Codemasters has GRID patch on way

By Robert Purchese Published 2 June, 2008

Suggests temporary fix for now.

Codemasters has said it is busy working on a patch to stop stuttering issues in the Xbox 360 version of Race Driver: GRID.

Developer boss Gavin Raeburn waded into the official forum to confirm as much, and offered a temporary solution for those of you affected.

"We're close to getting to the root of the problem and we will be including a fix and a backup workaround option (just in case) in our forthcoming patch due within the next few weeks or sooner," said Gavin "Uncle Chewy" Raeburn. "We think the issue is due to specific drive hardware, possibly with bad blocks /sectors.

"The best temporary measure is to copy your Gamertag to a memory card, remove the hard drive and run the game that way. Replays and caching will be disabled, though instant replay will still work as this caches to memory."

The Xbox 360 version appears to have the bulk of the problems, although some have reported similar issues when running the game on PC.

Race Driver: GRID is the latest and greatest from Codemasters' pit lane, earning tyre-stacks of praise from Eurogamer speed-seeker Tom Bramwell.

Pop over to his GRID review to find out more.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (31) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Lynchman #1 4 years ago

    You think they could add split-screen multiplayer with a patch too????

  • septimus #2 4 years ago

    Not noticed anything on my 360 copy, guess that means my HDD is okay. But it's nice to see it isn't the PS3 version needing to be patched immediately for once :)


  • CreepinJesus #3 4 years ago

    Still waiting for mine to arrive... ruddy Amazon...

  • Raziel #4 4 years ago

    360 version needs patching instead of a PS3 version?

    How.... strange...

  • rascoj64 #5 4 years ago

    I would suggest putting the 360 in a plastic bag and placing it into a bath of cold water to help keep it cool, that will definatley help!

  • APHIZM #6 4 years ago

    Yeah, my 360 is having big problems with it. It doesn't seem as bad as when I first started playing the game, but it's still annoying when you get a 1-second freeze as you tackle a difficult corner and end up in the wall.

    The one time when I make a decision to never buy the PS3 version of a cross-platform title..... grrr

  • monkie_king #7 4 years ago

    maybe you could jump in with it, rascoj64?
    Edited by 1 at 02/06/08 @ 09:47

  • penhalion #8 4 years ago

    @monkey_king

    maybe you could jump in with it, rascoj64?

    That was going to be my suggestion too :)

    I figure now that the fanboy infestation is on the decline we should make sure to get all of them so that another infestation doesn't occur.....kind of like cockraoaches.

  • bengray66 #9 4 years ago

    You think they could add split-screen multiplayer with a patch too????

  • Darren #10 4 years ago

    I've been playing the 360 game since Friday and now have the Global License so I've easily amassed in excess of 20 hours game time on it. The only freezing I've encountered is a slight hiccup when the car crosses the finish line at the end of a race and sometimes a minor hitch during the Sponsorship earnings screen, otherwise the game has been virtually flawless for me even when listening to custom soundtracks from the HDD. I do have the 120 GB HDD though.

  • Widge #11 4 years ago

    Consoles = bringing PC gaming to the masses

  • spookyzombie #12 4 years ago

    It freezes in every race for me and normally not just once.

  • SteveB #13 4 years ago

    No problems here. Great game by the way.

    Edit: I have the 20gb 360 (manufactured Nov 2007 - replaced my 1st RROD one).
    Edited by 1 at 02/06/08 @ 11:28

  • APHIZM #14 4 years ago

    @Darren - The 120 GB machines do seem to be immune.

    @spooky - There's a youtube video showing 6 freezes in a race. I was getting about the same, but it's only about 1 or 2 now.

  • septimus #15 4 years ago

    Ah, I have an Elite, and Grid is the last game I played on it. I guess the scratch space for it is unfragged which will help.

    Weird, but typical MS, that they would let the 360 HDD fragment with no user way of fixing it. (If I remember, Oblivion even put a small fix into there game for it's scratch area).

  • Feanor #16 4 years ago

    They do realize that not every 360 is internet connected, right?

  • Darren #17 4 years ago

    I wish Microsoft would add a defragment option to the Xbox 360 so you could run it every so often, say, overnight. Every time a game uses the HDD or you download/delete DLC or demos, the HDD becomes more defragmented as files are scattered all over it so some sort of housekeeping tool is really a must and would surely minimise the number of issues that 360 games are seemingly prone to. Remember Oblivion and BioShock? I always despair when the usual solution for these problems is to copy your profile to a menory unit, remove the HDD and play the game that way until it's patched... I mean what is the point in having an HDD in the first place if you cannot use it properly for games?

  • Beano #18 4 years ago

    Have anybody compared the PS3 vs 360 retail versions?

    Has the PS3 retail version been improved compared to the demo which had framerate issues?

    If the PS3 is on par with the 360 reg. framerate, I will get that version instead due to the stuttering/freeze issue.

  • mossychops001 #19 4 years ago

    360LOL

  • Freeman01 #20 4 years ago

    Well at least I'm not the only one having issues! Froze up on me several times during the race and in the replays...not happy, but at least they're working on it.

  • monkie_king #21 4 years ago

    Sounds like it must be attempting to do syncronous writes to the HD for replay data. That seems like it's asking for trouble.

  • Miths #22 4 years ago

    @Beano

    I played both the 360 and PS3 demos and decided on buying the PS3 version of the game (if I didn't have a Dualshock 3 I imagine I might have gone for the 360 version just for the rumble effects though, I really have a hard time living without that in racing games).
    I've seen a few complaints about screen tearing and framerate drops on the official forums, but in the eight hours or so I've clocked in so far (playing on almost every track and in most cars) it's been completely smooth 99% of the time (and probably dropping a couple of frames per second at the most outside of that, barring the occasional replay where it might drop down to the mid 20s when a lot is going on in a zoomed out view).
    And I think the times I've noticed screen tearing can be counted on one hand - and never during actual races, the few times it has happened has been when the camera quickly zooms in on the cars on the starting grid and I think I might have noticed a torn frame in one or two replays as well.

    I do seem to recall other cases where screen tearing for some reason seems to have varied from TV to TV. I'm playing on a 40" Samsung M87.
    Edited by 1 at 02/06/08 @ 13:35

  • Beano #23 4 years ago

    Ok thanks... but did you notice if the retail version was better than the demo?

    EDIT: I played both the 360 and PS3 demos thru HDMI so I doubt it's my TV which is the issue ;)
    Edited by 1 at 02/06/08 @ 13:52

  • FlamingCarrot #24 4 years ago

    Got it on PS3 and PC and really impressed with the PS3 version. Plays brilliantly and a really good atmospheric racing game. PC has had no problems incidentally and running everything maxed out.

  • Miths #25 4 years ago

    Frankly I didn't really think the demo was particularly bad. Slightly blurrier than the 360 demo perhaps and minor framerate drops, but nothing catastrophic.
    As I said though, the full version certainly seems entirely smooth to my eyes pretty much constantly, so either I'm not particularly sensitive to minor drops (but that goes a bit against my experience with other games, sometimes I can be very sensitive to mid 20s framerates) or they have made some performance optimizations since the demo. And they did say that was the case.

  • Beano #26 4 years ago

    Miths: "And they did say that was the case."

    Where have you heard/read that?

  • Miths #27 4 years ago

    In a thread somewhere on the Codemasters forums a week or two ago. There was actually a fair number of developer posts leading up to release.

  • makeamazing #28 4 years ago

    Ive only seen 1 tear on the PS3 version and that was on replay... Ive clocked up probably about 10+ hours so far, and other than that no problems to report...

    On the Xbox issue, you would think there should be some defrag tool on both the Xbox and PS3, seems a bit of a mistake not to, considering all the downloading of demos, deletingetc that we all do. I am considering upgrading my disk at some point, but it makes me wonder, that the larger the disk the worse the problem will get with regards to files all over the place.

  • MaxiSleep #29 4 years ago

    Had the freezing on my hd so took the plunge and upgraded to a 120gb (was coming anyway)

    Brillent game though. Reminds me of the smile I got when playing GT3 for the first time.

  • Miths #30 4 years ago

    @makeamazing

    I don't know about the 360 harddrive, but according to what I've read about the PS3, the internal disk uses a proprietary encrypted filesystem that is based on or fairly similar to the Linux ext2 filesystem (FAT32 is just for any external disks), which means it probably doesn't get fragmented to even remotely the same degree as FAT32 or NTFS Windows filesystems.
    Harddisk fragmentation is generally a Windows issue - I believe defrag tools do exist for Linux and Mac, but they aren't really needed.

  • makeamazing #31 4 years ago

    @ Miths

    Ah ok thanks, good to know.