Jibran#one
Member
So boys is this dirt 3 ? Is this my elden ring of driving games ?
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EA Sports WRC - Official Launch Trailer - Out Oct. 31st for XB/PS5/PC for preorders
- Thread starter drotahorror
- Start date
Doctor Hades
Member
Oh dear! I haven't had chance to play much of this game but first impressions are very mixed.
On the one hand, it loads quicks, has nice menus and plenty of graphical options to tweak. On the other though, is the bad news. The game has, sigh, shader compilation stutter that occurs when I enter a new track for the first time, drive through water for the first time, etc, etc. You know the score by now. There is no obvious shader compilation step when you load the game either.
This is extremely disappointing to see. It's not constant stutter but it should not be there at all. The game also has very lacklustre performance. 1440p DLSS Quality maxed out settings with Epic AA (which I assume is not used when DLSS is used?) and on the week 5 Sweden shakedown track which is set at dusk so the headlights are on, I was only just getting above 60 fps throughout the 1 or 2 minute stage with regular dips below 60 fps, as low as 54 fps at one point. I repeated the shakedown 3 times to be sure with the same results.
GPU is at 99% at these points and CPU usage is around 25% with the hyperthreaded cores not being used at all (they show 0% or 1%). Not only that but while the graphics look pretty good there is a problem with aliasing on thin lines such as overhead cables that makes them look blocky and jagged. Not sure what is happening there as I haven't seen this issue in a game in a long time.
Graphics and performance aisde, I also found the Career mode's Calendar to be confusing. It's not clear which events you can and can't do and you even have to hire staff from the Calendar. I picked a race for week 1 to be told I didn't have an engineer so I had to hire an engineer that week so that I could pick a race the following week. Every time I pick an event from the Calendar I get a warning pop up that the Benefactor has set different targets to be met and do I want to continue. Maybe it's me but I just found it poorly explained and needlessly confusing.
As to the driving, on the Normal difficulty, I found it to be somewhere between DiRT Rally 2.0 and DiRT 4 but that difficulty does enable certain assists so on the higher difficulty it may play exactly like DiRT 4 and on the Beginner difficulty it may play like DiRT 4. I personally found DiRT Rally 2.0 to be a bit on the difficult side and struggled to make progress in the career mode but I loved DiRT 4 so something half way between those two games would be perfect for me.
On the one hand, it loads quicks, has nice menus and plenty of graphical options to tweak. On the other though, is the bad news. The game has, sigh, shader compilation stutter that occurs when I enter a new track for the first time, drive through water for the first time, etc, etc. You know the score by now. There is no obvious shader compilation step when you load the game either.
This is extremely disappointing to see. It's not constant stutter but it should not be there at all. The game also has very lacklustre performance. 1440p DLSS Quality maxed out settings with Epic AA (which I assume is not used when DLSS is used?) and on the week 5 Sweden shakedown track which is set at dusk so the headlights are on, I was only just getting above 60 fps throughout the 1 or 2 minute stage with regular dips below 60 fps, as low as 54 fps at one point. I repeated the shakedown 3 times to be sure with the same results.
GPU is at 99% at these points and CPU usage is around 25% with the hyperthreaded cores not being used at all (they show 0% or 1%). Not only that but while the graphics look pretty good there is a problem with aliasing on thin lines such as overhead cables that makes them look blocky and jagged. Not sure what is happening there as I haven't seen this issue in a game in a long time.
Graphics and performance aisde, I also found the Career mode's Calendar to be confusing. It's not clear which events you can and can't do and you even have to hire staff from the Calendar. I picked a race for week 1 to be told I didn't have an engineer so I had to hire an engineer that week so that I could pick a race the following week. Every time I pick an event from the Calendar I get a warning pop up that the Benefactor has set different targets to be met and do I want to continue. Maybe it's me but I just found it poorly explained and needlessly confusing.
As to the driving, on the Normal difficulty, I found it to be somewhere between DiRT Rally 2.0 and DiRT 4 but that difficulty does enable certain assists so on the higher difficulty it may play exactly like DiRT 4 and on the Beginner difficulty it may play like DiRT 4. I personally found DiRT Rally 2.0 to be a bit on the difficult side and struggled to make progress in the career mode but I loved DiRT 4 so something half way between those two games would be perfect for me.
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SkylineRKR
Member
This looks like another purchase for me. Dirt Rally is best in class on consoles. 2.0 had scummy DLC practices but was still good. Now with the official WRC license, count me in.
TrebleShot
Member
Just got this through EA Play Pro on PC but haven't started yet, so disappointing that I'm reading about stutters.
Yep classic EA on the DS implementation on PC had the same issue with BF2042 and FC24.
Doctor Hades
Member
Agreed.
Not sure which version the YouTuber's were testing a few weeks back for the previews but it looks like they might have been console.
What irks me is that at this point Unreal Engine 4 and 5 are notorious on PC for shader and traversal stuttering, just look at the mess that is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, also from EA, on PC. So I find it hard to believe that Codemasters are not aware of this issue even if they are transitioning from their in-house EGO engine to UE5. If a small developer like the ones who released Dead Island 2 or the Robocop: Rogue City demo can make a UE4/5 PC game with zero stuttering then there is no excuse for EA's developers who are given much bigger budgets and larger teams.
I am very, very disappointed.
SkylineRKR
Member
I have bought it as well, because I saw its being offered at a fair price on PS5.
Personally I am in love. The handling with controller is far more manageable now, its somewhat between DR and classic CMR I think. Graphics could be better, and yeah the perf isn't rock solid. But other than that I have a ton of fun right now.
Personally I am in love. The handling with controller is far more manageable now, its somewhat between DR and classic CMR I think. Graphics could be better, and yeah the perf isn't rock solid. But other than that I have a ton of fun right now.
Doctor Hades
Member
A patch a week after launch? Nice, so in the meantime, we have to ensure stuttering in every new track in the PC build then? I'll try the game once more later to see if I can get it to run better, testing it on a new track obviously, otherwise I will be requesting a refund on Steam. Releasing any game in 2023 on PC with stuttering is unacceptable.
Buggy Loop
Member
How are devs so oblivious to this, blows my mind
Epic has to force it, devs are just too dumb
Buggy Loop
Member
Shit CPU and GPU utilization.
King Dazzar
Member
Just tried this for free on XSX. Handles well, and plays fine. Looks far to low res for me, like sub 1080p. HDR is the least impactful I've seen in along time and may even be broken. No general stutters and is smooth until you get half way through a long stage and then there's presumably a streaming stutter, then plays smooth again. Beyond that it holds well to a non VRR enabled 60fps - but you'd expect it to as it looks like a previous gen game fidelity wise.
I get a 5hr trial, so I'll save the remaining time to check back and see if it improves visually. But as it stands right now, the visuals are a deal breaker for me, it looks that poor.
I get a 5hr trial, so I'll save the remaining time to check back and see if it improves visually. But as it stands right now, the visuals are a deal breaker for me, it looks that poor.
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Doctor Hades
Member
I thought this game was using Unreal Engine 5 but it is apparently Unreal Engine 4 which is even worse for PC owners because that engine is older and not very well optimised for multi-core CPUs if I recall from a Digital Foundry video. Unreal Engine 5 has better optimisations and support for shader compilation, including a pre-shader compile step as the game starts or in the menus and real-time shader compilation as you play (helped by the engine having better support for multiple threads). This is what Robocop: Rogue City does on PC which runs on UE5 and if the superb demo was anything to go by does not have any stuttering at all.
That EA and Codemasters released an Unreal Engine 4 on PC without a pre-shader compilation step just defies belief, especially after EA's own Star Wars Jedi: Survivor did EXACTLY the same thing (it also uses UE4) and is still an absolute travesty of a game on PC as the developers never bothered to fix it properly (just check out the Digital Foundry coverage).
Might be best to play this on console via the EA Trial thing and skip the PC version for now.
That EA and Codemasters released an Unreal Engine 4 on PC without a pre-shader compilation step just defies belief, especially after EA's own Star Wars Jedi: Survivor did EXACTLY the same thing (it also uses UE4) and is still an absolute travesty of a game on PC as the developers never bothered to fix it properly (just check out the Digital Foundry coverage).
Might be best to play this on console via the EA Trial thing and skip the PC version for now.
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TrebleShot
Member
It’s almost like no one communicates at EA between studios, it’s a farce.
Graphics are very poor, looks worse than WRC8
Buggy Loop
Member
UE4 has the pre-compile, on the fly and also asynchronous shader compilation, devs are just that fucking dumb to not understand this in 2023 after so many videos and even Digital Foundry explaining it like it would to a 5 years old.
Incredible isn’t it? You would think that they see this as a chink in their armor and try to not repeat the same mistakes, but no. Even Fallen Order was never fully fixed, your hardware just got better.
This is why Epic should force these features in-engine and not let devs fuck it up, they clearly don’t know what they are doing.
Pharaoh 117
Member
Yeah, as much as I love rally and the WRC I'm skipping this. Bummer.
SkylineRKR
Member
I wonder what happened, everything is good except for the visuals and HDR. Dirt 5 was trash but at least looked good even with multiple cars on track. Apparently Codemasters either didn't want to continue with their Ego engine or EA didn't let them.
Elysium44
Banned
Apparently the Codemasters devs didn't want to use the Ego engine because it was a lot more effort to use. So they chose the option which was good for them and bad for the customer. They produced a game which looks worse than its predecessors, stutters which its predecessors didn't, and has heavy system requirements. But at least they didn't have to work too hard, poor dears.
Buggy Loop
Member
VR mode is coming later on PC
drotahorror
Member
Straight from Codemasters, they said the engine couldn't support large stages. UE4 allowed them to have the longest stages any rally game has had.
Robocop was raked through the coals and was a stutter fest as well. BUT, the devs listened and patched the demo fairly fast.
Buggy Loop
Member
I'll take better physics and longer stages than say, needing to surpass the already amazing looking Dirt rally 2.0. So until i play later tonight, its up in the air if I'll be satisfied with the physics revamp, but impressions so far are positive for that.
Fuck UE though, fuck Tim's shit engine.
Fuck UE though, fuck Tim's shit engine.
Doctor Hades
Member
I don't understand their argument at all as Ego is their own inhouse engine and at this point is well-optimised for both console and PC. It might not be cutting edge but it delivers smooth gameplay in DiRT 4, DiRT Rally 2.0, GRID and the various F1 games, which also feature ray-tracing. Codemasters would also be extremely familiar with Ego having used it for so many games. I wonder if EA have pushed them onto Unreal Engine because they don't want to commit to supporting and upgrading an inhouse engine anymore?
If other Codemasters racing games are going to be switching to Unreal Engine then it is not going to be good news for PC gamers if WRC is anything to go by. It's not even running on the new UE5, it's the ancient UE4 that hasn't been updated by Epic since 4.27, so the developers can't even use the excuse that they're using a new and in-development engine as an excuse for the poor performance and stuttering in WRC.
#FuckEA
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
yeah this game is the biggest confirmation more than anything that UE4/5 just plain suck. went from private in house engine to ue4, immediate stutterfest for many people. tim needs to fix his borked godawful engine. Industry standard my ass
still gonna buy this tho, it looks fun!
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drotahorror
Member
Is there a way anyone can confirm if this is UE4 or 5? I thought it was 4 but I'm seeing conflicting reports now, even interviews mention UE5.
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amigastar
Member
I think i've read it's UE5 but what does it matter? You see the result on screen. It could be also UE4 by the way it looks.
Anyways i wanna buy the game but i'm waiting for written reviews. i hope they get released soon cause i really wanna play it.
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drotahorror
Member
I was thinking UE5 had better multi-core optimizations while WRC seems to not utilize them very well.
amigastar
Member
I know right? It is another disappointing UE5 game graphically.
Buggy Loop
Member
Always impressive to see real rally drivers in these games. To even think there's peoples doing these stages at full speed, blows my mind. You need HUGE cojones
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amigastar
Member
Good scores, 86 on Opencritc
opencritic.com
Man, i would get it but i'm afraid it won't run good on my 4070 since i've heard about stuttering and things.
Edit: ok, i got it now currently installing.
EA Sports WRC Reviews
EA Sports WRC is rated 'Strong' after being reviewed by 41 critics, with an overall average score of 79. It's ranked in the top 25% of games and recommended by 76% of critics.
opencritic.com
Man, i would get it but i'm afraid it won't run good on my 4070 since i've heard about stuttering and things.
Edit: ok, i got it now currently installing.
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Bavarian_Sloth
Member
Like WRC 2023 very much! I am playing with a gamepad and on easy because I'm more of an arcade racer.
In this way, for me the game is challenging but not as extremely unforgiving as Dirt 2.
The feeling of the divers cars, the steering and the diverse undergrounds (asphalt, snow, etc.) are really a joy.
The routes are also very positive. The sheer number of biomes is phenomenal. Especially since you can even set the seasons on most of them.
In my opinion, the negative points only concern the technology:
- WRC 2023 basically looks like an Xbox One X game (compare Dirt 2).
- No physical interaction between foliage and cars.
- Although the game runs at 60 fps throughout, small dropouts in the milliseconds range sometimes occur from time to time. Of course, this shouldn't happen under any circumstances in a rally game. I hope this gets patched as soon as possible.
In this way, for me the game is challenging but not as extremely unforgiving as Dirt 2.
The feeling of the divers cars, the steering and the diverse undergrounds (asphalt, snow, etc.) are really a joy.
The routes are also very positive. The sheer number of biomes is phenomenal. Especially since you can even set the seasons on most of them.
In my opinion, the negative points only concern the technology:
- WRC 2023 basically looks like an Xbox One X game (compare Dirt 2).
- No physical interaction between foliage and cars.
- Although the game runs at 60 fps throughout, small dropouts in the milliseconds range sometimes occur from time to time. Of course, this shouldn't happen under any circumstances in a rally game. I hope this gets patched as soon as possible.
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Buggy Loop
Member
Just tried a bit but will jump back in after Halloween with kids
Apparently ultra shadow is problematic, at high setting it looked quite nice so far and high fps (3080 Ti).
Anti aliasing cinematic when you already have DLSS? I don't understand how this makes sense, i turned it to low as we cannot even off it, seemed nice with DLSS quality.
Stutter, yeah.. But mainly, so far, a few times in the stage. Don't know if it'll stutter for every cars, every stages, every conditions, as if everything everytime is something new.
But those long stages! I think I'll have a ton of fun with them. Even a 17km stage i was in felt so long, I can't imagine the >30km ones. It'll really be the dark souls of rally to survive those long tracks.
Apparently ultra shadow is problematic, at high setting it looked quite nice so far and high fps (3080 Ti).
Anti aliasing cinematic when you already have DLSS? I don't understand how this makes sense, i turned it to low as we cannot even off it, seemed nice with DLSS quality.
Stutter, yeah.. But mainly, so far, a few times in the stage. Don't know if it'll stutter for every cars, every stages, every conditions, as if everything everytime is something new.
But those long stages! I think I'll have a ton of fun with them. Even a 17km stage i was in felt so long, I can't imagine the >30km ones. It'll really be the dark souls of rally to survive those long tracks.
amigastar
Member
Did you use a wheel or joypad? Because with wheel it might be better.
Osthyvel
Member
Joypad.
amigastar
Member
I yet have to try it out but i don't believe they went from Dirt 2.0 masterpiece to WRC trash now. It possibly has to do with joypad settings and steering.
Edit: So i've played the game for good 30 min and i have to say they nailed it. It's really fun and not arcadey at all. Good start.
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MadchesterManc
Member
Had a few of those big stutters, but ran smooth 95% of the time. Getting about 70-90 fps (4K 1.7x DLDSR with balanced DLSS) but the 3090 tends to sit around 250w. Sure it's undervolted, but it can still hit over 300 on something like Cyberpunk, and with the framerate uncapped I thought it may peg it higher for more frames 
Earlier in the thread it was mentioned there may be some underutilisation, guess that could be the case.
Earlier in the thread it was mentioned there may be some underutilisation, guess that could be the case.
Buggy Loop
Member
Holy shit at the bio bio stage from Chile, 34.7 km of madness, took me 28 freaking minutes! It was a challenge to even bring the car to finish line, while damage was superficial on body, the engine just didn't like my driving style it seems haha.
THE DUCK
voted poster of the decade by bots
I dont see the problem personally.
JohnSpartanLee
Member
Yes, there is the occasional stutter and tear on PS5. The game is still a dream come true.
Setsuna Mudou
Member
What?? I bought a key last week thinking I would get the pre-order status and play it already, apparently that didn't work. Now no VR??
Fuck this, I was really thinking VR was a given on PC
Played the trial on Series X…I’m a little disappointed. The vehicle handling is great but the visuals are very meh. Also there seems to be a weird screen tearing issue where the entire screen sort of updates oddly when navigating turns. It’s hard to describe. Also the stages feel so sterile, hardly any crowds or other environmental details such as the drone flying around or choppers like in Generations. Maybe this’ll be fixed with a patch or update on full release.
