I thought i would make my own thread instead of hijacking someone elses.

First of all, specs...

This is basically what my PC was.. http://support.packardbell.com ... ?pn=P700405101&g=1400

Except i have upgraded it with the parts below...

Sapphire HD2600 pro (AGP) GFX card.

1GB (2x512) DDR RAM (Mobo Max)

2x Pioneer DVR116D DVD RW drives (IDE)


Asus Vento case.

I know that it is far from a top of the range PC, but i am having serious FPS drops (see attached image) and im unsure as to why, as surely even with these specs it should be able to run a 20 car grid with all the graphics turned down to the performance setting and hold at least 50fps stable??

I have all the latest drivers for everything especially the GFX card, (the sapphire drivers seem to suit this PC better, the ATI ones were buggy) the PC is defragged and scanned for viruses and malware once a week, so i am running out of ideas.

So am i dreaming and this just isn't a good enough machine to do this, or does it sound like i have got a problem somewhere.

...what about other games, have you tested?

Tried testing your memory?

What is the CPU doing during, any abnormal large amounts of CPU time being used by other apps?

I havent really got many other games worth testing with as they are all well old games like carmageddon2 and stuff, quake 4 runs fine on maxxed out settings, as does that sinbin volvo game thing.

The only things i have running on here are the AV and the Firewall, as im running it very 'bare bones' to try and get a bit more performance out of it, and it isn't overclocked because my mobo won't support any of the OCing programs and its all locked off in the bios, believe me, i have tried!

As for memory, im not sure, is memtest the best thing to check it with?

My CPU sits at about 15-20% load if i am spectated, but i have just tested it with 20 AI's on BL1 with XFG's and it is indeed revving its tits off on the start grid and gives me 2fps, so it looks like the CPU can't cope with all the cars.

I tabbed out of LFS, started taskman, went back into LFS and started the 20 car race, then paused it at T1 where i crashed because it was a slideshow and impossible to drive properly, and then i print screened it.

Looks like the CPU is the bottleneck here then.

check your energy saving level, put it toward performance. if the computer is only using 13 percent if i remember, then it is not in-sufficient, check if there is a maximum fps set in the options.

about 15% when pitted or offline, with 20 racers an a grid the CPU was flat out at 100% for most of the time.

As for energy saving level, i can find no such options on XP SP3. If you mean System Properties > Advanced > Performance settings, then that is already set to 'adjust for best performance' anyway.


Not related to this, but i have just noticed something else, i know for a fact that my GFX card is AGP8x But my mobo is only 4x, is there a way to 'force' the board to run at 8x instead of 4x? sorry if its a stupid question but i dunno how agp speeds work.

Quote from danthebangerboy :

about 15% when pitted or offline, with 20 racers an a grid the CPU was flat out at 100% for most of the time.

As for energy saving level, i can find no such options on XP SP3. If you mean System Properties > Advanced > Performance settings, then that is already set to 'adjust for best performance' anyway.


Not related to this, but i have just noticed something else, i know for a fact that my GFX card is AGP8x But my mobo is only 4x, is there a way to 'force' the board to run at 8x instead of 4x? sorry if its a stupid question but i dunno how agp speeds work.

idk, but whats your ram? do you have memory on the hard drive left?

...sorry, don't ave a clue about 8x and 4x GFX thingimy, but if you say other games run with no problems I'd guess maybe there is something up with the folder you have LFS in or the likes...

Where is LFS?

Try run LFS on C:\ ...

Sorry, tis all I can think of atm...

Quote from logitekg25 :

idk, but whats your ram? do you have memory on the hard drive left?

I have 1gb ram, which isn't a lot i know, my pagefile (virtual mem) is set to 2048mb, so loads, and as for free space, i have a 74gb hard disk and i have 45gb free space, so loads.

Quote from danthebangerboy :

My CPU sits at about 15-20% load if i am spectated, but i have just tested it with 20 AI's on BL1 with XFG's and it is indeed revving its tits off on the start grid and gives me 2fps, so it looks like the CPU can't cope with all the cars.

AI are heavy on the CPU use... i've had decent performance using 10... do you really need 20 of them? and i wouldn't equate a 20 AI grid to a 20 real-person grid either...

the specs you posted neglected to tell us what CPU you have, unless i'm being blind.

do a lap with 1 AI then with 5 and finally with 10. observe the CPU usage each time.

that way you will know if it's the cpu due to the AIs

Oh yeah, oops, the processor is a pentium 4 2.53ghz (socket478, so old!)

With regard to GFX cards, im kinda limited as its an old board i have got, so it can only take AGP/IDE devices, no SATA or PCI-e for me.

Ill try and find an online host with about the same kinda grid and moniter the usage.

Quote from danthebangerboy :

Oh yeah, oops, the processor is a pentium 4 2.53ghz (socket478, so old!)

With regard to GFX cards, im kinda limited as its an old board i have got, so it can only take AGP/IDE devices, no SATA or PCI-e for me.

Ill try and find an online host with about the same kinda grid and moniter the usage.

A quick fix would be to set out a list of apps needed running for a barebones system leaving only what you really need running whilst driving LFS.

Post a list of the msconfig startup tab, running processes and active services(services.msc).

Have you got a second PC in the house doing nothing on the same network? If so why no run a dedi LFS host on it? Sure beats trying to have your PC handle the AI

get more ram sometime i guess

a p4 can't handle 20 bots.

that's about it.

Quote from CSU1 :

A quick fix would be to set out a list of apps needed running for a barebones system leaving only what you really need running whilst driving LFS.

Post a list of the msconfig startup tab, running processes and active services(services.msc).

Here is the three attached images of msconfig, processes and services, i think i have got it running fairly 'barebones' already tho.

As for getting more RAM, sadly not an option, as this board will not accept anything bigger than a 512mb chip in each slot, and as it only has 2 slots, the 1gb i have is the max.

According to the gigabyte website the board can alledgedly take 1gb in each slot, whereas the packard bell site says it can only take 512mb, or 1gb total memory, but i have tried with various speed and spec 1gb sticks and no matter what combinations i have tried, as soon as i go over 1gb total RAM the PC will not boot and the motherboard beeps.

If you're using any custom textures/texture packs/addons/whatever, try with a clean LFS install and see if you have the same problems. I've had issues with some textures causing random FPS drops

I have got a standard version of lfs with all standard textures and its pretty much the same, i might gain about 2 fps in comparison to running lynces real reflection pack but when it drops to 2fps in that version, those extra 2 i gain in the standard version don't really make it any more driveable!

you don't have a cpu powerful enough for 20 AIs.

that's it.

I know that george, but what i didn't know is that 20 AIs doesnt equate to 20 other online drivers.

I did a test with a 24 car grid online on the CAD server running south city and it is much the same unfortunately.

I know that they made the socket478 pentium 4 CPU upto a speed of 3.2ghz, would it be worth getting one, as its gonna be cheaper than a new PC.

He's not talking only about AIs, but also about FPS drops in multiplayer mode.

I have a Pentium 4 2.66GHz (socket 478, just like yours), 2x512Mb RAM and a Radeon X1650Pro (which is slower than yours), my mobo supports agp 4x only and still I don't have any problem on LFS, sometimes I can get over 100 fps on westhill, for example (I limit it to 70 tho), I really have no problem with this processor. I also play some other games like GRID and Dead Space, also I have no problem with them.

The only reason that I can't think of is some bug in your windows, have you tried reformatting it?

Yeah, it was done when the HDD died about a month or so back, and after a reinstall and replacement HDD (i had an identical spare) the PC is running overall a lot faster and better than before the crash, but LFS seems to struggle.

I just checked and i can't use the 3.2ghz CPU with this board anyway, because the FSB speed of my board is set to 400mhz and can't be changed, and the bigger CPU needs to be run at an FSB speed of 800mhz.

Did you check the temperatures? Overheating may also cause it. Not only on the processor, but also on your GPU.
My sister has a Celeron 2.5 Socket 478 and prescott cores are well-known overheaters.
Mine's a northwood, 28ºC in idle and 35ºC in full load.

Im not sure of my temps, i will go download pc wizard again and have a look.

EDIT: PC wizard results..

CPU Idle temp is 29 degrees

GPU idle is 54 degrees

CPU full loaded (just after benchmark test) 55 degrees

GPU full loaded (just after benchmark test) 56 degrees

I have attached both benchmark graphics, because TBH i don't understand what any of it means


As i mentioned earlier, all settings voltages and speeds are stock, because no utility in the world that i can find will allow me to overclock or adjust anything.

physics calculations still need to be done, methinks.

it's not the "driving thinking" that the cpu needs to do. it's the physics engine.

and just so that you don't get the wrong impression that i just want to be a buzzkill

you can get 2GB of ddr266 on it working, maybe, but it (the extra GB) won't help lfs. if you manage to use higher clocked ram (ddr333 is the max that chipset supports and i'm talking about 2x512 now) and drop the latencies, you might gain a bit of performance. also, the fastest cpu that mobo supposedly supports is the 2.6 northwood which is not any faster than your current cpu.

may i suggest you sell this pc for peanuts and with those peanuts buy a new one?

a phenom II x2 even the cheapest one that is like 65 gbp is leaps and bounds faster than what you have
coupled with a mobo that supports ddr3 (100gbp) you will

• have a shinny new machine
  
• get faster performance even with on board gpu
  
• be open to upgrades later on
  

just sayin'

i cant do anything else here...i am not a techie