I had the problem with F9-F12 keys two days ago.

I restarted lfs, restarted computer, changed to Z from Z13 and nothing made the keys work.
Finally, I tookaway the bats of the keyboard and everything worked fine.

I never had this problem before.

It started while lfs z13 was running. but persisted after clossing it.

• Keyboard: Logitech cordless desktop EX110
  
• OS: Win XP sp3
  
• LFS: LFS patch Z13
  

Maybe it's related to logitech keyboards being stuck with lfs??

I played again with lfs z13 and it's working fine for 3 days...

I'm not able to reproduce it.

I hope this helps
raftor

Quote from raftor :

, I tookaway the bats of the keyboard and everything worked fine.

explain what "taking away the bats of the keyboard" is? it makes no sense to me...

Suspect Bats = batteries

Unless the keyboard plays table tennis...

I was on a server just a min ago, and suddenly almost everyone lost connection to the server. When they came back they said that their LFS had crashed. After 2 mins it happened to mee too. I´m using the Z13 patch.
Maybe someone who was there could post some info of the crash.

Hi,
It works fine on my Linux System (under WineHq).

Quote from senn :

explain what "taking away the bats of the keyboard" is? it makes no sense to me...

Hi senn.

It's a cordless mouse and keyboard.
bats == batteries
(sorry)

raftor

I have an issue with z13 which I think is similar or same as I had with z.

Here's what I wrote on the z thread:

Quote :

Been trying Z10 this evening on line. I disabled shadows because I didn't like the new look (low rez) and I prefer higher FPS. Vsync off, no FPS limit, same as with Z.

I get weird slow downs. Can't pinpoint it. It looks a bit as if vsync is on, even though it isn't, and also, I hear HD swapping/access much more than usual (usual is practically none in LFS Z, all other apps are closed, as usual). At least few times it got down to crawling (1-5 FPS) and it seems to me that it's either due to excessive CPU or HD usage or swap.

Overall.. something is making Z10 not smooth as Z is.

[edit]
My system:
Athlon XP 2500+, 1G RAM, 7600GS 512M (latest drivers), Win XP SP3, 1920x1200 and I get with Z 30-100 FPS, pretty smoothly.

and

Quote :

It's not a "normal" FPS drop which lower rez might cure (and doesn't, as I've mentioned). It's not just generally lower FPS but rather sort of "hiccups" in smoothness. The closest, even if to a lesser degree, symptom that I can think of is of vsync on with a slow PC (as mine is). It's more than that though, like framedrops, or "hangs" or bad time sync with players/server or well.. hiccups.. and it's accompanied with hard disc usage noise that wasn't there on Z (maybe mem leak that triggers more swap?). If I could give a better description, I would. Sometimes, describing symptoms can help the devs even if the description is not absolutely specific. I'm sure that if Scawen needs more details or thinks the description wasn't good enough, he could say so himself. Also, this kind of symptom wasn't described on any earlier post on this thread so I think It does fit here.

However, the symptoms are much more severe now. I'm getting these hiccups rarely (not more than once an hour or two of playing) but they do happen badly. The hard disc gets working, FPS drops to 1fps or less (slideshow), sound stutters, and that's usually race over, hopefully without taking others with me. It looks like something non LFS is consuming (many!) CPU cycles, but there's nothing that I could think of installed or running.

I've disabled everything I could think of that might consume cpu/network: peer guiardian, antivurus which I've changed since z and it happens with both, windows update, etc, and it still happens once in a while.

I use resolution 1680x1050 or 1440x900, but this issue seem to be completely unrelated to the resolution...

Am I the only one experiencing this?

Quote from tonyonparas :

I was on a server just a min ago, and suddenly almost everyone lost connection to the server. When they came back they said that their LFS had crashed. After 2 mins it happened to mee too. I´m using the Z13 patch.
Maybe someone who was there could post some info of the crash.

had somethin similar some time ago. had that once at the z10 patch, everyone that had this patch sudenly lost connection but i dont have a clue why

Quote from avih :

Am I the only one experiencing this?

One question, have you tried again with the old Z exe, to make sure that it still really runs smoother than Z10 / Z13 ?

Quote from Scawen :

One question, have you tried again with the old Z exe, to make sure that it still really runs smoother than Z10 / Z13 ?

No. I'm willing to though. How should I get back to z? just download z and extract it to the LFS directory overwriting z13? (it's online compatible, right?)

[edit]
since It's been a while since I changed to z10, I don't recall the version I had prior to that. Would z3 be a reasonably major version before z10?

I was thinking of downloading from here: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=51349

or should I download the latest Y and let it update to z?
[/edit]

[edit2]
Tried downloading Y32 and I get "An invalid or no filename given." error for both 31 to 32 and Y to y32 versions.

So, where do I download Z from?

All You need to do is to copy standard LFS.exe which is in Z version. That's all.

For example:

You've got Your standard LFS in Z version, You want to update it to Z13. Just copy lfs.exe somewhere safe, and then update LFS. Whenever You will want to downgrade lfs, just overwrite lfs.exe with the old one .

I've uploaded my lfs.exe Z version here. I hope I can do that .

Btw. Do You have Athlon Barton 2500+? Overclocking them to 3200+ is quiet easy, i strongly recommend that (i had Barton 2500+ some time ago, and i've immediately overclocked it to 3200+).
Here's usefull link: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic16278.html

I've attached the exe to this mail.

This is why it says in bold text in the first post of this thread :

Please keep a backup of your LFS.exe from version Z so you can go back to Z if there are any problems.

Anyway, please let us know how you get on.

Yes, just found a local copy of the 132M Z, extracted only the exe, and just checked and it works. I'll update with the results after a while of playing online.

Perliminary update:
After more than an hour of online racing, no issues with Z. Now that I think of it, Z exhibits sort of start of this issue momentarily, like -0.1s-0.2s "hangs" (happened twice or so, but barely noticable), and it feels to me as if on z10/13 it would have developed to this slideshow/HD-noise thing, but it just recovers immidiatly and everything continues as normal. As much as I think of it, I can not assosiate it with a specific event (like user joining/disconnecting/lagging/etc). To me it just seems to happen rather randomly.

I'll try to race some more during the weekend and update further, but taking all info into account, I'd say that Z doesn't have this issue, or at least not in a disturbing way.

BTW, when I change Full screen/window (both Z and Z10/13), the frame rate drops to a crawl for few seconds and then recovers (tried on a replay but iirc it also happens online), occasionally with sound skips. It feels to me very similar to the effect I'm talking about in Z10/13, but it doesn't have the HD "grinding" noise. If you need I can post a short video taken with a cell phone of how it looks/sounds (the win/fullscn thing), it looks identical to the issue I'm talking about which happens during racing. It won't be today though.

When I try to think of reasons for this issue, garbage collection is something that might cause such apparently random resource usage. Though I used few graphics drivers, so I don't think it's it. Maybe GC within LFS?

avih:
Just thinking out load... With just 1GB of RAM you may be on the edge of what can be stored in-memory if a lot of background applications and services start up when Windows starts. Perhaps the memory usage has increased a bit from Z to Z13 causing Windows to swap more often. Further your HD may be badly fragmented which causes swapping to take even longer.

/Morten

Quote from avih :

Am I the only one experiencing this?

I've been having what I think is a similar problem recently while playing on my laptop, although I haven't noticed any HDD activity.
I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the test patches - I'll test with Z and Z10 later.

For me, the frame rate doesn't quite go down to 1fps - its usually 10-14 or so for a few seconds (It's normally 30-60 fps). Happens fairly regularly at certain points at Aston. I've installed parts of the realism pack that's been mentioned a few times recently, and I think that may be making it worse.

When the slowdowns happen, a lot of CPU is being used by a kernel process (red line in the usage graph) SYSTEM. Strange thing is, it's using the same core as LFS and not the other one...

As I said above, I'll see if I can glean some more info by testing it later with different versions etc, and maybe a clean install of LFS.


FYI, Laptop specs are:
Turion 64 x2 TL52 (1.6GHz), 2GB ram, onboard Radeon X1300 with 128mb dedicated memory, Vista 32 SP1.

I also get this problem. I checked in Z, and it does'nt happen.

Im driving along on a server, and it then suddenly slow's down to 3FPS or so, and my hard drive starts going berserk. Another interesting point, is it sometimes seems to do this on a certain part of the track. Lets say i come to T1, and it does it. If i manage to get out of this area, it speeds up again but sometimes when i get back to T1, it slows down again.

Its a very odd fault, and something i have never experienced in this game before.

Spec:
Q6600, Seagate Barricuda 500gb HD, nvidia 7600GS 256mb, 6GB ram (Corsair DDR3). Windows XP MCE

For notebook users. Some notebooks(if not all) have a special software which lowers cpu's power when it's temperature is too high(it also happens on my notebook).

For Nathan and Avih.. You both have GeForce 7600GS ... maybe overheating?

Quote from Nathan_French_14 :

I also get this problem. I checked in Z, and it does'nt happen.

Im driving along on a server, and it then suddenly slow's down to 3FPS or so, and my hard drive starts going berserk. Another interesting point, is it sometimes seems to do this on a certain part of the track. Lets say i come to T1, and it does it. If i manage to get out of this area, it speeds up again but sometimes when i get back to T1, it slows down again.

Its a very odd fault, and something i have never experienced in this game before.

Spec:
Q6600, Seagate Barricuda 500gb HD, nvidia 7600GS 256mb, 6GB ram (Corsair DDR3). Windows XP MCE

This happens whith Adaptive (NV calls it transparent i think) anti-aliasing. This is quite normal I guess, cause its a very ressource-needing thing. It happens on some points off the track, because there are much transparent textures there...

After a bit of testing:
Doesn't happen in Z or Z10
Doesn't happen in single player with only my car
Doesn't happen on my new PC (phenom II 955, 4890) with a cleanish LFS install

It's probably caused when the graphics (and cpu?) are being stressed. In the case of my laptop, the graphics may be accessing more memory (it can use system memory as well as its dedicated, but I have no way of confirming this).

Quote from Byku :

For Nathan and Avih.. You both have GeForce 7600GS ... maybe overheating?

I've checked temps, and there all fine. I've just ordered some new graphics cards, so ill see if that helps when they arrive.

Quote from AndreABG :

This happens whith Adaptive (NV calls it transparent i think) anti-aliasing. This is quite normal I guess, cause its a very ressource-needing thing. It happens on some points off the track, because there are much transparent textures there...

I dont have adaptive AA enabled, and i've also tryed it without any AA. It still does it. It does'nt do it on certain parts of the track, it always does it on random parts. Sometimes it wont do it for days, sometimes it will do it every couple of hours. Does'nt matter whether im in hotlapping mode, single player or multiplayer, it still does it.

The only time it does'nt do it was in Z, or any previous patches.

I have experienced that "bug" with Z10 on a laptop with 8400M GS. The problem was balanced performance mode in windows seven.

Quote from mobu :

avih:
Just thinking out load... With just 1GB of RAM you may be on the edge of what can be stored in-memory if a lot of background applications and services start up when Windows starts. Perhaps the memory usage has increased a bit from Z to Z13 causing Windows to swap more often. Further your HD may be badly fragmented which causes swapping to take even longer.

/Morten

I usually have plenty of RAM to spare, especially with all other apps closed and LFS isn't particularily heavy on resources. It's definitely not a CPU heat issue, it's on 37-41 (c) (both diod and the other cpu sensor) and I just recently cleaned and remounted the fan and it's well greased. The CPU temp is rock solid. The GFX card might be an issue, I'm not monitoring it (I did clean the fan recently and I don't use OC), I hate ntune. Might install it though for the test. However, the symptom is not of constant lower performance. It goes from 30-100 fps to 1-2 for few secs, and then back to normal (the sound skips and HDD working also seem unrelated to the gfx card). I'd expect a heated gfx card to run somewhat (but not as drastic) lower performance for considerably longer duration. It also seem unrelated to gfx settings (resolution/AA/AF/etc).

Also, it never happened with any other game, including HL2/e1/e2 which I recently played, and is much more demanding from the gfx card and system in general IMO.

I'll try to run process explorer in the background and log all processes cpu and memory usage, see if something interesting comes up. If there's any command line args to LFS to output a verbose events log, I can use them and save the log after I encounter the issue. Are there such args?

The important thing is though, it doesn't seem to happen in z, but it does on z10/13. As I said, I'll play some on Saturday with z and see if that is indeed the case.

Some more information while testing with replays only:

- Both z and z13 use about 270M of virtual memory although I once saw 400M usage (iirc with z, but it didn't happen again so I'm not sure it really was z). IMHO that's not enough to initiate swap usage on my 1G machine when all other apps closed.

- The full-screen/window change which results in very similar slowdown also occasionally exhibits the HD grinding noise, both z and z13, which might suggest that the issues are of similar origin. The symptoms really seem identical.

- Monitoring full-screen/window change using process explorer shows that windows explorer (the desktop manager process) consumes many cpu cycles for few seconds after changing the screen mode, possibly refreshing the desktop, which might also explain the HD usage while refreshing the icons. This coincide with the slowdown of LFS and it clearly shows on the graphs that LFS is going to near 0% cpu usage while explorer consumes the cpu.

- Elevating LFS process to above-normal priority (it's normal priority by default, and so is the explorer priority) solves the issue almost completely. Explorer still does it's stuff but since it's lower priority now than LFS, it takes longer to complete and LFS keeps using cpu cycles. Slight slowdown in LFS is noticable but far from the effect it exhibited in normal priority. Also, LFS is MUCH smoother in general with much less glitches (frame drops) when it runs in above-normal priority.

I still wanna play online for a considerable amount of time to see if I can come up with more concrete conclusions regarding the differences of z/z13 and the relation to explorer resource usage, specifically, if the slowdown in z13 normal-priority during play coincide with explorer activity burst.

Right now my guess would be that something triggers explorer activity, maybe more in z13 than in z. Regardless, elevating the LFS process priority shows promising results.

I'll keep this thread updated.

PS.
Trying to relate a desktop refresh to LFS, I have a shortcut to the sets directory of LFS on my desktop. This might be related, I'll try to relate to that parameter as well.

It looks you have something running in background. I would check carefully the system. The only strange thing is that it does not appear on other games...