22 replies to this topic

[GSGregg]

For reference: XP-MCE, P4 (or Celeron?) 2.67Ghz, 512MB RAM, MX4000-T128 (DirectX 7.0, openGL 1.0 supposedly). Hello, all.

Just downloaded FP and Fireball (Home ed.)---wanted to compare it to the older spinner table of the same name. Unlike the case
with Visual Pinball, I didn't come across an installation guide or other aid (put Tables files here, Roms there, etc.), so I, a newbie,
took the chance that I could do it correctly.

Clicking the desktop shortcut brings the Editor up as quickly as with VP, but when I try to Play Table, I get an 'openGL Error' box;
"Future Pinball has detected that your openGL acceleration is running in software mode", etc. Then, "Please change your desktop
colour depth to 32-bit and try...again". That IS my current setting, so I just click on Okay.

After the progress bar goes through 'Processing...', 'Initializing...', and finishes at 'Getting Ready to Play', I get another box:
"Future Pinball has encountered a problem and needs to close", etc., with Microsoft asking to be sent an error report. This has me
wondering if I botched the download or file placement or something. I also saw no Roms folder like the one in VP/PinMAME; where
DO FP roms go?

I've found no place on my computer where openGL, software mode, hardware acceleration or whatever can be changed, nor have
I found an nVidia control panel; is this because my 'graphics card' is too primitive?

My thanks for any input;

GSGregg

[destruk]

There aren't any FP roms.
For Future Pinball, you have your FPT file - future pinball table - which goes into the tables folder
You also might have FPL - future pinball library - which goes into the libraries folder
Also there could be a script - which goes into the scripts folder

Your video card appears to be missing open gl shader support. I think shaders are a requirement of the current future pinball program, but I'll let someone more familiar explain that part.

What Hardware will I Need ?

A Pentium / Athlon processor of 1800 mhz or
greater, 512meg ram and at least a (or better)
Geforce FX / Radeon video card.
Video Card MUST support shaders.

[GSGregg]

Thanks, destruk, for the quick response, and sorry I took so long to get back, but....What Gives? I just blew an hour
and a half composing and proofreading, and verifying any cited specs for what I hoped was a coherent post, and when I hit
Preview, I got the pink Error box telling me I had no permission to post...my login had apparently evaporated. Is there a
time limit in effect? This happened before; my security settings are where they've always been, and I turned off my trial
ad-blocker before I logged in.

If I can go Forward and Back and somehow find that post, I'll submit it; otherwise, I'm about typed out and will try again
later. Goodnight.

GSG

[Noah Fentz]

Have you had this issue before, Gregg?

I suggest clearing your cookies and trying again. Sometimes site moves have this effect.

If the problem persists, contact me, and I'll look into it further.

Sorry, man.

[GSGregg]

Good morning, Noah Fentz; you're up as early as I am late!

It's the same issue as when I was posting for the first time (The McD; How good are you?) a few days ago. Someday
I'll try that again. Anyway, your cookies are still there with all the other hundreds, so there's no blocking issue, and when I took some downloads last 'night', my ad-blocker was turned on with no ill effects. But, I have the patience of
a self-taught guitarist and mechanic; things'll straighten out.

(I need the above-mentioned patience; an easily-distracted three-finger typist.)

Gregg

[Noah Fentz]

Yep, I'm working on a double-issue newsletter ... no rest for me for a bit.

As far as the login issue, I've never had a problem, though I do recall a few others with the same issue.

What browser are you using?

AdBlock should have no effect on the board's behaviour, so that shouldn't be it.

[GSGregg]

Internet Explorer 8, "Powered by Yahoo!" with high-speed (uh-huh) internet from AT&T.

GSG

[Noah Fentz]

I suggest Firefox, of course. I design the site using Firefox, then work on cross-browser compatibility with IE, Chrome, and Opera.

Of course, this means it's optimized for use with Firefox.

IE8 may require compatibility mode to be enabled for this site, since IE8 devs seem to have gone out of their way to break a lot of older sites' designs.

[Shockman]

since IE8 devs seem to have gone out of their way to break a lot of older sites' designs.

That's what I thought about firefox. Even your site was strange when I tried FF a couple of months ago when this computer was new.
I was chatting with my son and he suggested I try chrome for this configuration.

Your Chrome compatibility efforts hit the nail on the head. I think it out performs FF by at least 30% on my system.

[GSGregg]

Logged in and read the last two posts from Noah Fentz and Shockman about Firefox, Chrome, etc., and decided to post,
so I clicked on Add Reply (green print)....and had to log in again! (no permission to post) So, I did (I'm getting used to it), then
went Back and checked, which I will do often from now on, and at least for now my logged-in status is valid.

Firefox has been on this computer since I got it; when the previous owner gutted the thing to make room for real gaming (and removed
the complete Games folder; looking to replace 3D Pinball is probably what led me to VPF), his girlfriend moved in and began dressing
things up with who-knows-what. I removed at least three toolbars that needlessly (for me) occupied screen space.

IE8 may have been part of AT&T's HSI bundle, or I may have selected it out of familiarity; I forget, but occasionally I'll open some web-
page or something that seems to freeze the computer (seems like forever, but probably no longer than a couple of minutes), only to
find that it had to open Firefox before it could exist. If not for that, I'd have removed Firefox to alleviate clutter; now it seems there's
a good reason to keep it after all. Going to have to take the time to experiment.

GSG

PS: Hey, Noah! "Fresh Login Required For Add Reply"(?)---Film at Eleven.

Random Rant: Is there a Font that uses a heavier Dot in the Semicolon?

[The Hermit]

Sounds like there is so much junk still in your system that the best thing you could possibly do is format the drive and re-install EVERYTHING!

[GSGregg]

My thanks to The Hermit, but I'll pass on that at least for now. I've already dumped the stuff I considered junk. and I have replacements for
my marginal power supply and (apparently) sub-marginal video card waiting to go in. I'm hoping for insight on the openGL issue, as it may be the
cause of the other, but I will look at the FP files and where I put them, based on destruk's info; at worst, I'll just delete and re-download.

GSGregg

[GSGregg]

To destruk: a few notes from my unposted post yesterday...

As to my MX4000-T128 lacking Shader support, its specs claim 500 Meg-ops*/second; wouldn't that constitute Shader support, no
matter how mediocre? And assuming hardware acceleration to be selectable or adjustable (or not), wouldn't there be at least a
mention of it in Control Panel > Display? Even in Help, all I found was a passing reference to the term. Maybe I should have a
look in BIOS...haven't looked there yet.

* Shader Operations

GSG

[GSGregg]

Correction to my last post: The Help I looked in (...passing reference to the term) re hardware acceleration was for Internet
Explorer---should have known better. The Help and Support (Start>Help and Support) covered it, although it didn't seem to address
this specific problem.

I had earlier stumbled through Start>Settings>Control Panel>Display>Settings>Advanced>Troubleshoot and found the slider for
Hardware Acceleration, and it's maxed out.

To the Moderator: Feel free to discount this post as a non-contributor.

GSG

Edited by GSGregg, 04 May 2010 - 05:13 AM.

[destruk]

"Cards released with OpenGL 2.0 were the first to offer user-programmable shaders." -- If your 4000mx is compatible with 1.0 of OpenGL, then your card can't do the shaders that Future Pinball requires. If you do get it to work with that card, it's not supported - but then I think anything with Future Pinball is only supported by the users at this point - so you're no worse for wear. Earlier versions of Future Pinball would have worked with that card, but those are expired now.

[GSGregg]

Well, here I go again; logged in, navigated to 'Two Errors...', prepared to post and clicked Add Reply (green print), checked login
(still good), typed my post and hit Preview...and got "You do not have permission to reply..." Well, at least the Post Data was sav-
ed, so I logged in again...and got thrown (redirected, I guess) back to the Home Page. When I got back to the forum, the saved
data was gone.

Turned off my AdBlocker and came back; just checked and I'm still logged in, so I'll try again.

Got a wild hair and looked into updated drivers for the MX4000-T128; they can apparently bump openGL from 1.0 to 1.3, but
as your opening sentence implied, destruk, anything below 2.0 is probably useless. My new EVGA (nVidia GeForce 6200) card
boasts 2.0, but according to Wikipedia the 6200s (below 6800) didn't fall into the "supported' category until 2.1; I still think the new
card will clean up the things for which I bought it, but I wonder if I'm out of luck for FP.


Now clicking Preview (still logged in);

Success!

GSG

[Noah Fentz]

That'll teach you to use AdBlocker!



Seriously, though, I've tested with scripts enabled, without, with AdBlock, without, so I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble.

You mentioned something like AdBlock Extreme or some silliness? (too lazy to look for the post)

Just disable it on this site only, I guess, since you don't get ads being a supporter, it only makes the experience better.

[GSGregg]

Good Morning, Noah Fentz; I guess it's gonna be one of those days. A split-second after I logged out, I saw that you had
posted,and (winkwinknudgenudge) chose to log in again.

The trial for the adblocker is at least half-over, and I'm not convinced that it has sped things up any more than the basic, avail-
able-free-or-included stuff. When the time comes, I very well may decline to shell out the $30. My vanishing login, however, is
unique to my time on this site...I'll make a habit of exiting SAB when I come here, and see if anything changes.

Congratulations on finishing your newsletter; I clicked to it from the Home Page, so don't worry about that 16,233rd (or whatever)
email.

Gregg

[GSGregg]

Aw, Kripes! Another evaporated login, a la post #3 in this thread May 2. Got switched to the Home page instead of back here, and
lost my saved data. 6:30 AM and I've got to test my memory....

SHEESH! Seven and a half weeks gone in the blink of a low-frame-rate multiball panic! Anyway, I finally got off my butt and instal-
led the EVGA 512-A8-N403-LR (GeForce 6200) card and a Corsair 400W PSU. True, this card won't impress many, but each of its
specs represent at least a slight or moderate improvement over the MX4000-T128 which could not run Future Pinball. So I fired up
FP....

....and got the same OpenGL error as before (WHAT THE...!) until I hit Preferences and started turning things off. I currently have
only two FP tables; Anthias' InFlipperSane (which played well enough without changes) and Popotte's Fireball Home Version which
I used as my guinea pig.

EVGA's CD supplied driver 6.14.11.7824 (Oct. 7, 2008), and a year and a half is plenty of time for something to become obsolete,
so I went hunting and downloaded v. 6.14.12.5721 (Jun 7, 2010)----an 87MB (or was it 82.7) monster that covers NVidia's entire
menu, seemingly, and has lots of stuff my card will never use. Luckily, my HDD has room. Anyway, No More OpenGL Error!

Playing Fireball HV (finally!) was almost painful to the eyes, and I'd noticed that the CD menu included Install Fraps. I had Fraps a
few months ago but couldn't remember why it would be gone now, so I installed Fraps v. 2.9.6 and began testing. Turns out that
the frame-rate at which I was trying to play was 33! No wonder my eyes complained. I finally settled on Minimum Presets (shad-
ers are disabled) and Antialiasing 'None", with Fullscreen and Anisotropic Filtering making little difference On or Off. My resulting
frame-rates are 48 (1024x768, native for my monitor), 52 (912x684) and 58 (800x600). I think I'll be using the middle one most of
the time, and it'll have to do until I want to invest in real gear.

Finally, with FP comfortably within reach, I decided to FRAPS Centaur* during 5-ball Orbian Attack in case it went nuts as it had
with the supplied driver (end-of-ball bonus was being tallied while there still appeared to be balls blinking in and out of existence on
the playfield). Centaur (and Twilight Zone) 'encountered a problem' and needed to close, and while EM tables would play, Fraps
would not....and now I remember why fraps was gone----all I had was VP, and Fraps was useless, so I uninstalled (trashed) it.
A web-search brought me to a couple of posts by TheMcD in March '09; no answer then and, I assume, no answer now....so I
won't ask.

GSG

*Edit: VP8 by PacDude

Edited by GSGregg, 25 June 2010 - 03:38 PM.

[BibleTalker]

[quote name='GSGregg' date='Jun 25 2010, 10:30 AM' post='63347']
Aw, Kripes! Another evaporated login, a la post #3 in this thread May 2. Got switched to the Home page instead of back here, until I hit Preferences and started turning things off. I currently have
only two FP tables; Anthias' InFlipperSane (which played well enough without changes) and Popotte's Fireball Home Version which I used as my guinea pig.

I did the same thing, started turning things off and noticed an immediate improvement. I ALSO DID THIS: I went to Control Panel and then to Display and then Setting and then clicked the Advanced button at the bottom, selected Troubleshoot and in there I moved the Hardware Acceleration bar to the 'third' notch right of None. This made even more improvement. There are still tables I cannot play but they are the ones that have large MB associated with them, such as 3 Angels. BT