Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (known as Dirt 2 outside Europe and stylised, DiRT) is a racing game released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. This is the first game in the McRae series since McRae’s death in 2007. It was announced on 19 November 2008 and features Ken Block, Travis Pastrana, Tanner Foust, and Dave Mirra. The game includes many new race-events, including stadium events. Along with the player, an RV travels from one event to another, and serves as ‘headquarters’ for the player. It features a roster of contemporary off-road events, taking players to diverse and challenging real-world environments. The game takes place across four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. The game includes five different event types: Rally, Rallycross, ‘Trailblazer,’ ‘Land Rush’ and ‘Raid.’ The World Tour mode sees players competing in multi-car and solo races at new locations, and also includes a new multiplayer mode.
This engine support DX11 and was one of the integral releases for ATI when they launched the 5xxx series cards. Hardware tessellation is used on the crowd, as well as water and cloth objects. DirectCompute 11 accelerated high definition ambient occulsion is also integrated with full floating point high dynamic range lighting.
We enabled maximum settings, including hardware tessellated animated crowds and dynamic water via ULTRA settings.
At such high settings, the AMD graphics solution is showing solid performance, keeping the frame rates around the 30 zone at all times.
Thats a good specification for the price. Seems it arrived in quite a state mind you.
good article, covers a lot of areas which is useful. That cpu seems really good, quite impressed with it.
That is an interesting looking machine. I dont think I really like the appearance from the back, but it look good in the normal, typing position
i really like it, 8gb of DDR3 as standard is pretty over the top ! shame the HDD side is poorly set up.
I love this machine. I really do. makes my dell looks positively pedestrian
Wow this is much better than I thought it would be, they haven’t compromised on anything. although I agree. either Raid 0 the 500GBs or remove one and put in a 40-60GB SSD, put the price up a tiny bit.
The lack of SSD in such a killer machine is a huge oversight. the price is good, but they have dropped the ball with the configuration of the drives. I cant believe one wasnt formatted either.!
Pretty much my perfect laptop. although id prefer a 1200 res screen at this size. gives a bit more deskspace.
Really brilliant, but i prefer a smaller machine with better battery life.
Styling rocks. performance rocks. battery life doesn’t. id change the HD’s out too. 120gb for boot (SSD) and a 1TB for storage. or even two 128 GB SSDS in raid 0. I think this machine might feel a lot slower than it is with the current setup. how did it act in speed Zardon? slow to boot?
needs an SSD, id never use a laptop now without one.
Hi Ted – performance was good, but you always feel a mechanical drive now as slightly sluggish when an OS disk, even for overall responsiveness. It wasn’t slow, but moving from a laptop with one in it, it can feel slow at times. I agree with your points but adding in an SSD would increase the price. unless they went for a 40GB unit as a boot drive.
I also like Asus G73./ It is a good laptop.
I have one, its awesome. Not really a portable laptop though, its too big and the battery life is not enough (just over an hour internet surfing). It is a great desktop replacement if you lack space, which is one of the reasons i went for it. The design is lovely. I liked the angles and exhausts vents before i bought it and its even better in real life. I imported mine from the states and saved about £500, even with the duty paid.