had this for the first time earlier today, was on Ky GP with only 4 other people in the server.. and i very highly doubt it was system lag

for a few months now (test patches) I've been getting stutter in ever online race, but it has nothing to do with drivers exiting the pits. It even happens when there are just 2 of us on the server racing around. Now I get around between 50-170 fps and the stuttering does not lower this. It happens randomly, but quite more common as I approach the pit box area ont he start/finish straight. It makes me crash all the damn time. What's more annoying is that it never used to be like this... the massive framerate was silky smooth as it should be.

I used to think it was my new sata2 hard drive running in sata1 mode, but then I found a background process was causing stutters and killing it would solve the problem. Now it's back again... LFS just seems to be very sensitive to hard disc activity - or maybe it's my hdd after all

I will have to get another disk installed to test, but I have none lying around a t the moment.

On which track Burn? Because I've noticed that that one specific section of Aston, the turn after all the blue and white covered stands (turn with the big concrete runoff area) I will always get a stutter which cuts off my FPS by half. I still don't understand why this is occuring, but I believe it has something to do with LOD or something in the graphics causing it

The new W17 is worth a try for anyone that has a stutter from a car pitting out.

Scawen removed the sounds played for players spectating or pitting, and I do believe the sound being seeked for play was one major cause of this. You may think this sounds strange, but I am pretty positive that it was the problem. People with slower harddrives and seek methods have had problems like this in lots of games, and not just LFS. Laptops and older PCs are especially affected in games like Counter-Strike, where the FIRST gunshot fired from your side would cause a pause in the game, so you'd see people firing off one bullet and then reloading at the start of a round. I know a lot of players that had to deal with this.

Removing the sound file in LFS didn't help, because it was still requesting to play the sound. So W17 should help I think, and going to test more right now. EDIT: But I am pretty sure that LFS loading the car model is the main reason. Feels like there needs to be some kind of pre-loading of these cars, I dunno.

Quote from XCNuse :

On which track Burn? Because I've noticed that that one specific section of Aston, the turn after all the blue and white covered stands (turn with the big concrete runoff area) I will always get a stutter which cuts off my FPS by half. I still don't understand why this is occuring, but I believe it has something to do with LOD or something in the graphics causing it

it happens everywhere, but yeah Aston is the main culprit... the first/last corner of AS2, the one with sand on the inside. Perhaps it's related to sound, since scawen has been playing around with sound in the test patches... how do I turn sound off completely in LFS so I can test this?

Shift - N turns off the sound, but I don't think it will make a difference.

EDIT: XCNuse you aren't the "The village(moderator) idiot", Rich^uk is !!!

Sound off makes a diference, I do it everytime on starts because it gives a few more FPS... maybe 5 but when you get normally 5 at starts, 10 FPS is a lot, so for me Sound off helps.

FPS is not my concern, i get over 100 easily. It's the odd stutters that occur regardless of framerate that are plaguing me.

i've ben geting video lag any time text pops up sense patch W... i also lag wen some one joins the server, leaves the server, leaves the pits, or if i leave the pits. and untill just yesterday i couldnt race with anyone on my screen, though boosting my z-buffer to 32bit seem to fix that one :P

Scawen I know this has been said before but I have noticed again that the join & pit entry/exit lag is still occurring with test patch W17. Although it may seem minor it did have a big impact on the server that had 30 cars on it tonight. I can't remember if you said you can actually do much about it but just thought I would re-mention it in case you can.

Just a possibly unrelated note. I had big problems with stuttering similar to the pit out lag before, and I traced it back to MS SQL Server 2005. It was hogging the CPU every minute or so, causing LFS to lock up and the sound to click. So if you have SQL Server installed (or similar services running) and get this problem it's worth checking out! It's probably not the problem if it only happens when people pit out though.

Oh, and Tweaker. The problem with sound loading in CS:S is because of the way the Source engine works. It loads (some?) sounds and textures when it needs them instead of at level load (Like the Doom3 engine for instance), and it seems to spinlock the game thread while waiting for resources if they are needed right away (like sounds). All Source engine games crap out badly on my computer because of that "feature". I don't think that's the problem with LFS.

Could some of you Victims of Stutter make a video of the actual event? Don't post a replay but record a video and Youtube it.

I've experienced the clitch too, but nowhere near as bad as you guys seem to tell. On my computer and ADSL connection, the stutter is more like the game skips a frame or two and that's it, so it's barely noticeable.

So I make the List a bit longer ;-)

Same Problem here - on a normal conditions (no corner) no problem - but when cornering or much worser overtaking..... the second kills me.

My pings to the servers ar quiet good (ping 21 - 45 = DSL fastpath) and my system isnt the limit ether..... (AMD X2 + 7800er nvidia + 1Gig ram...)

So its a problem that lasts for longer (maybe 4 Month) Everyone in my team has the problem! So - TURN IT OFF :-)

So that helps not much - but i hope to get helped out - cause its not only some drivers - there are a lot with the problem.

It has nothing to do with the pingtimes or so (left bottom corner fickering)

Sorry for my worse english.... well german is much easyer ;-)

Andy aka KR|anton

I didn't see this mentioned in the thread, but is this caused by loading the actual car model? For instance, if everyone on the server is driving the XRT, and someone joins, is there stutter (since the XRT model should already be in memory)? If you're driving the XRT but someone joins in a different car, is that what causes the stutter?

I'm also curious if anyone has tried turning off skin downloading to see if it fixes the problem. I don't think this is skin related, but that would at least rule out one more thing.

I got some stuttering going also , it got worst then it ever was .

I got stutters every time someone leaves the pits.It freezes completely for about 1/2 seconds....and thats horrible when driving on tracks where the T1 is about 15 seconds after the start, especially with early starters...
This really kills the fun

Quote from S0ul :

I got stutters every time someone leaves the pits.It freezes completely for about 1/2 seconds...

This happens to me, too.

Here is one replay of stutter

Start LFS from fresh. Load that replay and watch it until 45 seconds when Rabbit joins the race in RB4. It stutters at that point. That is the kind of stutter I'm getting more and more lately. But the stutter has never been there when watching the replay, just when driving. I don't remember if that stutter that occured at that replay was there when I was driving but the stutter is always exactly like that. Small freeze of some sort.

The strange thing is that when you watch the replay again for the 2nd time there is no stutter at 45 seconds. So it is not an error in the replay, probably .

Was nice race too

I'm using addon cockpit texture for the RB4, which may have an effect.

EDIT: W17 replay.

Quote from Hyperactive :

Here is one replay of stutter

Not sure if it helps, but I can confirm that the replay stutters on Rabbit's pit out here also (both in cockpit and "tv" view). A short quarter of a second lockup. Not as bad as for some people here I think, but still very much noticeable. If I play the replay back again without shutting down LFS, the stutter is gone, presumably because the RB4 model is already in memory.

I'm getting a steady 60 FPS (vsync) at the point it stutters, so it shouldn't really be a problem with the CPU being too busy at the time.

Quote from wien :

If I play the replay back again without shutting down LFS, the stutter is gone, presumably because the RB4 model is already in memory.

This adds ammo to the theory that loading a model that is not already in use causes the stutter. We really need to do some tests to confirm that this is actually the problem.

Perhaps a few of you who are seeing this a lot could try a test to confirm that this really is the problem. Join or host a server where only one car is in use, but multiple cars are available for use. Drive a few laps, then have a friend join the same server, but using a different car. If the theory is correct, you should get a stutter. If the person in the new car pits and rejoins again, there should be no stutter. Rinse and repeat for several cars and this should be easy to pin down.

Once we know for certain that the loading of the car models is causing the problem, then we can either try to narrow down why some people have a problem and others don't (or maybe we just don't notice it), or we can see if Scawen can fix the problem.

Edit: I just viewed the replay and also can see the stutter. I don't think I've ever seen this before, but I usually join TBO servers that are fairly full (and all three available cars are already in use), or single-car servers (ie: FOX on South City).

Quote from Cue-Ball :

This adds ammo to the theory that loading a model that is not already in use causes the stutter.

Hmm. Actually sat down and watched the rest of the replay (over and over and over... :tired, and when Pingo around the 2:30 mark joins in the FXO (which is already loaded at that point) it also stutters.

Tried to remove the skins from the equation by deleting skins_x and it still stutters, but not as badly when Pingo joins as the sound doesn't click like it usually does, I just get a tiny lock-up in the graphics. Rabbit joining looks about the same as with skins. Doesn't look like it's just the skins or just the cars that are the problem. More like a combination of all the stuff that needs to be loaded.

I'm not sure if this is even a valid way of testing this, since the stutter may be recorded into the MPR somehow, but it might provide some insight into the problem.

Quote from wien :

I'm not sure if this is even a valid way of testing this, since the stutter may be recorded into the MPR somehow, but it might provide some insight into the problem.

I agree, which is why it would be nice to have people who see this often try to reproduce it on a live server under controlled conditions.

Quote from Scawen :

Textures are loaded instantly, without delay when :

- You are spectating
- Your car is moving extremely slowly
- The race is restarting

Well, you guys call it stutter or delay, we call it join-lag. It's the really worst thing coming with LfS and I don't see why it happens that severely.

My old PC was quiet weak and I thought that would explain my lags/delays. Now I have a really strong PC with tons of RAM, strong graphics card and 2 cores and still I get those lags. There was no change to notice with V2 for me or any of my team mates, at least nothing positive.

You name a texture load as the reason for this. I doubt that, simply because the symptoms are different. When I drive (fast, s.a.) and someone joins the race on a quiet loaded server (starting from about 10 people) I get those join-lags, no matter what version I tried. If I spec its the same, no difference. Everyone I know is totally pissed by those lags! They exist from the beginning of this game and there was no improvement whatsoever by now, although you state something was improved...

If my join-lag/delay happens because I load a texture, WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAPPEN, EVEN WHEN I ALREADY LOADED THAT TEXTURE 1 MINUTE AGO ?!? Doesn't really sound like a texture-load-delay. It must have to do with network traffic or the mass of players, I never have lags with only 3-4 people.

Can you plz explain how that texture-load can cause that delay (over and over again, more delay with more players) or is it simply that you don't have a clue why your game is delaying ? =)


P.S.: I know people that quit LfS because of that stupid 'effect'.
P.P.S.: When I first wrote something concerning this issue, people (also devs here) told me to get a better PC and they said, that there is nothing like a 'join-lag/delay'(also devs). At least nowadays you admit that there is one.

Quote from Cue-Ball :

This adds ammo to the theory that loading a model that is not already in use causes the stutter.

I´ve had stutters on servers that use only one car and the model has been loaded.

I don´t get stutters when there is only about 10 to 15 people. I get it when there´s 20 or more cars. I always assumed this was because of my low end computer but seeing as people with powerful computers have the same problem then maybe it´s not.

Can I just say a big THANK YOU to scawen for rescuing my LFS Ever since the new skin system, my LFS is as smooth as silk. Finally the high FPS actually counts for something

no more stutters! hazaaaa!