Dirt 3 : worth getting?

[ZaO]

Yeah it doesn't. But it's not the kind of game you play with a cockpit view anyway as far as I can tell.

It doesn't steer for you, but if you find the defaults too sensitive then just adjust the linearity. It's no different from any other game using the gamepad - you have to cram a car wheels 540+ degrees of movement into about 60 degrees of gamepad joystick movement, so they use a variety of tricks like non-linear mapping and variable sensitivity based on car speed.

The only adjustment I think I made was reducing the dead zone so more of the joystick range could be used. If I get time this afternoon I'll fire it up and double check my settings.

I do appreciate your advice but I know what you're saying here. I messed with all the settings loads. I just found it impossible to control slides everytime. Really frustrated me. Definitely worse than any other decent driving games I've played. And I've played driving games tonnes... I am willing to try again though so will get the game downloading now!

Also that sucks about no inside view on Grid 2. What the hell are they thinking... If that's true then I doubt I'll buy it. Unless it has a hood view or something...

[kalniel]

Hmm what cars were you trying? It is possible to use/upgrade/setup cars in such a way that they are hard to control! But I don't remember having any problems with sensible ones - it's fairly easy to catch most oversteer moments (though obviously not the quickest way around a corner). The usual complaint about control for shift 2 is input lag caused by pushing the settings up a bit too high for your computer.

[ZaO]

Hmm what cars were you trying? It is possible to use/upgrade/setup cars in such a way that they are hard to control! But I don't remember having any problems with sensible ones - it's fairly easy to catch most oversteer moments (though obviously not the quickest way around a corner). The usual complaint about control for shift 2 is input lag caused by pushing the settings up a bit too high for your computer.

I can't remember. Haven't played it for a while... This game definitely had an issue with the steering. I have been playing driving sims and arcade racers for years and nothing frustrated me quite like Shift 2 when it came to the steering. I play all my games at 55-60fps as well so I'm not stressing my setup to much... I have downloaded it now. Just gonna install and see how it goes. Really hope I can get into it tbh! I've not had a good driving game to play since getting rid of my consoles! Will report back with my thoughts. Cheers.

[Mehta23]

Got my xbox controller today and started NFS Shift! IT's a great game and I didn't think it would look that good. The last real racing game I played was GT4 so you can understand why I would be amazed by the cockpit view, and how the dof changes when you move your head towards the mirrors....

I had to make a hard decision when choosing my car... Didn't know whether it would be better to use the cash I had to upgrade a cheaper car, or to just get the best I could afford. In the end went for the S4, although it might not have been the best choice . Probably Shouldve chosen a s2000 or the rx8 :-P

Also, would putting it on my ssd be a good choice? Thinking maps would load a little quicker....

[outwar6010]

im hoping criterion make a nfs underground game

[kalniel]

Got my xbox controller today and started NFS Shift! IT's a great game and I didn't think it would look that good. The last real racing game I played was GT4 so you can understand why I would be amazed by the cockpit view, and how the dof changes when you move your head towards the mirrors....

I had to make a hard decision when choosing my car... Didn't know whether it would be better to use the cash I had to upgrade a cheaper car, or to just get the best I could afford. In the end went for the S4, although it might not have been the best choice . Probably Shouldve chosen a s2000 or the rx8 :-P

Also, would putting it on my ssd be a good choice? Thinking maps would load a little quicker....

I have it on my SSD, and it does help with load times quite a bit (also helps reduce pop-in caused by loading new elements for the first time).

The S4 is OKish, it's easier to control than the s2000 and the rx8 is underpowered in stock settings (but becomes very quick when upgraded a lot). I find the S4 a bit heavy and cumbersome though, prefer to keep to a small fwd car for the first few bits - the leon, renault etc. are all good starter cars and you can get them quite quick with the right upgrades. If you want something easier to drive then the S3 is really nice to control, and has a lot of power when upgraded - you can use it for a lot of the game!

im hoping criterion make a nfs underground game

I have a guilty soft spot for underground 2 - was really fun to upgrade the cars in mad ways. The actual driving/racing was silly, but fun nonetheless.

[Mehta23]

Thanks, I'll be looking to move/reinstall soon then :-D
Someone told me you can sell your car at any time for full price? If this is true I might just sell it and buy a Gti ^_^

[kalniel]

Thanks, I'll be looking to move/reinstall soon then :-D
Someone told me you can sell your car at any time for full price? If this is true I might just sell it and buy a Gti ^_^

Yes there's no penalty for selling cars or upgrades - there are enough things to buy that you don't need a money sink

[Mehta23]

IThis is such a great game! The only downsides are the ai cars being idiots occasionally and the game occasionally crashes? Anyone else got this?
Anyone else tried any handling mods? Tbh I found the handling to be alright if but I did notice a certain dead zone on the xbox controller stick :'(

Edit : crap. I've just realised that I have a ps2 compatible steering wheel (think it's called a speedster) that probably would work with my pc with the right adapter... And driving games were the real reason I paid £15 for a controller :'(

Edit 2: also just remembered one of the flaps is broken and there isn't space to mount it to my desk so I'm all good in justifying the controller again ^_^ although I might try to see if I play any better with the wheel....

[kalniel]

Avoid mods for now - the default simulation is pretty good and a lot of fun, wait until you've got bored of it before playing around with things.

If you don't like the dead zone, go into game options and change it! I reduced mine a bit and it helped.

AI cars being idiots.. is a continuous problem in all car games! Get online and drive with humans Shift 2 is at least much improved over the first game which had brutal AI at times.

I don't have any problems with the game crashing personally, but it is quite a demanding game on both the graphics and CPU (and possibly audio?) so make sure you have stable drivers and aren't overclocking (and turn down some of the graphics settings - the higher the settings the higher the load and increased chance of crashing).

[Mehta23]

I'll have a look for those settings ^_^ But I would've thought my computer would handle it on high settings. GPU usage isn't that high, but I don't know why it crashes....

[kalniel]

I'll have a look for those settings ^_^ But I would've thought my computer would handle it on high settings. GPU usage isn't that high, but I don't know why it crashes....

Hmm, what are the symptoms when it crashes?

[Mehta23]

I don't really know... It just stops and crashes to the desktop and windows says it's not responding...

[kalniel]

I don't really know... It just stops and crashes to the desktop and windows says it's not responding...

Yuk. Did you get the game through Origin? If not, try registering it there so it can patch up.

[Mehta23]

I got it from steam.

[kalniel]

I got it from steam.

Oh, should be patched up then :/