Hi,

I already posted that at the end of Patch Z13 thread.I really see some strange behaviour with my new system on LFS. Its around 10 percent in FPS drop. I changed A64 3200+ to Phenom II X3 720. Its actually a change from single core 2Ghz processor to triple core 2.8 Ghz and the new architecutre is even much faster per clock and using just single core.

I got huge boost in every other game but it somehow struggle. Tried 3 fresh installs(actually six because swithing the old mother board with odl CPU and memory and then the new mother board + CPU + memory) and tested various games including LFS and always the same. LFS went down other games so much higher. Not sure what it might be :-(.

Sorry if this wrong thread but I can not ping point to anything then just LFS.

Scawen,
Please could be possible with some test patch give back 0ms Minimum sleep.Just for testing because it might be really interesting. I got idea (might be totally worng ofcourse from my side)that 1ms and anything above significantly holding the CPU and hence possibility of the strange behaviour. Just an idea. It might be something else in LFS ofcourse. Maybe something eveb different but I can not narrow it anywhere else.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Hi,

I already posted that at the end of Patch Z13 thread.I really see some strange behaviour with my new system on LFS. Its around 10 percent in FPS drop. I changed A64 3200+ to Phenom II X3 720. Its actually a change from single core 2Ghz processor to triple core 2.8 Ghz and the new architecutre is even much faster per clock and using just single core.

I got huge boost in every other game but it somehow struggle. Tried 3 fresh installs and tested various games including LFS and always the same. LFS went down other games so much higher. Not sure what it might be :-(.

Sorry if this wrong thread but I can not ping point to anything then just LFS.

have you tried running without the speed stepping (cool n quiet)? or is there an option to make it game dependent? (i'm not using it, so i can just guess)

Did you even try the thing i suggested?

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=1208786#post1208786

Well I run with CnQ disabled because then my CPU stay at 800Mhz all the time and I get like 30-50 percent drops on LFS. It sucks.

The issue I mentioned above when my CPU it at full speed(no CnQ enabled). The 10 percent drop doesnt make sense to me even if the both CPU would be same fast clock per clock which is not the case. The new CPU is faster per clock and has even +800Mhz more.

Really odd.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Well I run with CnQ disabled because then my CPU stay at 800Mhz all the time and I get like 30-50 percent drops on LFS. It sucks.

The issue I mentioned above when my CPU it at full speed(no CnQ enabled). The 10 percent drop doesnt make sense to me even if the both CPU would be same fast clock per clock which is not the case. The new CPU is faster per clock and has even +800Mhz more.

Really odd.

How about if you have a lot of cars on screen and LFS is paused (so using very little CPU). If you can compare the same scene on the old and new computers (if the old one still works). And what graphics cards are being used in the old and new computers - I think you have only mentioned the CPU.

Also, you say an FPS drop, but what sort of frame rates are you getting?

Hi Scawen,

thanks for coming back so late.You should get some sleep:-)
Back to topic.I did a lot of tests between these systems several times. I dont have actually 2 standalone systems. I just change mobo+CPU+RAM and always do format and clean install. The graphic card remain the same and its ATI 4870 512MB ram.

The odd is that online I get more FPS but offline I get less when driving alone on Blackwood with XFG( view on wheels).Same on other tracks. In some places same in some I get with better CPU less. As I said the difference is around 10 percent worst maybe a little bit more on the new system and it go really down more then 10 percent(went from around 200 to almost 140FPS) at the place in attached picture. Same behaviour around the whole track. Some places seems same and some worst. Odd and dont know what it could be as the installas of XP are always fresh so it seems not the software related on my side, nor hardware as I mentioend when testing other games there is significant boost.

Well I wanted to report that even the FPS seems really nice and high as I consider this a bit strange behaviour.

The one with CnQ enabled and LFS cant stress the CPU to switch it to higher power state I consider more a AMD driver bug but still other games dont behave like that.

I did not mentioned earlier that I am using FRAPS to see the FPS as the FPS meter in LFS seems to showing not consisten values. It just jump pretty quickly a bit up and down so its not to possile to correctly read the FPS value at any time.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Hi Scawen,

thanks for coming back so late.You should get some sleep:-)
Back to topic.I did a lot of tests between these systems several times. I dont have actually 2 standalone systems. I just change mobo+CPU+RAM and always do format and clean install. The graphic card remain the same and its ATI 4870 512MB ram.

The odd is that online I get more FPS but offline I get less when driving alone on Blackwood with XFG( view on wheels).Same on other tracks. In some places same in some I get with better CPU less. As I said the difference is around 10 percent worst maybe a little bit more on the new system and it go really down more then 10 percent(went from around 200 to almost 140FPS) at the place in attached picture. Same behaviour around the whole track. Some places seems same and some worst. Odd and dont know what it could be as the installas of XP are always fresh so it seems not the software related on my side, nor hardware as I mentioend when testing other games there is significant boost.

Well I wanted to report that even the FPS seems really nice and high as I consider this a bit strange behaviour.

The one with CnQ enabled and LFS cant stress the CPU to switch it to higher power state I consider more a AMD driver bug but still other games dont behave like that.

I did not mentioned earlier that I am using FRAPS to see the FPS as the FPS meter in LFS seems to showing not consisten values. It just jump pretty quickly a bit up and down so its not to possile to correctly read the FPS value at any time.

try 16 bit resolution, mostly it helps with fraps <-> LFS issues

Quote from Trekkerfahrer :

try 16 bit resolution, mostly it helps with fraps <-> LFS issues

That change nothing.

DEVIL 007:
IIRC the outer loop of the LFS physics engine runs at 100Hz. Whether that has much to do with it I'm not sure, but anything above that and LFS is just drawing duplicate frames and stressing the graphics more.
If you set affinity to a single core, what % of that core is it using? If affinity is set to all cores, what overall % CPU is LFS using? This should help us determine if it's the CPU being the limiting factor, or something else.

Thats what I have tried as well already and here are the results which I have tested on BL GP track again today with just 1 car(Ai):

When no afinity is set to specific core Task bar monitor is showing around 25 percent CPU usage. Core temp can be more specific showing individual core usage and it showing LFS jumping between the cores and one of the cores is always get basically unused(showing 0-5 percent usage).

Setting the afinity to just one of the core for LFS giving following results and something suprised me here today!!!. Even I set the afinity to 3rd core the following happend:

1st core still get used (why?) ; 2nd core is jumping between 0-5 percent ; 3rd core for which the afinity was choosed for LFS is showing 35-50 percent.
Same strange behaviour is happening when setting the afinity to just 1 of any of the cores. LFS is still using 2 core apparently and 1 is always left unused.

Also regarding the graphic card. There is no change in FPS if I change the AA/AF or resolution down or up. My monitor has possibility to go 1 step but streching the picture just to the middle. I wanted to mentioned about LCD because somebody might asking how is possible on 22"LCD which has native resolution 1680*1050 to go to 1900*1200. I can set for example lower resolution of 4:3 and my monitor is capable not to strech the picture just fill the screen to aspect ratio.

Seems something is holding up LFS on this new system but dunno what. As I described in every other games I got huge boost in FPS.
As I said its really strange the FPS are basically a bit lower. A64 comparing to Phenom II is much slower clock per clock and I have even 800Mhz more now. It looks from looking at the CPU usage that LFS is simply not able to enough use CPU power when the CPU usage never goes above 50-55 on this new system when afinity is set to just one of the cores. Isnt is the cause here the Minimum sleep set to 1ms and not allowing to change it to 0ms? Just an idea as I mentioned already. Sorry if I seems going in circles a but I feel a bit confused by this several strange behaviours and not able to narrow it to anything. Maybe Scawen would be able to find something by my reporting....hopefully. Not a big deal but maybe it would help to clean something in the code(possible bug) or even to dig more performance from LFS.


Also I dont bealive that LFS is drawing multiple frames. How would be possible then that Blackwood would be showing for me 120-230FPS from wheel view and Westhill up to 330. Another thing is why the FPS is jumping so much between both values and FPS behaviour does not change when I set resolution higher or lower. I would expecting as LFS seems not to be graphically limited on my card (I really dont bealive it is) that the FPS would be more steady.

Scawen,
did you start implementing some multithreading(even by something you did and you dont know that it might caused LFS going to multicore - sorry might be stupid questions/idea. Just trying really to find what is going on here) to LFS which might causing some of this strange behaviours.

EDIT:
One more notice. When I move the LFS down to desktop by ALT+TAB then LFS usuage get like max 12 percent only on 1 core and then rest of the cores jumping between 0-3 percents.As I understood the physic calculation still going on even LFS being moved to desktop as the Ai cars simply moving on the track. LFS cant even use single core CPU by more then 12 percent or I am missing something here?

When the LFS in full screen the usage goes much higher but still cant get over 55 percent even when afinity is set to just one of the cores. I am lost to be honest is it does not make sense to me all these things. Sorry if I sound stupid Scawen but I simply does see the reason why LFS can fully use CPU nor graphic card.

1st picture showing LFS usage when running in full screen or SHIFT+F4 and 2nd when I ALT+TAB LFS from full screen.
3rd picture is showing GPU usage on BL GP track with 6 Ai in 3 laps race. When it showing around 10 percent thats when I move LFS to desktop by ALT+TAB.

Just my observation not that it would have to be like that but looking at the pictures my self seems it seems something is not optimized.

AFAIK, LFS does not do any parallel processing. When affinity is set to several cores, it shows usage on more than one core because (I think) lfs.exe calls external modules/system calls which the OS assigns to a different core. lfs.exe can't use more of its core because it is 'paused' when the external calls are running.

I have a feeling that LFS physics will rarely need to use a full core on a Phenom II - on my pc (phenomII X4 955), lfs.exe rarely uses more than about 10-18% total CPU. Strangely, it seems to be at 250.0fps nearly all the time in windowed mode - there's probably a (sensible) software limit somewhere.

Well I know LFs cant use more then one CPU core, nothing new here but thanks for trying. Still your post does not answer all the above I have mentioned.

DEVIL 007, do you have IE6 running in background? It sometimes takes up to 99% CPU. Get real browser like Fx 3.5 or Opera 10.

Did you check the pictures above I posted. You can see even IE running but the CPU usage is low. Of course I did most of the comparsion test even without anything then LFS running and switching off the antivirus software/firewall.

I am using same combination of software when I switch the hardware so I am pretty sure I rule out the software issue. Also as I said in other games I get significant boost. This seems to me really LFS related.

Hi Scawen & all,

You will not bealive but I tried just for curiosity to install Win7 RC1 and guess what. My FPS doubled on new system. So where I had at start on BL track like 160-170 FPS I have now 333 FPS and on some parts of the track even 400+ and some places almost 500!!! :eek:. Its insane but who really care if I can not see in reallity the difference between 60 or 500 but the more important thing my online FPS doubled as well!!!. I was sometime going to 30-40 FPS at start but now I am not moving below 100. I wanted nice smooth frames.

Now the puzzle is what is really causing the issue with better system being slow in LFS with XP. As I said several times other games run fine in XP SP3 and had huge boost in FPS with new system. Only LFS failed to do so. Any idea someone?

I dont think its the system it self but only two options in my view. Graphic driver or LFS itself.
However i tried different drivers and the odd performance drop or basically not gain at all was same using different drivers. I dont want to point to LFS but it looks like that.

Need to find now if my older wheel will work with Win7 RC1.

EDIT:
Found interesting behaviour of LFS in Win7 RC1 with enabling virtual mirror.
For example at BL start line when enabling the FPS drop from 330 to 260. At T1 without mirror the FPS is 427 while with mirror its 500. something weird is happening. Its always reproducable and also on other tracks. Tried westhill and same behaviour with those virtual mirrors.

EDIT 2:
Testing more...
Tried to install newer driver using windows update but got less LFS (10-15 percent) so reverted back to 8.56.1.13 version using rool back function under device manager.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Now the puzzle is what is really causing the issue with better system being slow in LFS with XP. As I said several times other games run fine in XP SP3 and had huge boost in FPS with new system. Only LFS failed to do so. Any idea someone?

I think you are capable of understanding that Scawen has loads more important work to do than figuring out why you have 10% FPS drop! It's not like you can't play LFS @ 140FPS!

Quote from Renku :

I think you are capable of understanding that Scawen has loads more important work to do than figuring out why you have 10% FPS drop! It's not like you can't play LFS @ 140FPS!

That was not my point or probably I did not make it clear.
Did you read my latest report re the Win 7 RC1 performance. My online FPS doubled at least. I was struggeling even with better computer.

Something looks simply not right to me. I was not complainig or whinigh about my FPS. The main point was that the new computer configuration being superiour to the old should give much better performance and not to leading to 10-15percent drop.

Just trying to help here.

DEVIL 007, in XP, go to Control Panel > Power Options > High Performance, also disable Cool 'n' Quiet.

I isad CnQ is disabled in windows as well in Bios and I never use other the high performance profile. Thats not the issue with windows XP.
As I said I tried to rule out all the possibility of the above odd perrfomance in XP by disabling every power saving features and simillar things.

Did you install on WinXP every specific driver from the MB manafacturer???

Most of the windows just uses general drivers which in some cases can show unusual behaviours in terms of performance and strange crashes.

Try to check the motherboard site for updated drivers for your chipset.

All,
nice suggestions but I dont how to make it more clean that I ruled out software issues. I am not instllating PC hardware first time, I am actually builduing like every month at least one PC including software as well.

I had all latest drivers for mobo,CPU,graphic card. Also tried older version of graphic card.


EDIT: Scawen, please would you be able to look at this performance "issue" at some time? I fully understand that there are more important things on your list to do and these must be finished first. I think there is something really wrong with LFS and might cause issue with performance on some faster PC. Maybe this investigation could help to gain some more pefromance out of LFS. If you need anything more then let me know. As first idea I got the minimu sleep value to be tested with 0ms.

Let me Qoute some thing (from a research)

Quote :

your brain can detect flickering till 60 frames per second

So in other words , why the hell would you worry about it is droping between 350~500, and btw everybody got that, because there is no way that a system can be stable at a that high-end speeds,

This has got nothing to do with lfs, it has got to do with gaming in general,

Look: I am easy touching 550, 580 fps in lfs, and sometimes i am touching 170, But i Dont care , because i know (my brains know) that i cant use more then 60!. And like i said before, i got the same in Counter Strike, CoD 4, etc..

(btw: funny qoute in your Signature)

Just to add to that, whatever framerate is being reported by LFS/FRAPS, the framerate being delivered to your eye is whatever Hz your monitor is running at. If your graphics card is cranking out 500fps but your monitor is running at 85Hz, then ONLY 85fps will pour out of your monitor. Anything FPS, in excess of the number of Hz, is just wasted cycles.

[edit] That also means that, unless you don't have frames locked to Hz, and have that ugly tearing going on (which nobody in their right mind would volunteer for), if you THINK you can see the difference between 400fps and 500fps, you're fooling yourself. BUT, if you're interested, I have some audio cables for sale, with carbo-goldium tipped connectors for £600, which will DOUBLE the quality of the audio out of your stereo.. and you'll definitely hear the difference!...

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

I dont how to make it more clean that I ruled out software issues.

Obviously not, because an operating system is software and changing it doubled your FPS.

Quote from hotmail :

Let me Qoute some thing (from a research)



So in other words , why the hell would you worry about it is droping between 350~500, and btw everybody got that, because there is no way that a system can be stable at a that high-end speeds,

This has got nothing to do with lfs, it has got to do with gaming in general,

Look: I am easy touching 550, 580 fps in lfs, and sometimes i am touching 170, But i Dont care , because i know (my brains know) that i cant use more then 60!. And like i said before, i got the same in Counter Strike, CoD 4, etc..

(btw: funny qoute in your Signature)

It seems to me you failed to realize the point of DEVIL 007's thread.

Seriously, I don't care if it was 500, 60, 5 or even 64783465453 FPS. Point is, if you buy some new, improved components, you would expect an increase of performance, but in this case it actually decreased.