I asked that Scawen a loooooong time ago and got confirmed what was said above already.LFS with more then 8 shadows start showing weird things:-(.Just looking at the tempreture LFS produce on my graphic card it shows then its very unused in LFS.Get 58 degree with 7900GT while in other demanding games up to 70.
It looks nowdays really crappy looking at replays or pictures and this shadow "bug".sometimes might be hard to atract customers and dont tell me nobody looks at how LFS graphic looks.
+1 for selectable option for numer of drawed shadows.
Could you tell me please what is your budget you can spend on new PC.
Then I am able to give you quick list what would be best.
Briefly looking at your componets....
Dont buy 7600GS with 512MB ram.The 512 will not help with perfomance at all.Buy some with at least DDR3 memory.Those 512MB on that card are just slow DDR2 memory.Also save money and buy DVD+- writer.Why need to standalone CD writer and DVD reader.
E6600 is overkill for 7600GS.E4400/4300 would be better and you could invest money for better graphic card.
As I said tell me please your budget and then I can think about it and come with some nice sollution for you.
when looking across several games bechmarked on variours server this card seem to have now dodgy drivers.Sometimes its score even better then 8800Ultra sometimes equal with ATI X1950XT.This only shows that the card has so raw drivers that I cant alomost bealive it.
This is pretty dissapointing.Seem they had to change the architecture had to be chanded in last moths several times otherwise it cant explain the raw drivers.
At leats ATI put 399$/350 euro price otherwise the card would be total disaster.
I would say you have NVIDIA card and QuincuxAA enabled(2xQ AA).Move to different AA settings.
Looks at attached picture as example.Its the same result with 2xQ AA is enabled.
I didnt know where to ask that but Scawen did you ever check how much is there overdraw when you see many cars models before you or around you.I know this is wrong thread and kill me for that but it just came on my tongue.Probably I spend too much time reading the ATI documents for this.Sorry couldnt help myself.Just trying to help :scared:
regarding the bug when LFS shutdown to desktop after pressing the LEAVE button I found something new.I have been today on 24H test server and when there was a few players I didnt got that bug but now there are 19 players and when I pressed LEAVE button LFS again shutdown to the desktop so its somehow related to number of drivers on the server.Again no crash adress however:-(.
if you are worried only about peformance in LFS then you dont need mega graphic card at all.I had before NVIDIA 6600(non GT version) and my FPS is still same with 7900GT running at 7950GT speeds.The only difference I could go from 4xAA+8AF to 8xAA+16AF without FPS drop.
LFS is heavily CPU limited.If you want to have better FPS then you have to either overclock your CPU a lot or buy new system with AMD X2 processors or Intel C2D processor.
I would wait with buying new system untill autumn as at this time AMD should come with new line of processors which will probably beat C2D beats so you will get eitther better peformance from AMD or lower price for C2D processor.Still if LFS only concern you then 1GB of memory is fine(If I would plannning to buz new system again for some longer time then I would buy 2GB of ram).7600GT(around 100-120euros) should be enought for LFS as well.
Sometimes it help to update BIOS but look at this motherboard its pretty outdated so it might be a problem.
Also sometimes the older motherboard cant recongnize the memory correctly thats why it seems it doesnt work.
What you mean by that it doesnt work in slot 1?
Di you try to set the memory timing and speed manuly for these sticks?Maybe the motherboard read wrong SPD from the memory modules and set up them wrong in BIOS.
These are the things which came to my mind right now.If the manual setting for memory doesnt help or BIOS then I am afraid the chipset memory controller might be wrong:-(
I have just looked at their webpages and you can change the type of processor,memory,HD,DVD writer(with or without Lightscribe),you can change the operating system as well but I am not sure what else you would expecting to be changed.
I see your decision above and looks pretty good.The Dell notebook have much better graphic card but the 17" LCD will have higher native resolution so the situation is pretty same with the Alienware 7600 and lower res display.Only to consider thought if you want to play in native resolution.
What about the Supermans edition from Alienware.I know it looks pretty shocking but it has quite good graphic card if you mean this notebook as well as gaming station.
It happend to my 5th time in a row and I was running Dr.Watson in background but there wasnt any crash adress.LFS just shutdowned to desktop.Suprisingly this now dissapeard but I think there is still probably some "bug" in LFS.I am not running my PC overclocked.
reset BIOS on the motherboard after you will plug in the 7600GT.
If this would not help then the WindowsXP got messy and probably need to reinstall but I would try 1st the thing with BIOS reset before hassling with OS reinstall(format,install...etc).
If you dont know how to reset bios come back and ask.
I think there are 3 issues with the shadows under the cars currently.
1)The numbers of shadows is only limited to 8 cars.Scawen mentioned already that more would need to tweak the 3D engine as LFS currenly with more then 8 shadows shows artifacts.I would be more for that then the new system with 1024 skins version. Would move the game more to current game standarts.
2)There is missing the second shadow under the cars and wheels which should be much darker.Then why the cars sometimes looks "floating"
3)Missing cars shadows when the car is going in the place where are tree shows.Maybe this is reläted to the number 2 but again the cars are then without shadows and looks like floating again.
I am not sure if you have noticed the bug I posted on previous page.you have posted 1 minute after me so you might be writing at the same time as me.LFS crash to desktop when I press LEAVE button being in multiplayer.
Sorry for posting it twice if you already read the before.
Running Dr.Watson in background doesnt give me any crash adress.