I am in need of some help guys. I had my internet upgraded from 1,5 mb to 6 mb. (UPC/Chello Power). Also the upload is 6 times faster. But I’m still having problems with a laggy connection!
On Speedtest.net I’m getting about 5700kbps download, 1440kbps upload and a ping of 34 ms, so I assume that is ok to play the game online?

I’m running a Athlon XP1800+ cpu with 512mb RAM and a GeForce 9600 Pro with 256mb. Normally I have my Windows XP Firewall on and my AVG antivirus off running it from my Linksys WRT54GL router witch I run wired to my PC.


When I’m racing online the game just freezes for a split second about every 10 seconds, not very annoying to me, but I seem to be lagging for everybody else.

What can the problem be? Software like Limewire etc (not downloading anything though)? The Firewall? My router settings? My cpu? I hope someone can help me in the right direction.

Speed is different to latency - you can have a 100MBPS connection, but still have a lot of lag in online gaming, where speed of responce is more important than outright throughput.

This problem seems to be with your computer specs, not your internet connection though

lol my download speed is only 431 kb/s and upload speed is only 95. ping is 52 ms, and i dont lag...must be ur pc not ur internet

Maybe your timers run too fast on your machine, I have a similar problem with my PC in 1 out of 10 restarts my timers (and therefor my real time clock also) runs at 1.2x the normal speed. For me this problem is usually gone after a reboot. When this is happening to me, i get the exact same symptoms in LFS, the LFS netcode tries to sync the timers every few seconds causing this lag. Check your clock in the taskbar for running too fast. Btw, if your clock is running ahead, it is set correctly from BIOS after the next restart, Windows seems to sync the clock with BIOS only once when booting and runs independently from this point on.
If it is indeed your clock running too fast, i haven´t found any solution yet . For me its just annyoing to have to restart from time to time to get the right clockspeed.

What controller do you use? This may sound of a weird question at this topic, but it isn't.

My friend had this problem some time ago as you explained, annoying freezing at every ten seconds or so. We first tried everything else, but nothing helped. Then I just said that you could try to disconnect all your usb devices and see if it does anything. And it did. Somewhat weardly the reason was that Logitech's gamepad. When it wasn't connected LFS ran just fine. Nowadays he uses my ex-steering wheel so no problems there.

Your computer specs are fine. No, its not the firewall. Your Internet is way fast enough. Router settings is unlikely also. Timers running fast? Thats weird, no, dismiss that. For now, anyway. Eliminate more likely targets first.

You got any legacy controllers connected? To a legacy soundcard? You know, the old joystick port. I've had a MS Joystick connected to an older soundcard for flight sim. LFS was so bad I didn't even try to go online. As soon as I disconnected it all was well.

Just disconnect everything, web cam, card readers, controllers, usb microphone, etc. etc. Leave mouse and keyboard as is. See how you go with that.

Does this only happen when you go online? What about single player or hotlapping?

We had 0,7 or someting, (dont know what 0,7) and i could download at 90 kb/s, we upgraded to 2,0 and we have same download speed. wtf?

AHhh the stutter problem. I know this... I had the same problem. It's nothing to do with the net. It's caued by two problems with your system. 1. Your hard disk is too old and too slow, and you don't have enough memory. What happens is windows ends up swapping to disk all the time when you're playing, and the slow disk is using up the CPU which is causing your stuttering (lagging) problem. One way to check this, is watch your hdd light when ur in live for speed driving (not easy to do lol), particularly when its stuttering. If it's coming on when it stutters, you've found your problem. Upgrade mem & hdd (fast as u can get on both).

That will almost certainly solve the problem. Fixed my stuttering problem imedeately, which had exactly the same symtoms.

Defrag and take off limewire - ideally uninstall it and use bitlord.

Yes, I read the clock related story’s. That is something that’s not possible to fix, so I do not hope it is this causing the problem.
The problem only occurs when racing online indeed.

I’ll start updating my drivers for the ACPI and my Logitec Wingman wheel, I can understand that my older drivers are causing problems.
I don’t think my harddisk is too slow, it’s running 7200rpm and I think 512mb should be sufficient memory, although it could have something to do with the cpu using harddisk space. I’ll have a look in my BIOS if I can change anything.

Is everything on the screen freezing or are you just seeing the lag messages that LFS puts up?

Because if everything is freezing that is a problem with your machine, not the connection. The entire game won't freeze just because you lose connection to the server, you would simply see everyone ELSE lagging.

It sounds to me like it's going to be a RAM/VRAM issue and the lag is caused by the VRAM being updated. 512 RAM isn't that much these days, and with a 1.5GHz CPU your system will be feeling the burn of all those physics forces and objects.

The other option is that there could be something wrong with the hard drive itself. My old hard disk was messed up (you wouldn't think it'd be a big deal - 9Mb of bad sectors on a 60Gb disk) and it was always causing me issues with freezing while it would sit there grinding. The issues stopped when I replaced it.

Mmm, it only occurs when playing online. Normaly i don't have this issue when i'm racing the AI. Does MP ask so much more of my memory/cpu?

Usually, yes. Although I can't explain why that would be.

Maybe because it has the extra calculations that come from player inputs rather than simply scripting from a file. But don't quote me on that!

Oh, also I wouldn't trust Speedtest.net too much for pings (it usually tells me 300+ when it's nowhere near that!). The DOS prompt is normally better. Not really relevant but there you go

Quote from Nickname42 :

Mmm, it only occurs when playing online. Normaly i don't have this issue when i'm racing the AI. Does MP ask so much more of my memory/cpu?

What, you never have this issue when racing AI in single player mode? Or normally its fine and you have the issue only occasionally when racing AI in single player? But you always have the issue in multiplayer?

Try to find answers to these questions, maybe we can narrow it down to a particular set of conditions:

• Try connecting to an unpopulated server, see if that makes a difference.
  
• Do you play any other games online? If so, any problems with those?

If this issue only occurs in multiplayer I would point the finger at some software issue. Some rogue program that steals some resource at regular intervals.

One often suggested remedy, and often successful, is to re-install LFS. Backup your car setups, scripts, and other stuff you want to keep. Download the latest LFS from www.lfs.net and install. Test before restoring your backups and addons. Any difference?

Or, if you're comfortable getting technical, download tcpview and processexplorer from sysinternals (google: sysinternals), then run one of these tools while running LFS in a window while connected to a (preferably empty) LFS server. Arrange your windows so you can see both. Keep the focus on LFS and drive, watch the tools window, there may be something there that stands out. Lookout for new programs/connections appearing for a short time and then disappearing again.

tcpview tells you which programs have network connections, and in which state these connections are in. Processexplorer tells you what programs are running on your computer. It'll be difficult to work out if there is something there that shouldn't be there, without knowing what you're looking for, but such is the nature of trouble shooting.

Well guys, it looks like the stutter/lag is gone after I updated the drivers for my Logitech steering-wheel.
I tried running on an empty server and the problem didn’t occur. Then I joined another host and did a race with 4 other players witch ran rather smoothly! And I left everything else on this time, Firefox, AVG antivirus, XP firewall, PC Alert, etc.

I must admit this smoother gameplay allows me to run closer to other cars without effort, i was already used to the presumed fact my internet was causing problems.
I will still need to have some feedback on my connection from you fellow racers to see if i can improve even more and that the lagging is really gone. But I’m looking forward to running many, door to door, races the coming months!