Anyone want to make this look pretty for me?

There's a CTRA forum on this site. Read in there.

Quote from Snookle :

Yep, I getting the same problem now too. This particular error is being caused by BFS expecting there to be information about the track where there isn't any. That in turn causes the track to be represented as a null string, which causes the error messages...

We're working on a fix now, but can't guarantee a time frame. Also, keep in mind that Scawen may make more changes over the next few days, which may break BFS.

This is happening again with X. Would it be easier to handle exceptions like this more gracefully so changes to LFS don't cause such a problem?

Wanting to just be able to open a replay is complicated?

I'm like rocketalces. I don't have W and want to watch my replays. What can I do?

Quote from Gunn :

"Seeing your wheels" is not chase view. Chase view puts you up high so that you can see quite a way in front of you and even see what is around the bend. This applies to both autox and circuit racing. In a flat autox environment it is particularly noticeable.

So you're saying chase view simulates the ability to look out your left and right windows naturally? That's ridiculous! Having the dash take up 50% of your view is much more realistic.

Guys, face it -- in real life, you have a couple blind spots behind you, and everything else is easily and naturally visible. In a simulator, you're limited to whatever monitor size you've got. Reducing the already miniscule visible area even more is not realistic at all.

Isn't the source for LFSLapper available? Wouldnt it be easier to start with that and just add your features?

The windshield in my car is 52" wide and about 30" tall (and nevermind the ability to look out the side windows without disorienting myself). My monitor is 21" measured diagonally. Anything that wastes space and makes the view even smaller is not realistic.

If the default cockpit view was "fixed" to not eat up half the screen with the dashboard, I might change my vote.

Quote from ans7812 :

The throttle cut enable/disable option should be removed. No one flat-shifts in real life as frequently as the "sim" does.

Not many people drive with a manual transmission and no clutch pedal in real life, either. What about people who like playing a 24£ sim as opposed to a 150£ sim (ie, S2 + G25) ?

Edit: Oops. And that doesn't matter for lifting. But I was actually talking about throttle blip -- if you don't have a clutch pedal, your only option would be to heel/toe or left foot brake and that's not realistic.

Quote from Race_UK :

Is the contrast of players really that big? I thought that anyone with at least some real racing (track driving) experience will be able to run at least half a second from the lap record. And without that experience, maybe a sec off the pace. And if you can't do it, why do you even play the game?

I'm not even close to any WRs, but I play the game because its fun. In my better combos I'm relatively competetive in races, but very rarely the best.

One thing, like I said before, is how drastically minor setup changes can change your lap times. Its frustrating, because I don't like messing with the setup when I know my driving is the biggest problem. (Unlike real life, where I always blame the car ) Don't have the best setup, your laptimes aren't going to be that good, no matter how good you drive.

I'd just keep practicing more than anything. How many laps have you done? I've done almost 600 laps on BL with the FOX and I'm still picking up time here and there. Are you using a mouse/keyboard? Buy a wheel, that'll help.

There are a couple things that do stick out to me. Turn 3 (second turn after the straight) could be a bit faster. Try starting the turn a bit wider -- get as close to the grass as you're comfortable with, and then trust the car a bit more through the turn.

Also, on most of the turns you can see a darker part of the track, "the line." It's grippier. Aim there and you'll be faster. In that replay, sometimes you're on it, sometimes you're not. You'll find that if you're on the line, you can take the turns faster than you thought before.

Edit: Oh yeah, +1 on the setups, which I forgot to mention. Laptimes are very dependent on setups (moreso that real life, I think) and if you're using a default or other bad setup, you'll never get a fast time.

I think a big part of the problem is the lack of a sensation of speed -- but drive one of the faster cars (FOX, for example) and LFS portrays the speed quite well. So there really is no problem -- you're just driving a slow car, going faster than you should because as a racing sim that's what you expect, then being bitten by the car's actual performance when you get to a turn. The FOX is actually about the easiest car in the game to drive, for me.

+1 for this. I think its almost inexcusable to not have a favorites list, and it'd be very easy to add.

http://img.enginuity.org/main.php?g2_itemId=12925

Exhaust, Konis, sway bars, 450#/in springs, and tuned with software written by me. And finally with race rubber!

I'm running the server on my PC. I opened the ports (29339 and 63392)? I also noticed the server is showing up on the master server when I get a list. Sorry if I'm missing something I could have searched for, but I did try.

Edit: Oh, I am running a demo mode server. Might that be the problem?

Edit again: Double checked firewall (none) and router, everything looks (to me) like it should be working.

Last edit: I tried an S2 server and its working. Guess its a demo thing. I'll have to keep working and get my friend to buy S2.

Last edited by qoncept, Thu 21 Jun 2007, 02:28.

I've been running a server for my buddies and noticed the stats aren't being reported to LFS World. No big deal, but my PBs aren't showing up Is there a setting I need to change or does it need to be in dedicated mode or something?

So uh.. where do you go to pay for the high res skins?

My first reaction was "what the hell? we bought the game? what is £1 going to do anyway? we already bought the game." But thinking about it more, it seems to be a very good option.

The bandwidth has clearly escalated to the point where the devs decided more money was needed. Anyone else would have simply started charging a monthly fee like all the other online games. With the pay-for-hi-res-skins deal, you actually get what you pay for instead.

Mykl's video card cleared things up. I ordered a Geforce 7600GT, should be good to go next week.

Alright, I'm in the process of reinstalling Windows right now. I had a new SATA drive laying around and I was overdue for a reinstall anyway. Hopefully the new install will have fixed whatever the problem was. I also put a new 92mm exhaust fan in the back and moved the old 80mm fan to intake in the front. I'm not very optimistic, but I'll let you guys know later tonight. Thanks for all the ideas!

btw, I'm fairly certain I did set autorestart on BSOD to disabled at some point, but now its too late to check (or to matter, really).

Edit: Yeah, no luck still. I turned off autorestart and its still restarting and not giving me a BSOD. mykl is coming over with his video card for me to try out. Fingers crossed.

Last edited by qoncept, Wed 2 May 2007, 23:29.

albieg, I'll try that tonight.

jertje, with the catalyst software installed its doing the same thing still, BUT, today it did crash once and an error message popped up saying the system had recovered from a VPU error without rebooting. Any insight?

Alright, so I was doing some testing.. and with the game in windowed mode, it locked up, but before the computer rebooted I was able to still move the mouse around some. Interesting.

I want to try testing without sound but I cant find where to disable it in the game.. Can anyone help me out?

Thanks Dru. It's generic memory so who knows. I'm still leaning more toward a video card problem but we'll see.. Memory is cheaper and I could use more anyway, so it would be the first thing I'd replace.

I did run prime95 on the torture test overnight. 12 hours without any errors.

jertje, I don't have the catalyst software installed, just the drivers. I'll check it out.

Dru, I'm having trouble finding how I should have my memory set. Just a bunch of random settings and voltages that I don't have a clue what they should be, and haven't been able to find anything on forums about it. :\ I have an Asus M2N4-SLI, any advice where to look for help?

Thanks for all the input guys!

Ok. I tested the memory. I cleaned everything out. I watched the temperatures. I tested DirectX. I made the I'm using the latest of all of my drivers. I pulled the heatsinks off the cpu and gpu and put new thermal compound on them. I added a more powerful power supply. I've done everything but swap the CPU, graphics card, memory and motherboard, and reinstall Windows. Unfortunately, without buying new ones, I have none to swap in and no friends with them. Serves me right for thinking it was time to upgrade to dual core cpu, DDR2 and PCI-express

So, recap. It happens in ALL 3d games, and ONLY in 3d games. Sometimes I can play for a half hour, sometimes 5 minutes. When it happens, the screen will freeze and sound will skip for maybe 5 seconds and then reboot. Sometimes, the sound will actually recover and not reboot (maybe 10-20% of the time). It's happened since I first built the computer. It doesn't seem to matter how CPU or graphics intensive the game is (WoW, LFS, Doom Legacy, Colin McRae, GTR2 all do it, regardless of what resolution graphics and whatnot).

I really don't want to reinstall windows, and I don't want to blindly buy new parts. Maybe I should take it somewhere (which goes against my morals).

Well, no dice. It crashed again. I'll let memtest run while I'm at work today and we'll see what happens.