DiRT: Showdown

[g00seberry]

Widescreen Grade: A
Multi-monitor Grade: B

Read Full Detailed Report - DiRT: Showdown

Developed by Codemasters, DiRT: Showdown is the latest outing in the series, with a change of direction towards a destruction derby style of play, as players engage in demolition arenas and destruction races. Released 25 May 2012 in Europe and June 12th 2012 in North America

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[g00seberry]

Widescreen Grade: A
Ultra-Widescreen Grade: Incomplete
Multi-monitor Grade: B
4k Grade: Incomplete

Read Full Detailed Report - DiRT: Showdown

Developed by Codemasters, DiRT: Showdown is the latest outing in the series, with a change of direction towards a destruction derby style of play, as players engage in demolition arenas and destruction races. Released 25 May 2012 in Europe and June 12th 2012 in North America

4:3

16:10

16:9

3x1

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[Toothless Spoon]

I concur with RED Frog - this game needs a FOV fix badly! The demo was flawless, but they changed it for some reason! Hopefully someone can have a look at it.

[RED-FROG]

EDIT. I'm totally blind.
I was editing DiRT3 files instead of Showdown. I will keep trying. lol I think it should be fixed by just changing some easy values in camera.xml files but I'm not sure yet.


I was changing all Parameter fov scalar value 60.0000 to 120.0000
now the game crashes when I start a race. Maybe FOV is too high, maybe WordPad saving breaks the code. (the latter one must be true)

Since I always have to edit all cars because the car names are totally stupid I'm giving up on this. Also saving with WordPad must be breaking it, the file size changes while
Im not even doing changes.




------------------------------
In another forum I saw the people talking about a DiRT3 FOV Tool. But all it really does, is changing some values in files so:
-------

I took a look and made changes in every "cameras.xml" file located in the dirt showdown / cars / models .. folders.

Each car seems to have its own camera settings.

I don't have any good editing/programming software so I only used WordPad. lol

But no luck. Fov hasn't changed. Maybe I overlooked something or maybe you need hex editors/cheat engine or whatsoever, I'm already at the end of my abilities there with WordPad lol :/

[g00seberry]

Thanks for the response guys. Can you try running the game in a window? My results are perfectly hor+ when windowed, but the HUD doesn't center, I'd be interested to see if it's the same with you too! Not quite sure what it's doing to cripple the FOV in fullscreen! Also state whether you're running NVSurround or Eyefinity.

Thanks! :)

[RED-FROG]

Ah, you are right, windowed mode does show proper FOV.

Eyefinity







But playing in windowed mode is not acceptable, I will not play it that way for sure. Actually I didn't even try how much better it might be because I don't have the wheel right now,
but I will try for sure. On the screenshots you can see a TOTALLY different image, the high FOV will give you the idea of speed while on low FOV you basically are all the way zoomed in. I feel like playing a crappy console game.


Because of the windowed mode I cannot make any use of Crossfire, the framerates are almost half as much (in this scene it's 97fps vs 53fps - and it's a very empty scene)
And this is the most important part.

Well and also the HUD is not centered.

[Toothless Spoon]

Sorry, I Un-installed this after I couldn't find a FOV fix. Plus if the FOV does work in window mode then, that's crap also. I'll lose my SLI capabilities. And the obvious flaw of none centred hud. Why?? Dirt 3 worked flawlessly...

[g00seberry]

Does anyone still have the demo for DiRT: Showdown installed to check whether it displayed correctly in that? Some comparison screens would be great!

[Sh4dowking]

It's sad that the official release has a FOV issue, maybe someone from widescreen fixer need to look at this, maybe Dopefish can help. Its playable with this fov issue but i want to play the game with proper fov. I play it now in windowed because of g00seberry for its advise. thanks! :bigsmile:

EDIT:

Found a temporarily fix for the game with good fov. This fix is an autohotkey script to remove the borders from a game in windowed mode and can also be used for other games.

1. download AutoHotKey.
2. install autohotkey.
3. Download this Script.
4. Run the script called Windowed. ( In the taskbar you will see a icon from autohotkey.)
5. Run Dirt Showdown in windowed mode.
6. Press CTRL+SHIFT+A to activate the script and the windowed borders are gone. ( the window is now 1680x1050 you will have to stretch it over your screens.)
You can also edit the script and put your resolution in it and you can edit the hotkey to activate the script.
7. Play!

The game looks fullscreen now but the fov is how it should be.

Here some screenshots:

Without Autohotkey:


With Autohotkey:


So you can see the fov is good.

have fun playing!
Sh4dowking

[g00seberry]

I've made Codies aware of this issue so hopefully a fix can be found soon!

Until then, I strongly advise anyone playing to not run in any multi-mon resolutions fullscreen. It will greatly cripple your experience of the game! If you can get away with the lowered framerates, use the windowed no-border method above! Thanks for that! :)

[Axe Master]

I'm not sure what is going on here. We have tried NV Surround in our labs and it behaves exactly the same as Eyefinity. The aspect ratio needs to be set to auto for the multi-monitor set ups to work.

If that is not the issue. Please try deleting your hardware_settings_config.xml from My Games. Failing that, please post up your hardware_settings_config and hardware_settings_info for me to have a look at.

Thanks,

Gareth,

Codemasters.

[g00seberry]

I'm not sure what is going on here. We have tried NV Surround in our labs and it behaves exactly the same as Eyefinity. The aspect ratio needs to be set to auto for the multi-monitor set ups to work.

If that is not the issue. Please try deleting your hardware_settings_config.xml from My Games. Failing that, please post up your hardware_settings_config and hardware_settings_info for me to have a look at.

Thanks,

Gareth,

Codemasters.

Hi Gareth, thanks for your reply!

To go into as much detail as possible, here are my personal results:

• 2xGTX460s in SLI


• Driver version 301.42


• Desktop resolution 5920x1080 [bezel corrected]


• Game version: Steam review code


• I have deleted existing config files and allowed them to be recreated, the problem remains.


• Settings for the most part on Medium, Aspect Ratio set to Auto


• Changing ONLY fullscreen to 'no' without touching any other settings corrects the FOV, but un-centers the HUD (and of course leaves the game windowed which isn't ideal)


• All tested multi-monitor resolutions have correct FOV windowed, all have incorrect FOV fullscreen.

Attached are my hardware settings files. Inside there's a folder containing the ones saved when I ran fullscreen, and another folder containing the ones saved when I ran windowed. Maybe it will help to see both.
Let me know if there's any more info you need!

Thanks :)

Attached files

Showdown_hardwaresettings_wsgf.zip (4 KB)

[Skid]

Here are my hardware settings, ignore the fact its set to windowed mode, I change it to fullscreen mode right after I start otherwise I get bad performance, also I'm using Eyefinity but I have yet to see a game that uses the Eyefinity API pick that up, as a result my HUD is none centred.

Attached files

hardwaresettings.rar (1.6 KB)

[Axe Master]

I've written a quick test for you to try. Please strip off the _.txt extension to run it as an executable.

It runs the same tests for Eyefinity and NV Surround as the DiRT Showdown runtime. I'd be interested to know whether or not it recognises that you are running NV Surround.

Attached files

ShowdownGPUTest.exe_.txt (130 KB)

[g00seberry]

---- SHOWDOWN GPU TEST ----

desktop resolution: 5920 x 1080

NVidia GPU detected
NVidia GPU count: 2
Using NVIDIA Surround: 3x1

---- DONE ----

[Axe Master]

It turns out that the designers deliberately narrowed the FOV when running in triple monitor mode to avoid clipping artefacts on the peripherial monitors.

I have added a toggle in the hardware_settings_config that allows users to use the same FOV as DiRT3 et al. This will get released in the next patch.

Sorry for the late reply.

[g00seberry]

It turns out that the designers deliberately narrowed the FOV when running in triple monitor mode to avoid clipping artefacts on the peripherial monitors.

I have added a toggle in the hardware_settings_config that allows users to use the same FOV as DiRT3 et al. This will get released in the next patch.

Sorry for the late reply.

Thanks very much, that's great news!

Most multi-monitor users are generally more advanced in their technical ability, as well as posses a greater commitment to tweaking and enjoying their games than most consumers. This means we'll always be happy to be made aware of the issue, but have the option to run it anyway. Basically, and I think I speak for most of the community (but correct me if I'm wrong guys), we want you to say "Look, if you do this, it may have problems or go a bit odd, but hey, here's the option anyway, go nuts!". We'll always appreciate that level of respect and understanding of the way we enjoy to customise our gaming experience :)

Thanks again!

[scavvenjahh]

This is tested on NVSurround, reports from Eyefinity show the HUD is NOT centered fullscreen but the AR is correct.

I don't think that's true; RED-FROG's screenshots suggest the exact same problem cripples Eyefinity, too.

Anyway, here's how the demo compares to the retail version (still v1.0 ATTOW)...

5760x1080 fullscreen, Auto AR, top=demo, bottom=retail

Chase cam



Bonnet cam



It looks like the retail game uses a combination of zoom-in and dolly-out in fullscreen Surround. Although the retail chase cam shot may look "okay" at first glance, the in-game feel is atrocious: the perspective is wrong, and feels a bit like playing a Vert- FPS with a properly centered, non-cut-off weapon model. It makes Surround look weirder, not wider than widescreen.

Interestingly, all the menus, cut-scenes, loading screens... have a flawless, strictly Hor+ FOV in both the demo and retail game.

Race menu



Cut-scene



So the FOV has been tampered with (and ruined) only for proper gameplay, in fullscreen mode. If devs really prefer this sort of botch job to the possibility of some clipping here and there, we're doomed.