Bug Mac Version 1.1.3 Bugs

This thread is for posting bugs for Mac version 1.1.3 ONLY (new bugs as well as lingering issues that haven't been fixed). If you want to post general feedback or comments, then please use THIS THREAD instead. Anything posted here that is not a bug will be moved or deleted.


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Device/OS:

Bug Description:

Steps To Reproduce:

Frequency:

Additional Comments:


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Device/OS: MBP/OSX 10.8.3

Bug Description:On WhiteWater, shots up Bigfoot Bluff ramp fly off table toward the right after the ball goes through back tunnel.

Steps To Reproduce:Shoot Bigfoot Bluff ramp

Frequency:90%

Additional Comments:I've had a couple of shots that didn't come off the table, but it seems to be dumb luck that it makes it around the loop.

Same problem here too.

Same problem here as well. I had 1 shot that seemed to have less speed that made it otherwise it just flies off the table 90% of the time. You seem to get credit for whirlpool shots, but not for a jackpot during multiball. The ball does reappear at the plunger. Essentially makes the game unplayable.

ksmmspt said:

Same problem here as well. I had 1 shot that seemed to have less speed that made it otherwise it just flies off the table 90% of the time. You seem to get credit for whirlpool shots, but not for a jackpot during multiball. The ball does reappear at the plunger. Essentially makes the game unplayable.

Click to expand...

I haven't played WH2O because of this so my understanding of the rule set is very thin, but isn't the Insanity Falls shot the jackpot shot? Does Whirlpool award a jackpot as well?

Bigfoot Bluff (the right hand shot) is a jackpot shot during Hotfoot mode. It also spots items toward Goldrush. Since the ball never hits the second switch in that loop, there are a lot of points that are out of reach. 5 way combo is also going to be a ***** with that loop out of play, too.

I'm also experiencing the whirlpool shot bug. Please fix this A.S.A.P. Really frustrating.

Has anyone else noticed that if you buy the Pro version of White Water and Space Shuttle, you only get the Pro version of White Water? My Space Shuttle table still has a "Buy Pro" attached to it. Hmmm, I just clicked on it to see what would happen and it says, "Cannot establish a network connection" but if I click on Medieval Madness's Buy Pro button it comes up with an offer, but the latter is not the in-app iTunes menu so I'm not sure if it's the same thing. I've never seen a Pro option for Theatre of Magic for that matter and that's disappointing since it's my favorite real world table.

Is there some reason the Mac OSX versions of these tables are so much brighter lit than the tables shown on the previews here? Is there a way to get the dark versions where the lighting stands out more? Does the General Illumination effects work on other (non-OSX) versions of the tables? The lighting effects on the real tables like Whitewater are so much more impressive with General Illumination working (e.g. The "Pacdude" Whitewater table for Visual Pinball with Visual Pinmame has 7-dim setting GI lighting by comparison like the real machine).

On "other" issues with the latest release today of Pinball Arcade (with Whitewater), it'd be nice if my Logitech gamepad worked with it as well (sticks move nudge

Has anyone noticed that in Twilight Zone that the Powerball looks like an ordinary ball UNLESS you select a custom ball and then the Powerball is white as it should be (doesn't "feel" like a ceramic ball to me, though). This bug has apparently been around since the table came out and is still present in this version as well.

MagnumXL said:

It'd be nice if you could work the plunger from a key for that matter so I don't have to move my hands back and forth to the mouse all the time for that matter. I cannot find any key/way to activate extra keys like Magnasave on Black Knight either and the instructions make no mention how to do it. Also trying to activate Tournament after logging in causes a Mac "busy" spinning beach ball and no response from Pinball Arcade while it says "Creating Account" but never does.

Click to expand...

Sorry, out of all of the things in your post, I can only speak to these three.

The space bar operates the plunger. You have to briefly hold it down before it'll start to pull the plunger back or "push" the launch button.

Magnasave is activated with the A key and the " key, respectively.

The tournament issue is because there isn't an active tournament at the moment. It seems to be waiting for a reply from the server. Not sure why it doesn't just time out or tell you there isn't a tournament, but that's what it is for the time being.

MagnumXL said:

Is there some reason the Mac OSX versions of these tables are so much brighter lit than the tables shown on the previews here? Is there a way to get the dark versions where the lighting stands out more? Does the General Illumination effects work on other (non-OSX) versions of the tables? The lighting effects on the real tables like Whitewater are so much more impressive with General Illumination working (e.g. The "Pacdude" Whitewater table for Visual Pinball with Visual Pinmame has 7-dim setting GI lighting by comparison like the real machine).

Click to expand...

The reason the tables look like this on Mac OS X is because TPA for Mac is ported from the iOS version with only minor platform-specific tweaks. At least that's how it seems to me, but I think we can all agree that it is most likely the case here.

Tony C said:

Sorry, out of all of the things in your post, I can only speak to these three.

The space bar operates the plunger. You have to briefly hold it down before it'll start to pull the plunger back or "push" the launch button.

Magnasave is activated with the A key and the " key, respectively.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. You'd think the game would list the specific extra keys for each game, though. What do I push to use a Martian bomb in Attack From Mars or to activate the secret cow modes? It seems like one was the launch button (hard to get an instant reaction from the space bar when there's a delay and a PITA to try and grab the mouse while the ball is in play).

More Bugs/Issues:

I've also noticed that the game goes into that "slow motion" crap on most (if not all at some point sooner or later) games if the post processing mode isn't turned ON. It definitely did not have this issue on the last version. I don't know if Firepower was lit pure white around the flipper area with post processing turned on (since I didn't use it much before), but it is in this one and I can't turn post processing off without making the game behave like it's in slow motion so I'm stuck with a pseudo-ridiculous looking table. It's like they wanted it to look lit, but it's TOO lit there.

I've also noticed now that the Neon tube in Circus Voltaire no longer works/lights in this version and it worked fine in the last version. I tried every detail/processing combo and nothing makes it light. There is no Pro menu for some reason for that game, so I can't test it in the operator menu, but it definitely no longer works during the game. Now I wish I'd saved a copy of the last version before updating....

It does seem like the ball is less bouncy when hitting the flippers now, though. The ball behavior is actually pretty good on Twilight Zone, although the Powerball will not show up "white" unless you use an alternate ball image which really sucks since I like the default ball but I need to see the Powerball. I actually bought the Powerball as an extra ball option for 99 cents and it has NEVER showed up in any table's ball image selection so I feel like it ripped me off there. The game knows I bought it, though since the option to buy it is now gone.

Neon multiball mode came up in Circus Voltaire and not only did the neon tube not work as previously mentioned, but the camera pulled back to the plunger ball camera and made it darn near impossible to play the mode. I enabled Multiball camera (which I normally don't like since I prefer to just keep my regular view) but I haven't been able to get that mode/reward again yet to see if it makes any difference.

Tuomas Hämäläinen said:

The reason the tables look like this on Mac OS X is because TPA for Mac is ported from the iOS version with only minor platform-specific tweaks. At least that's how it seems to me, but I think we can all agree that it is most likely the case here.

Click to expand...

I've read that before, but I don't see why the iOS version would have to look like it's lit so bright. It really is a brightness/contrast/gamma issue for the most part. I found if I set my AOC's monitor control to use "Gamma 2" instead of "Gamma 1", it actually makes the tables look like they're playing in a dark room and they're all lit up. This looks a bit odd in non-post processing mode (like the playfields just magically glow or something), but it looks darn near perfect (except that the DMD display gets darker) with post processing turned on so I'm starting to think that post processing mode was MEANT to be the dark/glow mode for the game like the console versions, but they forgot to adjust the gamma settings internally to make it look right because for the most part it just looks kind of "foggy" with my regular monitor gamma but looks like actual table lighting effects when I force my monitor's gamma to a higher/darker/more contrast setting. Firepower still looks absurd near the flippers (too washed out so you can't see any flipper detail), but on most tables it looks spectacular compared to normal (e.g. Circus Voltaire's lighting REALLY looks good in that mode, save the neon no longer works in this version regardless of detail/processing setting for some odd bug reason). Attack From Mars was one of the darkest looking tables to start and it also looks like it's in a real arcade room then. The flashers aren't as extreme an effect as a real machine played in a darker room, but overall it's a huge improvement. In fact, I've tried about 1/3 of my tables and they all look better in post processing + changing the monitor's gamma setting to 2.

Given all the bugs I'm finding, I'm thinking they're just in too much of a hurry to add more tables rather than address what are largely minor bugs and issues. Yeah, I like seeing more of my favorite tables added, but perhaps they should consider a beta test team or something that could actually talk to a developer via e-mail or whatever with a better response than their general bug e-mail that from most people's comments I've seen elsewhere seems to not get much response.

I used to make pinball tables for Visual Pinball (under "PacDude") so I've got a pretty good idea about various issues with the tables like the lighting on Twilight Zone is obviously just using a dark playfield effect with a modified bright image for the lit playfield lights, but they made a common mistake and that is to not make sure the "lit" light is brighter in its darkest points than the static unlit image (it actually gets darker on most of the "door" lights in some corner than the unlit image and that's obviously because they used two different images of the playfield, lit and unlit but the lit image has darker spots due to contrast than the unlit ones and so it looks FAKE as all heck when it lights up on those lenses. They need adjusted so the darkest point is lighter than the same point on the unlit image. I used to make my own overlay effects with fading effects for all table lights so they bloom, etc. Visual Pinball wasn't real time 3D, but a rendered static 2D, but it was capable with the right tools of doing fairly nice lighting effects. There's no reason Pinball Arcade couldn't incorporate fading light effects to simulate incandescent cool down and General Illumination, etc. And there's no reason the Mac version couldn't be improved over its iOS sources either. But if they're in too much a hurry to add more tables, it'll never get done.

I installed Pinball Arcade on my mid 2008 Macbook Pro running 10.8.3 to see how it compares. It's running a larger monitor at a higher resolution and has NVidia 8600M GT graphics and 4GB ram.

The first thing I noticed is that the "slow motion" problem I've had with Pinball Arcade since the V1.1.3 (current) version came out is that it doesn't happen on this computer. The next thing I noticed is that the neon light on Circus Voltaire was working. I eventually figured out that it doesn't work ONLY when post processing is turned ON. It works with it OFF. The reason I thought it stopped working on the other computer is that the weird slow motion thing was happening with it off and so I wasn't using it. But I tried it on that computer and sure enough, it started working again with post processing turned off. On the other hand, all the tables seem to be going slow right now on the Mac Mini. I don't know if this is because I have VMWare running at the moment using 2 of the CPUs or it's leaving something running in the background. Given it was doing it with post processing OFF only before, I'm thinking something might be still running after quitting or crashing and/or maybe something is corrupted. I should try a reset and if that doesn't work, a re-install.

The tables do look sharper at 1920x1200 on the other computer (I was running 1680x1050 on the Mac Mini since it's a 22" monitor versus 24" on the other one). Somehow the gameplay felt slower on the Macbook Pro, though. Everything moved smooth, but it felt like the games were at a less steep playing angle or something (i.e. gravity felt weaker). I noticed that on the older tables on the Mac Mini, but I thought the newer games ran pretty fast with a decent ball return speed under gravity (i.e. slope of 7-8 equivalent degrees whereas they felt more like 5-6 on the Macbook Pro, but maybe this is my imagination? The Macbook Pro is a slower computer, but I wouldn't think that is how it would manifest. I'll compare again after reinstalling.

Edit 1:

I quit VMWare and the speed seemed to return to normal with post processing turned on, but still does it with it off. However, it's obvious now that on the Mac Mini, the slow motion slow-down thing ONLY happens in FULL SCREEN mode. If I switch back to a window (regardless of how big), the speed returns to normal immediately. If I activate Mission Control and then go back to Pinball Arcade, it goes full speed for a little bit and then inevitably slows down again to slow-mo behavior. It's just bizarre. It's obvious that Pinball Arcade does NOT use the proper "full screen mode" for Mountain Lion, though so maybe there's some kind of conflict there, but it did OK on my Macbook Pro in full screen and the last version worked fine on the Mac Mini as well. Trying a restart of OSX next....

Edit 2:

Restart made no difference. It works fine on the Mac Mini unless it's in full screen mode and then works fine if Post Processing is turned ON. Otherwise it goes into slow motion in short order. I just wiped it out and I'm reinstalling from the App store to see if that makes any difference. It may be a new bug only with the Intel 4000 in full screen without post processing, though.

Edit 3:

Reinstalling made no difference. If it's fullscreen, it has to have post processing ON or it will eventually start moving in slow motion. If it's in a window, it behaves normally regardless of setting, even if sized nearly as large. I think there's a possibility it has something to do with having it set up to use two monitors, but I'll have to disconnect one to test it. Whatever it is, it didn't do it in the last version at all. The Macbook Pro using on large 24" monitor with NVidia 8600M GT behaves fine.

Final Edit:

Disconnecting the 2nd monitor made no difference. Whatever it is, it's related to full screen mode and possibly the Intel 4000 GPU and something that changed in the last version.

Err.... I just tried running Pinball Arcade on my other monitor in a window. It actually went into "slow motion" for a few seconds and then suddenly went back to moving normally again. That's the first time I've seen the problem in window mode. Trying to enter full screen mode on the other monitor resulted in a 1/4 display on the primary monitor instead and was clearly not working right. I think it would be a good idea if they supported Mountain Lion's actual full screen mode. It might solve all the issues.

Device/OS: Mac OS X 10.8.3

Bug Description: Shooting into the whirlpool after multiball causes the balls to fly off the table and can't be plunged. Calling for an attendant and then plunging will lock the game.

Steps To Reproduce: Get multiball, shoot ball into whirlpool right after multiball starts, don't plunge until you get 3 caught in the plunger lane. Call for attendant.

Frequency: 100%



Additional Comments: I realize this has been reported before, hope it gets fixed soon.

I've found switching to window mode for a minute or so seems to get rid of the slow motion effect even when I go back to full screen much of the time. I've even seen it switch behavior (i.e. go slow motion in post processing mode instead when switching back and forth so I assume it's something to do with full screen mode perhaps only related to mountain lion and/or lion or even the Intel 4000 chipset).