Quote from jwardy :

i found a pic of my dads old rally car(escort mk2 ) , as u can see its not in mint condition

The Mk1 in front looks nice! (never understood why Ford put those horrible rectangular headlights in some though)

Mk2s were known for their rust.. but damn.. your Dad's looks like it had other worries

Looks like an old pic too.. is that a Mk5 Cortina and Granada estate in the background? and an old Shitroen too? Long time since I've seen any of the cars in those pics.... sadly.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from squidhead :

Your 3.5 FPS is the problem that will NOT let you even think about making movies, try recording from a proper PC, not atari 2600
its 2008 FFS
all I can say - this is not a video making machine (EDIT : Anymore )

SALUTATIONS...

Thanks squid.. at least I know not to bother now

I guess most of this is caused by needing to run fraps. Albeit very low quality (wasn't meant to be a "production movie").. this vid (2.8Mb) was done on the same box (running same specs) but didn't need to use fraps.

Granted, this box isn't top-spec by any means today.. but it's primarily a coding / 3DS / music making box which serves its purpose very nicely

I'll get around to upgrading soon.



Regards,

Ian

Hi all..

I've just tried a recording of an LFS replay (snippet of, anyway) and the sound stutters like a bitch! I notice in the screen that LFS reports 3.x FPS(!) During the replay without fraps running, this is closer to 25.

I've uploaded the test video here (2.3Mb). It's only a few seconds long and crappy res but is only a test for now.

Am I royally screwed due to the ingame FPS I'm getting? (I don't get much more than about 30 even when driving alone anymore ) I have successfully made some smooth videos with decent sound in rFactor (only other game I really play) albeit that was exported by the hit-n-miss built-in rF video export function then edited / reencoded.

After directly exporting from fraps, the resulting AVI fails to play in VLC. I get sound (still fscked) but no video. I can only see the video if I play it in Vegas (7) and in VLC once I've reencoded it (as Xvid in this case) but as you can see from the test.. it's bollox!

I've done the 'play at half speed, double it in the video editing app' bit and reduced LFS' res to 800x600 but alas, doesn't seem to matter what settings I use, I always get the same (or there abouts) results. I used this guide to set the Xvid config stuff.

Anyone got any tips on how I can create videos from LFS with the box I have (AMD3000+, 1Gb RAM, FX 5900XT gfx card)? I do plan to upgrade this very soon, but thought I'd ask as there seems to be some pretty good video experts here and maybe I'm just missing something



Regards,

Ian

Last edited by Ian.H, Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:31.

Not my engine to optimise.. just expressing an opinion. And the "you do better" response is typical from people who have no clue and is completely irrelevant to any conversation.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from tristancliffe :

It's because Scawen wanted to do it. I'm sure (as he is CLEARLY not the remotest bit of a fool) he considered forced spectate, and other methods, choosing this way as being the best system (perhaps taking into account plans for LFS you or I don't know about).

Don't quote me on the CPU cycle thing please, as that was from memory. It won't be hard for interested parties to search Scawen's posts for the true quote. It is very possible he said/meant something entirely different.

You're right it seems about the CPU cycle saving. After some searching, I found [POST=630105]this post[/POST]:

Quote from Scawen :

Yes, this is not a bug. Cars which are stopped with engine off now go completely out of the physics system. This is a good feature because it saves CPU on other people's computers. As with many new features, it has caused a few issues that needed fixing, including the one noted above. This is also the reason for the feature that turns off your engine if your car is stopped and you don't use any controls for 40 seconds - this allows the removal from physics system to happen.

I really _really_ disagree with this being a "good feature". This is a sad hack IMO for an unoptimised physics engine and hope that Scawen rethinks this "good feature". IMO, this is like putting 30 coats of paint on a wall... because the damp continues to come through



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Migz :

Their not hot or powerful enough
They are very hot and powerful.

Heh.. I guess that's really down to the individual and what they see. Personally I love the styling of the XRT, but I know many prefer more modern day looking cars

Quote :

But i want something more, i dont know if what i want would be realistic, im not to good with the tech about cars.
But i mean a car that is THE PERFECT car on the game, it should look stunning, like nearly rice, but not rice, for rice cars suck
And then it should have a very big engine under the hood able to do maybe 200mph+?
And that handles perfectly, no understeer or oversteer.

If what i say is not realistic, dont get angry at me because im suggesting it for i do not know what would be realistic.

I don't know what the FZ50 reaches top-speed.. but I wouldn't have thought it too shy of 200mph.. the most restrictive part of this is the tracks.. they're not designed to test top-speeds as such (which is a good thing(tm) else they'd all be pretty much drag strips ).

I think your vision is somewhat unrealistic in the fact you want "perfect handling" as such (no understeer / oversteer). This simply can't be achieved.. but can be adjusted by way of setups to get something pretty neutral (not suggesting the FZ50 for this however!). I can't think of a car off hand that would have the handling that you're after.. even the likes of Enzos and other "hypercars" will either understeer or oversteer to some degree.. depending on setup, tyres and possibly more importantly, driving style.

Not knocking your vision, just hopefully explaining a bit as to why this is unrealistic (and no doubt, someone will correct me too on some bits)

200mph+ isn't unrealistic.. although quite rare if you're looking for a "street sports car" rather than a thoroughbred race car



Regards,

Ian

Quote from joen :

STFU Ian you don´t know anything about what I do and don´t do.

heh.. how cute!

Of course I don't.. but your reply suggested to me that you basically use the OS to run applications and not much more (that's not having a pop at you.. that's no different than 95% of people who run windoze).

I spend a lot of time coding and have spent countless hours manually cleaning up virus infected boxes over the years (something I actually enjoy doing ) at which point, you really start to see where windoze is crap.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from UncleBenny :

Personally, I got excited when I saw that he made the thread and couldn't wait for the page to load to see what his suggestion was, because I knew it would be a good one.

A "good one" being an alternative phrase for "a good laugh" I assume?



Regards,

Ian

I can understand the thought of kids wanting to drive cars they'd like to own in the future.. I guess much the same as many even with driving licenses and cars like to drive the likes of F1 cars.. I just think it a little weird that if I have car XYZ sitting in my garage, why I'd like to drive that virtually too.

I enjoy driving a great deal.. whether I'm pushing the car hard or simply cruising along with some good music playing.. sitting in my room doing the same certainly doesn't give the same "satisfaction".

As for "hot high-powered sports cars".. there's already a few.. the FZ50 / LX6 for road going, and any of the GTRs for race-spec (or at least the XRR / FZR)



Regards,

Ian

Quote from batteryy :

i was wondering that could winshield brake? and it could 100& brake and go into peacec

Great suggestion! I wonder why no one else had thoug....... oh wait.....



Regards,

Ian

Ahh that's interesting! I was told about this "auto dying" issue and thought "wtf!? my car doesn't cut out when idling".. unless the fuel runs out of course. I don't know whether this was what Ashley experienced or not.. I'll try this myself sometime soon.

Can't say I really like that approach to saving CPU cycles though.. seems a bit of a hack to get around an actual issue.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from The General Lee :

£18.50 - FOR A CHILD?

Thats an outrage.

Seems like a good thing I couldn't afford to go, judging by the reviews here anyway.

Yeah, it was crazy! Only reason I don't feel entirely ripped off from that is the fact my littlen enjoyed the day, which is what matters to me

All in all, I bought 3 'CarToons' and 2 keyrings and paid for the parking (£8) as my mate drove. The rest was entry / food / drink throughout the day etc... I blew £150

Should be going to Santa Pod in May for a Monster Truck show.. hopefully that'll be more reasonable for kids



Regards,

Ian

Quote from moskvich3v1 :

Yep it is read only :S
I will download a fresh copy

In windoze explorer.. right-click on the folder and select 'Properties' from the context menu. You can remove the read-only flag there, which might help



Regards,

Ian

Quote from geeman1 :

A guide to making good suggestions:
1. Search if someone has suggested it before.
2. Make the title so that a person can know what the suggestion is about even without opening the thread.
3. ???
4. Profit

Arox posted it... did you expect anything more than crap? He reminds me of AtomAnt.. and that's not a good thing(tm).



Regards,

Ian

Oops! That'll teach me to type a msg and not to hit post before I answer a phone call

As long as I hadn't overlooked the option to restart it, all's good as I don't drive the car myself and Ashley can adapt for now



Regards,

Ian

I sincerely hope this isn't a feature.. as it'd be _very_ unrealistic!

I've seen F1 cars stall.. yet they can be restarted (with some help of course).. but it's this help I couldn't find implemented anywhere. I guess it's missing from this patch.



Regards,

Ian

Hi all..

I'm pretty sure this has been answered already, but I can't find it if it has...

The BF1 has no starter motor (that's fine and expected).. however, yesterday my littlen had to do a stop / go penalty. The engine died (not sure why, I wasn't in the room at the time.. he may have turned it off) but even though the stop had reported 'finished', he was unable to continue due to not being able to fire up the engine again.

This is surely a bug? but as I don't know if there's a "way around it", I'm posting in this forum to find out if there is or not.

If there's already previous discussion on this item, if someone has a link to it, I'd appreciate it so I can read for myself about the situation.. searching didn't yield much other than that the starter had been removed.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Dajmin :

I guess it really depends how the weather is done. If your card doesn't support pixel shading then water is gonna look a bit pants. But then the odds are the Dx9 upgrade is gonna happen at some point, so I'd be prepared

I only have a FX5900XT currently, so DX9 is out of the question, but I think the LFS engine needs a _serious_ optimisation session as I get similar FPS in both LFS and rF (in DX8 mode) but rF has the advantage of spec and bump maps, helping to bring a track to life with little consequence to the FPS dept. As nice as LFS' textures are, they still look like textures applied to a perfectly flat poly surface.

GTR2 has a stupid wet weather implementation. The "wet tracks" look exactly what they are.. a 2nd set of polys with a reflective material.. nothing like water in the slightest.

I plan to upgrade my box soon

Quote :

But looking at the updates that South City and Blackwood got (BL especially) - I think they were worth the wait. A large section needed re-learned, and the higher polycount meant it does look and feel different.

I'm back up to speed almost on BL1 (with XRT) now after about 20 laps. I'll never be setting a WR there, but I didn't notice _that_ much of a difference.. maybe because I kept most of my wheels on the black stuff even before some of the extended run-off areas were reduced

I'd sooner Eric had spent his time building a new track though.

Quote :

I don't know what Eric's way of creating tracks is, so I can't really say whether it's easy or not. Trying to come up with something that's not just a bodge of parts from other tracks probably isn't as simple as it sounds.

It's not that difficult. OK, like you, I don't know how Eric works or what the tools they have are like to work with... but for example, I moved an entire pitlane on one of my tracks to the opposite side of the track.. took me 2 days (working in 3DS catering for DX7, 8 and 9). Adding a few polys between a couple of corners to create a new "straight" would be about 30 mins work on the modelling / texturing and the rest of the day perhaps creating a new AI path (but I don't even know if this is Eric's dept or not).. so the changes to Blackwood for example.. if they took longer than a week and I was employing Eric.. he'd be looking for a new job right now



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Dajmin :

I think if the track itself is interesting, the environment is pretty irrelevant. I don't tend to look at the high-rises around Blackwood for instance, because I'm concentrating more on the braking point for that corner (especially since the track changed). But take AS North Reversed, for instance. I usually hate Aston, but I still find that track one of the most technically demanding that LFS has. That means I'm looking at the tarmac enough that I forget where it is

I used the term 'environment' as the whole scene (maybe incorrectly?). What the horizon etc contains as you say, is pretty immaterial.. but I meant new complete tracks (layouts / designs). I'd be happy with an entirely new layout slapped over where Blackwood or Aston etc is.. what kind of trees the track has around it matters not.. I just hate this adding a small section of road through the middle of a loop of existing track to create "a new track" when we've been driving 80% of that track for the past 2 years.. 2 new corners and 1 mile shorter (or longer) doesn't make that track any more interesting (to me at least) than the one that's been around for longer.

Quote :

You're right about the environments though, some more would be nice. But I think once they have weather, that won't be such a big issue - everything will look totally different at night/in the rain/covered in snow so it'll look fresh even if it's technically not.

Weather / Night doesn't really interest me too much either... mainly as it's by far too much of an FPS hit for my box to handle. It was fun to do a few wet races in F1C (although that was hardly realistic wet weather).. but have never used the option(s) in GTR2 for example as I go from 30fps to about 10

All in all, I'd just like to see some entirely new track designs. Eric's had oodles of time to do this, yet prefers to add 100' of polys cutting across an existing track which then gets marketed as a 'new track'.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Dajmin :

It's not "extremely limited" though. The biggest problem is that servers simply don't run most of the content. So it's more like extremely limited server choice (and with only 273 driven online miles, Migz has no room to join this discussion).

Sure, there's many track configurations, none are very inspiring to me unfortunately. Track _environments_ is what LFS needs, not yet-another-few-polys-added-to-an-existing-track-to-create-a-new-track that LFS seems hell bent on doing In 2 years, Eric could have built at least 2 or 3 new complete track environments.. but alas, the lazy option was taken instead.

Our team has 5 servers, so setting a preferred combo for myself isn't an issue, for me it is the content that's limiting, not so much the hosts.. especially as I play mainly offline in most games.

Quote :

If you do the numbers, the potential combinations of cars and track combos is in the hundreds. You can't be telling me that everyone is bored of all of them, because I bet most people haven't played most of them.

Agreed that there's hundreds of combinations.. but that doesn't make them all interesting.

I'll openly admit there's a fair few I haven't driven and never will, simply as they don't interest me (I don't like open-wheelers and much prefer street cars to the GTRs.. and it has to be RWD for me.. which seriously limits my car selection (through my own choice, granted)). The tracks simply bore me stupid. As content stands right now (ignoring that the XRT has just been removed from the demo for a moment).. I'd be happy with the demo content (not saying I begrudge paying for my licenses.. I certainly don't.. but BL1 and the XRT IMO is the best combination in the game and the only one I can say I actually enjoy.. and no, I'm not a skidder ).

Quote :

Ban AS3 and KY1 for a week and people would be forced to find new areas to multiplayer hotlap.
And I still don't think modding would help fix it. People would get just as bored after 400 laps of Nordschleife in the GT3 as they do after the same round Aston National.

Depends. Even with rFactor's available content, I probably only have 50 tracks (~5 of them being my own creations) and a dozen mods installed. I picked and chose the ones I continued to like after a few runs.. if I do that in LFS, I'm left with BL1 and the XRT / LX* and FX50.

Quote :

I love all the mid-length Fern Bay tracks. How many servers do you see running them? Practically none, and the ones that are running them are usually almost empty. BL1 fills up instantly, AS3 fills up instantly, KY1 fills up instantly. People are lazy and don't want to learn something new, or risk not placing high because they've not run a zillion laps on that combo. The flipside is that those same people are complaining about being bored.

I guess you'd put me in that category too then. It's not that I haven't tried those tracks and the others.. I think at some point (save for the new SO chicane course).. I've had a race or 2 at every track layout (be it on or offline) except the oval [zzzZZzzzz] and once again, always go back to BL1 as my favourite.. it's by far Eric's best track IMO both in design and overall feel.

Quote :

There's plenty of variety; it's the servers and players that are to blame for the lack of choice online.

I'm not speaking so much of online though.. more generally.. so the above doesn't really apply to us all

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to start a petition for modding.. I'd love to drop rF and build tracks for LFS instead, but I also realise that at this stage, it would be pointless. I just hope that one day after S3 if I'm still capable of seeing past my nose at that age, that we're able to put our creative talents to good use towards LFS



Regards,

Ian

Quote from tristancliffe :

Don't remind me - I left my auction catalogue at home, so couldn't get in for free as usual. And I'm not paying to get into somewhere I could have got into for nothing!!!!

They were an arrogant bunch though. I asked the fella at the gate if I could grab 2 snaps of a couple of cars my littlen really wanted pics of.. for which I was told "there's a catalogue over there".. yeah, thanks £10 just to walk around their little section was a piss take IMO.

The live show was ok.. was funny when the rally cars came out.. one went over the small 2' (or so) ramps to promptly land and the offside rear suspension collapse and wheel go rolling down the arena

The junior drag cars were pretty cool! Hadn't seen one before (only stationary at one of the stands).. was something different

The main thing I didn't like was the £18.50 entrance price for kids. I'm not a cheapskate and didn't mind the adult price, but was a bit shocked at kids tickets being so expensive ranging from 5-15 year olds



Regards,

Ian

Quote from joen :

Get real. It happens all the time.

Sure it happens some times, m$ seem to make a big habit of it (Xerox.. Apple to name just 2).

Quote :

Blablabla, fud. I seriously am not an MS fanboy but if you're trying to tell me everything MS makes is crap you're talking out of your arse. Their peripherals like I already said are not crap. Vista is crap, I'll grant you that, but I have no problems whatsoever with XP.

All windoze OSes are a PoS. You might not have any problems because my guess is you don't _really_ use the OS.. you just run pretty apps on top of it. When you're faced with digging deep into the OS, things change considerably (XP comes with a Registry.. that alone is a complete PoS). XP is far from being a true multi-user OS either.. which it tries so hard to be... yet Unix has been doing this for donkeys years (no, I'm, not trying to start a Unix vs windoze war.. just used as a comparison that even in this day, m$ can't get it right).

Quote :

MS isn't even in this market, so how would they have a monopoly or how could you say anything about their desire to? Oh right, they have a monopoly on the OS market so they have a monopoly in every market they wish to step.

It was a general statement. If you seriously can't see it, I hear specsavers are doing good deals atm

Quote :

And I'm pretty sure most companies wouldn't refuse (near) monopoly in their market if they had a chance.

Possibly not, thankfully it doesn't always happen. Monopolies are bad for consumers.

Quote :

Not really interested in taking this further.

Then why post again?



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Dajmin :

Why are people so obsessed with mods? And additionally, does nobody read my posts on the matter?

Modding might well bring more people in, but they'd be playing in groups of about 5 on servers because that'd be all the people with the version that matches the server.

I'd much rather see an..ah the hell with it, I'm not typing it again. Search for my track / car creation ideas if you like.

Because bluntly, most people are bored of LFS's extremely limited content.

Others just want to pretend to be driving their own car (for some strange reason, as surely it'd be more realistic to drive the version sitting in your garage?)

And then there's the idiots who truly believe they're Nigel Mansell (or whoever they bolt their load over) when they set a world record at silverstone (these people really make me chuckle ).

Right now, I'd _love_ to be able to add (preferably build) tracks more than anything.. it's about the only thing that'd get me back on the LFS track as I'm bored shitless with the unimaginative regurgitated bullshit we have for tracks currently.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from pearcy_2k7 :

Went along today as my dad wanted loads of stuff, turned out really good, got to see shed loads of nice cars, saw the FBM in person (looks exactly the same in lfs). And the birds...

Also went on a few simulators one with a G25 and can say its really crap compared to lfs in terms of feel and realistic driving.

My cousin took a few pictures ill get them from him.

Anyone else go?

Was pretty good.. but you must have gone to a different show, or you're too young to appreciate real women... the birds I saw there save for about 2 or 3 were proper mingers.. even my 10 year old turned his nose up. 'Mutton dressed as Lamb' was the first phrase that sprung into my head when seeing most of the few that were dotted around the halls.

Was funny when some bod offered my littlen a go on rFactor for £4(!!) who was then promptly told to go forth and multiply

The Coys auction area I think had about the best collection of cars



Regards,

Ian

Quote from joen :

Companies buying other companies happens all the time in the real world. Somehow when MS does it, they are always evil and looking for world domination.

- Not every company blatantly steals their ideas from other companies.
- Not every company produces a PoS everytime they do produce (read: rehash) something.
- Not every company is trying to be a monopoly.





Regards,

Ian