I know that this is probably a question that is asked in this game a lot of times but I just need a more specific answer that fits exactly my situation. When I play LFS online at the start of every race there's incredible amount of lag but after when I'm at a distance between most of the drivers the lag obviously minimizes. I've heard that there's also a lot of lag problems when it comes to playing LFS online within a wireless network, which is the way I connect to the internet. My questions is, how can I reduce this lag in a way that it let's me play the game online effectively using a wireless network?

Thanks.

by lag do you mean low fps or high ping?

If you are only having probs at the start of a race (as in when a full grid of cars are in view) i would guess that its more to do with your pc than your connection. Try starting a single player race with a full grid of AI drivers and see if you still get the same problem.

Yes, that does sound a lot more like game lag as opposed to web lag.

used to happen to my old PC, poor old little pentium4 was screaming its head off and couldnt cope with it lol, i used to pull to the side at the start and wait until the pack had gone, otherwise T1 would be a slideshow of stuttery sound and screens of cars at various angles, and 99% of the time after the lag had stopped i would be on my side or roof with a totalled car and other drivers shouting at me

gav's test is a good way to check for sure though, as an AI filled grid can and will lag the heck out of it if its a pc performance issue.

Yeah, I'm starting to think that maybe it is game lag. I have a 256mb Ati Radeaon and 896 mb of ram which seems enough, but my cpu is 1.10ghz and I'm running on window vista. I dont know about my ping but I know that during single and multi player my fps is around 25. And when I tried what GAVD suggested and I noticed that when adding more than 3 players my fps decreases by 1/2 but could still play normally up until I put 7 AI into the race that's when the lag got heavy; this is somehow the same when I play multiplayer.

A friend of mine with 1,14GHz and WinXP gets about 9fps in starts and about 30fps during races whilo not in the pack.

So I'm pretty sure your problem is the CPU.

Well, I've been thinking of getting a new motherboard for quiet some time so I guess it's time to buy a new motherboard. Thanks for the answers

the wireless network is going to hold you back no matter what. if you can get a network cable, do it.

Quote from bunder9999 :

the wireless network is going to hold you back no matter what. if you can get a network cable, do it.

I dont think that the wireless connection make you lag since you have a good signal strength

Quote from MKULTRA :

Well, I've been thinking of getting a new motherboard for quiet some time so I guess it's time to buy a new motherboard. Thanks for the answers

Should solve your problem, my old laptop was a similar spec to your pc and struggled just the same on a full grid.

As for wireless v's wired, I would say providing you have a consistently good signal then you should be okay, however i agree with Bunder if you can get a cable to it then use it as then you have no chance of your signal being interrupted.

I'll try to get a cable internet connection then.

Quote from Driftovios :

I dont think that the wireless connection make you lag since you have a good signal strength

Wrong.

The encoding of the frames itself introduces a small amount of latency (usually single digit milliseconds, so not really an issue)

The main problem however, is that packets will get lost.
Sometimes they are lost for good, causing disconnects or your car to disappear briefly.
Usually they just get resent sometime later, once it's noticed that the packet has gone missing. This means that a lot of packets, when they eventually arrive, are late. The unpredictable timing of packets' arrival means that LFS's car position prediction is getting out of date - therefore inaccurate - data. This results in cars appearing to jump around and can cause collisions when it shouldn't.


tl;dr:
Never use wireless (or to a lesser extent Ethernet over Powerline) for gaming, if at all possible. A trusty Cat5e cable is your friend.


edit: The OP's main problem is probably CPU related as mentioned before me. Any form of wireless internet will only make things worse.

Quote from Degats :

Wrong.

The encoding of the frames itself introduces a small amount of latency (usually single digit milliseconds, so not really an issue)

The main problem however, is that packets will get lost.
Sometimes they are lost for good, causing disconnects or your car to disappear briefly.
Usually they just get resent sometime later, once it's noticed that the packet has gone missing. This means that a lot of packets, when they eventually arrive, are late. The unpredictable timing of packets' arrival means that LFS's car position prediction is getting out of date - therefore inaccurate - data. This results in cars appearing to jump around and can cause collisions when it shouldn't.


tl;dr:
Never use wireless (or to a lesser extent Ethernet over Powerline) for gaming, if at all possible. A trusty Cat5e cable is your friend.


edit: The OP's main problem is probably CPU related as mentioned before me. Any form of wireless internet will only make things worse.

I didn't know about all these thanks for the information. I said that there is no problem because when i look down left i dont see lag and the other cars dont lag either i thought that all is ok. So i am going to get a cable soon