Each event is indeed a learning experience.

And I am happy with the $300, just wish the insurance for the event wasn't $250 I did have fun doing it though...

Will be doing a food truck rally on WED, but it might rain due to those hurricanes down south, so maybe not.

I was going to save the wrap for the next/bigger trailer, but I may just keep this one for all of next year before I jump into the bigger one.

Still trying to decide what I want to put on trailer...

Obviously logo/phone contact info and something saying it is for hire.

But it needs a photo of the sims... and all of them I have taken are just not good enough for it, and it is difficult to get one while they are in the trailer. I may have to stage some photos outside the trailer in a green screen type photo studio or something....

The ideal photos would have happy people racing on them, and NOT the 3D drawing stuff I keep using.

Also thinking of an abstract logo, of a driver in a simulator that sort of changes to a car... some how, cannot really describe.

If someone one here came up with some thing I actually liked, and used, I would send over an S3 Voucher.

Next event is early in the morning, at M1 Concourse. This facility has Car-Condos. These are $150K to $2M garages with guest space with a view of their own race track just outside the garages.

https://m1concourse.com/

I hope in the not to distant future, (after tire physics) it will be possible to add this track, and facility to LFS. There will be a retail store area, with streets to explore, and it is right off of woodward, a popular cruising highway in Detroit.

Attached is the new price-sign, just $5.00 ditched the $10 option. Doubt I will get enough interest for the Tournament, but I will try.

Well...



Doesnt look that bad.. Its badly decorated so its not a lot of work, for the user who needs to do this. In the far future.

Very nice!

Quote from SimulatorRental.com :

I was curious, so went through replays...

This was the first 8 Player race.
Before this was just one kid and myself.

How cute...the replay reminds me of France Pro Crash server. Respect for player 6 who succeeded to keep his car on the track. Fortunately he damaged his engine which made his driving even safer (without all horsepowers).

The black screen issue has returned, and disrupted the last 3 events.

While I previously thought it to be the graphics cards getting too hot, I am not totally convinced of this anymore. With the LFS, and GPX card settings I use, the cards rarely go above 60 degrees. Unless the temp sensor is wrong on BOTH computer systems.

When one of the computers does this, I just reboot and set it all up again, and it often works fine for the rest of the event, but sometimes it will do it again, or the OTHER computer will do it.

I have noticed that the computers or displays are NOT crashed when this happens, only LFS is black.
I can usually ALT tab or SHIFT F11 back to windows which is still working fine.
But no matter what, the LFS windows that are black stay black.

The AI cars, if any, that were controlled by the instance on the black screens, are still going around the track on the good screens, so LFS is actually still running. The player cars can even be controlled still... as long as you can see one on the other players screen.

I have noticed the last 2 or 3 times, that LFS froze for a few seconds before going black. And the on the other computers that remained operational, the LAG ### text showed up on those cars until those cars went black, then they started moving again...

I think somewhere LFS is the cause, it is getting confused operating on the same system as itself.

I currently have a separate .exe file (renamed) for each instance I start up, for Affinity purposes.
Would it be better if I just used the same .exe file?

I see that black screen issue when the display driver crashes. LFS doesn't know how to recover from it. It would be possible to program LFS to restart D3D9 and recover. I'm not certain but I think it would need to reload all the textures at that point and by then the virtual car would have crashed anyway.

When the display driver crashes, it always seems that all running programs are affected. I don't believe that LFS is really the cause of this. Even if there is a bug in LFS, the display driver should not crash. LFS is going through D3D which in turn is sending instructions to the display driver, so I believe these crashes are caused by a bug in the drivers.

I have noticed in the past when upgrading drivers, they crashed far more frequently, so I have sometimes gone back to older drivers. Maybe you could try installing an older driver that was known to be stable.

So it is due to obsolete Direct X code that will never get fixed, by MS.
And LFS just does not know what to do when it happens...

Only reason it is a problem, is when I restart everything it takes me 30 or more minutes to setup all the wheels and audio to the right devices. This can be 10-25% of a clients entire paid event time.

So if you ever do work on this, it would be better to just work on getting some automation or device memory on that then actually fixing any direct X stuff... It is likely impossible though because each device ID changes every reboot, I have tons of "old devices" even though its the same device, although I guess I could get in the habit of clearing them all before rebooting.

Bottom line though, I would rather you work on more important parts of LFS.. like cars tracks, tire phys etc...



I have tried a few different graphics driver versions... I am afraid to go back because some had stability issues that are worse than the black screens. Only JUST now got those sorted. I also read on some site to change it to "full pannel" instead of maintain ratio, but I think that was to avoid a different type of black screen.



If it only goes out 1 or 2 times per event its not too bad... but I wish I knew what triggered it, as there might be something I could do different to try and avoid it.




Any noticeable increase in downloads of LFS in the USA yet? lol
Lots of people say they will check it out and download it, but I doubt anyone even remembers by the time they get home.

Trying to spread the word of LFS. Working on getting it setup at the 2018 Detroit Grand Prix... maybe at a Michigan NASCAR event as well. Depends what they charge me for space... or if I can get them to hire me.

Can't you pull out all USB things (wheels) before boot, and then after boot putting them back one by one in fixed order, wouldn't that make them to appear in OS+LFS every time the same? No idea about audio.

I think the driver crashes are the fault of the driver writers / graphics card manufacturer, not MS/D3D9. Although I do believe that LFS making the card busy makes it more likely to happen, it shouldn't be possible for one program to make the driver crash.

About the device memory, I thought that problem was solved, since LFS now stores the speaker GUID and the controller GUID in the cfg.txt and that was coded with your system in mind. So LFS should start up any time with the same speakers and wheel that you previously selected.

Sorry to hear that doesn't seem to help. You are saying the ID of each device keeps changing? Maybe you can avoid restarting the computer after a driver crash, then the devices will keep their ID numbers and LFS instances should start up using their previous devices?

Anyway as setting up / restarting LFS is a problem then some sort of LFS automatic recovery would help, even if your customers crash their cars on track during the recovery, at least you could just restart the race.

I'll have a look and see if I can do something. It has been on my list for a long time.

Quote from SimulatorRental.com :

Bottom line though, I would rather you work on more important parts of LFS.. like cars tracks, tire phys etc...

Please don't spend another 'x' period of time on this issue....
PLEASE.......

Prioritize on bringing the game back to life, please.

The forum, users, people who give you money as we believe in the potential of your game are shouting at you to sort this update out.

Please focus on tyre physics. It's not like we've been waiting a while.

Just make a list of improvements/updates.... i.e. TYRE PHYSICS !!!!!

Then work down the list on the TYRE PHYSICS 1.1 updates.

All been said before but this is your livelihood, food on the table etc. Many of us have been here for MANY years, want to see your dream work, but seriously, unless basic promises are fulfilled you will never make money and see this sim achieve the success it deserves.

Well, I don't really need advice on prioritisation.

I'd like very much to work on the tyre physics, because of all the possibilities it will open up, but currently I am working on the graphical updates, more shaders for Eric to use.

In fact, LFS does need graphical updates as it gets the most criticism in that area, unfairly at times. Comments along the lines of "LFS is from 2002 and hasn't had a single update since then, therefore it has shit graphics". Typical comment from someone who doesn't even have a look to see how far it has come. But in truth there is quite a lot of modernisation that needs to be done, and I'm doing the things that allow Eric to make some significant improvements.

As I've pointed out before, most people have one thing they think is most important. That may be graphics, physics, autocross objects, changing weather, network security, etc. And it seems many of these people find it totally incredible that I am not devoting all my time to their own favourite issue. In fact, all these things need to be worked on and they are all challenging. Luckily I enjoy working on them so we'll get there eventually.

It's not really good advice to ask me not to prevent a crash issue that is badly affecting someone, when it might only take a day or two to fix. So as I said, I'll have a look into it.

I think the biggest problem with the tyre physics is the amount of time it has consumed stands in no sane relation to the potential benefit.
I'd rather have one piece of candy every day, than the promise of the ultimate piece of candy when I'm 60. And I know for sure, many people do think the same.

I'd rather go for the 60 thing at this point. But to get back on this topic;

Quote from SimulatorRental.com :

is when I restart everything it takes me 30 or more minutes to setup all the wheels and audio to the right devices.

Why not at least mention on which USB port a device is found? It would be really silly if these ID's also change during a restart.

Example: G920 on USB1, G920 on USB2 etc.. How is this arranged in this system? A normal system doesnt have many USB ports to begin with, how many USB ports do you use anyway? 4 ports for wheels and 4 ports for audio? I have read in another topic of yours that you have force feedback problems on the wheels, how are you sure that your USB controllers are properly setup?

SCAWEN,

I wish I could drive the trailer to your location so you can test it out and see how it is all working. I will have to settle for making a video in the future.

At this time, I have to set it up each time I boot up windows or restart LFS.
This may be due to me doing something wrong. But I always have to choose something, as it is often set for a default wheel, or main system sound device.

I do not understand enough how windows handles all the devices the devices, and how it numbers them when all the digital IDs are the same on each device. Which is likely the case with these things.

Thankfully LFS only shows the 4 that are plugged in! And not all the extra ghost devices from previous boot ups. And now that I think of it, the last few times I set it up the headphones were mostly the same Device ID numbers in LFS. So, maybe it IS working, but I still have to go through and pick them for each seat.

Each of my instances of LFS is loaded up from command prompt with a different driver name.
Is it, or can it save the wheel/audio device with each driver as well? If LFS is remembering the right devices, then having the driver saved with the right wheel/sound device might be enough to make it do it automagically.








I remove the computer from the trailer and take it home, as it is also my main PC that I am using now to type this... and I don't want to leave it in trailer. So, all of the cables get unplugged and mixed up from the PC. I have some color coded, but not all. I assumed plugging into the exact same USB port would not really matter. I have a LOT of usb on the back of this PC.

From what I can read online, the GUID should be unique to that device on that computer. So it shouldn't matter which order the USB cables are and so on.

It is of course vital is that each instance of LFS has its own cfg.txt. Are your LFS instances saved in their own folders? If not then I am sure it will not work.

My understanding is that if the wheels are plugged in and available, then when an instance of LFS starts, that instance should use the same wheel it used the previous time and it should not matter which order the wheels were plugged in or which socket they are in.

I'm not sure what happens if LFS starts up and the wheel it looks for is not available. I guess it may be important for WHEEL_1 to be plugged in before LFS_1 is started, so that LFS_1 can successfully connect to WHEEL_1.

So should I have a separate install folder for each LFS instance?



I am currently only using one install folder on each computer.
It is easier to maintain files, car setups, track layouts, custom billboard graphics etc... with just one.

I have a .bat file that renames a player1.cfg to autoexec.cfg, then starts up the player 1 instance.
Then it renames a player2.cfg to autoexec.cfg, then starts up player 2... same with player 3 and 4

Each loads a different driver name and car color...

I then drag each instance to the same monitor as before and hit Shft F11.

Then I go through and select the wheels/headphones that match the cockpit, by listening and turning the wheel back and forth until I get the right one.


I plug everything in before turning on.

Attached is a sample of my .bat file (renamed to .txt)

Quote from Scawen :

From what I can read online, the GUID should be unique to that device on that computer. So it shouldn't matter which order the USB cables are and so on.

It is of course vital is that each instance of LFS has its own cfg.txt. Are your LFS instances saved in their own folders? If not then I am sure it will not work.

My understanding is that if the wheels are plugged in and available, then when an instance of LFS starts, that instance should use the same wheel it used the previous time and it should not matter which order the wheels were plugged in or which socket they are in.

I'm not sure what happens if LFS starts up and the wheel it looks for is not available. I guess it may be important for WHEEL_1 to be plugged in before LFS_1 is started, so that LFS_1 can successfully connect to WHEEL_1.

Well, if plugging wheel/controller/any device AFTER LFS is running, it will select new buttons for me and not overwriting existing binded buttons. In other words, if I press update button, if I havent rebinded any button from my "new" controller ( which is still same, just not updated to be find and use specific controller ), I can still use same controller.

So, what I try to mean, is how about just adding as many as possible wheels to one instance, then copying it to different folders or locations, then adding plugging in specific wheel to there and it uses those buttons which are binded to use FROM that wheel. Unless there is somekind of limitation. At the moment, I have 3 devices using LFS, all three functioning well ( some buttons though works with same binds, but it is possible to re-add and reselect brand new button bind, e.g. Button 15, which would be same as Button 1, but both having same function. Only difference is that if either one of controllers is unplugged, the other one would still working with bind Button 1 or Button 15, whatever is selected. )

EDIT: Of course, it may likely require to bind buttons again, but as from specific device, the range is pre-existing already, so only thing to do is just binding them ( again ), unless it finds specific device already or after updating. I am about 80% unsure if that actually works, but it works for me, somehow.

P.S. ( Sorry, I tried to explain as accurate and clean as possible )

The buttons on the wheel are not currently an issue, as they are working and saved. The time is just selecting all 8 wheels, and headphones, and in the future 10 or 12.... and then doing it wrong and having to start over. Often I get lucky and do it right the first time so its not so bad.


As far as I can tell wheel 1 on instance 1 sees the other wheels as button numbers beyond the 25 or so buttons on the wheel. So buttons 30-100 or whatever would be on the OTHER wheels. When a wheel is selected for its own instance Scawen has it programed to automatically renumber the buttons for THAT instance so it is working as it is now.

If I wanted to I could program a button on player 8's wheel to do something on Player 5's instance of LFS. But that is just stupid... however it seems to be happening accidently. There is a minor side effect I have been trying to diagnose.

I have one button on the wheel that SPECTATES The driver. I am noticing that at RANDOM times, some players are getting spectated when they should not be. I get the feeling that someone pressed a button on one of the OTHER wheels, that this instance of LFS registered as the button that I use for spectating the player.

I was going to solve this by removing my spectate button, but I have not done so yet, as I need the button, to quickly remove a car from the track when someone gets up and leaves mid race...

Quote from SimulatorRental.com :

So should I have a separate install folder for each LFS instance?

I am currently only using one install folder on each computer.
It is easier to maintain files, car setups, track layouts, custom billboard graphics etc... with just one.

OK, that is understandable and yes it's nice to avoid multiple installations.

Quote from SimulatorRental.com :

I have a .bat file that renames a player1.cfg to autoexec.cfg, then starts up the player 1 instance.
Then it renames a player2.cfg to autoexec.cfg, then starts up player 2... same with player 3 and 4

Each loads a different driver name and car color...

Right, this seems to be along the right lines, but I think I can see a problem here.

First, and this may not be a problem, I can't think easily why you need both a /cfg=x.txt file and an autoexec.lfs file for each LFS instance.

As in, you are renaming a particular file to autoexec.lfs and you are also starting LFS with a command line with /cfg=C:\LFS_MAIN\Player_3.txt (etc).

I guess you may have a good reason for that, and I would be interested to know.


Second, and I do think this is a problem, there is no mention of cfg.txt - the actual config file that saves most LFS settings, including the audio and controller GUID. When I started to read that you were using a bat file to rename files, I thought that you would be renaming cfg.txt. But I see no mention of it in your bat file, and so I can't see any way that your controller and audio device could be remembered.

So let's say, to set it up (once only) you plug in all your wheels then you start LFS_1 - set up the audio and controller for it. Exit LFS and make a backup of that cfg.txt file (to cfg_1.txt or whatever). Now do the same for LFS_2 - save a cfg_2.txt for it. These cfg_x.txt files will need to be renamed in your bat file so they are in place (as plain old "cfg.txt") when each LFS instance starts up.

I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well, but I'm talking about a renaming like you do for the autoexec.lfs file but do it for the normal cfg.txt file as well (and maybe you don't need the autoexec.lfs file as well).

Quote from SimulatorRental.com :

I then drag each instance to the same monitor as before and hit Shft F11.

Then I go through and select the wheels/headphones that match the cockpit, by listening and turning the wheel back and forth until I get the right one.

I plug everything in before turning on.

OK, I'm hoping that you can avoid this by making sure the correct cfg.txt file is used, as that is where the GUIDs are stored (Speaker GUID and Control GUID near the top of the file).

Well that post above is all about trying to get your starting up sequence a lot quicker.

On the subject of recovering from a driver crash, so you could avoid going through a startup sequence, I have come along a long way with that today. I can make LFS pretend there has been a driver crash and it does a full reinitialisation of D3D9, loading all the textures and rebuilding meshes and so on, getting past the black screen stage and back to where you were, although your car has probably hit a wall by then if you were driving.

I haven't done all the necessary testing yet and what happens if it's full screen, etc. It seems to work in a window at least. I'll carry on in the morning.

I'm pleased with that so far but not fully confident, because I don't know a way to create a real driver crash (or restart the Nvidia driver). Without a way to reproduce the real thing it's a bit hard to say that it works.

As I said I was likely doing something wrong... I think I started off doing that, but wound up getting it to work this way and just stopped there. I do remember trying to copy the cfg.txt but I don't remember why I stopped.

After removing some things that I tried from the individual autoexec files, I think the only thing they are doing is /player=Player # and /host=
I guess if I do this in the main cfg.txt and change that, I wont need them. Is the /host what put the first instance in host mode? Maybe that is why I did it...

I wont be able to set this up and test it until I take PC to where all my wheels are, in the trailer. Will try tomorrow if it is not cold or raining. -- I need indoor storage...

The way I had it working, was good for a beta test and getting it to work. Hopefully time spent once, setting this up by swapping the cfg.txt will save time at each event dong this over and over again.

Would be easier if when loading a driver it would load up a cfg.txt file of the same name, or name specified in driver's file.

Only way I could test it myself is to let it run for a few hours on its own... with all 8+ monitors, with AI cars or something. Difficult to force it...

I do appreciate the side track helping with this issue.
I don't know of any other software that is as well programed or as stable as LFS.
Make sure you pass on your methodologies in programing to future programmers, because there are a lot of hacks out there (myself included lol).

And once again I have confused the setting file in the main folder with the one in the script folder...

Quote from SimulatorRental.com :

So should I have a separate install folder for each LFS instance?



I am currently only using one install folder on each computer.
It is easier to maintain files, car setups, track layouts, custom billboard graphics etc... with just one.

I guess you could create junctions for the folders you want to share and still get the best of both worlds. Move the folders (eg setups, dds, skins) you want to share to another location create your junctions, et voila.

junction D:\lfs1\data\dds "D:\lfs_shared\dds"
junction D:\lfs2\data\dds "D:\lfs_shared\dds"

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/junction