WARNING 1 : THIS IS A TEST

WARNING 2 : SKINS ARE CONVERTED THE FIRST TIME YOU RUN THE TEST PATCH - IT TAKES 2 MINUTES OR SO

Hello racers.

Here is a new test patch W21 with various updates and fixes. It is compatible with W17, the version which first allowed 32 players in a race, but it's best to join W20/W21 hosts if possible because they send a list of skins to preload before entering, so the final connection to the host is quicker.

There are several improvements related to skins here including the option to download high resolution skins while online, for a small charge of £1 for 2000 downloads. The low resolution downloads are still free. We have to charge for the downloading of high resolution skins because of the increased bandwidth and the need to buy and maintain more internet servers for LFS online usage which is always increasing. Please note, we are not selling skins. The skins remain the property of their owners. Your copy is a high resolution compressed version of the original. This is a charge purely for the downloading service which allows you to see other cars' skins in higher resolution.

Downloaded skins are now always saved and shown in compressed form. The original jpg is not saved on other computers. This allows the best use of memory and the quickest load from disk.

To use your own jpg skins, or to view skins that you manually download, save them into your skins folder - you will then find them selectable in game, just as before. You can see your manually downloaded skins compressed or not compressed according to the option for local skins. There are now 4 skins folders but you can ignore them all, just forget about them and just use the skins folder as usual.

skins : you save jpg skins that you want to select in game
skins_dds : lfs uses this to store dds (compressed) versions of your local skins
skins_x : lfs stores automatically downloaded low res skins
skins_y : lfs stores automatically downloaded high res skins

NOTE : SKINS ARE CONVERTED ON THE FIRST RUN OF THIS TEST PATCH - THAT MAY TAKE 2 MINUTES OR SO

If you want to use this service, you can make a payment at www.lfsworld.net or at the main site https://www.liveforspeed.net/?page=shop

To deal with the increased memory usage, there is also a skin purging system which removes unneeded skins from your graphics card memory, some time after they were last used. You can see the list of skins in use in the Misc Options screen. White means the skin is actually in use. Black means it was recently used and is hanging around a while in case it is used again (to avoid a disc access). In the past, LFS just left all skins in memory until you changed track or weather.

W21 is like W20 but with the skin preloading system fixed.
Please read below for the full list of updates in W21.
I have made a post in the programmers section about the small InSim changes.

Changes in TEST PATCH W21 :

IMPROVEMENTS :

Qualifying out lap is no longer counted as a valid lap
Qualifying position is shown in yellow like race position
Qualifying cars on out lap are drawn orange (others yellow)
Race control message now has priority over wrong way message
Replay skins download screen new "always" and "never" options
High res premium skin download system (£1 for 2000 downloads)
Skin download and preload during connection after loading track
System to remove skins from graphics card memory when not used
Automatic show results - leaves small map visible when driving
Place objects is switched off when entering race or qualifying
Filter added to list of games to avoid hosts which allow reset
Wider FOV and more view pitch available (for extreme settings)
Yellow finished message is no longer duplicated in central text
Avoided most of the "Can't x - a player is connecting" messages
Escape menu improvements : can use keys (listed on screen)
New keys SHIFT+S (spectate) and SHIFT+P (go to pits)
Automatic spectate if your car drives out of bounds
Some small InSim updates + multiple UDP connections

FIXES :

Start lights or results were drawn too high if no cars in race
The pit_all command did not stop recording SPR (OOS on replay)
Joining a host in qualifying, could see flying cars (no track)
Start restriction countdown was missing from OK button in pits
Autocross checkpoints in line could cause rapid lap count bug
Path followers were reset when an object was added or removed
Path follower reset caused a glitch or an out of bounds reset
Increased maximum physics objects due to more cars on track
Some objects were not drawn after exiting pits while paused
Start lights were not shown in some of the training lessons
At start of qualifying pit speed limiter was not activated
LFS World took drag strip false start as an acceptable pb
Possibly fixed the occasional exiting List of Games crash

Changes in TEST PATCH W17 :

IMPROVEMENTS :

Max cars in multiplayer race increased to 32
InSim updated, allowing up to eight TCP connections
Small map colours : Options... Display... Interface
Removed the sound of a player pitting or spectating
Last loaded layout name visible after track changed
Start lights interval now between 1 and 4 seconds
Removed digital speedo option from view options
Qualifying session now starts from the pits
Added button to spectate from garage

FIXES :

Wrong screen message "x was banned" after an OOS disconnection
AI did not use correct car colours when added in game with /ai
Could start in reverse if changing down at end of last race
Show driver in garage allowed more penalty weight to be added

Changes in TEST PATCH W10 :

IMPROVEMENTS :

Immediate join at start of qualifying now starts from pit box
Connection bars are not drawn if they would obscure tyre info
Single player now allows up to 20 ai cars (powerful pc needed)
Small map cars more than one lap ahead are a different colour
Autocross : 28 results now stored - scroll with PgUp / PgDn
Added handicap mass and restriction to hotlap file header
Demo races limited to 12 cars (15 guests still allowed)
Better messages showing the reason for disconnection
Maximum added mass limited to around 20% of car mass
Admin can see kick and ban buttons even if /vote=no

FIXES :

Incorrect false start penalties while stationary at start
Displayed mass in garage flickered while moving handicap slider
False start penalty was given for an early start in qualifying
Corrected width of split time difference (in live position list)
Wrong "A race is starting" if track changed but no race started
Joining a waiting start grid sometimes produced a false start
Could quickly pit and return to grid to remove a false start
Skins used in race were not stored correctly in MP replays
Admins could not kick or ban using the list of connections
Could be given a pit penalty on a track with no pit lane
MRT would fly about if voluntary added mass was too high

Changes in TEST PATCH W9 :

Car is no longer held at start line - false starts possible
Start lights time between red and green is changed each race
Implemented the canreset option while leaving hotlaps valid
Added preload setting to clutch pack differentials
Increased number of cars in race from 20 to 28
Increased number of connections from 24 to 48
Single player and demo races now up to 16 cars
Start and pit fuel loads range from 1% to 100%
New voluntary handicap system in pits (part of setup)
Remote car's handicap shown in F11 menu, tyres in F12 menu
Global handicaps for class balancing (set by master server)
Removed the need to pass a split after receiving admin penalty
Start grid remains when track or config changes (if possible)
More commands now work on AI drivers : /spec /pitlane /p_xxx
More commands work even if player joining e.g. /spec /laps
Grid reordering is now done on end race as well as restart
New /i command to send a message to a race control program
Added short track name to SPR, MPR and RAF file formats
More race tracking info added to InSim (see InSim.txt)
Admins can now see other admins in list of connections
Admins can now edit and /axsave layouts while online
Admin ban dialog now asks for a number of days to ban
Added text on screen showing the reason for a penalty
Race penalty can now be removed with /p_clear command
Send all players to their pits with /pit_all command
Autocross results table only shows best 12 results
Timeout for dead connection reduced to 12 seconds
Kick and ban votes are held open a little longer
Removed the option not to use HVS if available
SHIFT + S enters garage from game setup screen
SHIFT + O enters options from SP replay
Display option : Virtual steering gauge
Display option : Rotate small map

FIX : F12 now shows "Pit stop required : OK" correctly
FIX : Find user in S2 mode looking for racer on S1 host
FIX : Message "NETWORK FATAL : NOTSOCK" when joining a host
FIX : Autocross layout number of laps sometimes did not load

DOWNLOAD :

PATCH (Version W must already be installed) :
www.liveforspeed.net/file_lfs.php?name=LFS_TEST_W21.exe

ZIP VERSION (If you prefer a zip file) :
www.liveforspeed.net/file_lfs.php?name=LFS_TEST_W21.zip

DEDICATED HOST (for hosting only) :
www.liveforspeed.net/file_lfs.php?name=LFS_S2_DEDI_W21.zip

Gah! I wanted to post that in the old thread, but you closed it right before my eyes. On the other hand, nice to see you working at that late hour.
To my question: I was being curious, if the payment for the high-res skins does benefit you after all or just keeps your cost lower, and which would be better from they money-wise consideration: Staying with the old system or paying for the new one? Guess the eye-candy is worth the £1 to me

Quote from herki :

Gah! I wanted to post that in the old thread, but you closed it right before my eyes. On the other hand, nice to see you working at that late hour.
To my question: I was being curious, if the payment for the high-res skins does benefit you after all or just keeps your cost lower, and which would be better from they money-wise consideration: Staying with the old system or paying for the new one? Guess the eye-candy is worth the £1 to me

Well, the price we charge is higher than we pay for bandwidth, we've tried to take into consideration the price of housing, servers, bandwidth, maintenance etc and the idea is that we can then profit from it a bit. That's not the only idea though... if it was free then everyone would use it and that would cause massive overload. All in all the price people pay for using the service should exceed the cost to us in providing it - or our calculations are very wrong!

Have u think about the PNG-format? For some text on the car will PNG absolutely very much smaller by the same resolution. I will add a test-png. i dont know if it possible to include 2 different image-formats, PNG for Text-skins and skins with big color surfaces and JPG for photo realistic skins.

Thanks for the great patch
My favorite changes:
-Automatic show results - leaves small map visible when driving
-Automatic spectate if your car drives out of bounds

Quote from matze54564 :

@Devs
The DDS-skins need more space than the JPG-skins, so i don´t know why made a new format which will cause more network traffic by the same resolution?

Quote :

This allows the best use of memory and the quickest load from disk.

Quote :

Have u think about the PNG-format?

Some time ago there was a discussion about using PNG. But PNG files are considerably bigger in filesize.

Just one little problem so far, but it is annoying.

I run the new patch, and it takes ages to convert all my 2048x2048 skins to .dds

I go into the game and change the "Cars and helmet skins" option to "Full" as I always run non-compressed local skins.

I exit out the game, and delete all the much larger sized and lower quality .dds versions of my skins from the skins_dds folder, and restart LFS.

Yay, another huge long wait as my skins are converted again...

Surely if you select "Full" rather than "Compressed" in the options, there`s no need to have those extra .dds files taking up a huge amount of space on the hard drive?

Quote from joen :

Some time ago there was a discussion about using PNG. But PNG files are considerably bigger in filesize.

It depends on the skin really. But I think on avarage PNGs would be bigger than JPGs in this case.

I like the new system for skins if it means the racing will improve and there will be less people lagging on the servers. I don't mind what the skins look like on public servers anyway, I run a pretty high resolution and even the 512x512 skins don't look that bad while racing. At least for events or screenshots you can load the super high res skins into your skins_x folder in the same way we used to.

I just noticed that it downloads all the skins in LFS World? I'm quite confused or am I wrong? Seems like my skins_x folder got bigger, anyways thanks Scawen keep on going

Quote from MAGGOT :

The One pound charge for the 1024 skins is a great idea, but I'm curious; What happens when someone puts a 12 pound credit on their account, with intentions of paying in advance for S3? Will they suddenly get 12 pounds-worth of available skins downloading, or? What about people who have already paid for S3, has that 12 pounds still been reserved for S3, or applied to the skins? Just making sure the devs have taken that into account.

if you do not turn on the 1024 car skin download option, or the 512 helmet skin option, you won't use any credit. I hope the warning screen that appears when you select either of them warns enough?

Victor you forget that many don't respond to large warning messages such as 'YELLOW FLAG' or 'BLUE FLAG' Make it a big red flashing screen with a very loud siren

The main thing I like about LFS is the way the dev team always pushes to improve graphics without sacrificing the performance. I remember Scawen or someone once saying something like 'LFS is a racing simulator, not an eye candy simulator' or words to that effect.

EDIT: Jimmy they mean server bandwidth for LFS, not your bandwidth. Your talking about a completely different thing to what has been done.

Quote from Gunn :

So does that mean that when I want to put my mates', high res skins into LFS that I have to put them into my skins folder - meaning that anytime I want to choose a skin for myself I now have a huge list of skins to browse through, skins that I never use?

Good question.

I've gone through the thread and moved that whole texture size discussion into a spinoff thread. Please don't discuss that on this thread any more as I need to read about things directly related to this test patch (e.g. bugs, issues, etc so I can deal with them).

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=24200

I just joined a W17 host and upon connection got nothing but a black screen. Changing resolutions and going into windowed mode did not fix the problem. Sound was working fine but no picture. ALT+F4 worked snd the second time I loaded up W21 it connected to the host fine.

Also is it possible to use enter in the pits to get back out onto the track? I've always previsouly used X to exit the pits when SHIFT+S was used. It's just quicker than having to reach for the mouse

Quote from Victor :

if you do not turn on the 1024 car skin download option, or the 512 helmet skin option, you won't use any credit. I hope the warning screen that appears when you select either of them warns enough?

So, if we have existing credit in our accounts, and turn on the option it will take from that credit? That makes sense to me, I was just wondering about how it was going to be setup. I hadn't seen the warning; haven't tried the patch yet.

Sorry to post this is here, as it's not really a bug or issue, but a question regarding this patch.

Thanks for all the support guys! You should get some sleep, it's really late (or early? :P) there by now!

that problem has been around for quite a few versions and it happens sproadically (for me anyway).

Is it still work random start light? When I tried restart couple of times the last red lamp was lighting every time same duration. 1sec on BlackWood and 2sec on Aston. In Kyoto was red lights some times allready alight after restart.
Ignore it if this not up-to-date subject.
Adam

It should still be random. If you are playing by yourself or with a few people, then the wait time is very short, and it might be starting immediately after a restart. That is what I've noticed at least. You need a good sized grid for the lights to be a bit more random I think (plus a longer wait)

OK something else I've noticed is that my old replays are now redownloading all the skins as dds even though I have them in my skins_x and skins_y folder as jpgs. The dds files are also twice the size of the jpgs and suffer from worse compression artifacts, is this right?

edit: lfs must only recognises dds files now, and it only converted the skins in my skins folder. I guess I'll have to manually or batch convert the remaining jpg files in my skins_x folder to be able to use them.

I need to get on the computer more! this patch looks great! the only thing I don't like is the paying for skin doownloads. I understand the need for money for more servers but how about putting on an extra say $5 to the initial LFS purchase to pay for the servers. I like the Idea of 2048x2048 skins alot but I think its going to slow down my computer even more.

Quote from Zachary Zoomy :

I need to get on the computer more! this patch looks great! the only thing I don't like is the paying for skin doownloads. I understand the need for money for more servers but how about putting on an extra say $5 to the initial LFS purchase to pay for the servers. I like the Idea of 2048x2048 skins alot but I think its going to slow down my computer even more.

Why would they do that? Again, for the 546 time, paying for high res skins is OPTIONAL, just pretend that this option isn't there, and your LFS experience is gonna be the same as usual..

true. but I have a feeling LFS is going to need more servers anyway so why not add money now (please don't yell at me)

Quote from Boris Lozac :

Why would they do that? Again, for the 546 time, paying for high res skins is OPTIONAL, just pretend that this option isn't there, and your LFS experience is gonna be the same as usual..

Actually if you look at the converted dds skin files compared to their jpg brothers they're larger and have more artifacts, thus look crappier.

so dds is bigger yes it has more compression?? how does that work :S

so I imagine there's going to be even less test servers online now Looking forward to patch X.

Quote from Burnzoire :

so dds is bigger yes it has more compression?? how does that work :S

so I imagine there's going to be even less test servers online now Looking forward to patch X.

I guess that´s not possible to use the JPG-format in LFS. So in older Versions of LFS, it have to convert the JPG-Images in compatible images in game. This is now no more needed because the memory cache is saved in the DDS-folder, loading is then maybe faster. But this are just my thoughts. Please read the quoted source.

Quote from Ian.H :

DDS files are managed within DirectX memory far more efficiently