Quote from Ikaponthus :

Let's talk about what we like about LFS so there's something different here to whinging/moaning going on in other threads?

Your complimentary whinge/moan filter will arrive in the mail shortly. Always wear it when visiting the forums to preserve your sanity.

I'm still waiting for you to explain what exactly it is about F355 Challenge's physics model that makes it more realistic than LFS'? So far you've run around like a child insulting just about the entire community here, including but not limited to wishing death on a couple of us, but I've yet to see you do anything to actually back up your statements with even a shred of evidence.

Stop being a little brat, and show us your data. I'm sure Scawen would like to have a look too since he's obviously so far off.

Quote from rcpilot :

Doh! I didn't think to check his basic facts, no one can be that baseless in their arguments.

This... is... the INTERNEEEEEETS!

Hmm, that's weird. Could you try moving the files cfg.txt and card_cfg.txt out of the LFS directory and let the game regenerate them? You can move them back if it doesn't help. Probably won't do any good if it is indeed a clean copy you have there, but worth a shot.

Quote from steve :

LFS doesn't use more than 1 CPU as far as im aware, would need a re-write in the code or something.

Yees, which why I told him to keep his fingers crossed for multi-threading support. Scawen has mentioned it so it will probably happen eventually. But as with everything in LFS it takes time.

Indeed. I remember being a little bit disappointed when I got my own Q6600 and I still couldn't run a full grid with everything on full. But that comes with the territory of being a realistic sim. Doing full detail physics for 20 cars and having 20 AI drivers actually drive them (with a virtual steering- wheel and pedals) at the same time does add up to an awful lot of CPU load. Keep your fingers crossed for multi-threading support in the future to help alleviate some of it.

Do other games work on your computer, or is it just LFS having a problem?

You probably have Full screen vertical sync enabled. That will sync your framerate to your monitor's refreshrate (60Hz probably). If your computer can't give a steady 60FPS and vsync is enabled, the framerate will drop steeply to 30. Try turning it off.

Are you racing online or offline? LFS with a full grid of AI can bring even the most powerful CPU available to it's knees if you have all settings at full tilt. Also try adjusting the Dynamic LOD reduction closer to 1.0 and see if that helps. That will automatically reduce some graphical detail if the framerate drops.

Quote from DHRammstein :

It takes a lot of cpu power to run AI, and you're gonna lose some of that power running windows and windows apps on a Mac.

Not through Bootcamp. A modern Intel Mac is simply a bog standard x86 PC lacking a BIOS (Which is what bootcamp fixes). Windows runs just as well there as on a "proper" PC. You're probably thinking of virtualised performance when running Windows on top of OSX through VMWare or Parallels.

Quote from adulterated :

Console and PC games have yet to amount to these arcade masterpieces. Therefore arcade sims own consoles and PC's.

Haha, now I just know you're flamebaiting. It's like being back in the early nineties when Nintendo and Sega were duking it out amongst the rabid fans, and arcade machines actually were the powerful and esoteric pieces of hardware you try to make them out to be. Good one.

Quote from adulterated :

I'm talking bout the single seater arcade unit with 3 screens for panoramic view and the full size replica metal shifter.

I don't really see what the input and output methods have to do with physics realism. I can tell how realistic the physics are, even with a normal dual-analog gamepad, and F355 Challenge isn't even close (I've also tried the arcade version and didn't find it much different than the Dreamcast version to be honest).

The experience of driving it in an arcade is of course very good, but that's not really the point. You can easily get a similar setup in LFS too if you really want it. A fairly reasonable wheel and software triple-head graphics does that quite well.

Quote from adulterated :

You want realistic, go to your arcade and play F355 Challenge with the clutch and without the F1 paddles.

Ahahah, is this the same F355 Challenge I had on my Dreamcast a good decade ago? It wasn't too bad for its time but it has absolutely nothing on the likes of LFS in terms of physics realism.

Quote from Ikaponthus :

So I doubt it's my hardware!

No probably not, but drivers could be an issue since LFS uses D3D8 which is rather old and not heavily supported these days. Could be the Apple drivers are a bit dodgy when it comes to D3D8 support. Just a guess on my part of course, but worth a shot anyway.

Quote from Matt0snap :

BTW: I think almost everyone has this problem with AI..

Yep, the LFS AI is extremely CPU heavy. Unlike in most other racing games the LFS AI actually drive the cars with the same inputs you do. That means that not only do they need advanced logic to figure out what the car is doing and make proper input to control it, LFS also has to run a complete physics model (tires, suspension, aero, the lot) for each and every AI car you add. Stuff like that can take its toll on a CPU.

Online is comparatively cheaper with the same amount of cars since LFS doesn't need to run the full fidelity physics for cars some distance away. Occational updates as position packets arrive are usually enough.

Last edited by wien, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 18:06.

Quote from Ikaponthus :

With only 4 AI cars racing, the frame-rate skips from between 90FPS to 15FPS when all the AI cars are visible and going around a corner or something.

That's really not right with that hardware. What kind of drivers are you using for your graphics card? Do the standard Nvidia drivers work on the Macbook, or do you have to use some Apple-specific drivers?

Quote from Gil07 :

Well my frame-rates did go up a lot when I figured out the Z-buffer settings...

Really? That's weird. Haven't seen anything like that here. Either way leaving it at 24bit is the recommended approach though.

Quote from Gil07 :

You answered yourself there. If you're decreasing the Z-Buffer Depth, you'll get less FPS. More=better.

I don't see how lower Z-buffer precision would affect FPS negatively. You'd probably see more display corruptions with chalk lines etc. but I doubt the FPS would drop.

Anyway, going to 16 bit for textures and framebuffers on modern hardware (like the 8600) is pointless since they use 24/32 bit precision internally anyway. More performant 16 bit died around the GeForce FX era.

Things worth trying are Dynamic LOD reduction under the Misc tab, and the other LOD settings too. These will help when there's a lot of cars around. Also make sure your Macbook is plugged in when you play to prevent it from going into power-saving mode (which is slow).

Quote from james12s :

its time will come

I'm not so sure. Not in a good amount of years anyway. RoR's biggest asset, the rod based physics engine, is also it's biggest problem. To stiffen up the "rigs" enough that they become fairly realistic it would have to increase processor usage by probably an order of magnitude. (Stiffer rigs mean higher frequencies means more physics loops pr second) In a simulation that already crawls on a modern CPU if you push it a bit, I'm just not sure it's feasible to make it properly realistic in the near future.

That's not to take anything away from RoR though. It's an ingenious concept, and great fun to play with, but it's perhaps a little ahead of its time...

If it drives half as good as it looks (and sounds in the press release) this one's certainly VISA worthy. :jawdrop:

Heh, not that tricky after all then. Yep, that's Cube. Your turn.

You have a point there. I haven't looked too closely at how the Papyrus/ISI/Simbin sims do replays, so they may give a completely wrong impression. RBR and LFS (the IMO best overall sims out there) both look extremely realistic compared to other sims in replays, so in my head replay realism and realistic physics seem to correlate fairly well.

You're right that an interpolated keyframe replay wouldn't give proper results though, so it may not be accurate for all sims.

Your turn Andy.

EDIT: I'm bored so I'll post another one since Andy hasn't done it yet. This one should be a bit trickier:

Last edited by wien, Thu 14 Feb 2008, 09:34.

Correct, too easy?

Okay then, here's an older classic:

Bad Boys? I'm not confident enough to claim victory though.