DX 11 Fix - (loading freeze)

[garett55]

Backstory - I own all the more recent Ego engine games, including both F1 titles from Codemasters, and have up until now had to force DX9 in them all to work due to loading lockups which can only be resolved through stopping the application from Windows. Stupidly thinking that F1 2011 would be a U turn with these DX11 problems, I fired it up and it froze before the first race loaded in. Not wanting to run this game in DX9 for the duration I then set out testing every individual setting in the game on its own and in combination with every other setting - yes it did take me an age, but I am now playing in DX11 mode with all the benefits of faster loading and most of the options maxed out and haven't had a freeze or lockup for over a week. I won't be buying another Codemasters game again until they move away from this engine but for now, this works for me.

The following settings enable play for anyone experiencing freezing in DX11 mode while loading (not tried this with Dirt 2 or 3 yet but it would be worth giving it a go also):

Graphics Settings

Shadows - Ultra (fine)
Particles - Off (lockup combined with any setting)
Crowd - Off (lockup after a few loads)
Drivers - Ultra (fine)
Distant Objects - Ultra (fine)
Objects - Ultra (fine)
Trees - Ultra (fine)
Vehicle Reflections - Ultra (fine)
Post Process - Off (lockup combined with any setting)
Skidmarks - On (fine)
Cloth - Off (lockup after a few loads)

Vsync - Off (lockup if on with any setting)
DX mode - 11

Cheers and I hope it works as well as it does for me!

[blackcelica]

Feel your pain but you have wasted your time as the basic solution has passed you by it seems on numerous occasions. Change the attributes of steam .exe and the game .exe to run as administrator. (even if you have administrative privellages on your account or are the only account on your computer) All problems and lock ups solved and DX11 back in. Enjoy. You must set both. it eliminates a read write conflict within Game for windows Live.

[garett55]

Thanks for the smug reply. Unhappy to say your running in admin mode for both Steam and F1 2011 doesn't work - Freeze again after 3rd race. Nice try though. Once again, the settings I posted do work for race after race.

[blackcelica]

Hey, wasn't meant to be smug. Sorry it read that way. It worked for me and haven't had a single crash since. I suppose that because everyone's PC is slightly different, there are too many variables. There seems to be a lot of different fixes for different people that seemed to have worked. The steam client running as admin seems to be the most successful. Good news though (I hope) is that the official patch is released tonight at 10pm from codemasters. I sincerely hope it fixes all your issues as it is an awesome game when it works. Not played anything else since its release. Good luck.

[garekinokami]

So that's what the mystery patch is for? Hmm, glad I waited to play.