97 replies to this topic

[nFozzy]

File Name: Space Station (Williams 1987)

File Submitter: nFozzy

File Submitted: 18 Mar 2017

File Category: VPX/VPinMAME Recreations

Author(s): Based on Hmueck's VP9 table
SFX by Knorr and Clark Kent
Manufacturer: Williams
Year: 1987
ROM: Link to ROM
Permission to MOD?: Unspecified

Space Station (Williams 1987)
 
Rebuilt from scratch for VP10.2.1. See top of the script for Single Screen Full-Screen support and graphics options for weaker systems.
 
Press R to bring up the rules in-game

Click here to download this file

[in2kiss]

Absolutely beautiful game!

 

I am getting some momentary screen stutter when the ball hits the slingshots and ball locks (but not everytime). I have played with the performance options in the script and it doesnt help much. Beyond these 2 instances I notice absolutely no performance issues at all. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can adjust to eliminate this?

Edited by in2kiss, 25 March 2017 - 05:30 PM.

[Mark70]

Absolutely beautiful game!

 

I am getting some momentary screen stutter when the ball hits the slingshots and ball locks (but not everytime). I have played with the performance options in the script and it doesnt help much. Beyond these 2 instances I notice absolutely no performance issues at all. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can adjust to eliminate this?

it should help when you disable playfield reflection 

[nFozzy]

Turning off highgraphics and VPXdisplay should help, but also try adding this to like 869:

        FlashMin(x) = 0.0001

That will prevent the flashers from ever going away, so hopefully they won't stutter when they load back in.

[in2kiss]

Turning off highgraphics and VPXdisplay should help, but also try adding this to like 869:

        FlashMin(x) = 0.0001

That will prevent the flashers from ever going away, so hopefully they won't stutter when they load back in.

Adding that line eliminated the stutter completely.. Thanks so much for this table. It plays as good as it looks!

[zorb34]

Wonderful table but I have an issue I can't resolve, any thoughts would be appreciated. My setup is desktop mode with PinMame set to double-sized DMD by default. As I use PinballX as a front-end, I can usually adjust the DMD by highlighting it, right-clicking and adjusting the double-sized setting for individual tables that need normal size.

However not with this table and my DMD text is not fitting, over-writing the table graphics big-time?

[in2kiss]

 

Turning off highgraphics and VPXdisplay should help, but also try adding this to like 869:

        FlashMin(x) = 0.0001

That will prevent the flashers from ever going away, so hopefully they won't stutter when they load back in.

Adding that line eliminated the stutter completely.. Thanks so much for this table. It plays as good as it looks!

 

Well, I have another issue. The first game played after launch plays perfectly. No performance issues at all. But subsequent games after the first, I get major stutter...even when flashers are not firing. Never saw anything like that before.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Damn, I thought I was hope free after adding that additional line to the script.    

[in2kiss]

 

 

Turning off highgraphics and VPXdisplay should help, but also try adding this to like 869:

        FlashMin(x) = 0.0001

That will prevent the flashers from ever going away, so hopefully they won't stutter when they load back in.

Adding that line eliminated the stutter completely.. Thanks so much for this table. It plays as good as it looks!

 

Well, I have another issue. The first game played after launch plays perfectly. No performance issues at all. But subsequent games after the first, I get major stutter...even when flashers are not firing. Never saw anything like that before.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Damn, I thought I was hope free after adding that additional line to the script.    

 

Anyone?

[vogliadicane]

Totally love this table especially your work on illumination is fantastic, thanks a lot.

 

Quite wicked table btw, didn't know there were some with the flippers directly at the slingshots (no inlane between) still in the 80s. And the bonus ball for 45 seconds is totally wicked. Is there a way to keep it permanently or is it limited to 45 seconds?

 

Lot of fun with this one!

Edited by vogliadicane, 26 March 2017 - 07:32 PM.

[lodger]

seriously impressive! very realistic feel to it!

[ganjafarmer]

Well, I have another issue. The first game played after launch plays perfectly. No performance issues at all. But subsequent games after the first, I get major stutter...even when flashers are not firing. Never saw anything like that before.

 

 

I have same issue, with first ball game is smooth, after draining 1st ball stutter starts and never ends until i restart the game. Very strange.

[in2kiss]

 

Well, I have another issue. The first game played after launch plays perfectly. No performance issues at all. But subsequent games after the first, I get major stutter...even when flashers are not firing. Never saw anything like that before.

 

 

I have same issue, with first ball game is smooth, after draining 1st ball stutter starts and never ends until i restart the game. Very strange.

 

Exactly. I play one game, plays smooth as silk and immediately after starting another game it stutters like crazy. Glad I'm not the only one seeing this. 

Edited by in2kiss, 26 March 2017 - 11:04 PM.

[in2kiss]

 

 

Well, I have another issue. The first game played after launch plays perfectly. No performance issues at all. But subsequent games after the first, I get major stutter...even when flashers are not firing. Never saw anything like that before.

 

 

I have same issue, with first ball game is smooth, after draining 1st ball stutter starts and never ends until i restart the game. Very strange.

 

Exactly. I play one game, plays smooth as silk and immediately after starting another game it stutters like crazy. Glad I'm not the only one seeing this. 

 

 

nFozzy, Any thoughts on my issue above? Thanks in advance.

[gtxjoe]

If a single monitor set up, make sure directb2s is disabled in pref-> keys

[in2kiss]

If a single monitor set up, make sure directb2s is disabled in pref-> keys

 

I'm running a cab with b2s enabled. I've tried running it with a different b2s file to see if that makes a difference. I also have high graphic VPXdisplay and ball reflection all turned off. It jus so weird that the first game plays with no problems whatsoever is when subsequent games are played the severe stuttering takes place. Ganjafarmer sees the same issue... I'm thinking its got to be something in the script.

[gtxjoe]

Press F11 and see if number of faces or draw calls is increasing over time. It might help find a sw bug

[nFozzy]

Press F11 and see if number of faces or draw calls is increasing over time. It might help find a sw bug

I mean, do you see anything weird? Draw calls are like < 140 with the display off. There's not much going on the script. You could try messing with the lamp timer interval but I don't think that will help. Aside from the script, you can set nearly all non-moving objects to static rendered with no visual changes because this table uses no transmit lights.

 

It's just a memory intensive table (especially for the lights, it's flashers images all the way down). Optimization was a priority because the beta Space Station was the laggiest table released at the time, I got this one up to 446FPS which is double the FPS of most tables. So responses like this were kind of a shock. That's the importance of feedback though, I developed and tested everything on a GTX970 and wasn't thinking of older machines with less video ram.

 

In the future I'll probably release two flavors of tables, one with selectively smaller light images that hopefully will look very similar, but with less memory usage.

[ganjafarmer]

3D Mark 11:

My Radeon R7: 3153 score

Your GTX 970: 13000 score

 

I need real gfx card

 

But seriously i can tell you that my setup is on the edge for VPX, some tables will never run smooth for me.

For now i can play tables like Diner, Robocop, AFM, Judge Dredd and got 60FPS no stutter at all, when it comes to tables like Medieval Madness or TOM it is too much for poor R7 build inside poor APU and game is unplayable

 

Space station Fullscreen: 31 fps max, Windowed fullscreen: 42 fps max which is weird - all other tables gives better fps with forced Full screen, not windowed.

 

I need some similar Nvidia and AMD gfx cards to compare it with my setup. I'll go for RX 460 and 750ti maybe. We'll see, i'll let you know.

[in2kiss]

 

Press F11 and see if number of faces or draw calls is increasing over time. It might help find a sw bug

I mean, do you see anything weird? Draw calls are like < 140 with the display off. There's not much going on the script. You could try messing with the lamp timer interval but I don't think that will help. Aside from the script, you can set nearly all non-moving objects to static rendered with no visual changes because this table uses no transmit lights.

 

It's just a memory intensive table (especially for the lights, it's flashers images all the way down). Optimization was a priority because the beta Space Station was the laggiest table released at the time, I got this one up to 446FPS which is double the FPS of most tables. So responses like this were kind of a shock. That's the importance of feedback though, I developed and tested everything on a GTX970 and wasn't thinking of older machines with less video ram.

 

In the future I'll probably release two flavors of tables, one with selectively smaller light images that hopefully will look very similar, but with less memory usage.

 

 

If my hardware was the issue, every game should stutter. I just don't get why it acts up on subsequent plays. I understand the game is a resource intensive table but the first game after startup plays perfectly on my setup everytime. Even when multiball starts and the lights are going bezerk, I see no ill affects whatsoever. So weird.   

[nFozzy]

The lighting works a bit differently on this table. Every light has some bitmap attached to it. The advantage is that you can potentially get better control of the light, and you can combine multiple lights together to reduce draw calls (in this case, like 50 individual GI lights are combined into just a handful of objects). But the images can take up more memory.