Quote from johneysvk :

...is deleting the duplicate entries manually an option maybe?

It could be, when I looked I saw the duplicate hotlap appeared to have a different id, so it should be possible to add a function to delete it, either by a developer or the user.

Is it possible for the user who uploaded it, to delete one of the duplicate hotlaps, or does it not work that way? I'm asking in case you can give me more insight, in case it might save me a few minutes driving and uploading hotlaps.

This thread is not really "General LFS Discussion".

In future please use a more appropriate location, such as the mods in development forum.

I'll close this thread now as it is not of general interest for the community.

Last edited by Scawen, Fri 4 Apr 2025, 10:05.

Although I realise a website bug is annoying, Victor isn't looking at it (it's his code) and I'm not sure it's worth my time to start trying to figure it out, if it's just an occasional hotlap that appears duplicated.

Unless it's more of a problem than I know?

On the other hand, if there is a known way to reproduce this then I could fix it. It's just really hard trying to debug something that happens very rarely, in someone else's code, with no known way to make the bug happen.

EDIT: I've fixed a bug in the calendar.

It was reporting the UTC time wrongly when hovering over the event start time.

Hopefully that should appear correctly now. You should see your local time displayed, and hovering should show the UTC time.

Last edited by Scawen, Tue 1 Apr 2025, 09:20.

For old versions (before the mods) we did release dedicated servers.

But the cracked LFS community running on a pirate master server had grown bigger than the legit community and we didn't earn enough money to live on, which obviously could be a problem in the end.

There was one solution, make something new (mods) and stop releasing the dedicated server software.

Is there a program file 7zr.exe in your LFS_EDITOR\bin folder?

I see the JGTC runs on the USA servers:
https://www.lfs.net/leagues/818/season/1146

And the GT3 Challenge:
https://www.lfs.net/leagues/815/season/1245

It does seem like there isn't enough activity in the USA despite us having a good setup there. LFS seems to be more popular in South America. Hopefully there will be a bit more activity when we release the new update.

It's just a command that doesn't do anything but remains local. It's in the same place that local commands are processed, and does not get sent to the server.

I guess it can be seen in one of the messages that is sent out via InSim so an external program could use it for any purpose.

Quote from Bokujishin :

I haven't looked into tonemappers in-depth, just enough to know the differences as a user, but I don't remember AgX being purple

I remembered wrong, it's sort of peachy.

This was the example page I saw, about half way down the page you can select the images and the AgX ones seem to be sort of pink or peachy.

https://kronnect.com/introducing-agx-tonemapper-in-beautify-3/

I'm not saying I've discounted it, just haven't studied it enough and these examples didn't encourage me.

Quote from Drifteris :

i noticed street lamps don't cast dynamic shadows inside the car (like sun does), is that for performance or will there be an option to have it?

Our system is really not set up for shadow maps from street lights, the street lights are really just a source for ambient lighting.

Quote from Flame CZE :

It seems like the LCD brightness got fixed too?

Maybe it's because at night, the inside of the tunnel is brighter than outside, whereas it's the other way round during the day?

Maybe interesting to know that there are two exposures going on.

Other than the image-based exposure that I have been talking about, there is also a calculation based on sun height and sky brightness, which can be used to produce a roughly suitable exposure level in an SDR mode that I am currently still supporting, that doesn't have bloom or analyse the image for exposure. That gives quite reasonable results in the day and might be a helpful option for people with a low powered GPU. That calculation is very simple and done every frame even in the HDR mode (HDR is not for HDR monitors, it's just that internally we process the image using a high dynamic range).

Anyway why I am talking about that, currently that is the value that is used to set the dashboard brightness. Without that, the dashboards were EXTREMELY bright in the night, so it was a quick fix at some point in the past. Anyway as discussed earlier, it's not working well and I might do something based on getting a lighting value from your car's environment map, to simulate a light sensor, or I may take a simpler approach (for now) and just set a direct value, so the dash appears just as it does in current public LFS. I am making decisions to get to release without getting hung up on details. That would be awaiting the better dashboard support where we could allow parts of the dashboard to be illuminated by the environment.

Quote from rane_nbg :

Exposure changes look quite fantastic now, so as illuminated displays.

I notice that color tone is slightly towards netral (cool) while previous it was more towards warmer tint. I know that this is during night time, but it's the same tunnel with the same light sources. Has anything else been changed with lighting?

White balance is also based on the time of day rather than the current image. Instead of trying to analyse the image for white balance, it's simpler just to take some good values for day and night. If I used the day white balance in the night, everything would look too yellow, as we are using realistic values for the street lights.

Quote from Bokujishin :

Thanks for the night version, really nice too!
You mentioned the sky not being pitch black because of the date, and while I'm not sure of the difference between France and the UK, I was still expecting something darker, but more to the point - I think there's a bit too much ambient light outside, I believe the buildings and even the road should look much darker even with the sky's current brightness and street lights.

Well here in England, we are quite far North so in May we have short nights and there is a bit of twilight at 3am. I could do a pitch black one but don't think it's really worth it at the moment, though I can make these videos quite quickly.

By the way, I have noticed your other posts. I have tried an ACES filmic shader, might show some comparison screenshots at some point, though personally I don't like it as reality doesn't look like a film, if you see what mean.

I haven't researched enough about AgX, the ones I found did look complicated and all the example shots I saw on the internet just looked like a purple version of the image, so I wasn't sold on the idea. But I'll probably follow your link to see if the simpler version you linked to is of reasonable complexity. At the moment I am using a simple Reinhard shader to reduce the sky whiting out.

I think the tunnel lighting is quite well balanced, compared with the street lighting. Eric has set the lighting values by observation, we haven't gone so detailed as to set watts or lumens per light. But you can judge for yourself in this similar video done in the night.

EDIT: This video time is 03:14 on 4 May so the sky is not pitch dark.

Last edited by Scawen, Sun 16 Mar 2025, 10:16.

Yes, probably need a bit more practice on those bends.

The transitions were done with the real time while the video was recorded quite slowly, so that's why the transitions were too fast.

Here it is redone using the actual frame steps, so it looks as it does in game.

Quote from pärtan :

I personally think the slower exposure adjustment looks more immersive.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you referring to a difference between the two versions?

They both have the same rate of adjustment.

The new one uses centre-weighted metering, which has two advantages:
1) Exposure based more on what you are actually looking at, instead of peripheral vision.
2) More stable because peripheral parts often have large bright or dark areas that have a bad effect on exposure.

Quote from Flame CZE :

Nice! It would be interesting to watch the same FBM tunnel drive-through video...

OK here it is. I think that:
1) The sky brightness fluctuations are reduced a bit before entering the tunnel.
2) Slightly earlier exposure reduction at end of tunnel.



Old: https://youtu.be/YL7q4t5esyI
New: https://youtu.be/jkudBQO4rfQ

A quick update today, centre-weighted metering prioritises pixels nearer the centre of the image.

At Fern Bay, the old version is too influenced by the white kerbs, so the exposure is reduced too much.


At Westhill, the new one starts to expose for the outside world more quickly at end of tunnel.

Quote from cdahmedeh :

I was tempted to say that it's some driver or hardware issue, but it's strange that both OP and I are getting very similar issues on completely different hardware.

I guess that might point to an issue in Windows itself, in the Direct3D 9 support.

One thing that hasn't changed recently is LFS itself.

Doing a search based on the error D3DERR_DEVICEHUNG...

This isn't very helpful but according to Chuck Walbourn:

Quote :

Other cases of failure are "DXGI device hung" or "DXGI device timeout". This typically means that there is either a driver/hardware bug

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61915988/how-to-handle-direct3d-9ex-d3derr-devicehung-error#61944287

I don't think I can get involved at this time. It may be the people who write video card drivers don't do a lot of testing for Direct3D 9Ex these days, so errors might creep in.

It's better for me to continue spending my time on the D3D11 version that I am developing intensely already.

What changed a few weeks ago? Did you install a new graphics driver at that time? Can you try reverting to an older graphics driver? Nothing changed in LFS, so it sounds to me like a fault in the graphics driver or D3D.

Your thread title says "D3D device error" but you didn't include that in your report. If LFS gives this message it suggests that the instance of Direct3D 9 reported an error and had to be restarted. Could there be a problem with the D3D9 support, which is not used by most games now?

EDIT: It's possible there could be a clue in the deb.log file after the hang, a message including a D3DERR_xxx value.
Something like:

D3D device error : D3DERR_xxx

Maybe the missing part in place of 'xxx' can give us a clue.

Last edited by Scawen, Thu 13 Mar 2025, 09:56.

Yes I think that should be possible, the two screen assumption could be avoided if the primary monitor rectangle matches the desktop rectangle. I've made a note about it.

Hi, LFS has taken a guess that you have a two screen setup.

You can correct this, in the Options - View screen.

There is an option "Multiple screen layout" where you will see it is set to 1 left screen.
You can set that to zero and then it will work as a single wide screen.

Quote from Mehmetgulec :

It looks really good, but the editor also needs improvements

While I am sure your suggestions are sensible, I am not working on the vehicle editor as part of this release. the idea is to get the new version released, so I then have time to work on other things including vehicle editor improvements. Please feel free to post vehicle editor suggestions in the correct forum section: https://www.lfs.net/forum/532

Quote from lfsrm :

Great read, I'm still oddly curious about how you are going to solve the cloud sustem for the new skybox, many racing sims completely miss the mark when it comes to the visual aspect of it.

The current plan is to avoid delaying the release for clouds. I love clouds and will miss them in the early versions of new LFS. But it's a big job with many technical difficulties and that's why there will be no clouds at first, although I do want to allow completely overcast (i.e. the whole sky is a cloud).

Quote from TheRubius192FE2 :

i think the dashboard is brighter than my future (joking but hope that it gets optimized)

It's a tricky issue at the moment and that is one thing lacking in the vehicle system at the moment. We really need some way to separate the parts of the dashboard that are illuminated by the environment (in traditional dashboards that are not just a computer screen) and the other parts that are self-illuminated like lights and the modern screens. I'm sure that in real life these modern screens must adjust their brightness a great deal depending on the lighting conditions, to be visible in the day but not completely blinding in the night. In some way, all our dashboards in LFS are self-illuminated like the modern computer screens, so I think they will have to start out light-sensitive and self-adjusting, even if that is unrealistic. Awaiting the more proper dashboard support mentioned above. I've probably not explained myself very well.

It's a completely new system with D3D11 graphics, dynamic lighting, 1000Hz physics, multithreading, dynamic echo rendering. It's not a thing you could release half of.

To be honest that would be a bit like going to your BMW dealer after hearing they are developing a completely new car, and saying, I have lots of money, can you at least sell me the seats, steering wheel and some suspension parts, it would be great, I can stick it in my existing BMW that is from an entirely different era, it'll be no problem.

In fact, the whole thing goes together and has to be in one piece.

[ EDIT:

In case my rubbish analogy makes no sense, I'll say it straight: The new tracks are constructed in a new editor, for a new version of LFS. They cannot be loaded into an old version of LFS that is completely incompatible. And the new lighting system cannot be released without updated tracks. Think of it more like LFS version 2, it's completely different.

Three more points:

1) Many, many, updates from the new version HAVE been copied into the old LFS, just look at the releases of the past few years with so many updates! It's funny how people forget how much has been done in the past few years.

2) The idea is that when the new version is finally released, updates can be done more easily because I don't have to copy the same updates into two different versions of LFS and development can be finally back on track.

3) This development is a huge part of my life. If you are desperate for it to be released, try multiplying that feeling by 1000x and then you may understand how important it is for me to get it released.

end of EDIT ]

Last edited by Scawen, Mon 10 Mar 2025, 19:14.

There is no plan to release track editor in the near future. It's kind of a long term dream of something that may or may not happen. It would probably be a year or two or more of work like the vehicle mods. It's difficult to even imagine how it could work and the tracks would be distributed. It can't work like the vehicle mods. Anyway, I say this not to start a discussion about the track editor, that I cannot get involved in at this time, but to make sure people don't have false hopes. I simply added a few more features to help Eric use the track editor, as I have been doing for the last 25 years or so.

That message is probably because last time you started LFS, the headset was not connected. We need to see the openvr.log after a successful entry to VR.

In LFS there are only two options, OpenVR and Oculus Rift. I believe OpenVR is the only choice for most headsets, but all the Meta ones can use "Oculus Rift" which I should probably rename. But I'll need to know if it does work on Meta headsets... or maybe the whole option should be deleted.

To select Oculus, start LFS in the normal way (not VR) and then:
Options - View
At top of screen is a 3D button.
Click that button and you can select Oculus Rift.

It would be good to know if that works. If not, then try OpenVR again and you can paste that log result, I'll have a look and see if there are any clues in there.