Mostly this comes down to an overheating GPU which clocks itself down or crashes. Though it could be the CPU that is overheating and downclocking, it more often happens that it is the GPU. Can you monitor the temperatures of these components somewhere and what are the specs of your PC?

Well then why not start with something small like a gear indicator, rev bar. If you have a feeling for programming then you are halfway there.
Get a microcontroller like a PIC which has depending on the model only 35 ~ 70 assembler instructions and wire it up. You can also program them with BASIC, C++ etc...
There are even models that have USB controllers built in, so its mostly a question of the PIC+support electronics and what you want to control.
Lots of examples are available with complex schematics. But don't be impressed, it's mostly a power supply 5 volts with a few supporting components(you could even use your PC's PSU 5V so you won't have to do anything about it). A few filters here and there for stability(you can mostly follow some guidelines) and an oscillator circuit(impressive name for something built out of 2-4 components to get a clock signal. A PIC can also generate its own clocksignal).
Price depends a bit per PIC, in the range of €2 to €20.

Finally. I was very disappointed when I got silver and could finally go race the TBO's only to find an empty server, or had to keep an eye constantly on LRF racers that inevitably influence my race but were not competing with me. If there was anyone racing in the TBO class with me

Allthough I think the LX6 feels like a nice car, its a step too far if you haven't got any experience with it. Thats why I was thinking about replacing the UF-BR with the LX4. Maybe change it monthly to one of the lesser driven cars just for a change. UF-BR was a bit fun and a nice distraction in the beginning but everything has to come to an end. So why not rotate that server with different cars monthly or so?

Well you ain't gonna find gauges + electronics that can drive it for 50 euro's. Those prices go in the hundreds really fast if you can even find those. That phidget thingy might do the trick, but you will still need the gauges which are the most expensive part. You'll also need a way to connect them mechanically to the gauges if that is possible.
Also keep in mind that analog gauges can't be changed on the fly. That might give a problem if you like racing a UF1 and an hour later a BF1.

Though you could go and try looking at flight sim forums like frugalsworld, FS series or Falcon 4.0. There are some fanatics at these sites that build whole plane cockpits in their living rooms. This might inspire you or give you some information about where to find parts.

- Break off wings instead of bending

I wonder how this would be implemented. So they would be removed from the car and change its characteristics? But what would happen to the debris? Would it just lay around on the track, be removed in some way and possibly affect other cars in the meantime(tire rupture etc)? That seems like a huge leap forward, but methinks it also would be alot of work to implement. Though it would open up the way to a vastly more realistic damage system.

Since if it would just disappear it might be a bit immersion braking, but that indeed might be the way to go for now.

The problem with relating real-life with LFS is that in real-life you really need to dish out some cash to adjust a car, so you have limited options or your name is Bill Gates. What actually would help is making the possible car setups we have more limited. As it is now, you seem to have an unlimited amount of gearboxes with all the different ratios in existance, all values of shocks and spring, anti-roll bars etc... I wonder how big the storage departement for my XFG must be like....

So in my opinion we firstly must limit the ranges and steps in which we can adjust various variables of components. This might also benefit new player experience, especially for beginner cars since you have less choices and are not comletely clueless about what to do.

After that is done you could think about adding more aspects that can be "tuned".

What also doesn't help is the fact that current LFS enivironments are static, like no changing weather(except wind), so there's only one setup needed.

Ohh, got to go, stupid thunder storm..........

Same here with a Civic HB from '97. I really cannot engage 1st gear when the car is moving, even at a crawl. Though I can do it up to a certain speed when the car has warmed up.

With a low speed, I mean the car would even go faster at stationary RPM's.

Once again, using SPDIF and passthrough it does not matter what soundcard you have since the soundcard is completely circumvented. The only thing that the SPDIF connection does on your $1000 soundcard or your onboard audio is converting the 1's and 0's from your sound to an electrical signal which only has two states High and Low, nothing in between.

Since you seem to think that your Soundblaster using analog ouputs is better then the digital SPDIF output from your onboard leads inevitably to the conclusion that the DAC's in your stereo are even worse then the ones on the Soundblaster.

What exactly is the problem? If you connect it through SPDIF from your onboard audio or your SBLive shouldn't matter in terms of quality, as long ast hey both meet certain specifications. And believe me most hardware does. If there is any difference, it's probably in your head.
Apart from that you won't notice such differences on a normal set you can get anywhere.

What might be the problem is that you're trying to play a 44kHz file, but most audio hardware upsamples that to 48kHz, and for output purposes might downsample it again to 44kHz. These conversions give a loss of quality. It could also be that your amp internally only works with 44kHz, but might get a 48kHz signal from PC, so it has to convert it itself. Generally standalone equipment is reasonable at this, but it still adds a loss of quality.
To make it clear, most music has sampling rate of 44kHz.

So what you want to do is enable "passtrhough", or another way to circumvent the conversions. Also note that windows upsamples it to 48kHz by default, so you have to circumvent that too. However most of this can be done if your audio hardware has decent drivers, but it depends on the hardware too sometimes.

Also was busy making comparisons between differnet settings. None of them really satisfy(yet?). Track is south city somewhere at pit exit, normal day, F BMW with standard texture in white. I'm using a high res texture pack, for which I had to set the carshine value to .30 and have set 4*AA & 8*AF in the ATI CCC.

Also the setting "BloomCurveDay" doesn't seem to do anything, varied between -10 and 10. I have left all the other effects (occlusion etc.) disabled.

Constant in file name refers to "BloomConstantDay", saturation to "BloomAllowOversaturation" and bloom to "BloomPowerDay" offcourse.

Last edited by stry90dis, Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:43. Reason : addition

Some findings till now

I must agree, the bloom is too overexposed when just installing it. But setting "BloomPowerDay" to less than 10 makes it reasonable. Setting "BloomFadeTime" to a lower value makes it so when you go underneath something and you get out again the bloom is very big for a short time. This might be realistic, but I have never really given it a thought when driving out of a tunnel IRL.
Setting BloomAllowOversaturation to 0 distributes it much more evenly. So parts on the track/car that are already shiney don't light up like a christmas tree.

Maybe setting the carshine value in the LFS configuration file even lower, gives more room to play with this ini file. I like the skies etc, but when having a yellow car it seems to be painted with some fluorescent paint.

Burn Knoppix to a CD and look if it boots up, from there you can check your hardware a bit.
Clear CMOS first, make sure to have your SATA controller in BIOS set to NATIVE IDE, the other setting is better I know, but this might be the problem and you can then work on a solution if it is.

Next do not match the processor FSB to RAM speed, very bad if you don't know what you're doing. Since its an Q6600 it has an FSB of 1066MHz, so your RAM should be at 533MHz(DC gives 1066MHz then, sort of). This might be different depending on how the BIOS interprets it, but I think this is right, in any case verify how to set your specific BIOS. Maybe your mobo wants the real speeds and not the DDR speeds, the "real" FSB of a Q6600 is 266MHz per channel, so maybe you need to set this in BIOS, though i don't think so.

Also run memtest, but since it always seems to hang at the same spot I suspect it's something else.

I hear a lot of people saying to buy the Antec 900 casing. I own one, but you have to think it through since its not suited for everyone.

+ looks good
+ Front panel connections at a convenient place(Top, tilted a bit forward)
+ reserved space on top for your nav, mobile phone, PDA etc.
+ cooling
+ Scythe Mugen Infinity fits(but side panel fan not anymore)
+ Drive bay modules (3*5.25" bays in a removable bracket, you get 2 brackets)

- Sucks in dust like a vacuum cleaner. The front panel where I have 2 sharkoon fans is filled with dust within 2 weeks.
- Cable management non-existant. I have a modular power supply, but still inside the case it's a mess, and I have tried everything to get it done right. I also use rounded IDE cables.
- The supplied fans RPM can only be changed by a tiny switch thats connected to the fan inside the case.
- No fan RPM readout, connector is molex
- Fan LED's can't be turned off
- The motherboard backplate cannot be taken out, so mounting a mobo is a hassle.

And like others said, get a budget and go for mainstream products with mainstream prices. You'll get ~85% of the performance at ~50% of the costs. What might be important (at least for me) is power consumption. But they can be misleading, for instance for processors. Intels maximum TDP is more of an average, AMD's TDP is the absolute maximum the CPU could ever use in any circumstance, which in real world applications will mostly never be reached.
GPU's use in the whereabouts of 90-110 watts, HD3850,HD3870 as an example. Offcourse high end uses more.

Also do not exaggerate on PSU wattage rating, 450W is more then enough, as long as its an A-brand. I own a BeQuiet! Darkpower P7 pro 430W, which might be handy if you still want to buy that antec 900 casing. It can control your case fans supplied with the Antec 900, it has fan RPM readout of its internal fan and is modular. The fans spin faster as PSU load increases, mine have never spinned faster, always at lowest speed. That gives you an indication of power consumption since I own a typical mainstream system. It consists of am AMD 5600+ X2(TDP=89W), HD3870, 2*2GB Ram, 2 HD's, DVD burner.

My ATI experience (own a 9800pro and a HD3870). ATI makes hardware wise the most competitive and well rounded cards at an unsurpassed price. Only to have it ruined by the drivers . They work for most of the time, but things like getting a 3360*1050 resolution to work in span mode is a step too far it seems. The drivers don't support it, the hardware does. It's all these tiny things that ruin it a bit. Don't know about nVidia, but from what I read if you want cutting edge you need to find the right driver, which isn't necessarely the latest it seems. So seems frustating at times too.

Also go for DDR2 PC6400, or PC8500 if price is almost the same, DDR3 is too expensive and by the time it's just as affordable as DDR2 you'll probably be buying a new rig anyway.

Well first try to think off what the new PC would be used for. Most games and programmes do not need a top of the line CPU. Do not stare yourself blind at number of cores, clockspeed or cache, you need to look at benchmarks. Toms Hardware&CPU charts give a fairly nice overview. Look for instance for a game that you might be willing to play as soon as you get the new PC, look how good processors fare with this game. Look especially in the middle. Any CPU that does not slow down a chosen game regularly below 60fps is adequate. The number 60fps is what I would choose, you can choose whatever you want, for instance 30fps or 200fps, your choice.
Maybe you want a little headroom so pick one that might be a bit overpowered, but not too much since cost rises exponentionally. As a rule of thumb AMD is cheaper in mainstream, Intel has got High-end CPU's at high-end prices. But investigate, it's only a rule of thumb and it might differ from country to country.

When you have chosen a CPU, pick your mobo. Look at what features you want like #Sata ports, #IDE ports if any, #USB ports, has it got front panel audio connectors, onboard video, serial/parallel ports, Crossfire/SLI etc.
This might be the most intensive research since mobo's generally just do what they are meant to do. Go with a brand that you trust, pick a suitable mobo and read user reviews. Repeat till you found a mobo that you think you can rely on and has the features you need

Next RAM. 2GB would be the minimum, 4GB even better. Look at your mobo specifications, has it got 4 Ram slots, then ok, if not choose antoher one. This in the light of future upgrades. I'd recommend picking 2*2GB if you want 4GB and 2*1GB if you want 2GB. Timings do matter, but not so much as everyone would like to believe. CL5 is good, CL4 is better but generally much more expensive to justify in any way.
Brand does not really matter. There are so many brands, but most of them buy their ram chips at factorys, put it on a PCB thats also bought at another factory, assebled at another factory and put their own sticker on it. What you should look for is warranty, and how it is handled. Most brands give 10+ years so that should be ok. If its got heatspreaders, fine totally unimportant

Now video. Do the same as with the CPU. There are also Toms Hardware GPU charts. Again, do not exaggarate, there is no use in having 120FPS, if 60FPS will do. Look for some suitable video cards, look at the prices and pick one. Also pick a brand you trust and that suits your needs. If you want to run nVidia SLI you need a motherboard with nVidia chipset, and you need two in most aspects identical video cards. ATI CrossfireX works (I think) on all mobo's, and does not need two identical video cards.
But running dual video cards is mostly just a waist of time, money and your nerves so I wouldn't add this as a criterium. It often does not work, only works with workarounds, works half assed, or is mostly only a marketing argument so they can put a nice sticker on the box. By the time you want to place a 2nd card in your PC there probably will allready be a video card available thats just as fast as your SLI/Crossfire rig and more cost&power efficient.

Harddrives. Well 1st you want it to be reliable, 2nd reliable and last but not least reliable. Problem is you won't find any hard, real and objective data on it. From personal experience I can say in the past I have always chosen Seagte but from the 6 drives I bought in the last 7 years 4 are dead, and the fifth is on its way too Harddrive graveyard too. Oh and they brake down always after the warranty has passed . All were used in cases with cooling in front of the hard drives, and my computers stay on for most of the day, so no constant power up/downs, still they die.
So now I went for Samsung (spinpoint T166, 500GB) but I cannot give data on reliability since I only have it a few months. But they are cheap, very silent (better than Seagate) when not reading/writing, and a bit faster. Still its not top of the line in regards to speed but adequately enough. Samsung now has Spinpoint F1 drives to replace the former drives. From benchmarks the F1 1000GB seems very fast, but he models with lower capacity do not since they use different platters.

CPU cooler, a very subjective topic, again read benchmarks. It should be quiet and provide good cooling. Personally, Zalman is overpriced and hyped, not silent at all even not at lowest speeds. For my new PC I bought a Scythe Mugen Infinity. It is unaudible and cools very good, but expensive. Though not as expensive as Zalmans coolers.

Power Supply, again very subjective topic but there are some things to look out for. First thing would be brand and price. Avoid brands like Sweex, Qtec etc. You will find they always give you high wattage at a low price. In comparison to other brands it sounds too good to be true, and in 99% of the cases it is. A power supply that has a stated power output of 450W should really deliver 450W even for hours on end and not go up in a ball of flames at 300W. Another rule of thumb, if it is heavy, it means they didn't cut on cooling blocks which are expensive. Another thing that is important but you can't really check are safety measures like overheating, overpowering, short circuiting and stability of the voltages under differing power loads.
Again some personal experience, in my younger days I did not have that much of a clue about PSU brands so mostly just went with whatever el cheapo PSU was fitted in the case. Result are several destroyed PC's.

Now when you have chosen all your parts, go back to the beginning of this post and build another system within your budget, do this a few times and put the systems next to each other. Look at what benefits and drawbacks of all setups are, and pick one. Then finetune it.

Real good job! I have been thinking about doing the same for the past few days, though I would like to get the dash, seat, pedals, shifter, steering wheel and maybe other bits&pieces from a real car and make something of it. Did you help your colleague getting it out of his car and was it hard? Since in my neighbourhood there are quite a few scrapyards, you just have to remove the parts from the cars yourself. This should cut the costs quite a bit I think, but if its undoable I need to find some other way. Any tips maybe on what to look out for during building so I can find a suitable car type? And which parts do I really need for instance for the shifter?

Quote from srdsprinter :

These are great little bull-rings undoubtedly, but I have to wonder if they are good for entry-level SS racing.

1) They are extremely hard to pass cleanly, moreso for newer drivers.
2) They have no workable pits, so the inevitable damage is uncorrectable.
3) Being so short in length, the amount of lapping of backmarkers just is a breeding ground for disaster every race.

Just interested to hear what you guys think. And I'm tired of getting my %of races finished knocked down by this track, and my % of yellow flags getting bumped up by these tracks.

Thanks,
Stu

Personally the first time I raced on one of these tracks it found it "meh....". But after driving a few races there you get a different mindset, and it is like an adrenaline rush now :cry: partly because of the points you listed.

1. Passing is harder, takes tactic and strategy to do it cleanly. I myself like to make drivers in front of me nervous by filling up their mirrors to induce a mistake. Drawback is, I get nervous after I passed them and they are in my mirrors. Something to work on

2. I like that, one big mistake and you're out. Takes "driving on the limit" to another level. You can try to find the limit, go a bit over it, but blatantly going over it has a harsh punishment.

3. You can learn how to make damn clear that you want to overtake. Offcourse there are always drivers that are not forthcoming enough. That is something you have to live with.

What works best for me on these tracks is patience and being aware of the drivers at the start. Sometimes it is better to fall back a little and let those drivers who at all cost have to be no.1 in front and relax a bit. Soon you'll see them going into spectator mode since they pushed too much

Wow I just want to let know that I'm impressed with this. I'm a fairly new LFS-player, but what has been set-up here is really cool and a very good concept within the current limitations of LFS. Enjoying the broadcast with a good commenter

Quote from stry90dis :

No, though I believe the car classes need to be seperated. Especially on CTRA Race 2 where there are just too many and too different cars.

A logical step from CTRA race 1 with XFG/XRG would be FXO/XRT/RB4. In some sense the same as the XFG/XRG combo, but a bit more setup options and powerfull. The LX6 is just a step too big at once and it doesn't fit the rest. The RAC and FZ50, don't know, they just don't fit the picture.

If I may add, the tracks are also too big. Allthough one has some experience from Race 1 in setting up the car, the tracks at race 2 are just too complex at this stage of driver development.

My personal opinion offcourse, not facts

This what I posted in another thread are in my opinion the biggest turn-off's. Having more car classes also means there have to be more people online to have a race. 5 in one class and the other 5 in another is a boring race, especially with the big tracks. It's more like cruisin and having some car from a faster class fly by now and then.

No, though I believe the car classes need to be seperated. Especially on CTRA Race 2 where there are just too many and too different cars.

A logical step from CTRA race 1 with XFG/XRG would be FXO/XRT/RB4. In some sense the same as the XFG/XRG combo, but a bit more setup options and powerfull. The LX6 is just a step too big at once and it doesn't fit the rest. The RAC and FZ50, don't know, they just don't fit the picture.

If I may add, the tracks are also too big. Allthough one has some experience from Race 1 in setting up the car, the tracks at race 2 are just too complex at this stage of driver development.

My personal opinion offcourse, not facts

Last edited by stry90dis, Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:29. Reason : typo's, fomatting etc

Homeworld, never thought there would be LFS players that played this game . I played all of them, HW, HW:C and HW2. If you are looking to prolong the pleasures from HW2 I would reccomend HW2 Complex or the HW2 PDS mod if you haven't tryed them already, both free offcourse.

http://www.homeworld2complex.com/

http://www.pds.hwaccess.net/news.php

I would like to request a feature. Often I try to find the right spring stiffness but would like to keep rebound and bump dampening at the same percentage for a different spring stiffness. Would it be possible to add a "lock" to rebound and bump dampening percentage so the values change together with the spring stiffness, but keep the same percentage?

I have another problem regarding blue flags and mid-race joining. Now, i'm not the fastest driver out there, and sometimes I find myself fighting to get near the car in front of me, or even having a little battle with them. Now it often happens that some fast driver mid-joins the race, someone who is clearly faster than me and the one i'm battling with.

If I would not be fighting for position i'd let them go past, but when I am fighting for a position then I won't since it always breaks up the fight. Though often they just squeeze their car somewhere making me lose time on the driver I'm fighting with and often ending the battle I had. I find this highly frustating, more so because the mid-race joiners get the message they should give full cooperation under blue flag.

So are they allowed to interfere in this way with a race, eventhough they are much faster?

Perhaps it should be made more clear to the drivers concerned that they are not allowed to interfere, since the message doesn't come through.

Last edited by stry90dis, Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:15. Reason : typo

Quote from seinfeld :

when i open the bmw FB02, it says runtime error 383 text property is read only and closes the program, this is 3.10
all the other cars are fine

i have set as run as adminstrator

Change the tyre brand used on your car which is Avon or Bridgestone to one of the others, then you can open it.

Press number "4" on your keyboard, it will show you the ideal line according to LFS. It's a nice start to get used to any track and work from there in setting up your car.

I'd rather keep the lower powered versions or even add more of them in LFS in the 75HP-110HP range with a weight of around 1000kg, since they best connect to what people drive in real life, at least if I look at the people I hang out with.

Personally I have such a car, and it is very much fun to try and race XFG in LFS, since it would cost me a lot of money, my driving license and probably my life on the real road.