Sorry I couldn't come up with a more specific title but I'll explain what's happening.

Every server I join a server it all appears to be fine. I can see everyone and then about 3-10 minutes later everyone disappears but I can still race properly and still see other racer's times update as well as the talk going on. About 5 minutes later I time out.

Using Shift+F8, I've found I will start with at the minimum:
TCP ER : InitTime -=30
goes through to -=10000 then timing out
When it hits -=300, thats when I notice the drivers dropping out and all other players on the connection bar have orange peaks while the green bar still appears fine the entire time. Prior to this, the bars looks fine even though my car does appear to play catchup every now and then.

Pressing Ctrl+T to enable position updates through TCP just makes me time out even quicker.

I tried the same server and another server as well as online by myself on the original server and the same thing is happening with the InitTime so it's not anyone elses connection.

Doing a ping test and speed test everything seems normal (9Mbps Down, 0.7Mbps Up, 24ms ping) so it's not the net either.

Would anyone be able to suggest what the problem may be? I've done a bit of searching and one guy had similar problems to me on a Linux PC but I am running Windows XP SP2. Firewall is also disabled and no other applications are running.

check the servers country, and do a ping/speed test to there too

At first glance it sounds like your computer's timer runs at a strange speed - too fast or too slow.

I'm not sure if it would be affected it but does your time clock keep good time? LFS can deal with a certain amount of clock speed variation between host and guests but if time on your computer is too far different then it will not work.

Quote from Crowella :

(9Mbps Down, 0.7Mbps Up, 24ms ping) so it's not the net either.

These tests are mostly done to a relatively local server. Which is fine, if you start to race on a local server also.

But if you connect to the other end of the world I hope you understand it's getting a completely different story?

Quote from cargame.nl :

These tests are mostly done to a relatively local server. Which is fine, if you start to race on a local server also.

But if you connect to the other end of the world I hope you understand it's getting a completely different story?

I understand what you were saying. The ping test was to the server that hosts the league I compete in.

I fear Scawen is right so Ill do some Pc tests to see how the clock runs. I think the clock is stalling slowly during the game. Ill give it a look

Quote from Scawen :

At first glance it sounds like your computer's timer runs at a strange speed - too fast or too slow.

I'm not sure if it would be affected it but does your time clock keep good time? LFS can deal with a certain amount of clock speed variation between host and guests but if time on your computer is too far different then it will not work.

it was happening a LOT on my old server box, especially with south america and aussie land.

Once we switched to a more powerful server (in the same D/C) the issues dissolved.

Could the servers clock be the interference also?

We have a winner.

I turned off the autosync clock on my computer and bam, it's running slightly quick. Time to perhaps replace the CMOS battery. Thanks everyone. I'll let you know the result.

Kudo's Scawen - on the ball.

I never realized such a small thing like this could have such a heavy impact with on-line gaming...never seen nor heard policy's that ensure good time-keeping neither.

Is this time-keeping already dealt with in LFS, ie. does host and client communicate time difference?...I imagine such a small thing would be useful as to rely on the OS time is useless?????