Hello Hosters,

In the short note in the Test Patch thread I mentioned a multiplayer update:
"Server side improvement that should run smoother when there is lag"

Some more information about that. If there is a temporary pause (maybe like 0.5 to 2 seconds) in LFS's ability to process multiplayer packets, such as a minor hang or some kind of internet glitch, a lot of position packets (received from guests) might build up in that short time in a buffer held by the operating system on the host computer.

In previous versions, LFS would work through all those packets, 3 per frame (each frame being 0.01s) sending them off in batches of 3 (to all guests) in the order they arrived.

But that was not much help if more than one packet per driver had arrived. It would be pointlessly sending out the old packets when really it should hurry up and send the latest packet.

The change is that the LFS server now processes all the incoming packets if there are any, but it only keeps the latest packet for each player. Then it proceeds to send 3 packets to all the guests.

So the hope is that after any kind of delay it should get back to normal almost instantly.

You can now lock the view to the horizon or use a filtered view in Test Patch 0.6T3:
https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/93144

You can now lock the view to the horizon or use a filtered view in Test Patch 0.6T3:
https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/93144

Some of these requests are done in Test Patch 0.6T3:
https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/93144

You can now lock the view to the horizon or use a filtered view in Test Patch 0.6T3:
https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/93144

Test Patch 0.6T3:

Views:

You can now set "View lock" to car / filter / horizon

Multiplayer:

Server side improvement that should run smoother when there is lag

AI:

You can now select the skill level of individual AI drivers
Single player race limit increased to 32 drivers (AI + real)
FIX: In overtaking lesson all AI drivers had PRO skill level
FIX: Spam "This car does not have a handbrake" when hit parked AI
Command /aiskill X to set skill level 1 to 5 (for adding new AI)
Command /aiset name X to set AI driver 'name' to skill level X
Command /aiset_all X to set all local AI drivers to skill X

Misc:

SHIFT+F2/F3 can adjust time in single player mode (not hotlapping)

Download:

https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/93144

Quote from Degats :

Liking the number plates

Did you get a chance to look at the font width/alignment bug (attached) while you were digging around?
I can't find the bug report, but I know it was mentioned before - maybe buried in the hidden test patch section.

You should find this is fixed in Test Patch 0.6T2

Quote from redbot_ :

I have problems in saving the changes made to the setups ever since I updated to 0.6T. The changes made are not shown when leaving the pits or checking the setup again despite showing "Saved setup" message. It is only affecting the setups I downloaded after the update. Old setups work fine, the changes made to them are saved.

I made fresh installs and on different partitions and the problem still persists. Also when I try to delete those setups, it shows "The setup could not be deleted".

You should find this is fixed in Test Patch 0.6T2

WARNING: THIS IS A TEST

THIS DOES NOT CONTAIN NEW TYRE PHYSICS OR THE NEW GRAPHICS SYSTEMS

PLEASE TEST BEFORE YOU POST


EDIT: The official update is now available! Thanks for the testing!
https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/93160


Hello Racers,

Here is a new test patch: 0.6T7

It contains updates to allow the use of Samsung Odyssey+ and Pimax VR headsets.
There is a new option to lock the view to the horizon.
Some updates for AI are also included.
Various updates and fixes listed below.

0.6T7 is compatible with 0.6T

- You CAN connect online with 0.6T
- You CAN play replays from 0.6T

You cannot upload hotlaps made with this test patch because it is only a test patch, not an official patch.

Please back up or rename your LFS.exe from version T so you can revert to it if necessary.


Changes from 0.6T6 to 0.6T7:

Views:

View filter time minimum value reduced to 0.05 sec

Controllers:

Gearshift debounce code changed to help with the button release

Misc:

More translations updated - Thank you translators!


Changes from 0.6T to 0.6T6:

Views:

New setting "View lock" can be set to car / filter / horizon
FIX: Offset mirror was not drawn offset in forces draw (F)

VR:

Updated to the latest version of OpenVR (1.2.10)
Pimax headsets can now be used in native mode (rotated eye views)
Minimum value for manual FOV setting reduced from 80 to 75 degrees
FIX: An error in OpenVR caused Samsung Odyssey+ wrong eye levels
FIX: A loss of accuracy in the automatic FOV calculation

Multiplayer:

Server side improvement to speed up recovery when there is lag
FIX: Timing bug that allowed damage repair to be done in zero time

AI:

You can now set the skill level of individual AI drivers
Single player race limit increased to 32 drivers (AI + real)
You can now change AI live settings / pit instructions (F11 / F12)
Command /aiskill X to set skill level 1 to 5 (for adding new AI)
Command /aiset name X to set AI driver 'name' to skill level X
Command /aiset_all X to set all local AI drivers to skill X
FIX: In overtaking lesson all AI drivers had PRO skill level
FIX: Non-qualifying race restart affected the overtaking lessons
FIX: Spam "This car does not have a handbrake" when hit parked AI

Interface:

Increased resolution of dashboard texture
Faster saving of screenshots when you press CTRL+S
Driver name and AI skill level are now shown in F11 / F12 windows
Entry screen shows "Unlock Live for Speed" instead of "Demo racer"
New key CTRL+P to copy the LFS window to clipboard excluding border
FIX: Some narrow unicode characters corrupted by an incorrect width
FIX: Host options could state "no bans" before clicking "edit bans"
FIX: Character dialog could be messed up when selecting languages

Misc:

SHIFT+F2/F3 can adjust time in single player mode (not hotlapping)
FIX: Attributes no longer copied when opening file by command line
FIX: Crash at startup when loading a corrupted car model file


INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

A FULL version of LFS 0.6T must already be installed

To install the PATCH using the SELF EXTRACTING ARCHIVE:

1) Move or save the patch into your main LFS folder
2) Double click the patch to extract it to that folder
3) When you see "Confirm File Replace" select "Yes to All"
4) Now you can start LFS in the normal way

NOTE: You can see if the patch is correctly installed when you run
the program (LFS.exe). At the bottom of the entry screen: 0.6T7


DOWNLOADS:

IF YOU ALREADY HAVE 0.6T:
PATCH 0.6T TO 0.6T7 (SELF EXTRACTING ARCHIVE)
www.lfs.net/file_lfs.php?name=LFS_PATCH_6T_TO_6T7.exe (1.6 MB)

FOR HOSTING ONLY:
DEDICATED HOST 0.6T7 (non-graphical version for hosting only):
www.lfs.net/file_lfs.php?name=LFS_S3_DCON_6T7.zip (1.8 MB)

Last edited by Scawen, Thu 14 Mar 2019, 10:22.

OK, here is a test patch which I hope will work correctly with Pimax in native mode (with PP disabled).

Please give it a go and let me know how it goes.

I'd also like to know if your IPD adjustments are taking effect in LFS.
You should see a message at the top left when you adjust the IPD.

I'd also like to see the contents of a log file (LFS\ovr_deb.log) if it works or doesn't work.


Installation

A FULL version of LFS 0.6T must already be installed

To install the PATCH:

1) Move or save the patch into your main LFS folder
2) Double click the patch to extract it to that folder
3) When you see "Confirm File Replace" select "Yes to All"
4) Now you can start LFS in the normal way

NOTE: You can see if the patch is correctly installed when you run
the program (LFS.exe). At the bottom of the entry screen: 0.6T2


Changes from 0.6T to 0.6T2

VR:

Updated to the latest version of OpenVR (1.2.10)
Pimax headsets can now be used in native mode (rotated eye views)
FIX: An OpenVR error caused Samsung Odyssey+ eye levels to be wrong
Some info is logged to a text file ovr_deb.log in OpenVR mode

Interface:

Faster saving of screenshots when you press CTRL+S
New key CTRL+P to copy the LFS window to clipboard excluding border
FIX: Some narrow unicode characters corrupted by an incorrect width
FIX: Host options could state "no bans" before clicking "edit bans"
FIX: Character dialog could be messed up when selecting languages

Misc:

FIX: Crash 0xc0000005 at offset 0x00159069 loading corrupted object
FIX: Attributes no longer copied when opening file by command line


Download:

EDIT: updated the download link to a version 'V2' using the same LFS.exe
but with an updated LFSOpenVR.dll to fix the Pimax IPD reporting issue.
https://www.lfs.net/file_lfs.php?name=LFS_PATCH_6T_TO_6T2_V2.exe

Last edited by Scawen, Wed 6 Mar 2019, 23:04.

I should be able to release a new test this afternoon with a test version of support for native (non-PP) mode.

Thanks for the test and logs.

Quote from Gavin Kay :

Needed to restart SteamVR for it to work, didn't know that before!

After doing this I think its about perfect for me, how about you emiljensen2?

OK, please can we make this very clear? Are you saying it's OK now, if:

- Use Parallel Projection
- Use the updated LFS DLL
- Restart SteamVR after switching on Parallel Projection?

I found a Pimax forum thread talking about how it works, with diagrams. It looks like to use the Pimax in native mode (not PP) I would need to call another function: IVRSystem::GetEyeToHeadTransform
https://forum.pimaxvr.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-ipd-discrepancy/14754

I think the native mode would be a more efficient render with a cleaner resulting image and more chance of achieving the correct frame rate because a smaller render target can be used. But definitely needs an LFS update (not just the DLL) as it is only coded for parallel projections at the moment as that's how all headsets were before.

A couple of questions for you:

1) Is the Parallel Projection option something you set in the Pimax drivers, or in SteamVR?
2) What is happening with other games? I'm guessing PP must be enabled for most of them at this stage.

Hi Gavin and emiljensen2, please could you try this test?


EDIT: Please see the new test in a later post:
https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1946022#post1946022


It will not correct anything, but I would like to see the results in two different modes to help me understand what's going on.

1) Install the test dll attached to this post. It's actually the same one as posted in the Odyssey thread on 24 February.
2) Enable Parallel Projection, enter VR mode, exit LFS and rename the log file LFS\ovr_deb.log
3) Disable Parallel Projection, enter VR mode, exit LFS and rename the log file LFS\ovr_deb.log

Then attach the two log files (or paste their contents) into a post here so I can have a closer look.

Thanks.

Last edited by Scawen, Wed 6 Mar 2019, 18:46.

Quote from three_jump :

As it came up a few times now. When you talk about CPU loads (or hardware requirements in general) and optimisation / performance considerations, do you have a specific plattform in mind?
Of course having lean and fast code is always a plus, but with the new lighting system (and tire physics) I would guess some people might to upgrade their PC.

No, I don't have any specific requirements in mind. It's really hard to say, without having loads of computers to test on. That's where the community will come in and we'll have to see how it goes when it goes into public testing. Anyone who struggles with the current LFS version will definitely need to upgrade as the shadow maps are quite heavy and the textures with shine level in the alpha channel take more memory. Also the higher mesh details are becoming a serious graphics card memory consideration. You can't reduce that by selecting half texture resolution.

I think LFS would be completely dead as a business if we only targeted the latest graphics cards. We earn an income from many customers in countries where the latest super gaming rig is just too much to afford, so I really hope that LFS will be able to run well with a lot of cars on track on computers with a few years old performance levels.

On the other hand Eric is using the new features and trying to get the graphics up to a certain level so the graphics card and CPU requirements are increasing.

Quote from 5tag :

Okay this looks awesome and all but *for now* can you please limit it to static daytime? Give us the updated tracks to play with first. Dynamic lighting and nighttime opens a whole other can of worms that would push this patch many months further away.

You seem to think Eric already has all the tracks finished and we are just waiting for me now. But that is not the case.

Quote from Bass-Driver :

@Scawen:
Did you do something to make it harder to crack this game?
especially after this big update.

Not yet but that is another project on my list.

Lighting, tyre physics and the master server protocol are my priorities.

Here is a new version of LFSOpenVR.dll

This version provides a fix for a bug in an OpenVR function. The bug could produce distorted views in headsets in which the lenses are offset up or down from the centre of the screens. When using a Samsung Odyssey+ headset the right eye view appeared higher than the left eye view, causing discomfort. The same problem (but less noticeable) may be there with Vive headsets too.

This version has been built using the latest OpenVR release 1.2.10

For more information you can read the bug report thread: https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/93043


EDIT: There is now a later version of this fix in Test Patch 0.6T2

Last edited by Scawen, Thu 7 Mar 2019, 08:47.

Thanks for the log.

My initial calculations show the matrix is consistent with the Tan values, according to the calculation in the GetProjectionRaw documentation, so I don't know what's up there. I'll have another look in LFS tomorrow to see if the interpretation of those values is correct.

No rush with the older Odyssey if your friend is having fun with it.

For now I just thought of one more test you can try if you want to. As I read in some old posts about people who found that UpTan and DownTan seemed to be reversed. So I've just done that here without any real basis for this decision, but it would be an interesting (and strange) result if it did seem to cure the problem.

No need to post the logs from this one.

Old post: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/issues/110

Last edited by Scawen, Sun 24 Feb 2019, 19:53.

Thanks for your help.

Another test is attached. It does more logging.

1) When it gets the Tan values (GetProjectionRaw) it now also calls GetProjectionMatrix and logs the values to the file, so we can see if that is asymmetric too. If the matrix is symmetric then the asymmetry in the Tan values must be caused by a bug in drivers or OpenVR.

2) Every time the IPD changes, it logs the results of GetProjectionRaw and GetProjectionMatrix so we can see if these values change when IPD changes. I've always thought not, but let's see. Somehow it seems that if the screens don't move when the lenses move, then maybe the tan values should change as the centre of the lens now points to a different part of the screen...


Test requests:

Please could you do a log test as before, but this time after initialisation, move the IPD adjuster a couple of times so we see the extra logging?

Is it easy to plug in the older Odyssey and see what it logs?


Further info:

I found a couple of mentions of this issue, in the past, but no real answers.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/251991-Vive-The-depth-of-space/page2
https://steamcommunity.com/app/358720/discussions/0/535150948617380074/

Hello Racers,

We aren't ready to do a full progress report this month. Instead, I'll tell you a bit about some experimental work I have been doing.

DISCLAIMER: This work is unfinished and there are many issues left to solve. At this point it is not certain that it will be released. This must be taken in the spirit of a progress report, showing experimental work that sometimes takes place behind the scenes.

The story behind the experiments:

- Because of the way the new lighting works, it should be possible to share lighting configurations between tracks and have realistic sun directions. There is no longer a need to have a limited number of lighting setups per track.

- In a test version of Live for Speed I can set date and time and the sun direction is calculated from that info, along with the latitude of the track.

- The problem then becomes how to limit the time settings to the times of day we can support. One possible answer is to allow all times of day and night, which in turn would allow the lighting to change through time. That led to this experiment with headlights.

You can click here to see a 6 second animated GIF of a 24 hour period in the summer at Aston. Please bear in mind it's just a work in progress. The sky doesn't change and is simply darkened after sunset. The changing sky and sunlight is very roughly done in this quick test and is something that needs to be worked on if this experimental work is to be released. Other work includes making the cars receive light from headlights, improving the floodlights, etc.

I hope you like these early shots of work in progress.

It is strange to hear that horizontal and vertical positions are both affected.

It makes me think of one more test. That is to have a look at both eye views simultaneously on the LFS window on your monitor. Normally only one eye view is displayed.

In View Options you should see an option "Monitor view" and you can select "double". Then you should see the whole render target on your monitor and you can see if that has the offset you described. That is the render target that is presented to the driver software.

Quote from Degats :

Yeah, it's probably something to do with either the font, or maybe how Windows is reporting something, because it started happening in Windows 10 IIRC.

I can reproduce this in Windows 7, which will be helpful for debugging.

Quote from Degats :

Long story short, LFS is using the wrong width for a lot of the characters, so some get cut off (LFS thinks it's narrower than it is, like the gif) and some show the left edge of the character next to it in the bitmap as well as the correct one (LFS thinks it's wider than it really is). The top couple of lines of the Japanese extended page 87 are a good example of the latter.

The problem varies between fonts. MS PGothic doesn't seem to show the problem much but SimSun-ExtB does. That seemed the same here in a quick test in Windows 7 and Windows 10.

I would expect it to cut off characters that are too wide but don't know why it doesn't deal with narrow characters properly, so I'll have a look in the debugger.

Quote from Big Daddy :

Just curious why every text uses their own function.
Using a global function for every text would only require to modify the global function (gpu implementation) and increasing the resolution scale globally.

They do use a common text drawing function but I changed the way that function was called. Now there is a standard text aspect ratio (which can be overwritten in some rare cases) instead of each caller deciding that for itself. So all the function calls needed to be adjusted and in some cases it was messed up where non-standard widths were used and had to be done a different way now.

Quote from Big Daddy :

Looking forward to screenshots using the new Ambient Occlusion.

It was already used in the Aston screenshots. The main change compared with the old system is that it can now deal with transparent objects properly. There will be a slight darkening near fences which the old system ignores. Of course in reality a fence does reduce the influence of sky lighting a bit. On the other hand the old system drew trees as the entire polygons without transparency, so in that case the sky was too occluded near trees. The hardware-based render takes account of transparency and includes all relevant objects so the brightness should be correct now.

Quote from Racon :

I was wondering if it's possible that the kerning mechanism could be used/abused to add a flag option to force monospaced text on a button? It could save us a huge amount of buttons under the right circumstances.

Maybe you could remind me of this in a test patch stage, as I'd rather avoid looking at InSim for now.

Quote from Degats :

And make sure numbers are always fixed width with no kerning - columns of numbers must always align

Numbers have not been included in any of the kerning classes. And it was some years ago the '1' character had some invisible points added to make it the same width as the other characters.

Yes a more modern graphics card will help. The shadow maps and high resolution textures do make the card work harder. But I don't suggest buying one now as it is still quite a long time until release. We cannot give any estimate. I hope to be able to add graphics options to make it run better on older cards but maybe we can see about that when it gets to test patch stage.

NOTE: I'm just thinking out loud, these thoughts are how I imagine things going, not how it will actually happen, and they are not promises.

I don't really have any difficulty thinking of a solution. I just don't want to release a test patch with this little update. It's on the list for the next patch but there is no time estimate for it.

By the way, I remembered why I changed to the new function. It wasn't actually to save the few lines of code with the convenient function. The main reason was that in the development version, I wanted a copy_file that preserved the file dates. The solution I'm happy with is to reinstate the old copy_file for the purpose of copying the downloaded files, but retain the new version for the development version purposes.

OK - I've reproduced that too. When selecting "Open with Live for Speed" in Firefox's download dialog it is copied with read only attributes.

I wonder why that is. I suppose that temporary copy held by Firefox is read-only for some reason.

EDIT: I think it can be fixed by writing my own version of CopyFile. It would read the file and save a fresh copy of it with default attributes, disregarding the source file attributes. Only trouble is I don't want to get back into test patches now so it could be a long wait.

Last edited by Scawen, Fri 13 Jul 2018, 17:19.

Quote from Litro :

Yesterday I updated my LFS, but when i went trough all startup options, when i clicked on last `Go` button, it freezed on that screen. There were 2 LFS on that computer, so the same happened with other version of lfs also. I had to `end process` in task manager.
Somehow AVG antivirus also deleted lfs.exe for LFS, so i cant run it anymore

I can't deal with faulty anti virus software, of course. I don't know what could have gone wrong when you clicked Go. Do you get better results if you install a fresh version?

Quote from 3T- :

Hi Scawen, im getting the following error after about 20 minutes of play,

Fault bucket 2243263143867943033, type 1
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

...

Thanks for the info. Just at the moment you are the only one to report a crash and we didn't get one in any of the recent test patches (other than one in early test patches that happened at startup and I believe we found the cause and fixed it). So I'm wondering if your computer could possibly be overheating as it is so hot. It could cause the CPU or memory to do something funny, so maybe you could open it and check for dust?

Quote from Flotch :

indeed, same here, did not receive an email this time.

We haven't sent one. I'm not sure if we will or not, actually haven't discussed it with Victor yet.

Quote from Jonzu95 :

Am I the only one who finds the Layout editor extremely difficult to use? I've noticed few things when trying to build one.

...

Might take a while to get used to all this, I just prefer the old layout editor.

I have to say there are few positive things about it as well, For example:
- When holding ctrl you can choose objects just like shortcuts on your desktop
- Undo & Redo
- Marshall circles can be now 0 meters.

I think mainly it is a case of getting used to it. I did include input from experienced editor users. It can do everything you could do and more, but with some confusion removed. Occasionally there is an extra key press though.

In the test patch forum I wrote an explanation including the reasons for some of the changes:
https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/92152-The-layout-editor-changes