Some games are lagging

[aeliusmaximus]

Hi all

Some of my games are lagging, music is lagging and the controls are lagging, can this be due to some error in the ROM or?

Only game that doesnt lagg for me is Addams family, so far ive got lagg on Indiana, Demolition man and tales from the crypt

 

[sleepy]

Slower computers or systems that use onboard video with limited video memory might lag.
I would try changing the Compatibility Mode setting to Windows 98. The older the Compatibility setting (i.e. Win 2000 vs. Win 98 ), the less demanding the results of those settings will be on the system.
Internet connections can also put a stutter in the game, especially if there are antivirus programs downloading and installing their update files as you play.
Other programs running in the background may be using up system resources. You can try turning off the programs
that are not needed to free up system resources, but if you have DSL or cable Internet then you should never turn off any antivirus programs without first disconnecting from the Internet. Protection is still the rule.

The current Visual Pinball version 9xx uses DirectX 9xx and takes more system power to run tables. The older VP8.1.exe uses fewer resources, but may not play tables designed for VP9 because of the DirectX differences in the design of the two VP.exe programs and the differences in the two VP.exe versions themselves.

 

[tiltjlp]

Thanks for the tip about changing the Compatibility Mode setting to Windows 98, since I have a lot of issues trying to work on some of my VP9 tables. Could you give me a step-by-step how to for making the change Sleepy, so I don't goof anything up?

 

[aeliusmaximus]

Allready running in 98 compa, odd tho that Addams family doesnt lagg, and all others do

 

[sleepy]

To set the Compatibility Mode:
Right-Click either the VPinball.exe or the Shortcut on the Desktop > Choose Properties. A menu appears.

Click the Compatibility tab.

Put a check in the box for Run this program in Compatibility Mode for...

From the pull-down choose the operating system that matches the era of the program you are trying to run, else choose the system that works best, and you may need to experiment with the various system choices to find the best one.

Click the Apply and then the O.K. buttons to set the choices and close.

 

[sleepy]

Do you mean the change to VP9?
There's not much to change except to be aware that VP9 is DirectX 9+ dependent and that table layouts may not work on pre-9 VP.exe without adjustments to the Walls, lanes and Ramps and that there is a chance that some of the VP9 commands and parameters may be a problem as they do not exist in older VP8.1 or before.

 

[tiltjlp]

What I meant is that using VP9.9 rather than VP 8.1 my computer bogs down fairly often when working on VP9 tables. I'm sure the reason is because I have an old, worn out computer. I'll try changing the compatibility settings and see if that helps.

 

[sleepy]

The slowdowns with VP9 could be due to VP9 using DirectX9 when used with older video cards that use older DirectX or 2D video cards that use DirectDraw.

VP9 is running on DirectX' Direct3D.
Pre-VP9 used DirectX' DirectDraw which is a lighter 2D graphics drawing engine.
Direct3D always takes more CPU power than DirectDraw.

I wish I could help. For the time being I have the same troubles using a ten year old video card not designed for Direct3D. I don't get slowdowns, but I do get holes in the table graphics and the high res VP9 VPinMame tables will not run at all. They return a Z-Axis error due to poor or no Direct3D availability in the card drivers.

If you have a newer video card, you could look into updating the drivers to a DirectX9c compatibility, in other words, the drivers are designed to work with DirectX9c, but most older video cards are rarely supported with such updates. Sometimes an independent programmer will offer updated drivers, but stay away from malware sites.

 

[faralos]

I have those dreaded intel integrated graphics chip set that sits on the motherboard. because of this certain pins will play but stutter real bad, as to make the game unplayable. Also any pins with fading lights tend to bog down my chipset too. I have a 6 yr. old P3 Dell and it truly sux. I use direct9x but still its the old chipset that can't handle all the rendering. better to get an external video card. But, I turn off my antivirus, antispyware, turn off ALL automatic download updates for all my programs, and I run win xp without all its bells and whistles to help speed up my computers processing speed a bit. And yes, there is a major difference if I do all that as opposed to NOT turning anything off before I start vp.

 

[sleepy]

The usual problem with older computers that use onboard video is that they do not have special memory chips for the video uses. They share the system RAM memory with the video graphics uses and often only allocate a small amount of that memory for the video graphics. I've seen systems with 1 Gigabyte system memory that only allow 12 Megabytes of that memory for the onboard video.
Newer systems with onboard video are getting better about the memory allocations, but they have to since Vista and Win7 use much higher graphics processing for the everyday Desktop graphics, system graphics, etc. than even XP does/did.

The main advantage of an add-on video card is when it provides larger memory from memory chips included on the add-on video card itself. Bonus points if the card can handle current or recent DirectX versions, that is, when we are allowed to use those versions on older Windows systems.

 

[JPbishi]

Another thing to check is if you're running a multi-core cpu. This used to confound me years ago when we finally got dual core processors. If you go into your task manager and the Visual Pinball running services, right click and set the affinity to a single core. This solved a lot of jittering, slowdown, and lagging.

Hope that helps!

 

[sleepy]

I didn't know there were controls in the Task Manger.
Thank you. :)