2087 replies to this topic

[jimmyfingers]

 

@ mukuste - despite an update / test7 only fixing the depth bias I think it would be nice to still have an update with this fixed as I personally can think of a few dozen tables that need testing after it's release as you say it's got the depth issue fixed but will likely need some testing on a vareity of tables to ensure that it's fixed both problems being witnessed (the old one and now the current one messing up lights / light states and the roll-over animations). The release might be underwhelming to some as you describe but I really think it would be great if you could provide an update so this one key issue around the depth bias could be tested and in the time while other things are being worked on I and others could do some significant / detailed testing. If it's not a lot of trouble, I put my vote in for a test7 if you can and would be happy to spend some time testing it this weekend (along with some promised testing of 921rev930).
 

 

Alright, you convinced me. Anyway these things are pretty trivial for me to release, I just wanted to avoid having an inflation of versions which nobody bothered to test anymore. But so far participation has been very good, so it should be fine.

 

I think after testing this new version you'll agree with me that finding and correcting the root cause (the wrong calculation of the Z planes) was the better approach over just reverting to an "almost" working state. It did take quite a bit more investigation and some broken tables in the meanwhile, but the end result is much cleaner and free of kludgy workarounds since I now actually understand what's going on. And as a bonus we get a fixed camera fitting routine in VP10. So I think it was well worth the effort.

 

Let me just write up the release post and off we go.

 

Cool!  I totally look forward to testing it - maybe even playing it a bit  Glad to hear about how it seems you've got the issue more identified / a cleaner solution and that you are pleased at least for what the digging into it yielded for full understanding and the extra aspects about future camera fitting - that's awesome! Did my findings on the FOV aspect help too on getting to this understanding of what was going on or was it more of a side element?  Or was most of what was ultimately discovered from just the shear mount of time you spent on the issue?  Cheers to test7!

 

I'm working on a few more confirmation aspects on that potential food for thought finding I had on the AA blinking issues and something I encountered when observing the flickering.  I'll get that post / screen shots (maybe a test table) posted either tonight or earlier tomorrow.

[mukuste]

Download VP9_DX9_test7 here:  VP9_DX9_test7.zip   669.46KB   265 downloads
Important: instead of fullscreen mode, run in "windowed fullscreen" mode.

If you get flicker, please try disabling AA.

Table compatibility spreadsheet (thanks to gtxjoe): https://docs.google....EPwri8/viewform

 

As is the tradition, here's a new test version for the weekend. There are relatively few major changes this time as we inch closer and closer to a stable renderer.

 

If you still get black insert lights on a table, please first try going through the table's playfield GI textures (usually called playfield_XX or similar) which are black where the lights are located, and set their transparency color to pure black.

 

Changes since Test6:

• fixed wrong computation of near and far Z planes. This had a dramatic effect on the precision of the depth buffer, especially on full-screen tables, and fixed (to my knowledge) all known cases of Z fighting involving lights.
• made decals properly render over lights everywhere on the playfield (Barracora)
• gates now respect the visibility flag set from script properly
• "Alternate render" option removed
• (toxie) DirectInput reverted to version 7 since 8 caused issues for many people using frontends.

As usual, if you find glitches, screenshots and exact table names/versions help a lot to track them down! Also please take a moment to enter the data into the spreadsheet linked above if you can.

 

Happy testing!

[LoadedWeapon]

 

 

one question?
I understand the lighting problems on Rudy but why dont he move or even open his eyes? can i fix it in the editor?

I might have to update that table and the Simpsons to use ramps instead of gates when the dx9 version is officially released because obviously the .visible flag isn't being handled correctly for whatever reason.

 

 

Sorry, no, that's actually a bona fide bug. But since you stated it so succinctly, it took me all of three minutes to find and fix. I'm happy because now I have a third worthwhile change for the new test version!

 

Thanks

[koadic]

Cool, glad it was an easy fix. I just assumed that there was an actual reason for why it wasn't working other than a bug/oversight because I had brought it up a few other times before now but didn't hear anything about it...
 

Second, I found a very weird bug, If you load a table, exit out and change the X or Y scaling of the table when you try and load it again you get an error HRESULT 80004005, what makes this even more odd is the fact that this happens on every table I have tried *EXCEPT* Airborne, I tried LOTR, TSPP (Which doesnt render Homers Head), and BBB

As far as Homer in TSPP (the most recent day version, and Rudy in the FunHouse night mod as well) are both created with Gates using the .visible flag to cut down on the amount of alpha ramps (I believe these were converted to this before I had discovered the ramp.alpha=0 method)

Also, since I don't believe I have seen it mentioned yet (I may have missed it though) is that I get no exit menu when in full screen... It's there, it just can't be seen, as well as having no framerate displayed with the F11 key... These were some of the quirks I was referring to previously.

Also, I noticed that it also errors out and quits if you change from full screen to windowed mode and then try to start a table. I don't know if it is related to the x/y scaling bug or not, just wanted to mention it as well.

and
 

In the night mod of funhouse, Rudy is made from gates using the .visible property (as I had modified it for personal use before the .alpha property was in use and then aaron created the night mod from it). I had thought this might have been fixed though because I did Homer the same way (along with the mini dmd) on Daytime FS mod of TSPP that UW uploaded and it had been reported that issue was fixed.

[Argo]

with test7 I get this error:

impossible to start the program because d3dx9_35.dll is missing.

[LoadedWeapon]

I just tested a few tables and everything ran perfect! thank you.. this is now my new EXE...

Rudy is ALIVE!!! btw Rudy is my name

Edited by LoadedWeapon, 01 March 2014 - 01:26 AM.

[randr]

Im tempted to switch permanently .....................hmmm...

[The Loafer]

Tempted schmempted, it is done here.

Ok, I know I have gushed praise to your work mukuste, and of course to the other devs as well. But I have a new reason to do so yet again.

A friend has one of those cheap win 8 tablet, the asus transformer book t100t I think. I installed VP 9.2.1, it ran poorly. Then I tried to run dx9 tech beta but got a direct x error. Reinstalled directx, ran it again and it worked. However, i truly freaked when i saw that it worked with perfect smooth scrolling. So I tried the famous monster bash and it too was smooth.

Just to recap, this tablet is an atom/crappy GPU based chipset powered tablet, I didn't think it would work THAT good but it is.

Congrats yet again.

[htamas]

Black Rose: the playfield light inserts are faint and flash a lot weaker than when playing with the DX7 version.

 

I tried several other tables and they play great... some play so much better than using the 9.21 player that there is no contest. Great job, thanks a lot.

with test7 I get this error:

impossible to start the program because d3dx9_35.dll is missing.

 

http://www.vpforums....=26714&p=257033

[Arcade4]

This has been my permanent .exe from beta 4.

The speed improvements were too great to worry about a few minor graphics glitches here and there.

[Spektre]

Apologies if this has been asked but I followed the thread early on when there was some (internal) dialogue about whether the new rendering engine would do any prerendering or not.

 

Also, I say BAM and head tracking brought up more recently.

 

What was the outcome of the new rendered?  Does it pre-render or not?

 

Would head tracking thus be possible in the DX9 version (obviously with camera positioning code added).

 

 

Thanks,

Spektre

[mukuste]

Cool!  I totally look forward to testing it - maybe even playing it a bit  Glad to hear about how it seems you've got the issue more identified / a cleaner solution and that you are pleased at least for what the digging into it yielded for full understanding and the extra aspects about future camera fitting - that's awesome! Did my findings on the FOV aspect help too on getting to this understanding of what was going on or was it more of a side element?  Or was most of what was ultimately discovered from just the shear mount of time you spent on the issue?  Cheers to test7!

 

I'm working on a few more confirmation aspects on that potential food for thought finding I had on the AA blinking issues and something I encountered when observing the flickering.  I'll get that post / screen shots (maybe a test table) posted either tonight or earlier tomorrow.

 

 

Yes, the FOV issue was definitely a major piece of the puzzle and what led me on the right track. Previously I was mostly checking the depth buffer settings on the default table, foolishly thinking that it should be about the same on all tables. After this report I checked more specifically these tables and started running into the FOV issue as well as the bugs in the camera fitting routine (which actually rotates the table around the wrong axis for the Rotation property, if you can believe it).

 

 

 

Cool, glad it was an easy fix. I just assumed that there was an actual reason for why it wasn't working other than a bug/oversight because I had brought it up a few other times before now but didn't hear anything about it...

 

 

Sorry. There's a lot of material in this thread, and stuff does slip through the cracks. This is the main reason I wanted a compatibility spreadsheet: to have an up to date list of which issues actually still exist; basically like a bug tracker. It's just not economical for me to sift through 50 bug reports for an old version, try all of those tables and find two which still have issues in the new version.

 

For this particular bug, I think I checked before, but I saw a check for the visibility flag and was content. Turns out this class has two flags, one for the Visible checkbox and one for the .Visible flag set by script. It's doubly confusing since some other classes use one and the same flag for both purposes.

 

 

 

Black Rose: the playfield light inserts are faint and flash a lot weaker than when playing with the DX7 version.

 

 

Hm, that's interesting. Sounds like a case of the fading lights not working properly. I thought this was fixed since a few releases ago, will have to check what makes this table special.

 

 

 

Apologies if this has been asked but I followed the thread early on when there was some (internal) dialogue about whether the new rendering engine would do any prerendering or not.

 

Also, I say BAM and head tracking brought up more recently.

 

What was the outcome of the new rendered?  Does it pre-render or not?

 

Would head tracking thus be possible in the DX9 version (obviously with camera positioning code added).

 

 

For now it does prerender simply because the old engine did and it was easier to keep it. It wouldn't be too difficult, however, to change it to render everything dynamically. Previously I was worried about performance when doing this, but with how good the framerates most people are reporting are, it seems very possible now.

[BananaBoat]

Just one thing I've noticed with the T2 Crome edition table is that there appear to be some thin black lines that show up on the apron, especially when right flipper is pressed. Also parts of the playfield graphics don't seem to line up properly.

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk

[mfuegemann]

Hi mukuste,

 

I would love the TextDecals and maybe TextBoxes being fixed before the VP10 release. This is the only reason for not switching to DX9 now.

Thank You for Test7. The progress You achieved during such a short period of time is incredible!

 

Regards

Michael

[Sheltemke]

mukuste what if i say you the new austin powers table give me graphical artifacts(the flashers) with all vp 9.21 beta versions(with any vp graphic settings), but with your test7 is totally perfect?

 

I think there is some problem with the last nvidia driver(or my nvidia settings) but your version fix it somehow

 

as far as i tested the tables only black rose(1.3) lights not flashing correctly as htamas mentioned.

 

Great job!

Edited by Sheltemke, 01 March 2014 - 07:18 AM.

[ClarkKent]

Thanx for the latest release! Exit key issue solved!

 

Still some layer problems in White Water (lights) and the texture of the insanity falls ramp. Also noticed that the LEDs in Monopoly are black instead of red.

 

Great release! I think you are getting closer to final!

 

I'm having this release as my permanent exe for HyperPin!

[arngrim]

Dracula GI8 is perfect now

 

small bug in class of 1812

 

http://www.vpforums....s&showfile=6409

 

9.2  181292.png   382.68KB   15 downloads

dx9  1812dx9.png   613.07KB   16 downloads

 

the ball is half cut into the hole

Edited by arngrim, 01 March 2014 - 10:34 AM.

[Argo]

@ htamas: now it works, thanks!

[Tropi]

Could someone paste a screen shot of their nvidia 3d settings and VP9 DX9 video settings they use?
Thanks

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk

Yes, good idea. I would be interested in too.

First of all thanks a lot to all of you guys for the great improvements which you have brought to VP during the last months.
I don't want to be ignorant, but I was under the impression the look of the tables would improve significantly with DX9, but as fas as I can recognize it is "just" a port to the newer DX verison. I assume what I'm looking for is more the AA part to get all those ramps, rails and flippers less stepped.
Most probably my setting are far away from optimum, but all combinations I tried so far resulted in being even more worse or crashes or error messages.
A hint for a good combination of VP setting and NVidia settings would very much appreciated.

[LoadedWeapon]

Dx9 helps use newer technology to run better. The visual improvements will be in the dx10 build.. as for the crashing make sure that you are in windowed mode and have all the files needed for the table. Helps if you post what the errors are.