My first memory from LFS is from circa 2003 T1 at Blackwood with mouse steering and a very yellowish tint


I remember finding it the strangest feeling (mouse steering), however rewarding enough to continue trying to perfect the craft. Also remember showing it to my older brother and both trying to figure out how to do a clean lap with mouse (offline).

I was maybe too young (<20 years old) to truly enjoy the game and therefore my brother was the one who kept playing (in the times of one computer per household), and later online racing.

Few years pass by and when S2 came along that's when I joined online racing... I still can't remember the name of my first account, neither the email, unfortunately.

My brother was the first to buy S2, but I was the first to upgrade to S3, so I guess we are even.

Not entirely on topic but, I remember, maybe in 2008, me and my father (kart mechanic in the 80's) sitting at the computer while he was explaining me what to change in the setup to make it faster around Blackwood. Specifically to perform better at the corner before the underpass (before the last turn) only to realize that once we improved that corner another corner, that wasn't an issue, suddenly became harder to take it as fast as before...fun times!

Oh wow i've never seen this topic.

My first LFS memories, after I discovered the game through the french community of pixel cars called "mangacars.fr" in 2005 thanks to EESA who also teached me a lot about racing, I have finally been able to install it in 2007, where I was joining my friends from this site and the french TMR community (the mangacars reality), we were mostly doing some cruises until we ended up doing races where 99% of the times it was taking a wrong turn and we were ending up doing some stunts all around Blackwood in demo.

I always loved any car related video game related, but what made me fall in love on LFS was the realism of the steering using a mouse, while most the games, even on the PS2 with a joystick i always felt the steering was a "all or nothing". Oh boy the amount of time i've been doing niche parking in reverse, admirating the smooth steering LOL.

First memory would be joining the Falken Drift server in 2009. Very friendly and helpful people.

22 years of lfs wow... grew up on it leaned to drive with it skills saved me a few times in real life learned to drift on it

I have no memories.

The earliest thing I can remember is back at old old blackwood spending hours with someone (whose name escapes me) just trying to teach me how to drive a decent lap and chase a time. I was probably like 14 or so at the time. Kinda miss the old old blackwood aesthetic though.

my first memory of lfs is actually playing with a friend, and i didin't know what game we were playing until i asked lol, played a lot of hours in singleplayer with him xd

Might as well throw in my 2cents..

My brother is 5 years older than me, so he introduced me to LFS in 2010. A core memory i have is just listening to skrillex on the classic westhill track

Cruise servers in 2013 hit different

Westhill

Trying to find mods for the then current NFS High Stakes back in '02-'03ish. Got googled for the LFS demo that ran pretty okay on our ancient for the time computer. Remember having fun with keyboard controls and the distinctly raspy engine sounds early S1 had. I've downloaded LFS for every computer i've had, even to this day. Might only play for a few mins or hours at a time, but it's still got features that other games weren't copying 10 years ago, and somehow still manage to miss. Learned how to race, drift, and made many friends from all over the world...

crashing xrgs in the blackwood parking lot :

That was one of the most popular demo servers back then, so I was really happy haha. Never thought i'd manage.

The first time I tried LFS singleplayer was back in 2006. I admit, I was off put by its default mip/map grainy road and grass textures and overall gfx. I though it looked quite bad (I played GTR2 at the time), so I deleted the game after about 5-6 minutes of playing. Then 5 years later, I just decided to give it another go. Discovered the multiplayer on AA servers in 2011 and was hooked ever since.

My very first online race experience was: took XRG on BL1, default set, my brakes locked in T1 and I just went straight and crashed some guys, for which I instantly got voted for a 12h ban. That didn't stop me from comming back tomorrow. I learned my lesson and took XFG, tested it a little bit before in single player with some setup corrections. It was another story in race, I was last for a long time, but slowly I learned the track and car, got to know some great people who sent me a setup and gave me some driving tips. Now, about 40k laps down the road I see those exact same beginner mistakes by new racers, offer them some help and see how they quickly progress and get addicted to the game as well. Priceless

Convincing a guy on a demo server when I was 11 (circa may 2020) to not commit suicide because of mandatory enrollment in his country (his name was something like mv gatti, hope he's okay now

I found some old files.
Nothing special about them, they just happend to randomly be in a backup.

This might have been my first skin.


Whoooouuiii!


Mildy related, my PC circa 2002.
everything was always dusty, lots of cellar LANs..
Guess the graphics card!
note the awesome custom CPU cooler

That GPU to me looks like GeForce 2 GTS, but it could also have been mx400. Motherboard with VIA chipset probably. CPU I'd guess Pentium 3 with 733MHz and 256MB ram

Nice job with those orange rubber stuff to suspend CPU fan for less vibration and noise.

Yes, Geforce 2 GTS
CPU also correct but with a whole Ghz even

Installing the game from the PC gamer demo disc late 2002 and enjoying bl1.
http://trinitysuo.freeservers.com/ somehow my website is still up from the old 0.2 demo days

2002/2003, literally learning how to drive in the XF GTI. I'd played lots of racing 'sims' before that but the realism of LFS struck me as a learning opportunity. Got into a real car not long after and was right at home, despite transitioning from mouse to irl wheel.

Later on, someone in a drift server teaching me how to drift

then going on to spend lots of time drifting fern bay black rev to eurobeat tunes.

Anyone remembers this banger? Nostalgia

i remember my first time in lfs doing traning mode thinking i would get a license

Great time to make my first forum post in almost 10 years (logged in to try to find something that popped into my head). I haven’t seen this mentioned in this thread but my first memory - and how I discovered LFS - was via a streamed racing series called STCC. It was in around 2006 and I was blown away by the physics. I must have played the demo using a mouse for around six months or so before buying the game in 2007 alongside a Logitech Driving Force Pro. Went at it hard for about three years - commentating and making videos - before other games (Team Fortress 2 in particular) consumed most of my time before I got a job and had little spare time for sim racing or any other gaming.

Have to say I’m delighted to see the game is still in development with new features being added. I look forward to jumping back in at some point in the future!

my first lfs memory is buying the game in december after a friend showed me a vid, i was like wow cool racing game that my pc can run, after i got home from school, i was looking at the licences, s1,s2,s3, which one do i buy, well, s3 had everything, it wasnt expensive, so i bought it, and started playing, i choose fernbay rallyx green, and started driving in xrg, i could barely handle the car in the corners, i constantly slipped out, crashed, ect, but i had lots of fun

My first memory was when my brother was playing in 2003. I used to go to his house and he was letting me play, because back in time, we had to unlock the cars before being able to drive them.
To do so, we had to win races to get points. He was letting me play only so I'd unlock everything. I remember that I quickly found out that you could give the AI a very bad setup and therefore win the races effortlessly.
Anyway, I harassed him until he bought me a S1 license a few months after.

I remember watching a Gooseiest video, like in 2020 (insert skull emoji) and I basically ignored the part where he mentioned LFS. For some reason in early 2021 I decided to re-watch it, and came across the LFS part, and decided to check it out. I downloaded it, did some single player driving, created this account, first server I joined was AA Blackwood GTI, and I tried to ram the only guy hot lapping. I got bored, and decided to join LCS Cruise server, which changed EVERYTHING.

I played LCS every day I could, before school, after, on breaks and weekends, then took at break in 2022. In summer 2023, I returned to LFS, figured out how skins worked, made some friends in LCS, became a cop, and for a year just grinded. (In fall 2024, my friend gifted me S3, and I've been exploring what it has to offer since (and grinding in TC) )

Quote from Driv9 :

I remember watching a Gooseiest video, like in 2020 (insert skull emoji) and I...

So basically doing nothing usefull