Mini pinball cabinet project hiccups ongoing problem I can't resolve

[arcadepcnut]

Hello all. I started my mini pinball project 2 years ago and still to this day am throwing money at it and can't figure out what is wrong. I'm having a pinball party in two weeks and would like to get to the bottom of what's wrong! I need your help. I can't do it alone!

Somewhere in my machine configuration is one or more weak points that is keeping me from being able to play pinball games smooth. There is only a few tables that work 100%

For the most part MOST tables there is one or more of the below:
Sound shudders
Ball jumps and teleports
Light flashers are large squares that flash

I just updated visual pinball for 912 to newest
I just updated my video drivers to latest version

I would think this machine would be able to play a lot of games fine but it won't:
Xp 32bit
2gb ram
Gigabyte motherboard with and 3.0 x2 6000+ processor (going to try over locking to see if that helps)
Ati 4870 1gb. Upgraded from GeForce 8800gt 512 thinking that video card was problem. Same issues
64gb ssd
On board sound
Key wiz controller

Configuration. 24" play field 1900x1680 16.
Back glass 17" running at 800x600. Ultravpserver for animated back glasses
Hyperpin frontend not hyper spin
Using Dmd on back glass oEverlaying ultravp animated back glass
I'm using a program called affinity to set visual pinball core 2 and ultravp hyperlink to core 1
I have wireless card and folder shared on pinball to make coping tables easier


Questions?
More ram help?
Add another video card? I have 1 pcie white slots but two yellow. Run dual 4870's?!
Add another video card? Pci card to run back glass?
Replace over click processor?
Reinstall everything?

Games that run ok.
Old version guns n roses
Old version lethal weapon 3

Games that run bad I say playable but definitely not what I'm after smooth frame rate
New version guns n roses
New star wars

Games that run jerky sound jerky or completely unplayable
New terminator 3
New star trek next generation
New lord of the rings
Old lord of the rings


I've NEVER been able to play star trek next generation or lord of the rings smooth. My favorite pinball is guns n roses. Can we use those for benchmarks on what I need to fix this machine?

Please don't say i5 processor!! I'm still running a core 2 duo over locked to 4ghz in my main computer.
I don't have a lot of resources to be able to make this pinball perfect. I have two now outdated mane cabinets and an outdated driving cabinet that needs hardware love as well.....

Thank you so much in advance!!!



Can someone help me figure out what is my weakest point without me having to throw a bunch of more money at this computer?

[BobA]

Hyperspin or Hyperpin?   How do the games run without the front end?

[arcadepcnut]

Hyperspin or Hyperpin?   How do the games run without the front end?

HyperPIN. They run slightly better but not alot.

[spoot]

Turn off antialiasing and/or ball shadows?

[leapinlew]

ball shadows

sounds like gay porn

[arcadepcnut]

Turn off antialiasing and/or ball shadows?

Yes both are already off in visual pinball preferences.  Thanks

[Bloinkxp]

Without knowing how the app works...how much memory are you using when everything is running. 
Open the task manager and launch the app.

If you are using more than 2gig of memory then add memory.

[spoot]

ball shadows

sounds like gay porn

I would say if there are shadows than the grip isn't doing proper job.....but that would sound wrong.   

[spoot]

Without knowing how the app works...how much memory are you using when everything is running. 
Open the task manager and launch the app.

If you are using more than 2gig of memory then add memory.

Yeah, if you're swapping alot it won't help.  And this machine works fine for other things and you're not suffering from "SSD stutter"?

[PL1]

+1 on upgrading memory -- 4GB should be good, more is a waste with 32-bit XP IIRC.

Have you eliminated unneeded processes?

By keeping the cab connected wirelessly, you need to keep anti-virus, etc. -- If you disconnect the cab from the network, you can eliminate the anti-virus and the wireless connection processor overhead.

When you open Task Manager, switch to the processes tab and click on the CPU column header to see how much processor time each process is using .  You may have a rogue svchost.exe eating up lots of processor time. (Not difficult to fix -- Google for directions if needed.)


Scott

[arcadepcnut]

Without knowing how the app works...how much memory are you using when everything is running. 
Open the task manager and launch the app.

If you are using more than 2gig of memory then add memory.

Looks like only about 512 to 700mb. I'll do some more testing in this area

[arcadepcnut]

Without knowing how the app works...how much memory are you using when everything is running. 
Open the task manager and launch the app.

If you are using more than 2gig of memory then add memory.

Yeah, if you're swapping alot it won't help.  And this machine works fine for other things and you're not suffering from "SSD stutter"?

What is ssd stutter? I'll have to check.  Ssd is only thing in this machine I'm 100% happy with. Hyperpin loads in about 2 seconds. Table screenshots are instant. Table loading in about 2-3 seconds. Windows boots in less than 10 seconds.


Um update. I think your on to something here.

[arcadepcnut]

+1 on upgrading memory -- 4GB should be good, more is a waste with 32-bit XP IIRC.

Have you eliminated unneeded processes?

By keeping the cab connected wirelessly, you need to keep anti-virus, etc. -- If you disconnect the cab from the network, you can eliminate the anti-virus and the wireless connection processor overhead.

When you open Task Manager, switch to the processes tab and click on the CPU column header to see how much processor time each process is using .  You may have a rogue svchost.exe eating up lots of processor time. (Not difficult to fix -- Google for directions if needed.)


Scott

Thanks for all the tips from everyone. I know about 32 bit limitations. I don't have antivirus. This machine is on my LAN. All unneeded processes are shutdown. I may have a rogue process. I will peruse memory usage and processes to see what's killing me.

[arcadepcnut]

Omg DDR 2 memory is so expensive now that I might as well buy another motherboard! Lol

Well loading visual pinball and loading lord of the rings tells me something very surprising. I loaded tabled completely. Put coins in it. Launched ball. Hit Control alt delete

768 meg memory used. 1.2gb free up to a maximum of 800mb used
Swap file is off
14% processor utilization. Average. Gets as high as 55% during game.

[RandyT]

You have a lot going on with that setup.  The best way to troubleshoot this would be to start taking some of the features out of the equation.

Do the tables run smoothly without the backglass animations?  Do things get better when you turn down the resolution on your table screen?  Are ball reflections on?  What happens if you disable your onboard sound?

Essentially, start with the configuration you don't want, but which works, and then start turning things on until it breaks.  Then, whatever breaks, throw enough money at those things until you find something you can live with, or go broke, whichever comes first .

Seriously, though, you may not have enough processor to do all of the things you want, as smoothly as you would like.  Some of those frills are probably relying on scripting of some sort, and nothing helps that outside of raw processing speed.  I've also seen it recommended to use a graphics card with 2 gigs of memory, but I can't say how this might affect what you are experiencing.

[arcadepcnut]

You have a lot going on with that setup.  The best way to troubleshoot this would be to start taking some of the features out of the equation.

Do the tables run smoothly without the backglass animations?  Do things get better when you turn down the resolution on your table screen?  Are ball reflections on?  What happens if you disable your onboard sound?

Essentially, start with the configuration you don't want, but which works, and then start turning things on until it breaks.  Then, whatever breaks, throw enough money at those things until you find something you can live with, or go broke, whichever comes first .

Seriously, though, you may not have enough processor to do all of the things you want, as smoothly as you would like.  Some of those frills are probably relying on scripting of some sort, and nothing helps that outside of raw processing speed.  I've also seen it recommended to use a graphics card with 2 gigs of memory, but I can't say how this might affect what you are experiencing.

If there is anyone I trust I trust key wiz as I use all your products on all my builds.
I tried all what you suggested. I just can't understand why a 4870 won't run a pinball game. I can't grasp my mind around it.
Basic windows loaded no sound and no fronted visual pinball runs the same.
It's not ram. Ram usage never goes above 800meg
I don't think it's processor as either core never goes above 50%
It's not resolution, 1600 acts same as 1900
It's not Ssd stuttering. I tried many apps to circumvent stuttering and even put in another regular Sata hard drive
It's not hardware rendering. With hardware rendering on I get white boxes for flashers. With it off white boxes for flashers
No extra services loaded
Hardware rendering off and on makes no improvements on playability whether off or on
Updated all drivers no difference
Turned direct draw off. No difference

Should I just junk this thing and rebuild? Is there still a problem with Ati cards ?
Is there a better os to run than xp 32
Is amd processors inferior? I got this processor specifically for this because of the 3ghz cores

IMHO pinball has got to be smooth or it's unplayable! I cant antioate the ball if one second its smooth then telports or jumps. I can't understand why iPad pinball looks so much better and has so many more "effects" than visual pinball but a dedicated decent computer can't run it. I know it has to do with emulation vs native app but visual pinball isn't really an emulation is it? Well the roms for Dmd are and I guess the sound is emulated?!

I mean my machine will play old pinballs fine like bad cats and even indian jones plays ok. But Jurassic park, sttng, lord of the rings.....forget about it. Sounds stutter and ball jerks and white pieces covering play field and flashers flashing white boxes.

I can't afford another geforce video card. I had a 9800gt and 8800gt and they didnt seem better than this. Will I have better success with 2 4870?

I guess pinball party won't happen and we will have to play pinball on my iPad.

[RandyT]

If there is anyone I trust I trust key wiz as I use all your products on all my builds.

While I appreciate the vote of confidence, VP is a hard nut to crack.  There are multiple versions of the same tables, some designed with certain versions of VP in mind some with others.  While trying to figure out similar issues folks were having while using the LED-Wiz to drive lights and contactors, I must have spent 6 hours mixing and matching tables and VP versions.  Get the wrong combinations and you get some really poor performance.  With the LED-Wiz, or any externally driven hardware and some software for that matter, it boils down to scripting performance issues.  If anything in your setup requires additional scripting calls outside of the table proper support code, you will have slowdown.  The more advanced the table, the more scripting and the less room, performance-wise, for some of these external features.

One thing I found was that the latest version of graphics card drivers isn't always the best for VP.  If you are getting white squares for your flashers, it sounds an awful lot like video card issues.  It could be that there isn't enough memory for the textures, or just a driver problem in general.  Try earlier versions of VP and the card drivers.  Also, for testing purposes, get rid of the backglass and DMD stuff, or at least turn off the second monitor output and put the DMD on your main monitor.  I know you don't want to have to run it that way, but it will help to isolate the problems. 

Also, when I say drop the resolution, I mean really drop it.  Start at the lowest and if it's good, then start working your way up.  You can't fix the issues if you don't know what they are, so the key is going to be finding the configuration which works and then starting to add things until you see the issues you don't like.  The only way to do this is to start at a bare-bones, craptacular setup.  And if that is still giving you issues, you'll know that you have some serious issue with your hardware base.

RandyT

[lilshawn]

maybe take a look through your hardware and see if anything is sharing IRQ's or DMA addresses.

ive had instances where i'd be listening to audio and have it cut out for a second. turned out the modem was sharing an IRQ # with the soundcard. when the computer accesses the hardware it sends an IRQ (interrupt request) for a specific number. in this case, the sound and modem happened to share the same number (not in itself a bad thing) but it caused the sound to drop out.

ive run into this a few times now (game pads going AWOL, video corruption)  plug and play is effective, but it isn't smart. manually changing things around (and disabling items not needed such as printer ports serial ports etc. and doing a little re-arranging) frees up IRQ's and DMA's so they don't have to be shared.

perhaps your video card or sound is sharing something with another piece of hardware causing the video to stop processing for a moment until the request times out and resumes.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314068

[vidmouse]

At a glance, your hardware seems very similar to what I have running on my mini pincab,
which runs fine.  (if anything, I think your processor is faster?)  I would doubt that you
need to add more memory or anything hardware-wise unless there is a piece of hardware
that is malfunctioning.

I too would recommend trying to play them w/o the backglass and see if problems persist.
You could also ask as vpforums.org
As a last resort, you could try Future Pinball for your party and see if that works alright for
some more modern tables until you get your VP problem sorted out.

Will try to follow up with how I have settings on my mini pin to help you out...

[vidmouse]

Did a little more work on trying to figure this out for you... here are my video settings in Visual Pinball:
Full Screen, 1280x1024x32 resolution, At Full Screen antistretch the ball to my monitor 16:9, all Details are checked, Hardware Device rendering checked, Troubleshooting options checked, Max Texture Unlimited, Alpha Ramp slider all the way to the left.

Running Directx 9.0c on WinXP32 SP3 w/ the following PC specs
Mobo: Biostar K8M800 Micro Motherboard - Via K8M800, Socket AM2, MicroATX, Audio, Video, AGP 8xk ...
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Processor 2.40GHz, 1MB Cache, 1000MHz (2000 MT/s) FSB, Brisbane, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket AM2, Processor with Fan
Memory: 2GB (2x Patriot Signature 1024MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz Memory or similar brand)
Video Card: 1GB card (forget the brand, ATI?)
Monitor: Hannspree HF-259HPB 24.6" Widescreen LCD HD Monitor - 1080p, 1920x1080, 16:9, 1000:1 Native, 3000: Dynamic, 2ms, 60Hz, Integrated Speakers, VGA, HDMI
Backglass monitor: unknown, about 19"
IPAC2 (which in hindsight I didn't really need, I have a spare gamepad I could've hacked but oh well)
Altec Lansing Speakers w/ sub
Logitech keyboard
optical mouse

And here's a sample video playing ST:TNG on Visual Pinball, to give you an idea of the speed:

[arcadepcnut]

That's a little bit smoother than mine but I'm running at at 1900x1680.
Can you try running Jurassic park any version and lord of the rings? You don't have to do a video.

At this point I decided to pull the motherboard out if my main pc core 2 duo 4.4ghz and reinstall everything on the pincab. Been working so much lately that I haven't had time to do that.

Thanks for the video . I'm curious to know if you can play lord of the rings or especially Jurassic park on yours

I also have a friend who has a GeForce 2gb card. Should I try to buy that from him? 2ghz video card make more difference than a 4.4ghz processor? I think it's a GeForce 480

Did a little more work on trying to figure this out for you... here are my video settings in Visual Pinball:
Full Screen, 1280x1024x32 resolution, At Full Screen antistretch the ball to my monitor 16:9, all Details are checked, Hardware Device rendering checked, Troubleshooting options checked, Max Texture Unlimited, Alpha Ramp slider all the way to the left.

Running Directx 9.0c on WinXP32 SP3 w/ the following PC specs
Mobo: Biostar K8M800 Micro Motherboard - Via K8M800, Socket AM2, MicroATX, Audio, Video, AGP 8xk ...
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Processor 2.40GHz, 1MB Cache, 1000MHz (2000 MT/s) FSB, Brisbane, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket AM2, Processor with Fan
Memory: 2GB (2x Patriot Signature 1024MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz Memory or similar brand)
Video Card: 1GB card (forget the brand, ATI?)
Monitor: Hannspree HF-259HPB 24.6" Widescreen LCD HD Monitor - 1080p, 1920x1080, 16:9, 1000:1 Native, 3000: Dynamic, 2ms, 60Hz, Integrated Speakers, VGA, HDMI
Backglass monitor: unknown, about 19"
IPAC2 (which in hindsight I didn't really need, I have a spare gamepad I could've hacked but oh well)
Altec Lansing Speakers w/ sub
Logitech keyboard
optical mouse

And here's a sample video playing ST:TNG on Visual Pinball, to give you an idea of the speed:

[vandale]

hi, my advice is to turn off the animated backglass, just edit it out of the table config and run a compile in VP.

I run a 3 monitor setup on a 2.2ghz dual core pentium, 2GB DDR2 on a OEM Acerboard with a $69 Nvidia 1GB video, second cheapest I could find. HDMI to a 43inch Philips 1080p panel via HDMI, 26inch back glass viewsonic and 17inch DMD philips.

This runs 300 frames a second on T2 Chrome @ 1920x1080 but if I run animated backglass (UVP) I get 60 fps and it runs like crap.

When you are playing, all you look at is the dmd and playfield, who cares about the back glass doing the odd thing now and then, haha turn it off and try again.
Cheers
Gene

[vidmouse]

That's a little bit smoother than mine but I'm running at at 1900x1680.
Can you try running Jurassic park any version and lord of the rings? You don't have to do a video.

Lord of the Rings runs fine.  I'm not in front of it right now otherwise I'd report the fps.
I seem to remember Jurassic Park being ok too but I'll have to wait till tonight to check it out.

Maybe lowering your screen res would help?

[arcadepcnut]

Thank you for the ideas. I guess different people's ideas of "ok" are different. I wouldn't think your machine could run pinball at all
You running hdmi out? That's kind of too low resolution for me.

I turned off uvp back glass and tried again. Little bit better but not much.
I tried just running visual pinball with no back glass whatsoever and no frontend at all

I'm thinking os corruption or some sort.
I care about the back glass I like it
Why even build a pinball machine if your not interested in the best recreation possible.

Don't get me wrong that's for your help

I'm starting to see its not my hardware or people would have said so. I'm going to scrap the project and start over from scratch rebuilding machine

hi, my advice is to turn off the animated backglass, just edit it out of the table config and run a compile in VP.

I run a 3 monitor setup on a 2.2ghz dual core pentium, 2GB DDR2 on a OEM Acerboard with a $69 Nvidia 1GB video, second cheapest I could find. HDMI to a 43inch Philips 1080p panel via HDMI, 26inch back glass viewsonic and 17inch DMD philips.

This runs 300 frames a second on T2 Chrome @ 1920x1080 but if I run animated backglass (UVP) I get 60 fps and it runs like crap.

When you are playing, all you look at is the dmd and playfield, who cares about the back glass doing the odd thing now and then, haha turn it off and try again.
Cheers
Gene

[RandyT]

Thank you for the ideas. I guess different people's ideas of "ok" are different. I wouldn't think your machine could run pinball at all
You running hdmi out? That's kind of too low resolution for me.

I don't think anyone is expecting you to run it at low-resolution, but knowing what the result of doing so is, will be invaluable to figuring out the issue.  Also consider that you are only running a 24" table.  Are you really going to notice it that much if you use a lower resolution which allows the tables to run fluidly and keeps you from needing to invest a good chunk of money in a new system?

I turned off uvp back glass and tried again. Little bit better but not much.

The fact that you saw an improvement when you did so is pointing to system load as part of the problem.

I'm starting to see its not my hardware or people would have said so. I'm going to scrap the project and start over from scratch rebuilding machine

Think big .   If super smooth, regardless of table or what might be going on with the extra features, is what you are after, you will need a machine which is 1.5 - 2x more powerful than what makes some of the tables run well.  From what I have seen, the recommended system specs for all of the extras is a fast quad-core, 4-6 gigs of ram and a fast video card with 2gigs.  I have seen some with systems far below those specs say they were happy with the performance they have, but they seem to be in a lucky minority.

RandyT

[arcadepcnut]

Well thanks for all the tips. I bought my friends GeForce 285 2gb
Although a slower card than the Ati 4870 it runs twice as good

All games I tried play smooth with everything in my first post.  Nothing else changed but video card

So it's either the 2gb video ram or the GeForce.

Pinball party here I come. Dang Ati card!!

It made a 100% different swapping out the card to slower GeForce. Resolution is still 1900x1680 16

[lilshawn]

looks like the geforce has a 512 bit memory interface where the ati has a 256 bit. the 512 bit memory bus can move twice as much data in the same time frame.

[MTPPC]

And once again, we see that using the suggested nVidia video processor solves the problem.