CADEsport v1 was eventually ‘soft launched’ on Saturday 1st October, with a full launch to be Thursday 6th October.
The launch invitation was limited to followers of CADEsport who had supported their Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign and members of their various Facebook Groups.
Overall, the download and installation went fairly smoothly – a total of 240mb of files were safely installed.
Once installation was completed, registration was the next step, along with a choice of running the programme in Low Definition; High Definition and 4K. (Currently 4K is not available.)
Choosing Low Definition, gives users the smallest file sizes and quicker installs.
To start with 8 Maps / Routes are offered and these routers/maps are downloaded to be saved locally on your computer. Each time you choose a new map or route to ride, the map will be downloaded, to be saved client side.
There is a lot to learn with the new CADEsport v1, however, there is no Quick Start Guide or even any (very little) help available.
However, I had too many issues to really learn anything about the game.
Many problems occurred repeatedly; the length of time it took for the game to load (over 8mins); the game ‘crashing’ in the middle of a ride; my avatar not moving; or my avatar moving but the power / speed / cadence not updating.
I spend many hours and many pages of problems (issues and suggestions) contacting the Support Team at CADEsport.
Initially, their only solution was “run the game at the lowest of low definition settings”’ which really didn’t help at all.
In the end they had to admit that the amount of processing power and video settings needed to run the game and even the lowest settings were beyond the scope of most ‘everyday’ laptops.
It was certainly more than my laptop could cope with, and the only ‘real’ solution is to run it off a desktop computer, with big processing power and with a big Video / Graphics card.
As I’m not in a position to commission a new desktop for the occasional use – I’ve had to pass.
There is a lot in CADEsport, but the learning curve is very steep and it is very difficult to see who the Game is marketed at.
It is certainly not a game for beginners, just getting into Virtual Cycling for the first time.
It has got a lot of good points, but the money has all been spent on the fancy graphics, without very little being spent on the game itself.
If you got a big machine – it might be worth it. Certainly, worth a 14-day Free Trial at least.
I was very disappointed with the Game, and the Support, I received. I would have occasionally, used it as an alternative to Zwift.