I suggest the OP go to a race track, or a closed road with a properly equipped car, for safety, and push a vehicle to its limits. It may surprise you just how easy it is to oversteer a RWD car that has a shady live axle and half as5 limited slip.

You're never gonna find a vehicle or setup that will take 'any' corner at "40/50mph" without sliding, that is if you're really trying to. Be it understeer or oversteer, it's just easy to do.

You would need an extremely light, awkward shaped short wheel base type of small car with huge wheels and racing slick tires at perfect temps, ...already sounds cartoony.

This may help: http://www.quansite.net/blog/onlinecopyrightinfringement/

Also typically what's done is done, which only reinforces how important it is to get a grip on your content early. It's not difficult to do, there are many tools and bits of info online, if you need specific help maybe I could point you in the right direction via pm.

I'm a long time user of both, Steam on launch day and LFS in early 2005 as a demo driver, and I believe Steam makes perfect sense, as a platform to sell the game.

I think there's a bit of an old school mentality around here which holds the game back, and produces elitism and ignorance. This is obviously incompatible with Steam, but has nothing to say for what's best for LFS, which I really do believe could be Steam, and/or any other digital platform or service.

Last edited by DHRammstein, Sat 19 Mar 2011, 20:13.

Thanks that was the issue. I'm not sure how it was set to performance, but all is well now.

Ehh, that turned out to be a very bad decision. I got screwed, turns out it was wrecked. They did a good job hiding it though, I'll give them that. I didn't know until we put it on a lift for an exhaust install. Wound up having to take legal action, I didn't have the car very long, it only left my garage maybe 3 or 4 times. Anyway that car is long gone.

Do you have Service Pack 1 installed? Because I know it worked before I installed the SP, but I can't be sure it LFS was messed up before then, I haven't played it in a while.

I've reinstalled everything, even leaving the game pure vanilla, and the problem is still there. I've even tried installing to different directories, I've done it all. It only effects the cars, not only in-game, but also at the car selection screen and preview screen, they're very low resolution, not the cars themselves, the skins. It looks as though I installed a skin pack for everything at about 1/4 the normal skin resolution.

The only change I've made to my system, at all, is the installation of Windows 7 SP1.

Can anyone confirm their game looks normal with win7 SP1 installed? At this point it's the only thing I can think of.

Last edited by DHRammstein, Sun 6 Mar 2011, 21:57.

They're very low resolution, or just really blurry, it's strange. In the race setup screen, where you can add or remove AI cars, and even in-race. This is kind of bizzare.

The only thing I can think of that could relate, possibly, is; Yesterday when playing Crysis 2 Demo, out of nowhere my frame rate bottomed out to near nothing. I rebooted my system and all is normal again, but that was probably a bug, because that demo is extremely buggy.

Any idea what would cause this? I know it's not hard to fix, probably, with a reinstall, but I'd really like to know how this could happen.

Any tips appreciated. The sim works perfectly otherwise.

EDIT: Read my below post.

Last edited by DHRammstein, Sun 6 Mar 2011, 23:11.

I have a similar problem, don't intend to hijack, but don't want to start a new thread, may be a similar issue.

I just went to play online (It's been a while), also, just built this PC recently, unlocked the game about two/three weeks ago, only unlock I've used in more than a year.

Anyways, after the update 0.5Z28, it wants me to unlock, yet it says my username cannot be found... I dunno what to do

EDIT: Fixed. For no reason after countless attempts it finally worked.... Maybe server was having issues.

Last edited by DHRammstein, Wed 31 Mar 2010, 03:54. Reason : fixed

Absolutely, and when I get to the desktop, I instantly load CCC, and crank the fan to 100%. This made it very easy to identify which fan it was without opening the case (I have opened it, to be certain no wires got near the Gpu, etc etc, lots of clearance)

When I first open CCC, it's usually between 36-49% fan speed. This morning, it was very cold in here, under 50*F, around 46-48, to be exact. The fan was making the noise, I already knew it was the Gpu fan, so when it booted to the desktop (about 10-15 full seconds from power on until I have the CCC open at the desktop, it's very quick) the fan was still making this noise, I cranked it to 100%, the fan speed up, and the noise increased proportionally, this lasts about 30 seconds at most, and then it's as if the Gpu's fan warms up, and stops making the noisy sound.

Is it normal for these type of fans to possibly make these sounds when they're cold? This has only happened 3/4 times, and "only" when it's below 50*F/8.8-10*C. The rough sound always stops after about 1 full minute. This video card warms up FAST, so I'm thinking:

Possibly it's just the cold? I don't waste energy keeping this room warm when I'm not in here, and the PC is on the floor, coldest part of the house ya know.

I'm answering my own question aren't I? Just curious, performance is perfectly normal, behavior, smart control of the fan speeds, all fine. Also, before the desktop loads, the fan does "not" spin at 100%, by the sound I'd guess around 50%, give or take. Once I hit the desktop it falls into the 30's, idle temps are about 48-52*C, but I'm sure by mid summer that will rise.

Jeez, someone just help this guy out....


Look, right now ATI is the better in my opinion, but first things first, you likely don't even have the power to use anything that's even been recommended yet.

If you want a card that well supports HDMI and won't break your budget, a Radeon 47xx/57xx series card would do just fine. You should shop for a power supply as well, you can probably pick up something with 2 Pci-E and enough amps to power those cards for under 100eu, just gotta shop around.
Also, there are sites that sell Psu's and Gpu's together, just the same as sites sell mobo's and cpu's together. My cousin just spent $1,200 on an HP Elite PC, totaly decked out, but...!!! 300watt power supply!! Barely enough power for the system, maybe a drop to spare.

So, I'm gonna go ahead and just keep this simple, and let you decide, and then you'll need to choose a source, where to buy. If you want more information, entirely unbaised, PM me.

I would shoot for a XFX Radeon HD 5770, and at least 500watt power supply (Pci-Express capable...although virtually all are) from PC Power & Cooling. If you cannot get from PC P&C, go for Thermaltake.

If for some reason you absolutely don't want an ATI card, I cannot recommend more than a GTS 250, from Nvidia. It will have dual DVI...perhaps there's a model with HDMI I'm not sure, but this won't stop you from using HDMI, as you already know.
The next card up in my opinion, considering price and what ATI is doing, would "have" to be a GTX 260 448 bit, 216 shader model. Anything less you're throwing money away, you could grab a Radeon HD 4870, or the highly optimized 4890 and OC the hell out of it, but I'm going to assume you want to install, and be done with it, power from the get go.

ATI= 5770, Nvidia= GTX 260 448bit 216s. Now the 5770 is more powerful than the Geforce, it's just that you don't need anything more from Nvidia, and their prices aren't friendly, however they may be when the GTX 470 and 480 drop, very soon.
If you can, wait a month, otherwise, I'd shoot for an ATI card. There's just so much to choose from, ranging from DX10.1 and DX11 gens, this creates separation from Nvidia and allows for a huge market of ATI cards (budget mostly) to be had very cheap. 550watt Psu should be plenty for what I've mentioned, it's mostly the amp-age that matters but any Pci-E Psu at 500w will be sufficient for what I've recommended, assuming you're not running an extreme system.

P.S. There are vendors that will sell you an video card, "and" a power supply, together, with great warranties. In fact if you decided to go with Nvidia, I'd say visit BFG's web page.

Forgive the length, it's a very broad topic. I can give you links and unbiased reasons for choosing Nvidia or AMD, via PM "ONLY", otherwise people will flip out and start arguing in the thread

GL

My Gpu (Sig) sounds pretty rough when I boot the rig up when it's cold, only below 55*C it seems. This is probably the 3rd time I've booted the machine with it being so cold in this room. I don't keep it very warm in this room unless I'm in here, so at times first thing in the morning when I go on, it sounds rough. By about the time I get to the desktop, the noise go's away. I'm certain it's the Gpu fan, today when I booted I right away opened CCC, cranked the fan to 100% and had a good listen...it just sounds rough. Doesn't sound out of balance or anything...hard to explain, just, twice as loud. Then, it instantly sounds normal. It's not a smooth transition, from noisy to quiet, it just go's from loud/noisy, to perfectly normal, instantly. This rarely happens and never when it's warm.

This is something I've just never payed much attention to, at all. Is this something I should be concerned about? The card is only two weeks old, barely. There is nothing within 2 inches of the front of the card, nothing is interfering with the card. If this happened all the time I'd worry, but since it's only when it's very cold, is it possibly it's nothing to be concerned about?

Anyone with experience I'd appreciate any input, I know we have more hardware heads here, but this is something I've never come across. Also, the system otherwise runs absolutely perfect, temps, speeds, everything is perfect.

Thanks, sorry for the length.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Actually most PhysX users can't take advantage of it cause there's very few games which actually use it. And I don't think Nvidia is paying off developers to not use DX10.1, developers don't use it because Nvidia cards don't support it. They can't make a game which will run on only ATI cards, that would substantially limit their revenues. And it wouldn't be worth it to make two versions, as DX10.1 is a just a small update to DX10 which includes a few new instructions.

There is proof that Nvidia payed off the devs of Assassins Creed to "not" include a patch to support DX10.1, because ATI users would have seen huge performance increases.

As for the other argument, look at Stalker - Clear Sky. You can run the game in DX8, DX9, DX10, and 10.1. If you have a newer ATI card there's an option to "Use DX10.1" and the performance increase is awesome. If GSC Game World can accomplish this, "any" developer can.

In no way arguing here, but use google there's proof of Nvidia's payoffs.

_______

As for the few posts after yours, doesn't sound like an ATI issue, I have no such problems with my ATI cards, on two different rigs. My main rig, specs in sig, and my second, with just one of the 4890's.

Good race, another 2-3 minutes there may have been a real nice battle for the win. I think 1.8sec between 1st and 2nd.

I did some research last night and the 300 series will "have" to support DX11, and be damn good, and the price had better be right, or we're about to see a shift. Those who love Nvidia so much are gonna get sick of the ATI fella's getting double the frame rates at half the price, it's gonna pile on and pile on. Physx an Cuda are already proven to be amazing, I LOOOVVE IT, however, it's not enough. Performance first, because as we all know, in order to even enable physx in a game that supports it, you'll need a VERY high end Nvidia card, there's almost no point to it for mid-range to high range, only enthusiast. GTX 285, 295, SLI/Extra Nv Gpu dedi to physx is the only way to get realtime gameplay with physx enabled. So, the 300 series mid-range card will need to be at least as powerful as a GTX 285 or they may as well dump the physx idea entirely, more than 85% of Nvidia card owners can't take advantage because the Physx is so taxing on the Gpu.

Nvida is a big company and has the money and resources to accomplish they they need to, and they'd better because AMD is sitting real nice right now, right at the top, in performance, support....we'll have to wait and see.

Sorry, eh, I ramble on but that's just how I see it right now, Nvidia is gonna have to do something special, and they gotta let their cards downclock....another issue. I love the fact my Gpu's sit at 240mhz, 40*C, 40% fan speed. Nvidia is practically opposite.

I'm truly conflicted, I love Physx, I thought it was the next big thing, next to tessellation and ray tracing, but even better, but it's not practical. Nvidia, please, make some moves! And STOP paying off developers to not support DX10.1, this makes me sick to my stomach, and there's soo much proof... Uhg... I don't think I can truly be a fan of any of this anymore, just a smart consumer trying to get the best gaming experience, screw taking sides, it's never accomplished anything but blind obedience....which is ignorant. I'm done..

(And to think a GTX 285 is $420, and one of my 4890's at $179 with a small OC keeps up, and the 5870 is $50 cheaper, and smokes the 285...Nv in big trouble. Bye bye GTX 275 :shrug

Okay, I ran NFS Shift, on SPA, using the Ford GT against Audi's best, hardest settings, 6 slaps, smoked his ass! Nice, that Audi is a tough car to contend with.

Anyways, according to GpuZ, which is undeniably 100% accurate, it shows the clock speed, Gpu usage, everything, in real time, and shows a bar, kind of like the one used in windows performance monitor, anywyas it logs it, and is absolutely true and accurate because I test it with LFS, tab out, tab back it, and watch and it's perfect.

Results, Windows Vista 32 bit on the old rig, the 4890 did it's job perfectly, the Core clock never fell. Same results on the new rig, in both Vista 64 and Win7 64. So, it was a long shot, it had happened in some other game, and would have been a perfect explanation for these issues on the Radeon 4000 series cards on NFS Shift, but nope, the Gpu performed just as it should have, as did the intelligent software that controls the clock of the Gpu's Core. (Oh, for anyone that doesn't know, only the Core clock on these Radeons downlclocks when idle, not the memory or shader clocks. Btw, this was another reason I liked the 4890 over the GTX 275/285, not to mention price, what a joke. I'll deal with the occasional driver hickup with ATI, because these cards are absolute powerhouse cards and they're so damn cheap I don't know what Nvidia is gonna do..they'd better just make the GTX 275 dissapear, and slash the price on the 285, big time. I mean, the 5870 right now is averaging $50 cheaper than the GTX 285. Averaging several subvendors and websites. Who in their right mind would buy a Nvidia card right now? And I love Nvidia....WOW.
Am I confused, or has ATI really kicked Nvidia right in the nuts? Also, how long until the Nvidia 300 series, and will they support DX10.1/11??? Heh...wow am I glad I went ATI.

Quote from Shadowww :

Haven't you tried to run it on x64 OS?

I wonder if it's Win7 or Win7 x64.

I'm sorry I should have posted more info in my previous post. Yes, I'm running Windows Vista x64 and Windows 7 x64, and Ubuntu..not that that matters.

Same issues, however, in the last ten minutes I think I may have figured out something that may be causing this. EDIT This is likely due to virtually all vendors using vista drivers for Windows 7, they work, well, heh, I did it running the Win7 for a long time. Anyways just pointing out it will be a good 3 months at least before we see solid Windows 7 drivers, at least, drivers that matter, like Gpu drivers. But the OS's are so similar in many ways, I can't say for sure how much better gaming will be on 7, although I can give my word in all my benchmarks, 17 games, Windows 7 is averaging a little over 5% increase in frame rate. Yeah, lots of work.

These 4890's throttle down, when not in use, to 250mhz. Now, I've read in places that these cards can sometimes downclock during gameplay, and their favorite spot is 500mhz. Mine both run 950mhz(stock is 850mhz), but that shouldn't matter. Now, it's possible while I'm playing NFS Shift, my Gpu (It only uses one) may be downclocking to 500mhz at times, and this would certainly account for the issues, and, well, it would be a very fitting explanation.

I'm going to open GpuZ, right now, and run NFS Shift on several races, and log it, and see if at any time during the races my Gpu downclocks, maybe I'm onto something here.

EDIT: I'd also like to add, just because someone is using an ATI Gpu, doesn't make them a fan of AMD. I know many people, and at one point myself, that are/were fans of ATI back before AMD bought the Gpu giant. It's unfair and extremely presumptuous to call someone an AMD fanboy/fanboi, or simply a supporter of AMD, just because they own an ATI Gpu. This should be obvious to any person of any intellect.

Anyways I'm going to get to work on that GpuZ/NFS Shift benchmark right now, on my new system, and the old, specs are below. Lets see what happens!

Last edited by DHRammstein, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 23:18.

I'm running Vista 32 bit on the old rig, which is the one that matters here. Newest drivers for both cards. I even tried several different drivers, some old, some beta, same issues.

In detail, on the Radeon, I'd get micro stutters randomly, and in certain corners it gets choppy, about 15fps. <This isn't random, it's certain corners on certain tracks. Otherwise the performance is about the same. On the new rig tho using fraps the frame rate is insane good, but those same micro stutters are there, and those certain corners that get extreme frame drops.

As far as the micro stutters, I can't say for sure, but as for the certain corners getting so choppy, it makes no sense, and I think has more to do with the game itself than the hardware or drivers.

Hope that helps in any way. I can't say much more on the topic because I've hardly touched this rig because I have my new one built and stable and running perfect. (I keep the second rig for friends, my girl, for classes and work, and she likes playing the Sims games )

Can we get this thread locked please?

And, as much as I hate to throw gas on the fire, I actually have something to add that might help a few people here. On my 2nd rig, which is:
Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 3.2 | 4GB 800mhz | ***BFG 9800GTX+***XFX HD 4890.

I bought NFS Shift about two weeks before the upgrade, and honest, it ran far better on the 9800GTX+ than my new 4890, before the 100mhz OC on the core tho. So... I dunno about some of the statements here, but I think it's the other way around, NFS Shift certainly favored Nvidia for me. But it could have been driver issues I don't know, the game was very new, still is new, and doesn't support DX10.1.

Regardless, that's what happened to me. Now please lock this thread. And I apologize for anyone having to see this shitstorm on account of me. Next time I'll just research and use my trust in TomsHardware rather than ask (They've never let me down, ever) I should have known better, I guess, that a flame war would ensue.

I made the switch in both the new rig and the old one. In the old replaced the BFG 9800GTX+ with a XFX HD4890, and I couldn't be happier. GTA4 actually runs very well on it now, on a dual core rig which I never thought possible.

As far as the new rig, I'm AMD all the way, but have always preffered Nvidia Gpu's. Well as of right now, NO. I went AMD/ATI all the way and I'm perfectly happy, there's no game or app I can't blaze through.

And for that ignorant comment on page 1, about comparing x to y when overclocking, and how stupid it is, it's called "PRICE". For the PRICE of a 5870 I got TWO XFX 4890's, put a 100mhz OC on the core of both of them (because they did this on TomsHardware.com and got a single 4890 to beat a GTX 285) and I'm perfectly happy now. I have my Cpu overclocked like mad and it's stable and cool and happy, and sick fast, more than enough to keep up to the Gpu's.

This thread turned in to a bunch of bs...I only wanted a few opinions. Well, I don't need them if people are going to act this way, besides, the proof is in the performance I get right now, which makes liars out of half the people in this thread.

Spent a few hours hotlapping and fooling around, great work and thanks so much Scawen, you guys work so hard and every single time you dish out a patch that's meaningful and desirable for everyone. The majority of us have no problem waiting for the next tyre physics model and the dub, we want it, but, we want it right

Thanks, keep it up. This really helped me in several ways and I love the ABS woot!

Edit: Works perfectly on Win Vista Ultimate 64, Win 7 64 Ultimate, Ubuntu Linux.

Last edited by DHRammstein, Wed 11 Nov 2009, 21:20.

Hmm.. I've been using the same summer tires on both my FWD Euro's since day one, and I've been using at least one of them during every winter, and we get average of 90 inches of snow here... But, well I just put the stock wheels on, they're smaller, and I don't want to use my good wheels during winter anyways..but the stock wheels on both my VR6 GTI and Saab 2.0T both have good summer tires, not Eagle F1's, but good tires, and I'm not complaining...at all. Where I live it's just countless miles of countryside to drive, plus I live next to route 80, which crosses the country, but I never use it, boring, so... I will not be buying all season/winter tires anytime soon. Plus, if summer tires were so bad, why did my brand new SHO come with Goodyear Eagle F1 summer tires? If they couldn't perform... well it's AWD, and maybe Ford figured I wouldn't care because they're such expensive tires, I wouldn't mind buying a winter set?
I have no idea, just no complaints

Quote from Shadowww :

Uh then the GTX 275 guy had over 9000 apps in background. Because in ALL benchmark raw performance of GTX 275 IS higher than 4870's one.

Um, not according to the thousands of benchmarks at Tomshardware.com, visit sometime, might surprise you how well these 4000 series cards kick the living hell out of (I admit...my Nvidia babies....fanboy here) time and time again. Hell....my 4890 with a small OC is running with GTX 285, and if I go 100mhz on the core, like they did on tomshw, it wins in 66.7% of benchmarks, HAH.

Thanks much guys, made the upgrade, and also changed over half my main PC to Radeon as well, it's been years since I ran ATI, I hope the drivers are half as good as they were then

I considered the 5870, well severeal 5000 series, but the deal I got on the 4890's was insane, I bought 5 lol...But I sold the GTX 295's that's why, with $ left over got the board and DDR3 memory I wanted and really really needed.

Quote from Sarlacc :

American Muscle GTRs, V8s

+1

How nice to have some Detroit muscle, maybe a high end Saleen, maybe a S302 Extreme!

http://www.seriouswheels.com/p ... ont-And-Side-1280x960.jpg

620HP/600TQ

I think there were 7600GT's in AGP, 6600's as well, certainly the 6600 I would think. The improvement would be incredible for this guy. Also the radeon 9600/9800 are available in AGP.

Just trying to help him out.

Hey jakg, question. I have the option between a 9800GTX+ 1GB (Same as a GTS 250) or a XFX 4890, I can only keep one, isn't the Radeon compared more to higher end Nvidia cards, I heard it's a real powerhouse, but runs like crap in OpenGl games, opinion?