Yeah, I thought it should have come up already but I also couldn't find any sign of previous discussion (searched for a few mins with various keywords...).
I chose this forum btw because the improvements one says "...suggestions on how to improve the LFS simulation" which this really isn't

I got an email today about the new version (0.6F), and in it I noticed a warning: "Use your LFS username and password only on the first 4 websites listed above (the Merchandise shop is not run by LFS)".

I don't actually remember seeing this text before, though the problem has clearly been around a while - see https://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=447

How about renaming all websites which ARE safe to use to be part of the lfs.net domain? Surely that would make it much easier to reduce phishing...

So we would have:
www.lfs.net
manual.lfs.net
forum.lfs.net
lfsworld.lfs.net

Then we'd have a new, simpler rule: if it's part of lfs.net you can use your LFS credentials. If not, don't.

Thoughts?

Quote from MousemanLV :

I'm running LFS here on a damn potato, Intel Duo core 3.0GHz, 2GB ram, 256MB GPU and honestly, I rather have most of the graphic settings set to low or off (AA off as well) just to have max FPS, mainly because it hurts me quite a lot on the starting grid, especially if you have 32 cars on the grid, I end up having 20 FPS instead of 200FPS.

Well, I reckon it isn't your CPU (my Duo is much slower - 1.8GHz - and I have almost no issues except on open layouts), so I'm guessing the GPU is a bit of a dog. Mine's also 256MB but copes pretty well without setting everything to low/off - Radeon 1650XT. AA & AF are on too.
Remember that LFS is single-threaded. CPUs have not got much faster since 7 (!!!) years ago when I bought my pretty meh CPU - it's still only a factor of 4 slower than the fastest CPU you can buy when running this single-threaded benchmark http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
So, unless I'm mistaken about your CPU, it's probably not much more than a factor of 2 slower than the best money can buy on single threaded code like LFS...
Or possibly I should get sleep cos I'm writing nonsense

Umm, so 0.6E behaves the same (in this respect)?

I'm hugely excited about the Rift, despite knowing that I'll probably need a new PC before there'll be any point in me buying one (!).

I am a bit worried about how playable it'll be though, given that I won't be able to see the keyboard. Since I use the paddles to shift, the lack of hand movement (to a stick) won't bother me.

Something that hugely surprised me a few years back: when I tried to show some friends and family how cool LFS is, a couple of them felt nauseous driving it on a normal screen! (Can't recall if it was a laptop or desktop - probably laptop - but I've never felt remotely nauseous in LFS or games so this baffles me.)

Quote from Scawen :

...these colours seemed to make them really stand out. They are a bit odd and if anyone has a better idea they can be changed. I went with green and red for the start and end because it makes sense and I allowed the grading to yellow so they stick out and can be seen from far away.

Yup, they stand out nicely It actually crossed my mind briefly to wonder if the new colours were deliberate. (I dismissed that crazy idea about a second later though :P)
And omg, who could possibly vote to change them?

Quote from Scawen :

I'd suggest you read the instructions! They are found in docs\Autocross.txt

Darn yes, I keep forgetting that file exists, ta. (Having said that, one line early in autocross.txt says "All the editor keys are listed on that screen." )

Aha, cool, thx.

Remarks:
a) OOO, that's really pretty - don't fix it
b) Whoa, a measuring tool?? Cool! But it isn't listed in the "keys" list - is that deliberate or a bug? (Google helped me to find that "d" is listed in the wiki manual as the key for the measuring tool...)
c) what's that little window with "x400 x1 ... Width: 44 ..." etc in it? I don't get that when I hit "d"
d) are there any other keys that work in edit mode that aren't listed when you hit the "keys" button?

Quote from Amynue :

Some quotes from CEO of Oculus:
1) We can make custom hardware, not rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry. That is insanely expensive, think hundreds of millions of dollars. More news soon.
2) We can afford to hire everyone we need, the best people that fit into our culture of excellence in all aspects.
3) We can make huge investments in content. More news soon.

I'm thinking that (just possibly) Dave was not being sarcastic with his original post ("just what was needed")
Like most people, I also thought "aw shit" at first, but then things like the CEO mentions above started to occur to me. If FB truly stay hands-off then it's probably a major win all round...
And as Jason says, we can all chill out cos VR is inevitable now.
(Having said all that - I was fighting the impulse to buy one until I read the news. Now... I'm not. Will wait and see.)

Quote from cargame.nl :

Expected shipping @July but the year is not mentioned

LOL FAQ does state 2014, so fear not

Quote from Bose321 :

I guess we will never see any new patch now.

Huh? Noooo noooo, you've got it all wrong. This guarantees we'll have the tyre physics patch in July, cos Scawen will want to have it out of the way before enjoying his new Rift

Quote from englishlord :

highly insecure to even connect to the internet and download the game updates.

Hmm, I reckon that's overstating the risk quite a bit for a "typical" user who is behind a NATing router with little or no port forwarding turned on.

Having said that, even though I'm a big fan of XP I'm not hugely keen on staying with it much after April. I don't like 7 much so far, strongly dislike Vista, and 8[.1] is just weird. So... wtf to do.

I'm tempted to stick with XP a little longer, on the basis that most of the risk I currently experience is via the browser (+ Flash etc.) in any case. When I replace this PC (well overdue) I suppose I'll have to choose between 7 and 8....

Edit: forgot to ask Scawen a question:

Quote from Scawen :

2) Windows 7 has made it IMPOSSIBLE to run a dual screen setup using Nvidia cards, where the wide desktop is reported as a single surface. [snip]

I'm guessing that (surely??) there must be a "supported" and vendor-independent way to drive multiple screens - if this is the case then do you dislike it because it saps performance (relative to a single-surface model) or for another reason?

Last edited by Neilser, Mon 24 Feb 2014, 18:10. Reason : Q for Scawen

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Personally, 3.11 for Workgroups has yet to be beaten, everything else is just going to more bloat.

Ah yes, it was good (compared to 3.1 anyway!) but I'm presuming you never experienced NT 3.51. IMHO nobody who did would ever consider going back to WFW 3.11 NT3.51 was the pinnacle of stability, and a bling-free zone.

Hmm, thought-provoking, thanks.

My "textures (excluding skins)" is set to high - changing that probably wouldn't help though? (Because it says "excluding skins").

My "car and helmet skins" is set to compressed, which (from the explanation offered by the question-mark button) appears to be the option for best performance. I am too noobish to know how to do high/super-high res skins (so am presumably doing neither ).

However, your comment also made me think again about the skins_x folder - it had got quite big so (by coincidence, lol) I purged it last night. Will see if that makes a difference... (I'm thinking that reads/writes to that folder might take a while if the folder has thousands of entries.)

Funnily enough I'm noticing pit-out (and possibly join-related??) stutter much more recently than I ever recall from the past. However I'm mostly running 0.6E - I don't think it has been any better/worse with E13/14.

Quote from DANIEL-CRO :

Neilser, do you mean something like this? (attachment)

Circles with numbers represent point (physical) where physics is calculated.
When LFS detect that split has been passed, it calls function which will calculate time more "precisely".
For example:
SplitTime = TimeInPoint2 - LengthOf_a / VelocityInPoint2;

Its not like Velocity can change much between two time steps (0.01s).
IMO its good on a paper, saves CPU power (no need to use 1000Hz physics to get 1ms splits precision)...

Yeah, that's pretty much what I mean (many ways to tackle it but that's one).
And in fact I reckon LFS already has all the maths to handle velocity changing between timepoints because I seem to recall that it uses multiple derivatives in order to make multiplayer mode work well with only a few updates per second. (Can't recall how many derivatives tho.) That's the part that could make it more accurate to do it by interpolation than (what I'm guessing is) the current scheme
(To do the best possible job on it, you would also need to store the previous point's information - position, time, velocity, accel, and the higher derivatives; the storage required would be negligible. However, doing it by just using the current point's info is probably acceptably accurate anyway.)

Quote from Dygear :

But that would be a lie. Do you really want to lose a race because the game engine took a guess. I guess you could make the argument that everything is a lie.

Huh?
I'm unsure where you see a problem here.
Interpolation of a smoothly varying quantity is NOT the same as a guess.
(In fact, it's arguably better than the current scheme, but the difference would only be apparent if you really split hairs.)

Quote from DANIEL-CRO :

Physics loop doesn't seem to be very heavy for a CPU (with not as much cars in race) for example try minimizing LFS, CPU usage will fall down immediately, even though physics is still updated. There are other loops heavier in normal conditions.

Ah, OK, excellent point, thanks. I had been thinking that open tracks were harder on the CPU because of the physics loop doing more, but that didn't quite make sense either. Your explanation does seem to match the evidence awfully well

Quote from DANIEL-CRO :

Key reason for selecting 100 Hz, is probably 0.01s time precision. (1/100)
If physics would run at 120 Hz, first loop=0.008333s, second=0.01666s, ... users will definitely like such a times on splits

Agreed, BUT (as I once suggested in the distant past) LFS could semi-trivially interpolate between the current position+time and the previous one to give much higher precision splits. This would free the physics clock to be run at whatever we want. (Probably same for everyone tho, or sync issues...)

What's not overly clear is whether we'd gain anything at all by exceeding 100 Hz. How does one quantify smoothness?

Last night I played with limiting the frame rate to 50fps (I was hoping for exactly 2 physics updates per frame). It didn't really work though as the expected frequency lock did not occur - it was dancing around the 48 fps mark... (It was capable of 90-100 fps when not limited.)

Funny you say that - some time back, before I realised LFS was single-threaded, I had assumed that there was a physics thread which would regularly update, and a separate graphics thread which would display stuff from the most recent snapshot (bit like double-buffering) of the physics data
(Beneath this was the possibly-wrong assumption that the snapshots required by the graphics thread were pretty small.)

My own particular problem right now appears to be linked to CPU overload (open tracks). Not sure what would fix that. Is it really the case that the physics loop is still updating at 100 Hz even when the CPU is pegged and the graphics update rate falls to 30 fps or less?
(I confess I have yet to try the DX9 patch as I was assuming it would make things worse.)

Edit: no argument on the tiny pixels. Total waste!

Aha. Thanks, and apologies - I was unaware.

Quote from Scawen :

If there is a difference in the number of physics calculations, the replay will go out of sync. Every physics update is run at a time step of 0.01 seconds, and LFS tries to keep this in sync with real time by doing enough physics calculations to keep up with real time.

Yes, this struck me the other day. So the problem (if it exists!) is likely to be connected with inputs from controllers (as someone else suggested) and/or visual feedback. The car would then be nominally doing exactly what it's told, but what the driver is telling it to do is messed up either because the driver isn't seeing the right things or the controllers aren't being read in a timely fashion...
I'm planning to do some experiments myself later. Might even do "blind" tests (i.e. I get someone else to set the fps limit and switch off the fps display )

Quote from DANIEL-CRO :

Anyway its not like you will see difference if your GPU is capable of 200 FPS, if you monitor refresh rate is 60 Hz. Look to it from bright side, 60 FPS will save you some $$ on electricity bill I would suggest everyone to play full screen with VSYNC

Makes sense, BUT I could have sworn someone asserted (some years ago? :shrug that the LFS physics loop was not entirely unaffected by the display FPS and thus (the argument went) it might feel better to have vsync off... Personally I don't think I ever tested it much though.

Quote from bishtop :

Its where you look then as the demo servers are mostly full the majority of the time. i know its only demo racing but much fun can be had when the crashers are kept away

Fair point, but whenever I succumb to the temptation to try demo, the normal pattern is that I enjoy it for a bit, and then it's ruined by idiots and I end up just wishing I hadn't bothered. (Having a grumpy day today! )

Quote from Gutholz :

See race calender at top of forum and events&leagues forum.
https://www.lfsforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=22
There is more races then you will have to time to practice for.

Good idea, will check that out. The only downside of organised stuff is the need to find time to practice, rather than just enjoy some casual races. I do enjoy organised events now and then though.

Interesting questions...

When I really think about it, I reckon I don't really care about the Scirocco, or the new tyre physics - I'd appreciate them but if they never come, big deal.
I would kinda like new tracks, but again, no biggie.
I don't even care about the visuals.

What I really miss is drivers to race against. Had a look tonight, and no servers seemed worth bothering with - hardly anyone about

So, other people must care about something, cos they are leaving.
I'm wondering if the non-arrival of the promised stuff actually drove people away, or if the lack of developments would have done the same anyway even if stuff hadn't been announced...

Nice one! Gorgeous little car (well, not so little compared to your last one ) - shame it's so pricey in Norway, but enjoy it.
And so long as you do plenty of mileage and not too much city driving, the diesel is absolutely the right choice - plenty of power and fuel economy.
I'm gonna have to replace my own ancient and unwell Punto very soon. Much tinier budget, much lower mileage, so probly another ancient petrol shitbox...

[Edit: I reckon Takumi got banned for posting a really tasteless remark on the RIP thread.]

Last edited by Neilser, Wed 22 Jan 2014, 21:00.

Quote from Whiskey :

I guess I could be CPU bound (though no core is near 100% :S)

Hmm, when you say "no core is near 100%", are you saying that all cores are sharing the load, and if so, is the total CPU load from LFS equal to one core's worth? If so then you really are CPU-bound because LFS only seems to use one thread. For example, on my PC, I get 50% CPU load whenever LFS is CPU-bound because I only have two cores...