2087 replies to this topic

[CJS]

OK, I'm only a relative noob to VP (18 months in after first downloading VP as I wanted to play joker poker again, hehe) but I must say, what a fascinating thread ! I hope everyone can laugh about these disagreements as in the end, this is only Virtual Pinball. As we say where I'm from, 'it's not like we're playing for sheep stations' Let's keep a bit of perspective on the whole thing. It's never nice to see anyone jumped on in a community, feedback of all kinds should be respectfully and objectively considered instead of just piling on, and that seems to be what has happened here. it's much harder to step back and objectively analyse if you can't see through the murk at frst glance. Forum interactions are very one-dimensional, there isn't the advantage of inflections of speech, tone, or facial expressions to give clues to intent. And not everyone likes smileys right This is why feedback should be viewed and treated as dispassionately as possible. To me this seems to be a rather big, unfortunate storm in a teacup.

Jimmyfingers, I have always enjoyed your work and feel you as well as anyone else in the community has the right to an opinion on the road to DX9. I think in this instance many people have simply piled on. I hope this does not discourage you from continuing your excellent work to date in VP.

I work in government web based app development and I see just this kind of thing all too often in my line of work between devs and testers. it' very common! but as long as everyone keeps their eyes on the prize and doesn't take anything too personally, we're golden.

I'd also lke to add that being a jaded 47 year-old gamer who pretty much lived in Arcades in the Golden Era (81-83) and developed a life-long obsession with video games, that VP has been a breath of fresh air for me and I thank you all from the bottom of my pixelised heart.

[mukuste]

CJS: That was a good post, and thanks for the perspective. I always try to take online interactions as dispassionately as possible, but being in the singular position I have been for the last few weeks on this project did create some pressure, and things do pile up. I want to take the opportunity now when heads are hopefully a bit cooler to say a couple words.

 

To JF: Just to be clear, it was neither the content of your post nor any particular expression you might have used, but only the general tone of it which somewhat grated on me. If you can reread it and realize why that might be the case, then I think something has been gained for future interactions. I hope we can put any differences behind us as we have in the past and again work together in the future to create the best possible virtual pinball experience possible.

 

To everybody: I want to make it clear that this whole story was far from the only or even the most important reason in my decision to take a break, just the tipping point. So no angry mobs, ok? I was just genuinely getting burned out on the day-to-day troubleshooting and fixing of minor table issues that I have been doing for weeks now; at some point it just begins to feel like you are treading water or moving in circles. And as I mentioned, being the singular "point of attack" takes its toll. So I'll stay behind the scenes for a while, but will keep hanging around on the forum and working on that other thing. You haven't heard the last of me

[MrBungle]

This thread started on January the 24th 2014,

 

Can anybody tell me if there has ever been a bigger change in any Port of software application in a two month period?

 

For those who might complain of the realistic appearance or motion issues on tables I have found the solution. There are these things called Pinball machines and they have this solid Chrome coloured ball that rolls around inside them.

[Sunskift]

The new DX9 version works here perfectly. This in response to the other post which states that it does not work.

I've done some more testing using a fresh VP9 DX9 rev977 downloaded agian. Seems like I can run tables with no rom just fine. As soon as I try a table with VPM, and in my case dB2S backglass, VP crash as soon as i launch the table. Error message "VPinball 9.9.0 has stopped working". I'm running as admin. All parameters are the same as I've been using for all the previous dx9 tests. I was one of them that had problems with the first releases of 9.2.1 however failing in another way (protected memory) so I'm not sure it's related.

I just would like to add that I'm really greatful for all the development efforts done for VP in general, and that the development demonstrated for the dx9 just blows my mind. This includes everyone from core programmers, quality assurance and testers.

[fuzzel]

And another update rev978. Since this revision VP9 DX9 uses it's own registry subfolder so it won't interfere with the DX7 settings anymore. Settings are stored in the registry here:

Compute\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Pinball\DX9

 

If you use this revision you have to set your settings again.

 

 

Attached Files

•  VPinball-DX9-rev978.zip   699.21KB   154 downloads

[unclewilly]

Thanks fuzzel.

Will start testing tonight.
Appreciate it.

It's killing me thinking about the possibilities of what your secret project is.

Really looking forward to it

[Sunskift]

Thanks fuzzel, now it works!
The problem was probable that I renamed the .exe to VPinball.exe as I usually do.
I didn't go back to the .977 and verify but anyway, the .978 is now fully operational and seems to doing just great!

Just out of curiosity, is there a change log or anything in particular you would like us to look out for in this new trial?

[fuzzel]

There aren't that much changes on rev 977/978 so the only reason for releasing this test version is just the dx7 conversion of the color key stuff and the registry change.

[lio]

Just wanted to drop a word of "thanks" again - amazing to see what has been achieved in the last couple of weeks (or has it been months again already?).

Anyways, I sucked up all the dev posts in this thread and just wanted to say thanks for the continous progress and the reports that came along with it!

[JMG]

i can only agree with lio above, your work here is truly amazing. i tried the test 13 version today on my cab and experienced only minor issues on a couple of more than 70 tables. really really great job and thank you so much for your work

[DJRobX]

 I was just genuinely getting burned out on the day-to-day troubleshooting and fixing of minor table issues that I have been doing for weeks now; at some point it just begins to feel like you are treading water or moving in circles.

 

I got the sense this was coming, even before JF's comments.   That's what prompted me to jump in and start helping at the code level.   This too, is a normal part of a development process.   I think the rest of us can carry the torch the rest of the way to to finish line (be it fixes to VP, or adjustments to tables to overcome the remaining compatibility issues).    

 

Thank you so much for your excellent work here and I look forward to seeing what other great things you come up with.   

[MrBungle]

I only wish I had the skills to help, but alas I am just a mug sitting on the sidelines watching this great invention develop.

 

I take my hat off to the people who can make these things happen. You are all incredible.

[ClarkKent]

The distortions in Roadshow are really gone now! GREAT!

 

But the upper part of the side walls of the plastic ramps in Bad Cats are totally gone now. Somehow invisible. How to fix this?

[fuzzel]

Gonna check it this evening. I guess this is just a simple copy and paste error.

[skinooe]

Hi mukuste,

really great thanks what you have done to bring VP forward. But always thing, that what are you doing here is a hobby. YOU always should have fun. No pressure should change your funny hobby feeling.  It's the only right way you have done. I hope, in near future, you get back your power and fun with VP development.  I don't understand, why some people make so pressure. What in so short time you changed in VP.exe is realy unbelievable. I hope in near future you get the power back to suppurt as gray eminenz. That would not need so much heavy hurted soul. My best wishes to you and the whole VP dev. team.

[BananaBoat]

Guys
Not sure if the half dissapearing ball in the cup issue has been addressed, but I have noticed that in the latest Barracora release, this issue does not happen. Might need to look to that table for some hints at how to fix, if it hasn't been resolved already.
Thanks

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk

[slashbot]

It should be better for the devs to put the code to google project page.
https://code.google....projecthosting/

People who have issues with new dx builds can submit tickets with detailed information about the issue and devs can then work on these problems and close them if solved.
It should be a more relaxed way to work for the devs.

Its just an idea from me and i think its a big step forward?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[AaronShupp]

Unless we want to see Google Pinball three months from now, I'd stick to GitHub.

 

 

Modification of tables is a touchy subject.  Some authors are fine, some are not, some require permission.   Probably doesn't make sense to release mods when the underlying issues might improve with later builds.   Good example of that is the Monopoly light board - in test12 it required a mod, in test13 it works out of the box. 

 

 

I agree but I do think once we have a final DX9 release the effected tables should be released with the fixes, officially on the site.

 

I know we don't acknowledge anything that comes from the other side of the web here. But this is a perfect opportunity to introduce VP table patching. The DX mods can be distributed w/o the original source table as a diff file, then the end user merges the two together.

[DJRobX]

People who have issues with new dx builds can submit tickets with detailed information about the issue and devs can then work on these problems and close them if solved.
It should be a more relaxed way to work for the devs.

 

Sourceforge where the VP source lives currently has a bug tracker as well.  

 

https://sourceforge..../vpinball/bugs/

 

It's more a matter of getting people to use it.   I do think it would be a lot easier to track and discuss bugs in one place that way.    However, I think GTXJoe's spreadsheet should continue to be used for reporting table compatibility problems.     It would be better if only items that are determined to need fixing at the VP level be kept in the bug tracker.   

 

People are of course welcome to report anything via the bug tracker, but the end result needs to be a prioritizable list of things that the VP devs should work on.  The more we can keep that focused on coding issues the better.

Edited by DJRobX, 31 March 2014 - 05:43 PM.

[fuzzel]

The distortions in Roadshow are really gone now! GREAT!

 

But the upper part of the side walls of the plastic ramps in Bad Cats are totally gone now. Somehow invisible. How to fix this?

Bug is fixed with rev980. However Bad Cats has a drawing order problem on the lower end of the right ramp. The Wall302 must be drawn first and then Ramp2224 and Ramp 2219.

I won't post this revision here now, I want to collect and fix some more findings/bugs first.