59 replies to this topic

[Mirkin]

Jlr which apps can I possibly disable that I didn't already?

[RustyCardores]

Have you tried adjusting the LampTimer within the table scripts?   I've found some VPX tables to be heavy on the lights and when they get really active some ball stutter would appear. For example, one table with intermediate stutter was running a lamp timer of 1, but upping that to 20 made the ball run as smooth as silk.

[Mirkin]

Hi Everybody.

I have done a LOT of tuning on my system and now VPX is running very smooth except under the most difficult conditions.

I decided to do document everything I did partly to remind me in the future and also to help anybody else out if they have the same difficulties as me.

All of my testing was carried out on The Sopranos as I know this is a very resource hungry creation. Also all tests were done with a basic windows theme
adjusted for best performance.
Turning anything on at all gave me even more troubles.

The problems were:-1)  Periods of massive stutter with huge frame rate loss.

                                  2) Periods of stutter with no frame rate loss.

                                  3) Constant micro stutter.

I cleared number 2 up very easily by uninstalling my USB wireless adapter. Job done (after 2 days scratching my head) but now I need a 20M ethernet lead LOL.

Next I tried CPU and RAM upgrade but it made no difference to anything. It came in useful later on though ;-)

I did driver upgrade and played with all the settings people have been using including those recommended by Gstav and in this thread http://www.vpforums....showtopic=33389

It took days and I nearly gave up. I had an idea to actually try Nvidia live chat and they were brilliant. They told me to try driver version 355.82. This is not the latest! Also they gave me a whole load of settings to try. I was on the chat for over two hours. The card was running LOADS better after this session.
You can see in the graphic all the settings. These come directly from Nvidia. Maybe they will work for you and maybe not but the info is there.
This really helped with problem 1. They gave me another lot of settings to try as well. If anybody wants them then PM me.

So now I checked the CPU usage and noticed that the was PC swapping the load between cores and every time it did the ball did a micro stutter. Now my CPU upgrade came to the rescue. I set the core affinity to cores 0 and 1 for visual pinball as you can see. Problem 3 virtually gone.

Just for the sheer hell of it I installed MSI and overclocked the GPU intil it started crashing. It didn't make much differnce really as it was all quite smooth anyway.

 

It's not perfect but it's 95% better than it was and very playable.

So VP just stole another week off me lol, but I don't mind. The new release is awesome and now hopefully I can get to enjoy playing it!

 

Thanks to all that gave help and hopefully my findings will be useful for somebody else.

Attached Files

•  VPX SETTINGS .jpg   160.44KB   56 downloads

Edited by Mirkin, 12 January 2016 - 08:40 PM.

[allknowing2012]

Your top middle image -- no checkmarks? so you unchecked somethings or did you set something on the panel but didnt show it?

[Mirkin]

If you look at the top the box for "adjust for best performance" is checked. When you check this everything else becomes unchecked.

I hope this helps

[ClarkKent]

You HAVE TO use Aero and Desktop Composition - otherwise vsync will not work.

[jimmyfingers]

Thanks for providing your experience and some settings that worked for you.  One key thing in the screen captures / information / settings provided is the values you show for setting AA in the nVidia panel don't work with VP and the only reason you don't see it messing things up is by having "Alternative Depth Buffer Processing" checkbox cleared, which apparently yields the result of no graphic distortions / missing objects but also has no AA taking place (i.e. all the "jaggies" are there as if you simply had not set any nVidia AA options at all).  It's basically not having any visual smoothing effect at least as far as anti-aliasing and with the VP ones for FXAA and AA disabled / cleared it's running no AA methods at all.  If you select "Alternative Depth Buffer Processing" / check it off you will see lot's of items missing on the screen but actually the ones that remain will be smoother (that is the crux of the problems with VP since it was updated for DX9).

 

Having all of these AA methods effectively disabled also yields higher frames rates / processing / less work on the video card, which also in turns skews results about ball stutter and screen tearing as it appears to be less prevalent (but still present) when there's more processing power available even when still sinking in some manner to screen refresh / FPS rates as appears to be happening with the settings you're using (mainly the 2 in FPS to my knowledge).  

 

I've played around briefly with these still, exactly as you posted, on two different systems just as a test and ultimately at least on higher resolution / refresh rate systems, there is still periodic tearing (looks on the ball like it's surging or warping) as Desktop Windows Manger / Composition is disabled.  However, on a decent system with only 720p and in desktop view without B2S I was able to see it playing fairly smoothly with difficulty detecting tearing / periodic "stutter".  Upping the resolution on that system and trying in my mini-cab at also higher resolutions 1440p brought the issue back.  A lot of the other settings referenced like the AA items in the nVidia control panel and potentially some or all of the other ones are going to be superfluous and not actually having an effect on the end result as in general I could see the same thing as my previous tests without all of these other changes trying to get VP to be smooth but without having to utilize DWM / Desktop Composition / "Aero" as with that on there is still less immediate flipper action (and it's is so tough to go back from after feeling the flippers that bit more responsive but ball stutter / smooth motion wins for me personally if I have to choose).

 

Still appreciate you taking the time to document your work and provide food for thought for everyone to try and glad you got it working to your satisfaction on your rig.

[DKong]

ClarkKent,

I'm having trouble with getting VP10 to run without stutter as well.  When you say use Aero, do you mean use the Aero THEME or just enable Aero Peek in Windows 7?  My system advanced properties doesn't show Aero Peek as an option, but does show Enable desktop composition.

 

I also tried changing my Windows theme to Aero.  When I did this, my system resolutions went haywire.  I had to reset all of my settings in B2S ScreenRes Editor (which I took a while to get back to normal), as my BG and DMD images were no longer aligned as they had been before.  I'm using an AMD Radeon GFX card, so I made performance adjustments in the AMD Catalyst software as well as in Windows.

 

So far with trying suggestions made by Mirkin, I still don't see any difference in the stuttering (testing with the Sopranos and Pirates POTC VPX tables).

 

I'm at a loss at the moment.  VP 9.1 and PM5 were running great with no issues...I just can't seem to get VP10 to run smoothly.

 

Maybe I need a combination of setting changes?

 

Here are my specs:

 

AMD A10-7850K Kaveri 12 Compute Cores (4 CPU + 8 GPU) 3.7GHz

GIGABYTE GA-F2A88XM-D3H FM2+ / FM2 AMD A88X

SAPPHIRE DUAL-X 100373L Radeon R9 280

8GB RAM

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

 

Should this be enough to play VPX tables without stutter?

 

 

 

 

[vampirolatino2]

This is my system:

intel i5

Asrock z170

8GB mem

Gforce GTX 950

256GB SSD

1TB HD

43" 4K TV

Windows 10

 

Running VPX, VP9.9.2 and PM5 @ 4K resolution @ 60FPS (locked)

 

Zero stutter.

 

If anyone is interested in buying or building the same PC let me know. Everything runs smooth here.

Edited by vampirolatino2, 13 January 2016 - 01:31 AM.

[DKong]

Thanks vamp.  I'm not in a position to buy new hardware, as my system was purchased this past June.  I'm not an expert in comparing Intel chips and GFX cards, however what I know of my specs and looking at your system specs, my system would seem to have plenty of horse power to run VPX without stuttering.

 

I'm currently running VP 9.9.1, PM5 and VPX, all installed separately over time.  Is there any reason it would make a difference to install the new Full Install package that includes all current version of VP?

 

If I install this package, will it affect/change any of my current VP installed programs and setting (in case something goes wrong during install)?

 

I'm really hoping someone can help me isolate specific settings on my AMD system that will allow VPX to run smoothly.

[vampirolatino2]

I was pro AMD/Ati in the late 2000 ... but switched to Intel/Nvidia and never look back (been building PC's from more than 20 years). My Arcade is intel+NV too. Almost every emulator, program uses better this hardware combination. But, your system should be fine, don't now why you are having a bad time with VPX. Maybe is the OS?

 

Windows 8.x is a lot better than 7 in resource/hardware management. and 10 is a leap forward to 8.x

 

I'm running the VP video settings all at max too. Except 4XAA because it kills it. I'm using NV card settings better.

Edited by vampirolatino2, 13 January 2016 - 02:55 AM.

[DKong]

Thanks vamp. Are you suggesting that I upgrade to Windows 10, and that should solve my stuttering issue for VPX?

It would be expensive for me to switch out my AMD chip and ATI cards at this point. I would also need to change the CPU cooling system and possibly other items to accomplish this. Basically, building a whole new system (mine is only 7 months old), just to keep VPX from stuttering.

I don't know if it's worth it at this point and I'm still a bit stuck as to why my current system won't handle VPX properly.

Have any of the authors of the current available VPX tables been able to test their tables on an AMD/ATI system?

Has anyone who is running in an AMD/ATI system been able to run VPX without stutter?

Thanks again.

[vampirolatino2]

No, I'm not suggesting that you switch your entire PC. Just telling you that in the industry of emulators (mame, vpmame, etc, etc) the consensus is that Intel+NV are the norm and the suggested pair to use for the emulator to run at best capacity.

 

But forget that, your system should be more than capable to run anything!

 

But maybe what you call stutter is another thing? Can you provide a video of your system playing? (if it's noticeable in video)

[Mirkin]

You HAVE TO use Aero and Desktop Composition - otherwise vsync will not work.

I can assure Vsync is working without desktop compression.

I am no expert on all these settings and don't know what most of them do, but they definitely work with no tearing and very minimal stutter on my rig.

Also, when I turn lots of things on barely notice any improvement in the look of the table. I have no idea what most of the settings do because most of them make no difference! The only thing that makes a huge difference in max texture depth. If I turn that down the tables look horrible.

Maybe somebody could do a dummies guide to Nvidia settings if they get time.

Edited by Mirkin, 13 January 2016 - 07:56 AM.

[sliderpoint]

I run AMD/ATI.  I started getting stutter with a few others around end of Nov/begining of Dec in the VPX beta builds.  Other mentioned the same, but were basically told you need to adjust settings/update drivers/blah blah, nothing wrong with the software, works fine for us...  

 

Getting stutter depends a lot on the tables and what is going on with lights and what not.  Some play very smooth, others kill my machine (like Metallica, literally crashes VPX on my system after playing for a few minutes).  If I want to play smooth, turn off all options that help VP look nicer (no AA, no AO, FPS limiter to 60).  Most everything plays good.  Solid 60fps and then randomly (seemingly)  hiccup, fps down to 10, ball disappears and reappears further down the table, then continues on as if nothing happened.  That's most likely a problem on my cab, so I just live with it until I get some time to poke around to see what is up.

 

best of luck to you (all)

-Mike

[PinballShawn]

I have come to the conclusion that there is no 'one settings fit all'. Even with similar PC's and identical graphics cards, the settings on one machine will be different than the other. Aero is a prime example, there is no way to have that on in my cab and not get stutter. The frame rates jump all over the place, I spent two days trying to make it work, but it's a problem on my machine and many other machines if you google it.

Honestly it's a matter of going through each graphic card option until it's where you want it, then going through each VPX graphic option, one by one and compare them. Many time I can't tell the difference if they are on of off. Then you have to go back and check your physmod5 and 9.9 games over again too because sometime changing it can affect the other versions of VP. To me the biggest things are 1. Ball movement smoothness 2. Flipper lag. Beyond that I'm good. 

You're going to have to spend some time getting things adjusted, there is no way around it.

[jimmyfingers]

@ PinballShawn - When you have aero on and are getting the frame rates all over the place, what setting do you set VP to for FPS / vsync?   I have 2 main systems and a work notebook and I can get them to all play smooth and never get that variance by using the same method on all of them, which is the one posted before and referred to with default settings for nVidia plus the two changes and VP mainly be used with vsync set to 1 but while having Aero / Desktop Composition on / enabled.  I get the variability in FPS, similar to what you describe, when I attempt VP's FPS / vsync setting at 1 when I've tried with Aero / Desktop Composition disabled as for a while that was a focus trying to get better input times without sacrificing stutter / smoothness.

 

Are you getting flickering of the F11 stats when you have Aero set to on?  If that's the case then it typically shows that aero / desktop composition, is not actually on but depending on your desktop visual setting that may also be obvious (if transparencies used, you're clearly using it and as long as the .exe for VP doesn't have the disable desktop composition set).  Out of the 3 machines I can get smooth, al beit with a little bit of lag as Aero / DWM / Desktop Composition introduces, two of them are 60 hz screens (one of those with an option to test at 720p 120 - a 3d projector) and the other one is my main mini cab with a Korean monitor that I use with settings of 110 and 120 hz.  All of them I have managed to get smooth play mainly on the Aero and vsync to 1 in VP core settings.  

 

I think affinity can play a role as well but I don't have to on my two non-cab systems but do on the min-cab for ideal frame rate limits.  In any case, I was mainly curious about whether you can confirm Aero via the flickering aspect and also what your VP FPS / vsync settings were (this of course still seems to depend a lot on a fairly basic / default nvidia global profile).  No offense meant if you're a technical professional as going through these options and reiterating them here can seem condescending possibly to the wrong (right) audience but there's a mix of people's computer knowledge, skills, professional involvement with them on this forum.

 

One last thing to mention that could mislead and make findings from person to person more variable is all my tests and reports are based on VPX outside of any front end and I imagine that could easily alter things.

[vampirolatino2]

My tests are launching VPX via Pinball X and standalone. No difference encountered.

constant 60 FPS, no matter the table. It was with the betas through, have Cab disassembled atm because I'm working on cabling inside. But tables as Sopranos, Robocop, Kingpin, AFM, MM, Tommy, CV, etc. never got problems with fps.

Newer tables like Demolition Man, etc ... haven't been tested. Maybe this could lead to what people here are experiencing? Don't know. Last version of VPX used was last beta release (final).

 

I will post further results soon.

[PinballShawn]

I've tried every possible combination with it on, vsync on/off/application controlled, 60fps, 120fps, 59fps, 0,1,2, you name it, I tried it. The FPS text is solid when aero is on, and flickery when off. It doesn't matter, it keeps shifting back and forth from 130 fps to 30 to 130 to 30. Or from 60fps to 30 to 60 to 30 to 60 to 30. When I disable it, rock solid. So I have flickery text, but the ball movement is smooth as silk. I've tried all the affinity settings, all the processor cores (I have 8) 2 cores, 4 cores. It's just a problem I believe with the version of Win 7 64 I have. There are thousands of threads with people having the same problem with all sorts of games. I really wanted to have it on, I literally spent 15 hours trying, I'm done. If it plays smooth, no flipper lag, graphics look great, minimal tearing (there is always a little when strobes are really going off), then I'm just going to call it even and stick with it. If the game plays great, I couldn't care less if that text is flickering anymore.

Oh, I'm running a three monitor cab, Win 7 64, I-7 3.0 ghz 8 core, 8 gig ram, Nividia GTX-770 TI 2 ghz superclocked. 

[RustyCardores]

 

Getting stutter depends a lot on the tables and what is going on with lights and what not.  Some play very smooth, others kill my machine (like Metallica, literally crashes VPX on my system after playing for a few minutes).  If I want to play smooth, turn off all options that help VP look nicer (no AA, no AO, FPS limiter to 60).  Most everything plays good.  Solid 60fps and then randomly (seemingly)  hiccup, fps down to 10, ball disappears and reappears further down the table, then continues on as if nothing happened.  That's most likely a problem on my cab, so I just live with it until I get some time to poke around to see what is up.

 

best of luck to you (all)

-Mike

 

As I mentioned back up the thread, the lamp timing can lead to stutter on some tables. On the tables you mention here, have you tried increasing the LampTimer value within the table's script?  In VPX I have some former stuttering tables running smooth with a setting of 20. In VP9 I have some problem tables playing smoothly with a setting as high as 200