Poor devs can't get a break. Seems like not so very long ago, all people really wanted was false starts and better class balancing. And now we've got it. Scawen keeps pointing out that all this stuff needs to be addressed at some point- but it seems like every patch or test patch, there are people who just aren't happy with what's going in. Let's try to keep our focus on the bigger picture, and realise that Scawen can't do everything at once- it'll be easier that way for all of us.

Not a personal attack or anything- just an observation of current trends in the forum.

Thats just the thing, this never NEEDED to be touched, I do think that this addition is a little out of touch with the community.

Put it like this, this skin addition adds NOTHING that we already could'nt do, makes adding hi-res skins downloaded by yourself for multiplayer purposes more difficult and complex than before, makes you pay if you want to download hi-res skins, and increases the devs bandwith, apart from the change to dds, which I agree, CAN be a good thing, it just perplexes me why this was added, and who decided it was worthwhile adding.

Take the RB4 model for example, ok, it's not a BAD model persay, but it has been with us without update for bloody ages, putting hi-res skins on that model is tant-amount to trying to polish a turd, it just aint working.

This is why I am confused, the devs don't have to answer to me, or anyone else, it's there sim, they have my money, they can do what they want, BUT I don't have to like it, and I have the right to say so, as long as it's done in a constructive manner.

I personally think this pay for hi-res skin idea should be dumped, allow us, as before, to add hi-res skins should we deem nessecary, but still keep the change to dds texture files.

You can't please all the people all the time, I am sure you know this, and I am sure the dev's know this.

I had similar thinking on this pay for Hi-Res option.
But after sleeping on it, curiosity killed that cat today and I took the plunge and laid down some dough to see what all the fuss is about with this new Hi-Res download option available in test patch W21.

A couple of things before I get into telling you what I think.
1. You can only credit your account with a minimum of 3 pounds UK.
So that will get you 6000 skin downloads
2. make sure you enable the option in-game which is found under the options/misc menu half way down. The good thing is you can always set it to Low-Res downloads at any time, if you so choose.

Now what do I think, well I am pretty well converted.
Wow what a difference.
There is a number of reasons I feel this way now apart form the fact that the cars do look so much better.
1. Most car skins are around 680KB's which is a lot smaller than when I convert a 1024 or 2048 skin myself.
They tend to be 1-2.5MB if I do it ouch!
2. There is no mucking around with doing any of you own converting of JPG's
3. The whole issue of having Hi_Res skins with a filename that doesn't match the one on LFSW is now a thing of the past. So if ppl rename them when they upload to LFSW after you get the team skin pack you don't end up with duplicate skins with the Hi_Res one not ever being used
4. O.K the Hi-Res skins from LFSW are derived from 1024px JPG's which you say are not as good as having a 2048px skin but take a look at the screenshots below and make your own mind up on this point.
Particularly the shots of me & Davo side by side. My car is a 2048px converted JPG while Davo's is the one I got of LFSW (Hi_Res) option.
5. All the High_Res skins from LFSW go into you skins_y folder, while the Low_Res ones will come into you skin_x folder like it used to. Keeps them nicely separated.

Screenshots:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com ... 94615953_22420b7e6b_o.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com ... 94615971_717ad079c1_o.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com ... 94615975_06fa444348_o.jpg

Leave it up to each of you but point 3 is worth considering imo.

Has anyone made in-game screenshots for direct comparison of different skin texture sizes? I couldn't find any in this thread and am too lazy to make them myself right now.

I made one comparing 512,1024 and 2048.

The difference between the 512 and 1024 is huge but the 1024 to 2048 is small.4096 would be ihmo useless and I took the cars from quite close (extreme close)views.

Please use pictures from the link.I wasnt able to upload this files here.

http://www.home.karneval.cz/0222338601/test/

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

I made one comparing 512,1024 and 2048.

The difference between the 512 and 1024 is huge but the 1024 to 2048 is small.4096 would be ihmo useless and I took the cars from quite close (extreme close)views.

Please use pictures from the link.I wasnt able to upload this files here.

http://www.home.karneval.cz/0222338601/test/

So are these DDS files that have been converted form JPG's (512,1024 & 2048px) using test patch W21?

If I am also interested to know what file size the DDS skin files are?
something like 300KB, 700KB then 2.5MB?

:doh: I have had turned on full resolution car&helmet skins and not the compressed version.

EDITED:
The link has now 2 versions.Once the not compressed files(512,1024,2048) and once when the compressed options is tunred on in LFS(512,1024,2048).

Same link:¨
http://www.home.karneval.cz/0222338601/test/

Thanks, exactly what I was looking for.

Clearly, paying the devs for the 1024 versions will be money well spent. While the 2048 versions are visibly better still, I don't think they warrant using 4 times the bandwidth of 1024 versions. If LFS was a stand alone offline game then sure, go as high as you can, but since LFS has such a great auto skin download feature file size needs to be considered.

Quote :

the change to dds, which I agree, CAN be a good thing

I'll admit I thought this was a mad idea at first. Increasing the file size along with a potential degradation in quality and then charging people for the extra bandwidth... illepall But Scawen's put forth his reasons here, and I'm more inclined now to think that this move can only be for the better. Now, with skins being downloaded beforehand- I can pretty much enjoy a 30 car online race without the lag associated with downloading all of those skins (hard to quantify but I'm sure it's there). It takes a minute to load 30 cars for me, but I'd rather wait a minute than let everything happen ingame. I definitely feel that the online experience is smoother due to this change (skins loading beforehand).

I also noticed a slight increase in the speed of loading AI skins in single player- obviously again due to the dds file format.

The only thing i'd possibly suggest for the new system is that any new cars coming into the race wait until the current race is over before loading in their skin. A generic skin that maybe signifies that the real skin hasn't loaded would work.

Quote from danowat :

Yup, I agree Mark, there ARE more worthy things, and I do wonder who decided that this (hi-res paid for texture downloads) was a) wanted by the majority of the community, and b) needed in the first place, as it offers nothing that we can't already do now.

I have to disagree almost entirely with your posts on this page, I'm afraid. I think the optional hi-res skin downloading is a great addition. We all know Scavier's preference for lo-res textures, but nowhere was this more painfully obvious than on cars using 512 skins.

It's true that you're not looking for rivets and little slogans on your rivals' cars when racing, but in the past I've found myself staring at the back of the car in front down a long straight and not even being able to read anything on the back of the car because it's all illegible due to the low resolution. It doesn't do anything for the immersion, and it makes LFS look old and cheap compared to the texture details in other games that are two or three years old, let alone modern day titles. 1024 car textures are extremely welcome, in my opinion.

Besides, it's optional. Those of you who don't want to use it, don't have to pay for it. When patch X is final I'll happily stick £3 from my paypal account onto LFS - and with the limited amount of time I have for LFS at the moment, 6000 skin downloads will probably last me a good few months.

Ive dropped all of the hi-res skins from skins_x to skins so that LFS can take advantage of my hi-res skin collections, i've now get a 3.45 gb Skins_DDS folder and a 1.2 GB skins folder - can i delete the skins folder? my games partitions only got 200 mb free!

1024x1024 is what I consider high resolution. 2048x2048 is okay for people with 128MB of video ram or above, but it still uses too much disk space. When I am racing in LFS, I really don't care that they are 512x512. I am worrying to much about how I can be a little faster the next lap to pass them.

EDIT: I did some testing in the LFS viewer. Let me just say that 4096x4096 skins look horrible in LFS.

Devil - looking at those screenies, I can see that 1024 skins are better when racing, or during replays. 2048 skins look really nice, but you're never going to notice the difference unless you're doing screenshots or renders (at which point they're essential). During racing you're just not going to be close enough to tell the difference.

Quote from Jakg :

Ive dropped all of the hi-res skins from skins_x to skins so that LFS can take advantage of my hi-res skin collections, i've now get a 3.45 gb Skins_DDS folder and a 1.2 GB skins folder - can i delete the skins folder? my games partitions only got 200 mb free!

Jakg if you mean all the old JPG's in the skins file then yes you can delete them, once they have been converted to DDS files in the skins_dds folder the game no longer needs the JPG's. That is what I did - no problem

This new feature has just worked so well. Its cheap, when in a server the download and converting process is so so quick.

I belive the whole changing from .jpg to .dds files is just the begining of what the Dev's are going for. I did a little research and found that with DDS files alot more can be done.

The whole hi-res option has made such a difference to the game, and its all done for cheaper than a pack of smokes

*edit*
Everything the Dev's are working on is leading to S3 (in the end). So these type of things will be need upgrading, to make LFS marketable for S3

Quote from Bob Smith :

Devil - looking at those screenies, I can see that 1024 skins are better when racing, or during replays. 2048 skins look really nice, but you're never going to notice the difference unless you're doing screenshots or renders (at which point they're essential). During racing you're just not going to be close enough to tell the difference.

I can completly agree.I just wanted to show the difference as some people were asking in this thread whats the difference.

As I said the jump from 512 to 1024 is really huge and 2048 is only nice for screenshot taking but nothing more.Maybe some close-up videos too.

Currently the DXT1 causes sometimes too much artifacts around the text and make blending in colour gradients thought:-(.

Quote from flinty72 :

Jakg if you mean all the old JPG's in the skins file then yes you can delete them, once they have been converted to DDS files in the skins_dds folder the game no longer needs the JPG's. That is what I did - no problem

I'd be waiting until Patch X... If something changes until then, chances are all his skins are irreversibly lost...

Quote from bbman :

I'd be waiting until Patch X... If something changes until then, chances are all his skins are irreversibly lost...

Yes very true but mine are backed up as I have done what most guys do & have 2 copies of LFS, an official install and a test patch install.

i didn't save these images...!

Quote from Jakg :

i didn't save these images...!

I hope your only kidding Jakg, are they still in your recycle bin?
If so you can recover them from there.
Remember the golden rule "always backup before deleting".

Now remember you still have them but now they are DDS files, You could convert them back to JPG's, just not sure what quality/size the JPG will be but should work imo.

Quote from danowat :

TBH, all this seems rather more complex and painfull than it need to be, is there really that many people who require higher res multiplayer skins, that don't already do it the way I do? (download hi-res skins and place them in skins_x), I just wonder how this got to be priority for a patch, as it offers nothing we can't already do, increases bandwith, and messes with an already working system, AND you have to pay for it.

I totally agree that this has gotten out of hand and way more complex than it should be. However; I think it's gotten complex because of YOUR request.

Personally, I think it should be as it was before: the "skins" folder holds your own skins, which you use on your own cars. the "skins_x" folder (which really needs a new name, btw), should hold downloaded skins. If you want high res skins, you pay for it. You don't pay, you don't get high res skins. And that's it. If you want to have high res skins of your teammates, you pay for the high res skin option. Period.

LOL Tweak... anyways, that is one thing that would be nice to see is us go to DX9 and make use of some shaders, etc. But this is a racing sim, so its more about function over flash.

Quote from Tweaker :

You still aren't understanding it Jimmy.
LFS still runs on DirectX 8.0, we don't have shaders and all that stuff you want your PC to have sex with, we can't get any better then this for the sake of performance and BANDWIDTH.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

I made one comparing 512,1024 and 2048.

The difference between the 512 and 1024 is huge but the 1024 to 2048 is small.4096 would be ihmo useless and I took the cars from quite close (extreme close)views.

Please use pictures from the link.I wasnt able to upload this files here.

http://www.home.karneval.cz/0222338601/test/

2048x2048 textures are clearly superior to the 1024 ... 1024 is maybe medium quality but clearly not high!

Not so much as 1024 to 512.

You forgot to mirror your text when you put it on the other side.