Yesterday I installed patch U25 and when I raced with other cars my FPS dropped to 10-20 (7-15 with start). Usually it was about 40-60 with (25 with start) other cars around.

When I drive alone I have normal FPS, 60-80, that is with patch U25.

Now I removed patch U25 and the FPS haven’t improved. With other people around I still get 10-20 FPS. When I drive alone the FPS is normal.

I installed no new drivers or something. Can somebody help me to improve FPS, because driving online is extremely difficult.

Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 3.00 Ghz
Nvidia GeForce FX 5700LE
1024 MB Ram

*Oh...and, yesterday I accidentally ‘kicked’ the computer *

Doubt you could do much damage to the computer by kicking it, on accident. If the thing still works okay, nothing is wrong with it.

Have a play with the graphics options and see if you can get close enough to your original framerate. Perhaps your cfg.txt or one of those other files, the files that store your options, was overwritten during install of patch U25 and they simply need adjusting again.

Make sure your CPU isn't overheating. As far as I know Pentiums throttle themselves in such situations, so it could have enough power for a single car but as soon as the physics of other cars come into play it bogs down.

If it REALLY just started the second U25 was installed, the only significant change is the use of a different sound system, so you should also be sure to have the latest sound drivers and DirectX version (still 9.0c).

Unfortunately it's a bit hard to tell what's wrong if all we basically know is "the FPS got halved". If this is really caused by U25 it will probably take some time to find out a pattern and possible reasons for the slowdown.

Try other games that you know well or a benchmark and see if they are also slower. If they are then you know its a system problem not lfs. If it isn't slower then chances something has changed in the lfs configuration.

Thanks for replies.

I downloaded the latest sound drivers, I allready had directX 9.0c and my cpu isn't overheating. But the FPS is still low.

I also tried other games, and the FPS has dropped there too.

Well i had same problem, after installing U25 low fps. Back to U20 and still slower FPS then before with U20.
This happened on the Aston track, i found trackfiles for aston in older version on my HD and copied them, now it seems to work properly again, i think new textures are the problem.
I'm running winME on an AMD 2800, maybe that doesnt help to much to.

Are you sure that your computer isnt infected by spyware/adware/virus/ anything else like that? Check your TaskManager(RClick on taskbar>Task Manager)for some weird-looking processes.
When your performace came down in other games too, then you are lucky in one point of view - there are guys among us that have only LFS running excessively slow
You may want to download tools like SpyBot (www.safer-networking.net) and check your system - be sure you have updated definitions before scanning.

BTW, how much did your FPS fall in other games? More or less than in LFS(relatively, of course)?

I tried SpyBot, and there was some spyware. After removing that I tried to play LFS, and there was the same low FPS when cars are around.

The FPS in other games was lowered about the same as in LFS.

Does anybody think re-installing LFS will work?

if it's affecting other games - no, what graphics card do you have?

Try following

Start>Run>msconfig>select Diagnostic boot(or however it is called in your language version of Windoze), click OK. Then reboot your computer and check what FPS do you have. If my prediction is right, you shoud be playing with even more FPS than you had before that slowdown.

But before doing this, open that damn TaskManager, maximize it and send us a screenshot of it with "Processes" card chosen.

Quote from MadCatX :

Try following

Start>Run>msconfig>select Diagnostic boot(or however it is called in your language version of Windoze), click OK. Then reboot your computer and check what FPS do you have. If my prediction is right, you shoud be playing with even more FPS than you had before that slowdown.

But before doing this, open that damn TaskManager, maximize it and send us a screenshot of it with "Processes" card chosen.

After rebooting my computer (after selecting Diagnostic boot) the FPS was still low when cars are around. However, it improved a little bit, but not much.

Quote from MadCatX :

open that damn TaskManager, maximize it and send us a screenshot of it with "Processes" card chosen.

Do this, it will help us decide which programs running in the background you do not need (should improve fps).

Here is the screenshot from of the 'Processes'. Hope this is ok?

well it isn't the problem, but you can delete reader_sl.exe, it is a "quick launch" for Acrobat Reader, and it does very very little to the startup time of the program, so you might as well junk it.

You say you have an nVidia card? try these drivers - http://www.tweaksrus.com/index ... mp;gid=756&Itemid=41/

I installed the drivers, the FPS is (almost) not increasing. I really don't know how to get more FPS when cars are around .

well... um... not sure if you want to do what i did with my 5700le...

oh well.

right click on windows desktop... properties... settings... advanced... there you should see some nvidia control panel. go and find where it says "quality/performance" and set it to either the middle, or slightly towards 'performance'. turn OFF antialiasing, set "anisotropic filtering" to "application controlled"

mind you, having the latest-latest drivers from nvidia is NOT the fastest option. I know, this might sound crazy at first, but there are some drivers' versions which are slow.

then, fiddle with LFS's graphics and display settings.

i suggest:
widescreen NO
800x600 32bit
mip bias try HIGHER values : slider RIGHT.
shadow low res
simple wheels, disable trees, flags, rubber: MIRROR
dither NO
mip filter NO
compressed skins... YES
half texture size: your card has 128MB, it is enough for lfs.
hardware vertex shading: ON ON ON
z buffer: um.... don't remember... try each one. lower is supposed to be faster, but not necessarily (depends on the internal GPU datapa--- nevermind...)

haze effect YES (strangely!)

full screen vertical sync NO
limit frame rate: NO
min sleep 1ms
screen clear PLAIN SKY

lalalla

important: FIDDLE WITH EVERY "BIAS" AND "LOD" SETTING YOU CAN SEE:

create a race with like many AI cars... let them run a little, pause the game, and then start fiddling with the settings, so that no physics calculation takes place. i think. scawen, am i right?

um. i'm bored... it's like the 5th time i am writing the same stuff...fiddle with the graphics, google some...

Quote from george_tsiros :

well... um... not sure if you want to do what i did with my 5700le...

oh well.

right click on windows desktop... properties... settings... advanced... there you should see some nvidia control panel. go and find where it says "quality/performance" and set it to either the middle, or slightly towards 'performance'. turn OFF antialiasing, set "anisotropic filtering" to "application controlled"

mind you, having the latest-latest drivers from nvidia is NOT the fastest option. I know, this might sound crazy at first, but there are some drivers' versions which are slow.

then, fiddle with LFS's graphics and display settings.

i suggest:
widescreen NO
800x600 32bit
mip bias try HIGHER values : slider RIGHT.
shadow low res
simple wheels, disable trees, flags, rubber: MIRROR
dither NO
mip filter NO
compressed skins... YES
half texture size: your card has 128MB, it is enough for lfs.
hardware vertex shading: ON ON ON
z buffer: um.... don't remember... try each one. lower is supposed to be faster, but not necessarily (depends on the internal GPU datapa--- nevermind...)

haze effect YES (strangely!)

full screen vertical sync NO
limit frame rate: NO
min sleep 1ms
screen clear PLAIN SKY

lalalla

important: FIDDLE WITH EVERY "BIAS" AND "LOD" SETTING YOU CAN SEE:

create a race with like many AI cars... let them run a little, pause the game, and then start fiddling with the settings, so that no physics calculation takes place. i think. scawen, am i right?

um. i'm bored... it's like the 5th time i am writing the same stuff...fiddle with the graphics, google some...

I tried that, but it doesn't help very much. The FPS is a little bit higher but still around 10 at the start.

As I glanced on your TaskManager report, it seemes very strange to me that there is a process taking over 70MB of RAM. It looks like some antivirus - judging by its name. If it is so, what about trying another one? 70MB is just something foolish.

Because your FPS are not resolution-dependant(in fact they cant be, because LFS is really GPU decent), try this. Start>Run>dxdiag. On "Audio" card set BASIC or NONE Hardware acceleration. You may have some tricky sound driver that causes what you have described. It happened to me once, it is related to incorrect EAX effects application - just for your information.

BTW, what sound card do you have? I presume it is some onboard stuff.

It looks like george_tsiros forgot to mention SIMPLE TRACK option in Graphics settings. It must be D I S A B L E D!, otherwise HVS is not applicable and that affects performance seriously.

Quote from MadCatX :

As I glanced on your TaskManager report, it seemes very strange to me that there is a process taking over 70MB of RAM. It looks like some antivirus - judging by its name. If it is so, what about trying another one? 70MB is just something foolish.

Because your FPS are not resolution-dependant(in fact they cant be, because LFS is really GPU decent), try this. Start>Run>dxdiag. On "Audio" card set BASIC or NONE Hardware acceleration. You may have some tricky sound driver that causes what you have described. It happened to me once, it is related to incorrect EAX effects application - just for your information.

BTW, what sound card do you have? I presume it is some onboard stuff.

It looks like george_tsiros forgot to mention SIMPLE TRACK option in Graphics settings. It must be D I S A B L E D!, otherwise HVS is not applicable and that affects performance seriously.

I installed other antivirus software, so it's not taking over 70 MB of Ram anymore. I also set 'Basic' and 'None' (tried both) hardware acceleration. But my FPS haven't improved.
I think it's very strange because only when I see other cars the FPS drops to 10 (or less) , and when I spin or something and I don't see the cars anymore the FPS increases, to 20-35.

THIS DOESN'T HAVE TO DO WITH LFS, IT'S HIS COMPUTER

Just stating it so people can keep that in mind while trying to help you. Now lets get to the bottom of this. While you are running lfs, how is the cpu usage? (in taskmanager under the proccesses tab)

Of course that it is about his computer, we all around here know it.

I dont think that CPU usage is related to performace it the way you might be getting at. It will be 100% or little less if you have a really powerful CPU. In Lennarts case will TaskMan show something over 50% because of HyperThreading.(if he doesnt have combined CPU usage graph enabled)

Exactly as I expected. Lennart, did you try disabling Simple Track as I mentioned above?

To sum up, I am sure that this is something in Windoze causing this problem. Good news is that it is not only LFS what runs slow. I am afraid that only working solution will be reformatting harddrive and a fresh WinXP installation(I reccommend you to get SP2-preinstalled version).

This is something that works with 95% effectivness Otherwise follow the instructions below