Hi I have just bought and downloaded S2. I played LFS some time ago on S1 Demo. When I am playing the game keeps freezing for a couple of seconds. This is happening regularly online & offline. I have no other programs running. My Computer is Pentium 4 with 512 ram.

Anyone got any ideas how to fix this?

Thanks for your help

I would suggest you to check temp of CPU and GPU. Overheating may cause crashes like you describe...

EDIT. Readed your post carefully and realized that I was "a bit" wrong. You might try to incerase the MINIMUM SLEEP value in LFS Options/Misc and disconnect any wireless USB devices if any... sorry for incorrect first suggestion...

thanks for your help. I tried increasing the minium sleep but it made no difference. My frame rate is running between 40-50 could this be the problem?

Your FPS isnt bad. Is that on a full grid or by yourself? Either way it isnt bad.

Do you leave your computer running overnight? If so...Turn it off for a couple of hours, also unplug the mains lead going into the PSU.
Also, take the side panel off your case, and hoover out the fan and heatsink on the CPU and any other fans. Also, hoover out any vents on the case. Overheating could be the problem, that was mine not to long ago. But, my FPS was more like 7 when along side 1 car.

Let me know how it goes.

P.S. Nice first name

FPS is okay, no problem here. You might try updating drivers of graphics, chipset/motherboard and check that temp of CPU - just to ensure it is all right.


Maybe posting whole specs of your system wouldnt hurt

Are you running anything else in the background? sounds like the HDD is being overloaded and LFS has to wait for the HDD to be "free" before it can get Data - and thus freezes (get this with high bitrate music tracks playing in XMPlay sometimes)

more RAM then, perhaps? the hdd shouldn't work much during the playtime, since the game should be loaded on to the RAM..? at least my hdd doesn't work at all when i play LFS..

if it did, i would hear it..

You could try turning off some services by going to Run --> Services.msc. Make sure you close any CPU-heavy background programs (e.g. Norton Antivirus).

I noticed that i have a bigger stutters now with patch V when someone leaves the garage, and huge lags when someone's skin is being downloaded.
Also, the stutters sometimes apear with no reason..
It's quite of a problem now, because sometimes they are really big, like, screen freezes for a second or two, and i am suddenly in the sand.
I heard that with Patch V, the skins are now being downloaded in 1024x1024 pixels, is that true?

This might sound a bit trivial, but a HDD defrag might help a little. Could you post your specs please? (CPU speed, RAM and graphics card memory would be the most helpful). I suspect that version V is a little more heavy on resources than U.

ive got the same thing, ive defragged and installed new drivers installed new LFS folder and still get 4 fps when there is cars on the track. my windows is up to date and i have only 50% full hdd. when i updated my gfx drivers i got a good performance increase and smoother play but still major reductions in frame rate when cars are in view. like 90 fps when im alone then if i see 1 or 2 cars i get 5-10 fps major difference.

ive a p4 3.4 and a geforce 6800 graphics 2 gig of ddr memory @ 333mhz (it says in the bios a 500 mhz option but i havent tried that?)

not got any anti aliasing on and all is set to performance mode.

recently installed programs:

a bunch of annoying hp software for a new usb 2 printer that i got
itunes cos of ipod xmas pressie

ive run adaware and cleaned out the files and ive got norton anti virus running, ive tried LFS with av on and off both same results.

ive tried tinkering with some graphics like LOD and shadows but still not luck. ive got it running in 1280x1024 pixels.

I'm having the same problem.. every 4/5 seconds the game freezes for something like 1msec and it's rather annoying cause I can't drive smoothly into turns

Happened after I installed V patch and there's no recent hardware or software changes to my computer..

edit:

looked in the forums and there are other people having this issue.. in one thread someone said december06 update for Directx solved the sound lag so I gave it a try. I'm racing smoothly again

So if u got this problem try to update directx, you can get the web installer here

ive updated direct x too. seems im getting slight performance increases but still getting majorly bogged down when theres more than 1 car in view. its a bit risky because if your back end steps out in a corner and the fps is at 5 you cant correct it and can cause an accident if you fishtail badly in the lag...

I need to fine tune my running processes, how can i do that, thats one thing i havent done, is there a program that stops things running...

some more info on my specs:

SATA 190GB (drive 1 127GB free, drive 2 81GB free)

Windows XP pro

USB devices:

self powered hub
logitech DFP
microsoft mouse
ipod dock
ADSL modem
HP printer

Quote from richy :

ive got the same thing, ive defragged and installed new drivers installed new LFS folder and still get 4 fps when there is cars on the track. my windows is up to date and i have only 50% full hdd. when i updated my gfx drivers i got a good performance increase and smoother play but still major reductions in frame rate when cars are in view. like 90 fps when im alone then if i see 1 or 2 cars i get 5-10 fps major difference.

ive a p4 3.4 and a geforce 6800 graphics 2 gig of ddr memory @ 333mhz (it says in the bios a 500 mhz option but i havent tried that?)

not got any anti aliasing on and all is set to performance mode.

recently installed programs:

a bunch of annoying hp software for a new usb 2 printer that i got
itunes cos of ipod xmas pressie

ive run adaware and cleaned out the files and ive got norton anti virus running, ive tried LFS with av on and off both same results.

ive tried tinkering with some graphics like LOD and shadows but still not luck. ive got it running in 1280x1024 pixels.

That sounds like it could perhaps be something to do with the connection; perhaps it is dropping packets. Is your CPU usage at 99% or 100% while you are playing? I assume that when you reduce the resolution it doesn't make much difference.

Quote from richy :

I need to fine tune my running processes, how can i do that, thats one thing i havent done, is there a program that stops things running...

and in answer to my own question, i knew i had used it before and knew about it

Start > Run > msconfig

Ok i cleared up all my startup processes. still no change as yet.

may update my mobo bios. risky stuff.

im usually the kind to format c: and put a new windows on, but this time i feel the urge to fight it and try to learn to keep my PC free of stuff and running good so...ive gone to the extent of reinstalling LFS though.

running out of things to try. need to tinker with graphics options more I guess. my system should be able to handle AA and nicer graphics im sure, but i cant. i really want it racing nicely like when i first got the PC.

I tried the V sync option in Misc Options. It worked.

My system needs to have V Sync on to run LFS then? I dont know about this stuff but this seems to have been the issue.

I had 10-90 FPS. now its in a solid state of 60 FPS exactly. like it used to be before the patch.

In this patch does it turn off V sync because some people may need to turn this option back on to correctly play LFS...

Oh well glad its fixed. Thanks to the guys in the other threads and this one for the guidance and technical tips to read.

scratch that, still not working.

ive done everything i can now except re install windows. not going to. will wait for new LFS version in 6 months.

I just found this thread. I'm having the same studdering problem with my video. My biggest problem is I'm not sure if it's patch V or the new HD (320GB SATA), Video Card (7900GS) and Processor (ATHALON 64 4000+) I just put in.

The game was flawless with my old stuff so I don't know why I'm having problems now.

If you have installed new HW have you reinstalled your OS? (win xp?) because there will be so many registry entrys relating to your older stuff, you really need to reinstall the complete OS all drivers and direct X.
At the very least run a good driver and registry cleaner, also you would probably need to delete the card_cfg txt file in the main LFS folder so it picks up your new GFX card and creates a new cfg file

Good luck.

Always remember to backup backup backup!

SD.

Quote from lambchop44 :

The game was flawless with my old stuff so I don't know why I'm having problems now.

Assuming that you'd done everything perfectly, considering the number of new components there could be a hardware fault. It could also be a driver not installed properly. It could be a Windows issue with AMD dual cores. I believe the AMD driver adds /usepmtimer to the boot arguments. You may wish to remove that and see if it resolves your problems, and possibly take a look into the various fixes in the microsoft knowledge base.

Thanks,
I did a fresh install after the HD and video card, but I just plopped the Processor in yesterday. I had a 3000+ and went to a 4000+.

I'll try some of your suggestions and get back to you. Thanks!

CARD CFG=
Adapter Select 0
Adapter Name NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS
Use HVS 1
ZBD Select 2
Simple Track 0

Ok, MS actually suggested adding the /usepmtimer
I did that. No difference... except maybe worse.

Now I quickly went to the task manager when it got bad and the svchost.exe was using 80% of my cpu. What's up with that?
And there's 7 instances of svchost.exe running at the same time.

Quote from lambchop44 :

Ok, MS actually suggested adding the /usepmtimer
I did that. No difference... except maybe worse.

Now I quickly went to the task manager when it got bad and the svchost.exe was using 80% of my cpu. What's up with that?
And there's 7 instances of svchost.exe running at the same time.

This might help you out a little

As the linked page says, svchost handles DLLs for services. When there is some svchost constantly utilizing CPU very heavily, it seems like buggy or improperly installed driver, it also can be damaged some part of windows.