14 DAY TRIAL // Codemasters has confirmed that the PC version of its upcoming Grid Autosport racing game supports plenty of different enhanced visual effects and features, and will also receive a high-resolution texture DLC pack at launch next month.
Grid Autosport was revealed to the world back in May as the next iteration in the series that will bring the experience closer to the first game and fix some of the problems that disappointed fans when it came to last year's Grid 2.
Now, a few more details about the PC edition of Grid Autosport have appeared, with Codemasters confirming to PCGamesN that, on launch day, a special High-Resolution Texture DLC will be made available via Steam for free.
The add-on weighs in at around 5GB, but it was even as big as 30GB during development. As such, the DLC alongside the actual game's installation will only require around 16GB of free space on a user's hard drive.
Codemasters also confirmed that the PC is the lead platform for Grid Autosport, as it allows the studio to experiment with all sorts of technologies that aren't possible on PS3 or Xbox 360.
"Everything's just a bit bigger and higher res detail on PC," the studio revealed. "Better shadows, higher res car reflections – that's something else we've put a lot of work into on Autosport, getting the car paint effect to look as authentic as we possibly can."
While on consoles the game runs at a 30fps framerate, on the PC there's no limit and it can even run at a 4K resolution.
"The thing about being PC-lead is that in the past we'd think 'Oh we can't do that on console' so we wouldn't do it. Whereas now the reaction now is 'Oh we can't do it on console but let's do it on PC'."
"We have little dashboard reflections. In head cam you can see reflections on the windscreen, something we'd never be able to afford to do on consoles without breaking our fps performance limit. In the past we wouldn't have done features like that but now we're thinking we can do it on PC. Better lighting and things like that. Little bits in lots of places."
Grid Autosport is set to debut on June 24 in North America and June 27 in Europe, for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 platforms. Codemasters revealed previously that it didn’t want to bring the experience to PS4 or Xbox One because it doesn't feel next-gen.