Very Dissapointed....

[campcreekdude]

I was looking forward to TEST DRIVE UNLIMITED for PC... mainly because the motorbikes brought my attention. However i did read before hand that many people were having preformance problems.. but thier computers were not as good as mine....so i though what the heck i might as well...but i was wrong...

My System...(sure its not top of the line so i am not asking for your system requirements saying your computer is better than mine lol)
Athlon64 3500+
2 Gigs ram (2x1gig dual channel)
Radeon X1950 PRO 256 megs PCIE

Then i read that its not well optimized. Well the fact is that i bought TOCA RACE DRIVER 3 at the same time as test drive unlimited and i might just throw Test Drive Unlimted Out...(not exactly i will probably take it back)... not to mention TOCA RACE DRIVER 3 looks better and runs 1 billion percent smoother than Test Drive Unlimited,,, on my computer.

I dont have a single glitch in any of my other games. I can't stand Glitches. And i run everything else at resolutions of 1280x1024. I plan on running them at 1600x1200 when i get a larger moniter.
I understand that this was a poorly coded game now. I am sure i can find a better motorbike game. I dont believe that waiting for a patch can fix problems this huge. i probably have to play at 640x320 for perfect smooth gameplay in Test Drive Unlimited.

Anyone looking for an alternative racing game may look into TOCA if your system requirements are too glitchy for this game. Heck even try Need for speed Carbon...

I am looking forward for the racing game... DIRT-Colin McRae next racing game.


However some day in the future we will be able to run this game like crazy with huge computers. Just like running NFU2 with antialising and the bloom effect at the same time...(which used to be a huge slow down 2-3 years ago)

[Shurikane]

...And ToCA Race Driver came out last year. TDU came out last month. That's a bit of a gap here. ;)


Also take into account that TDU happens in a wide open world rather than an enclosed space. In TOCA and other circuit-based games, you can push the graphics quite a bit because all the computer has to work with is the track, the grass, the walls and a few sandboxes. TDU on the other hand, has to decorate your surroundings with a bunch of houses, trees, shrubs, signs, and not to mention that the world you are put in is much larger than the ol' circuit. So by design, TDU can and will take up more resources to run than TOCA.

This will sound silly, but try kicking the graphics UP in TDU. I did that when I played The Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion, and go figure why, I had better performance at 1024x768 than at 800x600! It defies all logic, but I don't complain when things work. tonguegre

[reniu]

im a very big fan of all of the NFS games... but Test Drive Unlimited gave me so much playing pleasure that i have to admit that NFS sucks :( BUT!! theres a very big BUT :) NFS hasnt got so much problems with graphics and multiplayer... Thats mainly because NFS was meant to go on PC and Test Drive was converted from XBOX... whatever i would say because if youre doing something than do it right and dont just mess it up.
Thats my PC:
Athlon 3500+ (tuned on to 2.42 ,mhz)
512 RAM Kingston
GeForce 7300 GT ZALMAN
and im doing great on 800x600 on LOW details ( cause TDU has got problems with nVidia graphic cards) and with HDR on, and the game looks much better than NFS Carbon... AND a BIG AND... TDU has got real island with more than 1600 km of open roads and beautiful sightseeings... Its just more beautiful than NFS and TOCA... Thats why i like TDU much more than other games, even my favourite NFS...

[r3700gt]

Check My spec out almost similar infact similar. I can manage to play the game at 1024 comfortably. I play Toca 3 online sometimes and its great fun.

[reniu]

maybe a great fun but its a great pleasure to get into my Lambo or a GT500 SHELBY and make few photos under the waterfall after 100 km of road ;)

[campcreekdude]

reniu- i just bought NFS carbon and i was a huge fan of underground 2...

it(carbon) runs better than TDU but...It seems that every little while i get a lag\glitch but less often than TDU. On my computer it doesnt seem to matter what graphics setting i have it at.. the game will glitch anyhow at almost the same rate.

Do you guys think if i upgraded to Dual Core i'd be able to run these newer games at full graphics?

I understand that the worlds are huge and full of graphics and it must be killing my cpu. I am sure that if i was willing to reformat harddrive and install nothing but these huge games it might run better. However that is not a possible solution for me because i got other games with saves that arent able to be backed up.
i dont think it helps that i have 100 gigs of games installed on my computer. that must be slowing it down quite alot.
I dont think i will be buying alot of newer games anymore. unless dual core for socket 939 motherboards will solve the problems.

I used to believe that you have to double or even triple requirements in order to run the game at super maximum... that seems to still hold true with games released nowadayz....

[Flyer10]

The game is horribly coded, they were told that in the beta and it was totally ignored. Nothing you or I can do will change that.

I had the Beta running at 10-20fps with a Ti4800. I reinstalled XP and got a X1950 and still get 10-20fps but all other games work fine.

Having lots of games on your HD wont make any difference if you do a defrag.

Its not the hardware, its the game.

[reniu]

flyer do you have problems with graphics in the game while so little on FPS? im having a little FPS when i have trouble with graphics for example... when i launch the game i have to go to graphics options, turn off HDR than save it, back to the graphics options and turn it on... if i wont do this the game will be cutting like on 10 FPS... im playing at 800x600 75hz HDR on AA off DETAILS LOW... if i turn the details medium or high the graphics will crash and often it will be more corrupted textures than a game itself... its not the computer... its the game... ive got Athlon 3500+ tuned to 2.42 mhz and 512 ram GeForce 7300 GT ZALMAN... with carbon i had no problem except the AA on at high level... i think that TDU looks better than Carbon... one more thing is that ATARI didnt make any possibilities to customize the graphics details like its in Carbon... maybe if that would be, there would be less problems with graphics...

[Panzer_Walrus]

Let's be positive -

It's not as full of holes as Boiling Point was/is :atari:

/sarcasm

[reniu]

i have to admit that all the games of atari that i have played are full of bugs, holes and other stuff :/ its a pitty that TDU is from ATARI... i think that it would be a great game if it was from other corporation... i hope that those of our thoughts will go to the boss of the ATARI and maybe someday they will make a better games :/ :atari:

[Flyer10]

No I dont have any other problems apart from the fact the game is unplayable because theres so much lag on my wheel, it means I crash as soon as I need to turn it.

I havent done a single challenge/race yet.

[campcreekdude]

i thought Unreal tournment was alright from atari...

[reniu]

have you changed the options of steering in controls in options? ive had almost the same problem... than i changed the linearity option in control options...

[campcreekdude]

I am going to actually do more research before i buy a game... I read that
Need For Speed Carbon even stutters on the Xbox 360...
It stutters on my computer as well. (like i said however less stuttering than Test Drive Unlimited)

But... i am going to get the AMD X2 4400 possibley hoping that this cpu will put an end to stuttering. so i havent thrown out Test Drive Yet....(or need for speed)

[DanRSturbo]

You should be able to play it mine, I have a "low end" cpu so to speak and can now play it fine :)

[campcreekdude]

Maybe its just my expectations... of deadly smooth gameplay...
I dont think i ever owned a game where i wasnt killing the system requirements by alot....
But i have ordered a dual core cpu and i still have the game, hopefully the new patch that is coming out will make the game multithreaded to make full use of dual core. and hopefully my cpu comes in the mail!

[Sh4dow_racer]

reniu- i just bought NFS carbon and i was a huge fan of underground 2...

it(carbon) runs better than TDU but...It seems that every little while i get a lag\glitch but less often than TDU. On my computer it doesnt seem to matter what graphics setting i have it at.. the game will glitch anyhow at almost the same rate.

Do you guys think if i upgraded to Dual Core i'd be able to run these newer games at full graphics?

I understand that the worlds are huge and full of graphics and it must be killing my cpu. I am sure that if i was willing to reformat harddrive and install nothing but these huge games it might run better. However that is not a possible solution for me because i got other games with saves that arent able to be backed up.
i dont think it helps that i have 100 gigs of games installed on my computer. that must be slowing it down quite alot.
I dont think i will be buying alot of newer games anymore. unless dual core for socket 939 motherboards will solve the problems.

I used to believe that you have to double or even triple requirements in order to run the game at super maximum... that seems to still hold true with games released nowadayz....

Dual Cores won't change anything. Very few games or application take advantage of it. For now it's just all a big marketing scam.

Besides, here's my computer :

-AMD64 3700+ @ 2400Mhz
-6800GT @ 425/1115
-2Gb of ram

Never had a problem with TDU. So...get yourself an nvidia graphic card tonguegre

No seriously...I've had 2 ATI graphic cards, was enough to never make me buy another one.

The only thing you can do is update all your drivers if you haven't done it
already, and if nothing changes, wait for the patch!

EDIT : just saw you ordered a dual core...waste of money and won't solve your problem...

[Ondr3j]

Before you start throwing rocks on Atari, please note that neither Test Drive Unlimited, nor Boiling Point was done by Atari, but some other group of people. Atari is a publisher, not a developer. You can only blame Atari for not pushing the developers more and rushing out an unfinished product.

[campcreekdude]

i actually got the opteron 180 which is equivalent to the x2 4800...
each core is equivalent to an amd 4000... with a 1 meg cache( so that is faster than my 3500)

your 3700 probably has a 1 meg cache and from that cpu i wouldnt upgrade to dual core but from the 3500 its an ok upgrade in my opinion...because if i had to upgrade to am2 socket i would have to buy new ram...new motherboard and random new stuff...

if it really doesnt help for this game ... oh well..
my x1950 pro should be equivalent to the nividia 7900... but it varys with games...

i dont think a new video card is better than a new cpu.. (with the x1950..) maybe if i still had a x700 it would be a valid reason to upgrade video card...

anywayz that was my opinion. i will see if anything much is different.

[Sh4dow_racer]

It has nothing to do with an opteron havin 2 equivalent cores to my single 3700+ ;)

It is just a fact that most of the softwares available today, wether they are games or other programms, are simply not optimized to use the advantages of 2 cores.

Of course, it is a good investement for the future, I probably will upgrade in a few months if not weeks to an opteron as well, just don't expect the game to be a lot faster ;)

[Gearjammer]

Before you start throwing rocks on Atari, please note that neither Test Drive Unlimited, nor Boiling Point was done by Atari, but some other group of people. Atari is a publisher, not a developer. You can only blame Atari for not pushing the developers more and rushing out an unfinished product.

Yeh i agree, but they are still the last people to check to see if the game is acceptable for release, they proberly didnt give the devs enough time to finish the game properly and proberly said that at its current state its acceptable for release and the patches can fix the rest of the **** thats buggy...

This seems to be the problem with most games coming alround this year for example

Armed Assualt = Very Buggy
Stalker = Buggy

[Ondr3j]

Yeh i agree, but they are still the last people to check to see if the game is acceptable for release, they proberly didnt give the devs enough time to finish the game properly and proberly said that at its current state its acceptable for release and the patches can fix the rest of the **** thats buggy...

This seems to be the problem with most games coming alround this year for example

Armed Assualt = Very Buggy
Stalker = Buggy
I personally don't mind bugs that much, as long as they are going to be fixed in a reasonable amount of time. I can run all games on my rig pretty smooth, I hardly run into any serious issues though. Armed Assault, Boiling Point and TDU now are exceptions, you can't play those games unpatched.

But yeah, seeing the publishers releasing an unfinished game only adds to the mayhem. Hope things will be better for ex. Spore or Bioshock :)