Quote from jonny__27 :

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.

And it seems to me that you only read the title....

Quote from SamH :

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!...

Sam,
from a moderator I would be expecting more friendly attitude - I really did not like the phrase about fooling myself and the cable part. Please stop trying to make an ididot from me. I had always respect for you being neutral all the time yet you had to dissapointed me .

I am not such a guys who dont understand things around the PC. Also you probably did not read all my reports/test I did above. As I said I really dont care if its 100 or 500FPS...whatsoever. I have read a lot of as well I know quite well and from my experience as well that I can not see difference between 60 FPS and more. My point was that for me it looks there is something buggy with LFS as my FPS went after upgrade with every game much higher while in LFS I got even a small decrease of perfomance which is suspicious.

Also I said my FPS in online went also with Win7 RC1 much higher(basically doubled at least) and that what really matters here. The problem is that it did not happend in Win XP SP3.

When I made the compersion especially in offline part of the game to rule out also CPU being fluctuated by any network glitches or what so ever.

Quote from MijnWraak :

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

Well in a certain way you are right but why in other games I can simply see the difference while LFS failed to do so?

I would like to say that I rule out LFS to be causing the issue but no matter options I tried it simply did not work and no change with FPS in LFS with new system on Win XP SP3.

It's possible that it's caused by XP not handling the threads very well on a system with more cores or a different architecture than before - particularly as LFS is a fairly CPU intensive multi-threaded (but not parallel threaded) program. LFS is more CPU intensive than most games and is usually CPU limited rather than graphics limited.

Vista and especially W7 are programmed with multi-core and modern architectures in mind and usually perform better with such programs as LFS.


Off topic:

Quote from SamH :

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!...

On that subject, take a look at >> this, <<especially all the comments that praise it

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Sam,
from a moderator I would be expecting more friendly attitude - I really did not like the phrase about fooling myself and the cable part. Please stop trying to make an ididot from me. I had always respect for you being neutral all the time yet you had to dissapointed me .

I didn't think I was being unfriendly and I wasn't trying to make an idiot out of you. I was just pointing out some facts. What I said about FPS is true, and I think that it's important not to obsess about things that don't make a difference.

Finding what is causing the drop in reported framerate is a worthy cause but I think it's very important to keep in context what the impact of the drop really is.. and a drop of 100fps from 500 to 400fps is genuinely not pivotal to the visual operation of LFS on a 2009 monitor. ANY monitor. That drop would be proportionate to my Celeron D dropping from 100fps to 80fps. Believe me, it drops a lot more than that sometimes.

Stating what I think and how I feel.. that's what I do, I'm afraid. I'm not neutral.. I'm just me

Whooo, SamH is a person, not a robot

Quote from hotmail :

Whooo, SamH is a person, not a robot

WHAT!?!?!?
this is news to me. Why didn't you tell me that before I slept wi-- nevermind.

Quote from SamH :

I didn't think I was being unfriendly and I wasn't trying to make an idiot out of you. I was just pointing out some facts. What I said about FPS is true, and I think that it's important not to obsess about things that don't make a difference.

Finding what is causing the drop in reported framerate is a worthy cause but I think it's very important to keep in context what the impact of the drop really is.. and a drop of 100fps from 500 to 400fps is genuinely not pivotal to the visual operation of LFS on a 2009 monitor. ANY monitor. That drop would be proportionate to my Celeron D dropping from 100fps to 80fps. Believe me, it drops a lot more than that sometimes.

Thanks for clearing that about your attitude. Written things can have sometimes more meaing unfortunately.

I think you did not read my last reply carefully also about the online FPS not improving otherwise you would still not repeat the 100-500 FPS thing.I dont want any heated discussion as this would be really pointelss and not hleping the things. I just reported the issue which I bealive might be LFS related. Thats all.

I think really good thing to start with would be to try in some test patch how behave the LFS with minimu sleep set at 0ms under the windows XP SP3 here. Just an idea sure there might be something else in LFS or it can be totally something different however nobody suggested anything what I did not try yet and would fix the issue.


EDIT: some suggestion came to me via PM about sound card and the respective drivers. Tried different drivers as well as to disable the sound card in bios. No change in windows XP SP3. The frame rates are still half compared to Win7 RC1. The offline play is something which really does not bother me but as the online FPS showing low under XP SP3. No gain against my old system.

Hi,just a quick one,I recently upgraded fron a AMD 6000+X2 to a Phenom II X4 BE and had a HUGE increase in fps and general performance,300+ fps,everything maxed,hi_def etc,etc,magic stuff,LFS loved it!!!!!! Doc.......

First time i've seen a guy say something nice in his first post

I can see differense about fps from 0fps to 100fps but over that...man it just wastes my eyes, so I have putted 100fps

Quote from SamH :

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.

Not strictly true.
Yes, it is meaningless visually above a certain point, but it may make sense regarding the controller polling frequency. Not necessarily talking about LFS, but most sims' controller polling/FFB frequency is linked to fps. That can still mean a tiny difference above the visually meaningful range.

Quote from Falcon77 :

Not strictly true.
Yes, it is meaningless visually above a certain point, but it may make sense regarding the controller polling frequency. Not necessarily talking about LFS, but most sims' controller polling/FFB frequency is linked to fps. That can still mean a tiny difference above the visually meaningful range.

That seems like a really bad way to do things. Have you got any articles or links as proof for that statement?

Quote from amp88 :

That seems like a really bad way to do things. Have you got any articles or links as proof for that statement?

It does seem like an odd concept, but I don't know of a much better way to do it..

Quote from Falcon77 :

It does seem like an odd concept, but I don't know of a much better way to do it..

Have the graphics and controller inputs on different threads (so they're independent of each other)? That way you can receive controller inputs even if you can't show the controller input in the graphics. The internal game model will still take account of the controller input though.

Quote from amp88 :

Have the graphics and controller inputs on different threads (so they're independent of each other)? That way you can receive controller inputs even if you can't show the controller input in the graphics. The internal game model will still take account of the controller input though.

Yes, with the current multicore CPUs it does make more sense than before. But you will have to synchronize and make sense of a lot more complicated situation. It *seems* like a better idea but when you try to code it it may turn out to be not really worth it. I'm not saying it cannot be done intelligently, but consider this:

The fps rate will render the sim undrivable if it falls too low. You have a 1 frame lag during which you are driving in the dark, it does not make a too big difference in overall usability if you have multiple samples of the input during that time.
On the other hand, if you have very high fps, it doesn't make sense to poll the controller *less* frequently than the fps rate. In any case, you would want to do it as frequently as possible, why limit it if doesn't harm anything else?

Quote from Falcon77 :

Yes, with the current multicore CPUs it does make more sense than before.

Even with single core CPUs threading is a massively important process. The invention of multicore CPUs has brought the issue more into the public's eye, but threading was used long before that. Even with a single core CPU you can do multiple things at the same time (e.g. listen to an mp3 and drive in LFS).

Quote from Falcon77 :

But you will have to synchronize and make sense of a lot more complicated situation.

Synchronisation isn't really that complicated an issue, especially for game developers. They already need to think about such things as multiplayer racing where the issue of synchronisation is more important.

Quote from Falcon77 :

It *seems* like a better idea but when you try to code it it may turn out to be not really worth it. I'm not saying it cannot be done intelligently, but consider this:

The fps rate will render the sim undrivable if it falls too low. You have a 1 frame lag during which you are driving in the dark, it does not make a too big difference in overall usability if you have multiple samples of the input during that time.
On the other hand, if you have very high fps, it doesn't make sense to poll the controller *less* frequently than the fps rate. In any case, you would want to do it as frequently as possible, why limit it if doesn't harm anything else?

I don't really understand the point you're trying to make. What I'm trying to say is that the controller input and the graphic display don't need to rely on each other. I think what you're trying to say is that if you can't see the result of your inputs (because of too much FPS lag) then those inputs should be ignored until the FPS has improved. Is that right?

DEVIL 007: some math:
60 FPS = 16.6666..ms per frame
120 FPS = 8.3333..ms per frame
300 FPS = 3.3333..ms per frame

Most of the internal OS timers/thread switching/interrupts are often running in 1ms to 10ms period, rarely under 1ms, i.e. having application running above 100Hz with MS Windows (or any other ordinary desktop OS) can lead to a bit unpredictable results with serious degree of variation.
For 100+Hz applications it's usually very sane to switch to some real-time OS. Which doesn't make sense for computer game.

So you are measuring something what can be disturbed by so many tiny factors, it's difficult to tell. It may be AMD vs Intel optimizations in gfx driver, it may be AMD vs Intel optimizations inside Win XP threading, it may be some motherboard/bridge/OS communication taking a 1ms longer here and there...

I think you need to run the game engine under 60-100 FPS to measure performance of HW reliably, i.e. your HW is too powerful for this and there's no point for Scawen to solve this. If there's some additional performance needed, it's for that HW which can't run at steady 60-85FPS and I bet Scawen will focus on that, if he will have some spare time to work on optimizations.

Sorry for the late reply.

I would like to emphasize that I'm not claiming that the 'one-poll-per-frame' method would be the better solution, only that going more sophisticated may not be worth it for the developer/the issue itself.

Quote from amp88 :

Even with single core CPUs threading is a massively important process. The invention of multicore CPUs has brought the issue more into the public's eye, but threading was used long before that. Even with a single core CPU you can do multiple things at the same time (e.g. listen to an mp3 and drive in LFS).

Of course, multitasking makes sense. But there is a cost of a thread switch and as Ped7g wrote threading has a rather coarse granularity when we're looking at the millisec level.
Also it is not irrelevant whether the two threads are dependent on each other or not. In the case of controller polling/physics/frame display, they are not as independent as to have no effect on each other.

Quote :

Synchronisation isn't really that complicated an issue, especially for game developers. They already need to think about such things as multiplayer racing where the issue of synchronisation is more important.

That game developers need to solve difficult synchronization issues, is true of course. Multiplayer sync is a very good example.
But in general, it is not true that synchronization isn't that complicated, and game developers are not normally über-developers just because they happen to code games (Scavier being obvious exceptions, of course :tilt.
In general, one tries to tackle the programming tasks with the simplest solution that provides the expected results, that is the idea anyway. LFS is actually a good example as far as I can tell of a cautious approach: there are a lot of quite simple solutions in the engine (that make sense at the same time) and Scawen makes sure he really understands what he's doing when he goes deeper into something.

Quote :

I don't really understand the point you're trying to make. What I'm trying to say is that the controller input and the graphic display don't need to rely on each other. I think what you're trying to say is that if you can't see the result of your inputs (because of too much FPS lag) then those inputs should be ignored until the FPS has improved. Is that right?

No, I'm not saying that they should be ignored. I'm saying there is not much practical difference if you ignore them or not. I'm also saying that there is sense in the polling being connected somewhat to the frame rate, although one or more polls per frame is a different question.
Would have more to say but gotta go now..

Quote from Ped7g :

DEVIL 007: some math:
60 FPS = 16.6666..ms per frame
120 FPS = 8.3333..ms per frame
300 FPS = 3.3333..ms per frame

Most of the internal OS timers/thread switching/interrupts are often running in 1ms to 10ms period, rarely under 1ms, i.e. having application running above 100Hz with MS Windows (or any other ordinary desktop OS) can lead to a bit unpredictable results with serious degree of variation.
For 100+Hz applications it's usually very sane to switch to some real-time OS. Which doesn't make sense for computer game.

So you are measuring something what can be disturbed by so many tiny factors, it's difficult to tell. It may be AMD vs Intel optimizations in gfx driver, it may be AMD vs Intel optimizations inside Win XP threading, it may be some motherboard/bridge/OS communication taking a 1ms longer here and there...

I think you need to run the game engine under 60-100 FPS to measure performance of HW reliably, i.e. your HW is too powerful for this and there's no point for Scawen to solve this. If there's some additional performance needed, it's for that HW which can't run at steady 60-85FPS and I bet Scawen will focus on that, if he will have some spare time to work on optimizations.

The issue I mentioned in this thread only happening in LFS to me. I tried untill now to find out many ways to solve it but nothing. Not sure if this some sort of glitch between LFS and Win XP or anything else but Win7 simply solved it.

I did not notice in any other games such a behaviour. Not something really big to look at but maybe,maybe worth to spend some time later on. Thats up to Scawen to decide. My only purpose of this thread was just to report this.

This problem maybe your gfx card & drivers supports dx10 xp supports dx9 windows 7 supports dx11...
I have same card(q9550 cpu,win 7), getting 320fps (@2xAA & 16xAS & 1680x1050x75hzx32bit) while stopping bl gp pole position in car view then limiting to 85fps i think thats the ideal for both single&multiplayer setup you can try
I think all games need %5-%10 gpu power surge for multiplayer fps drops...

Thats true, i was making video with :
Amd Cemprom (or whatever) @ 2800 Processor
1GB Ram
Nvidia FX5200 128mb
And i dont even get 1 fps down than not recording...
now i have
Amd athlon 3200+ @ 2.0Ghz
3.50GB Ram
Nvidia 9600GT 512mb
and i didnt upload video because i cannot make one... to much lag