I just wanted to make a post to remind people about this invaluable tool. I noticed how many people were asking for critiques on their hotlaps, or asking where they were losing time. With this tool it's easy to tell because you can directly compare your hotlap with the WR (or a fast friend's). You can see exactly where you brake compared to other drivers. You can see how narrow or wide you take a turn. You can easily tell where you're losing time.

A friend of mine was getting discouraged when he first started playing LFS because I would pull away from him on the Blackwood straight every single lap. He couldn't figure it out since we were using the same car with the same setup (identical horsepower, weight, gear ratios, etc) yet I was always faster down the straight. I captured one of my hotlaps and compared it to his and he was immediately able to see that the reason I was faster was because of exit speed. He was coming in too hot, slowing down to prevent running wide, and losing most of his speed right before exiting the corner. Once he saw it on the replay analyzer he changed his driving technique to brake earlier and turn in later. Immediately his corner speeds were much higher (despite braking sooner and longer) and he was no longer getting left behind on the straights. Slow in, fast out.

Anyway, the tool is great and it can work wonders. Plus it's really easy to use. I just wanted to mention it since very few drivers seem to use it, yet it's SUCH a good tool.

http://www.liveforspeed.net/?page=analysers

AFS is good for a quick, real-time look. But for in-depth lap analysis, f1perfview is a much better tool. I use it a lot to check stuff like suspension travel so I can get the car as low as possible without hitting the bump stops.

Quote from Forbin :

AFS is good for a quick, real-time look. But for in-depth lap analysis, f1perfview is a much better tool. I use it a lot to check stuff like suspension travel so I can get the car as low as possible without hitting the bump stops.

I haven't tried F1PerfView yet. But I think AFS is perfect for what most newbies will need. They don't need to know if their rebound or damping settings are slightly off. They need to know the proper line to take around a curve, where braking markers should be, what gear they should be in for each curve, etc. If you're comapring two laps from different drivers in identical cars (or nearly so) then setup doesn't really matter anyway. Not to mention that most new drivers will suffer from information overload in F1PerfView.

But you make a valid point. Thanks for chiming in.

My RAF-Folder is empty, but i got many replays (spr and mpr as well). How can I analyse them? Or did I get something wrong with this "Replayanalysing"? Do I have to convert them into raf-files?

[edit]Ok, sometimes it´s better to read the readme. Nevermind the question. [/edit]

everytime i try to load an RAF it says the track cannot be loaded, ive downloaded those extra path files but it still doesnt work, am i doing something wrong? am i supposed to install this program to LFS folder or something?

thanks in advance

You can put the program pretty much anywhere you want, I think. Personally, I find it easiest to put it in the LFS directory. That way it's easy to keep track of and easy to find relative paths to replays.

Make sure you have all of the required smx files installed to the data\smx folder. They can be found on the same page (on liveforspeed.net) as the analyzers themselves. Without those files the program can't render the tracks.

thanks i have it working now

seems interesting, im going to give this a go..

does it have to be just hotlaps, or can it be a mixture of hotlaps and spr/mpr.

cheers

Can be any lap from any source. As long as it's the same track you can compare them (don't NEED to be the same car afaik, although it'd be a bit silly to compare different cars much).

stoopid question nearby...

were the F*** do i get these *.raf's?
i can remember using some button named "save lap" within the internal replayer...
but it's gone, when i watch a replay and then press "ecs" once i end up in the main menu...
so were did i go wrong turn?

Edit: solved, these options just apply to SinglePlayer replays...
guess that you can't steal others "lines"

Just checked: there is an option in ESC menu when watching a spr replay: Output lap data.
Works in my own replays as others.
Output lap data should work with any .spr replay, that is driven in Hotlap mode.

With AFS IIRC you can over-lay your own lap with that of another racer. Problem is, there is no resource that I am aware of to download a pretty quick time by someone else for comparison.

To date I have only ever been able to watch my own laps with AFS, which is not a great learning tool if you don't get the lines right in the first place.

For those in the know:

1. If you output a MP lap, can you switch between users then overlay your own lap for comparison (I don't think you can)?

2. Is there a resource where *.raf files are available for download (I have checked though a few LFS sites and Googled, with no success)?

If I could compare my laps with someone consistantly better than I (which is not difficult ) then no doubt my times would start to improve.

Thinking on......... :noob:

If you can download a single or multiplayer lap from somewhere, then watch it from the LFS main menu, then "Output Lap" form the replay menu, you would then create your own *.raf would you not?

So you only need the replay download, switch to the fastest guy, then output the lap? Is this correct?

Same would apply then; is there a resource for downloading spr or mpr replays?

There is no resource for .raf files i am aware of, but you can download any hotlap from LFS-World (singleplayer replay file *.spr) and convert it to a .raf file.

To do so, log in to LFS-World, double-click on S2-Hotlaps, select the WR (world-record)-tab, select a track and click any displayed time to save the .spr to your harddisk. Copy that .spr to your LFS/data/spr folder. Start LFS, select replays/singleplayer and start thge replay of the .spr file. While replaying the .spr-file press ESC and select "Output to RAF" in the lap before the lap you want to export. The number of the fastest lap in the .spr is displayed in the upper right corner. After the replay of the wanted lap, a .raf file is saved
in the LFS/data/raf folder.

Hope this helps...

MPRs dunno, SPRs, LFSWorld has bucketloads.

You can't export MPRs to RAFs, it works exclusively with SPRs.

Cool. Thanks for the heads-up.