PC Not Performing to Spec? - Colin McRae Dirt

chat2joe

Hey,

I've downloaded a trial of ColinMcRae Dirt from Codemasters site and it will not run smoothly. Even on LOW graphics settings. I've been unable to turn other games up to very high quality too.

Here's the spec of my pc...(from dxdiag)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+, MMX, 3DNow(2CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Page File: 1189MB Used, 4794MB available
Direct X Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Graphics Card: 256MB ATI Radeon X1300PRO

The Minimum Recommended Specs for the Game are;

From codemasters website....

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Minimum Specifications

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- Windows XP
- DirectX 9.0c
- Pentium 4 @ 3.0GHz or Athlon 64 3000+
- 1GB RAM.
- Graphics Card: GeForce 6800 / Radeon X1300 or above
- DirectX Compatible Sound Card

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Recommended Specifications

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- Windows XP/Vista.
- DirectX 9.0c
- Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.66Ghz or Athlon X2 3800+
- 2GB RAM.
- Graphics Card: GeForce 8800 or Radeon X1950
- Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Sound Card.

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Supported Graphics Cards

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Shader Model 3 is a MINIMUM REQUIREMENT for this game.
- ATi Radeon x1300, x1600, x1800, x1900, x1950
- nVidia Geforce 6800, 7100, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950, 8800

Surely I should be able to run this? Can anyone spot a kink in my system and do you know a simple diagnostic tool I could run and give results back here if that helps.

RoyalMarine

update your graphics card drivers.

also, your graphics card falls into the minimum requirements... but just barely.

id say thats whats causing it to be so low.

Beelzebub

Definitely upgrade your video card if you are in any way into games.

The min spec means that a game will run...barely in my experience.

TerrorFirmer

Yep, X1300 is ancient and was a low end card even when it was released almost three years ago.

here.from.day.1

This game can be hard to run with a 8800 GTX so I would concur and say your GPU isnt up to the task.

jonny72

The 1300 pro is crap..

Your cheapest option is to pick up a 7900gs for about 60 or 70 euro on Ebay, that will run dirt on medium settings quite well.. your power supply should also be enough for it..

Go to www.tomshardware.com and look at the VGA charts, it gives a rough idea of the power of most graphics cards (yours is waaaay down the bottom)

Also open up your case and find out what your power supply is and also what your motherboard is, you should be able to get a much better graphics card (I'm guessing its a Dell)

Nvidia 7900GS or 7900GT - less than 100 euros 2nd hand, even new, should work

If you can spend a bit more go for the 8800GS or 8800GT 256mb, also perhaps the 3850 from Radeon.

DO NOT: go for cards without reading a review of them, if you do, you'll get something like an 8500 512mb card which will still be ****.

conzy

Dirt just doesn't work on PC....

Its a console port and runs effortlessly on PS3 and 360 but ran like a dog even on my 8800gts 640 and E4300 @ 3ghz

chat2joe

Thanks for the replies.

So it's a **** card eh... damn u dell!!!



I've looked into it a bit and it's a Dell C521 and there's another obstacle I never ever realised until now - because of it's slimer profile case, it only takes "low profile" PCI cards?

I'll have a better look this evening at the power and motherboard but i think from looking at forums now with people who have been hit the same - it seems to be a pityful 280W..

Anti

I have a 285W psu in my media centre pc which currently has a Q6600 3gb ram, and 2 hdds, along with a 7900gt. Run no probs at all.

chat2joe

Any views on using a "PCI Raiser Card"? I think that might widen my options for upgrades. I've just found a few low profile cards on Komplett - any of these look good...?

XFX GeForce 8400GS 450M 256MB DDR2, PCI-Express,DMS-59 to 2xDVI, low-profile
HIS Radeon X1550 HyperMemory(256MB DDR2) ,PCI-Express 1x, low-profile, 2xDVI-I
HIS Radeon X1550 256MB DDR2, iFan, PCI, 2xDVI/Tv-Out, "low-profile", Retail

chat2joe

SPECIFICATIONS for C521

conzy

You will not fit a card capable of playing Dirt in that case....

TerrorFirmer

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=339922

Needs a new bracket though. Will play Dirt at low-med settings. I've run Dirt on my 8600M-GT ddr2 and it ran OK at those settings....at 800x600 res. But it still looks better then you might imagine.

jonny72

That PC is pretty much a dead-end for any new games, especially a game like Dirt which needs quite a system just to run.

If you have a few hundred to spare you can get quite a good PC from hardwareversand.de

TerrorFirmer

Just for reference, here is Dirt running on my ddr2 8600GT:

Anti

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Just for reference, here is Dirt running on my ddr2 8600GT:

Dosent look too bad, apart from the rough edges.

conzy

That is not dirt

TerrorFirmer

Anti wrote: »

Dosent look too bad, apart from the rough edges.

800x600, anything higher kills it.

Unless you find 20-25fps acceptable, I don't though!

chat2joe

Just for reference, here is Dirt running on my ddr2 8600GT:

It's kind of hard to say how that's running from a screenshot though. Like here's the game running on ultra settings on my x1300pro ... won't run smoothly though...



Thanks for the link TerrorFirmer (MSI GeForce 8600GT 256MB DDR2, PCI-Express, DVI, HDCP/HDMI)!
I'll have another look for anything more powerful but that might be the best I can get. it "Includes Low Profile Bracket" so should be no problem.

TerrorFirmer

chat2joe wrote: »

It's kind of hard to say how that's running from a screenshot though. Like here's the game running on ultra settings on my x1300pro ... won't run smoothly though...

No it's not, I have FRAPS running in the picture so you can see how fast it's running at - 41fps. In the top corner. Generally, 25-30fps is enough to make a game appear fluid, anything under will stutter. You should always be looking at a minimum of 40-50fps though, in order to account for drops in intense situations...

TerrorFirmer

Thought this might interest you, tried out Gears of War on my laptop last night for the laugh, and did not expect it to run remotely as good as it did (again, this is also a DDR2 8600GT):