1630 replies to this topic

[rothbauerw]

You're not giving dsr a unfair comparison now by changing your resolution too high compared to what you had it at ?

 

I dunno, lol.  I'm a noob with dsr.  What would be equivalent?

 

 

It's a native Task Scheduler feature.  If you got to the Triggers page of the task, and open the "At log on" trigger, look for the "Delay task for:" item.

 

When you say "it's not saving", what does it do instead?  Error message, no effect, something else?

 

I see the delay setting now in Task Scheduler and I can see what's happening.  The task scheduler only takes certain intervals (10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute).  I was trying to set it to 20 seconds so apparently it can't do that.  I set it to 30 seconds in task scheduler and it definitely waited this time.  Still didn't have focus though.

[Thalamus]

Just start with the same resolution as you did have before, then take it step by step and see if there is a break-point between quality vs performance is my advice. You might even end up using the same resolution as you had before, but, with a different AA in VP, giving you better visuals and performance.

[randr]

I dont know what the pinbally log is supposed to show but it does not say it got cabinet.xml Just lists table mappings xml i get no errors though. here is the pby log

 

Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 7:15:30 AM: Session started

PinballY 1.0.0 (Beta 11), build 8393 (x64, 20190408-1721)

 

DOF (DirectOutput): initializing DOF client

+ Launching DOF surrogate process.  This is required because PinballY is running

  in 64-bit, and DOF is a 32-bit COM object.  Surrogate command line:

  >"C:\PinballY\Dof3264Surrogate.exe"  -parent_pid=6648 -clsid=7bbb0ed6-e2f4-45f5-b653-769874acfa94

 

DOF: creating DOF COM object (a23bfdbc-9a8a-46c0-8672-60f23d54ffb6)

DOF: got table mapping file: C:\DirectOutput\config\tablemappings.xml

 

DOF: shutting down DOF client

 

Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 7:15:48 AM: PinballY session ending

[mjr]

I dont know what the pinbally log is supposed to show but it does not say it got cabinet.xml 

 

Sorry - I should have been clearer that it's the DirectOutput log file you need to be looking at for this.  The DOF global config file is a DOF file, not a PinballY file, so you naturally won't find any mention of it in the PinballY log file.

[mjr]

I see the delay setting now in Task Scheduler and I can see what's happening.  The task scheduler only takes certain intervals (10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute).  I was trying to set it to 20 seconds so apparently it can't do that.

 

So, are you saying you originally set it to 20 seconds from the the PinballY dialog, it accepted it without error, and then it was at 0 seconds next time you looked?

 

If so, they must have made an API change in Windows 10.  A *broken* API change, I'd claim, as (1) the documentation doesn't say anything about only certain discrete time quanta being allowed, and (2) the API should at least return an error if it's not going to accept a change.

 

In the Win 7 and 8 versions of Task Scheduler, it's not just the API that wil accept arbitrary time values - the Task Scheduler UI itself will accept arbitrary time values.  They do have that drop list with "suggested" settings, but they also let you type in whatever oddball time you want.  It happily accepts "17 seconds" or whatever you type in.  And the API certainly accepts whatever value you give it (I just tested that to make sure I wasn't assuming the Microsoft documentation was right).

 

Could you double-check the behavior?  If it's really doing what it sounds like - ignoring changes made to the delay setting via the API when they don't align with one of the pre-set quanta - I'm going to have to add some code to read back the new setting after the change and see if it was accepted.  Grrr, what a stupid API.

Edited by mjr, 16 April 2019 - 07:35 PM.

[rothbauerw]

 

So, are you saying you originally set it to 20 seconds from the the PinballY dialog, it accepted it without error, and then it was at 0 seconds next time you looked?

 

If so, they must have made an API change in Windows 10.  A *broken* API change, I'd claim, as (1) the documentation doesn't say anything about only certain discrete time quanta being allowed, and (2) the API should at least return an error if it's not going to accept a change.

 

In the Win 7 and 8 versions of Task Scheduler, it's not just the API that wil accept arbitrary time values - the Task Scheduler UI itself will accept arbitrary time values.  They do have that drop list with "suggested" settings, but they also let you type in whatever oddball time you want.  It happily accepts "17 seconds" or whatever you type in.  And the API certainly accepts whatever value you give it (I just tested that to make sure I wasn't assuming the Microsoft documentation was right).

 

Could you double-check the behavior?  If it's really doing what it sounds like - ignoring changes made to the delay setting via the API when they don't align with one of the pre-set quanta - I'm going to have to add some code to read back the new setting after the change and see if it was accepted.  Grrr, what a stupid API.

 

 

Good questions.  Yes, I can manually type in any value to the delay field.  I went back to test what I said previously and what I thought was happening isn't what's really happening.  What really happening is if I already have it check to start "Automatically" (a scheduler entry already exists), I can't change the delay time.  If I set it to start "Manually" (deleting the scheduler entry) and then set it back to "Automatically" with a new delay time, it saves it as it should.  

[mjr]

Good questions.  Yes, I can manually type in any value to the delay field.  I went back to test what I said previously and what I thought was happening isn't what's really happening.  What really happening is if I already have it check to start "Automatically" (a scheduler entry already exists), I can't change the delay time.  If I set it to start "Manually" (deleting the scheduler entry) and then set it back to "Automatically" with a new delay time, it saves it as it should.  

 

Okay, thanks for testing that!  It sounds like I'm not detecting the change to that one value properly - I'll take a look at fixing that.  I'm relieved that they didn't make that crazy change to the API that I was imaging.

[Outhere]

I install pinbally last night my matrix works fine, the side addressables are not working but in pinballx they work fine..

Looks like the same layout on the DOF website as far as addressables...

[rothbauerw]

 

I suppose the exclusive full screen setting might be an issue, but I don't know of any reason off-hand it would cause a problem, or if it does, what could be done about it.  If you wanted to experiment with going back to windowed mode in VP to see if you see the same frame rate impact, it could be a useful data point.

 

 

I did some testing in windowed mode.  There too I see about a 1-2 fps drop in frame rate.  

[mjr]

 

 

I suppose the exclusive full screen setting might be an issue, but I don't know of any reason off-hand it would cause a problem, or if it does, what could be done about it.  If you wanted to experiment with going back to windowed mode in VP to see if you see the same frame rate impact, it could be a useful data point.

 

 

I did some testing in windowed mode.  There too I see about a 1-2 fps drop in frame rate.  

 

Okay, good to know - it's probably not something special about exclusive mode, then.

[rothbauerw]

Just start with the same resolution as you did have before, then take it step by step and see if there is a break-point between quality vs performance is my advice. You might even end up using the same resolution as you had before, but, with a different AA in VP, giving you better visuals and performance.

 

Maybe I don't understand DSR, but I don't think the same resolution using DSR will give you any improved quality.  I certainly don't see when I test.

 

My understanding of brute force is that it generates 4 pixels for every one and combines them for display.  In order to produce a similar result with DSR, you need twice the x resolution and twice the y resolution to generate 4 pixels for every one that will be displayed.  Similar to brute force, it down samples it into a single pixel.

 

Below from left to right is 1 - Brute Force (gpu = 79%), 2 - No AA (gpu = 32%), 3 - Quality_FXAA (gpu = 37%), and 4 - DSR 3860 x 2160 (gpu = 91%).  All DSR modes below that level were no where near the quality of Brute Force.

 

[randr]

OMG i fixed the issue.

 

I named the pinbally global xml to: GlobalConfig__PinballY.xml you see the issue? it has 2 underscores wow do i feel stupid!

But i can confirm the side effects dont seem to be working just matrix is working.

[Carny_Priest]

Yeah, the PQ is better with Brute Force but that does you no good if it causes gameplay to stutter. I run DSR 4K, disable all AA post-processing. AO, playfield reflections, and Anisotropic Texture Filtering is enabled. VSync and max prerendered frames set to 0. Not saying every table is butter smooth but I'm doing this on a GTX 660 which is pretty old but still performing surprisingly well. I'm looking to update to 4K soon though. 

[Thalamus]

@rothbauerw : No, you've understood what dsr is and Carny explains what I'm trying to say. If you are not able to get rid of stutter using dsr and a different AA than brute force, then it is simply not a alternative for you. Upgrade your gpu is the next step I guess.

Edited by Thalamus, 17 April 2019 - 05:12 AM.

[rothbauerw]

I do find that 3x and 2.25x dsr resolutions with smoothing do provide decent quality. But I can't go back from brute force quality now that I've had it.

All tables I have installed run smoothly on there own. But apparently I have one or two that require every resource they can muster where a small amount of overhead puts them over the top.

@Thalamus curious how you got your 750 TI to handle 4x dsr (3840x2160)?

[Thalamus]

I just wasn't that anal about some jagged edges ;-) And, well, it is a reason why I bought the 1080 and went full blown 4k. It is very much, like you say. Once you get used to smooth and nice edges. You can't really go back. DSR was a god send to me back then. Might have something to do with driver versions, and other settings too. I honestly don't remember my exact setting back then. I just know it was ugly compared to what I have now

Edited by Thalamus, 17 April 2019 - 06:02 PM.

[MikePinball]

Strictly speaking this discussion should have been moved off into a separate thread and out of PinballY. Perhaps it is not too late to start a thread to explore GPU optimization settings and performance.

 

This topic on a hardware forum explains why 4x DSR is so much better than 3x or 2.25x.

[randr]

Has anyone got mame working with pby? I have mame working in pbx, popper and even working in hyperpin but in pby it does “work” but looses focus and I need to alt-tab back to mame to play the game. So if anyone has it working can you share your settings?

[jesperpark]

I have been unsuccessful with getting Mame to launch so far, I'm guessing for me it's a parameter that I'm missing. Mame usually starts, comes up to the main Mame scree, then crashes.  Works in other front ends, so any help for my problem as well would be much appreciated

[randr]

Only way it works for me is adding -rompath [tablefile]