Hello racers

I have a question for the devs.
Given the new graphics "engine" is in development is it possible to update the car skins system.
What I mean it would be great to give the skinners/artist more controll over the glossiness, specularity, bumpiness, normalmaps and not just the diffuse channel.
Furthermore is it planned that the shaders can be moddable a bit more than what they are right now.

Here is the documentation for Byte.Parse method.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.byte.parse?view=net-7.0

I dont know a lot about lapper but it seems like an invalid number is beeing parsed into the byte structure.
Meaning that a number higher then 255 unsigned or 127, -128 signed was passed into the function.

Greetings fellow developers.

I am writting an InSim/OutSim/OutGauge client/library for a future project.
I am aware the documentation is scarse and not detailed enough and I need help with the IS_CIM packet.

How do I request a IS_CIM packet from the host/LfS.
Literally could not find the answer anywhere. Not on the Wiki nor inside the InSim.txt file alongside LfS.
I event searched here on the forums and nothing.

rane_nbg is correct up there.

But for future reference that is not a model its a texture/skin(better call it a texture)

To install follow theese rules.

1.) Locate your lfs directory. All paths from now on will be relative to the lfs folder.
2.) Locate the data/dds/ directory.
3.) Locate the files that you want to replace and back them up.
4.) Drag and drop your textures inside the data/dds/ folder and replace all

That should do it.
Next time you post for help be a bit more precise with what you need help with. We want to help but we can not read minds.

Dont be "lazy"
The more information you give us the easier it is for us to help you.

No no your reply is still valid.
I didnt mention drivers because you did.

What do you mean. Be a bit more clear.
Is it a 3d model/in-game steering wheel.
Where did you download it from. What do you mean download.
What did you do step by step and then we will be able to help you.

By the famous words of Derek Trotter "This time next year we will be millionares".

All jokes aside there were some rumours the the end of year could be a contender for a public release.

There is your problem. Using Wine or any other compatibility layer is not supported nor is it 100% accurate to the windows API. I know you cannot use VMs to play since the performance is abysmal and you need a dedicated graphics card just for that VM alone.

Im sorry to say but playing LfS on linux is not advisable.

I have a 6600XT and everything works fine for me.
Check the drivers and go from there. I would venture to guess you got played doe.

Also. If you want help we need more information. Musch more information. What brand of 6600XT(Vendor) does any other game run badly. Did you benchmark it. What are the temps. Is it a new card or a refurbished/second hand.

Check your termals. Check if LfS is streaming something from your SSD(it might have a bad controller or something that hampers the read operation), check PCIe bandwidth(On the slot where your GPU is connected).

Use MSI Afterburner and open up the graph. There you could compare the systems values. You will find the cause.

Windows scheduler is rarely the cause.
Another thing. LfS is single threaded meaning that a multi-core CPU does not increase performance. The CPU might be struggling anyways regardless what it reports in %. Its because of the cache. You have 3MB wich isnt an awfull lot but should get the job done. Unfortunately its almost impossible to benchmark cache misses.

EDIT:
Oh and check if you are using your onboard graphics(integrated Intel® HD Graphics 4000) or the "High Performance"(NVIDIA GT740M 2GB) card.

Sorry I dont want to seem tone deaf and insult the devs.
Scawen, the way I deal with crash reporting is:

Or a newer approach I addopted is to have a companion program. In thins case I would call it "LFS Crash Handler.exe" and it would report crashes. The second approach is a bit more flexible than the first.

[Edit]
I might have a stack trace lib I wrote a while ago somwhere. Since LFS is compiled as x86 it will work. Havent implemented a x64 version yet.
I could donate it if you need it.

Last edited by xolan1993, Wed, 24 May 2023 11:20.

Teamname: N/A
Car number: 80
Driver 1: Bepo(xolan1993)

Yeah right. Forgot to ask.

If by any chance durring my adventure digging trough LFS I happen to run by a bug or some decrepid piece of code that should be updated how do I go about reaching out to Scawen in order to alert him to the issue.

Posting it here publicly could be a bit of a security concern I belive.

Thanks so much for your input Scawen.

So as prommised I wont publish my findings no matter how much this saddens me.
I will doe use my findings in any future InSim program and will probbably try to obstruct the addresses so others can not snoop around my binaries to gain access to them, if that is acceptable.

As much as I think cheating software can be fun, naturally it degrades the online experience and noone wants that.

With kind regards

Quote :

I don't know much about the practicalities of compiling source to an executable (mine are not-that-kind-of-compilation), but is it possible and/or practical to steer a compiler to store variables in a set place in an exe?

No it is not possible by conventional means. Meaning each version should be reversed individually.
Its tedious but trivial to find those addresses with software like Ghidra, CheatEngine and dbg64.
The hard part is the addresses of the functions and what those functions do. That is where reversing becomes hard.

Yeah I've seen that. Kindoff what sparked this question.

Started the reverse engineering project by myself to make an API for local InSim apps.
Since LFSLazy does hook into the LFS.exe process but Scawen says its allowed in that case.
I dont know if it would be allowed publicly doe.

So mainly the goal here isnt to make a copy of LFS but to document the binary for mod development.

I already have a small chunk reversed but in reality I wouldnt feel good publishing my findings knowing that the devs disagree no matter the legality of it.

Last edited by xolan1993, Fri, 21 Apr 2023 13:56.

There is no point in talking about streaming software. As said before this is not entirely about graphics.

Imagine finding a raycasting function somwhere inside the binaries to use within your own program.

Imagine having voice chat inside LfS and better chat integration.

Its not all bout overlays.

What I wanted is to document function addresses for plugin development. Either graphical or other.
The mod system currently only revolves around cars.

Basically what Im trying to do is see if Scawen minds me and other people possibly messing with the binaries as well as the stance by the community at large.

If it is acceptable it would be nice to have a forum thread dedicated to documenting various addresses accross versions wich would help old and new InSim proggramers.

Hello fellow proggramers.

What is the general community stance on reverse engineering the binaries to make mods.
Something like LFSLazy does where the application hooks into the Direct3D calls to draw stuff on screen.

Since some features in LfS could only be implemented in such a way is it frowned upon to post certain addresses somwhere if someone did RE the binaries.

Quote from Draggo :

From DirextX ripping software like for example NinjaRipper.

I am aware of NinjaRipper and simmilar software but the rips are mostly distorted rendering them unusable. I've used them in the past and gave up quite fast when I saw how bad the rips were.

Wonderring where the meshes/models came from. As far as Im informed LfS does not provide any way to "Rip" or load the tracks in any moddeling program(Wich is a shame. Would be nice to render something with them).

Personally I do them in 3dsMax but you can also do something simmilar in Belnder. LFS supports 8192x8192 but only downloads 512p or 1024p if you have credits.

Most of my skins that I make are 8192p.

And I would not say that software like Blender is hard to learn. There are great tutorials online. Try searching texture painting blender tutorial and you will find something. Also it offers great flexibility with procedural textures and materials. Cuts down on time massively.

I belive that HarshDrift has a Discord server. Join and report him there.

Absolute shows the tottal G force value exerted on the car as per relative splits it into longitudional(forward-backward) and lateral(left-right) forces separately.

As per the cap of 9.99 I am not sure. As a educated guess its about UI beeing inside a "box" and 10.00 value would exceede the bounding box of the UI element so the developers capped it to 9.99G.

It isnt meant to be precise since while driving you are concentrating on the road and not on the G forces. Its just a handy "guide" so you could know what the car "feels" when it comes to forces.

[Edit]
You can read up more on the UI here https://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/ ... y#F9.2C_F10.2C_F11.2C_F12

I think you are referring to the yellow number in between the tyre diagrams.

https://www.lfs.net/attachment/402754

That is your G meter. You have it set to absolute mode.
When you set it to relative mode it looks like this.

https://www.lfs.net/attachment/402755