13 replies to this topic

[TedB]

Hi,

 

Haven't downloaded new tables for a while so yesterday I downloaded lots of new tables incl. the latest VP version.

I have played around with the video settings and apparently I need RU selected and RO unselected for speed - specs of my cab are quite low - and RU unselected and RO selected for avoiding the paintball effect. 

 

I have downloaded the latest VP beta yesterday.

 

Is there a fix or a setting that can be used? The table that I am now testing and has this issue is attack from mars Night mod VP9.16 3 way GI 3.1

I don't mind sacrificing graphical effects for speed, but the paintball effect is just ridiculous.

[toxie]

could you please try some older revisions of the 9.1.6/9.2.0 betas, too?

so that we could nail it down better when this happens or when we introduced this..

[TedB]

Sure, will test and report back.

[TedB]

Ok, just tried rev 577 and 621 and 626.

 

621 and 626 have the least problems (577 has other graphical issues), but still not perfect. Most of the lights are in these versions okay, but there is one green light that is too bright with a big white centre. - lower bumper area that is occasionally glowing very brightly. The other light are fine.

No problem to test a bit more versions if you think that will help. Let me know which one then and I will try.

 

Thanks for looking into it.

[fuzzel]

And what about 770?

[TedB]

770 is even worse - every light is one big splash - if RU is selected that is... With RO selected everything is okay, but then the speed lacks on my mediocre setup.

[toxie]

hmmm.. have you tried updating your gfx driver?

[TedB]

No, I have had very bad experiences with updating the driver. One of the most problematic issues with all other versions is hanging of some tables. They became terribly slow and the only method to solve the issue is restart PC, reinstall drivers. After a few attempts I gave up trying the newest NVIDIA drivers.

The issue has been reported by a few other member and I haven't seen reports that has been solved - I think you or Fuzzel mentioned it was a driver problem that couldn't be solved in VP.  There is basically only 1 driver version that works well.

[toxie]

thats sad.. have you tried switching the bitdepth of the resolution? so for example using 800x600x16 instead of 800x600x32 (or the other way round)..

[koadic]

I think the issue is with using the additive alpha for flashers, as you basically have to have RO on for it to work correctly... You can probably get it to look better without RO if you find those flashers and uncheck additive alpha, they just won't look quite as nice.

[TedB]

I have attached the effect I am currently seeing in 626 and 770

 

626 starts ok and most lights are working fine. Only after a few seconds the light green light becomes more intense and stays like that until the next ball or next event.

If I cross the green light with the ball the ball removes the 'paint' underneath it.

 

770 is a mess immediately. 

 

Tried the 16/32 bit trick, unfortunately didn't help. Strange thing is that after doing that the paintball effect was present in 626 too and only after restarting it was gone again.

 

Maybe there is something in the description and pics that makes sense.

 

Attached Files

•  626.JPG   172.24KB   2 downloads
•  626_issue.JPG   113.76KB   1 downloads
•  770.JPG   155.55KB   1 downloads

[TedB]

I think the issue is with using the additive alpha for flashers, as you basically have to have RO on for it to work correctly... You can probably get it to look better without RO if you find those flashers and uncheck additive alpha, they just won't look quite as nice.

 

Indeed, that might be the only solution. Fuzzel / Toxie if it isn’t possible to solve my problem would it be a possibility to add one check button to disable this effect for all those flashers?  Maybe by doing it even gain some fps?

[jimmyfingers]

Disabling the additive alpha is not necessary and not the only way to fix this problem outside of VP video preferences.  I've posted several times about the other fix for this issue as I too also need just HR with no RU or RO selected for my VP video preferences (for AA and ideal performance reasons).  The way to fix this without altering the video options nor changing the awesome additive alpha effect is by changing the setting on all the affected alpha ramps to have "Normal 3D stereo" checked vs. unchecked. 

 

This will have no adverse bearing unless you're actually using a 3D TV with the VP stereoscopic 3D selected.   I think it would also be good if authors created a collection with all of these potentially adversely affected alpha ramps so that people could toggle the setting very easily on all objects at once (in either case, being the graphic glitch or in the likely less used case of stereo 3D switching back off).

 

See my post in this thread for more details but it is indeed the same issue you are experiencing:

 

http://www.vpforums....=45#entry242303

[TedB]

Thanks JF! That works. I just spent 20 minutes looking and adjusting all the alpha ramps in the table, but still didn't get them all - some of those buggers are really hidden well. Not a problem to do that for a table I really enjoy but I am not looking forward to doing this for every night mod available and not to mention the updates.

Pretty sure my method can be improved though - not spending too much time in the editor.

 

It will be definitely problematic if a new user encounters this..

 

If possible it would be nice if Toxie/Fuzzel could find a method to identify all alpha ramps in the table and automatically set them correctly with an additional check.

Edited by TedB, 03 December 2013 - 08:49 PM.