951 replies to this topic

[hauntfreaks]

some of us, well alot of us are stuck running WIN7, if you know what i mean

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600

[Sam66]

Really well done piece of software, much better than many so called professional (paid) setup/config programs I have used.

Only very slight issue I had was it showed exclamation warnings on some pins saying they were assigned to multiple functions even though I had set TLC and 74HC chips to zero. I double checked the settings after programming and the warnings were still showing.
Meant to say: Tested on Win10 with MS Edge

[mjr]

 

some of us, well alot of us are stuck running WIN7, if you know what i mean

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600

 

 

Win7 is perfectly happy running modern IE versions, isn't it?  That's what I've got on my cab.

Really well done piece of software, much better than many so called professional (paid) setup/config programs I have used.

Only very slight issue I had was it showed exclamation warnings on some pins saying they were assigned to multiple functions even though I had set TLC and 74HC chips to zero. I double checked the settings after programming and the warnings were still showing.
Meant to say: Tested on Win10 with MS Edge

 

Could you post a capture of your whole setup screen?  Ideally a PDF printout of the whole thing so I can see all of the pin assignments and other settings - you might be able to do that by clicking the file/disk icon and selecting Print, then use a PDF capture utility if you have one.  If not a screen capture might work, or if you could just give me the full messages you get when you click each exclamation icon - that would at least tell me which pins it thinks are in conflict and why.

[Sam66]

 

 

Could you post a capture of your whole setup screen?  Ideally a PDF printout of the whole thing so I can see all of the pin assignments and other settings - you might be able to do that by clicking the file/disk icon and selecting Print, then use a PDF capture utility if you have one.  If not a screen capture might work, or if you could just give me the full messages you get when you click each exclamation icon - that would at least tell me which pins it thinks are in conflict and why.

Not near my cab at the moment but setup was default apart from the following:

 

Inputs added

B25 PTE0

B26 PTC11

B27 PTC10

B28 PTC6

 

LedWiz port Nos removed

19-22

 

PTE23 calibration LED disabled

 

The warnings were all conflicts with TLC and 74HC assignments (along with inputs or outputs I can't remember which) mostly the TLC chip I think.  I'll get a screenshot to you tomorrow if it will help. 

[mjr]

 

 

 

Could you post a capture of your whole setup screen?  Ideally a PDF printout of the whole thing so I can see all of the pin assignments and other settings - you might be able to do that by clicking the file/disk icon and selecting Print, then use a PDF capture utility if you have one.  If not a screen capture might work, or if you could just give me the full messages you get when you click each exclamation icon - that would at least tell me which pins it thinks are in conflict and why.

Not near my cab at the moment but setup was default apart from the following:

 

Inputs added

B25 PTE0

B26 PTC11

B27 PTC10

B28 PTC6

 

LedWiz port Nos removed

19-22

 

PTE23 calibration LED disabled

 

The warnings were all conflicts with TLC and 74HC assignments (along with inputs or outputs I can't remember which) mostly the TLC chip I think.  I'll get a screenshot to you tomorrow if it will help. 

 

I took a look and I think I see what's going on.  I just uploaded an update - if you run the tool and check the "auto downloads" section, it should download the updated tool automatically.  Once you see it show up there, quit and relaunch, and it should apply the update immediately.  Let me know if it helps.

[sliderpoint]

So, another thing that I'm newly seeing is the plunger responsiveness is very slow in VP, seems to lag a bit and if released quickly it is slow to return and doesn't impact the ball with much force. Found it to be the same in PFX2 and game controllers as well.

 

When I open the plunger sensor view and the setting is selected for Full resolution, it is slow to keep up with the actual plunger.  It lags and skips when going back and forth. It is also slow in returning to the park position on the screen. If I click on Low resolution, it is very fast and super responsive.  

 

I don't think I can save it to use the low resolution, right? did something get flipped?

 

-Mike

[Sam66]

 

 

I took a look and I think I see what's going on.  I just uploaded an update

 

All spurious conflict warnings now gone.  Thanks

[mjr]

So, another thing that I'm newly seeing is the plunger responsiveness is very slow in VP, seems to lag a bit and if released quickly it is slow to return and doesn't impact the ball with much force. Found it to be the same in PFX2 and game controllers as well.

 

When I open the plunger sensor view and the setting is selected for Full resolution, it is slow to keep up with the actual plunger.  It lags and skips when going back and forth. It is also slow in returning to the park position on the screen. If I click on Low resolution, it is very fast and super responsive.  

 

I don't think I can save it to use the low resolution, right? did something get flipped?

 

The "high res" and "low res" options in the plunger viewer only affect the viewer.  They don't affect regular play.  The speed difference is entirely due to the USB data transmission time to send all of the pixel data to the PC.  That only happens when you're using the viewer.  During regular play, everything is processed on the microcontroller and never goes across the USB wire.

 

Low res mode in the pixel viewer is actually much slower than reports during actual play.  In low res mode, you get about 30 frames of pixels per second.  In real play, you get about 100 position reports per second.

 

Have you run the calibration procedure in the config tool?  That's needed to get the bounds right, which is critical to VP getting the correct inputs to calculate the release motion correctly.

 

I took a look and I think I see what's going on.  I just uploaded an update

 

All spurious conflict warnings now gone.  Thanks

 

Great! 

[sliderpoint]

Yes,  I ran through the calibration.  It didn't seem to change anything. 

Here is a quick vid of what I'm seeing:

 

https://youtu.be/WRmqa6u4cxQ

[mjr]

Yes,  I ran through the calibration.  It didn't seem to change anything. 

Here is a quick vid of what I'm seeing:

 

https://youtu.be/WRmqa6u4cxQ

 

I want to re-emphasize that what you're seeing in the viewer window has absolutely nothing to do with speed in game play.  The viewer is slow because it's transmitting all of the pixel data across the USB wire to the PC, which takes about 100ms (1/10 of a second) for every single frame in high-res mode.  That doesn't happen during game play.  Low-res mode is there to let you get a more accurate impression of the pixel view when moving the plunger quickly, but even that is much slower than regular play, because in regular play, there's no pixel data transmission to the PC at all.  During normal play, pixels are processed on the microcontroller and never go across the USB wire.

 

Just out of curiosity, have you tried this WITHOUT the pixel viewer running at all?  I mean: entirely close the setup application before running VP.  In your video, you left the pixel viewer running.  That will continue to do all of that pixel data transfer in the background, which will continue to saturate the USB connection and reduce the overall speed of the device to about 10 readings per second.

[sliderpoint]

Yes, I understand the viewer is not related to actual performance of the plunger.  I was just showing it as a reference for how it was responding in game (or game controller properties) previously.  The viewer was only running for the purpose of the video.  I don't having running all the time.  The slow response that is shown on the twilight zone table is what I get all the time with nothing else running.

 

-Mike

[mjr]

Yes, I understand the viewer is not related to actual performance of the plunger.  I was just showing it as a reference for how it was responding in game (or game controller properties) previously.  The viewer was only running for the purpose of the video.  I don't having running all the time.  The slow response that is shown on the twilight zone table is what I get all the time with nothing else running.

 

A couple of tests that you can try:

 

First, what does it look like in the Windows "Set up USB game controllers" control panel?  (Type "set up USB game controllers" into the Start menu search box, then double-click Pinscape Controller in the list.)  The Z axis is the plunger.  Does it look similarly laggy there?

 

Second, try creating a brand new table in VP.  Click on the plunger object and bring up the Options panel, and make sure "Enable mechanical plunger" is checked.  Run it and see what that plunger does.  

Edited by mjr, 09 May 2016 - 09:35 PM.

[sliderpoint]

Yes, it is the same laggy behavior in game controllers. Maybe not quite as apparent since it's a smaller window to look at, but still noticeable.

 

It's similar on a "new" VP table, but not as exaggerated as in the TZ table.  But it is in all the tables.

 

-Mike

[hauntfreaks]

so I did a few workarounds to get IE11 installed in my version of win7

now the settings menu works fine, one other thing I noticed is any USB connection problems I had are gone

and I see the same thing sliderpoint is seeing with the delay in the plunger on all the tables.... no biggie to me , but it is there

[mjr]

Yes, it is the same laggy behavior in game controllers. Maybe not quite as apparent since it's a smaller window to look at, but still noticeable.

 

It's similar on a "new" VP table, but not as exaggerated as in the TZ table.  But it is in all the tables.

 

Okay, thanks for checking.  I'm out of ideas about what could be going on or more tests to try.  I think I'll have to come up with some ad hoc test software for you so we can look at the data packets coming across the USB connection, to see if the delay is on the device side or the PC side.  I'll try to get back to you soon with something to try.  

 

You can always go back to the V1 software for regular play until we figure out what's going on.

[BigBoss]

some of us..uumm... cant upgrade to 11 <wink wink>

it would be awesome to use all the features, but no biggie if i cant, I can use the latest firmware, and plunger config so... there the most important...

this update works without Windows update. I can confirm that updating to ie11 solves the script errors.

MJR: I also wanted to thank you for your work on this project. It's really fantastic and useful. I think his is the best nudge solution out there as even the sidewinder doesn't auto calibrate.

Edited by BigBoss, 11 May 2016 - 04:12 AM.

[mjr]

 

Yes, it is the same laggy behavior in game controllers. Maybe not quite as apparent since it's a smaller window to look at, but still noticeable.

 

It's similar on a "new" VP table, but not as exaggerated as in the TZ table.  But it is in all the tables.

 

Okay, thanks for checking.  I'm out of ideas about what could be going on or more tests to try.  I think I'll have to come up with some ad hoc test software for you so we can look at the data packets coming across the USB connection, to see if the delay is on the device side or the PC side.  I'll try to get back to you soon with something to try.  

 

I think I figured out what's going on with the lag time!  In the big update, one of the additions was a hysteresis filter on the plunger readings in an effort to eliminate the small amount of jitter that can occasionally appear when the plunger is at rest.  That was *supposed* to have no visible time impact, but on looking more closely I realized that I put it in the wrong place, which resulted in about an 80ms lag.  That's enough to be noticeable, especially when added to the lag time that VP itself adds.  I fixed the filter so that its time impact is under 15ms as was originally intended, which should eliminate any visible delay. 

 

The update is posted - you should see it show up automatically if you have Auto Download enabled, with build timestamp 2016-05-011-0500.  Just go through the Update Firmware process to install the new version once it's there.  

[Santos76]

Hello Mjr,

there it´s a problem with the configuratoin.

When i select the  CCD Sensor TSL 1410R, all is good.

But i select the TSL 1412R, blink the led red/pink.

Can you test it, or i do somthing wrong.

 

Thanks Sascha

 

Sorry for my bad english.

[sliderpoint]

I think I figured out what's going on with the lag time!  In the big update, one of the additions was a hysteresis filter on the plunger readings in an effort to eliminate the small amount of jitter that can occasionally appear when the plunger is at rest.  That was *supposed* to have no visible time impact, but on looking more closely I realized that I put it in the wrong place, which resulted in about an 80ms lag.  That's enough to be noticeable, especially when added to the lag time that VP itself adds.  I fixed the filter so that its time impact is under 15ms as was originally intended, which should eliminate any visible delay. 

 

The update is posted - you should see it show up automatically if you have Auto Download enabled, with build timestamp 2016-05-011-0500.  Just go through the Update Firmware process to install the new version once it's there.  

 

 

 

Yes sir!  Plunger is working great now!  Thanks!

 

-Mike

[mjr]

 

I think I figured out what's going on with the lag time!  In the big update, one of the additions was a hysteresis filter on the plunger readings in an effort to eliminate the small amount of jitter that can occasionally appear when the plunger is at rest.  That was *supposed* to have no visible time impact, but on looking more closely I realized that I put it in the wrong place, which resulted in about an 80ms lag.  That's enough to be noticeable, especially when added to the lag time that VP itself adds.  I fixed the filter so that its time impact is under 15ms as was originally intended, which should eliminate any visible delay. 

 

The update is posted - you should see it show up automatically if you have Auto Download enabled, with build timestamp 2016-05-011-0500.  Just go through the Update Firmware process to install the new version once it's there.  

 

 

 

Yes sir!  Plunger is working great now!  Thanks!

 

Excellent!

 

 

there it´s a problem with the configuratoin.

When i select the  CCD Sensor TSL 1410R, all is good.

But i select the TSL 1412R, blink the led red/pink.

Can you test it, or i do somthing wrong.

 

I just tried it, and it reproduces for me too.  The red/pink diagnostic display means that the controller is out of memory.  The TSL1412R has more pixels, so it needs more memory for its pixel buffers.  The software has been pushing the memory limits of the device for a while now, but I guess I hadn't tested the TSL1412R configuration in a while.

 

I'll have to find some more unnecessary bytes to squeeze out to get it to fit.  I'll let you know when I have an update for you.