51 replies to this topic

[HiRez00]

Greetings all,

 

I actually learned something new today about VPX and Video Performance issues with certain tables that has had me stumped for several months ... and I thought perhaps there were others that would find this topic useful.

 

Now this worked for me and my system and I can't guarantee it will work for everyone ... but its worth a shot.

 

I'm running in my cab:

 

- ASUS TUF Z370 Plus Gaming LGA1151 DDR4 HDMI DVI M.2 Z370 ATX Motherboard with Gigabit LAN and USB 3.1 for 8th Generation Intel Core Processors

- ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Dual-fan OC Edition VR Ready Dual HDMI DP 1.4 Gaming Graphics Card (DUAL-GTX1060-O6G)

- Intel Core i5-8500 Desktop Processor 6 Core up to 4.1GHz Turbo LGA1151 300 Series 65W

- Seagate 1TB FireCuda Gaming SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive) - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Hard Drive

- 43" 4K Monitor for Playfield

- 32" 1920x1080 Computer Monitor for BackGlass

- Real Pin3DMD for my DMD

- 1280x390 Hitachi Screen for my Topper

- Windows 10 with Scanning / Virus Turned OFF for all VPX / PInball Folders

 

90% of the tables I have in my cab run nice and smooth with the Video Options settings I have had in place, but there were a could like 'Creature from the Black Lagoon', 'Metallica' and the new Skitso mod of  'Twilight Zone' and a few others that no matter what settings I changed in the video options, the ball always gave me a little stutter. This had me convinced it was the Tables and not my settings because EM tables and others were silky smooth ball movement.

 

I always thought it was because those tables were massive graphics wise and my system just wasn't powerful enough to run them.

 

Compared to other systems that people don't seem to have any stutter - I was pretty sure I had the proper 'horsepower' with my system to play any table smoothly.

 

I was determined to get those tables running as smooth as others

 

I started with DryBonz guide: https://www.vpforums...showtopic=35390 and turned EVERYTHING OFF as suggested - then turned the FPS Frame monitor on so I could see my Sync / Frame Count info (Turn this ON in you 'Key Settings' of VPX.

 

With everything was turned OFF and I was STILL getting ball stutter - SIDE NOTE: I think you have to completely EXIT VPX and then RESTART it for any of the changes to take effect - or at least some of them.

 

With the Sync and Limiter OFF - I was getting 130 - 145 FPS - which surely was fast enough, even with big heavy duty tables like Twilight Zone.

 

I went ahead and set everything to MAX quality and I got the same frame rate and everything looked glorious, BUT STILL - same stutter.

 

THEN - I started the table WITHOUT the backglass ... low and behold - everything looked awesome - and NO STUTTER - and that was with EVERYTHING turned ON (High End System option).

 

So ... I did a little investigating.

 

I was already starting all backglasses in EXE Mode, but what I didn't know is that some backglasses with a lot of animations and lighting tied to the table - lamps, solenoids, GI frames, etc take away some of the processing power to make the backglass perform in tandem with the table itself ... I suddenly realized that most of the tables that game me ball stutter had pretty active / intense backglasses.

 

When a table loads with a backglass, when you RIGHT-CLICK on a backglass, there is a section in the middle of the pop-up window that says Performance Tuning with Skip Lamp Frames, Skip Solenoid Frames, Skip GI Frames, Skip LED frames.

 

Now some of these option might be greyed out because the Table / Rom for that backglass isn't using those features. Backglass Animations are handled within the backglass and are not directly connected to the functions of the table itself.

 

I found that adjusting the Skip Lamp Frames and Skip Solenoid Frames (if adjustable) starting at 2 or 3 with both, then saving, and trying the tables smoothness, and if still there settings them both to 5 completely eliminated the ball stutter and these heavy graphic tables were running beautifully with minute or no stutter at all.

 

When you make the changes to the backglass, make sure you save your settings when closing the window. Also - those settings changes are not 'universal'. They are only for that ROM you are using for that Table. So if you have a completely different table that is giving you stutter, you can to repeat the same process for that backglass as well.

 

Another thing to look for to make sure all your tables are running with the same graphics options is make sure 'Table Options' for any table giving you trouble are all set to 'Defaults'. Open a troublesome table in VPX editor, click on Table Options and a pop-up window will open. You will see 'Table Options' that the developer / author of the table has set. Many times with a table that isn't running smoothly for me, those options have been set to something different then MY options - these take priority over whatever you have VPX Video Options set for and sometimes causes issues with a couple tables ... so I change all the Table Options that apply to Default(s) as well.

 

Unless it was some freak occurrence and happy accident, I think I found the perfect settings for my cab.

 

Hopefully this info will be helpful for someone else who is perplexed as to why some tables run smoother than others.

 

P.S. If I am way off and wrong about what I have posted here ... please let me know and I will correct.

Edited by HiRez00, 24 February 2020 - 04:35 PM.

[cognis]

Very nice debugging HiRez.  I've had a few troublesome tables too running with some pretty high system specs.  With those tables I found a common fix (for me) of turning off Ball Reflection.  Butter smooth play after that.  On the very rare case this isn't enough I turn off Reflect Elements on Playfield, otherwise I have this on for most tables.

 

Before I try your solution on the next troublesome table, do you know what the effects are for making those changes?  Will the backglass animations and lights be visibly different from using the default settings?

[HiRez00]

Very nice debugging HiRez.  I've had a few troublesome tables too running with some pretty high system specs.  With those tables I found a common fix (for me) of turning off Ball Reflection.  Butter smooth play after that.  On the very rare case this isn't enough I turn off Reflect Elements on Playfield, otherwise I have this on for most tables.

 

Before I try your solution on the next troublesome table, do you know what the effects are for making those changes?  Will the backglass animations and lights be visibly different from using the default settings?

Cognis,

 

Honestly I didn't see a big difference in the backglass - with Twilight Zone and Creature from the Black Lagoon, both backglasses have a large amount of lighting animations and are pretty hi-resolution.

 

Everything still works on the backglass as I see it - maybe just not as lighting fast in response to lights on and off.

 

For me and my situation - that's a very small price to pay for getting smoother gameplay ... I generally am looking at the playfield the whole time anyway.

[Slydog43]

I always run VPX with V-Sync set to 1, without this I always get stutter whatever the FPS shows with F11.

 

 

Are you running 1.3.0.4 of b2s server and in exe mode for startup and the other option?  I have found that VP wants a fast clock speed.  Threads don't really matter that much.  I have just build a mini BarTop cab that has an old I3 with only 2 cores/threads, but its at 3.4 or 3.8 can't remember.  It runs great with a 1080 playfield and 1080 backglass without stutter (1060 GPU).  I always turn on VSync in video option in VP, thus not being able to tell true FPS that is capable on the machine, but buttery smooth. 

I know that some older tables have some slowdowns during flashers with large image swaps, but that is fairly rare now.

 

I see you are using a PinDMD3, which I used to use, but did add complexity to the formula.  You are using freezy's 1.71 or 1.72?  You might want to eliminate that as to check if that is it. 

4K is also a lot more to drive but your specs look awesome.

 

Going to try Creature on a rig right now to see what I get (I have 4k playfield, 1080 dmd, 1080 backglass, 2160 Topper). 

I get 120 FPS with vsync set to 0 just to see the FPS with F11 and I see stutter, I change V-sync to 0 and I get no stutter (not thorough test)

 

Thanks for making try out CFTBL, forgot how awesome the table is.  Plays incredible, just amazing.

 

Been playing many other Pinball engines recently and always come back to VPX and bow at how incredible it is.

Edited by Slydog43, 25 February 2020 - 05:24 AM.

[joyrider3774]

Hey,

What is to be considered the current most demanding table in vpx with and without puppack usuage ? 

The reason i'm asking is because to me i must have a crap cpu in my cabinet but to my amazement i can play vpx tables almost without any troubles although on lowered settings. I did not create the cabinet myselve so the pc was preassambled and initially it came with a very bad gfx card which i already replaced with a better one but i have not touched the cpu. I've tried the new harry potter with puppack, totan 4k, the flinstones and they seem to play fine occasianally i do have a stutter and i can not play the games while teamviewer is running as thats a big cpu hog on my cabinet. I did disable most of the gfx options in vpx and lowered the slider for performance. I'm wondering if it is because vpx requires good single core cpu speed where 3.7ghz is more or less ok i think. When i had first gotten the cabinet i remember that masters of the universe had big trouble with the little video screen but now i tried it again and it plays fine as far as i can tell. The only difference i know is that i initially had set up a profile in nvidia control panel for vpx that must have been bad as now i had removed that profile. In masters of the universe for example i have 215 avg fps and thats including getting that crazy multiball with many balls.In the tales of the arabian nights 4k table i get 190 fps average after some playing. I even play vpx in borderless windowed because there is a problem on my cabinet where full screen games (fx3 and vpx) seem to exit fullscreen randomly sometimes. Now this is no bragging message, i just want to understand it so i know i don't know have to buy a new cpu as to me it seems to work fine but comparing to the cpu's all other people are using it seems underpowered. The only place where i do see a performance decrease is while using ffmpeg to convert recorded video's on my main pc this is much faster but as far as visual pinball is concerned it seems to play all fine now

These are my specs:

ASRock H310M-HDV

Intel pentium Gold G5400 up to 3.7 ghz turbo. (don't laugh)

8 gig ram (don't know which)

Nvidia GTX 1050 ti (single slot as it was only one that fitted in the cabinet)

1920x1080 playfield tv screen and 1280x1024 backglass dell monitor 

 

These are the settings i currently use in vpx i mostly turned everything off. Vsync in the screenshot is still set to 0 as i was testing to see how many fps i would get on some tables if i disabled vsync normally i play with vsync on (so setting it to 1). I have not played with the maximum prerendered frames setting (not sure if 0 is default) but it works fine for me with these settings

 

 

Can anyone explain this dealing with the cpu ? i think it's because vpx requires good single core cpu speed but i'm not certain. 

[Slydog43]

I just ran CFTBL on my Bartop Pincab that has only a i3 4170 (3.7ghz) and only a 1080 playfield and 1080 backglass but with a 1060 GPU.  Its runs so smooth it amazing.  Single core ghz is the key I think.  Compared to my Beast it runs without Vsync 169FPS.  I have many more video options turned on too, sorry too lazy right now to screen shot.

 

I turned on "Force Exclusive Mode" and test on my main rig and WOW no stutter even without vsync turned on, around 115 FPS.  I knew exclusive mode was the way to go, but I always had some issues, but I think I will investigate more on this.

Edited by Slydog43, 27 February 2020 - 02:35 AM.

[Vizzini]

Nice write up HiRez00. I'll try this out. By the way, I've found that trying a different backglass (different version or author) also can eliminate the occasional stutter on those few tables that give me an issue. Perhaps because not all table events are tied to lights on the blackglass in those.

[apophis]

This totally worked for me. Now I can actually play twilight zone! THANK YOU!

[Imgema]

Is there a way to make these backglass options universal instead of opening each table and saving the backglass individually? I don't have the time to test all tables and i do know a few suffer from this so i'd rather save these settings for everything and be safe. I have setup more then 700 tables so it will take me months to test all the tables.

[wiesshund]

Is there a way to make these backglass options universal instead of opening each table and saving the backglass individually? I don't have the time to test all tables and i do know a few suffer from this so i'd rather save these settings for everything and be safe. I have setup more then 700 tables so it will take me months to test all the tables.

 

You can try, can not say if you will like the results or not

you will have to hand edit  B2STableSettings.xml

and put everything you want to try to force as a default in the top, before the 1st table name appears

[DKong]

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread, as it seems to be what I'm looking for.

I keep reading about other people running their cabs always locked at 60FPS and butter smooth. So, I would like to see this on my cab as well.

I have been trying to get my cab to run all tables at 60FPS locked, but can only get some tables to do so. On some tables like Fleep’s updated Theatre of Magic v2.4, if I remove the b2s or adjust the settings as suggested above on the b2s, I can play this table locked at 60FPS. 

 

However, on a lot of other tables such as Twilight zone, ACDC (Ninuzzu or PwrUP versions), Alien Poker, Attack from Mars (G5K version) and Cirqus Voltaire (Knorr), I cannot get any of these tables to lock at 60FPS with adjustments in the vpx video options, adjusting the b2s options above or playing with b2s at all. The closest I can get on these test tables is 59.9FPS and get occasional ball stutter.

 

I get a range from 59.4-59.9FPS when playing PUP tables such at Harry Potter, GOTG and Stranger Things.

 

- I have confirmed my refresh rates match (60Hz) on all 3 monitors within Windows, Nvidia and vpx video options.

- I have tried with and without exclusive fullscreen mode, same result 

- Post-processed Anti-Aliasing is Disabled

- I get basically the same results with Max Pre-rendered Frames set to 0 or 1

- FPS Limiter/vsync is always set to 1 (anthing else gets worse results)

 

I’m running a 3 screen cab with the PF at 4K, the BG at 1360x768 and the DMD is a standard old PC monitor running at 1366x768 resolution.

 

Here are my PC specs:

i7-7700K

GTX 1080 8GB

M.2 500GB SSD

16GB RAM

MSI Z270 Motherboard

Windows 10 Pro

 

Can anyone look at my setup and vpx screenshots to see if this is even possible with my rig?

Thank you!

Attached Files

•  VPX video options.PNG   32.84KB   11 downloads

[Thalamus]

@DKong : Are you sure that you haven't at one point been into NVidia driver settings and made changes there so that it is overriding what you are trying to accomplish ?

[DKong]

Thanks @Thalamus for the reply. I checked and the Nvidia settings are at default and I just set them to default again to be sure. Same results.

Most Nvidia items under Manage 3D settings are either off or are set to application-controlled. These include Max Frames and Vertical sync, so everything should be able to be handled within vpx.

 

From what I've read in the forums, my rig seems to have enough power to run these tables smoothly in 4k, but not sure what else to try.

[wiesshund]

Well your PC itself looks like it should be up to the task?

AFM AP and ACDC, i assume use no PUP packs, at least i am not aware of any PUP versions.

I do not have an nvidia card so can only give generic suggestions as i dont know the nvidia control panel but

 

Set all forms of freesync/adaptive-sync to off

set anti aliasing to application control/preference

set any advanced anti aliasing, like morphological to off

Anisotropic should not cause much harm, but you could try it at 2x or 4x just to see

Disable any forms of FPS management nvidia has, i do not know the names of them, only what AMD calls them
Set Vsync to allow app to dictate

 

Ok now, start VPX, turn off vsync in VPX in VPX for a minute.

Open attack from mars
launch table

Hit F11
Play table, as best you can, while watching the frame rates

they should stay well above 60fps, you may see lots of shredding/tearing, ignore it for now
just watch the frame rates, watch for drops below 60fps

 

Ok now if you see that the frame rates are still taking a lot of hits

quite table, and go to preferences to the DOF nudge keymapper tab

disable B2s

 

Launch table, and do same thing, watch frame rates while playing.

If frame rates make a major increase, then you may have to look at tweaking B2S performance, or using a less busy backglass
or even modifying the backglass to do less B2s Communication, or even no communication, depending on if that suits the table.

 

If B2S being off has no appreciable change, going to need someone that has and runs an intel/nvidia setup

to help out here.

 

One other diagnostic thing you could try, if all else seems to fail is
Set your playfield to run at 2K (2560x1440)

See if that makes any major change in the situation.
Does not fix things, but might give an indication of what needs looked at further
 

[Thalamus]

@KingKong : Even though weisshund doesn't know all the nVidia settings' names, I recommend that you follow his suggestion as they makes sense. Yes, your rig should handle 4k, same GPU as me and here I don't even run exclusive full screen, mostly because I too often stop and change something. Db2s - has been mentioned and it is very often the culprit, but, so is any kind of anti-virus or in some cases odd programs like game profile program. There is also a setting that DjRobX mentioned ages ago, that I run. It is a registry change.

 

https://vpinball.com...n-a-few-tables/

 

Works for some, other not - doesn't harm to try and with different values. I mentioned still having micro stutter in that thread too, even with my setting, but that culprit was UltraDMD. FlexDMD now, all the way. And, that hack isn't really focusing on mainly on the problem you mention, but, I still run with it and I'm happy to let it be.

Edited by Thalamus, 05 January 2021 - 05:32 AM.

[wiesshund]

Yea sorry
Only nvidia hardware i have is so old, even if i ran something with it to look at, it would all be irrelevant as to what is in the control panel as the drivers would be antique

and AMD have such different names for things in many cases, like changing the name makes what it does any different or something.

[DKong]

Thanks guys, I will try the registry change and see what happens. Should vpx run 60FPS when in F11 or is this more of a visual thing, like not seeing any ball stuttering even though FPS in F11 still shows say 59.7FPS?

I don't have any anti-virus software running as I turned all of that off and now only update with a thumb drive.

 

What is a game profile program or what should I be looking for with this?

[wiesshund]

Thanks guys, I will try the registry change and see what happens. Should vpx run 60FPS when in F11 or is this more of a visual thing, like not seeing any ball stuttering even though FPS in F11 still shows say 59.7FPS?

I don't have any anti-virus software running as I turned all of that off and now only update with a thumb drive.

 

What is a game profile program or what should I be looking for with this?

F11 is simply going to show you what VPX is running at, as well as a bunch of other data

It is going to give you some feed back on what it is actually doing, when you go through the above things
so you can see the results of what doing a given thing does.

Think of it as a VPX diagnostics panel.

If you run VPX with v-sync set to 0, as i suggested for diagnostic purposes, it is going to run flat out
so you can get an idea of what the frame rates are doing.

Cause the ultimate goal, is to get you set up so you are getting the highest frame rate possible
(while ignoring the effects of shear and tear, which looks like the ball is being driven by a jackhammer, even though the game says 100+ fps)

and then locking it to v-sync to make the shear and tear go away, which should then make for a buttery smooth ball.

If it does not, then have to look for other causes of the stuttering

 

And i may be wrong, but i dont think you have to resort to disabling all the lighting/shadow etc effects you have disabled right now

nor the anisotropic nor the force 4x anti aliasing?

 

Thalamus has close to the same system you do and his screen shots dont look like those are disabled?

 

Think you are going to have to go at it, step by step, testing and documenting the results of each step
to see actually where the trouble is

 

attack from mars is a good table to test with
1) we all have it
2) it does not use and tertiary tech, just vpx b2s and pinmame (cause a 4k pup pack can do in anyone)

[wiesshund]

DKong

There are different kinds of "Stutter" 1st have to determine what kind you actually have

 

There is a visual effect referred to as stutter, which is shearing and tearing, when the display can not update the screen picture
at the rate the frames are being given to it.
The game in question actually continues to function and respond at full speed, but the display can not show it properly.
This kind of effect is what Vsync cures, because it makes sure no frames are sent in a manner that the display can not render properly and on time.

Run VPX as 200fps, on a 60Hz display, and you will see lots of that around the ball when it moves fast

Performance is fine, it just visually looks like crap.

 

Then there is stutter, where something is causing the PC to not keep up with the game.
either the thinking process is getting tied up, preventing the game from smoothly carrying out the physics simulation
or something is interfering with the video side and the GPU really is not putting out the frames and is skipping

And the game does not run smooth either, when that is happening.

 

Video wise, usually the video card can slow down quite a lot before it comes to that, unless some odd combo of settings is playing games with it

Thinking wise, a number of things can mess with it.
An overly designed B2S with 20,000 things going on, all of them communicating with the ROM or B2S commands in the table can wreck anyone's day
but AFM, at least the backglass i have, really has nothing going on in that area.

I am not sure how much things like DOF can play into that as i do not have that hardware to mess with.

I am not sure how well this video will come out, i had to smoosh it from 3gb raw down to something i could upload
i maybe should not have used HEVC, seems a bit artifacty, sorry bout that, do not have the internet to upload nice ones in any reasonable time frame
i ran the capture using Fraps at 100fps
I took it on my laptop, which is a piddly i5 3230m with no video card, just the integrated hd4000 from the cpu.

 

Purpose of video is to show that the dip to 59.something FPS by itself is no reason for the stutters.
You will notice that my FPS with the capture running is way under 60fps but is not stuttering, so is not just your FPS all by themselves
just gotta figure out what

 

Edited by wiesshund, 05 January 2021 - 08:15 AM.

[kiwi]

Nvidia control panel: I put the power management mode as adaptive, or maximum performance,

I don't know if the terms I just used are the same in the Nvidia panel in English, with this setting the game is much smoother.