2087 replies to this topic

[mukuste]

I fixed another memory leak, this time with shadow maps.

 

I still see some large potential leak in vpinmame.dll in the memory debugger... I can't really tell what it is before I get debug symbols for that dll. Might be a false alarm, but who knows.

[Slydog43]

are these memory leaks only in your DX9 version or also in the standard VP builds?

[BananaBoat]

Time for a new beta? Lol

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[mukuste]

are these memory leaks only in your DX9 version or also in the standard VP builds?

 

No, I'm pretty sure all of those are in mainline VP9 as well.

[Les73gTx]

are these memory leaks only in your DX9 version or also in the standard VP builds?

 
No, I'm pretty sure all of those are in mainline VP9 as well.

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I think that would explain the method of having to do the file-save then file-close then file-exit ... then restart VP for changes to reflect correctly and VP to not crash on restart of the table I was adjusting. Using the standard VP nightly builds

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[LoadedWeapon]

Thats why I add this to every table to keep it from crashing when you dont close VP and run the table again..

 

Sub Table1_Paused:Controller.Pause = 1:End Sub

Sub Table1_unPaused:Controller.Pause = 0:End Sub

Sub Table1_exit()

 

 Controller.Stop

 

End sub

[mukuste]

Download VP9_DX9_test6 here:  VP9_DX9_test6.zip   672.72KB   155 downloads
Important: instead of fullscreen mode, run in "windowed fullscreen" mode.

If you get flicker, please try disabling AA.

 

Although nothing really earth-shattering happened between Test5a and now, it seems people are clamoring for a new update. So this should be a good "quiet" time to test two changes that jimmyfingers has been wishing for a while now and which are related to depth sorting. Besides that, there are a couple of goodies to again make more tables compatible.

 

Changes since Test5:

• primitives with transparent textures should now be properly depth sorted
• depth sorting algorithm has been reverted to purely Z-based (Test3) as opposed to view vector-based (Test4 onwards). This should fix some depth sorting issues while breaking others; let's find out which version works better.
• fixed bug where EM reels were not animating (Triple Strike and many others)
• many memory leaks fixed
• textures smaller than 8x8 are now scaled up to 8x8 to work around some drivers having problems with them
• pure black gates are now invisible (Centaur)
• fixed a depth bias issue (Seawitch, probably others)
• (toxie) fixed per-table vsync
• (toxie) keyboard now works in exlusive mode; please check if this helps with the exiting problem

As usual, if you find glitches, screenshots and exact table names/versions help a lot to track them down!

 

Happy testing!

[Arcade4]

Played a bunch of tables today. The majority of them played great. 

However I still get black inserts on Scared Stiff and noticed them as well on Indy 500 and Bally Atlantis.

They are not always black and seem to have no rhyme or reason as when they will stay black.

I noticed that on Scared stiff they stay off when the machine goes to the wheel on the backbox and when a new ball is placed into the shooter lane. However once they are lit they tend to stay lit, until a new ball or the backbox is activated.

Indy 500 and Atlantis they just go black at random times and then have to wait for the machine to light them up again during a ball. Crazy.

I have turned off all FXAA and ansiotropic filtering but nothing will fix the problem.

 

Wow. I posted 1 min. after the new update post.

I will go try it out now. lol

Edited by Arcade4, 26 February 2014 - 12:57 AM.

[Arcade4]

New version did not fix my insert problem, but it does not list it as a fix anyway.

Played a game of Scared Stiff, all inserts start off as lit. but upon first shot to bony beast ramp they all go black and do not come back on until lit by completing the mode for that particular insert.

[randr]

SS seems fine on my system...running gi mod table win7.

 

Also for the pinballx black screen issue if you rename test build to vpinball.exe its fine...so its a issue with pinballx not loading visual pinball with a different name....at least on my system

 

This new build looks very good but only tested a few tables so far THANKS!

[mukuste]

New version did not fix my insert problem, but it does not list it as a fix anyway.

Played a game of Scared Stiff, all inserts start off as lit. but upon first shot to bony beast ramp they all go black and do not come back on until lit by completing the mode for that particular insert.

 

I really need the exact table version there.

[Arcade4]

Wish i could remember. it was a night version I installed on 4-27-13 but after searching on here I could not find it again.

I downloaded the newest version I could find here 1.4.4 and it works perfectly.

Guess I need to see if there is a newer Indy 500 or Atlantis out there, but probably not.

[Slydog43]

Atlantis (Bally)(1989)(Icpjuggla, Oldskoolgamer, Herweh)(1.1 Mod) has the black insert issue.

Scared Stiff GI8 (Midway)(1996)(Rosve, Bent98)(1.4.4 DOF) has some trouble with black inserts also

 

 

I can't seem to do a Print-Screen to show the effect

Edited by Slydog43, 26 February 2014 - 01:37 AM.

[Arcade4]

Atlantis (Bally)(1989)(Icpjuggla, Oldskoolgamer, Herweh)(1.1 Mod) has the black insert issue.

Scared Stiff GI8 (Midway)(1996)(Rosve, Bent98)(1.4.4 DOF) has some trouble with black inserts also

 

 

I can't seem to do a Print-Screen to show the effect

Thanks. nice to know I am not crazy.

And yes I am using the same version of Atlantis that you listed.

I am also using the GI8 light version of indy 500 as well.

Edited by Arcade4, 26 February 2014 - 01:51 AM.

[jimmyfingers]

For any tables with the black inserts problem.  This is something that is fairly easy to fix and may remain as the permanent way to resolve if my understanding is correct on the pure black of old "trick" vs. the updated way to handle texture transparency colours.  In any table for which you see the issue, it is because the author used the previous pure black (0,0,0) always transparent as a means to have the inserts of PF graphics / GI lighting not be drawn over the actual light objects doing the "real"  insert / light work.  This was more used on some of my GI8 tables but other authors also adopted it.  It can still be used and is a quick way to not have to draw playfield lighting objects around all the insert lighting.  But, what one has to do now / with the DX9 build(s) is to simply go into the image manager, select all PF GI images, and then change the transparent colour to pure black (force it to black / 0,0,0).  Unless anybody was trying to get two transparent colours at once, this will work fine and in my table I used a default green colour just out of practice but it was not used in any way as trasnparent so setting the 8 or so PF images in Scared Stiff or I500 GI8 versions to use pure black instead of green will resolve the issue.  

 

Doing this should resolve all / any table with the problem and no new problems should arise (if pure black before worked fine using the "built-in" aspect for it being transparent then it should work fine using the properly defined method in the image manager).

 

Thanks mukuste for the latest build!  It has indeed resolved several issues I encountered with primitives in a couple tables.  Still more testing needed but the first thing I checked was that and initial assessment is that primitives are better rendered now.  To my surprise the Monster Bash Creature Panel sign glitch did not return and remained as it was in the last build (some glow hidden but can be shown if the panel itself is set to solid vs. alpha).   From quick tests, the WCS '94 ramp issue is resolved and so is the Centaur alpha plastics one that I referred to with the attached screen shots in an earlier post, however, Centaur has a new one where the rollover metal graphics (ramps) are not showing but it does not seem to be solely related to the reverting of the height based only ordering calculation technique as VP9_DX9_text3 does not exhibit this new rollover missing issue and that was the last build with the same ordering technique as exists again now (you can check it out with the latest Centaur build I sent you and the various DX9 builds).  Airborne has the previous glitches fixed and the one on the right ramp is occurring because two ramps / graphics share the same height / position (that will need to be a table adjustment and likely should have been done even for the DX7 / VP92x builds as no two alphas in the same position should ever be at the same height exactly without risk of graphical glitches - I'll work on that one for the table itself and discuss with BD for a future update).  

 

Still at this early point, more fixed than broken as it seems / I would imagine and the curved transparent ramps were going to be a problem on a lot of tables with the last ordering technique.  Plus the primitives now being the part of the calculation has resolved several other issues as well.  More testing obviously still required.

Edited by jimmyfingers, 26 February 2014 - 02:12 AM.

[mukuste]

Atlantis (Bally)(1989)(Icpjuggla, Oldskoolgamer, Herweh)(1.1 Mod) has the black insert issue.

Scared Stiff GI8 (Midway)(1996)(Rosve, Bent98)(1.4.4 DOF) has some trouble with black inserts also

 

 

I can't seem to do a Print-Screen to show the effect

 

Atlantis: That table doesn't have the image transparency color set correctly. If you go through all the playfield GI textures and set their transparency to black, the issue disappears.

 

I assume that the same is true for this version of SS, but I haven't checked.

 

Print Screen might be due to the exclusive keyboard mode...

 

EDIT: Ah, JF beat me to it.

Edited by mukuste, 26 February 2014 - 02:16 AM.

[Slydog43]

Thanks Jimmyfingers, couldn't have been easier, 2 minutes both SS and atlantis inserts fixed.  Seems to play fine with 9.2.1 also.

[mukuste]

@JF:

 

The creature issue is back (lower two lights not rendered correctly), but is hugely mitigated by the other change I made in Test4, additive alpha ramps not writing to the depth buffer.

 

It's unfair to say that the other algorithm wouldn't have worked well with curved ramps since both algorithms use only a single depth value to order alpha ramps, once purely the Z-value and once a linear combination of X/Y/Z according to view position. It's not clear that one should inherently work better than the other for non-convex objects like ramps. In fact, with non-convex objects like that, it's easy to think of a configuration where no draw order would produce the correct result, not even an artist-chosen one (curved ramp which partly obscures an element, but is also partly obscured by it).

Edited by mukuste, 26 February 2014 - 02:24 AM.

[bent98]

I think from now on if we have problems with tables the person should post OS, driver version, exact table name and version, screen shot.
Also as a prerequisite lets make sure to check you are running latest version of the table.

Once we get closer To a final dx9 version it might be a good idea to create a google doc with test data on each table. This way we know which tables will need to be updated once dx9 version is launched as to Jimmy's point, there will be tables that will need slight updates.

[Arcade4]

Awesome sleuthing guys.

So glad the reason for the black inserts has been discovered.