2087 replies to this topic

[mukuste]

New bug report for Surface Pro 2 again:

Monster Bash 1998 uw randr 2.1 fs: Seems to not have any bugs, audio or video!

Thanks!

 

This has to be my favorite bug report of all time! Thanks!

[The Loafer]

I've had a get together at my place twice of late, once related to my 50th birthday and another some friends came over.  Both times I was running the latest (at the time) VP DX9 tech beta and I was getting pretty noticeable flipper lag.  I had recently tested several tables with the new DX9 builds and they were silky smooth so I was confused but I thought it was because we were playing real pinball before and doing so was showing the shortcomings of virtual pinball.

 

WRONG!

 

The issue was that I had replaced the default vpinball.exe with the new tech beta, so that I would not need to be at the cab with a keyboard/mouse combo to load tables.  That's all nice but today I can confirm that running the latest VP DX 9 tech beta from within hyperPin on my rig (i7 2.85ghz with NVidia 570 GPU on win7 64bits), there is flipper lag (also, not perfect but still pretty smooth ball movement).  However, running it right from VP DX 9 tech beta, ie: not within hyperpin, that's when I get the perfect scrolling I had noticed previously with little noticeable flipper lag.

I love HyperPin, it's been an amazing program and it's the doorway to the tables so it's use is without question. But today, I finally get it, it's time to try out the competition because until it gets better Win 7 support, on my pc at least, hyperpin has officially become a hindrance.  Before the tech beta dX9 builds, it was no biggy, there were no advantages either way that I could spot and in fact the dx7 builds had been reported running smoother within hyperpin because I think it forced the CPU's into turbo mode or something like that.  But now its night and freaking day, no way am I going back to the old flipper lag and I think warts and all, I don't think I'm going back to the regular VP DX7 builds either.  it's like someone's added new physics code to VP and at least at my end, I know how to have it play consistently smooth and lag free.

 

Hyperpin is fantastic, I believe at this stage this is a win 7 issue. I am certain the new Tech beta 5a works just fine in a winxp/hyperpin combo; but obviously it does not, at least at my end, on win7.

 

Although this post seems very hyperpin centric, many users out there are using the new tech beta dx9 builds in a win7/hyperpin environment and they may think its working great and have replaced the default EXE with it but... it's not, at least on my rig.  Can someone with a win7/hyperpin setup please replace the default Vpinball.exe with the latest DX9 build (5a) and test this to ensure I'm not freakin' nuts?  If you can confirm this, at least others won't make the same mistake of just replacing the build.

 

note: there is supposed to be a new hyperpin coming out that has better win7 support, so I suspect this will be a non-issue eventually, hopefully soon.

[mukuste]

Medusa 1.0 by PacDude is fixed!  but Centaur 1.2 by PacDude has some black gates still.  Great progress Mukuste!!!

 

I noticed that too. The one directly out of the plunger lane is black, right? Then the second one, leading to the rollover targets, is fine. The thing is, that first one is set to black in the editor. So it seems that this is another case where I should make a pure black object invisible? But since this is a VP8 table, maybe it was actually supposed to render in black? Need some feedback here.

Edited by mukuste, 23 February 2014 - 08:05 AM.

[tttttwii]

Do a full install of DirectX 9.

 

 

 

Can someone clarify when pure black (0,0,0) is transparent?  The image manager allows you to set a specific transparency color for each image.   Is black (0,0,0) only transparent if you specify it in the image manager?  Or is it transparent for certain objects also?

 

 

I second that request because obviously I can't get it right. First people told me, "black needs to be transparent", now I made it so and suddenly it's wrong.

 

Do a full install of DirectX 9.

 

 

 

Can someone clarify when pure black (0,0,0) is transparent?  The image manager allows you to set a specific transparency color for each image.   Is black (0,0,0) only transparent if you specify it in the image manager?  Or is it transparent for certain objects also?

 

 

I second that request because obviously I can't get it right. First people told me, "black needs to be transparent", now I made it so and suddenly it's wrong.

 

Mukuste: Doing a full install solved some of my problems. I still have gliches, even with test5a.

[mukuste]

Glitches of what kind?

[IPJball]

Just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work Mukuste! Thank you

for making it better for all us tablet users, (and Surface Pro 2 users too!)

[RipleYYY]

i agree, with a big TANX !

 

the way VP is growing (all the updates) is a good news for evbd

 

i have not really tested how your DX9 version work, but with beta4, on MONSTER BASH killer edition, its day and night, the fiat500 now rides as a ferrari !

[tttttwii]

Glitches of what kind?

Sorry I was wrong. I had problems with the alpha ramps after instlling dx9 full. They were not transparent and pixeled. After rebooting my PC everything is allright!

 

Thanks for that build! The best so far. Nothing to complain yet.

Edited by tttttwii, 23 February 2014 - 09:39 AM.

[ScubaMichael]

None if the new versions are working for me....I get an error saying cant load to missing "Freeimage.dll" I have tried deleting and redownloading and it doesn't help. Also tried different versions.

 

 

I can't load any version except the regular normal 9.22.

 

Help appreciated.

[ClarkKent]

Can somebody tell me why exiting in HyperPin isn't wrking with the dx9 version?

[kiwi]

It seems to me that the problem of weird form in XP, is something related to the decals.
If I am in the Backdrop uncheck the box "Enable Decals", the weirdness does not occur.
Obviously doing this, the image of the backdrop is not visible.
 

The story of pure black began around the VP905-907.
The VP907 Changelog says this : removed minimun remaining black masks for ramps, reels, images, lights, kickers, and top and side surfaces

 

Thank you so much for all of this amazing work.

 

Max

[ringorian]

Can somebody tell me why exiting in HyperPin isn't wrking with the dx9 version?

No, but why not using pinballx ? Works faster better ...

[mukuste]

None if the new versions are working for me....I get an error saying cant load to missing "Freeimage.dll" I have tried deleting and redownloading and it doesn't help. Also tried different versions.

 

 

I can't load any version except the regular normal 9.22.

 

Help appreciated.

 

This means you need the FreeImage.dll in the same directory as the VP executable. But if the standard builds are running, then you should have that file already. Are you sure the Test version is in the same directory as the other VP executables?

It seems to me that the problem of weird form in XP, is something related to the decals.
If I am in the Backdrop uncheck the box "Enable Decals", the weirdness does not occur.
Obviously doing this, the image of the backdrop is not visible.
 

The story of pure black began around the VP905-907.
The VP907 Changelog says this : removed minimun remaining black masks for ramps, reels, images, lights, kickers, and top and side surfaces

 

Thank you so much for all of this amazing work.

 

Max

 

 That's very helpful information, at least gives me something to look out for.

 

It would be very helpful if someone tried the LATEST drivers and told me if the issue remains.

Edited by mukuste, 23 February 2014 - 10:01 AM.

[ClarkKent]

 

Can somebody tell me why exiting in HyperPin isn't wrking with the dx9 version?

No, but why not using pinballx ? Works faster better ...

 

I like HyperPin more.

 

Exiting only works if I switch to the VPinball application. Then pressing "e" works. It seems that "e" does not work in the player anymore, only in editor. But as I do not have the keyboard all the time near my cabinet this is really no solution...

 

And the vsync option in the table options does not work right - it's always turned on no matter if I use 0 or 1. It can only be turned off here when setting it to 0 in the video options of VP...

Edited by ClarkKent, 23 February 2014 - 11:11 AM.

[IPJball]

Another bug report!

Black Knight vp91x JPSalas full screen:

No visual or audio bugs, everything is great!

Same thing as before on some of the other tables, the dmd doesn't appear,

and I have to restart vp to get it to appear.

Thanks!

[kruge99]

 

Medusa 1.0 by PacDude is fixed!  but Centaur 1.2 by PacDude has some black gates still.  Great progress Mukuste!!!

 

I noticed that too. The one directly out of the plunger lane is black, right? Then the second one, leading to the rollover targets, is fine. The thing is, that first one is set to black in the editor. So it seems that this is another case where I should make a pure black object invisible? But since this is a VP8 table, maybe it was actually supposed to render in black? Need some feedback here.

 

 

I just ran VP8 and they do not render as black.

 

Best Regards,

Todd.

[IPJball]

Hey again,

Another bug report for the Surface Pro 2,

Mata Hari vp9 JPSalas fs:

No bugs audio or video, just the missing dmd as usual.

Fixed by restarting VP.

Thanks!

[bent98]

Can someone clarify when pure black (0,0,0) is transparent?  The image manager allows you to set a specific transparency color for each image.   Is black (0,0,0) only transparent if you specify it in the image manager?  Or is it transparent for certain objects also?

 I second that request because obviously I can't get it right. First people told me, "black needs to be transparent", now I made it so and suddenly it's wrong.

0,0,0 should be transparent in almost all cases except for the table playfield and backdrop images it seems... when I get home from work tomorrow morning, I can test it a bit more. Many times a color very close to 'pure black' gets used and I wonder if this is being seen as 'pure black' and thus being turned transparent as well.

Chris

Can you look into the WCS ramp bug as well?

Thanks

[koadic]

Can someone clarify when pure black (0,0,0) is transparent?  The image manager allows you to set a specific transparency color for each image.   Is black (0,0,0) only transparent if you specify it in the image manager?  Or is it transparent for certain objects also?

 I second that request because obviously I can't get it right. First people told me, "black needs to be transparent", now I made it so and suddenly it's wrong.

0,0,0 should be transparent in almost all cases except for the table playfield and backdrop images it seems... when I get home from work tomorrow morning, I can test it a bit more. Many times a color very close to 'pure black' gets used and I wonder if this is being seen as 'pure black' and thus being turned transparent as well.

Chris

Can you look into the WCS ramp bug as well?

Thanks

Ok, here are my conclusions to the 'black' issues and the ramp bug...

The apron image used for WCS (and I would assume Airborne as well) are actually using pure black (which should result in being transparent)... with that being said, I think I have figured out which circumstances allow for this behavior. If the image is used on a 'Wall', pure black is transparent (as well as any color assigned in the image manager) but if 'side visible' is checked with no image assigned, then any transparent sections (whether from pure black or set color from image manager) are then filled in with pure black... assign a side image or uncheck 'side visible' then the pure black and set colors from the image manager are then transparent again.

EDIT: Correction... it seems with messing around a little bit more that only the set color from the image manager is used for the TOPS of walls... I was testing with a solid color image in the previous tests which behaved as desribed, but with an actual image, black was still black regardless.

About the ramp bug... This seems to be a layering order issue. I can achieve the same visual result on the dx7 builds by sending the ramp with the 'wcsramplip' image to the back causing the edges where it intersects the other alpha ramps to become visibly transparent because it is higher 'physically' but ordered lower.

Edited by koadic, 23 February 2014 - 02:01 PM.

[The Loafer]

ClarkKent:  I have no hyperpin/tech beta DX9 exit issue, works fine here.  You using xp or win 7?

Edited by The Loafer, 23 February 2014 - 01:59 PM.