Quote from aadysor :

How does it work?

Is this at me? I had to put the project on hold for the trade show due to time, but I'm planning to do it over the Christmas break.

Would not have thought that instruments would be called "clocks". It still leaves the area around the gauges, which now looks odd.

Not familiar with the custom camera view stuff, but I'll have to investigate that. Thanks.

I'm doing the same, and RPM is reported. Are you saying you're not getting the data, or not finding what it's called, or...?

If I'm running external instruments, can I hide the ones on the screen? I'd really just want the top of the dash, A-pillars, hood, etc.

Yeah, I found LFS as I needed to build a racecar sim to demo some products at a tradeshow. I'm now down to scrapping the project, or simulating temps somehow ... Temp = 170 deg-F + (RPM /100) etc) to fake some values. I don't need actual values, but something with realistic-looking values would be nice.
I can fake oil pressure as mostly tied to RPM I'd think, with some adjustment for temps, which itself would be faked as described above.

Wondering if it's worth it now.

BTW, is boost implemented? The demo version does not have any usable turbo'ed cars so I can't check.

Of all the "primary" gauges I need, speed and rpm are great, fuel is nice to have, but engine temp, oil temp, and oil pressure all seem to be not reported, and I'd like to have 2 of those. Bummer.

Hi,

I'm reading outgauge in Python, and printing it to the screen. I've started with the code example here... http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/OutSim_/_OutGauge

However, the data doesn't seem correct. RPM seems right, but speed seems to be a bit less than half of actual, and engtemp is always zero (although it shows correctly in the game). Any idea why this is? I suspected data format issues, but the returned data is strings, which printed to the screen as is, is incorrect. Where can I find the format of the outgauge packets?

Thanks.

Okay, this clears up a lot and gets me mostly there. Until now, I thought outgauge was something written by another person, and did not realize it was a feature of LFS directly. That explains why I could not find the source for it .

I haven't used Python in probably a decade, but it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out the interpreter to run this. I now need to modify this to send the data out serially. I found pyserial, which should be all I need ... I think. I'll go read up on that.

Thank you!!!
-Neil.

Yep -- what I'm trying to do is to build a race-car sim for a trade show, but with actual physical gauges. I can get LFS running, and do everything from taking gauge data out the serial/USB port and converting using microcontrollers to be displayed on the physical gauges. It's that little piece of code in the middle that takes the LFS UDP data and converts it to data out the serial port that is holding me back. It looks like others (such as you) have done this, but I am so out of touch with PC programming that I am not even sure what interpreters or compilers, libraries, etc I need to run to get this part working.

It seems others are having issues with taking the external/serial data and modifying it with arduinos etc to convert to analog for the physical gauges, but that's what I can do easily, so once I get this running I can project-ize that for others to follow, with source code etc.

Quote from xtraction :

i wouldnt just buy something that meets around the minimum requirements, ...

Agreed. I was just trying to get a realistic idea of what sort of computing power is necessary so I don't end up underpowered, or wasting money buying 10x the necessary power. :eek:

So where would I find FPS then?

BTW, for anyone else coming across this thread with a similar question, I found two very interesting bits of info, that have been quite enlightening...

http://lfsbench.iron.eu.org/?c=completemax

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=51635

Cheers,
-Neil.

Last edited by LFS_Dude, Mon, 15 Oct 2012 03:45. Reason : Doh!... fpS, not fpD

Reviving this thread, as I want to do this too. For me, the code to grab the UDP data from LFS and send it out of any port on the PC is the most complex part, since I've been out of touch with PC development for over a decade now. Once I have that data, I can build anything with arduinos, PICs, etc.

Boycey, do you have any updated code for this that you can share? Also, how do I run this? Do I just start up the python interpreter on my PC and run this program, and I'll see data out the port?

Also, if anyone needs help with the electronics and microcontroller firmware, LMK.

Cheers,
-Neil.

Okay, I'm set on hardware I think. I dug up an old shuttle PC with an Athlon XP and a GEForce MX4000 (old, I know), and LFS ran pretty smoothly (no other cars though). I assume the 30-ish number in the upper left is FPS?

No I won't use this, but it gave me some baseline indication of what I can expect, and I'll shop for an I5/I7 with some frills to ensure I have enough horsepower.

Much thanks for all the info.

Now the "fun" part -- I have to go figure out how to get external data for instruments, which I'll have to derive from this gear indicator... http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/~xkadlec/lfs/gi/

Laptop? Wow. What graphics and RAM do you have in that? It won't even run (just exits a few seconds after starting to load) on my dual-core with WinXP, but then again, this thing has Intel 965 Express graphics.

So how about this laptop? Any thoughts if it will run smoothly? I'd be using it with a 1080p TV (HDMI) and need it to run smooth as it will be part of a tradeshow display. Video on this is "Switchable NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M with 2 GB graphics memory, and Intel HD Graphics 4000".

Advantage here is that I'd be able to use the laptop for more meaningful stuff for the other 362 days of the year

Cheers,
-Neil.

So let's say I skip the Atom and get a mobo/proc specific for this. And i5 should be plenty then, right?

Thanks for the reply... is 20FPS good though? I would've thought 30FPS would be the min I'd want, or even 60? Again, I've not actually run the game before, so I'm not sure what the target numbers are. I did try to run it on a laptop (which is all that I use nowadays and have several of), but it would not work.

Hi all,

I want to run LFS, but don't have the appropriate hardware yet so looking for suggestions, which I was not able to find in the FAQ. And since I've been out of touch with PC's/mobos/procs/gfx cards/etc for some time, I Would appreciate some advice...

- From the FAQ, I know I need 1GHZ, but speed is not all that matters. Can I use (with good performance) an Intel D525MW mini-ITX system for this? I have one laying around, which was picked up for a controller.

- If that mini-ITX board is fine, is 2GB RAM fine, or should I get more?

- What graphics card should I use? I can add it to the D525MW (if that works).

- Can I run this on Windows 2000? I can install XP, but Win 2000 has always been more stable than XP in my experience, so I'd prefer to run that if possible.

FWIW, I only intend to use this PC for LFS, as I'm building it into a racing sim -- frame, racing seat, controls, external dash with gauges, motherboard etc, and 32" monitor.

Thanks.

Hi all, I'm new to LFS, and haven't even set it up yet. But I chose it because it has the ability to output dashboard info, which I want. I'll post a separate thread for specific questions I have.
-Neil.