The new ATI Radeon HD 5000 series of graphics cards may have given AMD a nice long head start on DirectX 11, but it isn't like compatible games are flooding the stores right now. So far we've only seen the release of two DirectX 11 games and benchmarking tools, among them S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, which we recently ran on our Radeon HD 5970 review, but a bunch of full-fledged games are definitely on their way.
This week marks the launch of another major title to support this technology, Dirt 2, the latest in a series of off-road racing games featuring the late Colin McRae. While the game launched early September on consoles, the PC version was delayed to bring full support for DX11 graphics and should start hitting stores in the next few days. Valve's Steam quotes a December 4 unlock date, and Amazon.com says the game starts shipping December 8.
Whatever the case, Codemasters has announced a playable demo is available now from the official site. The 1.32GB download includes a Moroccan point-to-point event in the Mitsubishi Eclipse GT and an eight-trophy truck race around the Ensenada Port circuit in Baja California. A benchmarking tool is also available as part of the demo so you can test your rig against the new DirectX 11 features.