Test Drive Unlimited (PC)... DO NOT BUY!

Fighting with

To be blunt. The PS2 version. It bypasses the whole god damn palava. I wouldn't get the PC one unless the patch is out (ETA 4th week May).

Possibly. But which driver? Their are issues on the official Atari forums where it can't possibly be a single driver version for a specific peice of hardware. You see issues with Intels and AMD's, Nvidia and ATi... it's wildly differing hardware and drivers. But. If, CnC3 runs sweet as a nut, along with SupCom, NWN2... as well as NWN2 can run it's another Atari game :S... which one is the odd man out?
If I was trying to do something daft like run it in WINE (which doesn't work due to the games very strange usage of a D3D function) then yeah fair enough... but i'm not. This is XP-SP2 at the current patch level.




Actually, I'll give you that one but I will amend it.
VERY LITTLE OFFICIAL support for wheel input.


Actually the force feed back system causing massive drops in frame rates is a known bug in the game. Especially as the bug is not related to just the old Microsoft wheel, several people with Saitek units have reported the same issue.


Having spent a lot of time lurking on the 'Official Atari Forums' I would take any poll results with a healthy dose of scepticism. I've seen at least one moderator acting in a very unprofessional manner towards people (in essence calls them a n00b and bans them for kicks), it is not such a major leap of faith to think that the polls are often rigged. The only official Atari/Eden statement I've seen on those forums is that a patch is being worked on, the only control method stickyed is how to use a 360 pad. Those in itself are quite suggestive. Actually saying there is "zero support" is correct, with the number of DirectInput wheels on the market those officially supported (not just happen to work) is in effect such a low percentage as to be zero.



But it a) works flawlessly b) misses out on the twisted minefield that is getting the product home only to find it not working.

Right. To settle this matter give me 5 min to reboot.

Sorry about the delay needed to be in Windows. This is what happens when you double click the icon to run the game. This is repeatable, this is the only action the game takes after the videos have played:



And just to prove this isn't Test Drive: Unlimited 'Tortuga Edition':



So, buy the PS2 version or the PC version? Well there's your 'worst case' with the PC version running the latest stable drivers for everything.

If one of the people joining in had the name "tenebra" then that's a moderator...
But yes, I'm rather glad I only visit infrequently and stay long enough to confirm suspicions.

Ahh sorry, I should clarify. These aren't bleeding edge just released. They're what Intel, Nvidia, Rioch (card reader) and Co. say are their most current stable release... so not like the 1xx.xx series of Nvidia drivers

The only older drivers I've got are the ones that come with the XPS... and to be honest their Nvidia drivers are an old unstable release... it texture flashes all over the shop :-/

Problem is when booted in to Windows, none of the Linux code is running in the background nor is it in memory. I've tried, just on the remote off chance this was the problem powering down the laptop, removing the mains AND battery then going in to windows, that way total clean slate. True GRUB runs but exits cleanly after selecting the OS run run. Now, having several games that are using the same version of SecuROM the multiple partitions on the disk aren't causing an issue, nor is the Windows EXT2 driver (I've tried with and without it).

The fascinating thing is that for me, the game doesn't even run in WINE (despite being set to any version of Windows from 98 - Vista), it bombs instantly after the videos have played... that's freaky as we're talking two utterly different sets of drivers and an emulation layer that's trying to smooth out the bugs. Needless to say this is two separate installations but both failing at the exact same point, in different OS's.

So, it's not drivers as everything else works. It's not XP-SP2 as WINE gets the same treatment. The disc is fine and checks out, besides which you'd expect the installer to be CRCing as it goes. The drive optics check out both for reading/writing CD's and DVD's. It's not 3rd party software (AVG-Free, DeamonTools, et al) as I've tried it each way. It's not heat as I've tried it from a cold (sat on top of the AC cold) boot. And the hdd is fine too.

Before I tell someone not to buy something, I am nothing if not bloody thorough in checking everything out first.


ETA: 'Tortuga Edition' has been tried and does the same.

Oh do off and learn some manners. At what point was I being insulting to you or passenger? I wasn't, I was trying to offer geniune insights into why I can run a game and he cannot. So dont insult me with some sort of attempt at being superior. WOW.. you know more about dual boot systems than me, woopdee doo, bet that gets the laidees big time.

If all your going to do is reply with insults when I was put pointing out a very real diference between Passenger's and my setups you might as well go away to another thread. I can play the game no problem but passenger can't even get it started. Yet we both have systems well within the ability of the programs requirements.
The only big obvious difference betwen our rigs is that Passenger runs dual boot, I dont. And not running dual boot I have no idea what affects what, it did not require a 7yr old outburst from you.

Tell me, do use the term p3wnd in real life and call people noobs? Just curious

oops

It is very strange and to be honest the fact that I (and to be fair, many other people) can run the game without issue I wouln't put it past eden to code something so stupid as the game is pretty much a direct port of the 360version. Ignoring the dual boot situation, say the difference in our system is only that I run service pack 2, maybe its worth a shot? Stranger things have happened?

To clear up the XP Pro thing, I'm playing (well, I will be when I re-install TDU) it on XP Pro SP2 with the full updates as well. It does seem very odd that it randomly runs on some systems and not on others...
Very bizarre....