2585 replies to this topic

[Ben Logan]

I'd rather see VP10 take advantage of horsepower that at least semi-new graphics cards have to offer, rather than sacrifice advancements in lighting (for example) to attempt to support older cards. I'd call myself "lower middle class" but even I can afford a gtx750ti for under two hundo. As far as hobbies go, this one can actually be relatively inexpensive. Compared to say...boating.

Edited by Ben Logan, 08 November 2015 - 07:50 PM.

[Les73gTx]

I am with Ben on this as I would rather see development on pushing the hardware rather than making it backwards compatible. If you can't afford to update your equipment then VP 9.x and PM5 is mature and runs great. There is still room for VP10 to mature (still beta yet) and get better and better. Might even be some optimization that can still happen in the code. Be patient and let the development team get it worked out.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

[freneticamnesic]

Don't worry, most of us are going balls to the wall...

[Carny_Priest]

Heh!

 

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube....bed/B_3TlrZLpQ0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Edited by Carny_Priest, 08 November 2015 - 08:38 PM.

[freneticamnesic]

I was humming the Puscifer cover in my head when I wrote that but same idea

 

[hauntfreaks]

Heh!

 

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube....bed/B_3TlrZLpQ0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

its always good to see someone post an Accept video.... 

[TNT2]

I'd rather see VP10 take advantage of horsepower that at least semi-new graphics cards have to offer, rather than sacrifice advancements in lighting (for example) to attempt to support older cards. I'd call myself "lower middle class" but even I can afford a gtx750ti for under two hundo. As far as hobbies go, this one can actually be relatively inexpensive. Compared to say...boating.

 

That's one issue Farsight is facing with Pinball Arcade. They want to continue to support the older devices at the expense of a better engine. 

Edited by TNT2, 09 November 2015 - 12:10 AM.

[hauntfreaks]

this is a bit off topic but why do systems like TPA and FX2 play on most any PC?.... maybe this has been answered...  seems to be the minds of the Devs here are a more dedicated groups then people that do it because its a job... do the devs for those other systems have better resources because its pay software?.... just wondering

[TNT2]

That's a good question. Perhaps someone with more technical knowledge can explain but I do know when I play Pinball Arcade my video card runs cooler than when I am running VP. It's not a huge difference but I have noticed it. 

 

Of course it seems to go without saying once Stern Pinball Arcade comes out it will be a little more resource intensive than the current TPA. And Farsight is dropping some of the older mobile OS to be able to emulate the SAM and Spike systems. If I understand it correctly. And some of that may be due to Stern desiring a separate app for their games. 

 

Can't speak for FX2.

Edited by TNT2, 09 November 2015 - 04:55 AM.

[Dozer316]

I'd hazard at a guess that Toxie and Fuzzel have to deal with a heap of legacy code and architecture that has had bits tacked on over the years, many parts of it perhaps acting as a bottle neck to greater performance. The PBA engine was probably written from the ground up to exploit modern hardware using streamlined code paths etc. hence the reason it runs the way it does.

 

You see the same thing in the PC gaming world (or used to) many times in the XBOX1 - 360 days where ports were done between platforms. Something that ran great on the original hardware required 2 or 3 times the shader performance etc. on the PC version of the port.  People would be freaking out that their GTX 480 and I7 ran at 30 fps with stutter etc on an Xbox 360 port.  GTA4 was a good example of that compared to GTA5 where they had a dedicated code base for PC.

 

It's not so noticable these days because of the wicked horsepower modern GPU's and CPU's have though.  You can pretty much throw anything at them and then run it pretty well.

 

Having said all of that though, I reckon our VP recreations far exceed the PBA in terms of lighting quality etc. I'm really proud of what we do here both the authoring and the engine developers considering it's a two man dev team and a group of disparate authors who are hobbyists.   Imagine what we could do it we were all being payed full time to do this. 

Edited by Dozer316, 09 November 2015 - 05:10 AM.

[nFozzy]

Does anyone else have problems with Big Bang Bar creating too many balls in multiball?

[toxie]

@Hauntfreaks, TNT2, Dozer: There are various reasons and arguments. First of all, as you say, this is a dedicated team that does this, we're doing this in our spare time. Then they have support (maybe even in the form of engineers helping them out with core optimizations) from sony, ms, and who knows who else, because the engine has to run fast on their consoles. One other thing that should not be underestimated is that they also collaborate very closely with the (in-house) artists recreating things and due to that will most likely have less flexibility in their engine but more restrictions that the artists have to follow (which can mean -much- more performance in the end). VP on the other hand is designed for hobbyists, and people transitioning from older versions (which means -much- less complexity for the untrained artist (untrained in the sense of knowing nasty graphics card and optimization details, etc), but also less performance in the end).

But then again i would also say that VP is not -that- slow. If you look at the framerate we can get on an average sytem, given the image quality we can get.

As for the system running cooler: This depends on a lot of factors, for example, if they limit the framerate in their engine, while you do not have that setup the same way with VP, etcetc.

[Ben Logan]

I'm constantly amazed that the "spare time" virtual pinball project is far and away the most fun, most realistic, and straight up best product on the market. You guys rule! I'm blown away by VP10 lighting and physics. Tables like Cirqus and TOTAN (and countless others) are truly "next gen" in pinball sim. Thanks to you devs for investing your genius in VP.

I'm afraid all I have to offer is gratitude and hours of gameplay!

[fuzzel]

Ben that's enough really

[hauntfreaks]

I brought up being payed and not being payed ... because when i was being paid as a graphic designer, they got what they payed for... and when I was doing it for myself I did my best....  

Edited by hauntfreaks, 09 November 2015 - 08:27 AM.

[jimmyfingers]

Ben that's enough really

If you don't want the excess / spilling over of accolades, you could pour them down to your alpha-beta test team  

 

Just discovered that we recently passed the 1 year anniversary of starting the alpha testing with you and Toxie bringing JP, UW, and myself into the mix at the early stages (still feeling the honour to have been 1 of that particular group of 5!).  We've all had varying times of heavier to lighter involvement throughout the last 12 months, but I'd like to think us testers - dare I say consultants at times, whether solicited or not - have also been a bit of a (spare time) support team to you guys and contributed to the development even if we haven't written source code.  Behind the scenes there's been significant discussion, extensive testing, and collaboration from things like tweaking the initial lights and bringing in the modulation component way back before the beta (as well as recently ensuring that that same quality survives other bug fixes and changes), working a couple feverish / high VP hour weeks not too long ago on the pinball to pinball collision / morphing serious physics bugs, and overall continually keeping a strained eye on progress without regress - to really just barely touch on all the stuff that's been fed back up the pipe along the way hopefully lightening the load at times with testing reports and repros. I know at times I / we create work for you guys rather than maybe seeming to alleviate it, but it's certainly been the majority of times in those instances with the ultimate goal of having VPX as good as possible for a final / initial 10.0 release.  

 

Ultimately though, without you guys doing the actual code modification, diagnosing, performance improvements, and feature implementations, we'd still be nothing as to creation of VPX and have served no purpose.  Thank you as well for listening, considering, and acting on so much feedback from both the particular team I have been part of and the community in general.  Despite all the other elements and vectors for how people contribute to VP here on the forums and finished playable products, you guys (fuzzel and Toxie) are at the top of making this happen being the ultimate coders and deserve the most thanks.

 

Oh wait, I'm starting to pour things on again and you had said that's enough really  Well, I spilled a little in my own cup too

[toxie]

watching you guys use it in new ways and playing all these awesome tables (as said earlier, we already reached the 100 table mark within this single year, with the majority being -more- than just "simple" VP9-conversions!) is payment enough, so thanks guys!

[mpad]

+ love everything that has been achieved by you guys. Gratitude is all I can give, too.

Want to come back to the gfx card load / heating part. I noticed this too. It seems it is pushing the card to its limits, even if not needed (160 fps when 60 fps would be enough). Maybe this can be limited to the screen sync, or is it too much intertwined with the physics so max frames is always best?

[fuzzel]

That hasn't something to do with the FPS. It's the internal design of the engine that is responsible for that. Normally a VP table is build by using a lot of build-in elements for visuals/physics and some tables also add a lot of small mesh primitives to the table. If all these small parts are rendered each frame VP has to swap textures/materials and buffers a lot. A graphic card can handle that but it put a lot of load to it especially if the drawing order is complex (intersecting elements for example). This is somewhat the curse of beeing so flexible because there are so many ways how elements are used in combination that makes it hard to add a global optimation feature into the engine (besides from those we have already added )

[toxie]

sorry fuzzel, but the FPS -do- have a great impact on the heat/energy consumption. so if you don't limit the FPS inside of VP or the graphics control panel, then the gfx card will always render non-stop basically, but if you limit the FPS to something like 60, then it can idle inbetween the sync-points (unless your gfx card cannot render more than 60 FPS of course ).

 

and in VP10, limiting the FPS in general is fine, only in VP9.9.X it was a problem, and 120 or 240 was recommended there at least.