39 replies to this topic

[Practicedummy]

After I reinstalled Windows 7 I forgot what I had set my settings to the last time around and was having ball stutter problems. Took me a while but discovered what I needed to set my settings to. I decided to make a video on this in the hopes that it may help any who have the ball stutter problem as well.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=pCk3E7hUSDU

Edited by Practicedummy, 18 January 2014 - 08:09 PM.

[Slydog43]

I tried these settings, but I think they only work with WinXP not Win7x64.  Whenever I try turning on FXAA and antialiasing, I get graphic glitches with the flippers, gobble holes.  Thanks for the video though.

[Practicedummy]

I am using Windows 7 64 bit.

[Joe]

I am using Windows 7 64 bit.

and a nvidia card the newer ATI cards may not need this.

[faralos]

 not everyone can have the alpha ramp accuracy thingie to the right like you do

I must have mine two steps from the LEFT side to get everything to look okay

[tttttwii]

Thank you, it works! I have no stutter at all!

[Rincewind]

Any recommendation to ATI users?

[Slydog43]

practicedummy, can you post a screenshot of a ball captured on a flipper in the new nightmod of Funhouse.  Everytime I turn on FXAA, and or antialiasing the flippers looks great and smooth, but the ball goes over the flipper and gobble holes stop working.  In Funhouse Rudy even gets messed up.  I would LOVE to be able to have smooth flippers in VP under Win7x64, but I thought it was not possible.  Thanks.   

 

I'm actually running out of complaints in VP, with all the new updates and features with things such as DOF and B2sDirect, thanks all who help out the pinball community!

Edited by Slydog43, 05 November 2013 - 09:56 PM.

[toxie]

nice vid (although some settings are completely contrary to what i would have expected to be useful, need to try this on my machine, too )

 

and thanks for the nice hint on brutal hexen! 

(i only knew about brutal doom, which btw got an update some days ago)

[jimmyfingers]

It's important to note that certain forced settings in the nVidia control panel will have different outcomes in VP depending on the two infamous RU and RO options (as well as others for that matter).  SlyDog, your ball over flipper issue is most likely related to the combination of both these configurable areas / preferences as I had witnessed that behaviour when not having RO and RU disabled while using AA (I think there was also a revision of VP that once helped / got past a similar issue as well).  Of course the other thing to always remember, and is part of this three way combo of fun, is the video driver version but from what I've observed in the last year or so, it hasn't varied that due from on driver release to another (306.97 is a solid one though).

[Practicedummy]

Any recommendation to ATI users?

Nothing much I can help with for ATI users since I use exclusively NVidia cards. Wish I could help more on those regards.

 

nice vid (although some settings are completely contrary to what i would have expected to be useful, need to try this on my machine, too )

 

and thanks for the nice hint on brutal hexen! 

(i only knew about brutal doom, which btw got an update some days ago)

 

I learned about that recently when I was checking for an updated version of Brutal Doom.

 

practicedummy, can you post a screenshot of a ball captured on a flipper in the new nightmod of Funhouse.  Everytime I turn on FXAA, and or antialiasing the flippers looks great and smooth, but the ball goes over the flipper and gobble holes stop working.  In Funhouse Rudy even gets messed up.  I would LOVE to be able to have smooth flippers in VP under Win7x64, but I thought it was not possible.  Thanks.   

 

I'm actually running out of complaints in VP, with all the new updates and features with things such as DOF and B2sDirect, thanks all who help out the pinball community!

I'll do a test run, but it will be two days from now. I am currently making backup copies of The Flintstones DVD box set (24 discs) I bought for my brother for Christmas and the ripping will take most of the day today and a good portion of the day tomorrow. He is hard on DVD's, so I will be giving the copies to him and not the originals.

[dboyrecords]

Thanks! It's amazing how many things I had selected wrong!!! Seems to play great so far!

Would you reccomend similar settings for fp (I know, you probably reccomend not using fp! ) ?

[Practicedummy]

Thanks! It's amazing how many things I had selected wrong!!! Seems to play great so far!

Would you reccomend similar settings for fp (I know, you probably reccomend not using fp! ) ?

I quit using FP months ago due to it not being improved upon by Chris Leathley anymore and he won't give permission for FP to be worked upon. Even though the physics weren't that good, I had enjoyed playing tables on it.

[dboyrecords]

I get it, I get it... but I wouldn't count it all the way out... Rav and Unity, 2.6 and Zed are promising. But I digress... many of you're settings are over my head. If you were using it...? Any thoughts there?

[Practicedummy]

Wiht FP, all you need is a high-end card. An 8800GT can run FP without a problem, and it's a pretty old card. You shouldn't have to mess with the NVidia control panel settings with FP.

[jimmyfingers]

First off, thanks for spending your time creating this video to help others get the most out of their VP experience. You do a nice job too on the presentation and the format of the tutorial - it feels like I could be attending a formal webinar

 

However, there are definitely a few things in there that could / should be scrutinized and may even lead some people astray. One main thing at the moment is that “Maximum pre-rendered frames” should be set at 1, not 4 as you have in your tutorial, as the higher the level the more perceived input / video update lag will be present and will affect more delicate flipper work. This item has resurfaced and been further reinforced in the Pinball Arcade forums with the recent PC versions release and is discussed over in their forums.

 

Also, from the video it appears that you are on Windows 7 and at the moment / with any nVidia driver versions, FXAA does nothing and has no point in being turned on (with or without regular AA being enabled). The levels you suggest for both “Anisotropic filtering” and Antialiasing – Setting” are considerably above the range of perceivable difference within VP (much above 8X for either will only further performance drops on most systems, some more observable during in high demand alpha / lighting sequences vs. regular FPS monitoring with the "ball in launch lane" tests).

 

Good suggestion on the “Antialiasing – Transparency” setting to be turned off, however, I personally did not experience the issues you refer to experiencing (ball on flipper for one) with merely toggling this option. What I have seen and tested around this setting in particular was that it can improve FPS slightly yet without any apparent adverse affect any of the “transparency” aspects (alphas ramps / primitives) within VP – probably does not relate the same way for any number of reasons (DX7 aspects being a potentially good candidate).

 

The VP preferences as well that you suggest may not be at all about reducing ball stutter from both enabling RU and RO (although occasionally that can be table specific) and in having the alpha slider all the way to the right  as it will only drop FPS and burden performance further).  Often, I have seen people refer to, and use myself, the “one tick left from the middle” setting as that seems to be a sweet spot for performance combined with the lack of smoothing from higher settings.  However, when editing / creating a table it’s best to work with the setting on full so the ramps do not get distorted but then also try other settings before releasing it to see how it may affect other user’s systems when the have it differently (ramps will change reasonably in there shape with this and it sometimes opens up decent graphical anomalies that might have to be dealt with in the editor to ultimately resolve in a more global way).

 

No disrespect intended and the effort is appreciated, but as the title of the post suggests in all this information being a “Ball Stutter Fix”, you definitely have some suggestions in your video that will actually increase it.  If nothing else, the main point and purpose for me posting a response was to inform you and others at least about the Maximum pre-rendered frames and it’s impact on flipper lag.  Everything else, as with anyone’s suggestions / experience should still always be confirmed on everyone’s own particular systems.

Edited by jimmyfingers, 06 November 2013 - 02:53 AM.

[dboyrecords]

Yeah, after a lot more play I had issues... flashers created a lot of stutter. And a bit of audio doubling...
Any suggestions? ??

[faralos]

practicedummy, can you post a screenshot of a ball captured on a flipper in the new nightmod of Funhouse.  Everytime I turn on FXAA, and or antialiasing the flippers looks great and smooth, but the ball goes over the flipper and gobble holes stop working.  In Funhouse Rudy even gets messed up.  I would LOVE to be able to have smooth flippers in VP under Win7x64, but I thought it was not possible.  Thanks.   

 

I'm actually running out of complaints in VP, with all the new updates and features with things such as DOF and B2sDirect, thanks all who help out the pinball community!

vp9 removed that ball over flipper problem are you using vp9 or vp8?

 make sure the table is being played with the correct vp editor

 tables made with vp8 may not work right if at all if played in vp9

the gobble holes also are smaller in a vp8 pin

and in vp9 the editor sees the ball as larger so if playing a vp8 table in vp9 the ball may get hung up at the kickers

when the ball rolls over the flippers it is usually a flipper speed problem

if one plays with flipper speed it may correct it

Edited by faralos, 06 November 2013 - 02:23 PM.

[LoadedWeapon]

Yea great video but I have to agree with jimmyfingers. I have spent hrs and hrs testing everything and the only way I have found to not have issues in any table is you can't force AA with nvidia and like he said the fxaa does nothing in w7. To many different kinds of pc setups to fix everyone's problems and some pc's are just to old. It might help a few people tho. Ty

[Practicedummy]

My settings had mostly to do with trial and error to get rid of the stutter, whether or not the other settings do anything or not with reducing ball stutter or not I wasn't sure, just that I found the settings that I used fixed the problem I had with stuttering. I also mention in the video what video card I use and that other cards may need some tweaking if they can't handle certain things as well as my card..

 

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Edited by Practicedummy, 06 November 2013 - 07:18 PM.