14 DAY TRIAL // Racing games have always been about delivering one of the most intricate and life-like experiences to gamers all around the world who want to feel the adrenaline-filled moments during a high-stakes race through some beautiful environments.
In the hardcore simulation genre, Codemasters' Colin McRae series has always been one of the most loved by fans. In its latest installment, DiRT, it raised the benchmark and has been one of the most popular rally simulators on the market.
Now, the team at the UK-based publisher is hard at work on Colid McRae: DiRT 2, which will be arriving on consoles in September. Although that is the time when the PC version was also scheduled to appear, it seems that the development team has decided to delay it in order to implement the new DirectX 11 graphics technology.
Set to be introduced by the new Windows 7 operating systems for the PC, the technology will be supported by graphics cards that will appear in the second half of 2009. That is why, the team will work until December in order for DiRT 2 to be the first game to support such technology and take the racing genre to a whole new level.
“While the console editions of Colin McRae: DiRT 2 will retain their September ship date, we believe that the DirectX 11 feature set is too compelling to ignore, especially considering how much more it can add to the visual experience for PC gamers,” said Bryan Marshall, chief technical officer, Codemasters. “As a leader in digital racing entertainment, we are staying ahead of the pack by immediately taking advantage of key new technologies such as hardware tessellation, multi-threading and Shader Model 5.0 to deliver the most realistic, immersive and exhilarating racing experiences in the business. The fusion of DirectX 11 with Codemasters’ EGO Engine will raise the technical bar considerably in the racing genre.”
The company will work with AMD in order to test out its early builds for the game and make sure that nothing but the best will be delivered to the hardcore gamers around the world. “We expect Codemasters’ early move to DirectX 11 to place them in a leadership position in developing the next generation of PC games and simulations,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president, AMD Products Group. “To aid in transitioning to DirectX 11, AMD is providing Codemasters with access to our software engineering expertise in DirectX 11 technologies such as tessellation and shader modelling. DirectX 11 has all of the ingredients needed to take PC gaming to a new level of realism by giving developers tools to effectively utilize the multi-CPU, multi-GPU systems now available to players.”
Are you excited about the fact that DiRT 2 will support DirectX 11 or do you think that, even now, as not many titles fully support DirectX 10, instead relying on the older version, this won't make a big difference? Leave us a comment with your opinion.