5 replies to this topic

[salasnet]

I've been using VP for a while now, and always on ATI hardware. The first I encountered the Direct Draw issue was solved by Scapinos fix that he distributes with his tables. Back then, his tables were completely graphically messed up unless Direct Draw was disabled. To this day, I'm not exactly sure about exactly what the benefit of having Direct Draw enabled is, as opposed to always keeping it disabled.

Since I am on ATI hardware, even now, I still get some graphical glitches when Direct Draw is enabled. I have set VP-Man, by default, to always disable Direct Draw for any table that I play.

My question is... if having Direct Draw disabled does not seem to affect how tables in VP8-9 run or look... should there ever be a reason for me to turn it on when using VP? Am I missing something?

What, if anything, would having Direct Draw enabled provide?

Thanks in advance, and my apologies if this has been answered before. I did a search, but found nothing that specifically addressed the necessity of Direct Draw when using VP.

[FDSystems]

I have the same kind of doubts, also using ATI hardware. For most of the VP9 tables, I have to do some tweaking, for some of the most recent VP8 tables too, but I have not been able to find a "standard" tweak. Disabling DirectDraw, using VPMan, some times makes the table play smoother, sometimes provokes an error message & sometimes has no effect at all... I´d liked to understand too.., if there is something to understand.
Some tables are unplayable for me, mostly from Noah & Megapin,......sorry guys...

Edited by 1234fd, 21 April 2010 - 04:11 AM.

[Shockman]

It's not a matter of which tables need it and which don't. None do. I believe.
It's a matter of which tables it causes problems with and which don't.
The point is that you can not just leave direct draw off and go about other things.
That's why VPMan and other scripts turn it off and turn it back on after VP.

[salasnet]

Shockman, if I understand what you are saying is that its OK to always have Direct Draw turned off when running VP tables, but that it is not a good idea to have it turned off period when you are using your computer. I get it. I only turn off Direct Draw through VP-Man, so I'm covered on that front.

I guess that's the answer I was looking for (i.e. no VP tables need Direct Draw enabled).

To address the other post:
I also have had a few tables that don't work well in VP9 (all my VP8 and Future Pinball tables are fine) but I have been able to work around.

The only VP9 table I have not been able to correct has been High Speed II-Getaway. That one uses a Reel on the backboard which looks messed up no matter what I do. (Can somebody shed some light as to why this is not correctable with ATI hardware?)

The only thing I have had to do to get some tables running in VP9 correctly is to make sure the backboard graphic is square, i.e. 1024x1024. Authors sometimes include an alternate backdrop, and I just go in and change it in VP9 to it. For others, like The Twilight Zone, I exported the backdrop, resized it to 1024x1024 and added it back into the table.

I always make sure that HD Render is unchecked in VP9, and with Direct Draw disabled, as long as the image sizes are proportional, things seem to run fine with ATI hardware.

[Shockman]

I don't know about High Speed 2.

Glad to read that most other tables work, or you can make them work.

[Green909]

I am fairly new at this but had major issues with my card and VP9+ tables too.

I don't know if this will help you with your specific problem, but it has made all tables that I have tried work well for me.

I am just going to paste a link to the related post .... http://www.vpforums....amp;#entry49730 though you probably already have more experience with this than I do.

I've since started using VP-Man to do the direct draw on/off switching and the VP-MAN launch options by game to permanently assign the VP8 or VP9.7 executable to each table. I've definitely had to maintain both executables to get 100% issue free (so far), but the point is I had to do both recommendations (1) turn off direct draw and (2) turn off hardware in the table options bar before I got consistent results.

Hope that helps.

GREEN909