note I did try running it in full detail at 1680x1050 and achieved no more than 3 frames per second which made it extremely painful to even operate the unresponsive game menus...




Errata
Here's the raw form of my notes while installing then playing..

Pros:
- Vehicle suspension works nicely
- Vehicle physics are ok
- Damage modeling is good
- Game still retains Sim-like qualities while giving Arcade-like performance

Cons:
- Starforce
- No mouse in menus
- Resolution change makes game restart with disc check
- Audio changes make game restart with disc check
- Pressing alt+tab or windows key will not allow you to get back into the game after doing so..
- Disc check takes forever....
- Background processes can cause stuttering
- Molasses effect is annoying.
- Can not disable HDR/Bloom (game too bright overall)
- Can not change bilinear/trilinear/anisotropic filtering level
- Depth of field effect cannot be adjusted/disabled
- Actor voice for player character sucks
- Commentary gets repetative
- Roadside objects may be heavier than they appear....
- Can not open-roam
- No modability seems to be present

Other:
- Codemasters logo intro has a sound that sounds like spawn noise from Unreal
- Graphical corruption on mudflaps of 4wd cars (all are colored red, may be driver related)



Final Thoughts
I think this game was made and beta'd by people kissing butt to keep their position. Its relatively fun when you get past all the bullcrap but its going to get old without any modability and that darned cd-check.. not to mention the Multiplayer feature of it is sorely lacking (only 2 modes - rally and hillclimb) although it proclaims support for up to 100 people on the box.. and I havent seen a soul on multiplayer yet anyways.

Final verdict? Scroll to the top ;)

[MikeB12]

I played the single player demo for a while.. always found it difficult to control the car, seemed real squirrelly; but maybe I just sucked. I tried switching from keyboard to a gamepad control and it was a little better, but not enough for me to be any good.

[STEvil]

I used my keyboard. Its all about the car. Some like gravel, some dirt, and some pavement.

[GMX]

I played the single player demo for a while.. always found it difficult to control the car, seemed real squirrelly; but maybe I just sucked. I tried switching from keyboard to a gamepad control and it was a little better, but not enough for me to be any good.

I played the demo too, and the brakes to me were just too good.

The vehicle seemed very irresponsive too (even worse with wheel, almost 1 full sec input delay)

I really love rally though, first series I got hooked on.

[EZClock]

The game is pretty realistic in terms of handling. I loved it until my saved games were trashed.

[Slammin]

It's pretty darned great with a good FFB wheel.

Not sure how you can evaluate anything about car handling with a keyboard. :D

[STEvil]

Some games work fine with keyboard, some dont.

This one does.

[patrickadizzle]

I agree all it takes is a bit of practice and you can be a great "drifter" in no time.

[Aleki]

played the demo, fell in love. it made me feel as if i really was in a rally. ended up buying a 360 controller just for the demo!

[Retrolock]

I bought this game, and then bought a 360 gamepad just for this. I finished it, and promptly sold it lol.

[Lestat]

unless you turn up the difficulty the game is pretty much an arcade game.
(that goes for those of you who played the demo andi dont recall if the demo let you up the difficulty)

if you dont crank it way up. the cars are never hard to drive and winning is never a problem.

crank the difficulty up and you will start to see how hard the game can be.

it was never meant to be a full on arcade nor a full on sim. its a middle ground game that never took off.
not many rally games ever did.
and most certainly not collin mcrae games (which have all been crap btw)

i liked the game for the driving factor. i've always liked driving games.
but it wasnt great.
turning up the difficulty did improve the game ALOT.

if you want to really go experience a crappy rally go play Sega Rally the new one.

[STEvil]

I was on second highest difficulty level for 90% of it, most of the time it was ok. Some of the hillclimbs and excessively squirrelly rallies were hell though.

[Aleki]

i was doing some searching online. apparently people claim this game comes with starforce... wtf? please tell me this isnt true??

[Bootup05]

Yes it does:(

[STEvil]

Yup, Starforce.

I'm editing my original post, forgot to include that lol..

[The0men]

The game is pretty realistic in terms of handling. I loved it until my saved games were trashed.

I had this problem repeatedly. My mate has an old athlon XP and a 7600GT and inteanded to play the game, it was pretty slow on his machine, so being a smart-ass I said we will take it home and give it a go on the e6600 and GTX.

Well the game ran like a dream and I found load times were pretty fast... But it repeatedly corrupted my save games. Everything was set up the same as on the XP, and that slow old machine had no worries with the save games corrupting.

[Evil-Vincent]

I liked the demo, and wanted to buy the game.. but then a surprise: I found the dvd of the full version in the box of my MSI 8800GT OC!

I play on:
AMD s939 3800x2 @ 3.07ghz
2gb OCZ Gold ram @ 3-3-2-6 254mhz
DFI Lanparty Ultra-D
MSI 8800GT OC
X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty
Microsoft Precision Racing Wheel (5-6 years old)
I can play the game @ max settings, but that gives me 10-20fps, so I moved back to high settings with 2xAA. I get 30-50fps now, really stable.

I do not think the bloom HDR lowers the visibility.

I like the gameplay and modes, as with the handling: you need to practice, but now I can play entire races without crashing with my old racing wheel.

Only thinks I dont like are:
- The autosave takes like 8 seconds, and it has to save after just about everything you do.
- You cannot minimize the game.

Other than that, best racing game I have played in a long time, probably because I play FPS games all the time.

[mouawad]

It's pretty darned great with a good FFB wheel.

Not sure how you can evaluate anything about car handling with a keyboard. :D

i gotta agree entirely, 10yrs ago i was using a kb for racing games. :rofl: :ROTF:

[Dooglas]

The graphics are amazing! I love how realistic damage looks, im guilty of causing damage on purpose because it looks so cool.

[Slammin]

i gotta agree entirely, 10yrs ago i was using a kb for racing games. :rofl: :ROTF:


G25 totally rocks this one.

[Retrolock]

Well watch my lame video of DiRT lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl9uYZb7HMU

[The0men]

Any one else got the corrupting files problem yet? or a fix. It's odd that it affected my good machine, and not the old slow heap.

[Frankenchrist]

I miss Ivan Stewart's Off Road....4 steering wheel, stand-up cabinet game. I spent many hours playing that.

[patrickadizzle]

BUMP.

So I got the full game for xmas.


Freaking LOVE it.


I tuned it for my keyboard, and haven't had any problems. Races are challenging, steering is challenging, but what good of a game would it be if the steering was easy?


I use a keyboard layout similar to wsad, but not really.

I use on the num pad, 8 is forward, 4 left, 6 right, 0 is brake, and Space is handbrake.

ALWAYS ALWAYS use c-o-ckpit camera. If you use outside camera you WILL crash because you dont know how much your turning, where when your inside you see the wheel and it just helps.


I give the game a 9/10.

Heres a quick screenshot, with a bit of Photoshop editing. This is me not turning quick enough, hitting a bank and eventually doing a barrel roll. :lol:

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/5632/oshtsd5.png

[Omar]

Any one else got the corrupting files problem yet? or a fix. It's odd that it affected my good machine, and not the old slow heap
Try patch v1.2 , they sayed it fix the file-save problem .

STEvil
Great review , thanks

Anyway be sure to have a dual core cpu and 2gb ram for this game .

[Tony]

I run this game on a 4x4 system, 8800GTX sli 24" dell everything maxed out...quite stunning!

Best thing I did was get the G25 wheel and attack pikes peak, currently 10 secs off the WR in the suzuki ;)

[STEvil]

I might have to break out my wheel and see what happens.

[Lestat]

dirt is a pretty good game but in order to experience it properlyyou have to set the difficulty pretty high.
the difficulty also stipulates the physics and abilities of the cars.
so the easier the mode the more arcadish it is. the harder the more sim-ish it gets.

i used my 360 wireless wheel on it (the one thats a logitech momo wheel rip off) and its pretty freakin intense.

i havent tried my momo wheel on my pc with it though.

frankly i dont know how hard a wheel would be on the harder settings for this game but it would be pretty damn hard i bet because your constantly whipping the wheel back and forth.
give that force feedback a good run for its money.

its not a hard game by any means for the trucks and tarmac tracks but the uphill and some of the pure offroad tracks with the rally cars can be hard. especially with the difficulty cranked. and thats just with a controller...


currently 10 secs off the WR in the suzuki

10 seconds is alot of time to shave off...

[ferrari_freak]

I DLed the demo for my 360 but I was expectin the Forza of rally racing. I didn't get what I expected :( but I still love the game anyway. From what you guys are saying it gets more realistic as difficulty goes up so that's a good side for me. I might consider buying it, and I love the graphics!

Damn all of you with your G25 wheels while I sit here playing NFS MW on my keyboard! But on a more serious note, is the G25 actually worth the money? I want to get the 360 racing wheel for Forza and then get the wireless adapter thingy so I can play my computer games with it as well. That's the main drawback of the G25 imo, I really am looking forward to playing Forza with a wheel and the G25 just doesn't support it.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Also, just a note for this game.

If you check out the difficulty files for the game, you will see the American version is 2 points EASIER than if you live anywhere else.

[Aleki]

Also, just a note for this game.

If you check out the difficulty files for the game, you will see the American version is 2 points EASIER than if you live anywhere else.

give us a break, were not that smart :wierd:

[Matt C.]

I have a cheap wheel from my PS2, i use an adapter for the USB and it works fine....I love DiRT

[natedog420]

i have a g25 and yes its worth its money for sure. i play live for speed and rfactor online so i use it everyday or so when im gamin. i love it made the games a lot better. i had a cheap $50 wheel and it held up great but theres just no comparison to the g25. if you play racing games i highly recommend a g25 if the funds are available to get it. i might have to check this game out now since i have an ok systems:)

[L'enFer]

I liked DiRT because it includes not only WRC races, but many others. I'm not an addict gamer, but DiRT is really a good game for me.
P.S. My PC:
Intel C2D Quad Q6600
Gigabyte P35-S3 rev. 1.0
ATi Radeon X1950GT 256 Mb
2 Gbytes RAM
Samsung 206BW

[jas420221]

I miss Ivan Stewart's Off Road....4 steering wheel, stand-up cabinet game. I spent many hours playing that.ME TOO!

I really like this game some things you didnt mention (or I missed) were the fact of the long (several seconds) save times between everything you do (another poster caught that).

I do not have any of the stuttering that you have experienced or this 'molasses' you attempt to describe. May be on your rig. ;)

[mikey976]

jus picked this up myself and have to say its pretty pretty good.

one of my gripes is for some reason wont let me play fully maxxed out @ 1900x1200 says i ran out of video memory.

and i have to agree with who ever said it def is wayy too damn bright.
i play with my 360 remote controlling its fair at best braking is completely un-realistic

all in all i would say its maybe a 6.3 outta 10