Quote from Crommi :

First thing I'd check is updating drivers, especially when yours are 5 months old. Can you describe what kind of problem you're experiencing with video playback?

It is known that their are problems during HD playback using an onboard HD 3200 together with catalyst 9.8 drivers, having some black blocks/artefacts. But maybe i will go forward and just try the 9.9.

I think i should also try it with my 8600GT. Lets see how it fits in my current setup.

I would also save 512 mb ram. :P

So you guys really think its down to the system? Then i will reconsider because the mainpurpose for the HTPC is to be a home theatre pc , so its supposed to be as quiet as possible and very low on energy consumption. I still have a Geforce 8600GT with 512 ram lying around here, maybe i will try it but i am not sure if i want to touch a running system

Thanks guys!

Hi folks,

i recently set up a HTPC in my room. From the beginning i focused on that purpose. But now where i am getting used to my lcd tv i thought about trying LFS on that comp.

These are the facts:

AMD 5200+ 2,7ghz Dual core
2 gig of (cheep ram ) because latency times are totally unimportant for video playing
ATI Radeon 3200HD onboard shared memory, but 512 mb are manually assigned for the graphics

Windows XP 32 bit

Now to the problem: If i try LFS with this setup i just manage to get 10-15 fps in 1920*1080. The funny part is, thats the fps doesnt change to much no matter if i use 32bit or 16 bit, if i go to 16x AA or 4x texture filtering. Even when i go down to 1280*720 the frame rate just increases to 20fps.

I tried LFS Z and LFS Z17, no difference at all.

Honestly? I think it cant be down to the main system, because that should definately be capable of playing LFS full settings at atleast 60fps (i thought). The only problem i can think of is that i am using Catalyst 9.5 and i am stuck with this because the newer ones dont work properly with full HD video anymore....

Any idea guys? Any opinions?

Thanks,
Steffen

Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

After all, if Ferrari have a problem with Schum's inexperience with the modern F1s, they're still free to put Gene or Badoer into the car at Valencia

Badoer and Gene dont have any practice on the '09 car neither, Felipe and Kimi were doing all the job... because of the very limited testing rules.

In our Formula Student car we were also able to activate and deactivate datalogging inside the car.

Quote from Shotglass :

As far as I know (and our local tyre guru Todd seems to agree on this IIRC) LFS uses some kind of physical model, e.g. some kind of simplified finite element approach, that doesn't model the tyre as one equation but instead as a number of small elements interacting with each other and the road.

The thing about these approaches is, that they show what is essentially emergent behaviour, which is hard or impossible to predict, particularly in fields like tyre simulation where the models that work well and the data needed to fine tune models isn't easily or publicly available.
So what you need to do is code something that will put your model under exactly the same conditions as real tyre tests and then compare against real world results while tuning your model parameters.

Yes i remember, its this 40 (something) parts the tyre is divided in. Right? But since this isnt to much, i guess that there are some equations how these 40 elements are attached to each other. And i think this equations are kind of important also, not just how each one handles. But this is not going into a proper way, in the end... we both think the same. There is developed model, and not a one equation model which includes tables to work on, but something more FEM like. Up to now, iRacing is using the ISI way, a map of data, like an engine map. Right?

I think the understeer, oversteer LFS/iRacing discussion is more interesting.

Quote from Shotglass :

you dont need a functional relation to compare your models results with the measurements though
all you need is a mmse approach on the probably smooth model data compared against the measured datasets on a virtual tyre test rig

Yes, but what is your virtual tyre test rig? If its not a couple of equations I dont really get the point, then you still dont have something you can build a simulation up on. At least not one you can run live. I assume that also LFS is build upon equations and i assume also that these are relatively often approximations. I dont really understand (i dont say that its not because of my limited knowledge ). Maybe we should stop bothering the thread and if you are so kind, you can explain me by private message...

Cheers!

Yes but how do you get the paramters of your simplified FEM model? If you want to "re-engineer" given data like the folks of iRacing are doing as someone said.

Quote from Shotglass :

i rather hope hell choose to use some type of physical model (as lfs seems to) and tune its parameters until it fits the measured data well
any regression derived model is essentially the same as table based models

Hehe... and what is a algorithm for that? Doing a regression model with least square method based on a functional relation. This equation can be every physical model. You just define the paramters by a regression analysis .

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

Idealistically, a physical model of "all things tires" would be the way to go, and in the long term I beleive it is - no question.

I'd never driven a convincing spread-sheet sim until iRacing came along, it's startling to me that it's more convincing (tire wise) than LFS is at the moment. Of course, I suppose testing your own tires and having boundless data at your disposal probably helps in that regard...

I jumped back & forth between iR and LFS last night - about 6 stints in each in different cars. I used proper setups in LFS (no locked diffs or other wierd shit) to really try get a semi-comparable feel for both sims.

To be honest I hadn't really pinpointed the understeer "issue" in LFS before because I was using the goofy setups that people run WRs with and so forth... But with a "normal" setup, sure as shit, most vehicles just don't want to turn in for some reason. I have no idea why that is though.

Kaemmer stated in the iR chat session a few months ago that iR will be moving towards a unified physical model for their tires as well. Must be a daunting task taking all their data and trying to work it back into formulae that work most of the time.

One thing is for sure, this is a great time for sim racing with all this R&D going on.

Could be done with a regression analysis model...

Quote from Scawen :

Well... shadows (up to version Z) used to work fine in Windows or in Wine. Then with the recent shadow improvements, after we solved various problems, they worked fine in Windows, but several users reported a problem in Wine. I think it is good that some people use Linux instead of Windows, so I'd be quite happy if the shadows would work in Wine as well. So I decided to try one small experiment, to put in a SHIFT+K switch to toggle between two different methods of producing the shadow textures. On a Windows computer, where it's working correctly, the two methods should look exactly the same, only the TEST version is a bit slower.

Surprisingly enough, there is some success. Shadowww's images show that the "draw to texture" (TEST) method works quite well (still with some problems) but the "CopyRects" (faster) method does not work. That is a better result than I expected.

NOTE : This suggests there is a problem with the D3D8 "CopyRects" function in some versions of Wine (if anyone wants to report that on the Wine forums - but maybe you should discuss your Wine version and graphics card and drivers here first so we find out what combination causes the problem - to make it easy for the Wine developers to reproduce / identify the problem).

Thanks a lot for the quick answer scawen. Dont worry, i didnt mean to question your decisions, i was just curious what idea was behind this. Its clear now!

Slightly Offtopic:

I don't understand the change. Did you (mean to) improve the shadows? Or just looking for wider compatibility even in Wine/Linux direction?

I am just curious...

Regards,
Steffen

Quote from farcar :

The Apple OS is probably fine.
What I have huge issues with is their ridiculously overpriced hardware and the restrictions they impose on third party software. It makes them twice as bad as Microsoft.

Oh my god. What an old argument? There is one thing you can really hate about macs, its there philosophy of doing things sometimes like banning something out of the appstore for example. But please not this old and mostly wrong argument about overpriced hardware. You can not compare just power figures like cpu speed and ram to say if hardware is overpriced or not. I have to admit that i also belong to the group of new apple users. I was always a big fighter against these "overpriced" hardware. Its not the pure power apple is selling. Its the overall package you buy with one of the new unibody macbooks for example which is worth every penny. I dont know about any other notebook (Not even ibm/lenovo anymore) which is offering this level of detail and manufacturing a current apple notebook is offering.

Ok... now flame me... haha!

Quote from aceracer :

That's why democracy sucks...

Haha... sorry to be OT, but i just read your post very fast and thought... what a nice word joke. Jep i read "demo-crazy", but you just meant democracy... like democratic. Sorry... had to tell you that you made me laugh even without intention.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

It's probably going to be "free to play" but you can "buy" extra things such as upgrades, cars and features for money. Typical "con" used by game companies.

Also a very likely idea...

Quote from Furiously-Fast :

In terms of the NFS series of '09, here is how I may see the schedule:

NFS: Shift - could fail if it is just a Grid clone.

Nitro - Don't have a Nintendo console, but it looks like it'll be an ultra arcade game (not in the Burnout style - which means it's likey to fail too.)

World Online - Once EA offer something for free, it's gonna be an Epic Fail from the start.

Unknown 4th one from Blackbox - If it's not Underground 3, The game will just go downhill each day.

Why can't EA (blackbox) just get in into their thick heads? All they need to do is a Underground 3! Underground 2 had loads of sales and high review scores. All they care about is making a 5 min job, and putting it in the shops.

Are you sure that NFS World Online will be for free? The only thing i read was "free to play" which means for me exactly that. It could be a one off purchace but no monthly fee for playing online like World of Warcraft. Otherwise i dont know why they choosed their words so carefully, never heard about a game which is "free to play". Normally its known as Freeware

Maybe i am completely wrong and they will introduce a complete new business model with this game, maybe something like "SecondLife" where companies can build shops in the virtual world and finance the game like this. In the end just a new business model based on advertisement, even though its a very interesting one in my opinion.

Lets see how this will end up.

Regarding my overall opinion? I would really love to have something like Gran Turismo for PC. A game with nice tracks, nice real cars and a decent physics engine. I am not talking about something LFS like, c'mon it will definitely not be another LFS with different content. Reasons for that where already stated by others in this thread (Mass market). I am looking forward to something like NFS II but with a modern engine and modern cars. Unfortunately i think it goes more into the direction of real racing, what i dont like that much. Give me exotic cars, exotic tracks... thats it for just a fun game like this.

Regards,
Steffen

Last edited by Warper, Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:41.

Sorry to get this thread up again... but coincidence?

http://www.slightlymadstudios. ... mes/need-for-speed-shift/



http://forum.racesimcentral.com/showthread.php?t=335317

I wont say at this stage that i will change all our view regarding the NFS Series, but atleast a step into the right direction. I am definitely looking forward to this game even so I dont like the ISI-Engine games...

Maybe its there new engine, lets see.

Regards,
Steffen

Just to make sure that everyone knows what we are talking about

The Need for Speed
Need for Speed II
(Need for Speed II SE)
Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit
Need for Speed IV: High Stakes
Need for Speed V: Porsche
(Need for Speed: MotorCity / MotorCity Online)
Need for Speed VI: Hot Pursuit 2
Need for Speed VII: Underground
Need for Speed VIII: Underground 2
Need for Speed IX: Most Wanted
Need for Speed X: Carbon
Need for Speed XI: Pro Street
Need for Speed XII: Undercover

Regards,
Steffen

Does anyone remember Ford Simulator?





I played it hours!

Quote from smove :

I think racing games/simulations can be compared to girls/women you sleep with:

Where the modern NFS-style arcade racer is like a one-night-stand with a willing bit.. uhm ... kinky girl that does everything for you in terms of sexual satisfaction - and that's all -, the LFS-style simulation is like the more mature girl you (have to, somebody) sleep with, but you are together with and deeply (<-- not to be misunderstood, that "deeply"! ) love in every other aspect, also if there are some things lacking in bed.

Now it's up to you what to choose!

(Did anybody understand me? I guess no. :tilt

Haha... love your comparison!

Quote from smove :

... also if there are some things lacking in bed.

Even so, thats not the case with me. You just need to know how to tweak your "game" to really satisfy you! Okok... maybe its the other way around :P

Quote from BBO@BSR :

Oh and last but not least I do remember your websites and liked them.
Funny just noticed you live in the same city as me

Haha... really? Very cool! Actually I don't live in Braunschweig currently, because I am doing an Internship in Panama for 6 months. But in BS we always organise nice LFS races with my roommates and some other friends on our own host. You should join once...

Two all the others: Yeah... nice ideas and nice posts... I like to read all of that.

Regards,
Steffen

Thank you so much... this is the direction i wanted to go. Haha.. now where i read all your posts i actually remember that i started with GPega (the first ever PC f1 sim?), stunts, Bleifuss and all that stuff. Jepp EA Sportcars GT was also bunch of fun!

Thats was actually one of my points: TNFS was quiet realistic in this time...

Regards,
Steffen

Quote from GabbO :

the only one game in the series was the original Need for Speed.
Most of the guys who posted before never knew it.

Too bad that after it they dumped the whole concept, and started to gather big cash out of the reputation of the name.

Please, do not post if you don´t know the first one, like the comments "comparing XXX to OOO" ....

Thank you so much! Someone who really read the topic. Its not about comparing guys. Its just not!

Quote from bunder9999 :

umm... your bitchfest is a result of people bashing LFS and/or NFS for not being more like each other... it just won't happen though. sorry, LFS will never get neon lights, and nitrous and whatnot.

if you want to bitch about something, maybe you should realize what you're bitching about.

peace eff-ing out.

omg...! Of course, now i asked for NFS Underground content in LFS. Is it getting even better?