35 replies to this topic

[vidmouse]

Which version of TOTAN are you using to test? the newer mod by haddonfield (LINK) has a lot more alpha ramps I believe and drags my home system down to a crawl, and have yet to try it out on my cab with my 460 though.

I'm using JP's v 3.1.2 FS. Will have to give that other version a try...

[Wahreez McDermot]

Thx for the answer Koadic, that is good info to have as far as the onboard/discrete GPU thing goes!

Also Koadic is right about the DMD resizing thing. You've got to resize it, then click on the pinball table, then go back to the DMD and unshow the border. I usually do it a cpl times just cause I'm paranoid and it always works!

When I was setting up everything again just recently, I probably did about 30 tables by opening them w/o DMD rotated, then going to registry and rotating manually and switching the Width/Height numbers to avoid the weird stretched look and maintain the proper aspect ratio. When I finally remembered/read you could re-size the DMD by showing the border I was thrilled at all the time I'd save. I also felt slightly stupid for having forgotten it, lol.

Also the TOTAN mod by haddonfield is really demanding with all the alpha-ramps and such. It runs on my system, but, I've got to turn alpha-ramps down to the middle setting on a relatively fast machine.

So basically I wouldn't worry too much if you can't get that specific table to run without stutter as it is by far the most demanding and there aren't any others like it at this point. I believe work on it is ongoing as well, so it may be optimized in the future.

Just saw you're using JP's version. It's a good one and should run well for you. Just don't obsess too much if you have difficulty with the hadonfield mod as it is quite demanding. If you can get it to run well on your machine it is quite purty though!

Edited by Wahreez McDermot, 09 May 2012 - 01:35 PM.

[vidmouse]

I tried Haddonfield's TOTAN last night, and it ran surprisingly at a decent speed

BUT.....

The graphics were all screwed up -- large, white boxes covered up much of the
screen. Sliding the performance didn't do anything for it, either.

Ah, well. Worth a shot.

Thanks for the tips on DMD resizing... it takes a few clicks for me but yes it works
that way, much easier.

[Wahreez McDermot]

You might need to patch your Virtual Pinball exe to use more than 2GB of ram. If you are on a 64-bit OS it can help. Although personally I never had an issue loading Haddonfield's mod, but, the table I DID need to do it for was the latest Black Rose released by Lord Hiryu.

Let me see if I can dig up the link for you.... (digs furiously)... Ahh yes! Here we go...

http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

Keep in mind on a 32-bit OS this is useless. It also may not fix the issue w/ Haddonfield's table, but, it just might.

I was skeptical at first at the necessity of doing that, but, sure enough it immediately fixed my issue w/ white textures on Black Rose and now I'm a believer and a zealot. I even go so far as to persecute people who don't swear allegiance to the 4GB patch.

---------------------------------------------------------- <--- line in the sand!

Edited by Wahreez McDermot, 10 May 2012 - 04:44 PM.

[Arcade4]

You might need to patch your Virtual Pinball exe to use more than 2GB of ram. If you are on a 64-bit OS it can help. Although personally I never had an issue loading Haddonfield's mod, but, the table I DID need to do it for was the latest Black Rose released by Lord Hiryu.

Let me see if I can dig up the link for you.... (digs furiously)... Ahh yes! Here we go...

http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

Keep in mind on a 32-bit OS this is useless. It also may not fix the issue w/ Haddonfield's table, but, it just might.

I was skeptical at first at the necessity of doing that, but, sure enough it immediately fixed my issue w/ white textures on Black Rose and now I'm a believer and a zealot. I even go so far as to persecute people who don't swear allegiance to the 4GB patch.

---------------------------------------------------------- <--- line in the sand!

I love the 4GB patch on my VP windows 7 64 bit.
It is my understanding that it is only useful for programs that reside in the x86 folder like VP.
So I am guessing it would not help FP at all since it is not installed in that folder?

[vidmouse]

I tried loading Diner and Big Bang Bar.... dang, more white patches.

I would try the 4GB patch if my system had 4GB, and a 64 bit os...

Anything else to try to get rid of the white patches?

[Wahreez McDermot]

Not sure bout 4GB patch with FP. Likely wouldn't hurt to try it thogh. I'd backup the exe first just in case it doesn't work out well.

To get rid of white patches on a system with I'm assuming 2gb of ram, you can either upgrade your ram or change the 'texture size' max in VP options. Change it to 1024 should reduce that amount of memory required and potentially fix the 'whiteness'.

One other option would be to close all open programs and disable any unnecessary services you have running in Windows. Those topics are a bit more detailed than the above options and I don't have time to get into it right now.

This is all assuming that your problem is related to running out of memory, which, imo, it most likely is.

Anyways, I've gotta get ready and go to work, but, I'll be back later and can assist you with getting it all working properly.

[vidmouse]

I think I got it, thanks...
I noticed that Black Rose was now giving me white squares too so I looked
at the settings and they were the same as what i had been using (btw I was already at 1024
textures).

Turns out my screen resolutions for both pf and bg were reset to something totally off...
fixing that in windows properties took care of it. BBB and Diner both play ok now, except
Diner gives me a "need Microsoft framework .net" warning. Mediveal Madness (the
highest res version I could find) also plays well too.

When I'm done debugging tomorrow I will list out some specs and setttings
to see if I've missed anything.

[Wahreez McDermot]

The .net framework warning is related to the B2S background that runs with the Diner table. If you want to use B2S animated backglasses for the tables which support them, you'll have to install the .net framework package.

I don't use 2 monitors currently, but, from what I hear you'll want to do that and take advantage of what B2S offers.

You might want to see if you can handle a higher texture setting without issue now that the resolution thing is fixed. Although you might not notice the difference going from 1024 to 2048 or unlimited. Most tables don't use textures higher than 2048 though from what I understand. At least at this current point in time.

There are more B2S tables being released all the time, check out a thread about it and make sure to set the 'screenres.txt' in the tables directory to the appropriate settings. Instructions should be included with whichever B2S table you dl'd.

[vidmouse]

I was able to get Haddenfield's TOTAN working w/o the white boxes now, too.
This video is with the textures up to unlimited, I didn't notice a slow down.



Now I only notice a slow down when I play Doctor Who and get a large multiball.
Haven't tried Apollo 13 yet.

[Wahreez McDermot]

It looks good to me in the video you posted. The crazy thing about stutter is some people are just more sensitive to it than others. I didn't even notice any minor stutter with this table at first, then someone mentioned it and upon closer inspection I noticed some. I just lowered the alpha ramps slider down a bit and it was totally gone.

I've got Dr. Who setup in hyperpin but I've not played it yet other than to just initially make sure it worked before setting up the next table(s). I'll check it out though and try to get some 4-ball action going and let you know what I see.

[Arcade4]

It looks good to me in the video you posted. The crazy thing about stutter is some people are just more sensitive to it than others. I didn't even notice any minor stutter with this table at first, then someone mentioned it and upon closer inspection I noticed some. I just lowered the alpha ramps slider down a bit and it was totally gone.

I've got Dr. Who setup in hyperpin but I've not played it yet other than to just initially make sure it worked before setting up the next table(s). I'll check it out though and try to get some 4-ball action going and let you know what I see.

Funny how that alpha ramp slider works for some people.
For me it does not matter if the slider is all the way left or all the way to the right, I can not see or tell any difference on my tables.
Maybe I just don't know what to look for but they look and play exactly the same to me.

[vidmouse]

Here's system specs as I said I would post them earlier,
just copy and pasted from another post trying to help a
guy out with TOTAN:


MSI K9N6SGM-V mobo
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.30GHz Dual Core
2 GB DDR RAM
450 W Power Supply
XFX AMD Radeon HD 6570 1GB video card

I'm running the playfield off of the XFX card and my backglass off of the onboard
mobo video, the Nvidia GeForce 6100/nForce 405.

My pf is a Hannspree 25" LCD. The backglass monitor is some no-name brand 20" (I think).
Pf is running off HDMI, bg is running from the vga d-sub.

Setting ddraw to 0 in the regedit was a must to get decent fps.
In VP video options, I have hardware rendering enabled and set
the res to equal my playfield res, x32 (I think the res is 1600x1024
but I'm writing this from memory so I'm not 100% sure). Other options:
At full screen anti stretch the ball to 16:9
Draw ball shadows checked
Draw ball decals checked
Antialias Ball checked
Check blit status unchecked
Reorder playfield objects unchecked
Max Texture Dim unlimited
Alpha slider all the way to the left

Making sure the res is set correctly outside of VP helped with getting rid of
some white box graphics glitches (though these did not slow down play)

Installed the latest drivers I could find via a usb stick, as my cab is not online.

Running Windows XP SP2, 32 bit. PLan to upgrade to SP3 and Net framework 4
later so that I can run some of the B2S stuff but haven't done that yet.

Edited by vidmouse, 25 May 2012 - 06:22 PM.

[vidmouse]

Another video, this time showing Future Pinball Iron Man:

[ClarkKent]

Because vp is a 10 yr old program that uses direct x7 and therefore modern gfx cards need to emulate it

All your modern games use direct x 10 or 11 using all the modern cards features, every effect you see in vp has been faked

I though VP is still updated now and then. So it would be interesting to know why the graphics engine was never updated to at least DirectX 9? Does anybody know?

[ClarkKent]

After setting 16bit instead of 32bit color alpha ramps are working flawlessly (I'm using 1600 x 1200). But only with hardware rendering.