F1 2012 Slowdown or Paranoia?

[Mark Saunders]

Hello there,

I have been having issues with multiplayer whereby the timing system appears to be way off in quite a few circumstances; all I can do is list examples to try and draw a picture of what I think is going on.

To give some background, I use a G27 and G25 Logitech wheel (either), play with no assists, default cockpit cam and in the single player side of things, start from 24th and nigh on always get a solid podium for any 25% race or above. I haven't really struggled against the AI for a while, further pushing me toward the multiplayer side of the game which I still have been enjoying, despite this issue but would like to enjoy it more...

After completing a number of online races, I have noticed that the times I do in single player are simply not achievable when playing online; somewhere in the region of 1-1.5seconds seem to be lost with the same car, same setup and same conditions. Oddly enough, the more cars that are on track, the worse this issue becomes.

Playing the Co-op season with my teammate sitting next to me has allowed me to see a couple of other issues. During qualifying, when the leader crosses the line and the driver times tumble in, I am dropping down the leaderboard even though my current time has not yet hit that of the leaders. Say for example pole is 1.45, I am dropping down the order before my time even hits 1.45....

In the races, I am struggling badly. At the beginning of the race, the other computer starts before me (can visibly see the lights go out before mine), along with all of the AI drivers, so much so that I lose around 50 meters at the start. Any AI driver on circuit is MUCH more aggressive than normal. I have had a number of issues whereby I am simply rammed off the road or on the racing line and simply ignored until an inevitable crash which does not happen in single player - could this be caused by the AI thinking I'm not where I actually am? If I am lucky enough to get some free air, I can put fastest lap after fastest lap onto the track yet still have other cars from around 10th-15th pulling away in front of me...notably, my split times to other cars are also broken. Just last night I was racing around Montreal and the timing said I was 18 seconds ahead of Alonso when in reality he was directly on my bumper. Typically by the end of a 25% race, any cars directly in front of me are listed as actually being around 20 seconds behind me according to the timings. Overtakes are extremely difficult (honestly, this 'mode' should be in the game for all!) but the main issue is that my lap times do not translate into actual pace. I should not lap 2 seconds faster than the fastest person on track yet simultaneously be struggling to catch up or overtake a Toro Rosso...the math... slowdown or paranoia?

Whilst the racing has gotten more exciting, I would like to know I'm playing on an even playing field which at the moment, I am unsure about. I cannot find this issue elsewhere online but really would like to have some ideas regarding a potential fix or how to better confirm or deny the problem... I have access to a second computer which doesn't have this problem too...

Windows Vista 32-bit.
Motherboard: P5Q-E.
CPU: Q9550 2.83GHz.
RAM: 4Gb (Old type, slow speed...possibly the problem?).
GPU: ATI 6950.
G25 or G27.

Kind Regards,
Mark.

 

[Dan Hawkins]

Hi mate,

I can assure you it's not you or your computer. It's a known fact - every mode on F1 2012, 2011, 2010 provides you with different levels of grip, different factors etc etc which in turn all alter your times.

 

[Mark Saunders]

Would that still alter all of the above though including the messed up timings, non-synchronised starts and fastest laps whilst simultaneously losing position on other cars?

 

[Dan Hawkins]

Hmmmm not really mate....

Lap times yes

One thing to remember: This is a Codemasters game lol
Not to sure on non synchronised starts mate

I'm sure someone will pop in and help

 

[Mark Saunders]

Thanks for the posts; I'm going to do some further testing tonight and will report back.

 

[Michal Moravec]

Hi Mark. If it helps you little bit, you are not only one experiencing this issue. It happened to me several times in online league. Simply the car behaves suddenly completely different comparing to practise. Same setup, same weather, 2s off the pace. I can confirm, that the chance to meet this issue is higher when the grid is full. I can't remember it happened when we were playing up to 10 cars. In our league we use 2012 peformance, it's like you get Lotus with Marussia speed...

Unfortunately I have no advice for you, how to avoid this one .

 

[Mark Saunders]

Okay so I had quite an interesting night testing this. Really, my computer is very much adequate for running all settings on high; indeed, in single player, I get no discrency from 60FPS (Crysis Infinite ultra settings gives me 60fps...). In multiplayer, the same is true for the actual display but things are definitely not right regarding car speeds...

Racing with my co-op teammate tonight around Hockenheim, I had glanced at his screen on lap four and noted his position as fourth. The timing screens for exact measurements cannot be used for accuracy for the reasons described above but this became rather irrelevant as the race continued. Of the seven preceeding laps, I acheived fastest lap for five of them, improving constantly whilst the two laps where I dropped speed were not more than half a second away from the previous lap. Meanwhile I noted on my teammates screen that his lap times were recorded at between one and two seconds slower than mine, dependant on the lap (based on his fastest lap).

After having set the fifth fastest lap of the seven laps, he overtook me after being nowhere even close seven laps prior. I'm not saying that this is 100% slowdown on my computer nor 100% speedup on his computer but being that he was sat right next to me, I know his and my settings are all legitimate.

I've noted that having dropped my graphics settings further, as well as disabling V-Sync, the problem has somewhat dissipated. The gaps now seem to be less than a second rather than between 1.5 and 2 seconds but the issue still persists.

Using his computer, my race pace appears to be near what is actually described; the AI become much easier to overtake...and I do mean MUCH easier but I still have issues with my other computer...

I implore anyone with any online timing issues to contact me; if you find that your timing screens display inaccurate times, please do contact me. As s software programmer, I do think that this issue can at the very least be identified as a hardware issue so that codemasters can fix it for the 2013 release. After having been destroyed during last weeks thursday night champsionship, if there is a spare space this week, I'll use the other available computer to try and further either confirm or deny the hypothesis that some computers do have unfair slowdown due to their hardware... Geoff Crammonds first release has the same issue some twenty years ago; this should not still be an issue for a multi national, highly regarded simulation creator.

 

[Mark Saunders]

Regarding my above post...Crysis Infinite? /sigh... brain fart but I'm sure people know what I meant .

I can only find one other person who has had the same issue so far:
http://community.codemasters.com/t5...Glitched-Time-Gaps-in-Multiplayer/td-p/176294

Interestingly, I didn't even consider motherboard software as a potential issue but both of us do have the same Asus 'Six Engine' software installed. Funnily enough, on my computer I always turn my CPU to the minimum setting for F1 because it doesn't need higher (and I really need a new fan...keeps rattling) and on my housemates computer, he has it set to variable. So there are differences; I'll do a test next time we're both in the house with the wheels setup.

Anyonelse reading this use the Six Engine software? If you post either if you do or don't have the issue, posting here either way would help immensely (you might be travelling faster then you think you are!).

 

[Iko Rein]

I run a self-built system with Asus P6X58D and I run 6 Engine set to Auto. When I play F1 2012, I always also use Process Explorer and set the process priority to High. (This is what I actually do these days with all games). I don't have any strange issues, just typical "connection lost" issues now and then.