The Devs spend more time working around hardware constraints than developing the sim itself. I saw a thread the other day 'LFS doesn't work on my geforce 6200!' Im not bloody surprised its a pathetic card capable of little by modern standards.
LFS really needs to get with the times & leave the old we must support ancient hardware theme behind. For informations sake a dual core cpu can be picked up for as little as £25 & an 8 series nvidia for £15 these days.
Please dont look backwards, go with the flow.
I must say, thats one thing i disagree with LFS and agree with you on.
Content and blah blah blah and all that stuff everyone is crying about means jack all, i think ill muck around with the VWS and get back to the FO8, BF1 and FZR within an hour. Gameplay and performance is whats important.
No disrespect the LFS dev team, i can appreciate the new car and all, but in my opinion (which i assume all the guys here would disagree), the VWS was and is a waste of time. Interiors/model/track updates, physics, sounds would have made any car on LFS unforgettable. The cars are great, the physics are, the tracks are, i think LFS just lacks abit of new age tech. A car im not a fan of is the XFR, and if you upped the damage, the sound, the tracks, and just the general feel and realism of it, i guess id become a nigal and my social life would be ruined, no joke. At the end of the day, when your listening to poor sounds after 100 laps in a slow car and the feel is, not all there.. you do get abit bored. Yet when im on my kart (yes i know its real life), sometimes i get angry because the track is closing up. When you got that real feel, you wont want to get off the track.
I currently dont have a wheel nor cockpit at the moment, but when i do, ill still play LFS and treat it like a sim. Guys complain about content, because they know nothing what its like in real life. Still to this day, me and my brother try to out lap each other around city long in the bf1 using a mouse...
But, all in all, its the Devs vision, not mine, their plan is to do what they are doing, good for them.
*sorry for the bad gramma and all, blame the alcomahole *
Well that's pretty interesting isn't it, nice to hear a tidbit like that. Although as stated elsewhere in the thread the req'd specs weren't mentioned, I tend to think that it's due to trying to maintain the current minimum spec requirement... After all it's pretty likely that it runs on Scawen's machine - if he's happy with it, he's probably tested it
That being said I agree with this 100%:
I'm not sure how long their perceived vision of LFS running on a Celeron at 100fps is supposed to last...
The VWS wasn't a waste of time, because it highlighted flaws in the existing tyre model that the developers would have otherwise overlooked. If the developers had never created the VWS, we probably wouldn't be getting such comprehensive changes to the tyre physics model.
Me. Well I'm pretty sure I ain't the only one though.
Raising the system requirement is a bad idea. For starters, Scavier could loose alot of potential buyers who don't have a gaming computer or do not have enough money to get one.
Ive not got a P4 but im only on a 3ghz single core but thats due to not having the need to upgrade since I got it. I still agree though, if moving lfs to the next level means higher spec PC's are needed as long as it isn't too high of a base spec then I would agree and say do it.
Well, obviously with regards to LFS it's all up to Scawen, but IMO...
It's really not. It doesn't matter how good a programmer you are and how efficient the algorithms you choose are, the fact is every application needs resources. As you add complexity to the application (higher resolution timing, more details in the simulation of the engine, higher poly count on car models etc) you increase the requirements. If you handicap yourself forever and say "I want everyone with a PC bought in 2002 to be able to use this application until the end of its life" then you are handicapping everyone who bought a more powerful PC from 2003 onwards who is capable of running a better simulation. That's the key word: better. Frankly it's selfish to say "I want to be able to use LFS with a P4 because that's all I can afford" because you're not thinking about everyone else. All technology should improve with time and that's obviously the case with PC hardware. A top of the line PC from 2002 is nowhere against an 'average' PC bought today.
I don't think it matters whether LFS get's content or physics updates, it's about the simulation progressing. Either would be nice, but knowing it *could* be better and knowing nothing is happening is demoralising at best.
it might well be
from what weve been told the development version still runs on a single thread (at least all the bits that task the cpu) and even with the current less cpu intensive publicly released physics just about any system no matter how fast is stuggling to keep framrates at a comfortable level when youre at the back of a large grid
it may well run fine in practice mode but what happens when you throw 20 ais running in full physics mode all the time in the mix?
Since this thread and generally the trend is to ask why hasn't Scavier done this or that, I'd like you to read the following blog which sums up my feelings quite nicely:
It's a question from a guy about the lack of new books in the series Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin (an excellent series btw) and the responsibility the writer has to the audience. This is asked to another writer Neil Gaiman who is very clear in his answer.
That is a thoroughly good read that applies perfectly to the "situation" LFS is in at the moment. Thanks for posting it. "Scawen is not your bitch", should be the default reply to anyone coming here to whine about progress being slow.
Anyone who still thinks that LFS's new tire physics will be released at all is an idiot!
It's obvious that the devs dropped LFS developing. It has been 1,5 years after they were planning the release (dec 18th 2008), so dream on.
I'm already trying other race simulation games, 'racer' looks nice...
You just said it - at the back of a large grid. I don't think it has as much to do with the physics as it does LFS' marvellously dreadful graphic subsystem. The amount of detail in the current cars is pretty minimal, and it struggles drawing low poly models in reasonable time. Put 20 in front of you and it acts like the world is caving in. I just tested this last week when comparing the XRR to iRacing's Corvette C6.R. I have no problems staying frame capped, but that's on an overclocked i7 running SLi (but still having to render everything twice so the SLi is a moot point). But the delta between having no or a few cars on the screen versus many cars on the screen is gigantic.
But looks does not make something better, not even close. I'm not holding my breath for the patch, but when it comes out I will try it. 1.5 years of development, while a long time - and could be better in some cases - is not drastically unreasonable.
I've been holding off posting in this thread, but had to now. The developers do not owe us anything. They stated in the license you (that may or may not have) bought, that you are buying the product AS IS. Meaning they could stop development and you can't complain. Yet, they work a little extra to make something their quality and people complain about development times among other things.
I don't want to say I agree with the developers or would take a bullet for them, but as a developer myself I understand constraints - and that things take large amounts of time. Even when you know exactly how to do it, can do it anyway you want and have loads of free time. Scawen has a family, a life and has stated he's had issues thinking of a proper way to do this without major side-effects. Let alone he can't just develop it the way he wants because it needs to fit in with the current LFS engine/code base. And to make things more difficult on magnitudes that I can't imagine, he is going to try keeping the feel of the game at least somewhat the same, as to not shock the users.
I'm not saying it is right to keep the community hanging, but in the end it is their opinions and decisions that ultimately matter. They aren't out for money, and they put their heart into the project - that will keep me coming back, even if I take a break from time to time.
But to sum what I just said up; Have fun with Racer!
probably yeah
either way with lfs still being single threaded putting 50% (arbitrary number fresh from my arse) more load on the cpu through the new tyre model will make things unplayable even on decently modern mainstream gaming systems
I'm hoping to see the first test patch before septemberI'm guessing the physics are done and only bugs are delaying them, apart from possibly unfinished VW stability control. By the time it gets released, the other unanunced S3 car should also be done (6 months should be enought time for a car). I'm more excited for the new content and stuff than the physics, specially:
Fun things sound like fun
Anyway, I'm pumping some hype to help unpatient people, this patch will be the biggest and best patch of LFS history!
I'm loving how some people are pulling forecasts out of their back ends and making proclaims as they were golden standard
Just two contributions seem to have turned back the clock and the thread is polarized again in pro VS against LFS (aka uber optimists against uber pessimisters)
Truly we're all pro LFS (admittedly in different ways), optimism or pessimism won't change one thing, and unless you happen to be a beta tester, you'll be waiting the same as all the others