EDIT : ATI driver people have found the problem!
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=61433#post61433


Hello ATI Users.

We've heard reports that the latest versions of the ATI drivers are causing low frame rates in LFS. The short version of the story is : 5.11 drivers work well, but 5.12 and 5.13 run very slowly. More info here : http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=3639

We need to know which cards are affected by this problem. If you are able to run a test (trying LFS with different driver versions) or you already know the results for your computer, please select one of the poll options. If you select option 1 or 2, please tell us which card you are using, so we can make a more accurate report to the ATI driver developers.

EDIT 1 (CPU) : Please also state which CPU you have and does it have Hyper-Threading?

EDIT 2 (MIRRORS) : Please also check the frame rate with mirrors OFF! Is the slowdown related to drawing the mirror image?

Well, I have a x700pro wtih 256mt of mem.

And I haven´t ran any seriuos tests, but I´d say I got something like 20-30 fps drop at certain places with the newer drivers.

I might edit this once I`ve made some proper testing.

EDIT: 3100+ sempron

9800Pro 128MB

virtually no difference with either driver (Omega versions), around 90fps. Not using any AA or AF though... not sure if that's relevant.

EDIT: AMD 3200 Barton.

X800XT 256mb memory 5.12 and 5.13 of any description, any configuration, AA-AF on or off, 10-15fps
I've also got another machine with a 9700pro and get the same problem.

It may be relevant to ask who is running hyperthreading cpus. I just got a sneaking feeling. Both my pcs have P4 HT cpus. One 3.4 and one 3.0

Radeon 9800 PRO
Omega 5.12
Works like a charm.

All OK,

I was running 5.11, when i just sat in the xrr on we1 i got about 120fps.
after upgrading to 5.13 (and rebooting, obviously) i got about 140fps.

Im running a Radeon X800XT PE and an amd64 3200+ on win xp x64.

P4 2.8c Asus P4P800 Deluxe 2x256 OCZ Ati 9600 SE with cat 5.13
Usually runs at 15 fps but when I disabled HT from the bios it goes up to 50 but it's not as fast as with cat 5.11. It's like there is a frame rate limit because it doesn't matter which resolution I use or which graphical setting I change it always stays the same.

Ahhhhh so its more of a problem than just me and my mate. We had nasty FPS drops when going up to 5.13.

Mine is : A radeon 9600Pro 256mb with a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4(HT). (Nuts its in my damn sig anyway lol)

i believe that new drivers can cause fps drops... i myself own a radeon 9800pro in combination with asus a7n8x board and a gig of ram....

i have not updated my graphics drivers for a while.. in fact i am still using the 4.12 drivers by ati which give me the best performace. I did update to new drivers but i found fps drops in gtr, farcry, doom3 etc so i went back to the 4.12 which i feel are the best tuned drivers for a radeon 9800pro.

i play lfs with 4x aa and 4x af and i get around 70-80 fps

mad

I've got an old Radeon card in my spare system, I'll play around with it tomorrow.

"Northwood" Pentium 4 3.0Ghz with HT, All-in-Wonder X800XT the game run fine with 5.11 (around 90fps with 4x FSAA and 8x anisotropic), but drop below 10fps with the 5.12 or 5.13 (whatever the setting chosen)... Didn't have the time to test 5.13 without the HT. I'm running Windows MCE if this can be of any help.

well i just tryed to install 5.11 after takeing out 5.13 and now my computer has gone loopy i formated it today as well and noticed i was getting 20fps on "south city" which i never used to get befor the 5.13.

I think i might have got a dodgey set of ati drivers so if anyone has a working set of drivers could they post a link to them and i will try it when i wake up

Mine is fine. 9800 Pro 256mb. Catalyst 5.13s
System is AMD 2600+, nothing spiffy.

went from 130fps on 5.10 to 125fps on 5.13. voted for all ok, a few fps is a non issue. athlon 2600 (no ht) and gecube 9550.

Holy Jumpin'

AMD64x2 4800+
ATI x1800xl

5.11 was fine, 5.13 is MISERABLE, I'm getting >20+ fps drops even w/ AA-AF off. It's making online racing unplayable.

I turned off HVS in game and got about 10 fps back, but the graphics engine was dropping plot points all over the place.

Intel Pentium 4 3.4Ghz with HT and a Saphirre X800pro 256mb.

5.11 fine, 100fps, 5.12,5.13 awfull 10fps.....

Dan,

AMD 3000+; X800 (256 MB); 1024 MB RAM

updated from 5.10 to 5.13
I use AA 8x and AF 16x
No noticeable fps drop. Everything ok.

AMD XP3200+ Barton
Radeon 9800XT 256mb
512mb RAM

no problems at all

p4 2.4 @ 2.7 normally @ stock though
x800 pro

quite abit of a drop here

EDIT: non HT

Quote from Andreas Grauel :

Intel P4 - 3,6GHZ (Hyper Threading)
ATI x800xt
1GB DC

as far as i know it has something to do with the HT-Technologie. Dooesnt matter which ATI Card u are using.

Agreed - so far it does seem to be strongly related to HT. Thanks Doorman for coming up with that idea so early on in the thread.

Somehow the new drivers don't seem to be compatible with Hyper-Threading if you are running LFS.

Andreas Grauel : you forgot to mention what frame rate loss you are getting, but i guess it's the same as others - a significant loss with the newer drivers?

HRT SHAUN : Is yours a HT (Hyper-Threading) processor?

Just be interested to know if assigning the lfs.exe process in task manager to 1 virtual processor would help the fps? I would try this myself but my old machine (P4 2.6 HT and ATI 9600Pro) is at my wifes work place now... and I want be able to test it until sat or sun... it's just this has been brought up before in regards to HT processors and poor LFS performance, so would be interesting to see...
I personaly even on my new machine (has nvidia card now) still set the lfs.exe process to 1 cpu and set its priority level higher than normal, it seems to help in terms of stability

yes!! I went crazy and I formated pc too!!!

PIV-3000 HT but not in dual chanel (512mb ram), Ati 9800pro: 5.11-90fps
5.13-10fps

with a 9600pro, same problem

This is not the first time HT has borked performance on one of my games, I will test tonight if assigning the LFS process to a single affinity will solve the issue (as it does on some others), if so, there is a way to "fix" the exe to only use a single affinity, but if the exe gets changed in an update you will lose the fix.

Dan,

im on 05.7 (man im out of date) and dont really want to upgrade with these problems.

however i have...

PowerColor X800 Bravo 256mb
AMD64 3000+
~70 fps with only me on track (in cockpit view)
~30-50 fps when in the middle of a full pack ( in cockpit view)

i will update the drivers if you need that card tested