i just noticed this, that when i'm playing on a track with a layout the fps drops from 70-90 to 20-30....i got v-sync off, simple track disabled, shadows off...is it normal for a 2500+athlon(1.83Ghz), radeon a9550 (256Mb), and 1GRam(2x512dual, 400Mhz) ? i didnt clock anything and in some way i intend not 2...some opinions plz?

thx!

get rid of the objects that arent needed; thats what i hate about autocross tracks that people make with a billion objects in which... you only need a few, cause it shatters FPS with the billions of polys

so its normal how much fps i get?

oh and 1 more question...that mip bias option...i really dont know what it does...if i put it at 0 the track changes a bit in far distances...if i put it on -4 it looks pixelized...im curently on -1...from what i have saw...it adds some shading/blur to the textures..now im not sure im right so, could any1 tell me what it is and what the best value? thx again

Id say its pretty normal to see a drop, I see quite a drop on mine with an A64 3200 and a 6800 when running some custom layouts.

I would say its a problem of LFS 3D engine that if you add objects the FPS drops significally even on really powerfull PC`s.
Those few polygons added cant knock down the graphic cards.It can knock down easily also 7900GT/GTX which has enough power for those few more objects.

ok then, what about the Mip bias ?

MIP biasing is just.. i dont know how to describe it, but i have noticed that the lower you put it hte higher FPS you get which i find kinda.. backwards but.. maybe someone else knows what it is exactly, but yes, it does blur the textures

i want to say it has something to do with texture sizes, but im not positive

what's ur value for it? i set it at -1...and it looks kinda good

i think mine is somewhere around -1.2 to -1.3

I dont know about layouts as I never really use them, the mip map bias blurs textures - it helps to make textures look less pixelated when a texture is stretched over a large area, but costs you definition. Look at some railings or wire fence, or the buildings in the distance of blackwood gp, then adjust the slider and you will see more clearly.

oh, ok....im preaty pleased with my curent value....although until today...it was set on -4

I have mine on maximum negative (left) whatever that value is, because I dont like what it does to the transparent textures like the wire fences.

Quote from XCNuse :

MIP biasing is just.. i dont know how to describe it, but i have noticed that the lower you put it hte higher FPS you get which i find kinda.. backwards but.. maybe someone else knows what it is exactly, but yes, it does blur the textures

i want to say it has something to do with texture sizes, but im not positive

the MIP biasing mean how much filtering is applied to the texture.The more is applied the more time has to GPU spend time on it.This has hardly any effect on some cards in LFS as they have enought texture filtering power that it doesnt affect the perfomance.

My MIP bias is always set to 0, not only that, I've also adjusted the MIP threshold to +0.3 in RivaTuner (so I actually have more positive MIP bias than you can set in LFS). The reason is that a more negative MIP bias makes far away textures sharper, but at the same time causes indredible pixelation and a very very unsteady image, atleast on my 6600GT. But each to his own, I guess.

Quote from Becky Rose :

it helps to make textures look less pixelated when a texture is stretched over a large area

the contrary actually ... it eliminates pixelations when a texture is mapped to very few pixels (like distant textures) which without mipmaping would cause pixels from the texture itself to become the size of a whole monitor pixel

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

I would say its a problem of LFS 3D engine that if you add objects the FPS drops significally even on really powerfull PC`s.
Those few polygons added cant knock down the graphic cards.It can knock down easily also 7900GT/GTX which has enough power for those few more objects.

Isn't it more an issue (with all 3D engines) that the problems occur when you have more objects being rendered than when you only increase the polys being rendered?

I think mip mapping will also slightly reduce texture usage and render times when you set it to 0, I know that you can see lines where the mip mapping hits different levels unless you have some sort of filtering on, Anistropic Filtering 16x completely eliminates those lines, and in some games creates a bit of a LOD effect.

Quote from ajp71 :

Isn't it more an issue (with all 3D engines) that the problems occur when you have more objects being rendered than when you only increase the polys being rendered?

Come on.LFS 3D engine doesnt use so much polygons.There are around games which you way more polygons then LFS.
Dont tell me that those few polygons would knock down the FPS so much also on something like 7600GT-7900GT/7900GTX or from ATI side something like X1800XT,X1900XT.Even slower cards shouldnt slowdown with those few more polygones....doesnt make much sense.Lets say every other object for layouts is around 100polygons(I doubt its really more then 30 polygons per object but I rather made exaggeratedly count) and you have like 250 objects.Then you have + 25 000 polygons.How this can affect modern graphic cards???There is something wrong.Some cards can draw up to 500-600 000 polygons/1 500 000-1 800 000 vertics per second!!!

Its the problem of 3D LFS engine that it cant utilize the graphic power.LFS 3D engine needs really to be improved in S3.

well LOD does affect them i have seen once; but my 5600 takes a serious hit
i run windowed with virtually no programs in background and just on a track like FE where its simple at start line from tire view i can get up to about 120ish fps on a good day
when i get to a "normal" autocross track, i usually get 30-40ish fps ..

(i run no AA or any of that ..what i call junk, for performance purposes)