Since having 32 cars I've reduced my LOD and multiplayer speed up settings to try and increase my framerate. One problem I've found is the car in front, or behind suddenly popping out of no where. I find this disconcerting and it makes it hard to work out if you're closing in on them if they keep disappearing. This is especially a problem in the mirror.

My suggestion is that there should be an option where LFS overrides the LOD/car draw distance settings and ensures the car in front of you and the car behind in the mirror are always shown.

Quote from ajp71 :

Since having 32 cars I've reduced my LOD and multiplayer speed up settings to try and increase my framerate. One problem I've found is the car in front, or behind suddenly popping out of no where. I find this disconcerting and it makes it hard to work out if you're closing in on them if they keep disappearing. This is especially a problem in the mirror.

My suggestion is that there should be an option where LFS overrides the LOD/car draw distance settings and ensures the car in front of you and the car behind in the mirror are always shown.

I'm pretty sure that's lag, not a LOD problem.

Quote from 5th Earth :

I'm pretty sure that's lag, not a LOD problem.

No I'm certain it's nothing to do with lag seeing as it didn't happen until I changed my settings. The most annoying thing is when LFS displays about 10 cars in front and none in the mirror on the first lap, having 10 cars ahead shown is nice but having an indication of how far behind me the next car is is far more important. The server doesn't seem to struggle to display cars in TV cam (where multiplayer speedup options are automatically overridden) just my framerate dies.

Quote from 5th Earth :

I'm pretty sure that's lag, not a LOD problem.

No, you are wrong, its a LOD-Problem, i tested it self, i have only GF 6600
Also if the mirror LOD be high, cars 50 meters behind are not drawn.
If the Mirror LOD down will Cars 10 meters behind not drawn.

+1

it would be great if LFS always rendered the two closest cars in front and the closest one behind - this would make things much better for us poor folks who don't have fancy pants computers

I would say at least 2 in front and 2 back, when there are two cars competing with each other, wouldn't it be weird one would be very visible and the other wouldn't? Would be even more crazy when they swap positions constantly and at turn dissapear.

Okay, forgive for this noob question (I am a newbie) but what is LOD?

The solution to this problem would be changing LFS options to something like "draw cars ahead/behind" setting. Like NR2003 had.

Quote from obsolum :

Okay, forgive for this noob question (I am a newbie) but what is LOD?

Level Of Detail, when something is further away, it makes the model/textures less detailed, so it turns down the cpu-usage, so it's less heavy on the computer, which results in better framerates.

+1 and -1. ^^

Because when a big crash is in front of you and you arrive at this place, you probably can't view all cars at the time, and probably, you can crash in one (and more ^^) car that you don't view before.

Quote from MadJ37 :

Because when a big crash is in front of you and you arrive at this place, you probably can't view all cars at the time, and probably, you can crash in one (and more ^^) car that you don't view before.

Don't get how this could have a negative impact on seeing a crash, the idea is to make it so that you always have at least one car ahead, whereas atm you may not see any, although seeing none at all is more a problem in the mirror than ahead of you.

Increase your mirror LOD, that may help.

Also, you probably have tried this already, but make sure your "multiplayer speedup option" isn't to low.

+1 sounds like a good idea - 2 in front and 2 behind

btw what does multiplayer speedup option do?

Quote from XCNuse :

Increase your mirror LOD, that may help.

Also, you probably have tried this already, but make sure your "multiplayer speedup option" isn't to low.

Well the problem is if I increase them my fps dies, they work fine in normal racing it's just that they need to show the car ahead/behind at all times regardless of how low the settings are set.

Quote from KSheppard :

btw what does multiplayer speedup option do?

Multiplayer speedup option shows a slider in which you can set a distance in feet that cars in front of you will no longer be displayed. Set it to 50 feet and when the car in front of you is 50 feet away, he will disappear from your view.

The problem is set it too low (such as 50 feet) and a crash happens 75 feet in front of you, it can be too late to avoid when the crash suddenly appears at 50 feet in front.

Quote from ajp71 :

Well the problem is if I increase them my fps dies, they work fine in normal racing it's just that they need to show the car ahead/behind at all times regardless of how low the settings are set.

Which view do you use?

If you are going to answer the tire view, then what graphics card do you have?

My desktop's graphics card isn't that great, a Geforce FX 5600 I believe, and I can get up to 100 fps at times (I always use tire view for fps reasons), but majority of times it is around 50 to 60, but to increase my FPS I have set aside a user account I call "gaming" which runs only the minimum processes to keep XP alive, and I'm curious if that would help you any on your adventure to seek FPS. Also if you don't already, full screen also can increase FPS by a fair amount.

I think the gaming account though is the best way to go, it has worked brilliantly for me so far, because I used windows blinds and all to make my desktop look like Vista, which.. doesn't matter anymore because I'm on my Vista notebook right now (which gets amazing FPS), it has an ATi X1400 graphics card and its always over 90, but the point is, setting aside a gaming account increased my average FPS of around 40 to around 60 to 70.

My PC has no background apps running other than the my sound card driver, Ultramon and Logitech profiler and ATI tray tools. My graphics card is an ATI 9600 Pro, shocking I know but my limiting factor seems to be my processor (2.8 ghz P4), hence changing view makes very little difference I can get about 80 fps on my own and it really seems to be reducing the cars in view and disabling sound that give me the biggest fps increases, of course I can only stand doing one of those

The only advantage of setting up a separate account maybe so that I don't use dual monitors, although I don't think that affects my fps.

Created a new account using a single monitor, made bugger all difference TBH.

Very strange, well, I got nothing else though, good luck on your adventure to lowering FPS (almost sounds like a diet hah).

I don't think it is your CPU though, my desktop has a P4 2.8GHz core, but with the FX5600 I think I get around the same average FPS you're getting, but then again I'm running windowed at 1024x768.

I tell you what though, this dual core notebook I'm using now with an ATi X1400 really made a HUGE difference in FPS. All I know is that according to benchmarks the X1400 is only about 13% better than my 5600. But if people say dual cores don't work in LFS, then explain why my "13%" faster card achieves almost double the FPS.

Well I can give this one more try... how much cash do you have in your wallet.

Quote from ajp71 :

Don't get how this could have a negative impact on seeing a crash, the idea is to make it so that you always have at least one car ahead, whereas atm you may not see any, although seeing none at all is more a problem in the mirror than ahead of you.

Yes, but, for example, if 10 cars are in a crash, and you can view only 2 by 2 cars. (see the attachment )

Quote from MadJ37 :

Yes, but, for example, if 10 cars are in a crash, and you can view only 2 by 2 cars. (see the attachment )

You've missed that this suggestion is an override for when LFS decides it shouldn't show the car ahead/behind to save fps, this option would only ever make more cars visible as when the fps allows for it LFS would still display many more cars, like it does now.

Quote from ajp71 :

You've missed that this suggestion is an override for when LFS decides it shouldn't show the car ahead/behind to save fps, this option would only ever make more cars visible as when the fps allows for it LFS would still display many more cars, like it does now.

If I understand rightly in the event of a crash it would show all the cars as they would be within the 250m range BUT the override would always show the 2 car bracket even if they were 300m ahead/behind.

^^ That's a better explanation, thanks