Hello,

My FPS in LFS is lower than I expected. When hotlapping alone on AS Cadet, my FPS varies from 43-59. This seems low considering I read on another thread that someone with a 9800 Pro got 100+ while driving alone.

Strangely, reducing details, reducing resolution / AA / AF / textures / mipmapping outside the game have very little effect on my FPS. I tried dropping the res from 1280x1024 to 1024x768, turning AA and AF completely off and reducing in-game settings, but I still get pretty much the same FPS. This leads me to believe I have some option set incorrectly which is limiting performance.

Online race starts are my biggest problem; my FPS often drops to 10-15 during these.

Here's my system specs:

MSI 865PE Neo2-PFISR motherboard (BIOS ver. 3.8)
Intel Pentium 4 2.8e @ 3.5GHz
Thermaltake Spark 7+ Xaser Edition CPU HS/F
2x512MB OCZ PC3700 Gold Edition Rev 3 Dual Channel Enhanced Latency DDR466 @ 500MHz (2.5-3-3-5)
Gigabyte Radeon X800XL AGP8x 256MB VIVO
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum
Maxtor 6Y120M0 120GB HDD 7200RPM/8MB SATA
Seagate ST3200826AS 200GB HDD 7200RPM/8MB SATA NCQ
Sony DDU1612 40x/16x DVD-ROM
Sony CRX230ED 52x/32x CD-RW
Enermax Noisetaker EG475P 470W PSU(+3.3V = 34A, +5V = 40A, +12V = 33A)
Ultra Dragon ATX Mid-Tower Case
Windows XP Pro SP2

And my relevant in-game settings are as follows:

1280x1024x32 @ 75Hz
User LoD: 0.90
Dust LoD: 0.40
Mirror LoD: 0.10
Screen Width Affects LoD: No
Track LoD Reduction: Yes
Mip Bias: -1.00
Shadow Type: Low Res
Simple Wheels: Off
Disable Trees: Mirror
Disable Flags: Mirror
Disable Rubber: Mirror
Enable Dither: Yes
Enable Mip Filter: Yes
Use Compressed Skins: No
Half Texture Size: No

Hardware Vertex Shading: On
Z-Buffer Depth: 24
Simple Track: Off
Haze Effect: Yes

My settings in Display Properties:

2x AA
Quality With Trilinear
2x AF
Texture Preference: High Quality
Mipmap Detail Level: Quality
V-Sync: Always Off

I'm using ATI Tray Tools, and have the following tweaks enabled:

Support DXT Texture Formats
Support Bump Mapping
Support AA Optimization
Support AF Optimization

Alternate Pixel Center is disabled.
Temporal AA is disabled.
Catalyst AI is High.
Texture LOD Adjustment is set at 0.

If I am missing relevant settings, let me know and I will add them.

If anyone sees any settings that are obviously incorrect, let me know why they're wrong and what I should set them to.

I have read the manual, but it is old and outdated. Many of the settings it talks about no longer exist. The LFSWiki page is down and has been since I started playing this game.

Thanks in advance for any help.

If you put 10 AI drivers on track with you. What happens then. Does it maintain the Fps or ?

Hi,
Can you check what temps have your CPu while playing LFS?

I see your CPU is overcloked and P4 processor are very well know that that have some protection future which insert internally empty cycles when CPU overheat which mean that at this time processor do nothing which reduce heat.

Could you try as well to downclock to default CPE speed and then check what FPS you get?

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Hi,
Can you check what temps have your CPu while playing LFS?

I see your CPU is overcloked and P4 processor are very well know that that have some protection future which insert internally empty cycles when CPU overheat which mean that at this time processor do nothing which reduce heat.

Could you try as well to downclock to default CPE speed and then check what FPS you get?

My overclock was done very carefully. I'm using a good cooler with Arctic Silver 5 and have my case fans placed so that they cool with maximum effectiveness. My idle temp is ~42C and load is ~63C. Absolute max after an hour of play is ~66C.

I know about my CPU's heat protection features and I know that it is not throttling itself.

I will try adding 10 AI cars now, just a minute.

EDIT: With 10 AI cars plus myself on AS Cadet, my FPS at the start was 11. I watched it for the first half-lap and it varied between 9 and 16. When I turned off the track and faced away from the AI cars, my FPS shot up to 40+. This leads me to believe that the rendering of other cars is what is causing the FPS dropoff, not the physics / AI thought calculations. Although I could very well be wrong. This doesn't explain why I have low FPS when alone though, assuming it is in fact abnormally low.

Quote from Lateralus :

My overclock was done very carefully. I'm using a good cooler with Arctic Silver 5 and have my case fans placed so that they cool with maximum effectiveness. My idle temp is ~42C and load is ~63C. Absolute max after an hour of play is ~66C.

I know about my CPU's heat protection features and I know that it is not throttling itself.

Hi,
I am just curious how you can be sure its not throtling?Are you using any program which can show that it put some empty cycles?I know some if you wanna check. 66 is pretty high temp and it might relly showing that throtling.

I get same results with FPS quickly went up when there is less cars around and I would say its not really graphic issue(based on previous info posted here around the forum).I have GF 7900Gt which can provide some serious power but still get the same effect as you.

*** this just my personal opinion.LFS indeed cant utilise full graphic power and use CPU for some graphical calculations which effect the framerates very much.I have some personal doubts about the current LFS 3D engine regading the effectivity of using GPU power but I might be wrong.***

Beside that LFS use heavy physic calculation and P4 procesors are really not the best one for gaming.


P.S: What version of drivers you use? I read that some of them had dodgy performance in LFS.
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=3639

Just for referance:
My ATI 9800 XT produces 40 to 70 frames per second at 4x AA and 2xAF.
Remaining specifications:
Amd K7 2800+
640 mb DDR ram

Vain

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Hi,
I am just curious how you can be sure its not throtling?

I use ThrottleWatch. It only throttles when the temp gets into the high 70s. The 60s is high, but this chip runs very hot. Besides, why would it throttle in this game only, and not all my others? My other games run great and have no such issues.

You say you get 40-70FPS, is that alone or with other cars? Online or offline? If it is offline alone, then you're getting better FPS than me, which is ridiculous considering that the X800XL is quite a bit more powerful than the 9800XT.

Quote from Lateralus :

My overclock was done very carefully. I'm using a good cooler with Arctic Silver 5 and have my case fans placed so that they cool with maximum effectiveness. My idle temp is ~42C and load is ~63C. Absolute max after an hour of play is ~66C.

I know about my CPU's heat protection features and I know that it is not throttling itself.

I will try adding 10 AI cars now, just a minute.

EDIT: With 10 AI cars plus myself on AS Cadet, my FPS at the start was 11. I watched it for the first half-lap and it varied between 9 and 16. When I turned off the track and faced away from the AI cars, my FPS shot up to 40+. This leads me to believe that the rendering of other cars is what is causing the FPS dropoff, not the physics / AI thought calculations. Although I could very well be wrong. This doesn't explain why I have low FPS when alone though, assuming it is in fact abnormally low.

If fps falls that much, something is wrong in your system. What about your drivers. Ati has a tool which destroys the old drivers. Try that and fresh install new drivers.

I use middle grafic-settings, and have 90FPs alone, 40-60 with AI or online.
It runs on
2500+
1GB 333MHz
9800pro 128MB/256Bit

You have serious PC-Problems, if you can´t play it on that specs.

I just looked it up to be sure:
In the middle of a field of cars my system produces 35-50 fps, depending on the track section (35 is only on one section of BL GP, usually higher).
Alone my system produces 45-70 fps, again depending on the track section.

Might be a driver issue with the GFX card. ATI drivers are known for bad quality...

Vain

To me the problem in the opening post of this topic is nothing. I get ~20-30FPS whilst driving on my own.

I just ran a couple of tests, all offline.

1. Full-grid of XRRs at Kyoto Ring, all cars with high-resolution skins:
On the grid: 35-40fps
Once the field spreads out a bit: 50-60fps

2. Lone XRR on Aston Club, car with high-resolution skin:
65-85fps

3. Lone FXO on Aston Club, no skin:
80-100fps

My specs:
Athlon64 3500+
2GB DDR
GeForce 6800GS
1280x960x32 @ 85 Hz
8xSAA, 16xAF

User LOD: 1.00
Dust LOD: 1.00
Mirror LOD: 0.30
Screen width affects LOD: yes
Track LOD reduction: yes
Mip Bias: 0.00
Shadow type: high res
Simple wheels: mirror
Disable trees: mirror
Disable flags: mirror
Disable rubber: mirror
Enable dither: yes
Enable mip filter: yes
Use compressed skins: no
Half texture size: no
Hardware vertex shading: on
Z-buffer depth: 24
Simple track: off
Haze effect: yes

Adjusting the various in-game settings results in a ~5fps difference either side of the average i.e. no changes significant enough to account for a 20-30fps shortfall.

I've heard of people getting lower fps BECAUSE of their overclocking. Sticking it back to normal usually solves the problem and makes LFS run quicker. Odd isn't it.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

P.S: What version of drivers you use? I read that some of them had dodgy performance in LFS.
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=3639

Did you read this?
I would try 5.11 drivers to see if this would help.Its just couple of minutes.

Quote from Lateralus :

ridiculous considering that the X800XL is quite a bit more powerful than the 9800XT.

~25 fps on the grid, 40-90 fps while driving depending on all it depends on, Celeron D, Radeon 9550SE, 4xAA/AF (720x576 :shy

Something's wrong with your stuffies.

With a full field of cars, on any track, I can average about 80+FPS, if not having it peak at 110. I have a 2.0Gig AMD with 1Gig of ram, and an ATI 9550 with 256 megs. And @ 1280x768 res.
I think the only differences I see are the zbuffer and Yes to 1/2 texture size.

Quote from nutty boy :

To me the problem in the opening post of this topic is nothing. I get ~20-30FPS whilst driving on my own.

yes but you have an IGP, he has a £100 gfx card

Did you try the Omega Drivers instead of the original ones ?

www.omegadrivers.net

Just for a quick check

I tried clocking my CPU back to stock speeds last night as well. I lost 3-4 FPS.

I haven't tried rolling back to the 5.11s (I'm using 5.12s now), I guess I'll try that and see what happens.

It was indeed my drivers. Before when alone I started at 43 FPS, now I get 95. With 10 AI cars I got 9-16 FPS at the race start, now I get 45-50. An enormous difference.

Thanks a lot for the help everyone, and especially DEVIL 007 for reminding me about the possible driver issue.

P.S. As a small side question in order to avoid creating a new thread, what does the "Simple Track" option do? I have it set to "Off" currently. When I try either of the other settings, it absolutely murders my framerate. Last time I tried it my FPS went from 60+ to 5.

The simple track option turns off hardware vertex shaders, forcing shader operations to be performed in software which puts a heavy load on the CPU.

Glad you got it sorted because getting little FPS with a £100 gfx card is awful.

It's worth knowing that there is an option in the game to limit framerate to 100FPS. I switched it off and now I get 150 fps when hotlapping. I have a 2.4Ghz processor overclocked to 2.8 Ghz. 1GB RAM and a decent graphics card. By default I believe framerates are limited to 100fps in game options.

Quote from BuddhaBing :

The simple track option turns off hardware vertex shaders, forcing shader operations to be performed in software which puts a heavy load on the CPU.

Not exactly, if you want to force CPU to do vertex operations, just disable HVS. Simple track cuts some shadows on the track, but HVS is for some reason no longer applicable on simple track. Thats why it is slower.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

It's worth knowing that there is an option in the game to limit framerate to 100FPS. I switched it off and now I get 150 fps when hotlapping. I have a 2.4Ghz processor overclocked to 2.8 Ghz. 1GB RAM and a decent graphics card. By default I believe framerates are limited to 100fps in game options.

Yes, I set mine to 20FPS and as I was messing trying to increase the framerate I found that and kept increasing it, turns out that I actually get 40FPS on my own at the bottom of the drag strip.