Split/Second Performance

So I hear that, like Pure before, it's kind of a half-assed port. However, due to my love of Black Rock studio because of their previous racer and the sheer bombasticness of what I've seen/read of Split/Second, I took the plunge and got the game for cheap (£18 from India with £5 courier delivery as I'm impatient - it's a seller I've used before so not a bad deal when you keep in mind the fact that the UK hasn't seen a retail release and the only online retailers distributing it are Direct 2 Driver for an eye watering £39.99...).

I played the demo and there was no option to change graphics settings or resolution (!) but I hear the game runs reasonably well and the engine is rather fantastic. I doubt I'll be getting Dirt 2 levels of optimisation heaven and was wondering if anyone here had had any experience with it? I like to think I've got a pretty beefy system (specs in sig) so am hoping for the decent, if hardly amazing performance - the game is Framerate locked at 30 so it's not like I'd need to push it too far.

Apparently the 'very high' settings cripple most desktops but that's mainly due to the fact that it just adds 4xAA on top of 'High' settings so is something I could live without if I could get it running at 1920x1080 without too much of a hit.

EDIT: Just read on the gamespot forums that someone with the following setup is getting a constant 30FPS on high settings at 1900x1200 (although very high is still proving to be a massive problem for them): Asus G71gx | e8235 @ 3.24ghz | 6gb DDR2 800mhz | GTX 260m 1gb 685mhz core 1100mhz mem | 500gb HDD + 250gb HDD | 1920 by 1200, 17.3" LCD | Windows 7 64bit

Looks promising for my rig...

 

...there's a demo? Downloading now!

 

I have some screenshots here if you want to check them out.

 

I'm only semi-interested in this game and Blur. What I really want is a new sim racer like Grand Turismo or Forza but on the PC.

 

Performance does not match visual appearance in max settings. Mediocre racing game, looks and plays like a console game.

 

I didn't know there was one either, lol.

I've been looking at this game, but I hardly get a game without trying it out first.

 

I need to see if it works on eyefinity, if it does I will give it a shot.

 

Just got done playing a few laps.

It's pretty fun, kinda like the game Burnout, but I do like how you can crash other cars at the right moment, which is pretty sweet.

To bad you can't configure the graphics in the Demo, but I don't think I will be picking this one up. I think I'll stick with DiRT 2.

 

I had fun with the demo...pretty cool actually...might pick it up onces its a bit cheaper...

 

Going by what someone has found here, it may cut the bottom of the image off.

 

Oh wow...not just the bottom half but the top too...sucks lol!

 

I've got the game, and now wish I hadn't. On my M15x (with GTX260M, so 5850 will run faster) on highest settings, I get around 20fps. If i switch it down to just 'high' I get 30fps (due to the limiter). But, in 'High' it looks like a console game, which is rather frustrating.

 

What resolution do you run it with?
I get a constant 30FPS with it on High (1680x1050). No AA is enabled though.

 

Very High apparently just adds 4xAA - can't say that would be a huge enough difference to impact the game so severely, surely?

And have you seen the 360 version? It's blurry as all hell, distractingly so (I actually find it quite bizarre - currently playing Red Dead Redemption and despite that being at 720, it looks a hell of lot sharper than Split/Second does on consoles). If you're running it at 1920x1080 the you're doing so with a much, much crisper image.

 

I cant wait to see Blur reviews or a DEMO then compare it with split/second.

Although it looks like User scores are higher for Blur.

 

I figured it would be a pretty arcade game so that's what is likely going to prevent me from buying. Man, I would really just a new realistic racer like Grand Turismo or Forza on the PC.

I'd love to be able to tune cars as well cause that's half the fun!

However, I don't think anything has been announced as of yet.

 

If you're after a multplayer racer with good replay value, Blur all the way - their Modern Warfare-esque perk system and levelling with challenges etc. is frankly insane.

However, if you want a prettier game with a more confident art direction and something that feels less like a racer and more action orientated and are mainly interested in the singleplayer (like I am) then Split/Second all the way.

That seems to be the consensus going round most reviews anyway - the scores they're getting are startlingly similar so far.

 

PS3 version is the same, well bad jaggies for sure. I tried it in Best Buy and thought it was ok, figured the PC version would be better, I was wrong.

 

Well, I went ahead and got it...its a good game, definitely worth checking out, but performance does suck. On my rig...which I consider quite awesome (Asus W90, Q9000 @ 2.7Ghz, Crossfire 4870) at 1080p on High its completely playable and smooth as butter...on Very High is slows to a single digit FPS crawl...even with 4xAA it shouldn't be THIS slow...enabling 4xAA in CCC while playing the game on High is still smooth as can be...so something else, something completely performance draining, is killing my rig. I dont get it! In either case though, besides the AA I dont see any noticeable difference between High and Very High.

 

Wow. The demo was terrible. DO NOT WANT this game.

 

Actually the PS3 version runs at true 720 while the Xbox version is producing less vertical lines at around 1280x672.

Having tried both demos, the PS3 version does indeed look sharper although it suffers in other areas (alpha textures such as explosions are lower in quality).

All in all though, it's almost visual parity like most multiplatform games these days. Still, looking forward to my PC copy arriving, even if I won't be able to handle it at very high (not an issue, I usually crank up all settings at the expense of AA anyway).

 

I was stuck at some low res for the demo, it's looked really bad graphics wise. Gameplay wise I really don't see much fun in the game.

 

I think you overestimate what a card based on a 9800 GT is capable of producing.

 

Actually the 'very high' settings on this game make even desktop machines with i9s and GTX 285s stutter - there's something very wrong with the way the game is applying the 4xAA boost that very high offers over just high settings

 

People should try force AA options from the GPU panel then if thats the case, perhaps it will make a difference.

 

I'm considering picking this up, but I haven't been able to find anything about what kind of DRM is on it. Haven't played a racing game since Burnout for the PS2.

 

With a 9800GTX+ i'm playing the game on very high with no AA from the nvidia panel and 1024x768 resolution, and it runs smooth. Anything higher for me and it's a slide show. I should have went with the 360 version. Serves me right for trying to save $20.

I believe it's securom

 

Blur seems to have nice reviews, may be a lot more interesting than this game.

But no idea about PC since the review I saw was on the PS3

 

Is there a demo yet? Didn't see one on Xbox Live.

 

Face-Off: Blur | DigitalFoundry

Second page- it's a great port apparently, better than Split/Second at least, shame it's not my sort of game though, I'm not one for mulitplayer racers

 

Gamespot said the AI is pretty aggressive and single player is still a blast from start to finish.

 

After playing through a few episodes, I have to say that I'm quite disapointed. The game is fun at first but then it started to get annoying.
1st is the AI, they are playing too nice to each other. They just don't pull any power play on each other at all. It only happens when I got to the top 3. And at some race, there was 2 big SUVs keeping me behind some other car taking the lead.
2nd is the new car, sure it's fancy to get a new car every now and then but it just doesn't feel worthy at all. No matter how fast your car is, the AI will always still manage to have some magical car which are always way faster then yours. Heck, there was a few time a big SUV coming from behind and pass my sport car while I'm at top speed.