The online racing simulator
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col
S3 licensed
Quote from DeKo :You're full of shit, are you really trying to say that it is so out of order for Scawen to take 5 minutes of his time and write a paragraph to all the people who gave him a shit load of money?

lol, I'm obviously not saying that DeKo. I'm clearly saying that giving in to nagging won't make the nagging stop, it will make it worse. It is a generally accepted and universally applicable concept of psychology.
Last edited by col, .
col
S3 licensed
Quote from cargame.nl :Interesting. Give me an example where non communication worked out good in the end.

Interesting. Give me an example where endless negativity about something you care about worked out good in the end.
col
S3 licensed
Quote from werd :...And look... Theres the thing, why isnt there any sort of answer to some questions? Are we pesty rats who are nagging and nagging?
How do one stop the nagging? BY ANSWERING!

Nope, thats BS.

The only way to stop nagging (apart from violence) is to ignore it !

If Scawen answered the nagging, it just teaches you pesky rats that nagging is the way to get what you want, so you would do it even more - it's called "positive reinforcement".
col
S3 licensed
Quote from cargame.nl :This has nothing to do with the subject is it?

Of course it does - it's directly relevant.
The thread title implies that there is something wrong with the development approach To that extent it is negative criticism (as opposed to constructive criticism). Whether you agree with that idea or not, repeating that type of negative criticism over and over will do no good. So why do people do it? what do they hope to achieve?
Quote :
No need to center me here. I give an opinion (mostly pretty directly). Thats why they made forums.

They made forums so we could have discussions (not so you could repeat the same opinion over and over and over - once is plenty).
Discussion can be very useful, but these discussions were done and dusted many years ago. People asked Scawen about hiring more programmers and designers, using volunteers from the community etc. Scawen said no, and explained why. So now that discussion is over and repeating the same criticisms ad nauseum is just pointlessly negative.

When new people find LFS, and maybe check out the forums, they just see masses of negative criticism.
It's not a great advert for LFS or it's "community", maybe many possible new players don't get further than that... but it's not the game or the devs that are creating that vibe, it's the section of the community that repeatedly attacks the game.

So why do it? there must be some reason - something to gain from it, something I'm not seeing - otherwise it would be indefensible.
Last edited by col, .
col
S3 licensed
Quote from cargame.nl :Exactly.. I read here things now about personal dissatisfaction, hate, attacking... >8 snip

Many of your recent posts are critical of LFS and it's development team.
Scawen is not going to change his philosophy based on your opinion.
Nothing good can come from the repetitive negative criticism that is a regular feature here, from many posters including you.
Nobody is pretending that the LFS dev process isn't very slow, and we all wish it was faster with more info, but without the process LFS would not exist.
Constant complaining will not change anything for the better, only make things worse...

So I repeat my earlier question:

what you are trying to achieve by attacking LFS and its development team?

(attacking in the sense of repetitive negative criticism)
col
S3 licensed
Quote from cargame.nl :

Hello col, look at yourself first. Yoohoo!

I've stated myself recently - I don't even have a PC. My old one died, and right now I'm using a mac laptop.
What has that got to do with this discussion?
Me not having a PC doesn't suddenly validate all the whining, and petty demands from haters on this forum. If anything, it makes my point of view more valid. It proves that I'm no fan boy.
I am fascinated by the dev's philosophy, and by the approach Scawen has taken in implementing the physics, and for that reason, I'm very much looking forward to a new version of LFS - might be worth switching back to a PC then.
I am concerned that all the negative and hateful BS on this forum might be damaging the game and to the dev's motivation, so sometimes I challenge the people that bring that attitude here.
The fact that you're one of them is really surprising. You've done a lot for the community with your servers, and it really makes no sense to me that you would behave in a way that could damage LFS. It's definitely not going to help, that's for sure.

Maybe you could explain what you are trying to achieve by attacking LFS and its development team ?
col
S3 licensed
Quote from Tuze :I didn't read the whole thread, and even if I did, I might be beating a dead horse here.

What I don't like is how people here defend the devs too much.


Er.. duh. This is the LFS forum. You attack a game on it's forum and get annoyed when people defend it and it's dev team. What exactly do you expect?

Quote :
LFS is so far behind of some of these games, and I'm purely talking physics wise.

Hmm, considering the Physics is LFS's biggest attraction, if you really think it is way behind, why are you wasting your time here?
Only to troll? how sad!
Go play the other games, and don't look back. From what you've said, LFS obviously has nothing to offer for you. Unless you don't really believe what you've said?
Quote :
......
I really don't see the reason of them not expanding their team. Because I'm sure there are more stories of how team expansion has saved a game.

Are you a game developer with years of industry experience and empirical evidence to back up this assertion?
Or are you a game player with very limited understanding of the development process and the inherent inefficiencies of larger teams, who is just making stuff up to support a feeble argument?
col
S3 licensed
Quote from cargame.nl :
...Nobody is waiting for new physics, so much other things can be done to create more realism. Tire physics are already on a high level and I personally doubt if it would have a positive effect on online simracing anyway.

One of the most common complaints before Scawen started on this extended physics development cycle was about the poor realism of the tyres, both the temperature behaviour and the low speed grip.
If you disregard all the "I want XYZ" and "LFS is dead", and look at valid constructive criticisms about faults and weaknesses in the existing game, then those were definitely the biggest concern apart from the collision problems which are supposedly much improved.
If "Nobody is waiting for new physics", why were so many people criticizing the current tyre physics back then? fickle bunch eh?

For me, the biggest improvement to the game would be environmental. I would like to see dynamic track surface. Marbles, dirt on track, and if/when weather is introduced, puddles and drying line. A convincing dynamic track surface with robust online multiplayer capability is a huge challenge (I think this is the thing that's holding back the introduction of weather. The graphics would be pretty simple for someone as experienced as Scawen). It might involve a total rethink of the netcode, parts of the rendering engine, physics etc.
I wonder if one of the reasons Scawen want's to get the tyre physics done is because it will influence the development of dynamic track surfaces. Makes sense to do things in the right order. I'm probable just dreaming on that one though .
col
S3 licensed
Quote from edge3147 :So they held a public event promoting both items and thought that nobody their would find out and bring the news back to the LFS community.

This reflects poorly on the devs, and the way they are handling it.

If it were true, it would reflect badly on them. As its BS, it reflects badly on you.
Quote :

Being more honest and open with the community will do a lot to restore the confidence

I don't remember a single time when Scawen has been anything other than honest. He used to be open as well, but got burned so many times by all the whining brats that he stopped - you know, the kind of guys who misrepresent what the devs say and do and then use this distortion of the truth to attack LFS and its development process... exactly like you have been doing.

As far as targeting older hardware - that's yet another shallow straw-man argument. If you'd been paying any attention, you would understand that the optimisation is not from high end pc to low end, it's from maybe 3 frames per minute on high end to real time on any pc getting that down to a target mid range system would be trivial by comparison. But hey, don't let reality get in the way of your endless whining.
col
S3 licensed
Quote from dekojester :This should be it...

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=1004111#post1004111

Thanks, I remember that post. It doesn't mention tracks, but the arguments still holds.

I think the problem might be that if the manufacturer started giving away or paying devs for car licences, they would attach a bunch of restrictions that could potentially make them useless for a proper sim.

e.g.
Our car must not be slower than our competitors car.
It must never be shown rolling over.

Another problem that Scawen doesn't consider in his post is that it may be in the interest of large publishers to keep the status quo. They can pay the licence fees. many smaller teams will struggle to, this gives them an advantage.
col
S3 licensed
Quote from Sobis :Scawen doesn't believe in paying for real world cars and tracks licensing IIRC.

Please link to a post where Scawen stated that belief.
col
S3 licensed
Quote from Chupacabras84 :So are you saying that Scawen and Eric are the most talented people in the whole world and if anyone else tries to create anything it will be shit by definition?

I imagine there are plenty of people capable of creating a shit hot Driving simulation. And if they choose to do it will also want to choose how to do it and decide for themselves whether to allow others to 'enhance' their project.
col
S3 licensed
Quote from the_angry_angel :
The argument for not allowing mods because the LFS developers want to be able to alter and rev the API at will? Who cares. Label it as perpetually unstable, make no guarantees to stability, and make it really really clear - if the modders don't understand that, then it's their own fault. The linux kernel internal APIs aren't necessarily guaranteed stable between minor releases - and it copes absolutely fine because there are no guarantees made of internal API stability.

WHo cares? The devs do for a start

It doesn't matter how many times and how clearly the write that the formats may change, when they do, there will be an uproar.
It makes sense to me that Scavier want to retain control while they are still developing LFS.
If the popularity of a game depends on mods, that seriously restricts future development. You can't make major changes to data formats for any of the mod-able assets without damaging the games reputation.

Another issue is stability. at the moment, it may be that there are lots of ways to create unstable content that causes physics and or networking components to collapse, or glitch. It's easy for Scawen to work with Eric to avoid any problems. If they were to go down the mod route, the tools and the game engine would potentially need a LOT of work to get them to the point where they were robust and free from exploits, security weaknesses and just plain gotcha's.
col
S3 licensed
Ok, here are a couple of sensible serious question for the devs:

Is there a target for minimum system spec for the next release?

What modern cpu features - if any - might the next release take advantage of that the current version does not?
col
S3 licensed
Quote from paulinho :
I'm currently involved in a few "other" sims that are in beta/alpha development, and we receive regular updates and communications from the programmers, but each company is different.

When LFS was at that stage in its life, there were regular updates, and Scawen seemed to be involved in forum discussions almost every day - certainly weekly.
The reality is that as this kind of project matures, updates become less regular and take longer - it's a normal process. There comes a point where you have to settle with a particular version to allow other aspects of the game to develop - stats and records are a big part of LFS, in the early days, they were reset fairly often. As the community grew and LFS world was introduced, this dynamic approach to updates had to change.

Additionally, as the game grew in popularity, and more people joined the forum, the responses became more and more negative to the point where the devs felt that discussing new features or future plans here was putting them in a no-win situation.

Maybe those other sims you mention have communities more like this one was in it's early days - open to change, and not hyper critical and negative.
col
S3 licensed
Heh, yep, it's good to look back.
I remember reading a discussion on rec.autos.simulators back in 2002 about a new demo that had been discovered. I was sceptical, but downloaded to check it out. That was the beginning of the end for GPL and Sports Car GT (forerunner of rFactor) for me, and I completely forgot about the much hyped and anticipated 'World Sports Cars'. The last few months of 2002 up to the release of S1 were a great time, only equalled in enjoyment - so far - by the CTRA era. Remember the old LFS page on RaceSimCentral as well.
Good times

(NB. For those who don't remember, World Sports Cars was the game project West Racing worked on before Racing Legends. It was supposedly almost complete, when the publishing company they had signed with shelved the game. They had to start again from scratch as they didn't have rights to the code or assets, and they never did manage to get Racing Legends off the ground. It's is an interesting history lesson for those who don't like Scaviers go-it-alone approach)
col
S3 licensed
As long as there is hardware T&L support, then any gpu that gives you the resolution you want should work... for now !

It's quite likely that when the physics are done, one of the things that will get some attention is the graphics. Probably some subtle shader work to increase realism without being annoying.
Still, it's even more likely that the physics update will hit the cpu harder, so cpu will still be the main factor in frame rate. Improvements in AI may also have some small impact on cpu.
col
S3 licensed
Quote from Gener_AL (UK) :
"Guide to a happier life."
...
...
don't worry be happy now

Last edited by col, .
col
S3 licensed
Quote from Hoshimodo :LFS is lost in stagnation, sad to say!

Nah, it's all the whiners, nay-sayers and doom merchents who are lost in stagnations. You guys just keep on with the same old repetitive negative comments. You should be able to move on, but you don't or can't. You seem trapped in the mire of your own doom fantasy, unable to do or say anything worthwhile - totally impotent and morally void. The saddest thing is, your putrefied midden of rotting vitriol slowly poisons the community, dragging others to the same pathetic fate - like a bizarre digital analog of the La Brea Tar Pits. Maybe, in the distant future, electronic archeologist will discover this place in the archives, and marvel incredulously at how their ancestors could behave in such a way.

......
col
S3 licensed
Quote from The Very End :I have with several occausions had sex with people that won't get sex with any other people on this planet, that's showing some good-will from my side right? Can I please have the G27 now?

lol

Did you only find out the next day when you sobered up that it had been a 'charitable act'?
Last edited by col, .
col
S3 licensed
Is this intended as a real time thing for watching a race live, or for post processing for some sort of broadcast?

If it's not live, then you could use a 'look ahead' approach, that allows your software to make decisions by 'looking into the future'. So for example, it can get the camera set and ready a second or two before a big crash, or a series of overtakes... or similarly, it can spot when an event isn't really interesting after all based on nothing happening for x seconds after the initial 'incident'.

Obviously, this doesn't work for real-time live viewing.

cheers

Col
Last edited by col, .
col
S3 licensed
Quote from cargame.nl :
a GPU is taking care of the graphics (doh), and CPU for physics. If there is no GPU (32 Mb videochip you can't call a GPU) then the CPU has to do that too and that is called software rendering...
It keeps surprising me how low basic computer (gaming) knowledge is here, and thats why I am fully pro a lock on ping/FPS ..

hmm... I've been gaming/programming for roughly 30 years. My first home build PC was a P133, (before that I had 8086, SX33 and DX66, atari, sinclair etc...), since then, many and various home build PCs for different purposes. I played doom over direct telephone connection, quake1 over internet, GPL, and countless others over the years. I've written networking system code for gameboy advance (ARM assembly)...
I think this argument is not about technical knowledge rather it is about a subjective notion of what is acceptable performance and what is not.

btw, I'd like to see your conclusive evidence
col
S3 licensed
Quote from edge3147 :Low end PC's of today...

From a retail point of view, that's true.
From a rational real world point of view, "low end PC" are the ones people are using, not the ones in the shops. Many people don't upgrade every year or two. If a significant proportion of your intended market uses PC's from a few years ago that were cheap at the time, then that's your 'low end PC" right there.

Quote :
Optimizing for performance is an excuse to buy more time.

It would be interesting to hear some evidence to back up that statement - do you have contacts close to the devs?
col
S3 licensed
Quote from cargame.nl :I have to ask or kick (ban even) racers from Australia because they don't have the slightest idea what they are doing with a ping of 250 ms+

Totally agree that 250+ is just silly, and that people do need to be educated about what a sensible ping is, for everybody's sake.
Quote :

This input lag alone causes slow laptimes and crashes.


There are obviously some folks who can race safely with a low fps, which suggests that it's not the input lag that's the problem, but the incompetence of the racers. It may be that a larger proportion of players with low end systems are noobs and cause crashes through incompetence... Do you have conclusive evidence that it is their slower frame rate that causes the crashes, or is it just a 'feeling'
Quote :

It's like hearing some left party talk that we are all equal and stuff....

It's like hearing right party talk that if you can't afford a top system you're not good enough to race here - "Framerate Fascism" if you like
Quote :
And then we think about releasing tire physics which eats even more CPU cycles?

Yes, well done for getting back to the reason for this discussion. Lot of folk complaining about Scawen optimizing for performance. It seems to me that if frame rate is so important, that's all the more reason for him to spend even more time optimizing for performance - not just so that low end systems can play, but so that mid level systems can play with "safe" fps?
Last edited by col, .
col
S3 licensed
Quote from lol_men :I think it is about adding two more options to server not pernament banning everyone with less than 40 or 50 fps:
- Ping limit
- FPS limit
Thats all - there will be a lot of servers allowing You to join with slide show and connection problems but for those who want clean pure experience there will be few servers with these options enabled. If You have too slow PC and internet than You will get information that You can't join it and when You will buy better hardware You will be free to race on them.
And on that forum there are always people who made things bigger then they are in real...

OK, so you join, and are racing, in the lead on lap 9 of a 10 lap race, when someone joins at exactly the point where you hit the most cpu stressing point of the circuit, and your fps drops from 58 to 49.2... boom, you get kicked - that would be stupid. After a while, it would divide an already small community even further.
Similarly, ping can fluctuate for various reasons - it would just be another cause of problems where half the field are all kicked at once because for some reason there is a momentary problem with the servers ISP causing a peak in ping.
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