I'm finding it hard to take a screen shot that shows it, as its mainly when you are driving along, that it breaks up shimmering all over the place in the distance. (great news about the patch.)
Well I did see the bug in the AA and AF from the control panel, but mine works fine from setting the nvidia control for LFS.exe, all the settings work fine.
I can see AA working, and also AF, if I turn them off theres a clear difference, the game looks sweet, its just for some reason theres this like ugly graphics in the distance. on the track fences etc.
I followed all the settings to remove moire patterns like some people said. clamping the textures etc, but still have the ugly distance thing, I'll post some pics when I get home.
Thanks for the reply
I did extract to a new folder and replace the default file and im well on the way back.
I have all lods set to max and the lod in MISC set to 0.00
All ingame settings are max and Im forcing 16xAF and 16xQ AA
AF - x16
AA - x16Q
AA Transparicy - Supersampling
Force mitmaps - Trillinear <-- never had this on
Texture Filtering Negative lod bias - Clamp
Texture Filtering Quality - High Quality
Vsnyc - Force On <----why are you using this?
I get around 45- 50fps on full A.I grid
But in the distance the track still looks a bit smashed up.?
I just can't work this game out, I got it looking unreal, with all the bells on full 16QAA 16x AF etc and great performance, but I seem to have lost it, and no settings get rid of the distance breakup, its like the shadows and fences in the distance look horrible.
I'm max settings, the AA is working, the AF is working, it looks nice, but in the far distance it looks smashed up.
Driving me round the bend.
Is there a way of defaulting the settings back to default in the game, like a cfg file, if I lower settings ingame the frames go down.
I lose no AA or AF, both still work after a windowed and back, sometimes it take a few trys to get it to recover the frames.
The AA works fine (I can tell for sure it's working)
The AF is also working as you can clearly see it making the near to medium texture as sharp as it can , and no fuzzy point just off in the distance.
So they must be working, .......also if I turn them off, it looks very different.
This game doesn't stand a chance when it comes to over loading my graphics cards , the thought of it makes me laugh, if anything I should be looking at getting higher texture packs and adding as many graphics based effects as I can.
Is there a texture pack out with all the tracks in one zip?
Whats the best texture pack?
Start game = just driving around a few other cars round you = 120-170fps fullsetting AA16 AF16
After F4 Trick = same cars round me = 170 -250fps looks the same.
Start of a race full A.I grid of 19 me at the back - 38- 45fps full details AA16 AF16
start of race after the trick = 55fps - 80fps (depending on track and car). same settings.
And it looks no different to pre-trick?.
I think theres a small memory leak also, as over a few hours performance slows a little. the more I make my cards do, the better it runs.
Who going to bet with me on whether I get better performance with better textures, I'm saying I will.
Any help on the texture pack to use would be cool, I took a look at some threads and it seemed like theres just people doing one or maybe two tracks, is there a full texture replacement for tracks?.
(Ridiculous performance trick - if you switch to windowed mode (shift+F4) and then back to full screen your FPS could nearly double - at least they do for me)
I can monitor the sli usage and cpu usage while playing the game, I can monitor fps at all times and record it.
I have found that @ the start of the race with 19 A.I my sli is hardly working much, but the cpu is 80-90% on one core and as we set off the cpu is near max constant and the A.I act like total lemons.
Overclocking the cpu does help a little, but Im asking the cpu to support 2x 8800 and on one core that is painfull , I just can't explain enough how crippled my system is on one core.
Infact I tested lastnight with a single 8800gtx none sli card and got lower cpu usage and infact gained some frames in places. odd but true. and showing the cpu up as the current bottleneck.
I would like to add the fact My game runs great with any settings.
EDIT :Just ran the game @ higher res to force more GPU and lost 20% on cpu usage. one other sign is the fact I can run 16AA 16AF without touching frames one bit. same either off or on.
I could do with the high res texture pack really, . whats the best ones?.
FX5600 Ultra 128M , you would see an improvement changing this card for something with a little more grunt for sure.
like you say theres alot of cars at the start grid and eitherway you cut it, they need rendering, and a good card cant hurt that. I don't know much about your cpu, I'll do some reading, see if I can find people getting good results on games with your cpu and a different (newer) card.
Don't want to go putting in something that is limited by the cpu too much, I'll see if I can find what card you can have without losing too much performance.
AGPx8 yes?
The x850xt PE 256mb is cheap on ebay and would cope on that cpu nice.
Maybe Im wrong I'll go do some reading.
Tweak you graphics from the back of a fullgrid, it doesn't matter if you getting 2000fps driving a hotlap, for a race you need a fairly smooth start. (overclock maybe)
So new card new cpu.... or tweak to the limit and enjoy what you get.
A full grid on this game on any cpu , leaves the A.I with the brains of a knat. (or is that the code...doh)
"I'm sorry? You argue that LFS severely CPU limited, but somehow twist that to mean that a faster CPU is useless? The most important thing of all to get good performance out of LFS is to have a fast processor. How many cores it has doesn't really matter,"
Thats my point, to upgrade the CPU would be pointless ATM because theres a trend of selling multicore low "clocked" cpu's of which this game fails to use correctly.
Yes higher clock speeds is great higher the better, and this leads me to what I was trying to say about my Q being like a p4 3.2 <--- its erm 3.2 and using a single core, "may as well be a p4@4ghz then.
I'm not here to get into a fight over this, Just making the point that the new cpu's arent really as important to this game, as they are often slower clocked with more cores, and the way this code works is not taking advantage of that.
My stock clocks on both Quads was 2.66ghz I have one clocked @3.2
And the craziest thing is I'm overclocking my other @3.4 so LFS runs better, and it does add 10fps over the 3.2.
I'm not upset about no mulitcore support, I only bought the game last month, knowing fullwell it didn't support it, I don't care, it runs great, I have no issue.
Was just here to try and find the magic tweak for the OP, so his current hardware performs at it best. and trying to get across my point that if he's thinking about an upgrade, CPU/GPU then he would understand the bottlenecking in this game often comes from the CODE its-self.
Ok I'm cr*p at explaining anything.......... give me a break.
Thats the kind of hit from a limited cpu. this game forces that limit on us.
Ok you have an older pc, what are the ingame settings you are useing and what card/cpu etc
Maybe we can get the very best from what you have. Otherwise its best to wait for the coders to try and get this game threaded. and supporting multicores. before even thinking about CPU upgrades.
You may see an increase in frames upgrading the GFX, but I dont see the point unless its cheap and not too much bother, but I would need to know your spec first.
Sorry about typo's etc, I'm stealth typing I'm meant to be working lol.
you are wrong in saying my core handles anymore data than any other core @ 3.2, why would it?( we process the same data dont we) its just a duo x2 do you have inside info on the way this code uses the current cpu's?. if any its minimal, Im maxing the core most times with SLI on.
OK heres the deal I'm going to run a single 8800gts 640 on a p4 3.2
then im going to run the same card on my Quad, but set the affinity to "0" (one core)
I have already done this, but I will again if you wish to see the results. I gained 590+ points in 06 using the quad
P4 3.2 dell desktop with 8800gts 640 = 6180 in the quad single core =6773
Singlecore quad with single 8800 GTX = 7900!! with 4 cores = 12.500 single card. 4 [email protected] dual 8800 = 17,890
So your correct in saying its better than a p4, but hell, thats splitting hairs, and is only something I used as an example in the first place
LET ME END THIS
Buying a new graphics card for my system would gain me no performance increase.
You buying a new quadcore for this game would be stupid (maybe not in the future)
So no-one here has ever seen this game rendered as fast as a dual 8800 whatever can render it, because the way the cpu is used prevents this at present.
there. So untill the code in this game catches up, performance can't be messured over a single cores performance. in other words if it used my pc I could tell you how it really runs.
Jakg is your quadcore running it better than say a dual core, or even a p4 3.8 -4ghz? mine aint.
My GFX cards are being blunted by the way this game uses the cpu, theres no other way of saying it. you try running 8800gtx sli on a single core. its suffers, yet I play this game like that, and it runs ok, if it uses the cpu wow, it would be something else. the full power of my pc would be unlocked.
I have the power in GFX to run this game while playing battlefield 2, render those cars? erm My GFX eat them for dinner, example being a full grid on GTR2 is 127fps and the cars have more detail.
On the grid you have all the cars to render and the A.I to compute the A.I load on the cpu is high and the graphics need the cpu to pass tasks, so the GFX cards are needing cycles formt he cpu, that is maxed with A.I
Online this is less as theres no A.I to process and all the cpu does is work with the graphics cards to render and keep track of objects.
However my point and the one that answers you Question,
Even with just online racers, we see a bottleneck in graphics rendered at times, becuase the game is only fully using one core, while my other cores lay around twiddling their thumbs.
SO if I had to say whether this game need a better cpu or graphics to play smooth I would have to say neither, what it needs is multicore support, and even the developers know this.
After all, realtime damage, objects that can move, the timming system, rendering the cars/track, is just getting to much for the way the code uses the cpu.
This is often the case with games that change and adapt and grow.
I can't see what my 8800gtx's are doing with this game, because its being choked by a single core @3.2 , if it was optimized for dual and quad and used multi threads my frames would double, as load was handed to the other cores and the GFX cards could stretch their legs.
Do you understand? whats the point putting in new GFX cards if the engine bottlenecks the cpu anyway, and whats the point of a new cpu , when the engine fails to take advantage of it.
you see my point now, you question is hard to answer, but trust me when I say I run better looking games at much higher frames with ease with my GFX cards, but this game makes my quadcore as useless as a P4HT @3.2ghz.
and running 2x 8800gtx with a single core is cripping, just think of what my 3dmark 06 score would be if it could only use one core.?
Answered? or do we need to chat more?.
- Is it much more CPU to handle more physics of cars which are near? A :nope its the graphics doing more, and the cpu being asked more as they do. understand this?.
- Is it much more GFX processing due to higher polygon count of the many near cars or of the pits area? If it's the GFX processing, how much is the CPU involved in that increased processing, if at all? A: when the graphics on screen increase the cpu load rises as passing the renders is its job. load the graphics, you load the cpu, and in this case thats the issue, the cpu on one core fails to meet my 8800gtx's demands what with it being a packed single core, frames are lost as the wait times climb.
Don't bother with a cpu, LFS doesn't support multicores one bit, I have a quadcore [email protected] and the game uses one core.
I also have 2x8800GTX in SLI. so GFX are covered.
20 A.I with me back of the grid = 45fps -60fps
20 people online back of grid = 60-75fps
From this we can conclude that the cpu is the limit here, so no matter what graphics card you power this game with, you will always be limited by the fact the game is not threaded for multicores.
The developer has said something about adding a threaded engine, but this is something that would have to come with a new version, as it will require a total re-write of the engine.
Also the A.I is broken if you ask me, they are thicker than a blonde convention, and just love to act like your cars not even there.
Untill then I have to put up with one core being used on my Quadcore and that limiting my frames.
Also worth a shout is the fact that when I go into a game , most times I have slightly poorer performance, if I pause the game with "p" and the Alt Tab out and back in, while watching the frames, it adds a good 40-60fps ?. I do this everytime I boot it.
Good to hear you are enjoying the game, anychance you can get online and have a race?.
Thats the thing with live for speed, there's great rewards if you stick with it, and the controls are second to none, precise, but not over twitchy, like some games.
Keith, I dont know your status when it comes to why you use a mouth mouse/joystick, and well frankly don't care, but that is impressive to say the least. You will find online to be very relaxed, often just driving around tweaking the car, with the odd race, if you find it too much pressure you can drop out of a race and jump to the pits, leave from there and mix into the race again, the best thing is just do your thing, and stop worrying about the others. your laptimes are fine,
Try and get that pc online, you will find people are often less clumsy than the A.I on single player, and I have found some nice people online, that are willing to talk you through settings and even send their settings to you, to try (and if you like them save them). Start with a server with a few people in, and go from there.
I wont lie, I'm fairly good at driving games, I have had 35 years practice lol, but with this game I had to start all over with the settings, I'm now a 4th place man lol, but it won't be long and I will be the one to catch. Have fun, and try and get online, thats where all the fun is. Maybe we can meet ingame and you can try some of my car settings.
Thanks for your post.
And yes you are correct, I did hint in the post that it may not be the sound 100% I have tried monitoring the computer to catch the crash , but its not playing ball, and keeps giving me hours of crash free play, as soon as I stop the monitoring I bet it locks up lol.
I get a stammer in Testdrive Unlimited, and Im almost sure its sound, as it sort of clicks when it stammers, all other games seem fine, my crash is random, I can play online/offline for hours and nothing happens, the crash is a black screen lockup with sound looping then no sound, then sound looping and so on.
Needs rebooting, the reason I headed the thread sound loop, is because of the crash leaving the sound looping, making me think sound is the error, but this is a guess, as nothing is reported in the admin tools under either system nor applictions.
I play
Sup com
Battlefield 2 (and add-on packs)
Crysis
and other games for hours without issue.
Isometime monitor temps on both graphics and CPU and "Live for speed" doesn't really hit it hard G cards are 68 and 69 underload and the cpu in both systems are water cooled and never really get hot 60 at the very most, the the chip has a T of 100. so I Don't think its overheating.
The thing is this is an alpha and I know theres going to be problems, its just I have played the demo for like must be years now and never had an issue, I understand that this game has changed a lot and is still is the stage of very early testing on quite a lot of changes.
I had seen people talking about a sound loop after a crash and I responded but the thread had gone off in a new direction, so I made this one.
It's starting to look like its not a common thing with any X-fi, which is a good thing really, creative have not helped on xp for well over a year now, no new driver, theres a beta I'm going to try.
Its a very odd crash its just boom black freeze and sound loop, had it three times now, I'm going to install the game on the other computer again and test that one.
Thanks for any help in advance.
Aslo worth a mention is that after testing the game for a while I found sometimes I load the game up and go straight to a race in single player only for find the frame rate lower, I close the game and reboot, and its faster again sometimes 20fps+ difference, and sometimes it takes a few restarts of the game to get the frames back. I have checked cpu usage and process's etc while this is happening and nothing is different. odd.
Sound settings are (GAME MODE) no features turned on, no eax etc
It's temps are low 48 full load (thats on four cores) its stable with all other games, and the h2c comes clocked @3.2 so I aint touched it. in other words its stock.