Colin McRae Dirt 2 VGA Graphics performance review

It was merely a couple of months ago when Codemasters announced that they'd be delaying their hotty upcoming and much anticipated title Colin McRea DiRT 2, at that time nobody really understand the dynamic of delaying the PC version -- while Codemasters was already releasing the console version.

As it turned out ATI was really keen to see high-profile titles in the Christmas season carrying support for DirectX 11 -- obviously to go along with the all new series 5000 DirectX 11 class graphics cards.

ATI took it even further and paid a pretty chunk of dough to get this title bundled with the mid-range and high- end graphics cards with one thing obvious, the game needed to be a DirectX 11 title. And so Codemasters did. They went to the binary board with their programmers team and started writing a DX11 code path enhancing the game in several major aspects -- which we'll discuss and show on the next page.

Last week Codemasters released a two level playable demo allowing you to play the game on both DX9 and DX11 (if you have a Radeon HD series 5000 card that is). Also integrated is a benchmark mode, very handy. Now we'll not be using the standard benchmark yet our own scripted test run in the Ensenada Port circuit set in Baja California level where we can drive through sand, mud and water to measure the most prominent DX11 features like DX11 Hardware tessellation, Geometry instancing and displacement mapping -- plus obviously more complex shader usage.

Codemasters now released a playable demo of Colin McRae: DiRT 2, allowing you to try out the DirectX 11-powered Games for Windows LIVE edition of this racing game sequel. The demo enables gamers to compete in two of Colin McRae: DiRT 2's events.  In the Trailblazer event, players take on the ultimate test of rally car against the challenging Moroccan terrain on a point-to-point track filled with flat-out straights and hair-raising hairpins in the Mitsubishi Eclipse GT. In the second event, gamers compete in a Landrush race at the spectacular Ensenada Port circuit set in Baja California, where players go wheel-to-wheel in an 8-vehicle riotous race over lethal bumps and killer jumps in the heavy duty West Coast Choppers Stuka TT.

Let's go check out the game and it's performance ...