Future Pinball being 32 bit - NOT a limitation!

[TerryRed]

Future Pinball being 32 bit is NOT a limitation

FP is a 32 bit app. A 32 bit app is limited to being able to access 4 GB of system ram max. Some claim FP being 32 bit is a big a limiting factor. With VP, yes that may be the case for some newer VP tables (as it typically needed to load all textures twice into ram, and needs lots of ram for new BTK tables, etc). For FP-BAM however, that 4 GB limit does not apply to textures / models / GPU vram.

I decided to test something.

MOTU CE is currently the largest FP table file (and growing in size), currently at around 368 MB. I've always been aware of how much I was using, and kept all my updates fine tuned to not use anything extra if not needed. However, I never really knew how far I could really go. Now I know.

My PC is an i5 13600K with 32 GB ram, GPU is RTX 4070 Ti Super (16 GB vram)

For a test, I kept adding lots and lots of 4K textures, some 10k textures, lots of FBX / OBJ models (that have their own big textures) to MOTU CE.... and kept going, and testing... and going and testing...

Well, I haven't reached a limit yet... but to give you an idea:


======================================================

Largest VPX table I have installed (its a VR modded table)

Table file: 475 MB
VP - ram usage: 5.9 GB
VP - GPU vram usage: 7.2 GB

======================================================

MOTU CE table (largest FP table, wip):

Table file: 368 MB
FP - ram usage: 1.5 GB
FP - GPU vram usage: 3.9 GB

After enabling texture compression in FP video settings (meant only for those with low vram on their GPU)...

Table file: 368 MB
FP - ram usage: 1.2 GB
FP - GPU vram usage: 2.6 GB

======================================================

MOTU CE table : After adding a shit load of 4K textures, FBX / OBJ models

Table file: 1.2 GB
FP - ram usage: 2.2 GB
FP - GPU vram usage: 12.5 GB

After enabling texture compression in FP video settings (meant only for those with low vram on their GPU)...

Table file: 1.2 GB
FP - ram usage: 2.0 GB
FP - GPU vram usage: 5.2 GB

======================================================

So yah... FP being 32 bit... is NOT a concern, or a limitation. The only limit will be how much ram (more so GPU vram) the player's PC has. Someone with low vram on their GPU can enable texture compression in FP settings which seems to cut vram usage in half mostly. The only downside to that is the table may take a bit longer to load as it's compressing textures as it loads, but at least it's an option for those with a lower-end PC.

My point with this post is not to compare VP to FP (but it does illustrate how they work very differently for ram usage).

I'm just showing this bodes very well for tables like MOTU CE and Silent Hill and others in the future. I really can do mostly whatever I want, as I am not limited by 32 bit ram limits on FP-BAM.



@SpacePirateScott

 

[SpacePirateScott]

So the only known limitation is how long people are willing to wait for the table to load :) I assume, the better the table, the longer people will wait.

 

[TerryRed]

So the only known limitation is how long people are willing to wait for the table to load :) I assume, the better the table, the longer people will wait.

The only two things that cause long load times are extremely detailed "FP models" which I don't recommend (BAM models load almost instantly)... and a very large number of textures (such as most tables updated by SLAMT1LT for videos... 3000+ textures, etc).

Setting FP to use Bilinear Filtering makes a table load much faster (but you may get aliasing in some things), whereas using Trilinear Filtering can add a lot of loading time on slower PCs if the table has many 1000's of textures.

On my current PC... the longest loading tables with 3000+ textures (with Trilinear filtering) are less then 1 minute.... most are much quicker. With bilinear they all load very quickly.

 

[SpacePirateScott]

I had assumed that the long loading time on those tables were because each frame of the videos being individual textures. It's nice to have that verified.

If there are videos I would prefer they play as part of the pup pack so they are higher res, have better frame rates and don't kill the loading time. I mean a few animations in a hologram in the table is fine, but if you are playing a 20 second movie clip, then that seems like something that should be in the pup pack.

 

[TerryRed]

I had assumed that the long loading time on those tables were because of the videos being individual textures. It's nice to have that verified.

If there are videos I would prefer they play as part of the pup pack so they are higher res, have better frame rates and don't kill the loading time. I mean a few animations in a hologram in the table is fine, but if you are playing a 20 second movie clip, then that seems like something that should be in the pup pack.

Yes, that's basically what I do. On Silent Hill and MOTU CE, I only add minimal (high quality) images to the DMD / LCD / Hud display. I only use lots of textures for animation for things like effects on the table itself, maybe some holograms, etc.

Also... FP only lets you remove one texture at a time in Texture Manager which is a PITA.

For anything that I want to be high quality full videos, that is all in my PinEvent pup-pack options... so they can be whatever I want, as much as I want with no effect on the FP table size or loading times.

 

[AnonTet]

As far as I know, in case you want to test and assuming this is not the table you tested in VP, it's the recent update of Last Action Hero from VPW and I quote "This is surely our most graphically demanding table thus far!"

 

[TerryRed]

As far as I know, in case you want to test and assuming this is not the table you tested in VP, it's the recent update of Last Action Hero from VPW and I quote "This is surely our most graphically demanding table thus far!"

I test and play all new VPW releases in VR :)

I was testing as a comparison to give an idea of what each app typically uses. They both work differently as was seen. Even with a crazy FP table size (1.2 GB) FP still only used 2.5 GB system ram max (you can see the VP table uses much more). That still leaves 1.5 GB more, even with a crazy sized FP table, haha.

Many VPW tables require 64 bit VPX... as they are Blender Toolkit tables (BTK) that need to use pre-rendered textures and many 100's of models to fake all of its lighting with textures (it's not like FP which has realtime dynamic lighting in 3D space). This can also include the use of webp images which are compressed smaller in file size. These tables use more system ram that can go beyond 4 GB once the table is loaded. (they are very pretty tables though)

Keep in mind, that does not include music files (for original tables not using roms) that get loaded on the fly with VP... whereas on FP ALL music and sound is part of the table and loaded directly into ram which allows FP to do things like fading, cross fading, etc... and FP works really well with OGG files (on VP, its OGG support can be iffy). You also have to consider any VP tables using more ram for things like PUP / pinmame / roms / FlexDMD / b2s, etc.

For FP, the only thing not part of the table and not preloaded into ram is anything used with PUP. Except for PUP SSF files which are all loaded into ram, but the rest (videos, overlays, GIFs, etc) are dynamically loaded as needed.

I just wanted to see how far it could go (so I would know what my limits are). Needless to say... there aren't any worries with FP tables not having enough ram to work with. MOTU CE has a huge amount of music, sound files, fbx / obj models, textures, etc.... and for testing I went from a 368 MB table to a 1.2 GB table... and it ran fine (using only 2.5 GB max of system ram)... if your GPU had over 12 GB of vram, haha. Even some PS5 games don't use that much :)

 

[jimform2k1]

So is the 4GB exe patch needed for FP?

 

[TerryRed]

So is the 4GB exe patch needed for FP?

It's already applied to both FP and BAM when you install the latest FP and BAM Essentials AIO.

All the 4 GB patch does (for any 32 bit app) is change a flag on the file that disables the "old" Windows 2 GB ram limitation for 32 bit apps. That was only intended for use on a 32 bit operating system to prevent the app from using up too much ram that windows would need, since you only could have a total of 4 GB ram for everything (on a 32 bit OS).

We all use 64 bit Windows now... so allowing all 32 bit apps to use the entire 4 GB of ram they can, is normal now.

So, yes, it's needed to allow the main FP app to use 4 GB instead of 2 GB. FP-BAM can however use as much GPU memory (for textures, etc) as it wants... the only limitation is how much vram your GPU has, as my testing has shown.

 

[TerryRed]

Update: I forgot about texture compression!

======================================================

MOTU CE table (largest FP table, wip):

Table file: 368 MB
FP - ram usage: 1.5 GB
FP - GPU vram usage: 3.9 GB

After enabling texture compression in FP video settings (meant only for those with low vram on their GPU)...

Table file: 368 MB
FP - ram usage: 1.2 GB
FP - GPU vram usage: 2.6 GB

======================================================

MOTU CE table : After adding a shit load of 4K textures, FBX / OBJ models

Table file: 1.2 GB
FP - ram usage: 2.2 GB
FP - GPU vram usage: 12.5 GB

After enabling texture compression in FP video settings (meant only for those with low vram on their GPU)...

Table file: 1.2 GB
FP - ram usage: 2.0 GB
FP - GPU vram usage: 5.2 GB

======================================================

So yah... FP being 32 bit... is NOT a concern, or a limitation. The only limit will be how much ram (more so GPU vram) the player's PC has.

Someone with low vram on their GPU can enable texture compression in FP settings which seems to cut vram usage in half mostly. The only downside to that is the table may take a bit longer to load as it's compressing textures as it loads, but at least it's an option for those with a lower-end PC.

My point with this post is not to compare VP to FP (but it does illustrate how they work very differently for ram usage).

I'm just showing this bodes very well for tables like MOTU CE and Silent Hill and others in the future. I really can do mostly whatever I want, as I am not limited by 32 bit ram limits on FP-BAM.

(updated first post with this info)

 

[Popotte]

I'm a FP beginner (with a "normal" PC bought in 2003). Never have a problem with CPU, but updating my GPU, FPS growing. And I have to admit (no VP bashing), FP is not a lot consuming ressources even with big tables.
Thanks to Chris (Black), because FP was released in 2005 and it was (and is) a good software.

 

[GeorgeH]

The 4gb_patch undoubtedly negates some of the negative effects of the 32 bit.

 

[TerryRed]

An update. I found the "file size" limit.

I couldn't go above around 1.45 GB. If I did, FP wouldn't save the file, or if it did it crashed when loading the table.

I don't think that is a concern though. Even I may have a hard time coming anywhere close to 1 GB for a table file... even for something like Silent Hill... unless I go crazy with VR Room stuff.

 

[AnonTet]

That kind of makes sense.
32bit apps can only use a max size of 2GB RAM and the application has to run as well so...