When idle and in neutral a normal road-car engine will never stall unless its broken or runs out of fuel or something is very wrong with the enviroment(like in the water/sinking)

I think spontanous engine stalls on road cars should be removed. It just doesn't happen irl. Normal engines run fine at idle rpm or stall very quickly or will be running irregular rpm at being idle.

That's a performance optimization feature, so that cars idling on the side of the track can be removed from the physics loop, speeding up the calculations for everybody else.

Quote from AndroidXP :

That's a performance optimization feature, so that cars idling on the side of the track can be removed from the physics loop, speeding up the calculations for everybody else.

Well it is not realistic. Also as soon as everybody is back on track(eg race-restart), people with a slow computer will still have a performance problem

I never did notice any difference in frame-rate with many racers online except when many cars are visible on screen.

Quote from Bluebird B B :

Well it is not realistic. Also as soon as everybody is back on track(eg race-restart), people with a slow computer will still have a performance problem

I never did notice any difference in frame-rate with many racers online except when many cars are visible on screen.

The feature that stops the car from idling to long is'nt really for a performance factor, its mainly to stop the processor hacving to do less physics calculations, which in turn reduces the ammount of work to do, plus it also helps other players that are online, as it helps there calculation. There IS a performance increase, but its very minute, but its still a performance increase, which speeds up multiplayer speed, which is why it was added.

Just curious, why do you need your car idling for so long anyway? The car stays on for about a minute or two, so why do you need to stay with the engine on for so long, and what is so hard about turning it on again.

Quote from Bluebird B B :

Well it is not realistic. Also as soon as everybody is back on track(eg race-restart), people with a slow computer will still have a performance problem

I never did notice any difference in frame-rate with many racers online except when many cars are visible on screen.

Sigh. If you are sat idle for ages it means you are taken OUT of the physics loop. This is a good thing, it only happens after x seconds so what is the problem. WHY would you want to sit idle for ages in a race and effect others in the race.

This is a good feature. No, not 100% realistic but LOGICAL given the constraints we work in.

Hell, during a race my pet hate is a car sitting stationary on the side of the track, lap after lap. Anything to reduce the load that useless hunk imposes is fine by me. What are you doing sitting around in MP for so long doing nothing anyway? If you're chatting, you don't need your engine to be on. You don't even need to be in your car if you're not driving it, really. It's not such an imposition to just fire it up and be on your way when you need to be either Like Woz said, you need to optimise within the environment you have.

Maybe soon Scawen will add code that automatically kicks and bans stationary drivers from the server. Then bans their LFS account forever. Then charges their credit card for £200. Then formats their C:\ drive.

Muhahahahahahahahaha

Actually, I agree with the above two posts.

I agree with the above three posts.

In Finland it is illegal to have your engine idle longer than 2 minutes. 4 if the temperature is below -15 centigrade.

So atleast to us finns it is realistic that the car doesn't idle that long.

The auto_idle_cut has only affected me after race or while chatting.

So not a problem while racing. And as you all should know LfS is a racing sim.

Quote from March Hare :

In Finland it is illegal to have your engine idle longer than 2 minutes. 4 if the temperature is below -15 centigrade.

Actually, on some cars (or all of them, for all I know) the manufacturer recommends turning the car off if you will be idling for a long time. For my dad's Audi, in the manual I think it says if you will be idling for more than 30 seconds or a minute or something, you should turn off the vehicle.

I can imagine that automatic engine cutoff whilst idle will be very realistic in a few years, because it save our enviroment. So indeed, LFS is a pioneer in this direction

They should add, in LFS world, a "gallons saved" stat that counts up the time when the engine is shut off, and then lists various things, like how much CO2 you didn't put out in the time your car wasn't running. Just to get an idea how much we'd save if the whole world did that.

Car what automatically shuts down after a minute or so? I guess they sell 0 of these cars in Finland... They can also strip it so you can't have any warm air. And roof? Why do we need roof? Sun is shining 24/7...

It's a new thing with learner drivers I believe, something like "Environmental Driving". Turn the car off if you're going to be stationary for more than 30 seconds.

The downside is that with town driving (most people, most of the time), the car will never warm up, so the catalyst works less efficiently, the fuelling will spend more time rich, the oil won't get warm, and bores/bearings wear more. In other words it's almost certainly bad for both your car and the environment to do such a stupid thing.

Quality post there Joseph, to go with your growing collection.

Joseph, Tristan may well drive a "can", but I don't think anyone who spells their name with a five and a three should hand out proofreading advice

Wreaks havoc on your starter motor too...

Quote from Hankstar :

Joseph, Tristan may well drive a "can", but I don't think anyone who spells their name with a five and a three should hand out proofreading advice

ROFLMAO!

I'm not bothered about this whole cut out thing. The only time I am stationary long enough for it to cut out is post race. But that is rare as I usually carry on driving, do a doughnut to burn some time or just edge forwards/backwards to a giggle...

Interesting posts about:
Save the enviroment, don' t be stationary so long, we' ve got laws tc.

It does not happen irl, so it should also not happen in a simulation.

The point about annoying if people are idle in pits, with engine cut there are still idle in pits. Whats the difference? Get a live !

The engine cut itself is not annoying or a problem, it just feels wrong.

Yes, it was pretty odd to me first, and I wanted it to be more realistic, but not that much that I would post improvement suggestion. Now when I know the reason for auto-shutdown, I think that I don't want this feature.

Then again, what if this would be server option? I know, I know: There are too many server options already, plus this new feature only affects cruising (How often someone parks his car while racing..?).

Actually many modern cars, especially the hybrid ones, Shut down the engine when you stop. It starts up again as you press the accelerator to start moving again.

Heaven knows what this does to your starter/battery/lubrication etc.
Nothing very good I assume.

So for LFS to be realistic it should automatically start the engine when you press the accelerator.

Quote from March Hare :

Actually many modern cars, especially the hybrid ones, Shut down the engine when you stop. It starts up again as you press the accelerator to start moving again.

Heaven knows what this does to your starter/battery/lubrication etc.
Nothing very good I assume.

So for LFS to be realistic it should automatically start the engine when you press the accelerator.

Not only the hybrid ones. The new BMW's all have it, as do the Mini Coopers (which are basically BMW's). I'll experience this myself next week when I get my company car (Mini Cooper). I'm curious as to how efficient this will work, and if the engine really gets cut off completely or just goes into some kind of "sleep mode" like a computer or something. I can't imagine it being very good for the engine to have to start up everytime you stop at a red light, or when driving in gridlock traffic.

Do let me know how you get on in the BMW/Mini regarding this feature. Monitoring things like engine temps, oil temps etc if possible. I somehow doubt you can measure emissions though, but I'd bet there isn't much, if any, saving...

But I would be interested to know how you get on, so don't forget!

Will do, though I don't know if the car has gauges for engine and oil temp. Probably there is some kind of indicator to show engine temp, but I doubt it will show a specific temperature in degrees. I'd be interested to know how this feature affects emissions, as that is the reason BMW implements it and that's how it's marketed; as being an environment friendly car due to this new technology. But like you said that's impossible to measure without proper equipment.

Another nifty little feature that is now used in BMW manufactured cars, is that the energy that's released during braking is recycled to help power electrical devices such as the radio or the airconditioning. This is way off topic though...