I have a 4200+, and have the same thing. When I have AI enabled I get pretty low fps. I have seen 20s on the grid, but not from inside the car. It doesn't seem to be GPU dependent, as almost any gfx settings don't affect the framerate, except the HVS ones. I have a PCI-e card, btw. I have not tried disabling one core yet, but will try that when I have time, and report any results. I HAVE tried setting LFS' affinity to either core, with no positive effect. All other games run great, although I was expecting better results in FS2004 too. Seems the system likes DX9 engines way better than DX7/8 for some reason. Running rFactor in DX9 is no problem, but anything lower give me stutters and poorer performance. Still, I only run LFS online, and there I have 80+ fps almost all the time, so I'm happy.

FPS drop when AI drivers are present on track is well known. Probably it is some problem in AI code. Vision didn't say if he has problem also when racing online, but I presume he has.
LFS doesn't like multi-CPU systems at all, no matter if it is Intel's HyperThreading emulation or real dualcore CPU. When I tested my HT Prescott, with disabled HT LFS ran a little faster(but still slow).

Is any way how to ban dualcore mode in BIOS? Yeah, this might be a stupid suggestion, but if it is there, just try it..... (I think you'd already tried it if these option'll be it BIOS)

My P4 3.06 HT runs just fine + fast. As long as you have a Multiprocessor OS + correct drivers for it, there should be no problem.

HT != DualCore FYI

Quote from huxorator :

My P4 3.06 HT runs just fine + fast. As long as you have a Multiprocessor OS + correct drivers for it, there should be no problem.

OS and applications are two different things. OS can support MPS on 200%, but if there is some error in application, correct drivres won't help you and everything what can "well made" OS do is save your system from crash(and WinXP ISN'T well made system -100 patches says everything).
I don't say that every app must support multiprocessoring, but if there is some error that can affect multiprocessor management in it, OS just won't save you.

Quote from jmkz :

HT != DualCore FYI

Wrong.

Hyper threading exists in single core CPUs like P4s and simply fools the machine into thinking there are two processors (threads).

A dual core CPU would therefore have 4 threads and the PC thinks you have a quad core or 4 processors...

Quote from Seahorse :

Wrong.

!= means not equal

Quote :

A dual core CPU would therefore have 4 threads and the PC thinks you have a quad core or 4 processors...

that would be one of the extreme edition dual core cpus then

If only money were no object...

Don't you think we have left topic a little bit? Let's get back to it.

Vision, can you try your dualcore Athlon in some other MoBo? I replaced mine few hours ago instead faulty one and my system speeded up!! Your CPU might be OK, MoBo can be messed up. I don't remember from what manufacturer is your board, but if it's Asus, you might have a problem (last 4 Asus boards I saw in shop where their owners were returning them with some faliure )

Quote from Seahorse :

Wrong.

uhm.. learn some simple symbols dude

!= is not =

Quote from jmkz :

uhm.. learn some simple symbols dude

!= is not =

Let him be amigo.... I am sure he knows it, I aslo said "what the hell he means when saying HT != Dualcore???" That note of exclamation just looked like keying mistake..... LoL!!!!!

Two points:

I left school 24 years ago - plenty of time to forget.
I thought the leading ! WAS a typo.

Dual Cores obviously having teething problems. You have the hardware vendors pushing out specific patches. You have the OS boys pushing out specific patches. How long before there is an LFS dual core patch?

Reminds me of when I built my current machine using an AMD64, patch, patch, patch...

I'm not that stupid to state that HT = DualCore FYI

As if...:huepfenic

Quote from Seahorse :

Dual Cores obviously having teething problems. You have the hardware vendors pushing out specific patches. You have the OS boys pushing out specific patches. How long before there is an LFS dual core patch?

It's mostly the devleopers having problems. With single CPUs, you have to pay far less attention to a couple of problems in your code than you should. Until recently, that wasn't much of an issue since only a few "stupid consumers" actually used SMP systems and those systems were mostly in the hands of people who knew what they were doing (and who bought hardware from vendors who knew that, too). Now, with Intel and AMD acually pumping those things to the cheap-ass market, all the flaws get their chance to shine.

This holds true for OS developers, e.g. see Microsoft's bastard hotfix that may or may not solve the problems (it doesn't) or Linux' problem that can be circumvented with little hassle, but you have to find the solution somehow. Similarly, driver developers (nvidia, I'm looking at you!) need to cut back on optimizing for 3DMark and start doing some work.

Afterwards, it's just a thing of software developers using working timers (PM or HPET where available) and reading up on and keeping to best practices for multithreaded systems.

Quote from Seahorse :

As if...:huepfenic

I'd be badly managing my HW site "as if"
www.madshrimps.com

Mad as a fish then...illepall

Hey, HW site and the spec you list - something wrong there...

Here the same problem

with a 4400+ toledo + ati vga (x850)

10~40 fps in the game with dual core, before, tested with a san diego 3700 single core + same specs and the permormance is totally different (70~100 fps)

Quote from Patussay :

Here the same problem

with a 4400+ toledo + ati vga (x850)

10~40 fps in the game with dual core, before, tested with a san diego 3700 single core + same specs and the permormance is totally different (70~100 fps)

which driver version ? anything newer than 5.11 will give you very low performance on a ati x series card:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=3639

Here it does not look like a GFX driver issue. Vision has GeForce card and got a problem too. Of course you can try it, but we should look for the problem in CPU.

In TaskManager(if you're running Win2K or XP) display CPU usage separately (Go to Performance card, View -> CPU Usage History -> Graph for each CPU - dunno how it is in your language version:shrug. Then run LFS in window, start there some replay with approx 10-12 cars and look on CPU usage graphs. Take a screenshot(press PrintScreen and run mspaint, then press CTRL+C)

Sorry if I'm telling you something you already know or what you have done....

(attached file - showing how to set up TaskManager, sorry that I'm making an idiot from you.... )

so what kind of performance should i expect from that pc ?
i have an almost identical pc now and atm im getting ~100 fps max but is drops to about 30 every now and then when there are lots of cars in the scene (especially with ai)

oh and cnq is troublesome too ... framerates are aout 30-60 fps lower with cnq enabled as the driver somehow doesnt see to think lfs is cpu intensive

madcatx , you mean like this?


The pic above is with cat 5.11 drivers.. the pic below is with the 5.13 drivers .

notice the FPS decrease with new drivers

btw I have set afinity for LFS to use only 1 core using rope.
SD.

Sys specs : AMD 4400+ X2 cpu
Saphire pure innovation xpress200p mobo
Saphire X850 xt pe PCI Express
2 x 1Gb Corsair PC3200 ram
3 x 160Gb sata Hitachi 7200 Hdd
Sony DVD RW
HypeR 580w ATX 2.0 PSU
Win XP pro (SP2 ect).

Yup, exactly what I meant. As you can see in pic1, average CPU usage is 39%. First core is sleeping and the second one is working quite hard, but there are some several waves in the graph. They can be caused by some other processes, so I will not comment them a lot. Strange is the difference between pic2. In pic2 is first core running fully loaded and the second is running some simple process on background...
I am not a dualcor CPU guru, but this major change should't be caused by the drivers. There is something bad in loadment redistribution.

But as I can see, your performance is quite OK, isn't it? Catalyst 5.12 and above drivers are buggy and LFS is not working correctly with them, that's well known issue.

I'd like to see graph like you posted from someone who thinks his performance is low....

And BTW, what happens with core loads when you disable the 'one core only' setting?

I'll look on my loads when LFSing, I have a HT P4, so I can do some simple simulations. I know, it'll not be exact(HT != dualcore), but we will see.

THX for your screens, they can be really useful....

I've got a 4400+ and a 9600 pro, so I'll try out the different drivers and see what fps I get too when I get home, if that'll be of any help?

the video card, drivers, settings are not the problem, is the dual core, this problem need to be fixed with a patch or something