Digging in a Little Deeper into the DiRT
I talked in depth with Paul about what DiRT Rally brings to the genre
Over the past few weeks I have had the chance to play the early access "DiRT Rally" title from Codemasters. This is a much more simulation based title that is currently PC only, which is a big switch for Codemasters and how they usually release their premier racing offerings. I was able to get a hold of Paul Coleman from Codemasters and set up a written interview with him. Paul's answers will be in italics.
Who are you, what do you do at Codemasters, and what do you do in your spare time away from the virtual wheel?
Hi my name is Paul Coleman and I am the Chief Games Designer on DiRT Rally. I’m responsible for making sure that the game is the most authentic representation of the sport it can be, I’m essentially representing the player in the studio. In my spare time I enjoy going on road trips with my family in our 1M Coupe. I’ve been co-driving in real world rally events for the last three years and I’ve used that experience to write and voice the co-driver calls in game.
If there is one area that DiRT has really excelled at is keeping frame rate consistent throughout multiple environments. Many games, especially those using cutting edge rendering techniques, often have dramatic frame rate drops at times. How do you get around this while still creating a very impressive looking game?
The engine that DiRT Rally has been built on has been constantly iterated on over the years and we have always been looking at ways of improving the look of the game while maintaining decent performance. That together with the fact that we work closely with GPU manufacturers on each project ensures that we stay current. We also have very strict performance monitoring systems that have come from optimising games for console. These systems have proved very useful when building DiRT Rally even though the game is exclusively on PC.
How do you balance out different controller use cases? While many hard core racers use a wheel, I have seen very competitive racing from people using handheld controllers as well as keyboards. Do you handicap/help those particular implementations so as not to make it overly frustrating to those users? I ask due to the difference in degrees of precision that a gamepad has vs. a wheel that can rotate 900 degrees.
Again this comes back to the fact that we have traditionally developed for console where the primary input device is a handheld controller. This is an area that other sims don’t usually have to worry about but for us it was second nature. There are systems that we have that add a layer between the handheld controller or keyboard and the game which help those guys but the wheel is without a doubt the best way to experience DiRT Rally as it is a direct input.
What has been done with the incoming Force Feedback patch as compared to what was initially implemented? How does this implementation affect things like CPU resources vs. the old? Memory footprint? New hooks into the physics engine?
I’m starting to sound like a bit of a stuck record here but the way we had implemented the FFB at launch was a legacy system that we had been using for our console games. This is an example where that legacy system was not up to the standard that people expected with a PC simulation game and we had a lot of feedback telling us that that is the case. In a nutshell:
As a result the Force Feedback system has been re-written. Forces are now separated into force and friction to make better use of device API and this removes the inverted feeling that some users were experiencing. FFB sampling has been improved as part of the re-write and this supported by both controller and wheel devices.This coupled with more options to refine your setup and a calibration wizard means that this should give the fans the experience they have been asking for.
What are you doing to further improve the Eyefinity and Surround experiences? I notice that in some cars with the “through windshield view sans wheel and hands” that the view is not exceptionally beneficial or accurate. For example, in a certain Lancia car I feel like I am low-riding my seat and barely peering over the dash. What adjustments can be made?
We added the dashboard view to allow players to experience the cockpit without having the restricted view. We also added some adjustment to the Field of View but it’s clear that people want more adjustment. We are investigating a bunch of stuff to help with this including allowing players to adjust their seat position.
One thing that really struck me was watching the benchmark with sound turned on. The switch from viewpoint to viewpoint had a dramatic change in sound position, occlusion, and reverb. Can you describe what you have done with the sound engine and how important that is to the racing experience?
The most obvious change is from exterior into cabin view. We’re treating the sound as it is treated in real life, the engine and exhaust emit from their respective sources on the car, as do the surface sounds from the ground. We then filter these sounds when in cabin view and apply an impulse response of a rally car. This is a recording of the internal space that the sound moves around in inside the car. Much like the echo in a bathroom, but we can design and control how much echo we need. We also apply the same principal in exterior locations. We have impulses responses of wooded areas where we can dynamically mix the reverb depending on how many trees are surrounding the vehicle.
Cheating has always been an issue, and DiRT 2 was notorious for the top daily challenges being all cheaters. What have you done to improve this situation?
We’ve got a number of systems in place to prevent cheaters that we didn’t have back in the day with DiRT2. I’m not going to go into detail with how they work because I wouldn’t want to compromise the work we have done but I am significantly more confident that the times posted are legit. As for corner cutting, this is part of rally but where people are finding extreme shortcuts we are looking at planting trees and shrubs or placing fences to prevent people from exploiting those lines.
Josh work for AMD now?
Josh work for AMD now? Everything is always AMD-related.
I don’t think AMD was
I don't think AMD was mentioned once here… I believe Paul actually said, "We work with all GPU manufacturers…"
Josh is why I want to buy
Josh is why I want to buy AMD.
Josh confirmed AMD shill
Josh confirmed AMD shill
I love these comments.
I love these comments. Yesterday we were NVIDIA shills for hosting a live stream with them. 🙂
Ryan (and Allyn) is an Nvidia
Ryan (and Allyn) is an Nvidia shill, and Josh is an AMD shill, so both comments were correct.
So does that balance the site
So does that balance the site out, or is it just 2/3 NVIDIA shill? I guess I should go ahead and replace that Intel machine as my primary GPU test bench and those GTX 970s I was about to install in my main machine. Damn, I just can't get this shilling right!
If you were a better shill,
If you were a better shill, maybe AMD wouldn’t be in such a precarious situation, so you’d best figure it out before there’s nothing left to shill.
Boy, things are really make
Boy, things are really make or break for them next year. With only Intel and NVIDIA left… what is the sound of one hand clapping?
Joshtekk.com, smarts and
Joshtekk.com, smarts and sassy rolled in a sexy as fuck package! The strive will always be for diversity, a monopoly never grows.
you were pretty shrill last
you were pretty shrill last night except when you were sounding like Barry White
Spot on.
Spot on.
I think you are just shills
I think you are just shills for Tom, He’s just fucking awesome and should be on camera as often as possible!
ctrl-f on the page, searching
ctrl-f on the page, searching for ‘AMD’ flags your post as the first entry… Your comment makes no sense.
AMD bundled title, no?
AMD bundled title, no?
Yes, but I also play GRID
Yes, but I also play GRID Autosport which is an Intel financed/branded game. Witcher 3 is phenomenal and has Gameworks/NV branding. It just so happens that Paul is one of the first developers I have been in contact with that was willing to give me the time for this interview.
And answered your question on
And answered your question on their live stream if I am not mistaken. Thanks for the interview both of you.
And when you teased this on
And when you teased this on Twitter, I thought for sure you’d be giving us the inside scoop on the next Leisure Suit Larry title. 😀
Hey… the day is still
Hey… the day is still young!
Great article Mr. Walrath!
Great article Mr. Walrath! Bottom line is Dirt Rally is a lot of entertainment for the money right now, especially for the $32 I paid for it. I am also looking forward to the next PcPer League segment. I need to go practice now if I want to beat Josh Walrath (Grendel) and Arbiter. And PcPer staff, stop explaining yourselves to Morons, you’re the experts, they’re not. :).
Thank you for a great
Thank you for a great article. Downloading now so I can play it with my G27 wheel.
And how are you enjoying it
And how are you enjoying it now? The updates here and there have been overall quite positive. Can't wait for the new area to be released soon!
I still plat Dirt 2…need to
I still plat Dirt 2…need to upgrade.
DiRT 2 is still a heck of a
DiRT 2 is still a heck of a lot of fun to play. Oddly enough, after I had played Rally quite a bit… DiRT 2 is so easy as compared.
Very good info there Josh and
Very good info there Josh and you should actually be commended highly because you are the first to get the scoop on DiRT Rally getting an Oculus Rift VR update. Many have been shouting about this on the Codies and Steam forums how the VR experience was really poor and not working correctly. Paul gave you a great answer and also told that the new 6.0 SDK update had been written into the code and that alone is a huge step forward as it brings many optimisations that will boost the VR experience by huge factor.
Well done old bean ! 🙂
Glad you found it
Glad you found it informative. Paul was really generous with his answers here. Am surprised that it did not go a bit more wide as compared to previous interviews. He has some really interesting things to say about the lower level tech involved.
ps. All this talk of Shills
ps. All this talk of Shills and that is actually my real name ! Shrek isn’t even though I am as ugly as a hat full of assholes 😉