@not sure,

Oh god , I'd take that off if I where you.
I was going to quote your post, but I just don't think I need to.


Thats the sort of thing I can't stand. Dragon's don't even exist in the real world, they arn't even furry. so how the hell do people get off on them!

you obviously haven't been on the forums at the web site then.
AMD has there hand in everything ATI is doing right now.

I never had a problem with drivers before AMD took over, now it's a complete mess.
Even if it is still the same people, AMD probably has there hand in there somewhere.

Infact, I've never had a problem with an ATI card ever, untill now ofcourse, and I've had many. ranging from the first 2mb RageII, and 4mb Rage3d up to what I have now.

I would always suggest ATI for bang for buck rigs. Even the most powerful gaming computers I've seen have them. Other than the ones that have Nvidia's latest monster.

However, I would be careful. after AMD bought ATI, things haven't been going so smoothly as far as drivers. you should be safe if you are PCI-E, which you probably are.
But ATI is realy hurting lately because of AMD.

I recently bought an HD2600 512mb pro AGP, Since I coulden't afford to upgrade my motherboard. I can't get curtain games to play because ATI (AMD idiots actualy) can't get there drivers to work properly.

My first experiance with furries wasn't to great. I'm on alot of online art communities, and I got a link to one once that was a bit disturbing. It was a real eyebrow raiser, thats for sure.

My vote however goes to hating only the dirty ones. I don't judge everyone in a group because a fue of them are a odd in the head.
Although at first glance its alot more than a fue, more like 90%.
I go on furry sites sometimes (with safe search features on) just because some of the good artists I know think that those sites offer better features than Deviantart.

I realy can't see how people can get off on that garbage, and being a fan of dragons (as my name implies) I realy dont like what I've seen done with them. Dragons seem to be a real favorite with furries.

I could write a whole document on my experiance and opinion of the furry culture, but that would be a whole page, possibly more.

Quote from Ricou :

LFS Patch Y change list:


I'd really like to know how long you can drift a car IRL before your tyres lose all grip.

I can't say for sure, but normal road tires, or even the highest grade road legal tires can't take nearly the amount of punishment I've seen them go through in this game.

However, My boss had a little fun drifting on a road up north, and his brakes gave out before his tires did, but those are stock brakes.

You can't do it while braking, but you can blip once just as you reach the end, it doesn't give you the satisfaction of hearing the car rev a zillion times when you downshift, but at least you don't get the rear kicking out from dumping the clutch on a slow engine.

Like I said, its all about learning how to use your equipment instead of looking at its short comings, and than saying you need a helper because of them.

I could make a replay, but you'll have to wait untill I rebuild my pedals, I toasted them during a hotlap last week.

TFC got killed by the huge flood of 8 year olds with no idea what tactics are. TF2 was an attempt to make it so that the little 8 year olds that ruind TFC couldent kill the new source version. everyone just hates it because its actualy hard to be good at.

Same goes for CS, in the first couple of years it was on steam it was actualy more playable than the WON version of the time, but again, way too many under aged kids got to play it and destroyed the community. Parents just don't look at the 17+ logo plastered on the damn box.

And it has extended to the mods on both the goldsrc and source engines, half the games I used to play are flooded with so many kids who have admin powers who realy shoulden't, that I get banned just for trying to play tacticaly. The only mods that are safe are the ones that are complicated to play, and the little kids say "this sucks, CS is better, its the PAWNZORZ!"

Sort of how LFS is getting, its becomeing realistic enough that you actualy have to know how to drive in order to play.

You can't blame steam for screwing up the gameplay, its the people who play it that make it bad.

I raced, and figured out how to blip on downshifts with combind axis.

If you take the time to learn and think about it instead of instantly saying "THEY CAN'T DO THAT!" you'd have figured it out to.
I'm not bashing, or being sarcastic, I just find that alot of people jump the gun when devs change something in there game/mod. I've watched alot of games and mods grow from a small project up to a finnished product and there's always people jumping all over the developers instead of correcting there own bad habits.
Auto-cut is the worst thing they could have added in the first place, it got alot of people dependant on it.

Assign a button to clutch, keep the clutch in while braking and just as you finnish braking, move your foot to the accelerator and push it down enough to match the revs, then let the clutch out and get on the gas.

Learning to drive that way helped me with my lap times alot, even before patch Y.

the fastes I've ever went was around 55km/h on my mountain bike, down a hill at it's highest gear. I could have continued to accelerate, but it was a dirt road and the rear wheel was warped badly enough that it started to shake the whole bike. Pretty scary when I think of it now, I didn't even have a helmet on or anything.

If you don't save a copy of your game list and account information than of course they arn't going to belive you. Thats why they GIVE you a printable one when you register a game on steam.

I've been using steam since near the end of the first year of it's run.
I only fully transfered when they shut down WON though.

I've never had a problem with it save for one. But that was microsoft being retarded with an auto-update. It disabled something on my computer that steam needed to access the caches. "This game is not available at this time, try again later" is the only thing I got for a month. And then MS fixed there screw up.

Steam is an amazing idea, it just took a while to get it working right.
It didn't help that Valves former publisher where idiots with the CD keys and quite a fue people needed to purchase the game on steam when it started because they had a duplicate key.
If I where to go anywhere to publish a game, it would be steam.
After the last line of updates, It's not all that hard on your computer anymore. It's only using 7mb of ram at idle (I just checked). thats alot less than windows media player or even an instant messanger.
I monitored it constantly, and I've watched them streamline it like crazy.

When I was using my joystick as a shifter I could go to nutral fro many gear, and go to any gear from nutral.

I think the best chance you have is to save money and buy a good wheel with more than 360º rotation.

I've never used a DFP but I have used a G25. If the wheel is basicaly the same than the DFP would be a good buy since they are cheap on Ebay.

When I drive the FBM I don't even use the clutch on upshifts, its a quick lift of the throttle and shift, and than back on the throttle again.

If you can't handel lifting the throttle on up shifts I realy feel sorry for any standard car you drive in real life. If you are lazy and don't want to lift off the throttle in LFS, go auto gears, thats the only way to avoid lifting.

Canadas worst driver put it best.
"Whats that burning smell?" -Jason Zhang, Episode 4: Skid Marks

unfortunately, force feed back will only effect the wheel if the wheel is selected as the control. so no FFB if you use mouse.

Thats why I say it would be good if you where making a wheel, but I woulden't do it to an existing wheel.

I would just stick with what I've got if I where you.
That seems like an old, posibly rare wheel, so i wouldent modify it with something like that.

Like I said, you could look for a cheap wheel and try modifying that, and you might even end up with a third pedal that way.

LOL, never use it since I got a 3 pedal set working. and once I get my DIY pedals together it won't even be an option worth looking at.

I've thaught about using a mouse, but I've always considered it more of a hassle than a real option. But then again, I have the parts I need already available, if you don't it might be worth it.

It would give you unlimmited wheel turn because you could change the mouse sensitivity (in windows) and that would change how far you have to turn the wheel to get to lock. And I think you can have more than one pointing device in windows, so you could integrate the electronics and still have a mouse and wheel attatched at the same time, as long as they are USB. This could also give you the ability to recenter it because both mice will move the same cursor. so all you'd have to do is put the wheel at center and than move the mouse to calibrate the steering center so they line up. Problem is though, if you move the wheel so that the mouse would go off screen, it will completely offset the steering wheel. So you'd need to figure out a way to stop it to prevent that.

Basicaly, its easier to modify a wheel than it is to use a mouse, not in the actualy construction, but in the end use of it. Because the wheel can be calibrated easily, but lineing up the wheel at the start of every race would be a hassle I woulden't want to go through.

Quote from Ricerguy :

I still cannot understand why you would sacrifice force feedback in a simulator like LFS. dO.ob

Unfortunately, I didn't have force feedback to begin with.

But I've been watching the DIY projects for a while now, and someone is working on a chip that alows you to build your own FFB wheel and pedal set. The wheel is the only thing FFB supported. But it's still going to be a big hit for the DIY people. I'm actualy thinking of getting one, I love building my own stuff.

@ajp71
As far as I know, the optical system only has notches in the wheel portion for 300º of rotation, so you'd have to do some pretty tricky cutting to get it to register a whole 360º turn.
Then you'd have to write your own drivers to alow the controler to report more than 300º. Thats if the chip in the wheel even alows more than the set range it was designed for.




EDIT:
Here's the link to the site where you can get the NON FFB controler for DIY. The FFB one isn't finnished yet.
http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/

No problem at all.

I'm still learning alot about the electronic part of building/moding my pedals and wheel. So I can't 100% garantee there isn't a way to mod a FFB wheel. But I do know I woulden't try it myself.

one thing you could do is buy a cheap wheel ($20 or less)and pedal set and try moding that. you won't have force feed back, but it would be good practice, and you could possibly use one of the pedals from it after as a clutch pedal. Or even use the wheel if you like the finnished product. Thats what I did.

I've basicaly canabalized a steeringwheel and pedal set and a joystick and I've come up with a three pedal set and a wheel that all work well. The only thing left is getting an 8 button game pad to make a shifter.

I've recently geared up for my own DIY project, and I've had to do alot of research for it.

Usualy good wheels use an optical position sensor for the wheel position. Infact even my InterAct V3 had one, and that was an el-cheapo wheel.

Before you consider looking into pots you need to know several things.

1. is it a pot or optical? If it's optical, there's nothing you can do.

2. what is the impedance of the existing pot, the one you use has to match.
Get a multimeter and you can easily find out the impedance. You do this by turning the pot untill the impedance from one pole (end connection) to the center connection is highest.
(my wheel that has a pot is a 20k ohm pot for the steering, its also only a 180º turn)

3. Gears or no gears.
some have gears, some don't.
If your wheel doesn't have a gear set, you'l have to buy a multi turn pot to get over 310º steering (most pots stop at 310º), they are expensive, and if you don't figure out a way to put some kind of stop in there, the pot's built in stop won't last long.
If you have gears, than you might be able to swap a couple to change the wheel turn ratio to pot turn ratio. sometimes the stop comes after the gears so you might not need to break anything.

One last thing, make sure you are 100% commited to the task, chances are, once you start, you can't go back.
this means you could end up without a wheel if you can't finnish the project and can't go back to stock.

One tip is to take it apart once, and put it back together as is, this way you get used to how it goes together and if anything goes wrong with the modification, you still know how the original went.

Oh, and if it's force feed back, DON'T modify it, chances are the force feed back won't work after.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Wed 26 Dec 2007, 07:13.

If you have a VIA chipset on your motherboard it could be the problem.
recently VIA chipsets are having compatablility issues with ATI cards.
I don't think it effects PCI-E, but it might.
I know it effects AGP cards though. (its the only thing keeping me from playing LFS on my other computer)

Other than that, you should look for IRQ conflicts, mainly graphics card ones, since thats the only thing I can see that would cause them.

If you find an IRQ conflict there are a fue things you can do, it all depends on your motherboard.

First you can try and resolve it in the bios settings, if you're chipset supports it, there should be something like "assign PCI-E slot IRQ" or "assign video card IRQ"

second you can try and change it in windows, I can't remember how to do that since the last time I did it was on windows 98 about 5 years ago.

There are others, but you'll have to search the web to find what else you can do.

WARNING! DO NOT CHANGE IRQ SETTINGS UNLESS THERE IS A CONFLICT AND YOU KNOW A FREE IRQ. setting IRQs manualy is something you realy don't want to do. since you have to know how many IRQs your computer has and what ones arn't used.
I think there is a standard of 22 IRQs or something close to that number, it's been so long that I can't remember for sure though.

The pots are actualy labled, 180º they are 90º from center each way, starting from 0 at the far left to 180 at the far right if the shaft is facing you.

I also just figured out that they are 50k pots.
I'm almost positive thats the problem, but that would mean I'm screwed, since the only ones I have that are 100k now are the 60º ones.



EDIT: I found a place in my city that has 100k ohm pots for $1.84 each. I need 3 of them.
Since I just got some money, I can afford to buy them, I might even upgrade the pot in my steering wheel to a wider range since the one that came in it was a 20k ohm 180º pot, when it should have been a 20k ohm 280º pot.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Wed 26 Dec 2007, 05:49.

I recently K.I.A'd my pedals and I decided it was time to do a DIY job, so I got a joystick and did all the research.

I opened up an old pedal set off of a V3 racing wheel that used to hook up to the game port on my old PC. I found it had 180º B100k ohm pots. And the joystick has 60º B100k ohm pots.
Now as far as I've read, as long as the pot is B100k I can use any range I want.

The problem I am having now is that the pots apear to have cliped down to less than half. Now that would have lead me to think that the pot range didn't help, and that I'm still limited to 60º.
however, the joystick drivers now read only from 0 to 128.
Before, they where going from 0 to 255.

I find this odd because
1. The pots are going from 0 to 128 which is a resolution of 129 steps, which doesn't make sence at all. They shoulden't be able to go more than 127 if they can't go to 255. This leads me to think that it's the pots.
2. The active range is off center, meaning that even though I have a mechanical range of 310º and an unknown active range, it seems to end at the half turn mark and start where the 180º range should.


Now I have the pots hooked up backwards, I'm thinking this could cause a problem, but I don't think so. this means that the pedal travel starts at 128 and goes to 0 instead of the other way around.

also, the pots originaly where hooked together to give it one combined axis, which is normal for combined pedals.
I also have another theory that this could some how effect them.
But then again they are generic pots, it shoulden't effect anything.

I'm stumped, and I don't want to tinker too much and fry something.
So I'm just asking for help.

With the information given, what could it be?

The reason transport trucks twist and flex like that is so the frame can handel the forces without breaking. If you've ever seen a transport truck on the company's test track. It articulates alot more than what you'd normaly think, you can get as much as 10º of flex front to back if not more.

All vehicles have some amount of body flex, some more than others.
Otherwhise they'd snap under heavy stresses.

If you made a completely rigid body or frame that didn't alow for some small amount of flexing, it would be to fragile. When something gives it has a tendancy to absorb energy and transmit it across it's surface, if it doesn't do that than the energy would be focused completely onto the point of impact. If this where on a transport truck, anything that takes a shock during a bump in the road would eventualy suffer from material fatigue and break.

I think there is a better solution for chassis flex than calculating the whole thing with physics, but I don't have time to come up with a reasonable solution.

one idea would be to have a pre set motion range for the four corners of the car and have curtain forces push them a given amount. It's not going to be 100%. but it will give you some form of flex without having to calculate it completely. This could be implamented untill LFS's phyics engine is capable of running physics on multiple threads.
After that, a more realistic one could be devised.
Edit: this doesn't have to be visible. since that would require alot of work to adapt the models.

The thing is, thats alot to do for no reason other than to actualy engage 4th and 3rd.

Sure it's nice to know that around 50% of the time you'll be in the right gear, but there's always a chance (a rather large one) you are going to have to gear down anyway if something happens, in order to get the power to pull out.

I just K.I.A'd my pedals doing a hotlap, so it gives me the excuse to build a DIY three pedal set. But I'm not sure if I'm going to be Heel-toe downshifting with them.

What I'm thinking of doing is actualy running two laps, one my way, and one with heel-toe, getting the times as close as I can, and than analyzing the lap data from each to see the difference.

If I do both of them properly, there shoulden't be any noticable difference.

You see, I'm not biased tward my style, I never said heel-toe was wrong. I still intend to learn it, I'm just going to stick with what I learned first though.

Things can seem jerky because of the way the car acts. If you have the 1g forces up to around .050m it can seem as if you are getting a jerky motion from the FPS, but it's actualy the car vibrating.