1353 replies to this topic

[freneticamnesic]

yea it got so bad I quit

[nFozzy]

Can I have your tables

[fuzzel]

rev2854 is up:

 

- by default open file dialog to directly select and play a table (can be changed in preferences->editor options)

- fix quick exit (holding ESC) and the table info display

- fix modulate/transmit textboxes in light debugger dialog

- bugfixes

[BorgDog]

Thanks toxie and fuzzel, file open dialog on start works great, just what I was looking for.

[DJRobX]

 

-VPX still seems to be limited with frame rate of certain table objects. Or other words...the ball moves smooth, but toys look like they move at 15fps? (I always wondered why this is the case...help me out here)

 

There are a few reasons;

1) Often this is a hangover from the pre-primitive VP9 days.   Someone might upgrade an existing table with a primitive, but not necessarily re-design the script for super fluid movements.

2) Tabe author chose high timer intervals out of performance concerns.  There's a new "per frame" timer interval (-1) that may help here. 

3) Possibly table is using positions from VPM mech that doesn't send a floating point component (see #1).  I noticed this issue with the NGG wheel, for example,   That wheel moves fast enough to where it doesn't matter too much, but if I wanted to simulate a super slow wheel it wouldn't look fluid because it only returns 0-360 degrees with no decimal component.

4) Table authors aren't necessarily mathematicians and coders.    

 

If you have a specific example of a table / toy where you see "15fps" animation it might be a good exercise for us to take a look and see what it takes to improve it  

Edited by DJRobX, 03 December 2016 - 05:14 PM.

[freneticamnesic]

Primitives are scripted that's why

 

 

4) Table authors aren't necessarily mathematicians and coders.   

 

I think gtxjoe is

[bent98]

That would be good for World Cup soccer ball.

[dark]

 

 

Yes combine as many primitives into one and attach one big texture to it. I won't go so far to create a giant texture that could cause problems on gfx cards with less memory or older cards that don't support textures bigger than 4096x4096.
The rule of thumb is to combine those primitives together that belong together like one plastic primitive for the upper half of the table and one for the lower half instead of 5-10 separate plastics. And combine textures into one or more bigger textures. Don't use 5-10 primitives that use 5-10 different textures. Especially plastics, posts and screws are a good example. It's much more effective to render them with one or two render calls instead of 5-10 or more.

Yeah that's a problem though because how are you supposed to fit 10x 1024x1024 images into a 4096x4096 image so it put us back where we started.  Posts and screws are easy because they look the same, but plastics are more dynamic, they all have unique artwork and can't use the same map unless it's a map with multiple maps piled into one.  I guess you could do groupings of say 3 plastics but then we end up with more large sized images, will this really amount to a significant increase in performance even with taking a hit from using larger image sizes? (Fitting as much into 4096x4096 as you can for example.)

Well it depends on how detailed a plastic really is. Not every texture needs to be 1024x1024 especially if the plastic primitive is not that big. And yes it makes a difference if the whole table is build in that way because the gfx card can cache the important textures and hasn't to switch them.

 

I'll do my best to be mindful of this and optimise as best I can.  Thanks for the feedback.  I think my strategy will be something like trying to fit 2 larger plastics and 1 or 2 smaller plastics all in one texture map.

[fuzzel]

@dark: I sent you a PM

[Mirkin]

Hi Folks.

I've been doing some testing and have some strange results to report. All these effects are seen on the latest build but also on v10.1.

First thing is I upgraded to a i7-870 from an i5-750  because I though this mighgt help my system overall. It's bought some weird effects.

With the i7 installed the sound is awful, especially on **M tables. It repeats itself a lot and crackles. Also the ball does strange lurches usually to the right. I mean like 3-4 inches sometimes.

With the i5 back in the sound is fine on all games but sometimes the ball moves just a little bit. I have no clue why this should be but maybe it explains why people report different issues.

The flipper lag is there no matter what I do. It's very noticable. I fired up 9.91 to do a comparison and I was flipping way too quick on there. I had a friend round who plays real PB and he missed the ball nearly every shot lol.

If there is anything I should try or a setting I can change then let me know and I'll report back any more findings.

Cheers

[Thalamus]

Can you tell a bit more in detail about your installation ? Did you reinstall ? How did you end up with the current setup ?

[gtxjoe]

What table are you testing in VPX?

[Mirkin]

Hi Again

Not really sure what you're asking Thalamus. Do you want to know about VPX or my machine.

Anyway I have this set-up

Quad core I5-750 2.67 Ghz processor (or  i7-870 at 2.93Ghz) with 8GB Ram and 2GB GTX660Ti GPU. Windows 7 64 Bit. The ball is super smooth with full screen, no stutter at all, even in 4 ball multi-ball.

Do you think I should do a fresh install of VP? Seems a bit over the top.

I have been running 10.2, 10.1 and 9.91 versions of VP for testing with all the latest scripts etc.

The table i was running is star trek LE but I got some slight sound issues (and ball swerving randomly) on MM for example with the the I7 in.

I tried full screen, windowed, desktop comp on and off and various settings for V-synch but really nothing helped but putting the i5 back in.

The sound came perfect straight away.

As I said flipper lag is very bad now, no matter what I do. I get numbers between 7 and 30 mSecs when monitoring with F11.

Why is this figure not constant? or at least very close to constant? It seems to me that it should be, since it is all tied to the refresh rate (I think that's the case but I might be talking crap).

I remember there were flipper lag issues when VP9 came out around 9.12 or something like that. Is there anyway this could be related?

Cheers for now.

Edited by Mirkin, 04 December 2016 - 08:24 PM.

[Drybonz]

Is the hold esc (or Q) thing still supposed to happen in the new beta?

 

Also... mostly a question for DJRobX regarding the "keep the playfield on top in fullscreen" fix... is it possible to have the VPM options and switches options, etc appear on top of the playfield in fullscreen as well?  The problem I run into is that when I bring up the VPM options (or get an error dialog... anything like that) the dialog box is trapped behind the fullscreen playfield and I can't alt tab to it, so I have to force close VP.

Edited by Drybonz, 04 December 2016 - 08:43 PM.

[Thalamus]

For issues related to that table - I would take my question over to another forum.

[Shockman]

There's nothing wrong with having the folder open automatically, but even understanding it can be turned off, can't understand it. If anything, I think the last table worked on or played should pop up instead, and preferably running in the player, not in the editor. Assuming the new existing feature is more player oriented than for authoring. 

 

I think VPM recreation is in a way a tight strait jacket around the potential of VP. I'm not saying it (real world recreation) is not a great thing, or that VP is not capable of true originals. I'm just saying it seems to have forbidden truly great things like a built on runtime, where original works could be distributed to those that can't be bothered to build and maintain a VP program. Not to mention (till this edit), having to match files with editor versions. You really shouldn't need to ever have to worry about a work becoming obsolete because you upgraded the program you built that one with, or have to keep every revision either.

Edited by Shockman, 05 December 2016 - 05:17 AM.

[Shockman]

Also, what is the reason for Esc and then Q to exit?

[Mirkin]

For issues related to that table - I would take my question over to another forum.

As I explained at length it's not just that table it's everything.

[toxie]

Is the hold esc (or Q) thing still supposed to happen in the new beta?

 

Yes. Doesn't it work anymore for you?

 

2) Tabe author chose high timer intervals out of performance concerns.  There's a new "per frame" timer interval (-1) that may help here. 

 

Just a note on that one: If you use this, then you HAVE to also use GameTime to get the time in the script, so that you know how much time has passed since the last callback/frame.

Otherwise users will get different animation speeds, depending if they run a table at for example at 60FPS, 120FPS, 144 FPS or in general "X" FPS.

This is of course not an issue if you directly get a position for a toy from VPM.

Edited by toxie, 05 December 2016 - 07:36 AM.

[Thalamus]

 

For issues related to that table - I would take my question over to another forum.

As I explained at length it's not just that table it's everything.

 

 

Still. You are using upstream code that is maintained over at the other site. You say that old and new VP is working on i5, but, not on i7 where you have problems with PM5, VP9 and VPX - right ? If that is so, then if it is software related then it means the problems need to be in a common component.

 

Have you tried only running the official build ? I understand that it might sound stupid to have to test this, but, there has been many changes in almost all components of VP and VPM lately, so, a baseline test would help both you and probably also the devs.

 

Rename your main vp folder to "xxxx" - reinstall with offical, use same paths as before. Copy over one table + rom and test.