Crimson Machete
09-23-2010, 09:49 AM
Just wanted to recount my experience after having read a fair number of negative ones noted here.
Started the game for the first time, and immediately noticed it was nowhere as smooth as Dirt 2 in the menus. I have a fairly high end PC, Core i7 920 @ 3.2Ghz, 12 GB RAM and dual 5870's running in Crossfire, and Dirt 2 runs like a dream, so I was a little surprised. I left the settings maxed @ 1920x1080, except for AA which I turned off. Using FRAPS I drove a few time trials, and tried a few short Grand Prix and my frame rate hovered around 30 or so, dropping to around 20 at points. Not good, considering how Dirt 2 never goes under 60 with all settings to the highest, including antialiasing.
At this point I should note I was running Catalyst 10.6 drivers, not the latest 10.9's which I had been holding off on installing mainly because every other game I have was running fine. So I exited the game, did a full wipe of my existing drivers (using Driver Sweeper 2.5), then installed the 10.9 drivers along with the 10.9 Crossfire Profiles.
Started the game again. What a revelation. After a few test runs, slowly upping the AA settings, I decided to just put everything to the highest, including using Rapture audio (before I had dropped it to Software based on some posts I had read here about Rapture negatively affecting performance). So I was running at 1920x1080 (I game on a 42inch HDTV) at 8X MSAA, all settings to Ultra or On, and now I seeing frame rates never below 60fps (on my HDTV FRAPS won't show max frame rate, it stops at the refresh rate, in this case 60Hz). I ran time trials on almost every track, 60 fps. I tried full Grand Prix races, 60 fps. And then I tried heavy rain full Grand Prix (on Monaco, Montreal, Istanbul, etc), and here I saw the first dip in frame rate, on one track only, to 50. On one corner, for about 5 seconds. The rest of the time (including in replays) my frame rate was above 60.
This was my experience, and I don't know if doing a clean install of video drivers will help improve F1 2010's performance on your PC, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to try.
In terms of the gameplay itself, I'm more than satisfied with it. I'm using a Logitech Driving Force GT wheel and pedals, and the Force Feedback is fantastic. I'm not interested in "Full simulation" racing, so I find Codemasters balance between being a sim and an arcade racer just right. The driving is just challenging enough, other people's opinions will obviously differ but for me it's great.
I know this post seems like a book at this point, just wanted to share my experience in the hope it might help some people out. Cheers.
Started the game for the first time, and immediately noticed it was nowhere as smooth as Dirt 2 in the menus. I have a fairly high end PC, Core i7 920 @ 3.2Ghz, 12 GB RAM and dual 5870's running in Crossfire, and Dirt 2 runs like a dream, so I was a little surprised. I left the settings maxed @ 1920x1080, except for AA which I turned off. Using FRAPS I drove a few time trials, and tried a few short Grand Prix and my frame rate hovered around 30 or so, dropping to around 20 at points. Not good, considering how Dirt 2 never goes under 60 with all settings to the highest, including antialiasing.
At this point I should note I was running Catalyst 10.6 drivers, not the latest 10.9's which I had been holding off on installing mainly because every other game I have was running fine. So I exited the game, did a full wipe of my existing drivers (using Driver Sweeper 2.5), then installed the 10.9 drivers along with the 10.9 Crossfire Profiles.
Started the game again. What a revelation. After a few test runs, slowly upping the AA settings, I decided to just put everything to the highest, including using Rapture audio (before I had dropped it to Software based on some posts I had read here about Rapture negatively affecting performance). So I was running at 1920x1080 (I game on a 42inch HDTV) at 8X MSAA, all settings to Ultra or On, and now I seeing frame rates never below 60fps (on my HDTV FRAPS won't show max frame rate, it stops at the refresh rate, in this case 60Hz). I ran time trials on almost every track, 60 fps. I tried full Grand Prix races, 60 fps. And then I tried heavy rain full Grand Prix (on Monaco, Montreal, Istanbul, etc), and here I saw the first dip in frame rate, on one track only, to 50. On one corner, for about 5 seconds. The rest of the time (including in replays) my frame rate was above 60.
This was my experience, and I don't know if doing a clean install of video drivers will help improve F1 2010's performance on your PC, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to try.
In terms of the gameplay itself, I'm more than satisfied with it. I'm using a Logitech Driving Force GT wheel and pedals, and the Force Feedback is fantastic. I'm not interested in "Full simulation" racing, so I find Codemasters balance between being a sim and an arcade racer just right. The driving is just challenging enough, other people's opinions will obviously differ but for me it's great.
I know this post seems like a book at this point, just wanted to share my experience in the hope it might help some people out. Cheers.