Also posted at the Codies forum. Apologies I copied and pasted this but can't seem to get any gaps to appear between paragraphs. Hope it doesn't send you cross-eyed. 
My first few hours with F1 2011 (PC)
This is my first post and outlines my first few hours with the PC version of F1 2011.
Unfortunately, I never got to the stage where I could run F1 2010 without crashes and lock-ups even in DX9 mode so it was a disaster for me although the few minutes I did get with it looked promising. DX11 mode was never implemented properly as far as I know so I gave up when I could rarely get past the loading screen due to lock-ups.
I'll probably get crushed by some of the Fanbois on here for this post but this is honestly how it has been for me so far.
Codemasters never gave F1 2010 the support and patches it needed to make the game stable. It is actually the first title I've owned that I've never been able to run consistently without crashes and lock-ups. Before anyone thinks that my system is the problem I can assure you it isn't.
My specs are:-
Intel Q9550 @ 3.8 ghz
Corsair H60 cooling
EVGA GTX480 SC fitted with a Zalman cooler running latest drivers
4gb ram
Windows 7 64 bit.
Hazro H27WC monitor
Soundblaster X-FI with latest drivers
Latest versions of DX9 and DX11
Amongst others here are a few titles that I have installed at the moment and all are running well without crashes and good frame-rates:-
Mass Effect 2
IL2 Sturmovik Cliffs of Dover
Red Orchestra 2 Heroes of Stalingrad
Rise of Flight
DCS A10C
Shogun Total War 2
FSX
The Witcher 2
It's fair to say that some of these titles have already had extensive patching but even from the beginning they were still playable without CTD etc. unlike F1 2010/2011.
I'd been on the fence about buying F1 2011 mainly because of the problems I'd had with 2010. However, I took the plunge after seeing it on Play.com for £16.99. "Gotta be worth that".... I thought to my self. How wrong could I be? The following is an approximation of how my first few hours went with F1 2011.
First, a nice straightforward but fairly lengthy installation. After this I fire her up. Oh dear, a black screen which I have to ctrl-alt-del out of. Never mind, I'll re-boot the system and try again. Second time lucky and the movie begins to run. Press enter and do the Windows Live stuff. The loading begins and I stare at my screen incredulously...yes folks, you guessed it! My first lock up of the day. This doesn't bode well. However, I get back to desktop eventually and try again. YES, I get through to the main screen this time and proceed to set up sound, graphics, and my shiny new Ferrari F430 wheel (pretty impressed with this BTW).
So, I set the graphics to Ultra and DX11 because I have enough computing power to run with the extra eye candy after all. Then on to set up the Steering wheel which is pretty straightforward. Then on to the sound, ah, there is no choice for hardware or Rapture 3D. Ok, I exit to desktop and download and install the new Rapture 3D drivers. I fire up the game again...sh*t, immediate lock-up on loading screen. This happens 3 more times before I actually get back to the game set-up screen. Back into audio set-up, still no option for Rapture 3D. I'm starting to get to the WTF stage now! Ok, I'll run with software sound for now so I can actually get into a race and set up my steering wheel etc. I set up a GP in Montreal and decide to give the Force India a spin. Into the loading screen Aaaaaarrrghhh! Guess what? Another lock up which I have to quit from with Ctrl-alt-del. At this moment I'm having such a huge De ja vu moment remembering my woes with F1 2010. I dash to the fridge to get a Budweiser to help settle my nerves. Back into the game...lock up on initial loading so back to desktop again. The next load up attempt gets me to the game set-up screen. I decide to try changing to DX9 after which I'm told I need to re-start the game. This I dutifully do and get straight back to the main game screen without a problem. I set up again for Montreal with Force India and get through to the garage for the first time in probably an hour since I installed.
Yeeeehaaaa! Quick car set-up and onto the grid. My initial impressions regarding the look of the game are mixed but after a while I decide that for me F1 2010 looks better in a lot of ways. So far IMO this PC version looks and feels like a game which is an afterthought to the consoles (consolitis
) but anyway I press on. WTF! My Steering wheel and pedals are not working after the initial set-up. The other cars hammer off up the road leaving me sat there like a numpty. Someone crashes into the back of me and i get a penalty for 'Illegal Blocking'...laugh, I nearly bought a round!!
Back into setup. Repeat all the stuff for setting up wheel and pedals and restart the Montreal race. We're off! I crash (the car this time) repeatedly until I have a decent setup sorted for my wheel and pedals. After a few laps I'm starting to like the feel of the car and manage to stay with the pack fairly well on the hard setting.
I decide to go back to set-up and try to set up the sound and run in DX11 again...no joy with either and I get repeated crashes and lock-ups whilst trying to run in DX11. Still no sign of Rapture 3D either!? Eventually I go back to running the game in DX9 and begin a career driving for Force India. I make 3 or 4 runs in first practice and the lap times are improving. My progress is suddenly halted by a F1 2011 exe crash. Rage quit and lie down in a dark room for a while.
All this took up about 3 hours of my saturday evening. I should think I actually spent 20 minutes of that driving a car. I fired up F1 2011 again this morning. Again all of my settings for wheel and pedals are lost. I check the forum and people are saying that you need to proceed from the initial screen using a button from your steering wheel for the settings to be remembered! Why? Anyway, I'm unable to do so and I have to set up my wheel and pedals every time I want to play.
Codemasters.
I find it hard to believe that you have the cojones to release F1 2011 for PC in this state. However on the other hand I'm not that surprised that you have. There were many problems with F1 2010 that were never fixed and although £16.99 for F1 2011 may not seem like much to many people it is to me at a time when work in my line is scarce. I feel like I've paid for a very poor patch for a game that was for me already unplayable ie F1 2010. In fact at this time it would be more useful as a coaster for my can of Bud! F1 2010 was unstable, for some it crashed a lot. F1 2011 is still unstable, it crashes a lot!
I can't really make many comments on other aspects of the game as I haven't been able to run it for long enough to give my opinion.
So my closing comment is:-
Codemasters.... for goodness sake, fix it or sumfink! Quickly!
Apologies for the long post.
Cheers.
My first few hours with F1 2011 (PC)
This is my first post and outlines my first few hours with the PC version of F1 2011.
Unfortunately, I never got to the stage where I could run F1 2010 without crashes and lock-ups even in DX9 mode so it was a disaster for me although the few minutes I did get with it looked promising. DX11 mode was never implemented properly as far as I know so I gave up when I could rarely get past the loading screen due to lock-ups.
I'll probably get crushed by some of the Fanbois on here for this post but this is honestly how it has been for me so far.
Codemasters never gave F1 2010 the support and patches it needed to make the game stable. It is actually the first title I've owned that I've never been able to run consistently without crashes and lock-ups. Before anyone thinks that my system is the problem I can assure you it isn't.
My specs are:-
Intel Q9550 @ 3.8 ghz
Corsair H60 cooling
EVGA GTX480 SC fitted with a Zalman cooler running latest drivers
4gb ram
Windows 7 64 bit.
Hazro H27WC monitor
Soundblaster X-FI with latest drivers
Latest versions of DX9 and DX11
Amongst others here are a few titles that I have installed at the moment and all are running well without crashes and good frame-rates:-
Mass Effect 2
IL2 Sturmovik Cliffs of Dover
Red Orchestra 2 Heroes of Stalingrad
Rise of Flight
DCS A10C
Shogun Total War 2
FSX
The Witcher 2
It's fair to say that some of these titles have already had extensive patching but even from the beginning they were still playable without CTD etc. unlike F1 2010/2011.
I'd been on the fence about buying F1 2011 mainly because of the problems I'd had with 2010. However, I took the plunge after seeing it on Play.com for £16.99. "Gotta be worth that".... I thought to my self. How wrong could I be? The following is an approximation of how my first few hours went with F1 2011.
First, a nice straightforward but fairly lengthy installation. After this I fire her up. Oh dear, a black screen which I have to ctrl-alt-del out of. Never mind, I'll re-boot the system and try again. Second time lucky and the movie begins to run. Press enter and do the Windows Live stuff. The loading begins and I stare at my screen incredulously...yes folks, you guessed it! My first lock up of the day. This doesn't bode well. However, I get back to desktop eventually and try again. YES, I get through to the main screen this time and proceed to set up sound, graphics, and my shiny new Ferrari F430 wheel (pretty impressed with this BTW).
So, I set the graphics to Ultra and DX11 because I have enough computing power to run with the extra eye candy after all. Then on to set up the Steering wheel which is pretty straightforward. Then on to the sound, ah, there is no choice for hardware or Rapture 3D. Ok, I exit to desktop and download and install the new Rapture 3D drivers. I fire up the game again...sh*t, immediate lock-up on loading screen. This happens 3 more times before I actually get back to the game set-up screen. Back into audio set-up, still no option for Rapture 3D. I'm starting to get to the WTF stage now! Ok, I'll run with software sound for now so I can actually get into a race and set up my steering wheel etc. I set up a GP in Montreal and decide to give the Force India a spin. Into the loading screen Aaaaaarrrghhh! Guess what? Another lock up which I have to quit from with Ctrl-alt-del. At this moment I'm having such a huge De ja vu moment remembering my woes with F1 2010. I dash to the fridge to get a Budweiser to help settle my nerves. Back into the game...lock up on initial loading so back to desktop again. The next load up attempt gets me to the game set-up screen. I decide to try changing to DX9 after which I'm told I need to re-start the game. This I dutifully do and get straight back to the main game screen without a problem. I set up again for Montreal with Force India and get through to the garage for the first time in probably an hour since I installed.
Yeeeehaaaa! Quick car set-up and onto the grid. My initial impressions regarding the look of the game are mixed but after a while I decide that for me F1 2010 looks better in a lot of ways. So far IMO this PC version looks and feels like a game which is an afterthought to the consoles (consolitis
Back into setup. Repeat all the stuff for setting up wheel and pedals and restart the Montreal race. We're off! I crash (the car this time) repeatedly until I have a decent setup sorted for my wheel and pedals. After a few laps I'm starting to like the feel of the car and manage to stay with the pack fairly well on the hard setting.
I decide to go back to set-up and try to set up the sound and run in DX11 again...no joy with either and I get repeated crashes and lock-ups whilst trying to run in DX11. Still no sign of Rapture 3D either!? Eventually I go back to running the game in DX9 and begin a career driving for Force India. I make 3 or 4 runs in first practice and the lap times are improving. My progress is suddenly halted by a F1 2011 exe crash. Rage quit and lie down in a dark room for a while.
All this took up about 3 hours of my saturday evening. I should think I actually spent 20 minutes of that driving a car. I fired up F1 2011 again this morning. Again all of my settings for wheel and pedals are lost. I check the forum and people are saying that you need to proceed from the initial screen using a button from your steering wheel for the settings to be remembered! Why? Anyway, I'm unable to do so and I have to set up my wheel and pedals every time I want to play.
Codemasters.
I find it hard to believe that you have the cojones to release F1 2011 for PC in this state. However on the other hand I'm not that surprised that you have. There were many problems with F1 2010 that were never fixed and although £16.99 for F1 2011 may not seem like much to many people it is to me at a time when work in my line is scarce. I feel like I've paid for a very poor patch for a game that was for me already unplayable ie F1 2010. In fact at this time it would be more useful as a coaster for my can of Bud! F1 2010 was unstable, for some it crashed a lot. F1 2011 is still unstable, it crashes a lot!
I can't really make many comments on other aspects of the game as I haven't been able to run it for long enough to give my opinion.
So my closing comment is:-
Codemasters.... for goodness sake, fix it or sumfink! Quickly!
Apologies for the long post.
Cheers.
