I'd like to echo the others in registering my continued interest, and support in your project.
The problem of knowing when a circuit has been completed could be addressed by exploiting the fact it is a circuit, and has rhythm. The AI must have memory, so therefore patterns can be recognised, and from this, refinements made in a true learning mode.
A purely "visual" approach may need supplementing with inertial data too.
The problem of knowing when a circuit has been completed could be addressed by exploiting the fact it is a circuit, and has rhythm. The AI must have memory, so therefore patterns can be recognised, and from this, refinements made in a true learning mode.
A purely "visual" approach may need supplementing with inertial data too.
This sounds interesting, and I'll be sure to join in sometime soon.
Regarding custom tracks and accidents waiting to happen, I've found that as long as the objects are placed in a coherent manner, it is fairly easy to read the track ahead. If different types of barriers are sprinkled around on the other hand, then it just becomes visual noise, and very hard to read the layout. Also chalk is free, so plenty of road markings help.
Regarding custom tracks and accidents waiting to happen, I've found that as long as the objects are placed in a coherent manner, it is fairly easy to read the track ahead. If different types of barriers are sprinkled around on the other hand, then it just becomes visual noise, and very hard to read the layout. Also chalk is free, so plenty of road markings help.
It might be possible with PPJOY - download top left - and a profile macro on your controller. Basically the ignition cut could be realised by taking the paddle inputs, and remapping them via a macro to the keyboard. It's a little convoluted, and I would need to look into it further.
I like what you're trying to do here Tristan.
Last edited by Squelch, .
Reason : Oops! wrong link - fixed
In relation to graphics, my opinion is they are fine for racing. Most of the information is there to allow us to judge turn in/braking points, and to give a sense of speed. Small changes in surface grip (which isn't particularly modeled yet could use some visual cues though) I suppose the graphics would matter more to those that sit there looking at the scenery for long periods.
The physics are fine too. The low speed grip, and tire model are being worked on, but they are still better than many other so called sims out there. Collisions are attempted realtime without "canned" effects, but there are still the odd moments when it goes wild. A better damage system would be nice to see at some point.
Cars and tracks could use some additions, but as already noted, they might be easy to learn, but difficult to master. I still marvel at the differences in ability on a mixed server.
The above points are what makes the netcode and fast load times possible. together with actually racing against people who are having exactly the same experience as you regardless of how much money they have thrown at their rig.
As for slow development and high turn over of players, I would like to believe that thee are many oldskool drivers that are biding their time. Things will come development wise, I'm confident of that, and I believe that there are many out there with the same feelings, but just lurking.
One negative point I will agree with completely is that of the community. Over the years it has not only declined, but turned into some kind of anti-social network. The instant gratification brigade when not bitching at the developers for not fulfilling their wants - NOW! are bitching at each other over the smallest of issues. It all makes the forums an unsavoury experience, and sadly the self moderating users have now gone quiet.
The physics are fine too. The low speed grip, and tire model are being worked on, but they are still better than many other so called sims out there. Collisions are attempted realtime without "canned" effects, but there are still the odd moments when it goes wild. A better damage system would be nice to see at some point.
Cars and tracks could use some additions, but as already noted, they might be easy to learn, but difficult to master. I still marvel at the differences in ability on a mixed server.
The above points are what makes the netcode and fast load times possible. together with actually racing against people who are having exactly the same experience as you regardless of how much money they have thrown at their rig.
As for slow development and high turn over of players, I would like to believe that thee are many oldskool drivers that are biding their time. Things will come development wise, I'm confident of that, and I believe that there are many out there with the same feelings, but just lurking.
One negative point I will agree with completely is that of the community. Over the years it has not only declined, but turned into some kind of anti-social network. The instant gratification brigade when not bitching at the developers for not fulfilling their wants - NOW! are bitching at each other over the smallest of issues. It all makes the forums an unsavoury experience, and sadly the self moderating users have now gone quiet.
EULA's may not be enforceable in certain countries, especially when it comes to transferring rights. and there's certainly debate within the EU over the matter. Steam's own T&C's mean that they have complete control over transfer via their distribution system, and this is an area that seems to supersede any local laws. ie Applies in the country of origin.
I've come a little late for the poll, but I would have voted no.
It seems the poll reveals that it shouldn't happen, and my reasons are these:
1. The Steam model doesn't seem particularly applicable to LFS, and doesn't appear to offer any benefits for distribution over the current system of ingame updates when online.
2. The finance model would mean that less revenue would actually go to the developers. There appears to be some special arrangements with Valve though, and Bohemia Interactive Studios have recently entered into such an agreement with Arma III
3. Not everyone wants Steam. I bought HL2 when it came out, only to find I needed a persistent internet connection to play. This was before offline mode was introduced, and it put me right off. I took it back, and have never played it since. This was despite me being an utter HL series fanatic.
I have only just signed up to Steam to be able to play Arma III, and this was after much soul searching whether it would be of use to me. That's not to say that I hate Steam, in fact it's a good business model and works for some, but it's not for me as a whole. The BIS agreement means that I can pay the developers directly for full revenue (purchasing via Steam means they take their slice) - the game is activated and updates are distributed through Steam only. There is no Steam requirement for single and multiplayer however. I understand the particular reasons for BIS to team up with Steam, but I don't like it, and would be very upset if LFS was to follow suite.
I've come a little late for the poll, but I would have voted no.
It seems the poll reveals that it shouldn't happen, and my reasons are these:
1. The Steam model doesn't seem particularly applicable to LFS, and doesn't appear to offer any benefits for distribution over the current system of ingame updates when online.
2. The finance model would mean that less revenue would actually go to the developers. There appears to be some special arrangements with Valve though, and Bohemia Interactive Studios have recently entered into such an agreement with Arma III
3. Not everyone wants Steam. I bought HL2 when it came out, only to find I needed a persistent internet connection to play. This was before offline mode was introduced, and it put me right off. I took it back, and have never played it since. This was despite me being an utter HL series fanatic.
I have only just signed up to Steam to be able to play Arma III, and this was after much soul searching whether it would be of use to me. That's not to say that I hate Steam, in fact it's a good business model and works for some, but it's not for me as a whole. The BIS agreement means that I can pay the developers directly for full revenue (purchasing via Steam means they take their slice) - the game is activated and updates are distributed through Steam only. There is no Steam requirement for single and multiplayer however. I understand the particular reasons for BIS to team up with Steam, but I don't like it, and would be very upset if LFS was to follow suite.
Last edited by Squelch, .
Reason : added bits for clarity
Hi rifo_1987,
I've been reading up on this, and see that Etisalat blocked VoIP services a few years back. I'm not sure what the current situation is, but are you able to use such services now?
I have a feeling that maybe a wide ranging UDP block has been made, and a whitelist created for allowed applications. As UDP is difficult to identify, perhaps something like DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) is being used to identify those whitelisted applications. This works by looking for a signature within the datagrams, and the recent patch may have altered this causing the blockage. Testing with 0.6B should confirm whether this theory is true.
Have you tried contacting your ISP about this issue?
I've been reading up on this, and see that Etisalat blocked VoIP services a few years back. I'm not sure what the current situation is, but are you able to use such services now?
I have a feeling that maybe a wide ranging UDP block has been made, and a whitelist created for allowed applications. As UDP is difficult to identify, perhaps something like DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) is being used to identify those whitelisted applications. This works by looking for a signature within the datagrams, and the recent patch may have altered this causing the blockage. Testing with 0.6B should confirm whether this theory is true.
Have you tried contacting your ISP about this issue?
While it may be true that you can roll start a road car -even without a battery- F1 cars have far more complex systems that rely on hydraulic and electrical actuators. Once the engine is off, these systems cease working, and apart from a very small battery and a pressure reservoir for emergency purposes (selecting neutral and other critical systems after an incident) Probably the only things that are fully human operated are the brakes and steering.
We quite often hear of F1 cars having to retire, or stopping on the track because of a loss of hydraulic pressure, and blown alternators. Even the piston valves are operated hydraulically with electronic valves. In fact, to start an F1 car from cold needs to have all of the fluids at the right temperature, an umbilical connected to a computer which makes sure the right systems are switched on in the right order, and the external starter. Think of it as more like launching a space vehicle than starting a car.
LFS models the BF1 pretty well, and if it could be criticized at all, it's the fact that the gears can still be changed well after the emergency reservoir would normally have been used up.
We quite often hear of F1 cars having to retire, or stopping on the track because of a loss of hydraulic pressure, and blown alternators. Even the piston valves are operated hydraulically with electronic valves. In fact, to start an F1 car from cold needs to have all of the fluids at the right temperature, an umbilical connected to a computer which makes sure the right systems are switched on in the right order, and the external starter. Think of it as more like launching a space vehicle than starting a car.
LFS models the BF1 pretty well, and if it could be criticized at all, it's the fact that the gears can still be changed well after the emergency reservoir would normally have been used up.
I don't think it's such a bad question.
F1 and other formula don't always have fans on their radiators, and rely solely on forward motion to remove the heat.
The fans help keep the engine cool during pit stops, but may also help during the race by not needing such large downforce disturbing ducts to force the air through.
F1 and other formula don't always have fans on their radiators, and rely solely on forward motion to remove the heat.
The fans help keep the engine cool during pit stops, but may also help during the race by not needing such large downforce disturbing ducts to force the air through.
Last edited by Squelch, .
Quite simply, you can't.
In real life, F1 cars do not have starter motors, and must be started using an external one. You'll quite often see on TV where a pit crew member is standing by with it behind the car in case it stalls in the pits. When a car spins, there is an anti stall device that is also modeled in LFS, so unless you actually turn off the engine, you shouldn't need to worry about restarting.
As in real life, no engine, means race over.
edit: Jinx
Last edited by Squelch, .
I'm in the process of building a dash, and I hadn't actually contemplated that the flags were so hard to monitor.
Having the flag signals relayed through Outgauge sounds a sensible idea, especially for dash telltales.
I'd certainly be interested in what comes out of this.
Having the flag signals relayed through Outgauge sounds a sensible idea, especially for dash telltales.
I'd certainly be interested in what comes out of this.
Anything above 100ms is enough to cause a problem in simulators it's said.
I haven't been aware of this, but it may be something I've also filtered out. Pre and post race downloading sounds a good idea though.
I think the spectate option is possibly the most expedient. I tend to race privately, and sometimes forget to remove my "not for public use yet" skins when going online. If I got spectated immediately, then all I need to do is change/remove skin in the pits. I really can't see this being too overbearing, and it means the other racers that this affects won't have to suffer.
There is another possible reason for ISP's dropping/blocking UDP, and that's for comercial reasons. VoIP is in direct competition with telephony, RTP video streaming etc. are now becoming "premium" services, and Torrents are a grey area, so certainly count as don't time critical. Perhaps gaming is considered low priority for mainstream internet access, and falls into the premium category alongside video? Overall you make some fair points, and hosters need to pay particular attention to their UDP service.
I've been reading that the standard speed and ping tests are not a good indicator of UDP throughput as they rely mainly on TCP. I'm not quite sure how this can be tested for properly, but RTP (real time protocol) jitter is probably a more worthwhile metric.
It is a strange one, and still has me scratching my head. I've investigated disk fragmentation, sound drivers/codecs (in case it was the "beep" that was the problem) and installation location. I'm now fairly confident that it must be an external agent (antivirus?) that is to blame. I'm going to set an exception for the skins folders and see what happens.
Thank you for taking the time to look into this. It was posted in the bugs area as it seemed to one of those issues that we've become accustomed to. Given the number of confirmations from those that I consider veterans only reinforced this thought.
For those affected by the stutter, it probably is a big deal. Any rhythm that gets built, is disturbed by this problem. A 500ms micro lag is enough to cause a miss-judged braking point or steering input. Without the stutter, the messages about missing skins can be distracting to some, or they simply tune out the messages altogether and possibly miss the important messages. Without getting too complex in vetting skins and replacements, getting spectated is a good compromise in my opinion.
Sounds interesting, and I can't wait to see this new feature although I fear an influx of "I want it now/when is it done" responses. Keep up the good work, and when it's done it's done is all I personally expect.
Looking at the full site http://vf1motorsports.com/
There hasn't been any updates for two years. Are they still in business?
There hasn't been any updates for two years. Are they still in business?
Sorry about that, I didn't check the actual URL, and live-for-speed.de resolves to 4players.de anyway.
I guess the only options are to contact 4players and ask about this, or purchase directly from https://www.lfs.net/?page=shop
I must admit, it does appear to be an odd arrangement 4players use.
Ah! I see now.
According to LFS Shop, www.live-for-speed.de is the only German local sales point now.
According to LFS Shop, www.live-for-speed.de is the only German local sales point now.
The demo is S2 but must be unlocked. There is no separate download required.
Simply download 0.6E, register, purchase licence, unlock.
Simply download 0.6E, register, purchase licence, unlock.
Some services like VoIP and torrents use UDP and ISP's have been known to heavily throttle them at peak times, or in extreme cases, block ports completely in an attempt to prevent users hogging the available bandwidth.
UDP has a lower overhead than TCP, and is sometimes referred to as connection less, so it's the preferred method of connection where packet sequence order is less important. The client and server normally have their own methods of resolving out of order/lost packets, but any intervening routers (ISP) just see an increase in traffic. As they are unable to determine the nature of the data, and therefore do not have the methods to control the flow/route, limiting or blocking the ports makes the problem go away (for the ISP's)
The upshot of these sweeping limitations is that connections that use low bandwidth (LFS/other games), also suffer.
You may have invented a whole new pastime there.
It needs a "I'm Feeling Lucky" little yellow man.
It needs a "I'm Feeling Lucky" little yellow man.
I'm of the opinion that this is an IRQ problem too.
I suggest you install Process Explorer from sysinternals
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sysinternals
This can replace task manager, and give you far more information on what is happening to your PC.
Using the IO and CPU history graphs, it is possible to see if interrupts are hogging resources.
Windows does try to map physical IRQ's as virtual ones, and even share them where possible, but for legacy hardware, they may expect exclusivity and enter a loop of service request, fail, retry (seen as a regular spike in the graph).
It may be possible to remap your IRQ's in BIOS so they do get exclusivity, and windows will remap others to suit.
I suggest you install Process Explorer from sysinternals
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sysinternals
This can replace task manager, and give you far more information on what is happening to your PC.
Using the IO and CPU history graphs, it is possible to see if interrupts are hogging resources.
Windows does try to map physical IRQ's as virtual ones, and even share them where possible, but for legacy hardware, they may expect exclusivity and enter a loop of service request, fail, retry (seen as a regular spike in the graph).
It may be possible to remap your IRQ's in BIOS so they do get exclusivity, and windows will remap others to suit.
Ok, ok. I wanted to continue to use my Squelch identity which I've had from the days of BT Wireplay -C1996 if anyone here remembers that- and my original lfs.net account wasn't under that name. It was possible on RSC, but didn't work here, so that's the end of it.
I'm sure someone else can confirm there was a time when the link wasn't in place, as it surely was the case when I signed up here. Anyway, I don't wish to drift off topic in what is a refreshingly non contentious thread.
I beg to differ. I was active on RSC, but took a break from forum life at about the time of the change over. When I finally signed up here, my user name didn't match my LFS account name so I showed as demo despite being S2. At the time it wasn't possible to link the two accounts, so I eventually bought a new licence with this name.
Absolutely, and in some respects, the cross fertilisation was far more positive than these days imho.
Happy New Year to all LFSr's New and old alike.
This, and several other player ID issues have been occurring recently, and it's got me wondering how it could be dealt with. At the moment, the emphasis is on the client identifying the player, and as the recent MP patch has shown, has and can be abused.
The server has a limited number of slots, a client connects, and has to have a unique ID (set by them). Would it be feasible for the server to generate a unique ID for every available slot, so therefore allow admins to have direct control over that ID/slot without having to deal with some esoteric name that uses characters that are impossible to type/find?
The server has a limited number of slots, a client connects, and has to have a unique ID (set by them). Would it be feasible for the server to generate a unique ID for every available slot, so therefore allow admins to have direct control over that ID/slot without having to deal with some esoteric name that uses characters that are impossible to type/find?
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