I was looking for a good tutorial to get the most out of LFS with a decent pc setup. When I get a full grid of cars my FPS goes to hell, but if its under like 6 cars its fine. I've been thinking of getting a new videocard, do you think that will make a big difference?
My specs are
AMD athlon 2ghz
1gb ddr ram
ati radeon 9800pro

hi, ive just upgraded my card with no better results its actually worse i got a nvidia 8800gt from a ati x1900gt top fps the same but with a full grid im gettin down to 12 fps where as before the lowest was about 35ish

Dynamic LOD reduction is your friend (under the misc tab). Also, and better CPU would probably do a lot more good than a new graphics card. LFS is very CPU dependant when there's a lot of cars about (something the dynamic LOD reduction helps alleviate slightly.)

I went out today and was going to get a new vid card but decided it was probably better to just upgrade pc. I ended up building, p4 3.5ghz w/ 4gb ddr2 800 ram. Vid card sucks, 6600 nvidia card that I will upgrade soon as I get some more money. Haven't tried running LFS yet with new pc but will soon, hopefully made some difference.

Quote from Shine :

hi, ive just upgraded my card with no better results its actually worse i got a nvidia 8800gt from a ati x1900gt top fps the same but with a full grid im gettin down to 12 fps where as before the lowest was about 35ish

Probably something else in the system letting it down. Iv got 8800 gt and tested it with 19 ai cars at start grid of 45 fps. Guess it depends on what you have backing up you graphics card, so you gonna revert back to your old graphics card if it runs better then?

Quote from Shine :

hi, ive just upgraded my card with no better results its actually worse

Are you sure you haven't changed any settings within LFS or the drivers? You shouldn't see that kind of a drop between those cards. You're almost certainly CPU limited with both of them so you shouldn't see much of a change at all.

Quote from griever :

p4 3.5ghz w/ 4gb ddr2 800 ram. Vid card sucks, 6600 nvidia card that I will upgrade soon as I get some more money.

I P4? They still sell those? Anyway, I'll certainly be a lot better than what you had. The 6600 is about the same as the 9800 PRO if I remember correctly, but the CPU is a lot better and that really helps in LFS.

I think the video card is not always the problem O_O
Its often the CPU. I have 1.35 ghz =/ And my fps drop a lot when other cars are around. I have 256 of RAM and a Ati 9250 Diamond edition. I get around 30 fps when im alone and in servers where the grid has a lot of people its goes down to 5 or if its a full grid it goes to 0.1... On my other pc(at my dads) I have 3 ghz, 512 RAM, Ati Radeo X300-500 series card and it runs fine. I get 50-60 fps but it doesnt drop as much when theres a lot of people around.

im running:
e6750 C2D 2.66ghz
eVGA 680i SLI LT Mobo
eVGA 8800GT SC'd edition
2 GB Corsair XMS2

i used one of the tutorials found here to beef up the quality
and mine ends up running at about 180 - 210 fps on 12 car grid
and its constant when cars thin out

u have that rig and u dont have s2??

well we know atleast u can afford it.