Okay, I don't have the fastest machine in the world by any means; puter has taken a back-seat to rent/utils : /

P3 850, 512pc133, 128 nvidia ti4200, XP Pro stripped to bare minimum (services, startup etc) The machine is a beast; never gives me any problems and just won't die. Tasks like a beotch too ... either way:

LFS runs great locally and online, but briefly online. After a few races my fps drop from 35+ to 5-6 when starting a race, trying to draft or when 2+ racers are in view. I've lowered all the graphic settings, max'd track LOD, all new vid/audio/mobo drivers and upgraded my linksys befw11s4 firmware but to no avail. Now sure, I can spend hours trying different puters, controllers, bypass router etc but I figured I'd give a shoutout first to see if anybody has experienced this. Oh, S1 (demo) never did this and the only thing different (besides being s2 licensed) is my new Momo wheel and I could have sworn I saw something about it in forums besides the centering issue. Would greatly appreciate any thoughts and/or solutions.

Thanks,
Pimp

I played around w/ the LOD settings some more and I get an avg of 15fps when other racers are near; which is a huge improvement. So atleast now I know it's not some software/driver issue; my machine truly is too pathetic to handle 5+ racers. Sucks though that S1 ran so great and S2 requires a new puter : / ... meh

Yeah, you definitely need a hotter CPU. Otherwise your system is fine. That video card should be sufficient as long as you don't turn on AA or AF (Anti-Aliasing or Anisotropic Filtering, both of which are driver options, not LFS options, at least at the moment).

I was thinking. Now and then someone pops up with questions on running LFS on an older PC. In the unofficial benchmark, a minimum option config file is included. This would be the absolute minimum you could set the options for (but I think it is set for 1024x768 res).

crxPimp, I'll attach the file (cfg.txt) here for you to try out. That way, everything is set at minimum (just set the resolution lower if needed like 800x600). Then you can try to increase some stuff if you can to get it looking better rather than trying to minimize them yourself. Just rename your "cfg.txt" file to something else as a backup and put this file in your LFS folder.

Quote from Forbin :

Yeah, you definitely need a hotter CPU. Otherwise your system is fine.

I actually think this might be the problem.. the CPU is TOO hot. As crxPinp says, the performance is fine initially but gets progressively slower. I have a feeling this is happening because the CPU is getting beyond the temperature that the heatsink and fan can beat.

LFS is very much a processor-intensive game, and with all the positioning and physics that it has to deal with, a PIII has its work cut out for it. This will be most noticable in the situations described, where there are groups of cars and the processor has all that physics to deliver. PIIIs are well known for the drop in performance as they begin to get too hot.

I suggest servicing the heatsink/fan.. get them dust-free. It's a cheap first step to a solution and may well do the trick.

Quote from SamH :

I actually think this might be the problem.. the CPU is TOO hot. As crxPinp says, the performance is fine initially but gets progressively slower. I have a feeling this is happening because the CPU is getting beyond the temperature that the heatsink and fan can beat.

I don't see where he mentioned any such thing.

Quote from crxPimp :

After a few races my fps drop from 35+ to 5-6 when starting a race

Yes you do Forbin

Hmm, I took that to mean that's just the framerate he gets when there are a lot of cars on the screen.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Yes you do Forbin

Nice attention to detail. That makes it very clear it's a CPU overheating issue. I have a PIII in my laptop and I know that annoying self-downclocking all too well, I bet that's the case here too.

I appreciate all the suggestions, thanks guys.

Forbin, killing AA and AF in the nvidia properties did help (40+ fps driving, 15-20fps when taking off or drafting; somewhat playable).

SamH, I had thought about overheating as well and ran Intel Active Monitor (stupid heat, fan speed prog) and logged any results during play. CPU never gets hotter then 115f, and mobo never past 95f. After this post I'm shutting down and doing some spring cleaning on this case, dust, heatsink paste, new ball-bearing fan etc. Will let you know what it does 'cause Intel's prog could be lying; no doubt.

mRodgers, will also try that .cfg file ... the settings in lfs aren't explained well and it took me a day or two to realize LOD should be min on cars/world but max on 'reduction' in Misc, seemed a little dyslexic .

Would overclocking my vid help any? if infact HVS is taking any load off the proc...

Pimp

Holy crap, and uereka!
So the cfg.txt jumped my fps to 90+ but still 20ish when peeps are near; I could care less what the track/racers look like as long as I can race properly; and not bang into people because of chop. Oh, and get this. Using Artic Silver 5 and a new heatsink/fan I've dropped my cpu temp to 99 and case to 90; wether it helps the game or not it's certainly better for the pc (threw a fan on memory too). Still some tweaking to do but hopefully now you'll see me on the track; and not the sand/grass/wall/air.

Thanks all...
Pimp

Oh, still open to suggestions on that vid clock and whatnot.

I usually suggest avoiding overclocking anything. The gains are miniscule and the risk is not.

True ...
The game is running pretty good nowadays w/ maybe 10max players; after that it chops way too much ... I can live with this until I get a new setup or perhaps some future patches/options come along.

Thanks everybody.

crxPimp