DiRT 2 PC delayed for DirectX 11

By Oli Welsh Published 7 July, 2009

Now scheduled for December.

Codemasters has announced that the PC version of its off-road racer, Colin McRae: DiRT 2, is being delayed until December to incorporate the features of DirectX 11.

The console versions - 360, PS3, Wii, DS and PSP - will retain their September release date.

Hardware supporting Microsoft's latest DirectX API is expected to appear in the second half of this year, with DirectX 11 itself appearing alongside Windows 7 (and as an update to Windows Vista) on October 22nd.

Codemasters expects the appearance of water and other surfaces to be improved, crowd animations to be better and depth of field and shadow effects to be superior thanks to support for Shader Model 5.0 and hardware tessellation.

"We believe that the DirectX 11 feature set is too compelling to ignore, especially considering how much more it can add to the visual experience for PC gamers," said Bryan Marshall, Codemasters' chief technical officer. "The fusion of DirectX 11 with Codemasters' EGO Engine will raise the technical bar considerably in the racing genre."

For more on DiRT 2, including Digital Foundry video analysis and hands-on impressions, visit the DiRT 2 gamepage.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (22) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • neems #1 3 years ago

    DirectX11? Why? Who gives a shit?

    Un-necessary delays for a feature set that bugger all people will be able to run.

  • mkreku #2 3 years ago

    Well, I'm on the lookout for a new GPU, so I might as well get one with DirectX11.. But I have no intentions of installing Vista or Windows 7 in the immediate future so it's all moot anyhow.

  • Eraysor #3 3 years ago

    DirectX10 has done bugger all for gaming so I don't see why waiting for the next one will make any difference.

  • Dizzy #4 3 years ago

    >DirectX10 has done bugger all for gaming

    My LOTRO begs to differ ;) It looks awesome in DX10.

  • Darren #5 3 years ago

    DirectX 11 will introduce hardware tesselation, which will give automatic and smoother level of detail transitions (where objects change models and textures depending on your distance from them), as well as performance improvements. It should mean that we'll see less jarring issues like pop in/draw in for example.

    That said, neither GRID nor DiRT supported DX10 so it seems rather odd to jump from DX9 to DX11 for the DiRT sequel. I suspect that only a few people will initially be able to play DiRT 2 will DX11 effects anyway due to the fact it requires a new graphics card, likely one that costs in excess of £300.

    Personally I'd rather the game was released with the console versions and DX9/10 support and DX11 patched in later. This kind of thing has been done with Call of Juarez and Company of Heroes for example which were initially DX9 and later patched to support DX10 too.

  • Darren #6 3 years ago

    @Eraysor - "DirectX10 has done bugger all for gaming so I don't see why waiting for the next one will make any difference."

    While it's very true that DX10 has had very little impact on PC gaming, the difference between DX9 and DX10 in the same game can be quite striking at times, particularly the lighting which looks far more natural in DX10. AA tends to look better too and it helps that DX10 allows the use of AA with deferred lighting, something that is difficult with DX9.

  • silentbob #7 3 years ago

    For fuck sake! :(

    Even as a consumate graphics whore I cannot justify this delay.

    I suspect that a deal with one or more GPU manufacturers and Microsoft along with financial incentives is in reality what's at play here.

  • Darren #8 3 years ago

    @silentbob - +1

    Yes, I agree that Microsoft wanted a game to show off Windows 7 and DX11 so that's why DiRT 2 has been delayed. I'm happy for the game to support DX11 via a later patch but as a PC gamer I already have to put up with long delays for multiformat releases (Red Faction Guerilla, Bionic Commando, etc.) so this announcement for DiRT 2 is yet another annoyance.

    Still I'm sure the couple of hundred people (at most) who'll have a £300-£400 DX11 graphics card in December will welcome this game with open arms!

  • silentbob #9 3 years ago

    Well, that of course is the second level of annoyance. I'll inevitably end up spending a wad on an upgrade come Xmas.

    Anyone fancy a 4870x2 - one careful owner, much loved?

  • Rubarack #10 3 years ago

    Thing is the DX10 shaders are so intensive and offer so little over high quality DX9 shaders they only really offer a visible difference applied to old, out of date games. If a new game tries to use them it will make any graphics card on the market fall over and die.

  • BobsUncle #11 3 years ago

    "DirectX10 has done bugger all for gaming"

    Actually, DX10 introduced plenty of awesome features and there are plently more in DX11. The way I see the problem is that not enough gamers could be bothered to upgrade to Vista so in turn the devs could never really go over to DX10 wholeheartedly.

    If you want people to develop a tech it needs support from consumers. So, rather than DX10 doing bugger all for gaming, it's gamers doing bugger all for DirectX and gaming itself.

  • sonsonate #12 3 years ago

    Could they be any more obnoxious lately..? No new GRID PC patch, DiRT will probably never run right (at least they released a patch so I don't need a disc) and now DiRT 2 delayed til Christmas for DX11 implementation.

    And to think, I just sold two 4870s for 1 open box GTX295.

    *sigh*

  • BobsUncle #13 3 years ago

    @Rubarack
    "... they only really offer a visible difference applied to old, out of date games."

    Wrong.

    When a shader is compiled it targets a specific platform, old games target shader model 1 or 2 as SM 4 and 5 were not around then. So, if you run an old game on new DX10 hardware it still uses the old shaders. Any noticable difference you are seeing is just because you're now using a better card.

    "If a new game tries to use them it will make any graphics card on the market fall over and die."

    Also wrong, if a game is written for SM4, it will run fine on SM4 hardware.

  • OldK1ngCole #14 3 years ago

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the biggest features of DX11 is hardware tesselation. Something that the X360 is already capable of?

  • BobsUncle #15 3 years ago

    @OldK1ngCole

    Yes, that's true. But bare in mind that a games console does not consist of standard off the shelf PC parts. The version of DirectX 9 was also tweeked, so it's not the same API that you would use on a PC.

    I'm not sure how flexible or useful the hardware tesselator is in the 360, maybe that's why it also bypassed DX10, but in DX11 it is fully programable via the new Hull and Domain shaders.

  • kingofbergamo #16 3 years ago

    Who cares about PC gamers anyways :p

  • cianchristopher #17 3 years ago

    Does anyone feel that DiRT on the PC doesn't run very well as it is? I mean, I've got both DiRT and GRID on Steam and while I can max out every graphical effect on GRID and play it at 1680x1050 and 8xAA with a brilliant framerate - DiRT chugs along on its equivalent highest settings. Doesn't make too much sense to me! I'm running a Core2Quad with 4GB RAM and 1GB 4870 on a Maximus Extreme and this game from early 2007 troubles it, when even Crysis runs more smoothly....

  • Darren #18 3 years ago

    @cianchristopher - DiRT seems to run extremely well on my PC with everything maxed @ 1680x1050 so I guess it depends on your machine's specs really.

    DiRT is running on an older version of the engine GRID uses though so it isn't that surprising that it doesn't run as well. The difference between DiRT and GRID on the Xbox 360 for example was staggering so it seemed that Codemasters had spent a lot of time optimising the engine, particularly in regards to eliminating screen tearing and pop up. I expect DiRT 2 will also have been optimised further too so it will probably run as well on the PC as GRID did.

    It certainly helps that these games are built with the consoles in mind as it gives your PC more room to breath, allowing you to crank up the detail settings and AA for example whilst running in excess of the 30 fps the console versions are locked at. GRID at 60 fps feels like a completely different game to the 360 version IMO.

  • john_silence #19 3 years ago

    Well, I was an early adopter of the Core 2 Duo line, probably among the first hundred of people who got one in France almost 3 years ago. Same thing for the Ati 4850 that I got a year ago. I never made the jump to Vista, but as soon as the parts are available I'm building a new, DirectX-11 compatible PC with Windows 7 (there are crazy pre-order deals at the moment, 50 Euros for the Family Premium edition and it's not even OEM!).
    Anyway, sorry for that, just daydreaming... I totally agree with Darren and his idea that the game should be released in September as is, and patched to run DirectX 11 later. All of those delayed PC releases piss me off, especially when I remember all of these games are originally developed using PC's...
    Edit: I also hope they'll patch Dirt 2 correctly, seeing as Grid is the one game of dozens I got in the past couple of years that never managed to launch on my comp.
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/09 @ 15:15

  • sonsonate #20 3 years ago

    @ cianchristopher

    DiRT takes a lotta pc power to run decent. My crossfire setup was just alright for it, but if I drove off the track and into the grass, I'd slow down tremendously. Now, with a gtx 295, I get great even better framerate in almost all situations, except when I switch the 2nd in-car view.

    Color me frustrated.

  • Nephirion #21 3 years ago

    They are delaying just to ensure strong console sales, I don't believe the DX11 bullshit for a second, look at Red Faction Guerilla ...

  • cianchristopher #22 3 years ago

    Thanks for the reponse Darren and Sonsonate; I still feel that Codemasters didn't optimise DiRT on the PC that well - especially compared to GRID. Good to see they're improving though. Now I only wish there was a way to sell back the games I've bought on Steam that I wasn't entirely happy with (such as DiRT and a few others) or get a refund. That's a negative about digital distribution. Also, does anyone know if you can trade in boxed pc games for credit anywhere, or do you have to go the eBay/private sale route ?