john roberts
Former UKGPL Moderators
Full Member
Posts: 908
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« Reply #30 on: August 03, 2012, 04:59:24 PM +0100 » |
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Am I understanding this correctly? ( probably not ) I am curious about the freezes and lock-ups that we experience because there does not appear to be any definite pattern to why and where these things happen. All I know is that it is extremely frustrating for all concerned when it does!!! From what you are saying John there appears to be evidence that the 69x and the F2's , because there are more chassis options that need to be loaded, require more memory (RAM) and this could be contributing to freezes and lock-ups. Presumably the same could apply to the GT's because each car has more detail and therefore more data to be held in memory? well i didn't think there was a problem with lockups with the f2's , which hopefully will become a little clearer with this ... if you take a look at 67 and compare it to mods 7 slots - 67 , 65 , 69 (old version) , Stratos , ThunderCars (New) 8 slots - can am 71 9 slots - GT 12 slots - f2 15 slots - 69x 16 slots - 66 but as you know that is only half the story , some mods have more complex 3d models like the GT while other have very light (simple 3do's) like 65 and f2 . the handling of the 3d models is a cpu thing afaik and that is why some have found them very had to run on older pc's with less powerful cpu's , yet find they have no problems running f2 . now about the gfx , i believe that the whole carset gfx are load when you join a session online because there is no way of tell who is going to join (if it didn't do this , then it would have to do it on the fly when people would join) . this means those mods with lots of different liveried cars all need to be loaded , also some mods have cars that only appear at some races in a season these will also be loaded up even if they cannot be used . before brands hatch was "fixed" for the GT's and during the process some things became pretty clear to me , the first is that the v2 rastorizers are less picky with little problems than the v1 options . tracks that have things like silly sized gfx can make the v1 rasterizer crash but not the v2 . at the time it also appeared that people running d3d had less crashes than openGL , however this might not be as clear cut as it sounds as those running opengl mostly ran nividia and those running d3d had ati (now amd) . i also think that freezers have more to do with the amount of memory on the gfx card than the main pc memory , my pc still only has 2 gig ram yet i run a 1 gig gfxcard . yet i hardly ever have a lockup or freeze even when testing less than optimized mods . so if you are getting lockups the first thing i'd try is running v2 rastorizers if you aren't already , next if you are running opengl to try d3d . john
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Hristo Itchov
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« Reply #31 on: August 03, 2012, 05:08:53 PM +0100 » |
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It is likely to be related to video memory as you say, JR. Although I'm still experiencing freezes sometimes, it happens less often than on my previous PC which had half the video memory. I've always been running D3D and v2 rasterizers since they came out, but I was and still am getting freezes.
For example, at the 65s race at Cerne's Wood, I had 4 or 5 freezes in Qualifying which was insane, and I noticed others experienced that. In Qualifying I was lucky not to get a freeze, but others did. The track is heavy on objects (mostly trees) and textures, so it has to be related to that, and also I guess drawing distance plays a big role, and Cerne's setting for that seems to be rather large.
@Axel - it's not only when you get mass crashes. The mass crashes usually occur when the server itself suffers a lock up or some problem with its connection, but freezes are a local thing, so game clients can experience them at any time.
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s2173
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« Reply #32 on: August 03, 2012, 09:39:54 PM +0100 » |
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Look, I'm running gpl with 1.5 ghz p4, 500 mb ram and 32 mb vram... now, the fact the videocard is only dx7 might help compability or something, but with direct 3d v2 rasteriser the screenfreeses are rare... infact I think I had about 2 the whole last year. And I'm sure that with right settings your more powerful computers should have no problem at all. You just need to modify your settings when some risky track comes up, or have a backup .ini with these settings.
Maximum nimber of sounds to 4, detail level slider to the halfway, turn off anisotropic filtering, antialiazing and tripple buffering, turn off 32 bit graphics and it probably will be much more stable... GPL's problem might be that it loads graphics and sounds in the psyhical memory or even the cache when it is not infact needed and there is space in the vram...
69x actually has much more slots... 15 cars, but each with 3-4 liveries that are actually separate models I think...
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Who is the living, loving city of people without faces? The elevator is screaming in his claws.
The Red City, 43 Novctober 2173.
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BadBlood
Former UKGPL Moderators
Hero Member
Posts: 6107
Sassafrassarassum Rick Rastardly!
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« Reply #33 on: August 03, 2012, 11:27:32 PM +0100 » |
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The amounts of RAM you all have are largely immaterial - we ALL have way too much RAM - the issues are usually to do with mismatches in screen drawing instructions and buffering - once the screen cannot re-draw you are stuffed. It is almost impossible to chase these kind of problems down...
Best approach may be to just stick to tried and tested and save 'new tracks' for either fun races only or early rounds. That way a screen freeze should not decide the championship.
I almost never have screen freezes and I am fairly sure that there is come correlation with the quality of the internet connection. Anyone ever frozen offline? I haven't, even with 69X and 19 AI at dodgy tracks...
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BadBlood aka Angel Moose GPLRank +71.5ish GPL65Rank +71.1ish Other ranks? Middlin' Slowish
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Hristo Itchov
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« Reply #34 on: August 03, 2012, 11:33:19 PM +0100 » |
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I almost never have screen freezes and I am fairly sure that there is come correlation with the quality of the internet connection. Anyone ever frozen offline? I haven't, even with 69X and 19 AI at dodgy tracks...
Good point... Could it be the bandwidth patch that draws more cars? I always thought that's involved and would be a good idea to test a couple of races without running, on tracks that are notorious for freezes, with heavy mods such as 69x too. I know you see all cars offline all the time, but perhaps it's the popping in and out of view of cars which is causing some issues, in addition to other factors. Anyone know what exactly do those Ginetto fixes do? Do they reduce drawing distance or is it something else? They don't always work, but they seem to for some tracks that were previously prone to causing screen freeze.
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« Last Edit: August 03, 2012, 11:36:14 PM +0100 by Hristo Itchov »
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BadBlood
Former UKGPL Moderators
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Posts: 6107
Sassafrassarassum Rick Rastardly!
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« Reply #35 on: August 04, 2012, 01:08:46 AM +0100 » |
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Could be...
Not sure about the track fixes but I know that some tracks don't have continuous data that allows the tracks surface to be drawn 100% of the time, 99% isn't usually a problem...
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BadBlood aka Angel Moose GPLRank +71.5ish GPL65Rank +71.1ish Other ranks? Middlin' Slowish
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john roberts
Former UKGPL Moderators
Full Member
Posts: 908
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« Reply #36 on: August 04, 2012, 01:57:28 AM +0100 » |
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Anyone know what exactly do those Ginetto fixes do? Do they reduce drawing distance or is it something else? They don't always work, but they seem to for some tracks that were previously prone to causing screen freeze.
something else , it's pretty simple to change the draw distance with tools that are available , Ginetto's fixes work on problem mips and problems with the track and track side objects . sometimes what happens is you fall between the cracks in the pavement (well yanks would say that .. holes in the tracks is better english) , some track have gaps in the track surface .. things like that causes problems . more modern tracks are better but with more mods kick up other problem (see above) . john
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maddog
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« Reply #37 on: August 04, 2012, 10:50:18 AM +0100 » |
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The tracks we race on are an amazing illusion. But track building is very complicated, and errors can happen. Their ultimate test, seems to be online, with a full grid. If we want to race them this way, we need to test them this way. In my experience, freezes are track related, but I've had very few freezes, even though my computer is old. Where I use graphic addons, I look for lite ones. And ingame settings are lowered, so there is less CPU load - I strongly recommend this. Montjuich is an example of an unusable track, now suddenly a great track, because of lite graphics, and sensible settings. We have many fantastic tracks to explore and race on. Let's not loose them, because some guys must have everything set at maximum, to race. Do some homework - give these tracks a chance.
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bernie
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« Reply #38 on: August 04, 2012, 11:25:54 AM +0100 » |
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The amounts of RAM you all have are largely immaterial - we ALL have way too much RAM - the issues are usually to do with mismatches in screen drawing instructions and buffering - once the screen cannot re-draw you are stuffed. It is almost impossible to chase these kind of problems down...
Best approach may be to just stick to tried and tested and save 'new tracks' for either fun races only or early rounds. That way a screen freeze should not decide the championship.
I almost never have screen freezes and I am fairly sure that there is come correlation with the quality of the internet connection. Anyone ever frozen offline? I haven't, even with 69X and 19 AI at dodgy tracks...
I believe I started this particular discussion because I was having severe problems with " frozen off line " at this track, that with the 69X mod originally scheduled
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Billy Nobrakes
UKGPL Divisional Moderator
UKGPL Moderators
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« Reply #39 on: August 04, 2012, 01:09:21 PM +0100 » |
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Well done to Andreas & Bernie for going the distance. I paid the price for not practicing on race fuel, overran a & got stranded on the banking. No way back on Pro settings! Any one have problems with screen freezes etc?
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Leading from the back at Black Night Racing
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EvilClive
UKGPL Senior Consultant
UKGPL Moderators
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Posts: 7751
I always play by the rules.... they are MY rules!
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« Reply #40 on: August 04, 2012, 01:48:53 PM +0100 » |
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I joined the server quite late and then had a screen freeze during quali, so had to crash GPL and restart. That gavwe me only one fast lap and I got caught in some traffic which gave me a 5th place on grid about a second off my PB here, but not too bad. I got lucky on the first lap by jumping a place off the grid into 4th and conveniently 2nd and 3rd cars tangled at the hairpin where I managed to tip toe through the wreckage to emerge in 2nd place behind the flying Marcel Cluzel. I wasted no time in getting onto his tail as he was in the very quick Matra and I had opted for the"comfortable" Lola BMW and I knew he would be faster on the straights. I was pleased to see the gap growing back to 3rd, as the 2 of us exchanged the lead ( and small mistakes). At about half distance it became clear that either one of us would have to have mechanical failure or make a big mistake for the other to get clear. I felt confident that I could match the pace of the Matra and recover even if I made a small error, so was content to sit about 50mtrs back and just hassle occasionally to keep things interesting The big mistake came from Marcel just as we entered the Bombhole and he had a half spin, which should have been my opportunity to go past and break clear.... the trouble was that I had already commited to the corner and my line took me straight to the scene of the accident with no possibility of stopping or avoiding his spinning car and losing a wheel in the process. Limped back to the pits and retired It was a great dice with Marcel for around 30+ laps and we were setting some cracking laptimes between us. A shame that we did not make it to the finish. Grats to Andreas and Bernie for getting to the flag..."to finish first, first you have to finish" I really enjoyed the prospect of a longer race and in the F2's the racing is always close and exciting.
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Evil Waza, now a completely reformed character! **NOW AVAILABLE ON TWITCH @ evilclive67 Rank Only when I sweat
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BadBlood
Former UKGPL Moderators
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Posts: 6107
Sassafrassarassum Rick Rastardly!
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« Reply #41 on: August 04, 2012, 05:38:55 PM +0100 » |
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Kept going until I had been lapped by everybody - took about ten laps to feel comfortable and then I could lap about 1:30-1:31 - thought I might try and catch Bernie - gained 100 yards and then 100 more so felt that 15 laps might see me catch up (1200 yards behind) but as I pushed it so the mistakes came... twice into the hay at the end of the fats straight - that was OK but then I span twice and past went Bernie. Decided to retire and headed for the pits... and managed to total the car! Fun though.
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BadBlood aka Angel Moose GPLRank +71.5ish GPL65Rank +71.1ish Other ranks? Middlin' Slowish
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BadBlood
Former UKGPL Moderators
Hero Member
Posts: 6107
Sassafrassarassum Rick Rastardly!
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« Reply #42 on: August 04, 2012, 05:41:51 PM +0100 » |
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... in the F2's the racing is always close and exciting.
Not ALWAYS Clive
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BadBlood aka Angel Moose GPLRank +71.5ish GPL65Rank +71.1ish Other ranks? Middlin' Slowish
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garethhall
Guest
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« Reply #43 on: August 04, 2012, 05:54:54 PM +0100 » |
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well i had a good half lap! missed the other 59.5 sorry about that. when the next one!!??
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AnGex
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« Reply #44 on: August 04, 2012, 07:47:14 PM +0100 » |
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Hi there, thanks for the Congratulations! My first win here at UKGPL. Feels good. In Qualifying I had a big Freeze that forced me to restart the Computer. At that point I thought not even on finishing the Race. After I had only time to set 1 slow timed lap. But then 1 after another quit the Race and I found myself finally in the lead! My biggest opponent from then on was to keep the concentration. So in the end I did it. Can´t wait for the next race. So long Andreas
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Get up, stand up: stand up for your right! Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
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