DiRT 4 DiRT 4 Released!

Paul Jeffrey

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DiRT 4 Release.jpg

Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC players can now finally get their hands on the new Codemasters release, as DiRT 4 officially hits the game store shelves today.

Although some parts of the world have been able to pick up a physical copy of the game for console over the past couple of days, today marks the official worldwide release of the game across all platforms, bringing the fourth iteration of the popular DiRT franchise back to the forefront of off road racing on PC and current generation console machines.

Featuring over 50 cars the likes of the Ford Fiesta R5, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI, Subaru WRX STI NR4, Audi Sport quattro S1 E2 plus many different machines from different classes of World Rallycross, Landrush and Crosskarts, run over five unique rally locations and a five Rallycross venues, the new game looks to firmly establish itself as the biggest and best inclusion to the DiRT franchise of games to date.


DiRT 4 is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC today.

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If getting down and DiRTy is your thing then we know the place to go... check out the DiRT 4 sub forum here at RaceDepartment to get your fix of news, events, mods and discussions around the new Codemasters rally game. Go on, it'll be fun I promise !

Have you tried DiRT 4 yet? What are your impressions of the game? Do you think the title is comparable to DiRT Rally in terms of driving experience? Where does it rank against other DiRT franchise games? Let us know in the comments section below!
 
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I think you're onto something with RX. Even the RX 1600s have a lot more rear movement than the FWD Rally Cars.

Yes, as I keep saying, the core physics is there. It's the surface on the gravel stages.

Cars feel truly great in dirtfish area. I know I keep repeating myself, but if the cars felt shite there too, then I'd be truly worried.
 
Another thing about Dirtfish is that it has surfaces variation.

So far, in my opinion, putting Dirtfish surfaces into YourStage, also some road width variation (nothing makes a track look artificial as badly as the same track width across the whole track), hairpins that are tight enough, and enabling us to use all the cars on it would make for an extremely good rallying (and otherwise) experience.

And it should be relatively easy to at least swap the surface/tires out, even if Codemasters themselves won't do anything about this.
 
Yes, as I keep saying, the core physics is there. It's the surface on the gravel stages.

I like the surface on gravel stages
/me ducks
The cars feel a lot more viscious: I find them harder to turn in, but harder to spin out as well, as if the tyres are ploughing trough the surface rather then sliding over it. I am not sure how realistic that is, but I like the feel.

Likewise with the tarmac stages: Completing the founder's event with the Hyundai R5 reminded me a bit of Assetto Corsa. That's a high mark
 
I'm just curious. Do you think the same about the RX cars? Is there "nothing similar in the way the real cars move" there as well? Because I think the RX in D4 is absolutely brilliant. It's the exact same physics, just another tire.
Sadly didn't have time to test RX, heard it's much better.

RX seems pretty good on videos, no idea how those should handle IRL tbh. Rally cars drifting through forest stages is more familiar sight since childhood since WRC Finland is driven right where I grew up. Relatively stranger to RX

Mainly interested in rally, so used my Steam 2h test in that. The tyre must be the problem then, because the rally cars were too on rails, understeering instead of oversteering, and backend glued to road (general impression, didn't test all cars but for example some historic RWDs were horrendous). I don't know if just the tyre can cause all that.
 
Another thing about Dirtfish is that it has surfaces variation.

So far, in my opinion, putting Dirtfish surfaces into YourStage, also some road width variation (nothing makes a track look artificial as badly as the same track width across the whole track), hairpins that are tight enough, and enabling us to use all the cars on it would make for an extremely good rallying (and otherwise) experience.

And it should be relatively easy to at least swap the surface/tires out, even if Codemasters themselves won't do anything about this.

Indeed. Considering how good the cars behave on the dirtfish mixed gravel/tarmac there really could be some awesome mixed surface stages in the game.

It's pretty interesting there is a "mixed" setup tab beside gravel, tarmac and snow.
 
I like the surface on gravel stages
/me ducks
The cars feel a lot more viscious: I find them harder to turn in, but harder to spin out as well, as if the tyres are ploughing trough the surface rather then sliding over it. I am not sure how realistic that is, but I like the feel.

Likewise with the tarmac stages: Completing the founder's event with the Hyundai R5 reminded me a bit of Assetto Corsa. That's a high mark

The main issue for me on gravel is that during a slide, the rear regains grip too harshly, straightening out the car before you get any real angle.
 
I'm stunned by the overwhelming criticism in this thread. Each to their own and I'm not going to directly disagree with anyone in particular, I have no investment in this other than as another gamer, and if that's how you experienced DiRT 4 then fair enough.

For me and the friends I race with regularly we have had the exact opposite reaction. This is a great game and it has worked perfectly on Xbox One from day 1. There are comparison games mentioned in this thread that are still not fixed after 10 months on console.

I've played DiRT 4 back to back with DiRT Rally and the handling difference is much smaller than being made out here across the Rally and Rally Cross disciplines. The difference between FWD, AWD and RWD is marked and they require a different technique.

As for realism all the real world rally driving techniques taught at any good rally school work in the game exactly as they do in the real world. Want to clutch kick the rear of the car out and hold the slide, you can. Prefer to use the weight of the car and camber to turn in on the throttle, you can. The DiRT Academy is as good as any in game technique training I've seen and makes the game accessible for newcomers to rallying too. The feedback through the wheel is as good as any of the current 'simulators' too, in some specific cases such as knowing when how much lock is needed to hold a slide it is better. The range of set up options is nothing short of mind boggling.

On the longer rallies the damage can really start to mount up and the way this impacts the cars is well implemented. After the 4th stage of a rally I had some heavy damage to the suspension and light damage to the clutch. I risked not replacing the clutch, big mistake as it turned out. Nicky Grist warned me at the start of the stage that he could hear the clutch slipping and not to aggravate it. The clutch failed 1/3 into stage 6, initially it was just slipping and the revs became variable then finally it failed and the car slowly came to a stop. I still had to manually choose to retire, the game didn't make the decision for me. No warp to pit nonsense here. It felt real and it felt right. I've rarely seen the simulators, other than rFactor 2, accurately simulate part failure in any meaningful way so DiRT 4 is doing something quite special in my view.

Handling is subjective and we all have different views of what good handling is. For me AMS, Assetto Corsa & rF2 feel close to my experience on track. Equally, DiRT 4 feels like my limited time in lower end rally cars - I'm no expert and I've only paid for some good quality rally experiences and a few handling training days the best of which was learning to left foot brake and sensitising my foot to be able to do that. The Escort MkII, as in real life is a lovely sweet handling device great to learn RWD technique in. The group N Impreza feels right too, the car rotates from the hips and is easy to balance into corners, if anything the game has too much feedback through the wheel, the wheel on gravel in the Impreza is really light and I think in the real car you rely as much on the sensations though the car as the wheel itself. Locking up the non-assisted brakes on gravel and the nose pushing on to understeer wide is truly uncanny. As for speed the WRC spec Impreza has great sense of speed on longer straights over jumps and dips and has me backing off in the game just as the real car does. It would all be better in VR too, no denying that and if that happens it will be a bonus.

Away from all this talk of realism there is one more factor that really matters here. This is a fun game, the daily time trials with friends are good friendly competition. The stadium event cars are all significantly different and if you like a few laps of heart-pounding wheel twirling excitement trying to catch cars sliding at some ridiculous angles it is here.

It's fun and we are greatly enjoying all aspects of the game.

My final thought is this, maybe it is because DiRT 4 includes a game and progression system, decent menu music, daily challenges, working multiplayer and a solid single player mode and isn't the usual stoic and unwelcoming simulator that is causing the perception issues?
 
My final thought is this, maybe it is because DiRT 4 includes a game and progression system, decent menu music, daily challenges, working multiplayer and a solid single player mode and isn't the usual stoic and unwelcoming simulator that is causing the perception issues?
That's definitely an important point you are making. It's pretty much exactly the case.


Apart from that, what i realize again and again with Rally games, also this newest title, is the lack of dust. In real Rallying, the amount of dust trailing from the Rally cars is insane sometimes, producing a 100m long, visibly impenetrable dust cloud, while in games there is always just a slight (transparent) dust trail...
I guess those engines nowadays still can't compute bigger, more complex dust trails..
 
The game features are awesome. I love the career mode, I love the online mode, I love RX and Rally (don't like land rush much), I love the stage generator etc. I just think the tyres have too much grip. I think this game is 95% perfect. It just needs a more realistic tyre grip level, and more interesting locations (Michigan and Spain are poor. Wales and Australia are awesome). Then it's as good as it can ever get.
 
I like the surface on gravel stages
/me ducks
The cars feel a lot more viscious: I find them harder to turn in, but harder to spin out as well, as if the tyres are ploughing trough the surface rather then sliding over it. I am not sure how realistic that is, but I like the feel.

Likewise with the tarmac stages: Completing the founder's event with the Hyundai R5 reminded me a bit of Assetto Corsa. That's a high mark
Yes, the tires seem to indeed bury into the gravel. Took the old Impreza to a Wales stage in Heavy Rain Showers, and it felt like not only the wheels were ploughing through the gravel, but it appeared as the gravel was intensely soaked in water. Also, maybe it's just me, but I think I also felt the difference in handling due to the lower CoG boxer engine.

On tarmac I would place D4 above Asetto Corsa. Drifting rear wheel drive cars in AC is a bit too trivial, whereas in D4 it appears to make sense. Still, something seems to be odd. The steering can feel suspiciously non-linear, the tires can lose and regain grip a bit too abruptly. But at least it's manageable, just requires some skill and a lot of wheel sawing.

Indeed. Considering how good the cars behave on the dirtfish mixed gravel/tarmac there really could be some awesome mixed surface stages in the game.

It's pretty interesting there is a "mixed" setup tab beside gravel, tarmac and snow.
I'm also intrigued by that tab. Maybe for consecutive stages in different locations? Would be odd if we weren't be allowed to use different setups traveling from Wales to Spain though.

The main issue for me on gravel is that during a slide, the rear regains grip too harshly, straightening out the car before you get any real angle.
I'd say sometimes I would encounter something like that on tarmac at DirtFish too... Not sure what's causing it.

By the way, it looks like the only difference between the rally stages and DirtFish is the setups. I noticed that in Free Roam you have the mechanic's skill at 85%, which allows for finer changes to the setup, whereas in the freeform event that skill is only at 42%. I still haven't started the career yet, because I'm only interested in single rally runs, so I have to put up with this. But even with limited setup abilities I managed to make the Fiesta R5 lose the understeering at Michigan just the way I wanted. Those water pools can be a real problem if you don't meet them straight on, by the way :) Can't remember that being modeled in any other sim...

I didn't realize it previously, but it seems that the rally part consists ONLY of generated stages? At first I thought it was an additional feature. If it's only the generator, I'd sure want more variety to it.

Not impressed with Land Rush. Only a handful of tracks... The vehicles are nice, but I would want to take those buggies to the other courses too.

RX seems to be the main selling point of this title. Codies should have named it Dirt Rally Cross :)
Too bad I don't really care about RX... But again, I would really love to take those cars to the rally stages. And it's a real pity that having this new tarmac we are missing hillclimb and Monaco. Maybe in DR 2?
 
The game features are awesome. I love the career mode, I love the online mode, I love RX and Rally (don't like land rush much), I love the stage generator etc. I just think the tyres have too much grip. I think this game is 95% perfect. It just needs a more realistic tyre grip level, and more interesting locations (Michigan and Spain are poor. Wales and Australia are awesome). Then it's as good as it can ever get.
Well, I'm really sick of the gaming features (especially what is forced on the player at the very beginning), and I find the menus extremely convoluted, which, combined with the lack of the option for the gears shifting method to be chosen depending on the car's actual transmission, is not helping D4's case. I would personally prefer some simple, clear cut interface to quickly choose the car, generate the stage, set the environmental conditions, and off I go. But no, this money making, level upping, "create your personal championship" stupidity is forced on me. I hope this is not indicative of the simulators future.
 
I'm also intrigued by that tab. Maybe for consecutive stages in different locations? Would be odd if we weren't be allowed to use different setups traveling from Wales to Spain though.

It's used when you do Rallycross and even landrush for some reason (though that's probably because Landrush is "None of the above"). And IIRC you can tune a setup and save it in the Dirtfish rally school if you joyride or if you use the academy.

The game features are awesome. I love the career mode, I love the online mode, I love RX and Rally (don't like land rush much), I love the stage generator etc. I just think the tyres have too much grip. I think this game is 95% perfect. It just needs a more realistic tyre grip level, and more interesting locations (Michigan and Spain are poor. Wales and Australia are awesome). Then it's as good as it can ever get.

I actually really like Spain and Michigan, and don't like wales *as much*, but that's probably because there were some really good Wales stages in Dirt Rally already and Dirt 4 captures the character quitwe well.

The Career mode is indeed great! I like how it doesn't force you to grind money in order to compete in the events you want, too. It's involving without getting in the way too much.

I'd also like to detail something I've said in another forum:
So I just "Finished" my first weekly event in Dirt 4 by... retiring. Oops. And it was all my fault!

When I embarked upon the event the game warned me that my vehicle may not be upgraded enough to make it to the end. In Dirt 4, you can upgrade your car but those upgrades do not affect performance: They affect durability. However, since I started the weekly event basically straight out from starting the game proper and I really wanted to bring my own car I only had a fourth-hand Opel Kadett available.

During the event I made quite a few mistakes, in no small part due to my unfamiliarity with both the course and the car. So the car got more and more battered, and my engineers were barely working within the time limit to get it all working again. In doing so I had to make a few choices on what to repair (quick fixes all the way) and what to keep. And off course, I neglected the clutch. In Dirt Rally, the clutch was never a problem. You could abuse that thing to hell and back, downshifting like a madman to get the car to stop faster. This was a mistake.

Had I replaced my clutch I would have finished the event, but instead at the start of the last stage my co driver noted that the clutch seemed like it developed an issue. As the event went on it became harder and harder to get the car to move forward as the clutch overheated. I ended my stage halfway down, at the end. The car had simply lost all the ability to get engine power to the wheels as the clutch had practically melted.

So that's a thing now! In Dirt Rally your car would be slower and handled worse when you battered it, but it would always be the *other* cars who ended up with blown gaskets, clutch slippages or a variety of mechanical failures. Not here! Here I was simply punished for my short-sightedness.

Hell, I could have skipped the upgrade process entirely and just asked to be a driver for another team, which would have netted me less money but would have given me a more durable car. But hey I was eager to try out the livery editor and ... yeah! Forgetting that Rally is ultimately an endurance sport.

So yes I'm enjoying Dirt 4 quite a lot. Much has been made about the physics of the cars already, but I mostly like what I've played thus far: In simulation mode (i've ignored gamer mode which I've been told is quite a lot like the previous Dirt games) the cars feel a lot heavier, and weight transfer is a lot more pronounced this time around. People have complained about the rear ends of the cars feeling too planted on gravel, but I'm not really seeing that. I'm just having loads of fun with the career mode, which is a proper progression again rather then the same championship being made progressively more difficult (Dirt Rally) or a very fixed tree of things you have to do even when they bear no relation to eachother (Dirt 3).
 
Ok so tried it on friends PS4 today. Rallycross and Landrush indeed handles very well, no complaints. Like another game. Although AI was too easy mostly

But rally... especially historic RWD cars. What the hell happened.. it must be the tyre that is just wrong. They had data from Cooper tyres to create RX tyre. But rally tyre is their own "estimate" there was no data for it (Source: dev on their forum) Maybe that is the reason. Also, no real drivers were used to test the historic cars, because Meeke has experience only with modern rally cars.
 
I tested some Rally cars today using extreme setups that should normally create some very unstable handling and what it highlighted, was some artificial force that wants to auto-center the car's attitude - much like there is stability control at work. The thing is, I have all assists turned off, and it operated independent of steering feedback; while technically speaking, it is a function of physics but, maybe is is unintended for Sim mode, and not affecting RallyX, buggies and trucks.

When I force the car into a slide, not only does the car resist it, it auto-corrects with a floaty, self-centering action. The more I altered the car setup to induce slides, the more I noticed the auto-correction working. There seems to be a point where the car rotates and then breaks loose from the centering force but, the whole mystical hand-of-god effect that happens is just totally out of place IMO.

It wouldn't be the first time such a bug sneaked into a release and it might explain the weird handling - especially given how different Dirt Rally was. Some people also commented how little difference there seems to be between the handling of Arcade vs Sim mode.
 
You might be onto something there. Hell, my windscreen wipers automatically work even though I have auto-wipers off in the difficulty settings, so maybe stability assist fails to switch off too?
 
I tested some Rally cars today using extreme setups that should normally create some very unstable handling and what it highlighted, was some artificial force that wants to auto-center the car's attitude - much like there is stability control at work. The thing is, I have all assists turned off, and it operated independent of steering feedback; while technically speaking, it is a function of physics but, maybe is is unintended for Sim mode, and not affecting RallyX, buggies and trucks.

When I force the car into a slide, not only does the car resist it, it auto-corrects with a floaty, self-centering action. The more I altered the car setup to induce slides, the more I noticed the auto-correction working. There seems to be a point where the car rotates and then breaks loose from the centering force but, the whole mystical hand-of-god effect that happens is just totally out of place IMO.

It wouldn't be the first time such a bug sneaked into a release and it might explain the weird handling - especially given how different Dirt Rally was. Some people also commented how little difference there seems to be between the handling of Arcade vs Sim mode.
Which car/location/weather? I think I saw that behavior in some situations, but I also saw the opposite. Like, when I brought the M3 to DirtFish and tuned in what I considered a "drifty" setup. It was a complete mess... After resetting the setup the car was more than drifty enough, except the steering felt rather non-linear, even though I never moved the linearity slider from 0.
Also in the Impreza in heavy rain in Wales scenario I already mentioned, the Subaru exhibited a bit more rotational tendencies than I would like it to have. Nothing that could not be corrected though.

Turning the virtual wheel on for testing might prove useful, by the way. I noticed that at least while stationary, the wheel tends to back down a notch after being turned in one direction. At the same time, it seems to be extremely responsive to the input. Hard to detect any input lag at all. Yet in the controller setup menu the sliders seem to lag way behind the input (something that can be also seen in Assetto Corsa).

Also, it makes sense to always check the setup. If your car has a lot of negative camber on the rear wheels compared to the front (and quite often the default setups are like that), it's natural to expect some self-centering. Though, you said you deliberately tuned the cars into being oversteery, so maybe it's indeed a bug. I have to admit some cars also pretty much ignored my attempts at making them to have more oversteer bias.

It's nothing new for a sim to have only some cars done well. In fact, is there a single sim at all where all the vehicles behave the way we expect them to? As long as it has some cars I'm happy with, I'd say it's worth the purchase. But to be completely honest, D4 should have a lower price for what it offers.

You might be onto something there. Hell, my windscreen wipers automatically work even though I have auto-wipers off in the difficulty settings, so maybe stability assist fails to switch off too?
They don't work. They act as a distraction :) Try hitting the water at DirtFish and you'll see that you have to operate the wipers yourself. I think they are just triggered randomly from time to time. Actually, they helped me with the water once, which made me double check the settings, but it turned out I was just lucky at that moment :) After visiting the water after that for the next time the wipers wouldn't move on their own. I have an idea why Codemasters made it like that. Your co-driver needs to see the road ahead too, so he kind of bothers the wipers because of that :) I still wish they would remove that stupidity (or at least not trigger the wipers in dangerous situations) along with the "helicopters hovering right over the goddam' road itself", which is a complete lunacy and an attempted murder.
 
The cars behavior in jumps is not very convincing though. Push the gas pedal, pull the handbrake... No reaction mid-air whatsoever.

I really liked the Stadium Super Trucks in AMS. Can only dream of Trophy Trucks like that. TTs in D4 are not aware of gyroscopic forces at all, neither you have to worry about priming your jumps.
 
When I force the car into a slide, not only does the car resist it, it auto-corrects with a floaty, self-centering action. The more I altered the car setup to induce slides, the more I noticed the auto-correction working. There seems to be a point where the car rotates and then breaks loose from the centering force but, the whole mystical hand-of-god effect that happens is just totally out of place IMO.

I missed this autocorrection in the BMW M3 and Renault Turbo yesterday. Had to induce a lots of understeer to prevent the cars spinning out of every corner. Still awful difficult to drive after my setup. The Subaru (AWD) is spinning a lot as well and feels more like RWD on default-setup. The FWDs seems a bit too easy to drive, but i like it that way and you really have to push and be clean like Loeb to beat the AI on tough:)

But i can´t get used to this "clutch-before shifting"-physics. Does anybody know a trick to use the clutch like in AC & co.?
 
I missed this autocorrection in the BMW M3 and Renault Turbo yesterday. Had to induce a lots of understeer to prevent the cars spinning out of every corner. Still awful difficult to drive after my setup. The Subaru (AWD) is spinning a lot as well and feels more like RWD on default-setup. The FWDs seems a bit too easy to drive, but i like it that way and you really have to push and be clean like Loeb to beat the AI on tough:)

But i can´t get used to this "clutch-before shifting"-physics. Does anybody know a trick to use the clutch like in AC & co.?

Change the saturation of the clutch if you haven't. If saturation is set to hundred you need to press the pedal fully. Not favourable :)
 
I missed this autocorrection in the BMW M3 and Renault Turbo yesterday. Had to induce a lots of understeer to prevent the cars spinning out of every corner. Still awful difficult to drive after my setup. The Subaru (AWD) is spinning a lot as well and feels more like RWD on default-setup. The FWDs seems a bit too easy to drive, but i like it that way and you really have to push and be clean like Loeb to beat the AI on tough:)

But i can´t get used to this "clutch-before shifting"-physics. Does anybody know a trick to use the clutch like in AC & co.?
If you use H shifter you can't get around not using the clutch--but you can map the clutch to one of your shifter paddeles-so you can have your left foot at the brake at all times..which will give you very fast shifting--due to the low travel of the paddle--if your used to shift gears with the paddle this will take some time getting used to :O_o:-but once you get it right its super fast.
Edit : I use the mentioned configuration in this 2 year old video...
 
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