SimRacing.org.uk

<TO BE COMPLETED>

Each section is ordered in order of FPS gain (most gain at top).

Graphics Options
Headlight Effects: Low - Headlights light up track only, Medium - Headlight light up track and other cars (Very powerful CPU and Graphics Card required), High - Same as medium with a tiny bit more oomph (Don't use EVER as you can't tell the difference from medium setting and it hurts FPS).
Shadows: Off - No shadows (Only set off if you have a terrible graphics card as cars look very odd without shadows), Low - Render car shadows only (Use on low end graphics cards), Medium - Render car shadows, building shadows High - Render car shadows, building shadows, bridge shadows, Full - Render car shadows, building shadows, bridge shadows and cast shadows onto cars from track objects too (only enable this on VERY high end graphics cards). Shadows are quite an FPS killer.
Pit Crew: None - No pitcrew displayed in pits (Use this option on low end graphics cards), Player Only - Only shows player's pit crew (Enable this on medium graphics cards), Full - Shows every pit garage's pit crew (Only enable this on VERY high end graphics cards as this is quite a FPS killer down the pit straight).
Trackside Characters: Enables people / marshalls etc standing at side of track. Disable this unless you have a very good graphics card as they are not noticable particularly anyway.
Special Effects: Off - , Low -, Medium - , High -, Full -
Reflection Effects: Low -, Medium - , High -, Full -
Track Draw Distance: Near, Normal, Far, Very Far - To be honest go for Near unless you have a high end graphics card. Near isn't actually that Near and it's hard to tell anything above Normal even on a high end graphics card.
Track Detail: This governs the number of buildings and trackside objects that get loaded and drawn. The fewer buildings to draw the greater your FPS, but this has limited effectiveness on anything but lower end systems. Some tracks are more detailed than others.
Other Vehicle Detail: This governs the details rendered on the other cars (i.e. not the car you are driving). These details are things like whether you see flat wheels (low setting), or alloy with brake disc and caliper etc (full setting). The less detail being drawn the greater your FPS, but this has limited effectiveness on anything but low end systems.
Max Visible Vehicles: 1 -> 104 - Determines the number vehicles that will be drawn at once. This can greatly increase your FPS, but it is dangerous to use because the algorithms that work out which vehicles to draw or not can be a bit hit and miss particularly online. It is recommended this is set to at least the number of cars in the race so you can see all the cars.
Player Vehicle Detail: This governs the details rendered on the the car you are driving. These details are things like whether you see flat wheels (low setting), or alloy with brake disc and caliper etc (full setting). The less detail being drawn the greater your FPS, but this has limited effectiveness on anything but low end systems, especially as this only governs one car on the track and unless you drive using an external camera you will not see any of the detail.
Shadow Quality: Medium - , High -
Pitboard:

Advanced Options
Race Data Acquisition: Logs MOTEC data to the hard drive whilst driving. This is quite a resource hog, turn it off for everything but time trials.
High Detail Wheels: Uses High Resolution Wheels. Only enable if you have at least 128Mb+ Video Card. Wheels are hard to see in detail in motion so not hugely important. I would not bother with these without 256Mb+ Video Card to save on texture space. Switching to Low Detail Wheels will not make any difference to frame rate on a modern 256Mb+ Video Card.
Level Of Detail Bias: 75% -> 125% - Distance at which the game switches from high detail textures to low detail textures. The lower the value (75% is lowest) the nearer to your car the detail will be poorer. The higher the value the game renders high quality further into the distance. In motion and in racing situations most people probably won't notice this being set to 75% and you don't really need to go above 100% unless you are running VERY high resolution (1920x1200). Reducing the value will improve frame rates marginally, more so on low end graphics cards.
Low Resolution Track Textures: Enables Low Resolution Track Textures. Low resolution track textures do look much worse than high resolution. Only select Low Track Textures if you have less than a 128Mb Video Card. Switching to Low Resolution Track Textures will not make any difference to frame rate on a modern 256Mb+ Video Card.
High Resolution Car Livery: Enables High Resolution Car Skins. These do look a lot better than the standard resolution car skins. Only enable if you have 128Mb+ Video Card. Switching to Low Resolution Car Liveries will not make any difference to frame rate on a modern 256Mb+ Video Card.
High Resolution Cockpit: Enabled High Resolution Cockpits. Only necessary for using cockpit view. These do look at lot better than the standard resolution cockpits. Only enable if you have 128Mb+ Video Card AND you race in cockpit view.
Vertex Damage: TBC
Simple Debris Collisions: Disable this to save a lot of CPU during collisions. Recommed this is always enabled as it will prevent stuttering during a race when anyone else anywhere else on the track has an accident, even on the hardiest of CPUs.
Visible Windscreen: Enables the windscreen to be seen in cockpit view. Looks very odd to disable if racing cockpit view.
Visible Steering Wheel: Enables viewing the steering wheel in cockpit.
Visible MOTEC ADL: Enables the MOTEC overlay in bonnet cam.

.PLR File Extras
The following hacks can be done to get improved FPS...
Disable All Character Anims="0" - Set to "1"
Driver Animations="1" - Set to "0"
Track Animations="1" - Set to "0"
Windscreen dirt buildup="1" - Set to "0"
Swaying Trees="0" - Set to "0"
Arms Visible In Cockpit="1" - Set to "0"

Recommended Options - Ultra Low End Graphics Card, ?
Graphics Options: Player Vehicle Detail: Medium, Other Vehicle Detail: Low, Max Visible Vehicles: 10, Special Effects: Low, Headlight Effects: Off, Reflection Effects: Low, Shadows: Low, Shadow Quality: Medium, Track Detail: Medium, Track Draw Distance: Near, Pit Crew: Off, Trackside Characters: Disabled, Pitboard: Disabled.
Advanced Options: Visible Windscreen: Enabled, Visible Steering Wheel: Disabled, Visible MOTEC ADL: Enabled, High Detail Wheels: Disabled, Vertex Damage: Disabled, Simple Debris Collisions: Enabled, Low Resolution Track Textures: Enabled, Race Data Acquisition: Disabled, High Resolution Car Livery: Disabled, High Resolution Cockpit: Disabled, Level Of Detail Bias: 75%

Recommended Options - Low End Graphics Card, ATI 800XL
Graphics Options: Player Vehicle Detail: High, Other Vehicle Detail: Medium, Max Visible Vehicles: 15, Special Effects: Medium, Headlight Effects: Low, Reflection Effects: Medium, Shadows: Low, Shadow Quality: Medium, Track Detail: High, Track Draw Distance: Near, Pit Crew: Off, Trackside Characters: Disabled, Pitboard: Enabled.
Advanced Options: Visible Windscreen: Enabled, Visible Steering Wheel: Disabled, Visible MOTEC ADL: Enabled, High Detail Wheels: Enabled, Vertex Damage: Disabled, Simple Debris Collisions: Enabled, Low Resolution Track Textures: Disabled, Race Data Acquisition: Disabled, High Resolution Car Livery: Enabled, High Resolution Cockpit: Disabled, Level Of Detail Bias: 75%

Recommended Options - Medium Range Graphics Card, ATI 1900XT
Graphics Options: Player Vehicle Detail: Full, Other Vehicle Detail: High, Max Visible Vehicles: 104, Special Effects: Medium, Headlight Effects: Low, Reflection Effects: Medium, Shadows: Medium, Shadow Quality: Medium, Track Detail: Full, Track Draw Distance: Near, Pit Crew: Player Only, Trackside Characters: Disabled, Pitboard: Enabled.
Advanced Options: Visible Windscreen: Enabled, Visible Steering Wheel: Enabled, Visible MOTEC ADL: Enabled, High Detail Wheels: Enabled, Vertex Damage: Enabled, Simple Debris Collisions: Enabled, Low Resolution Track Textures: Disabled, Race Data Acquisition: Disabled, High Resolution Car Livery: Enabled, High Resolution Cockpit: Enabled, Level Of Detail Bias: 85%

Recommended Options - High End Graphics Card, e.g. GeForce 8800GTS
Graphics Options: Player Vehicle Detail: Full, Other Vehicle Detail: Full, Max Visible Vehicles: 104, Special Effects: High, Headlight Effects: Low, Reflection Effects: High, Shadows: High, Shadow Quality: Medium, Track Detail: Full, Track Draw Distance: Normal, Pit Crew: Player Only, Trackside Characters: Enabled, Pitboard: Enabled.
Advanced Options: Visible Windscreen: Enabled, Visible Steering Wheel: Enabled, Visible MOTEC ADL: Enabled, High Detail Wheels: Enabled, Vertex Damage: Enabled, Simple Debris Collisions: Enabled, Low Resolution Track Textures: Disabled, Race Data Acquisition: Disabled, High Resolution Car Livery: Enabled, High Resolution Cockpit: Enabled, Level Of Detail Bias: 100%

Recommended Options - Ultra Graphics Card, e.g. GeForce 8800GTX
Graphics Options: Player Vehicle Detail: Full, Other Vehicle Detail: Full, Max Visible Vehicles: 104, Special Effects: Full, Headlight Effects: Medium, Reflection Effects: Medium, Shadows: Full, Shadow Quality: Medium, Track Detail: Full, Track Draw Distance: Normal, Pit Crew: Full, Trackside Characters: Enabled, Pitboard: Enabled.
Advanced Options: Visible Windscreen: Enabled, Visible Steering Wheel: Enabled, Visible MOTEC ADL: Enabled, High Detail Wheels: Enabled, Vertex Damage: Enabled, Simple Debris Collisions: Enabled, Low Resolution Track Textures: Disabled, Race Data Acquisition: Disabled, High Resolution Car Livery: Enabled, High Resolution Cockpit: Enabled, Level Of Detail Bias: 100%

This guide is great. I've always had crap graphics cards but saved and recently got 2 x Nvidia 7800GTs 248MB (SLi) and have 2GB RAM.

The problem is I can't get away with as high settings as I thought I could. Most settings are on medium, but after reading this I'm going to experiment! I didn't know before which settings sucked the life out of the FPS !

Cheers   ;)

Like he said.  ;)

TT

I need to tweak a few things with some of the add-on tracks .... even with an 8800GTX, and E6600 processor and 2GB of RAM things still slow down a little with the really details courses.

Cheers for the info.

Really?

What AA and AF settings do you use?


Oh, nearly forgot... great guide Simon.   :thumbup1:

Dunno - I mostly max it out in GTR2 and GTL - it's only on the really details add on courses it's noticable - I know Sharks got a similar setup and the same is true.

Exactly the same setup. I use 4xAA and 16xAF, but in the rain at night with a full grid at the start it can go down to 15fps with the details I run at (not quite max). After start it's fine as there are not many cars to draw once a race is underway at night in the rain it runs at about 40fps. In the dry it runs fine even at start. During a race in the dry the lowest it ever goes is 45fps I would say, but most of the time it's over 100fps.

I have the same setup as you guys but with 4GB RAM and my CPU is overclocked to 3.2GHz.

I find I can achieve better fps by tweaking a few 3D settings via the Nvidia Control Panel.

I've also found that the latest XP Nvidia beta drivers are very good (162.15 is the latest I think).  It gave me a good boost in fps at Magny (140fps+ in the dry).  I must admit I didn't check during the endurance race, but I didn't notice any slow down :thumbup1:

I used to use 4xAA but I've found when racing I can get away with 2xAA.  16xAF a is must..  I run at 1920x1200 and so far I've never seen below 30fps, even in the rain and the dark..

If its any consolation, Ive got an 8800GTX running on an Intel Core2Duo Extreme Edition with 4gb of 8500DDR2 and it still stutters in certain circumstances!!

Can't say I'm surprised. It uses far too much CPU and not enough graphics card to do the lighting and shadows, but I guess that might be a limitation of DX9 (not a games programmer so it's pure speculation on my part) Blimey! say their next title (Ferrari game) will be able to use the Physics Cards now available, so if you have one of those maybe at long last the CPU will be able to cope with the graphics engine. :-\

Do you mean the dedicated physics cards like the PhysX (http://www.ageia.com/physx/)?

[EDIT] Yes , you did mean that! :laugh:

Link to the thread at RSC;
http://forum.racesimcentral.com/showthread.php?t=277278

I am suffering slight stutters at Imola.

I have a Pent 4 3.2, ATI X800 (256MB) and 1024 RAM, and am only getting 20-25 fps. Now correct me if I`m wrong (and you probably will  ;) ), but I thought I should be able to run more fps with this setup. The graphic settings in-game are all at the med-low end. ???

Any advice would be welcome (apart from, give up driving  :) )

Cheers

Rob

I have very similar setup to you rob and i only get 30 fps and i too thought i should get better.  One thing ive found is set the game on directx 8 and this nearly doubles frame rate and still looks pretty good.

X800 is not a great card anymore I'm afraid.
What res are you running at? I wouldn't expect to really get much more than your figures if you're running at 1280x1024 for example.

Thanks Gazzer, I might try that.

Shark - spot on, thats the res I`m running with. I was running 1024 x 768 with no stutter probs on my old monitor, but that died a death, and Ive bought a 19" one and suddenly problems.

Cheers

Rob

I'm running GTR2 on a PC with these specs:

Pentium 4 3.0GHz HT
1024MB DDR SDRAM
Sapphire X1600PRO 256MB 8x AGP

And for some reason I only get 8-9 FPS with other cars on track. I can get about 20when doing time-trials.

That can't be right....
My old machine was a 2.8 P4, 1 gig ram and a 9800pro, and that managed 60-70fps ok in the dry...

Make sure you have the latest drivers for ur gfx card, and turn off anything that isn't needed to run GTR (anti virus, steam, etc). Run it again on medium detail - how does it run now? It should be smooth as silk, if not, something else needs checking on.....

I'm running DirectX 9.0c as well, maybe that will be of some help.

I'll give it a try tonight with background processes off (thanks FreQ), and some new drivers.

Would some more RAM help? Or is the problem more CPU orientated?

GTR2 is very CPU heavy.

1 gig of RAM isn't enough.

start GTR2Config.exe and set directx to level 8 (and not dx9, forget about that with that sort of CPU, directx is a library of commands, utilising both gfx and cpu)

set "other car details" to low detail and get rid of all smoke/special effects (or you'll get 1FPS when someone in front of you locks up under braking).

Does that mean I would have to install another version of directx? I need DirectX 9.0c for some of the other games on the PC.

I've set all of the options on the main menu to lowest, don't know if that turns off smoke though.

I've got Norton Internet Security 2007 running as well, I'll try turning that off.

Changing dx means you will set your game to use directx8 commands instead of dx9c (you'll find GTR2Config.exe in your main GTR2 folder, has nothing to do with other games).

While you're in GTR2Config.exe you might also put "refresh lock" ON and disable anti-aliasing.

Also:

start the game/options/advanced:

- simple debris collision ON
- high detail wheels OFF
- high resolution car livery OFF
- high resolution cockpit OFF
- vertex damage OFF
- pitcrew detail "player only"

play around with "level of detail bias" too.

AND, very important, go to "replay" and turn it OFF (otherwise your PC has to handle doing/saving replays too, big no-no with 1Gig of RAM only, too much caching involved and resources wasted).

Use FRAPS for FPS monitoring (or the in-game command, no idea what it is though). DO NOT think watching a replay puts your PC through same stress as real driving. So drive. Tedious work, I know, but once you'll set it up just right you'll be fine. (and make sure you save your game settings to avoid future problems after a possible game reinstall or something like that)

Ctrl+F. Might be useful for someone else out there.

Norton is another resource hog, you could try the free version of AVG, far less CPU useage, many of us use it.
Plus to get a good idea of what frame rates you'll get online, press 'CTRL + F' and the frame rate will appear in the top right corner, start an offline race with 30 cars, start from the rear of the grid and start the race.
Look at what frame rates you're getting all around the track and adjust detail levels (especially shadows, lighting and reflections) to enable a minimum of 30fps but try to get more as it will give a better experience online,
After all this you should find that online as there'll be less cars the frame rate will not drop so much and consequently be much smoother.

Hope these and the other tips given by others help!

I'm getting about 15-22 FPS with a 28 car grid at the start at Spa. That's it, I've tried everything, I'm having a look for some settings in the .plr file that might help.

That's an offline race by the way.

Out of curiosity, what resolution are you running the game at?

800x600. The fps is terrible at 1024x768.

iirc sometimes going too low a resolution leads the game to run using more CPU useage and less GFX useage thus compounding the problem, are any other games giving you the same grief?
Just a thought, does your hard drive constantly sound like its reading/writing? if the pc is using virtual memory, it will kill your framerate dead.

It is using the page file almost constantly, I've set it to 2.5GB, which was recommended by one of the Oblivion settings guides.

So another GB of RAM would improve the FPS?

I would sat yes, but maybe one of the others here could give you advice on what to set it (virtual memory) at, tbh it shouldn't be using the pagefile that much with GTR2 from what I remember, but I may be wrong, but I would say that is why your framerates are so bad.
 Btw how many processes in Windows task manager are you running? you should be aiming for low 40's, if too many are running then (I'll probably be laughed at for being wrong here!) all your available RAM is used up and the pagefile is then used slowing your pc to a crawl.

You are not wrong Ossie.  :)

I had a similar problem initially (not quite as bad) and reducing the processes running is a very big help.

Before running GTR/GTL/Race 07, I always restart my computer with a totally different start up configuration and get my processes down to 18....My machine is low spec in comparison and I get 50/60 Fps most of the time, and rarely lower than 40 even with full grids/rain etc.

here's what I do:

On the start buttun, click run and enter 'msconfig' in the box,
This starts the windows 'system configuration utility'

On the 'general' tab...(the one it usually opens on)..select the radio button .. 'selective startup'

Now click the 'Services' tab.
At the bottom of this panel, check the button marked 'hide all microsoft services'
and then click the 'disable all' button.

Now click the 'startup' tab.
Click the 'disable all' button.

Click OK when done and your pc will re-start with just the basic files needed to keep windows running.

You will lose all your 'other' non essential services...like MSN etc...whilst in this configuration and your CPU will be very underworked. ;)

Just run msconfig again and select the 'normal startup' radio button on the general tab when you want to change back to normal and use the other stuff.

Hope this helps, let us know how it goes.

That would disable my antivirus.

Yep...you could look through the 'startup' tab section and check the box that allows it to run whist doing the above....or start it (and anything else you may 'need' like Logitec profiler etc) manually. but I reckon you don't need anti-virus running anyway when racing....I never run it when online for a race and have never had a problem.

You could Google for a little freeware programme called End It All 2 which will automatically kill the background programmes of your choice. I always run this just before racing and it kills all the crap.


TC

You can also do:

Start->execute (or whatever it's called in english XP :)) and then type: msconfig
then goto the startup tab and unclick everything you don't want to start up when windows starts up. Improves startup time and you won't have all that crap running in the background.

And what Tinman said, End It All 2 can also be usefull, when crap sneaks in (sounds nasty  :-\) and it runs in the background.

First off, its Madd-RIP, not Ossie Pseudo  ::) and secondly its worse wheen crap sneaks out Jeff!  :P (even dirtier)
But yes a lower spec pc needs as little running as possible to maintain good frame rates, let us know how you get on Tibernius

OOOOps...sorry Madd,...had just been looking at ossie's GTL escort and the name stuck. :-[

 ::) oh you mean MY GTL Escort.......

ok ok..I mean the one recently added to the contributions list in the name of Ossie. ???

that's the one I'm talking about, he needed a tiny bit of help so I did.

lol....wondered why it was so........black. :D

hehe, what are you trying to say?

who me.. :whistling:...nothing.... :lol:

Ossie wanted it to look like the old RS2000 paintschemes, an excellent idea I think nice and striking.

No luck, It didn't improve the fps. And still 40 processes.

Whilst experimenting with some add-on cars I discovered something interesting about GTR2's behaviour when memory gets tight.

Basically, once it runs out of physical memory it simply stops loading car models. This is different from the "visible cars" setting which determines how many cars are drawn at any given time - if that's lower than the number of cars in the event, it draws the n closest. No, when it has run out of memory, those cars are never loaded and you can't see them even if selected for viewing.

This would certainly explain the occasional reports of folks being unable to see a few cars even with "max visible cars" set to 28.

With the standard cars, the limit on a machine with 1GB of memory appears to be about 30 - easily reached at Spa! With the DBR9 model I as trying it was more like 15-20 cars depending on how much other stuff the machine is running in the background (eating memory).

It's also apparent that GTR2 loads each distinct driven car completely, regardless of whether that model and textures are already loaded. The symptoms don't change even if just a single car is used by all drivers in the event, eg. the Elise or 350Z. This seems terribly inefficient! ::)

The practical upshot is that if you only have 1GB of memory in your machine (like I do in my workstation), you are stretching it to the limit running GTR2 (despite the box stating a minimum requirement of 512MB and 1GB recommended). I was unable to find a limitation, even with add-on cars, on my 2GB games machine, so it would appear that 2GB is a more realistic recommendation, though I suspect that 1.5GB would be okay too.

That goes some way to explaining my FPS problems with GTR2. :-\

I'm running it fine on:
AMD Athlon64 3200+ (2GHz)
1GB RAM
NForce4 chipset
GeForce 6800 GT 256MB
7200RPM PATA HDD
1.5GB swapfile
WinXP Pro

I had this problem on a few occasions on my old PC (1gb ram), where one car would be completely invisible. I would only know they were there because I had tags turned on!  :laugh:

Back on the new rig now - never had that problem on this. Then again, this one has 4gb of ram!

With Ram so cheap at the moment, a Ram upgrade is a no brainer.
I just ordered another 2 sticks set of 1gig DDR2 800mhz. The exact same set cost me £139 this time last year and cost me £43 all in last week. Not sure if I should laugh or cry :)

I feel your pain Don.  I bought 4GB this time last year and now the same memory would cost me £55.  :'(

So, you aim to run a 4 gb system?
are you on winxp or vista? and are you running the 64bit version?
I only ask a i recnetly tried upgraded to 4 gb on win xp 32bit and xp wont see anything over 3gb meaning 1 gb is completely useless! you have to use a PAE switch in the system boot file but im not sure if there are any probs doing this (have seen reports it slows the memory down!)

munk

I know, I'm on XP. I only expect to see an extra Gig or so. It all helps :)
The idea being when I eventually switch to Vista 64, I can use some of the extra then.

Do you know if it slows the memory down at all?

I don't think it should if you don't change any of the pagefile settings, and get matching Ram chips.
Thats what I understand.

While we're off-topic slightly about RAM, is there a maximum speed of RAM that the motherboard can support? If there is how do you find it?
This PC will only work with DDR SDRAM and since there's so many speeds available I wouldn't want to waste my money on RAM that won't work. ???

If you have a manual for your motherboard, it should tell you. Otherwise you may have to unleash the awesome power of Google.

You may also be able to put the mobo or system details into the memory advisor on Crucial's web site (http://www.crucial.com/uk/) (or use their system scan tool) to find out.

Thanks Gizmo, just found the manual and it says the maximum is PC3200. I don't know why I didn't think of checking that before. ???

I've been 'umming and arrhing' about upgrading to 4gig ram. Prices have never been cheaper, but then effectively i'm wasting half of it because its not used. I dont think its really needed for GTR2 but its going to help on first-person shooters.

Probably by the time i can use all 4gig i'll have moved on to the next achitechure. I wouldnt try and force xp and vista to see the 4gig any benefit gained from the full 4gig is negated fom the unstableness of the system in completely mucking up the memory addressing.

I know RAM is cheap, and a smart thing to get. But I'm not complaining on my system as it's ready for replacement anyway. Not very smart to buy new RAM, install it and throw away the entire thing. I'm currently out looking for a new one, but haven't decided to go with SLI or not.

Don't think SLI is worth it....not for GTR2 anyway.

Better to invest in a fast CPU. I still think the E6850 is the best processor out atm for speed/cash. GTR2 doesn't understand "multiple cores" ;D

I'm not bying a new computer for GTR2, it's more for FSX and Arma 2 and other things to come ;)

And I don't think FSX benefits much from SLI either, it does however like lots of CPU grunt. Even with the SP1 patch, that enables mulit-core, one core is still flat out. Works well on my 3.3Ghz Q6600, single 8800  ;D I haven't tried the DX10 preview mode tho as I'm still using XP.

Try service pack 2 for FSX, makes tge fps even better.

I've got SP2, that's when I first was able to take a complete flight. But if FSX doesn't support SLI, then I'' drop SLI for sure, as it's a money drain anyway.

Ive read you can force triple-buffering on nvidia gpu's while ATI seems to have it in the control panel. Is there any real benefit in forcing this?

Sounds like i'll need to run a 3rd party app to force it anyway.

Currently use a Intel Core 2 Quad QX9650 EE with a couple of 8800GTX's, The problem I had was with a monaco track..Major slowdown, same at Sebring.  Normally have well over 120+ fps @ 1680x1050 with everything cranked up and view distance at very far but was getting 34-40 fps..some tracks are just not as well optimised as the std gtr tracks.

Major thing that fixed this was to put shadows and shadow quality down to medium.

I never get stuttering at all even when I ran a AMD x2 setup with a single x1950xtx So maybe data loading related also.  I Have dual Raptors in a Raid 0 config so maybe it was your hardrive holding the system back with that wacking great processor you have or possible cacheing probs? Computers are funny old things..could be all manor of things...driver conflicts that show up months later after installs, low temp memory or low resources..IRQ conflicts...I could go on but wont lol

Actually found that anistropic filtering at 2x can be much faster than triple buffering. Just a case of matching the right settings to your hardware...takes a bit of time but its worth it.

GL anyone thats having probs

Ross ;)

Does anyone know what the various 'Levels' are on the GTR2 graphics card config page? It says Levels 1 to 5 but no idea if 1 or 5 is the best and what they actually are  ???

I just bought a 9800GTX so want to make sure i get the best setting. 8)

Sharks guide at the start of this thread is very useful for the in-game stuff, so thanks for that. Will have a tweak tonight  :)

oh, and V-sync...on or off ?  If i set it on, its capped at 60fps to suit my LCD w/s monitor.

Off, unless you get lots of screen tearing. It can lower the FPS by half if it's on.

I've never found anywhere that explains explicitly what the levels are. I think there are the levels of AA in order 2X, 4X etc. What i've found running a 8800 GTS 640mb is that setting it on the GTR2 config doesnt really work. You need to create a profile within the windows driver panel to you specific settings then set it to a low level on the config to 'enable it' in game. It looks a lot nicer now and i've not had any grphical issues i used to have.

has anyone dabbled with the actual card settings to get a much better look in GTR2?

I found this suggestion on another forum:-

NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL:
AF - 16x
Anisotropic Mip Filter Optimisation - On
Anisotropic Sample Optimisation - On
AA - Aplication-controlled (4x in game)
Conformant Texture Clamp - Off
Extension Limit - Off
Force Mipmaps - Trilinear
Gamma Correct AA - Off
Hardware Acceleration - Single Display
Negative LOD bias - Allow
Texture Filtering - High Quality
Transparency AA - Multisampling
Trilinear Optimization - On
Triple Buffering - On
Vertical Sync - Force off

and check out the quality of the renders in this vid:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdjgegqMHR4

even though the vid is low res for you-tube, the quality of the textures for grass, gravel etc and pit buildings is amazing. His sunlight looks real too. Im wondering what to tweak to get that photo-rendered look ?

ps, i just read the GTR2 manual and there is no mention whatsover about the graphic options  ::)

Some more interesting bumph here:-

http://www.gamecritics.com/demystifying-anti-aliasing-on-nvidia-8-series-video-cards

I'd like to ask about a problem I have since I bought a new graphics card - and therefore since I increased the ingame graphics settings. In my replays in races with many cars (like our Season 8 races now), my car and the others that are close to my car look good, but most of the others look as if they had lag or something, they keep.. err.... *looks for a word in English to describe this* lol lets say, they keep warping but only going forward... as if it only recorded the car's position every half second or something and when looking at the replay it looks bad.

I'd like to know if there's any particular game setting that can solve this or if it's just that I should put the graphics settings down. The strange thing is, this didn't happen to me when I had a crappy GC and quite poor fps... ???

Have you set your replay fidelity to high in the Replays screen? 

Download the official replay of the same race you were looking at from this site (https://replay.simracing.org.uk/) and see if this is any different. I had a look at the official replay from Sunday's GT3 race and everybody was super smooth.   
 

I have the fidelity at high and yeah, I know the replays uploaded there are ok. There must be some kind of problem while my game records my replay, not when it plays it. No idea what other settings can be related to this problem...

I used to have this all the time in replays. Just the other day I reduced the 'level of detail bias' in game to get extra fps. It also stops the warping in replays for me. :)

Hope this helps.

H@L9000

will try that on Sunday mate, thanks :)

No idea if this'll help, but I always have shadows set to low. I can't see the difference and it cures a lot of crashing probs. Maybe in a night race you'll need it on medium...but nothing higher.

Can anyone explain what these settings do and hw they affect performance. Thank you.

Negative LOD bias - I use Clamp not Allow, because on Nvidia and GTR2/GTL/rFactor if you set Allow the white lines at the edge of the track go blurry.
AA - I use 2x to gain a bit of extra speed but still have AA on and I can't notice the difference between it at 4x when actually racing. I don't like turning AA off though as you suddenly get lots of jaggies which you can see whilst racing.
Texture Filtering - I use Quality instead of High Quality. Extra speed with no visible loss of quality.
Triple Buffering - There is no point in turning this on unless you use V-Sync ON.

Thanks Simon

i am still having problems with my card in that all the GTR tracks now look sparkly and shiny. Any idea if there is a particular setting i should alter to smooth it all out? It looks all tasty when sitting still on grid but once in motion looks a bit naff.
Think i am running 4xAA and 8xAF at the moment in the NV panel, with v-snyc and triple buffering and mutli-sampling all on. The game config panel says Level 4 ?
I never know whether to have things set 'application controlled' or use the NV panel over-rides.
Problem is i have several sims of varying age on my pc that all require different levels of graphics control to look their best.

Does anyone simply use the 'Quality' and 'High Quality' global setting s in NV panel?

I always thought that the golden rule is to have V sync set to off.

Yep, vsync off unless you're frame rate is always higher than the refresh rate.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_1.html

All the standard tracks Mark? some addons are known for it and i think its something to do with the track textures.

I know there's a fix for that for rFactor, not heard of it happening in GTR2.
From what I've read you'd be best off setting the NV panel to "Quality". Don't know if it'll fix that bug though.

i am pretty sure my FPS is now always way above the 60hz refresh rate of my lcd monitor ! hence using v-sync this time around.
I think if i tried it with it off, it would be like piloting an F1 car around the tracks FPS wise  :P

No, sparkly textures problem is not limited to add-on tracks as noticed it at Hockenheim too. Though Brands accentuated it more with all the trees present.

Are you saying your moniter is on 60mhz?? Surely thats to low. Mine is set on 75mhz.

LCD monitors usually run on 60Hz. You only need it higher than that with a CRT.

Depends on the panel. My home cinema projector (also used for gaming) recommends 60Hz. My workstation's panel 75Hz.

Just got GTR2 running but I'm lethal until some kind soul tells me what to do to get something sensible in the way of mirrors.

I have had it set at "real", which is fine so long as the opposition always pass on the left.  Looking right to see the other mirror is a mandatory prang because my arms will not stay still.

I must say that I thought it all very strange until I found the thingy that reverses the force feedback.  Felt like I was falling off a bike.

Brakes are a bit violent! ::)

Select 'virtual mirrors' till you get the hang of it.

When I select virtual mirrors I don't get any mirrors at all.   :(

Press '1' on the keyboard whilst you're racing.

Thanks Simon.

I want to edit this in the .PLR file:

Extra Stats="0" // Saves separate verbose stats for any session (instead of simple stats for most recent race only)

to

Extra Stats="1" // Saves separate verbose stats for any session (instead of simple stats for most recent race only)

So that I can use Auto Analyser. Will this effect my fps at all?

Auto analyser wanted to change my GTR2 settings by itself but I dont trust it to do a good job ;D

can anyone tell me, should i re-install directx since the Xp Sp3 update?
I've already reinstalled my gfx drivers and that helped initially but now (as ive mentioned in the race threads) i am re-suffering severely low fps in GTR2 only.
Also, do you guys leave Directx on 'auto' in the gtr2 configuration menu? or do you force it to use Directx9 ?

Also, do you guys let Nvidia control panel 'let application control' for the AA & AF settings or do you over-ride it using the panel ?

I cant work it out as when i first installed my new gfx card a month or so ago, my fps were so high in GTR2 that my senses were struggling to keep up with the new speeds ! and visually it looked stunning yet now ive gone back to lower fps and eye-candy settings than i had with my old gfx card. :(

I set DirectX 9 specifically rather than Auto.

I override AF to 16x.
I let game decide on AA, but have it on 4x (level 2).

I have Nvidia set to Quality (not High Quality).

Have you got VSync off in Nvidia and game?

Try reinstalling DirectX, it can't hurt anything.

Do you have PD monitor or TeamSpeak running at the same time?

What graphics card is it (mine is a GTX 8800 768Mb)?

Check the settings in the config.ini file if it's quite a modern card and check the Video RAM etc that it has listed or even the CPU rating.

i have v-sync set to on in game config. I tried with it off but made no difference to my fps slow down.

I do have pd monitor on my second screen running, but always have so ?

card is a 9800gtx

i downgraded nvidia 'quality' to 'performance' last night just to achieve a race-able fps.

grrr, thats the last frigging time i let micro-shite update my pc. Ive gone from the best visuals and smoothest frames ive ever had in GTR2 down to almost blinking spectrum levels within the space of a week since the sp3 update and wasted an entire evening and daytime trying to re-sort it, when i could have been praccying or racing.  >:(

May as well try it without PD monitor anyway.

GTR 2 graphics what kind of graphics is this??


__________________
Spam link removed

Not sure i understand the question, but welcome anyway :)

I smell spam...

We still love you Dave, strange habits or not.  ;)

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Just getting back into GTR2 after many years and just have a quick question. Is it possible in GTR2 to go to the race, do a formation lap with the AI, line up on the grid and then wait for the lights for the start? I know you could on F1 CE but can't seem to find anything for GTR2.

Thanks.

As I understand it, you either choose a standing start or a rolling start in GTR2 (and GTL). In rFactor you are able to do a start in the way that you describe. Hope this helps....and welcome back  :)

Thanks goldtop. That's a shame but oh well. Anyway, really enjoying GTR2 again. I can't believe how good it is. Also got back into GPL, especially the '65 mod.

See you one Sunday night soon 8)

Got a new system up 'n running but experiencing exactly the same problem. It all looks too sparkly especially the white lines.
I know it's a long while ago but did you remember what you did? Messed around with all (well.. nearly all actually) of the nVidia settings but it does not change much..  :-\

Sorry Alex, been so long ago (3 years?) so I cannot remember what I had to tweak to get rid of it. Have you ran the GTR2 graphics config thingy?

in mine I have shader level set to auto
Full screen anti-aliasing ticked at level 5
vertical sync on

just looking in my NVidia Gfx settings for GTR:-
,
I have anisoptric and anti-aliasing set to application controlled.
FXAA off,
transparency off.
Texture filtering - Quality
Texture trilinear optimisation - on
Triple buffering off
Vertical sync - application controlled.

Hope that helps!  :)

Thanks Mark for your swift response. Hope your knee held out in virtual France.
Tried your settings and many others but I still had to look at jagged white lines during the race (to my annoyance I must admit).
Couldn't believe that GTR2 would not run smoothly on a high end system  >:(

So I did some wildly clicking around searching on the Internet and it appears that the RFactor-ish simulators are a bit picky concerning the settings. Just putting every setting on 'ultra' does not fix issues as I have learned (after 8 years of blurry pictures it's the first thing I did  ;D )
Owning a nVidia card someone recommended nVidia Inspector and this did the trick. It has lots of profiles (even one for GTR2 and GTL) and has more settings than the regular nVidia config thingie.
Thought I shared this should anyone have similar issues....