834 replies to this topic

[BananaBoat]

Guys just wanted to talk about flipper response/lag.

I've found that if I play a real machine for say 30minutes, then load up the same table on the virtual (can be any table, some are worse than others but they all do this) there is a huge difference in flipper responsiveness.

VP seems to have a real delay from when the switch is triggered to the actual flipper responding. Is there any way to measure this response time in the new VP10? Some kind of timer to measure this and prove it?

It's actually quite obvious when you do what I've descriped and am wondering if anyone else has experienced this, or is specific to me?

[unclewilly]

I dont really see any lag on my cab. When i push the flipper on my cab. The flippers respond on vp. i thought there may have been a thread on flipper lag somewhere

[BananaBoat]

Mine seems to react normally when played in isolation. And if you're only playing a virtual machine the mind will compensate and you won't know the difference.
Compare to a real machine then it becomes obvious.

Is there some way response times can be measured?

[unclewilly]

Im not sure.
when i play my black pyramid which is sitting next to my vpin. They respond the same. Maybe a slight hardly noticable lag on my vpin

[gtxjoe]

On rom tables usually the flipper button sets a rom switch and which cause the rom solenoid to fire which triggers the VP flipper rotate.  This is done so when game is not in play, the flippers do nothing (they are rom controlled). Some authors rotate the flipper directly in the keydown sub to eliminate the lag, but then you have to deal with flippers working when game is over or tilted.

 

For grins I tried it both ways, it seems rom control adds .01 to .03 sec delay.  It doesn't take into account the time from hitting the actual flipper button to the event in the keydown sub.  I don't really notice any lag there... but I don't know how to measure that either

Edited by gtxjoe, 27 January 2015 - 04:06 AM.

[Shockman]

Just for the sake of argument say the lag is one second. A routine to measure it would take one second to report no lag.

 

Maybe a super high speed camera played back super slow. 

[DedRok_V]

Re: flipper staging, it would be nice to be able to do this , by either script or from VP10, but it would need to be done by the adding of the extra flipper switch to enable proper staging.
Being able to set a 2nd set of flippers in "keys"
(left flipper 1, left flipper 2 , etc).

Just setting scripting to time a difference just wouldn't feel right.


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[gtxjoe]

agreed, you would lose the ability to do quick flipper taps on the lower flipper

[BananaBoat]

Im not sure.
when i play my black pyramid which is sitting next to my vpin. They respond the same. Maybe a slight hardly noticable lag on my vpin

Hmm, needs to be explored. Is this perhaps a physmod5 issue as that's all I play.

[toxie]

Guys just wanted to talk about flipper response/lag.

I've found that if I play a real machine for say 30minutes, then load up the same table on the virtual (can be any table, some are worse than others but they all do this) there is a huge difference in flipper responsiveness.

VP seems to have a real delay from when the switch is triggered to the actual flipper responding. Is there any way to measure this response time in the new VP10? Some kind of timer to measure this and prove it?

It's actually quite obvious when you do what I've descriped and am wondering if anyone else has experienced this, or is specific to me?

 

First of all make sure that its actually not just your TV (or TV settings). You can do this f.e. by connecting a laptop to it and outputting time (incl. milliseconds) on both screens and taking a photo.

Given that the laptop display doesn't have too much lag itself, that gives you a good estimate. Even better is connecting an old analog TV or CRT monitor and the new TV at the same time.

 

Then you can also do a video of you pressing the button and the flipper responding to get the overall delay (requires that your cam can do a decent framerate).

[chepas]

Another "weird & lazy" request.

 

Can we get a rotate option for a plunger? Think Yagov kickback in F-14, I have one in Evil Dead and would be nice to see the animation from the solenoid.

 

Seeing as the animation is already there for plunger pullback & fire it makes sense to me to use that rather than scripting my own! Also its "hacked in" by use of a kicker and it's not 100% like a kickback from the current plungers are.

Edited by chepas, 27 January 2015 - 02:22 PM.

[Noah Fentz]

I guess it depends on the input device, but the main issue here when feeling flipper lag is the flipper speed itself. Most times, they are too slow in relation to true flipper speeds. This can be rectified by increasing the flipper speed and decreasing the power.

I've 'fixed' games like this many times right in front of people demo'ing VirtuaPins at shows, and it makes a world of difference.

[uptaker]

I was having that flipper lag issue in my TV setup. 

After trying with only my monitor connected, I noticed that I had no lag

Found later on that it was my LG TV causing this lag in response to any events happening in the computer (like pressing a button or moving the mouse)

 

I got rid of the problem be setting my TV to "Game mode" which cuts most of the filter that cause lag, and also connecting a DVI-HDMI cable to my GPU DVI Output.

Connecting a regular HDMI cable to the gpu HDMI output, seems to cause a little bit more lag.

[aggies11]

Guys just wanted to talk about flipper response/lag.

I've found that if I play a real machine for say 30minutes, then load up the same table on the virtual (can be any table, some are worse than others but they all do this) there is a huge difference in flipper responsiveness.

VP seems to have a real delay from when the switch is triggered to the actual flipper responding. Is there any way to measure this response time in the new VP10? Some kind of timer to measure this and prove it?

It's actually quite obvious when you do what I've descriped and am wondering if anyone else has experienced this, or is specific to me?

 

As many have mentioned, there are a lot of potential factors in this (some hardware, some software) From input hardware, Display Latency, to how the Software itself process the input.

 

One thing that might be worth checking is a post that JimmyFingers made a few months back, that I found quite interesting:  http://www.vpforums....showtopic=29207

 

Basically a way to measure Input and USB latency for Keyboard/mouse.  Allowed me to see how crappy a job my keyboard/mouse setup was (for Desktop play), both in terms of response time, but also in terms of fidelity (on my setup I couldn't hold a key down for less than 80ms or so).  Considering the variety in Virtual Pin machine hardware, it might be of some use.

 

(Ended up switching to game controller for input, which has a hardware/software stack latency of about 1-2ms, which was immediately noticable). Now many of the new Physmod5 flipper settings actually make a difference on my setup (although still not perfect), eg. A coil ramp up time of 3.2 (32ms) wasn't very useful if the shortest keypress my system reports is almost more than 40ms.

[kruge99]

Another "weird & lazy" request.

 

Can we get a rotate option for a plunger? Think Yagov kickback in F-14, I have one in Evil Dead and would be nice to see the animation from the solenoid.

 

Seeing as the animation is already there for plunger pullback & fire it makes sense to me to use that rather than scripting my own! Also its "hacked in" by use of a kicker and it's not 100% like a kickback from the current plungers are.

 

I could be wrong but plunger "animation" based on an emreel can't be easily rotated.  There are several elements that all require adjustment such as the image/s need to be extracted from the image manager, rotated to the desired orientation, also the script needs to be modified... so I'm guessing not an option?

 

Best Regards,

Todd.

[chepas]

Oh, I see. Seeing as it can already make contact with the ball it would've been nice to just rotate it and shove in front of a solenoid model from FP.

[The Loafer]

I was having that flipper lag issue in my TV setup. 
After trying with only my monitor connected, I noticed that I had no lag
Found later on that it was my LG TV causing this lag in response to any events happening in the computer (like pressing a button or moving the mouse)
 
I got rid of the problem be setting my TV to "Game mode" which cuts most of the filter that cause lag, and also connecting a DVI-HDMI cable to my GPU DVI Output.
Connecting a regular HDMI cable to the gpu HDMI output, seems to cause a little bit more lag.

I have an LG tv, I will have to check dvi instead of hdmi to see if it helps.

Noah: there are a few tables where I often wonder if the flipper speed isn't too slow. I am going to have to ponder on this, but changing the flipper speed, do you find it can have adverse effects on some of the shots? I suspect this may be a non issue with Physmod tables because there's more physics behind the shots, but I wonder...

[freneticamnesic]

 

I was having that flipper lag issue in my TV setup. 
After trying with only my monitor connected, I noticed that I had no lag
Found later on that it was my LG TV causing this lag in response to any events happening in the computer (like pressing a button or moving the mouse)
 
I got rid of the problem be setting my TV to "Game mode" which cuts most of the filter that cause lag, and also connecting a DVI-HDMI cable to my GPU DVI Output.
Connecting a regular HDMI cable to the gpu HDMI output, seems to cause a little bit more lag.

I have an LG tv, I will have to check dvi instead of hdmi to see if it helps.

Noah: there are a few tables where I often wonder if the flipper speed isn't too slow. I am going to have to ponder on this, but changing the flipper speed, do you find it can have adverse effects on some of the shots? I suspect this may be a non issue with Physmod tables because there's more physics behind the shots, but I wonder...

 

 

While flipper speed and strength aren't 1:1, you can generally counteract the increase in flipper speed with a decrease in power as Noah mentioned. Similar to a clutch and a gas pedal I guess... one goes up, one goes down, then you stall and you're stuck in the sunset tunnel going uphill during rush hour and your girlfriend decides she's better off walking with that guy who kind of looks like john stamos if you squint

[The Loafer]

That would suck for sure Fren!

[StevOz]

Flipper setting are all a bit of a balancing act, the higher the flipper speed the greater the Oblique Correction value needed to correct centre shots, though go to high with these values and you will get strange back flip results. The era of the machine is also a consideration, newer machines tend to have faster flippers and visa versa.

Edited by StevOz, 27 January 2015 - 11:53 PM.