Arcooda Cab Views 2 to 4 play in Slow Motion. View 1 fine - Build 1.70.18 (5th June)

[SilverBalls]

I ran the test Silverballs was wondering about. Using information in https://www.howtogeek.com/126430/ht...-windows-page-file-and-should-you-disable-it/ , I disabled the page file on my old Windows 7 PC (which has 6GB of installed RAM). After the required reboot, I started up TPA on one monitor and Task Manager on the other. Results were the same as before on this computer:

a) Slowdowns on views 1,2,3.
b) Task Manager showing large increasing number in Page Faults Delta for PinballArcadeCabinet process in views 1-3, with Page Faults also increasing the entire time in those three views.
c) Full 60fps on view 4.
d) For PinballArcadeCabinet process in Task Manager, Page Faults Delta drops down to zero in View 4 and Page Faults stops increasing.

Great that you did a test - So from that they are most likely to be soft page faults then. Looking forward to hear from Farsight on it.

Incidentally my PC is Windows 7 64-bit with 8GB RAM.

 

[gust334]

Windows 10 Resource Monitor tracks and records hard page faults.
Zero hard page faults on any Cabinet v1.70.27 camera.
The faults we see are soft page faults.

 

[seattlemark]

Windows 10 Resource Monitor tracks and records hard page faults.
Zero hard page faults on any Cabinet v1.70.27 camera.
The faults we see are soft page faults.

I am also seeing 0 Hard Faults. For me I checked on the Windows 7 (64-bit) Resource Monitor on my old PC in views 1-3, at the same time the Task Manager Page Faults and Page Faults Delta were very high for the PinballArcadeCabinet.exe process during those same views.

 

[gust334]

Radio silence from Farsight for a week now.

 

[Jamman39]

Radio silence from Farsight for a week now.

Yeah this is frustrating. The game was working pretty well for me in its previous version, the latest update has made it unplayable and Farsight are awfully quiet.

 

[vfpcoder]

I guess they’re exhausted from all the work required for the 06/30 deadline. Think of it:They had to ensure that the ability to purchase Bally/Williams tables was removed across all platforms while simultaneously ensuring that the tables purchased prior to the deadline were still accessible to the owners. That had to have been a tremendous undertaking.

I’m sure they’ll get back to work on fixing the cabinet mode shortly. According to the Arcooda site they have a 07/31 deadline for completing the generic cabinet software “offline” package.

I’m still hoping for the following:
* Brighter DMD for “Creature From the Black Lagoon”. (Two monitor mode.) The current provided DMD is too dark to read.
* ”Gorgar” scoring in the backglass.
* Restoration of some of the backglass animations, like “Xenon”. This was promised following the fixing of the speed issues some people were having with the 3D views. It appears that the information provided in this thread should be sufficient for FarSight to fix the speed issue.
* Restoration of the “pseudo” shaker motor effect on tables like “Earthshaker” and “Red and Ted’s Roadshow”. This was probably removed due to true shaker motor support for the Arcooda cabinets; but the effect needs to be restored for the generic cabinet version.

Finally, some of us are having issues launching the DX11 version of TPA. For some reason it now wants to launch in the monitor defined for the backglass in the cabinet mode configuration.

I’m sure FarSight will have all of these issues resolved by the end of the month and we can then start anticipating some new Stern tables!

 

[SilverBalls]

Would be good to at least hear them publicly acknowledge gust334's page fault finding. Many of us have spent many hours trying things out and reporting findings when we have better things to do, trying to basically get something working that we have paid for, but when you don't hear anything back it's a bit disheartening.

Even if the reason is "our prgammer is on holiday so we can't look at it now" I don't mind that, but hearing bugger all slightly cheeses me off.

 

[The loafer]

I agree this is probably post June 30th workload cool down but yeah, Farsight's communication skills have never been on point so it's more of the same here.

 

[hawkeyez88]

I agree this is probably post June 30th workload cool down but yeah, Farsight's communication skills have never been on point so it's more of the same here.

Even on my more powerful machine I'm still seeing the same behavior we've been discussing. I've only been using windows 10 machines though. I'm crossing my fingers with the rest of you in hopes that we hear something. I came across something on their site the other day that said even after this transition they would be working on adding other tables to the software, so i really do hope that's the case.

 

[FlippyFloppy]

I guess they’re exhausted from all the work required for the 06/30 deadline. Think of it:They had to ensure that the ability to purchase Bally/Williams tables was removed across all platforms while simultaneously ensuring that the tables purchased prior to the deadline were still accessible to the owners. That had to have been a tremendous undertaking.

I’m sure they’ll get back to work on fixing the cabinet mode shortly. According to the Arcooda site they have a 07/31 deadline for completing the generic cabinet software “offline” package.

I’m still hoping for the following:
* Brighter DMD for “Creature From the Black Lagoon”. (Two monitor mode.) The current provided DMD is too dark to read.
* ”Gorgar” scoring in the backglass.
* Restoration of some of the backglass animations, like “Xenon”. This was promised following the fixing of the speed issues some people were having with the 3D views. It appears that the information provided in this thread should be sufficient for FarSight to fix the speed issue.
* Restoration of the “pseudo” shaker motor effect on tables like “Earthshaker” and “Red and Ted’s Roadshow”. This was probably removed due to true shaker motor support for the Arcooda cabinets; but the effect needs to be restored for the generic cabinet version.

Finally, some of us are having issues launching the DX11 version of TPA. For some reason it now wants to launch in the monitor defined for the backglass in the cabinet mode configuration.

I’m sure FarSight will have all of these issues resolved by the end of the month and we can then start anticipating some new Stern tables!

It has been a busy few weeks with the Bally/Williams table removal but we have worked on the cabinet mode when we had time. We are going to put out another update to track down issues with crashing and cabinet keys not saving. Most of the things your hoping for are features we would like to see in the cabinet version as well but I do not expect them to be in anytime soon. Also Arcooda currently doesn't have any Stern tables.

Would be good to at least hear them publicly acknowledge gust334's page fault finding. Many of us have spent many hours trying things out and reporting findings when we have better things to do, trying to basically get something working that we have paid for, but when you don't hear anything back it's a bit disheartening.

Even if the reason is "our prgammer is on holiday so we can't look at it now" I don't mind that, but hearing bugger all slightly cheeses me off.

Both comments kind of fall hand in hand. The programmer that we need to look into the page faults is on holiday for another week.

 

[hawkeyez88]

It has been a busy few weeks with the Bally/Williams table removal but we have worked on the cabinet mode when we had time. We are going to put out another update to track down issues with crashing and cabinet keys not saving. Most of the things your hoping for are features we would like to see in the cabinet version as well but I do not expect them to be in anytime soon. Also Arcooda currently doesn't have any Stern tables.



Both comments kind of fall hand in hand. The programmer that we need to look into the page faults is on holiday for another week.

Thanks for the update FlippyFloppy. This is exciting news!

 

[gust334]

Radio silence on the slow camera issue continues.

On the trouble ticket, last direct response from Farsight 18 days ago.
On the trouble ticket, last direct response from Arcooda 30 days ago.

 

[SilverBalls]

Radio silence on the slow camera issue continues.

On the trouble ticket, last direct response from Farsight 18 days ago.
On the trouble ticket, last direct response from Arcooda 30 days ago.

I am going to give it another month and if the slowdown issue isn't fixed I will ask for a refund. I think another month is generous enough. If Arcooda aren't prepared to do this, then Arcooda please post here and say so. If nothing is posted here we will take it that a refund will be possible if the slowdown issue isn't fixed.

 

[suplrist]

I think Arcooda has already publicly said no refunds on the steam cab mode unlock. Hopefully Farsight will get their programmer(s) on the issues ASAP and have all you guys happy soon. Keep in mind that it was rushed out the door to beat the WMS/Bally loss date deadline, now that it's out they have unlimited time to work out the bugs.

 

[FlippyFloppy]

Radio silence on the slow camera issue continues.

On the trouble ticket, last direct response from Farsight 18 days ago.
On the trouble ticket, last direct response from Arcooda 30 days ago.

I'll post an update once we can determine the cause/fix for the issue. Most likely we will have an update for the beta next week or the following week to see if the issue is resolved.

Sorry it's taking so long.

 

[gust334]

More than a month ago I opened a trouble ticket with Arcooda. In fairness, I was swiftly pointed to an internal tech support email for FarSight, although at the time I did not understand why. When that did not pan out, I made six more attempts to elicit any response from Arcooda. When those failed, I opened a second trouble ticket with Arcooda. Got an extraordinarily lengthy, detailed, thoughtful response from Arcooda today, and a promise for an update email later this week.

My interpretation and summary of three dense pages: (1) this whole Steam cabinet thing is losing us money, but we started down this path and we're going to see it through, (2) Arcooda's programmers didn’t actually write any cabinet software for TPA, it is all FarSight, so they need to fix it, not us.

Arcooda bristled at my "radio silence" characterization in these forums; they feel sending out a marketing survey contraindicates same, as does pointing me to the internal FarSight email address for tech support on the first trouble ticket. I have to agree the survey included an overt and specific activity to collect data about issues and thus retract my characterizations of radio silence from Arcooda.

Pointing me to FarSight’s tech support has proven less than fruitful. I have been trying lots of debugging on my end to help provide data, some of which is on the forums and a vast quantity more sent directly to FarSight. As near as I can tell, all of it vanishes into a black hole since they’re not even acknowledging receipt anymore.

Antivirus interaction reported 32 days ago. No comment. Slow TPA menus and TPA interaction with other Windows processes (text entry slowdown) reported 27 days ago. No response. Page fault symptoms first identified 20 days ago, triggering both text slowdown and antivirus activity, only present when on slow cameras. No response from FarSight as to whether they see it also, nor whether they agree it is at all relevant to slow cameras.

Literally the sole debugging suggestion emailed back from FarSight has been a copy/paste of SilverBalls’ post of swapping a monitor cable, 22 days ago.

 

[FlippyFloppy]

More than a month ago I opened a trouble ticket with Arcooda. In fairness, I was swiftly pointed to an internal tech support email for FarSight, although at the time I did not understand why. When that did not pan out, I made six more attempts to elicit any response from Arcooda. When those failed, I opened a second trouble ticket with Arcooda. Got an extraordinarily lengthy, detailed, thoughtful response from Arcooda today, and a promise for an update email later this week.

My interpretation and summary of three dense pages: (1) this whole Steam cabinet thing is losing us money, but we started down this path and we're going to see it through, (2) Arcooda's programmers didn’t actually write any cabinet software for TPA, it is all FarSight, so they need to fix it, not us.

Arcooda bristled at my "radio silence" characterization in these forums; they feel sending out a marketing survey contraindicates same, as does pointing me to the internal FarSight email address for tech support on the first trouble ticket. I have to agree the survey included an overt and specific activity to collect data about issues and thus retract my characterizations of radio silence from Arcooda.

Pointing me to FarSight’s tech support has proven less than fruitful. I have been trying lots of debugging on my end to help provide data, some of which is on the forums and a vast quantity more sent directly to FarSight. As near as I can tell, all of it vanishes into a black hole since they’re not even acknowledging receipt anymore.

Antivirus interaction reported 32 days ago. No comment. Slow TPA menus and TPA interaction with other Windows processes (text entry slowdown) reported 27 days ago. No response. Page fault symptoms first identified 20 days ago, triggering both text slowdown and antivirus activity, only present when on slow cameras. No response from FarSight as to whether they see it also, nor whether they agree it is at all relevant to slow cameras.

Literally the sole debugging suggestion emailed back from FarSight has been a copy/paste of SilverBalls’ post of swapping a monitor cable, 22 days ago.

Gust, I don't know if your aware but I do work for FarSight and I have responded to your emails and acknowledged your report about page faults. We are working on resolving the problem and I apologize that it's taking this long.

 

[gust334]

Two direct responses in my email today, making it the most promising day in a while.

First up was from FarSight, as their first direct email response to my 27-Jun report of TPA impact to slow menus and to other processes. FarSight has now requested a desktop sharing session to allow their programmer to investigate tasks executing on my system... which I have agreed to, and has resulted in a handful of messages back and forth trying to schedule a mutually convenient time. They also asked if I was running virtualpin, futurepin, or BAM, to which I answered no/no/no. (I don't even know what those are.)

Second was from Arcooda, emphasizing that they believe the best course is to continue to work with FarSight, and to keep them in the Cc loop on communications with FarSight. This request arrived after my scheduling exchanges with FarSight, but I will include them on future correspondence. Arcooda also reiterated in this email that a FarSight beta was expected this week.

 

[SilverBalls]

I think Arcooda has already publicly said no refunds on the steam cab mode unlock. .

I didn't see that but for me that is immaterial. If the goods advertised don't work they will need to give me a refund. I am an existing TPA user with all seasons and the main product works fine with my setup. If the 'add-on' cab mode ends up not running then it isn't fit for purpose, so a refund is in order. I am gonna give it another 3 weeks or so first, but as gust334 says things are moving incredibly slowly..... until today so fingers crossed. I am off now for 3 weeks holiday so when I am back...........

 

[gust334]

tl;dr: FarSight met and exceeded my expectation today for "working directly with customers" on a case-by-case basis.


I'm being a bit cagey as I'm writing this because I don't know how much of the content of the conversation FarSight expected to expose; we neglected to have any conversation about ground rules. I am also not going to reveal any names.

FarSight followed up yesterday's emails with a request that I install TeamViewer prior to the call this afternoon.

We may have revealed some difficulty with timeliness/reliability of email transfer. I know email is not instantaneous, but well after I had sent email messages to FarSight indicating I was ready and with the TeamViewer login information, I received email messages from FarSight asking me if I was going to be available as scheduled.

I then phoned FarSight directly and was partially through their automated phone system when I received an incoming call from FarSight. I asked FarSight to hold so I could drop the outbound but fumble-fingered and dropped both calls. FarSight immediately called me back, so that's all good.

The FarSight end of our conversation was on speakerphone. I was speaking directly with a gentleman who identified himself as a programmer, and there was at least one other gentleman in the room farther from the phone who I could hear occasionally prompting the programmer. I have about a page of dense written notes from our conversation, which lasted 24 minutes.

FarSight started by saying we would go through some questions first, then start screen sharing.

For the first half of the conversation, substantially everything the programmer asked was information I had supplied to FarSight previously. The first third of the questions were solely about my screens, RAM, GPU, and other hardware. The next third of the questions were about various software, ranging from OS to AV to launchers and other programs running concurrently. Some of these had been answered previously, some were new. I tried my best to describe what I observe, not what I think it means.

It was clear from the conversation that FarSight had other support data available in the room and they were correlating and cross-checking my real-time answers against that data, trying to hone in on what might be unique about my system and shared with those that experience the slow cameras. This is excellent debugging technique.

I would be remiss if I did not also openly speculate here that Arcooda's marketing survey helped in collecting such data.

The programmer did express familiarity with some of the speculations made both in data transmitted and data posted in forums. He was clearly aware of some of that information prior to the call, although I sense he seemed unaware of what data actually came from me.

The last third of the conversation was a genuine technical interaction, with each of us asking and answering questions. We explored many avenues, some of which one or the other of us were able to immediately dismiss by counterexamples. We did explicitly discuss the page faults in detail.

I did infer from the questions that--aside from the fact that I use a laptop--my system was one of the most "vanilla" of all of the folks that experience the slow-camera issue. I hope that the relative simplicity of my system helped them cull the list of possibles substantially on their end. At one point, the programmer opined that he didn't need to specifically inspect my system, and thus would not be a need to establish desktop sharing on this call.

My notes tallied four specific areas of focus that FarSight was going to pursue further based on our call. Three of them sounded like long shots and the last resonated as plausible. The plausible one and one of the long shots may be related.

I overheard the programmer asking a FarSight person for something that will allow him to eliminate one of the long shots tonight by himself.

For the one that sounds plausible, the programmer announced his plan to construct a beta build that removes that one specific thing to see if it has any effect on slow camera systems. Changing only one thing at a time is also excellent debugging technique. Although the description of the removal was trivially simple, it was not clear from context if that proposed change is simple or difficult in the actual game code.

I do not know right now if that specific beta build will be distributed via Steam's beta broadcast, or if FarSight plans to somehow transfer it to individuals for testing. There may be some customers using this specific thing that might be unpleasantly surprised if the beta temporarily breaks it for them.

FarSight said they would follow up on email with further information.