VPX Help VPX : How to improve performance ?

[Clsx]

Hi ;

I've been running into fps/stutter issues in some VPX tables , especially ones with lots of stuff going on

While most of non vpm pre 80s tables run (almost) full speed , as well as most of vpm tables , but newer vpm tables and original tables have slowdown and frame drops

I noticed the framerate issue is worst with original tables with lots of eye candy ; especially when the table file size is over 200 mb

I understand VPX is much more demanding than VP 8 and 9 , and being on a 8+ year old business computer doesn't help , but I wonder if there are any settings & tweaks to make them a bit more smooth and playable

Thanks and have a nice one

 

[AnonTet]

It's not that VPX is more demanding by default (I never thought so) but tables updated to use most recent physics by nfozzy/roth and then all the dynamic sounds and all that to push for the CPU and by CPU i mean ONE core because VP is not multithreaded as far as I know.

Thing is, software is getting more and more demanding and I do notice my fans speeding up more recently too on newer VPX tables (and I have my cpu cores @5GHz water cooled).

There are other reasons, usually anti-virus is a nice culprit of many problems so you can disable that 1st. Or anything that uses overlays or is running in the background to free some cpu cycles while you play.

Of course you can always try to O/C your CPU and or GPU (some tables are starting to use hi-res graphics to run at 4K and that takes up vram) Other than that, only upgrading your HW will give you better performance.

Someone correct me if I say something wrong.

 

[xenonph]

Yes anti-virus is usually the main culprit.
You can also check your TV screen to see if there is a Game setting in the TV options.
Also you can shut off screen reflections in VP Video Preferences.

I have also went into Image Manager of tables that seem to give me a hard time, and find all the images that are over 4k res.
Export them and use photo editting program to reduce size in half. So a 4000 x 2048 pic is reduced to 2000 x 1024.
Then Import them back into table.
Seems to work for me on tables that seem to be extra demanding. Load times are sped up also.

Hope this helps.

 

[Clsx]

Thanks , will try and report back :)

 

[947er]

Open the Table in the VPX-Editor. Go to Proberties and change the "Elements Detail Level"

Next go to Visuals and uncheck "Reflect Elements on Playfield", For me it has helped.

I hope it helps you too.

 

[Clsx]

Thank you , I reduced the elements detail level and disable reflections , and the speed is significantly better (if not on all tables)

One more small thing , loading a bigger (over 100 mb) table on vpx takes almost a minute , is it normal ?

Thanks

 

[AnonTet]

Guess VP and FP share the same problem. Terry's tables take a while to load even on a gtx1080 (currently not oc'ed due to heat) with the CPU oc'ed to 5GHz. It is probably a minute or close but I never measured.

That being said, VPW tables for example (don't their size but I assume big) do load faster generally than FP.

 

[Clsx]

Thanks for the insight

Btw why is VPX so much more resource intensive than VP9 ?

More advanced physics engine ? Dynamic lightning etc ?

I mean I play on a normal desktop pc monitor , and don't notice much difference between a well made vp9 table and a vpx one , graphically

Do they look better when you play on a giant screen or a cab ?

 

[AnonTet]

I don't play anything not VPX so I can't compare but experience with other types of simulation you're right, more advanced math for physics, more resources needed. And someone experienced with VP evolution correct me here if i'm wrong but I also thing that at some point they have increased the physics rate. This means it is not just more accurate it runs more times per second (I don't know how much though).

Join that more GPU work due to what I've mentioned before and I think you have your answer.

If you have a table with 4K textures and one with older with lower res (let's say 1080p size) and i'm not even talking about quality of the texture you should see a difference in a 4k TV (bigger is relative and bigger doesn't always translate to better).

Which is why a 1080p upscaled video doesn't look as sharp as a 2K intermediated upscaled to 4k and native 4k still looks better than 2k upscaled so... yeah, it is a rabbit hole.

 

[xenonph]

You should notice a huge difference in physics in VPX. Compared to VP9.
Physmod5 or PM5 tables have better physics than VP9.
I think graphics has alot to do with it also.
VP8 can only have pics 1024x768 and lower.
VP9 you could rotate the playfield.
I could not play VPX until a friend of mine sent me a Graphics Card capable of handing the higher res pics.
So I would say Graphics are the main culprit.

 

[Clsx]

Thanks for the insight , guys :)

Somewhat embrassing to say I haven't played real pinball that much (pinball is literally unknown where I live) and don't understand how the physics should be etc

I used to play Pinball Dreams & Fantasies on Amiga and Pro Pinball series on PC religiously when I was a child , and after a long hiatus , discovered Visual Pinball and voila

 

[Wylte]

Bah, phone auto-scrolled to quote and post lol

 

[xenonph]

This is why exporting huge images out of Image Manager, and cutting there size in half, helps not only with load time, but tables run faster.
Some tables have a bumper cap image at 4000x4000 res!!
I have seen other tables with pics over 7000 res!!
Get all the pics under 2000 by editting them in photo editor and you will see a significant change in tables load time, and gameplay if you were seeing stutters before, this I can guarantee.

 

[FP125]

Fancied giving the image editor a go to see if performance improves. Looking at the new VPW Last Action Hero

Do I just export out the large images out to another folder and re-save them at a lower resolution and then import again?

 

[xenonph]

Fancied giving the image editor a go to see if performance improves. Looking at the new VPW Last Action Hero

Do I just export out the large images out to another folder and re-save them at a lower resolution and then import again?

Correct.
You may need to delete the old pics you are editing. right before you import the new ones.

 

[FP125]

Thankyou

 

[FP125]

Some more help please. Using Last Action Hero as an example

I loaded the table in VPX.
Went into Image Manager
Filtered to largest Raw Size
12 x images 96mb & 4096 x 4096
Exported these to desktop
Loaded up Microsoft Paint
Opened up extracted image (VLM.Nestmap1)
Selected resize
Selected Pixels (4032 x 4096 showing)
Amended horizontal to 1500 (vertical auto changes to 1523)
Selected save

Warning then appears

"Any transparency will be lost if you save this picture"

Select ok but another warning states cannot save this file, save was interrupted

This happens with other extracted files to when I resize.

How do I know what to resize them to?

I even halved exactly the file size of VLM.notepad0 from 3648 to 1824 but error persists

Thankyou

 

[xenonph]

Some more help please. Using Last Action Hero as an example

I loaded the table in VPX.
Went into Image Manager
Filtered to largest Raw Size
12 x images 96mb & 4096 x 4096
Exported these to desktop
Loaded up Microsoft Paint
Opened up extracted image (VLM.Nestmap1)
Selected resize
Selected Pixels (4032 x 4096 showing)
Amended horizontal to 1500 (vertical auto changes to 1523)
Selected save

Warning then appears

"Any transparency will be lost if you save this picture"

Select ok but another warning states cannot save this file, save was interrupted

This happens with other extracted files to when I resize.

How do I know what to resize them to?

Thankyou

Try using GIMP, which is a free picture editor.
Find the portable version here...

GIMP Portable (image editor) | PortableApps.com

The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system...

portableapps.com

NOTE: Click on green button as seen in pic.


After extracting to folder, (I usually just extract to Documents), run the GIMPPortable.exe.
Now click File tab at top left, and Open, then browse to pic.
With pic loaded, click Image tab at top, and select Scale Image.
Now you can scale the pic to what you like.
When you have finished making your adjustments, click the File tab in upper left and select Export As.
Now it will export scaled pic with transparency intact.

 

[FP125]

Thanks for fast reply. Will try and post back

 

[FP125]

Downloaded the app and followed your clear instructions. Thanks again

I exported the largest 6 files, VLM.Nestmap0, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6

Each are between 252mb - 384mb with most having an image size of 8192 x 8192

Wasn't too sure what to do on the rescale. I just amended the pixel size on all from 72 to 48, saved down and then re-imorted them all

Although the import path is showing correct. The image size and Raw Size remains the same as it was before the rescale?

Rookie error missed?

Would add the original Last Action Hero game is 441mb, but my amended one after the scale down is 1.7gb

 

[FP125]

Update....tried the table and loaded but background didn't look great

Re-scaled down to 60 from 72 (rather than 48 I did originally) and I only amended 3 rather than the 6 above

Table is 1.2gb but deffo improvement in play and this is at highest settings even though I have an old PC

Deffo works this fix

Thanks again man

 

[xenonph]

Send me the pics you want scaled down as attachment here.
I can convert them to WebP format, which will reduce file size tremendously.
Then I can add them back as attachment for you to try out.
1.2 GB's is way to big for table size!

 

[AnonTet]

Last Action .vpx file is 463MB. Where is that 1.2GB coming from?!

 

[xenonph]

Also, how are you able to access the Image Manager?
Everything is greyed out, including script.
Looks like they locked everything on this table?

 

[AnonTet]

Latest Vpw tables are all "locked out" or, if I recall correctly it's a bug from the past that is now on the new RC releases needed to play their new tables.
/edit
I'm pretty sure I've read about a bug like this in long gone times, that's what I meant.