I tried this from a different location in the UK and had no problem (from a hotel). So this appears to point to maybe an ISP issue (I'm on BT)? I've checked firewall settings on my computer and LFS.exe is allowed on any port to any device in and out.
Interestingly, some mods download, mostly the first one, then many others don't. What you end up seeing in game once each mod has timed out are circles representing players on the map but you don't see their car model.
Every now and then I've been getting LFS locking up using mods. The game freezes and the engine sound loops, after a short while, say between 15 and 30 seconds the game resumes. The next time it happens I'll report here with the mod name, at what point it locked (with a screenshot) and how long it locked for. Is there anything else you'd need? Logs?
I for one would be very disappointed if mouse/kb control was removed or possibly "amended" in some way. Some of us just don't have the time, space or amiable spouse(!) to set-up a wheel. I find a quick half to one hour online is enough fix to have a good time and at the moment you can be competitive with wheel drivers for a short time (although I've found they always have the upper hand over longer distances - and rightly so).
LFS is the only racing sim where mouse control is good and I've tried loads (GTR2 was not bad). If anyone else can recommend another sim where mouse control is on a par with LFS, then I'd give it a go whilst waiting for the update to be released.
That's good to hear Bob, lets hope something like these sets gets into a release of LFS soon and with new physics updates, it'd be great to drive a "typical" road going car.
And I'm sure you've probably used these in 0.6B, but for those who haven't - give them a go, they're good fun.
I'm going to try these sets later on 0.6B, but is anyone using these still (especially on cruise servers)? I'd be interested to hear any comments about these on the latest version.
And oh, Bob, if you're reading this, great stuff - thanks. I think we should have road going sets in official releases of LFS.
For those that have had the game crashing around the time the intro video plays, try this:
1. Right-click the Shift.exe or ShiftDemo.exe and select Properties.
2. Click on the Compatibility Tab
3. Click on "Disable visual themes" and "Disable desktop composition"
4. Click OK
This seemed to fix the loading problem for me on Windows 7 64bit, ATI HD4680. I spotted this in a post on the official EA forum here.
Well, at long last I managed to get the.........4670...and boy has it made a difference!
To say the machine has a new lease of life is an understatement! For fun(?), I thought I'd benchmark my machine with 3DMark05. This is for older cards and would be suitable for an ageing nv6150 and have a guess what the 3DMark score was.....667, yes bad.
OK, fitted the 4670 (lost a PCI slot because it's a double height card, but no problem). Installed the latest Catalyst driver and fired up 3DMark again. Any takers....? I couldn't believe it when it showed a score of 11554!!
OK, test 2 - LFS time. Detail at Max, AF at x16 and AA at x8 with 10 AI's on SO1 in front of me and I'm still getting 40-50fps...AND it looks stunning.
So, anyone who has an old card - it's a no-brainer - go out and upgrade today!
I don't know why I didn't do this earlier! Thanks for the all advice - esp. cobra.
That was my thought as well. It seems to me it would be better to get the best performing card from the current generation to future proof any features that are implemented later. When you look at the spec of some of those cards, they don't all match e.g. some don't have Shader 4.0/4.1 or support DX10.1 like the 4670 supports.
OK, the 4670 isn't going to perform at the same speed and resolution as higher end cards, but it does seem to cover all the bases with regard to features.
I think I'll do some more digging into UK sites selling the 4670 and then compare price and performance/features to older cards.
Great feedback though - thanks very much to everyone for posting...
Do you think this would be better than the 4670 suggested by cobra?
I realise that at the end of the day, whatever card I get it's going to be a huge step forward over the onboard card I have, although I may as well at least try to get the best price/performance card that's on the market.
That is very useful to know - it now makes more sense, thanks. Where would the X series cards that DaveWS suggested fit into this?