The online racing simulator
LFS 3D engine - would be possible to get some inside?
Hi,

the LFS 3D engine is nothing spectacular even its serve its purpose(I dont mean it like offence but real fact) but I still would like to know from Scawen a bit inside around which DirectX version the 3D core is built and what other part sDirectX extension/features it use or any other details he would like to tell us.

It would be really nice to get some real inside a bit...

I was hoping to get some "future" plans if the 3D engine will going be rewritten but with current kind of feedback we get I think its kind of utopia....anyway. There is nothing to loose by asking.
No because the Dev's coding is far too awesome to share with anyone because you'll go and start your own simulator and steal all of their jobs!!! You bloody software immigrant.


Beside what has the 3D engine with simulation :-))
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(ChrisColeman) DELETED by ChrisColeman
Just enjoy it.. dont ask more
I am funboy of LFS so while I could not be interested....
AFAIK LFS's core is DirectX 7, and it was improved with some DirectX 8 functions.

I agree it would be cool to know some future plans/ideas on graphic engine
IIRC the engine itself is DX7 and it only uses hardware vertex shading (which is in DX8 specs) to offload the CPU. It also uses multitexturing for the lightmaps, but that's about all I can tell...
it would be better to know more about tyres and damn scirocco

(What did u think, no such comments will come when u start such thread ?)
I dont care about Scirocco. Unless its out then at current stage its vaporware for me.

Those delays kidna starting to remind me DukeNukem Forever unfortunately. They wanted to be it always better then anything around or make some things excelent till it got to the point they never realeased anything. If the rights did not buy another company and Gearbox finished it we would never see it. Sometimes its good to realize zourself zou reached point when it has to be realeased and zou can work on it better then not releasing anything.

I am just curious about technical aspects of a lot of things and games 3D engines as well so I am curious what LFS is built around and what support.

Future plans would be nice to know but maybe rather not to hear anything from Scawen as his cant do the PR very well. I remember that he said once most of the graphic cards will be DX9 the engine will got to DX9 as well to support new features and better eye candy. It add to the immersion of racing a lot if its done properly. What we have nowdays. DX10 cards and DX11 slowly penetrating market share and where is update LFS 3D engine. That`s maybe not better to know about future update of 3D LFS engine.

I am just curious about technical aspects of current one rather.
I think Scawen did not code the original graphics engine all by himself in the early S1 age. But maybe he has learned to how to code it by now... (hard to say as there hasn't been any significant upgrade in the last couple of years).
I think that Scawen is much more into physics and AI programming 'cause that's what makes a difference between an ordinary racing sim and a kick-ass one. Rewriting the whole engine means a lot of pretty boring work, need to learn a new API and knowing that new DX specs gets released every 18 - 24 months he probably not looking forward for this kind of task. Imagine that even if he converted the 3D engine to DX9 API, there would still be a bunch of guys who "know better", complaining that LFS should've switched to DX10 or 11...
Ok, so your point is to have it like that forever? Does not make sense to me
Beside that modern cards does not have fixed pipelines like DX7 cards so I think some things from DX7 might be emulated on DX9-DX11 hardware. Emulation bring perfomance issue.

Quote from aaltomar :I think Scawen did not code the original graphics engine all by himself in the early S1 age. But maybe he has learned to how to code it by now... (hard to say as there hasn't been any significant upgrade in the last couple of years).

No he did not. He mentioned it few years back.
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(DEVIL 007) DELETED by DEVIL 007
I really hope lfs survives.
Rfactor just don't feel right...
Quote from DEVIL 007 :Ok, so your point is to have it like that forever? Does not make sense to me

Of course not, I'm just saying that LFS should be updated one step at a time and we all know what's the priority right now.
Quote from DEVIL 007 :
Beside that modern cards does not have fixed pipelines like DX7 cards so I think some things from DX7 might be emulated on DX9-DX11 hardware. Emulation bring perfomance issue.

If I'm not mistaken, programmable pipeline refers to ability to allow for custom rendering functions - that is Vertex and Pixel shaders. LFS has full support of these, it just doesn't really use it.
Quote from DEVIL 007 :
No he did not. He mentioned it few years back.

That's interesting piece of info, however Scawen has made some adjustments to the rendering engine in the past so he certainly has some knowledge of Direct3D. But if he's not fully confident in his ability to create a working 3D engine, it would explain a lot, wouldn't it?
To be correct I think Scawen said that someone was helping him with the 3D engine. I dont know how far he got with learning DirectX stuff. You need to ask him
Just changing the middleware without also making changes to the content (geometry, textures, shaders, etc) won't make any difference to how the game looks. So it would not just require time consuming programming to update the look of the simulator.

The car reflections from The Revolution Pack is a good illustration of what difference the content can make, even if it is something as simple as just textures.
Quote from blackcarmafia :it would be better to know more about tyres and damn scirocco

(What did u think, no such comments will come when u start such thread ?)

so youre pointing out that your post is stupid by yourself?
bonus points for honesty
Quote from mutt107 :I really hope lfs survives.
Rfactor just don't feel right...

rFactor is like a duck...
duck is the only animal that can walk, swim and fly... but he sucks in every situation.. he never will walk fast as a human, swim like a fish, or fly? like an eagle..... so this game have too many features for too low money, ended up being a bad game in every aspect

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG