Quote from Bluebird B B :

I have the stutter back since patch.. don' t remember how long ago. Since patch Y it seems a bit worse.

As I say, it was the first time I've had it in the long time, even since patch Y, but it seems to still be lurking about when the circumstances are correct.

LFS queues applying of skins to the newly joined cars for times when our car is almost stopped/session restarts/we spectate etc, and that helps, but still the process of checking with LFSWorld and our HD (comparing date and time?) and downloading (even without downloading) of new skins produces the stutter, smaller one, but still does. So, would the solution be to queue those operations as well? LFS should just "take notes of skins of the cars that joined" and check them and do everything later?

Conclusion was made because just turning off autodownloads of skins practicaly eliminates the problem. No consulting of LFSWorld - no problem. At least those are my experiences.

Basically, it would be auto-toggle of skin downloads option. Off when driving - on when not driving. That's what I'm doing manually now and it's better.

Quote from Misko :

So, would the solution be to queue those operations as well? LFS should just "take notes of skins of the cars that joined" and check them and do everything later?

If it's disk-access that's causing it it could just cache it in RAM until then. Has anyone tried running LFS off of a ramdrive (I guess a 256mb one can be allocated since most people have more than that amount of RAM anymore) to see if it's disk-access related?

xaotik - that is an interesting thought, good thinking!

Quote from Ped7g :

Also I hate the sounds of messages (both connect/chat), I wonder why there's still no option to turn them off. Or maybe I'm just blind.

There should definately be an option to turn off message sounds...

Quote from Ped7g :

I get lot of this on demo servers with demo players, every "leaved pits" makes my screen freeze for 0.05-0.15s, and that's way too much.
At least there are some servers with no mid-race join, still if somebody does Shift+P and Enter, I get that short freeze anyway.
(and there's no need to load any textures if he was already in the race with me, right?)

Also I hate the sounds of messages (both connect/chat), I wonder why there's still no option to turn them off. Or maybe I'm just blind.

There isn't an option but I have mine turned off. I am trying to remeber where someone told me to look for the sound file.
It could possibly be in the sound folder then you just rename the mess. and chat files to" .old " or something like that. This way the game dosen't recognize them. It is so pieceful now

its really bad on cruise servers. you often get stuck when someone is connecting a when a bunch of people leave the pits.

I am now getting massive ,race ruining stutter when skin downloading. It often lasts for a couple of seconds and almost always end up with me off the road or crashing. It was never this bad before.

Same here Moose, no matter which server Im running in, the little stutter make things a bit harder to maneuver, Im going to cancel skins autodownload and recheck if the issue is still there or gets any better

Has either of you tried backing up and then deleting the Skins_X folder? It seems to happen to me but its always when i see the Downloading skin or something message

Can anyone of you who are getting the stutter predictably try either using filemon (from sysinternals.com) to see if it's something specific on the HD that is being accessed and causes the stutter or running LFS off a ramdrive (a free driver here). Atleast that way we'll know if it's HD-access related or not.

'Nother question that might be worth considering: do you guys use Vista?

Microsoft recently brought out a patch that was meant to enable the users to install SP1, but cancelled the distribution of it since they had to admit it caused a lot more problems than it solved.

So, even though its unlikely, if you all have Vista and all have the Update 937287 installed, try to remove it to see if that cures the problems.

From what I have gathered it is always the loading of a new car model that causes the glitch. No idea if it is the skin, the textures or something else what is the main reason...

It even shows up in replays.

One way that LFS could handle this is to always load all the allowed cars into the memory so the data would already and always be there, or at least test and see if that could help...

I'm not talking about the microstutter that happenes when someone leavs the pits for the first time, that is barely noticeable. It's definitely when downloading a new skin that it stutters really badly. surely it would be better if you didn't download the skin until you were back in the pits, rather than when they leave the pits, if that's possible.

And I'm using XP St4Lk3R.

Quote from PLAYLIFE :

There should definately be an option to turn off message sounds...

if you press SHIFT + - that eliminates all chat/connection/LFSW messages. Hence no sound.

Quote from The Moose :

It's definitely when downloading a new skin that it stutters really badly.

Would you mind trying to run LFS off a RAM-drive like xaotik mentioned? Just to rule out IO-blocking (when writing the downloaded skin to disk) from the list of culprits. If that doesn't help, the downloading itself is probably to blame.

Quote from Zachary Zoomy :

its really bad on cruise servers. you often get stuck when someone is connecting a when a bunch of people leave the pits.

Or when disconnecting? I've noticed that happen a LOT

Usually followed some bright spark saying 'lag?'

DK

Quote from Scawen :

Textures are loaded instantly, without delay when :

- You are spectating
- Your car is moving extremely slowly
- The race is restarting

What if you actually move camera to other car (TAB, SHIFT+TAB) while your car is still moving?
Last night was riding XFG around oval, as it was boring I played with TAB and noticed that textures for BF1 werent there
I'd also like option to load textures if car is fairly close to you.

Scawen, I reaaally reaaally like your game, BUT since a while ago (can't really tell when this happend) I'm getting these stutters all the ****ing time. Well, not really all the ****ing time, just like, 2 times per race someone leaves the pits. :|

Not sure if this started to happen right after I updated to DX9 patch or was going on before too, but all I can say is that it became more frequent.

Really tired tonight to read the entire topic, but will probably do tomorrow. Meanwhile if anyone knows anything that could help, please post.

Thaaaaaaaaaaank yooou.

Funnily enough I'm noticing pit-out (and possibly join-related??) stutter much more recently than I ever recall from the past. However I'm mostly running 0.6E - I don't think it has been any better/worse with E13/14.

Having high/super-high resolution skins will make your computer stall for more time. Maybe you have installed some new skins lately. I don't remember having any "worse" occasions with the newer versions.

Hmm, thought-provoking, thanks.

My "textures (excluding skins)" is set to high - changing that probably wouldn't help though? (Because it says "excluding skins").

My "car and helmet skins" is set to compressed, which (from the explanation offered by the question-mark button) appears to be the option for best performance. I am too noobish to know how to do high/super-high res skins (so am presumably doing neither ).

However, your comment also made me think again about the skins_x folder - it had got quite big so (by coincidence, lol) I purged it last night. Will see if that makes a difference... (I'm thinking that reads/writes to that folder might take a while if the folder has thousands of entries.)