Not really a cry for help, just pointing out something about a new graphics card;

I've gone from an ATI X700 which is over 3 years old now to an nVidia 8800GTS. Remarkable gameplay improvement with the likes of BioShock and MOH Airbourne... but not so much in Live for Speed.

Difficult to describe - I could run both cards at maximum settings up to a resolution of 1600x1200 and the X700 just looked better. Frame rate isn't the issue I'm talking about, just how it looks.

Possibly the 8800GTS is 'clearer' somehow and looking at examples like the barriers in the distance and the steel framework of the structure overhanging the start/finish at Westhill I get horrible moire patterns.

I'm guessing this is to do with anti-aliasing ... does LFS have anti-aliasing settings within the game?

LFS has no AA in game, however i've written a guide on how to make LFS look beter and it's in my signature.

Set "Negative LOD Bias" to "Clamp" to get rid of the "moire patterns" your seeing.

go into your nvidia control panel. You can adjust AA/AF from there.

Thanks both.

I'm not keen on using another utility, nHancer no exception.

As LFS doesn't have AA settings, if I want to do it in the nVidia control panel, surely it has to be set to the opposite of "let the application decide"?

In the nVidia control panel thingy, you can set 3d settings for different games, no 3rd party app required.

Set AA and AF to your required levels, and sort the negative LOD clamping as Jak has mentioned.

Robert's your mothers brother

I didn't realise you could set profiles in the standard control panel...

I might try nHancer, though I'm not a fan of loads of stuff running in the background.

Great guide that by the way.

Jackg - I've posted in your thread about the new version of nHancer looking different to the screenshots.

What I'm posting about now is your advice as I'm still getting moire. See the screenshots;

The settings I'm using for nHancer;



This is what I'm seeing in LFS;

You can see the moire in the armco barriers.

Some more nHance testing....

Setting's I'm using;
http://img.photobucket.com/alb ... orrgakx/temp/nHancer2.gif

Graphics I'm getting with these settings - just can't get rid of the jaggies
http://img.photobucket.com/alb ... gakx/temp/lfsjaggies1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/alb ... gakx/temp/lfsjaggies2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/alb ... gakx/temp/lfsjaggies3.jpg

Tried Shift + F4 and then pressing it again?

Got a screenie of your AA settins?

Oops chose the wrong one;
http://img.photobucket.com/alb ... rgakx/Misc/nHancehigh.gif
Have also tried other ones. Shift-F4 and back, have shut down now & rebooted.

The older driver (one that came with the card on CD) cause Blue Screen of Death. This latest driver is stable so going back isn't an option.

Sometimes I find that LFS wont use AA or AF settings unless the resolution is changed to something other than the desktop resolution, so try another res just for a test to see if the settings kick in.

To me this is a general ATi vs. nVidia graphics related difference. ATi has much higher level of precision as it comes to rendering distant textures, very noticable under extreme angles. I have tested tons of nVidia/ATi GC's , even a much older ATi Radeon 9700 looks better compared to that nVidia card. I also hate the way how white lines are drawn on the track, they fade away very blurry in the distance with a very noticable distant levels compared to ATi.

When i got rid of my old ATi r9700 and replaced it with a much faster nVidia card i experienced the same crap. Over time you will get used to it and it wont bother you that much anymore. Still it's a fact ATi looks better. It shows up very clearly when comparing AA/AF levels, ATi has already very good distant anisotropic filtering at 4x, whilst nVidia still lacks behind at 16x AF. In general 4x AF is enough on an ATi GC since 16x will slow it down too much to be really useful.

This made me think totally different about benchmarks where ATi's 16x AF is compared to nVidia's 16X AF on performance only. It's very clear here that nVidia has less framerate slowdown on such high settings. But the reality is that 16X AF on nVidia is way less precise. I think 64x AF would suffice for nVidia to make a good comparison between both brands. Obviously this is not possible and to the big crowd this precision difference is nothing they complain about. What i can say about it, is that nVidia plays it the smart way with it's "Higher settings, less framedrop" compared to ATi's so they seem a better choice. And moire related isseus are much clearer and irritating when seeing them in motion. Things you don't see very well on all the comparison screenshots all over the web.

In the end both brands have there pro's and con's and not all games make this look as noticable as LFS does. LFS really looks completely different on ATI/nVidia to a trained eye.

You can try to give your video settings a slight positive LOD bias to get rid of moire. I also noticed the moire effect differs from which driver you use. But still, in the end it will never be the same as an ATi card rendered the game so you might as well just take it for granted.

Maybe you just need better textures to make up for LFS's shortcomings.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Maybe you just need better textures to make up for LFS's shortcomings.

Shouldn't everyone use these high-res textures by now? How could someone do without

Aren't them defs putting those in by default anytime soon, or is it the usual urge to be oversupportive to those with 8 year old pc's? I'm getting a bit bored by that... No offence to those with older pc's, but it clearly is not very good for the overall graphic improvement and development of a game. Stagnation awaits death of LFS, i can start crying right away as this wonderful peace of software will bleed to death anytime soon, i just feel it... and the bad thing is my intuition has never been wrong... or is that a good thing? :P

Hi there!
I got a new pc including a new videocard (8800 GTS), but now my lfs doesn't look good any more.
I got the latest drivers (163.71) and everything maxed up in the driver settings, but despite these actions I get white lines across the tarmac in lfs and the safety fences look like shit. (pretty jagged in the distance) I already read through this thread and the other one from Jakq, but I weren't able to find a solution. Anyone who's got the same problem solved? I attached two screenies for better understanding.

Yep thats a common problem, because LFS doesn't have advanced filtering options built into it, you have to create your own with the nVidia Control Panel (my personal recommendation) or nHancer as in this thread; http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=30474

I suspect a bug in the new version of nHancer and I managed to get it working via the nVidia Control Panel.

would you mind to post your settings? i've already tried pretty much, but nothing worked...

Yep, of course, here you are;
(this works with my 8800GTS)



You can obviously play around with the values until you find a compromise between quality and speed. I run LFS in 1280x1024x32

I have nvidea drivers installed (obviously)

where do you locate the control panel?.

doesnt seem to be in my start menu area, or my win explorer drive

right click on your desktop and click on properties.
then click on the settings tab and then the advanced box.
once there click on the tab with the name of your graphics car on it. you will see the control panel there.

Here's a graphical representation;

First way is this... you should have an icon in your system tray;


Second way is through your desktop;


A pity this forum doesn't actually display the pictures instead of linking to them :/

it does display pics, you have to enable them in your user cp

Thanks - sorted.

i think i have same card as yours...everything on max full AA etc.