UKGTR Season 8 Upper Sprint (GT1) - Nürburgring (GP) - Oct 14

[Mark J]

I simply can't believe defragging can affect FPS, unless you are low on memory. Once all the tracks and cars textures are loaded there would no need to access the hard disk again unless you are saving replays? Might be worth setting your swap file to zero and rebooting then setting it again for 1.5x your RAM (and make it same min and max and don't let Windows manage the size). You have 2Gb RAM?

I'll try that swap file reset thanks Simon. Yes i have 2GB Corsair RAM. I had even run the disk keeper option that defrags your page file a week ago. Not saving replays and have motec logging turned off.
Not sure why its only getting 50fps v-synced despite my system and hi-spec card. My monitor is 60 refresh rate. I get the full 60 at class 1 in IRacing with v-sync on. (could be the Nurby track cutting back a few fps). But this random problem affects any track in GTR2.

Im guessing that some essential system files and/or the gfx files have become fragmented since the sp3 xp update and a regular defrag only temporarily fixes/helps the problem. Its a right pain.
The other thing i notice is that my Nvidia control panel will not remember some of my settings and i have to reset them every time i boot up. Weird, and again has only happened since the sp3 update despite reinstalling the nvidia drivers twice. If i try running GTR2 without setting AF to 8X and leave it on 'application controlled' it also turns into stutter hell.
Other than the mammoth job of reformatting my HD, which i really dont want to do, i am at a loss of how to permanently fix it.  :'(

[Simon Gymer]

You could try deleting your Config.ini file (in the GTR2 game directory) to get it to reset everything in there to standard when you run the 3DConfig. It sounds more like a driver/OS/software issue than anything else. BTW, even with multiple monitors I have the Nvidia control panel set to "single display performance mode" (just in case that helps, but I doubt it).

Have you tried creating a new player in GTR2 and seeing if that runs differently? Might be worth a go.

I noticed there were new Nvidia drivers at the start of October too, just upgraded my Vista 64 ones to them, alledegely 11% faster in most games, but didn't notice any difference in a quick run last night after the race.

[Mark J]

Thanks Simon, yes i had set my Nvid config to Single monitor performance as the install exe auto configures it for dual monitor blah blah when it detects both screens.

i think it is the very latest Nvid drivers that i installed a week or so ago and like i mentioned, its been running great since i last had troubles until last night when it oddly went pear shaped again. Disk-keeper did show my files fairly fragged which is strange considering how often i run it and i had only installed that measly 4mb trackir update between monday and tuesday nights for it to all go wrong again.
I'll try that config.ini delete as well. Worth a try as it seems to be just something going wrong only between my gfx drivers and GTR2.
The page file could be a very likely suspect though, but if so, im not sure why diskeeper hasnt been able to defrag it properly. Dont know if you run diskeeper but mine is showing quite a few 'low performing system files' highlighted in pink on the byte table. I tried the degrag on re-boot to get it tidy them up but doesnt seem to have made any odds.

[Simon Gymer]

Honestly I don't think defragging drives makes much difference to anything ever. I NEVER run defrag on any of my disks cause within 5 minutes of copying files or installing something new your drive will be fragmented again anyway. It might be worth it for file servers, but for just playing games it isn't going to make any difference.

Looking at your description to me, the culprit could well be the TrackIR update if that was what was installed and then it went wrong it's a pretty fair assumption that it could be to blame. Try turning off TrackIR and or uninstalling TrackIR temporarily to see if the TrackIR is the culprit.

[Steve Holmes]

Like Simon, no way did I deserve 6th.  Another pretty poor race for me, despite TT saying the Lister suits me better  I'm all over the place on braking, can't get these GTR2 cars slowed down consistently.  As anyone who's had the misfortune to be behind me at the start of a race knows I'm madly inconsistent with the brakes, usually have to brake really early to avoid overshooting corners which can cause problems for cars behind, eh Dave and MJ? 

Last night the usual story, same braking point for a corner and some laps I'm wrestling the car to keep from running off wide and other laps suddenly the braking is way better and I have to coast or reaccelerate up to the apex.  I could go way faster if I actually knew what speed the car would have at turn in rather than having to react every time.    Have to concentrate so hard that after 20 minutes I'm shot and start to spin out.  Seems like a massively peaked function of retardation vs pedal pressure, and I'm usually missing the peak!  Have no such problem in GTL, just GTR2.  Very frustrating.

That's what happened to you Brian, that lap I happened to get more braking than I expected, was intending to leave a nice car width for you to go up but I was less deep into the corner than I expected, had the A-pillar obscuring my view of the apex, and turned in too soon, squeezing you.  Didn't mean to, I wasn't trying to fight that one, I was just trying to stay on track by that stage of the race.  Did manage intense concentration for the last few laps to close back up to Simon after spinning the place away, almost fell off the chair by the end with the effort.   

Congrats to the podium and all the top guys in the championship.

Back to practicing for me. 

[Mark J]

I didnt have Trackir running Simon. It was turned off and un-plugged. The fps litterally didnt fix itself, despite trying several things, until i ran diskeeper and re-booted. I had most other background apps all turned off too. I had even tried turning all GTR2 graphic settings down to minimum but made no impact, not even a 1fps gain.
But after restarting pc the fps leapt from 18 to 50 at Nurby, even with a 30 car grid. I still think 50 is low considering the pc spec but at least that would be race-able.

[Prof]

I have really enjoyed learning to drive GT1 cars for this championship. I seem to be able to finish races but lack the staggering pace of the aliens in our leagues meaning most places I make are through mistakes and misfortunes of others.
I had a great race-long scrap with Picnic and although his Corvette seemed a real handful, I did not have enough advantage to get past. Close racing is what I like most and even if for a low place it is better than driving a 'lonely' race. Only Picnic's misfortune gave me the place just when I thought it would never happen.
Congratulations to Busi and the league podiums and to my Team Shark colleagues for the team win despite my lack of points contributed. Well done to all fellow racers for making the season so enjoyable.

[Napo]

Thanks Simon, yes i had set my Nvid config to Single monitor performance as the install exe auto configures it for dual monitor blah blah when it detects both screens.

i think it is the very latest Nvid drivers that i installed a week or so ago and like i mentioned, its been running great since i last had troubles until last night when it oddly went pear shaped again. Disk-keeper did show my files fairly fragged which is strange considering how often i run it and i had only installed that measly 4mb trackir update between monday and tuesday nights for it to all go wrong again.
I'll try that config.ini delete as well. Worth a try as it seems to be just something going wrong only between my gfx drivers and GTR2.
The page file could be a very likely suspect though, but if so, im not sure why diskeeper hasnt been able to defrag it properly. Dont know if you run diskeeper but mine is showing quite a few 'low performing system files' highlighted in pink on the byte table. I tried the degrag on re-boot to get it tidy them up but doesnt seem to have made any odds.

Hi Mark I have a similar issue with my Diskeeper not defragmenting my system files anymore properly and they continue to show low performing system files. I've read of other people having similar issues. No idea why tho, I didn't do a boot defrag for a long time tho before I did it again. Maybe my hard drive is just too old.

[spanner]

I'd agree with simon that defraging isnt the solution. You need to get down to 40-50% before it might have an effect and anyway it does all load it into memory when racing so it should rarely be accessing the disk. I'd recommend just wiping it and starting again which should clean the system. It sounds like something is running, using the memory when it shouldnt.