DiRT-2 Demo DX11 Benchmark Results

DiRT-2 features a roster of contemporary off-road events, taking players to diverse and challenging real-world environments. This World Tour has players competing in aggressive multi-car, and intense solo races at extraordinary new locations. Everything from canyon racing and jungle trails to city stadium-based events. Span the globe as players unlock tours in stunning locations spread across the face of the world. USA, Japan, Malaysia, Baja Mexico, Croatia, London, and more venues await, as players climb to the pinnacle of modern competitive off-road racing.

Multiple disciplines are featured; encompassing the very best that modern off-roading has to offer. Powered by the third generation of the EGO^TM Engine's award-winning racing game technology, DiRT-2 benefits from tuned-up car-handling physics and new damaged engine effects. It showcases a spectacular new level of visual fidelity, with cars and tracks twice as detailed as those seen in GRID. The DiRT-2 garage houses a collection of officially licensed rally cars and off-road vehicles, specifically selected to deliver aggressive and fast paced racing. Covering seven vehicle classes, players are given the keys to powerful vehicles right away. In DiRT-2 the opening drive is the Group N Subaru, essentially making the ultimate car from the original game the starting point in the sequel, and the rides just get even more impressive as you rack up points.

The primary contribution that DirectX-11 makes to the DiRT-2 Demo benchmark is in the way water is displayed when a car is passing through it, and in the way cloth items are rendered. The water graphics are pretty obvious, and there are several places in the Moroccan race scene where cars are plowing through large and small puddles. Each one is unique, and they are all believable, especially when more than one car is in the scene. The cloth effects are not as obvious, except in the slower-moving menu screens; when there is a race on, there's precious little time to notice the realistic furls in a course-side flag. I should also note that the flags are much more noticeable in the actual game than in the demo, so they do add a little more to the realism there, that is absent from the benchmark.

On a side note, I appreciate the fact that the demo's built-in benchmark has variable game play. I know its lame, but I most always watch it intently, just to see how well "my" car is being driven. So far, my finest telekinetic efforts have yielded a best finish of second place!

The relative performance of the Radeon HD 6870 in the DIRT-2 Demo is pretty consistent within the AMD family. With almost twice the frame rate as the 5770 "Juniper" card, and almost 50% better than the HD 5830, it's hard to argue that the HD 6870 doesn't deliver much better performance. It stays a respectable distance behind the 5870, and would be trading blows with the HD 5850 if it were in this test. The race winner is the GTX460, though. It surprises by beating out the HD 5870 at its own game. For a title that was developed on AMD hardware, this is a surprising result, or it would be if I hadn't already seen the GTX460 pick a fight with every high end card it encountered.

In the next section we'll take a look at one of the newest benchmarking tools, H.A.W.X. 2. It's a high flying aerial adventure filled with lots of tessellated terrain, blown-up airplane bits, and lots of blue sky as a background.

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