Not really a bug, but I decided to write it here...

I realized, that I have less FPS than before patch Y. I must say now I have half of the FPS I have on other tracks ( Y of course )

I know that South City tracks have been renovated, but I think this is too much. I don't know what happened ( very high res textures, phisics?? ), it can be a bit annoying for people having weak PCs. Personally I have a laptop, average FPS is 60-70, but on SO I have 30...

I heard other people having the same problem... What do you think?

yep its the new textures, they are hires for blackwood and southcity now. scawen told somewhere to set "fullsize textures" to "no" in graphics options in lfs. that should help you with the fps

It's already set to low res

I have the same problem here..

My 4 years old athlonxp 2000 and radeon x700 also are suffering with me on this - changing options didn't helped at all it just loads more slowly than before.
Time to face the facts guys - nothing is going to help except buying a new pc - i know i won't do it at least for 6 months from now so i have to live with it. Hard but true.

Yup same here, athlon 3000 with a 5900xt card. Its gonna have to go soon. There is on way I can go online with a full grid of FBMW at SO7.

exactly the same here.. normally averaging about 70-90fps when all racing is calmed and im battling but its down to about 20-35 at the starts only and its really nervewracking as u dont want to hit anybody

on old SO with everything on max (without AA) I used to get 80-90fps, with 40-50 at the back of a 20 car field. Even with media player, MSN, xfire and irc running in the background.

Now I've just come off CTRA server which was on SO Town Rev, I was 17th on the grid out of 19 cars, and I was getting 8fps, and when everybody braked into the hairpin this dropped to 4fps. And this is even after I closed every single background process I could! (apart from irc).

Without any cars on my own I get a stupidly low 20fps.

I have lowered graphics settings (full size textures = no) which has no effect in the slightest.

My computer has been upgraded (from AMD XP3200/1GB DDR400 to P4 3.06 with HT/2GB DDR400) since then so in theory I should get better performance. It's not my graphics card (GF 7600GS 256mb) that's the problem, I know that for certain. I've also tried with Hyper Threading on and off, with no difference in the slightest.

I'm quite annoyed as South City contains most of my favourite configs and I cannot drive it at all!

From what I've heard from alot of people they're suffering much the same things I am. NOT all of us have high spec computers, and not all of us can afford it (I run a car which uses most of my work pay!!).

This needs sorting ASAP I think.

Indeed new SO needs more possessing power but apart from this, I fail to see the upgrade you did…
Theese two CPUs are from the same generation… they where competitors when they where new and usually an Athlon XP was better at 3d multimedia applications comparing to the equivalent Intel P4 processor.
Furthermore the 2gigs of ram are going to boost your computer’s multitasting capabilities but if you don’t run anything else while playing, LFS on it’s own will never use more than 512mb of ram.
As for the gfx card it’s ok for LFS.

Quote from kaynd :

Indeed new SO needs more possessing power but apart from this, I fail to see the upgrade you did…
Theese two CPUs are from the same generation… they where competitors when they where new and usually an Athlon XP was better at 3d multimedia applications comparing to the equivalent Intel P4 processor.
Furthermore the 2gigs of ram are going to boost your computer’s multitasting capabilities but if you don’t run anything else while playing, LFS on it’s own will never use more than 512mb of ram.
As for the gfx card it’s ok for LFS.

It was a forced 'upgrade' as my old Asus Socket A motherboard died. I work as a computer workshop technician for a living. I know it's not that much of a difference, but the P4 with HT just edges it over the AMD 3200+ (i get much better performance in RACE07 and rfactor - but that's probably to do with more memory). Plus I got the P4 + mobo + extra GB of memory for free.

Quote from mr_x :

It was a forced 'upgrade' as my old Asus Socket A motherboard died. (...)
Plus I got the P4 + mobo + extra GB of memory for free.

Ah that makes the difference. For a moment I thought you paid for that “upgrade”.

Strange thing is that I happen to own a athlon XP 3000+ based system which I have left at my parents house (I use it only on holidays, I am not close enough to test it now) It has 512mb of ram and a geforce4 ti 4200 on it.
The final test patches and patch Y where tested at that machine and I do remember the FPS performance drop but no way that low it was more like 35-40fps when I was alone in the track.
Anyway I can’t verify that with screenshots as I am far away from that pc now.

I think you should benefit from your work and have some newer used parts. It should be possible to find an A64 3200+ (much better) with an nforce 4 based mobo + a cheap 7600level pci-x card with less than 60p in total.
It is still some money but it is manageable for a working man with no kids to feed.

I noticed my FPS was reduced alot to. Its capped to 175fps all the time, yet it was doing about 115. I looked through my settings and realised "minimum sleep" was on 200ms for some reason. Turning that off eliminated the FPS problem. You guys give it a shot.

Just tried LX4 on SO Chicane with 9 cars.... 6fps on the first lap, completely and utterly 100% undrivable. South City is now a joke IMO.

Yeah... I don't know, is it the only way to develope the physics?
I thought FPS depends on the textures etc... but never on physics...hmm IDK

I also noticed a significant FPS drop on SO tracks after patch Y
Laptop intel T7600 @2.33, 2GB ram, card nvidia Quadro FX350 256Mo
dropped approx 20FPS since Y to 40FPS (I havd capped FPS at 60 for X patch, so the drop maybe more important) with approx 10 cars on grid
Playing with settings did not change much, so I live with this drop.
However the drop is more improtant with the fastest cars - nearly undriveable, but my skills are not sufficient to drive a F08 on South City tracks anyways
On the other hand the new South City looks much better and the tracks are a pleasure to drive (with a lot of pressure as well, these walls are waiting to jump in your path at each corner )

Quote from Töki (HUN) :

Yeah... I don't know, is it the only way to develope the physics?
I thought FPS depends on the textures etc... but never on physics...hmm IDK

Textures play an important part, as do polys / LODs / draw distances for the buildings and the likes.. but physics also play a major role.

LFS is _very_ CPU intensive (moreso than GPU I think) so it's already requiring a lot of CPU power for the gfx side of things.. now add an abundance of physics calculations for the cars too and eventually your box will say "fsck you!" and start to crawl.

Scawen has already implemented a hack (IMO) with the cars removing themselves from the physics engine when idle for 40(?) seconds.. but I personally think there's an underlying issue with the physics engine being unoptimised (hence the need for the hack).. but hacks don't work long-term and I can only see it getting worse unless something is done. We're due cockpit updates as mentioned at patch Y release time to come in the (near? ) future.. which I'd guess will include more polys / detailed textures just adding to the stress of the CPU.



Regards,

Ian

I don't know why are you having such a major FPS drops, your computer is just fine.. but there IS something wrong definately with those options in game. Stuff like LOD settings, Half textures, etc, doesn't seem to make any noticable diferrence performance wise..

I used to have like 30-50 fps...but when s2 licence came i only have 6 fps x.x

Well, I think we will have this problem in the new patches too, almost in the case of each track...damn

I actually get far better FPS rates now with rF (running in DX8 mode) and can enjoy all of it's extras such as variable time of the day to race and bump / spec maps bringing the textures to life. Infact, get better FPS in rF even with car models that have no LODs than I do in LFS since patch Y



Regards,

Ian

same fps drop here. Even though i dont have great of a computer however i was getting over 39 - 49 fps all the time.... Now i get 9 - 25 . And thats just redicules. I mean I know that they did a great job on textures and thats the main problem. Probably those shadows and reflections did the part in it too. Physics never had anything to do with lag. MAybe lower textures size and texture quality a bit? That would probably help in future patches. On the other side im getting really nice quality pictures xD. But impossible to drift in there. =[

some more progress... if you can call it that.

Tonight with 4 other cars on the grid LX4/SO6, 10 fps for the first 2 laps. (all other tracks have a frame rate drop too I've noticed. But only 5-10fps... SO has lost 50-60fps)

on LFS:
I have low-res textures (incl skins) - Had better FPS with high res textures in patch X on all other tracks, which aparently haven't been touched.
0xAA and 0xAF

on rFactor I can run:
DX9
High or Max on all graphical options and extras
4xAA 4xAF
and still get 50fps in the middle of the grid in a 25 car race

RACE07 I run
DX9 (it's all it supports)
Medium graphical options on everything
2xAA 0xAF
and I get 40-50fps in the middle of a 20 car grid in an online race


So, WHY on a DX8(!!) game can I only get 10fps with 4 cars on South City? Patch X was fine.


I also HATE this 'clutch model' - i can't even call it that with a straight face. But that's not for this topic.


P4 3.06 with HT
2GB DDR400
GeForce 7600GS 256MB

if those can run rFactor and RACE07 at above graphics options without stuttering, then why the hell can't it run LFS at a good framerate with it's inferior DX8 graphics? Have the physics really changed that much so my processor can't run it anymore? I can't see DX8 wanting full power out of a GF7600 either.

Also to add I had exactly the same problems with my old Athlon XP3200+ and 1GB of DDR400 before they died.

Strange.... I have a P4 3.06, 1GB DDR400, 7600GT and I my FPS is maybe 10% lower.... Everything maxed out, 4xAA, 4xAF @ 1280x1024

I only have an Athlon64 3200+ 1 gig of ram and a 6600gs, but don't have any FPS problems at any track.

At the back of the grid of 20 cars at South City it dropped to 35fps, But was soon back to the 60fps i have it fixed at.

All graphics settings up full except dynamic lod reduction at .60

1152x864x32
4xS AA
16xAF

I had a slight drop in FPS, down to 20-30 FPS not unbarable but a bit laggy on full grids.