Dr. Dude slow play issue

[Sean DonCarlos]

Does Dr Dude have the colored squiggle wires on Vita?
They removed those on mobile to run better... Wonder if they released that before they realized that could be a problem.

The Vita should have ample graphics horsepower to handle those wires.

 

[grashopper]

The Vita should have ample graphics horsepower to handle those wires.

Didn't they mention the 360 was even giving them trouble with the wires?
Vita isn't all that optimized.

Edit: "Jason gave me some lower models for the wires, we were even seeing slowdown on the xbox 360 for those due to the massive amount of polys, which makes me worried about the future option to run higher level of detail models since it always seems to drop us down to 30 fps =\ (this is why it has not been on the top of my list, all devices I have kind of struggle with this which means android is more constrained on the high polygon count than textures, but I am adding them to every table release so that when we get it working properly or the gpus catch up its already there)."

http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/3456-Beta-1-11-0?p=55512&viewfull=1#post55512

That is why I was wondering if they were still there.

 

[Dinosaur Toy]

Unfortunately recent comments from Farsight in interviews make it sound as if they're slowly washing their hands of the Playstation platform versions of PA unless they can get a break and launch an entire rebuild of the complete product.

Now here's an interesting additional point. Recently it has come to light that Sony has been going out of their way to help indie developers and smaller publishers: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-27-sonys-indie-initiative-how-the-hardware-giant-is-courting-small-team-talent

I find this curious, as it makes me wonder how and why Farsight is having such a hard time working out a better deal for updating and maintaining their product on Sony's platforms. They're not a guy in his bedroom but they're a pretty petite developer all the same.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Didn't they mention the 360 was even giving them trouble with the wires?
Vita isn't all that optimized.

The 360 shouldn't have had any problem at all with three curly wires, considering I've seen it render in real time entire fields of grass blade-by-blade, trees, interesting light effects, etc. on other games, unless all the graphics optimizations are disabled.

 

[Dinosaur Toy]

I find it difficult to believe that the PS3 or 360 kit has any performance issues with these tables, emulation or not. Even though 360 is supposedly the lead dev platform, I'm beginning to think Farsight is only capable of writing generic code so as to enable cross platform porting as easily as possible. And they engage in basically zero optimizations on any specific platform. Generally speaking, developers with a staff as small as theirs do not attempt to put out complex content as quickly as Pinball Arcade's release schedule demands. Those highly polished indie games made by two people require up to three years development time.

 

[grashopper]

The 360 shouldn't have had any problem at all with three curly wires, considering I've seen it render in real time entire fields of grass blade-by-blade, trees, interesting light effects, etc. on other games, unless all the graphics optimizations are disabled.

Did you read my edit up above? It doesn't seem like it should be a issue. I'm just going off what they said.
Maybe the emulation and physics really takes a lot to run? Throw in a dash of not optimizing and you have a pinball slide show.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Did you read my edit up above? It doesn't seem like it should be a issue. I'm just going off what they said.
Maybe the emulation and physics really takes a lot to run? Throw in a dash of not optimizing and you have a pinball slide show.

Yes, I did. I'm actually agreeing with you that if there was a problem with the 360, it's certainly not with the hardware. Don't shoot the messenger.

As for the physics and emulation, they together take about 30% of one of the 360's three cores.

 

[grashopper]

Yes, I did. I'm actually agreeing with you that if there was a problem with the 360, it's certainly not with the hardware. Don't shoot the messenger.

As for the physics and emulation, they together take about 30% of one of the 360's three cores.

Ah, sorry about that. Thinking you read it before the edit with the partial quote I read it in a way that was more like a "no way it had trouble" kinda way.
Hoping there is a way to fix the Vita version in a way that FS can update the product. Really disappointing they would ship like that.

 

[Sporadik]

Unfortunately recent comments from Farsight in interviews make it sound as if they're slowly washing their hands of the Playstation platform versions of PA unless they can get a break and launch an entire rebuild of the complete product.

Now here's an interesting additional point. Recently it has come to light that Sony has been going out of their way to help indie developers and smaller publishers: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-27-sonys-indie-initiative-how-the-hardware-giant-is-courting-small-team-talent

I find this curious, as it makes me wonder how and why Farsight is having such a hard time working out a better deal for updating and maintaining their product on Sony's platforms. They're not a guy in his bedroom but they're a pretty petite developer all the same.

I agree, the interviews with developers I've also read about the Vita since before Vita launched all say it has one of the best devkits out of any system they're developing on and they were very surprised how easy the Vita is to develop for. All the issues the Vita version has really surprise me and contradict everything other developers say.

I haven't played Dr. Dude yet but hope the update didn't slow down more tables. I've been noticing more tables keep becoming unplayable and slow with the updates. It almost feels like I'm paying to make my game less playable.

 

[phreaker47]

It has been said (unsure if this is true but I believe it) that FS doesn't even use the GPU in the Vita at all; the entire game is driven by the cpu. In other words "Meh, we can't just do easy ports otherwise."

I've withheld sharper criticism for them before on Vita, because despite issues, for the most part most of the tables are playable and fun and don't look as bad on the Vita's screen as screenshots posted here make them out to be. In fact, I have almost NO complaints about the AFM/Genie pack, other than the right orbit issue on AFM which is not really a huge deal.

But THIS... I mean god... this isn't one of those bugs you might have to play dozens of hours to discover, if ever... THIS is readily apparent 10 seconds into the game. THIS is a poor, poor release DELIBERATELY done. It cannot be said that "we didn't catch it". That's what really angered me yesterday.

I feel cheated.

 

[an ox]

I can state that the Vita is great to code on and the GPU is wicked fast. I'm pretty sad to see the state of PBA on it really, it should be rather better than the iPad version, not worse.

It's a shame because I actually really like the feel of playing on the vita with physical flipper buttons and usable nudging compared to the ipad. It's just a pity that it often seems to look and run like arse .

 

[Jordi Oliveras Bosch]

I'm am absoultely disappointed with the quality of last releases. Since Harley everything is going down and down and down. You cannot see any art on the playfields. Everything looks horrible and blurry and it feels like an insult to Vita owners, moreover when you see how the game looks on android devices. And now this. Playing Dr Dude feels worse than playing one of those old water games from the 80's. This is my redline guys. Physics on Zen Pinball are terrible, but at least I can see WHERE I'm trying to put the ball.

 

[Rafie]

Physics on Zen Pinball are terrible, but at least I can see WHERE I'm trying to put the ball.

In your opinion the physics is terrible. They are just fine where I'm sitting!

 

[Jordi Oliveras Bosch]

In your opinion the physics is terrible. They are just fine where I'm sitting!

Well, maybe you're right. I should have said that phsysics are WORSE than those on Pinball Arcade, just in MY opinion. It is fully enjoyable and the game is VERY fun, for sure, but I have never seen a pinball table (a real one) where I could trap the ball so easily, for example (I mean that the tables seem to have a 45 grade inclination). Anyway it is a VERY good game. But I also feel that many of the tables are the same one with a different scenario.

Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I'm not very much into complaining all the time (I'm not one of those guys who say: "hey, after aiming for the left ramp 2324244 times, the ball deviates a grade"), but I've bought each and every table pack for TPA on Android an Vita, and there is a HUGE difference between both versions. Android version graphics are awesome (at least on my SGSIII), but when it comes to Vita... well... I don't think I need to say much. The first tables looked quite good (far from android version but, well, it was acceptable). However, when I saw Harley I thought I was playing a PSP game (and one of the BAD ones). I thought that, as it was not one of the best pinball tables ever, maybe they didn't put the attention they'd put on the other tables. Unfortunately, things have continued like that with the following table packs. Blurry and lo-res playfields, bad graphics in general... (look at Attack from Mars for example). But at least you had a fun gameplay and a VERY good physics and I kept buying tables because it is much more confortable for me to play on the Vita (specially for nudging). But now... ****... have you tried to play Dr Dude?!?! OMFG. It is absolutely unplayable, as many of the guys who have written in this thread say. If we have no graphics and we have no physics, I don't see the point into keeping with TPA on the Vita...

And I'd like to state that I say this with the BIGGEST respect to the programmers of this game. They have a very hard work with trying to emulate the real physics of EACH table. But I think that they should put a little more effort into the graphics and testing, as Vita can do much more than this for sure. I'm sure that they will find the way to squeeze the Vita hardware and make the game we all expect, but until then this is my redline on the Vita version.

And excuse me if my english is not perfect. I'm from Spain and I don't have the chance to practice it usually.

 

[grashopper]

)
And excuse me if my english is not perfect. I'm from Spain and I don't have the chance to practice it usually.

Your English is better than most people who only speak English. Never would have known it wasn't your primary language.

 

[Jordi Oliveras Bosch]

Your English is better than most people who only speak English. Never would have known it wasn't your primary language.

Ty! It's been a long time without practicing it and I'm not really sure I'm not saying something unintelligible. Of course st. Google comes handy quite often...

 

[MadScience2006]

Ty! It's been a long time without practicing it and I'm not really sure I'm not saying something unintelligible. Of course st. Google comes handy quite often...

My real name causes many people to think I only speak Russian or I'm straight off the boat...but in reality, I was born in East Los Angeles, CA and probably know more Spanish now than I do Russian. I spoke Russian with my parents but they themselves eventually switched to English with us kids. They still spoke it with friends and relatives though.

You're doing GREAT...don't apologize!

 

[Bonzo]

Minja sawut Bonzo.

I'm German, so my opinion might not count that much, but I thought your first two posts were flawless...

 

[darkinertia]

this is by far the WORST table pack theyve put out. theres so much wrong with this down to that they wont respond to us (believe me, everyones blowing up their facebook page and theyve been posting new things pretending like it never happened.

ive been a supporter of farsight forever, ive bought a vita because of TPA, ive bought all versions of williams/gottlieb on all my systems, and i love that theyre preserving pinball history so that everyone can enjoy something that most people arent able to. but putting out a broken product for people to buy and then not even acknowledging it or even saying theyre going to fix it eventually is just uncalled for.

the reason im pissed is BECAUSE im a fan of farsight. no im not some entitled gamer, i could let it slide if the textures were crap but the gameplay was still good. please farsight, say something. you guys are better than this and i have little confidence in a developer than would put something this atrocious and be ok with it.

for kicks, i took a picture of the ios and vita versions side by side direct. obviously theres more problems than just the textures like screen tearing, lag, etc...but i thought it was telling

http://i.imgur.com/tsD6djt.jpg

as much as i really dont like ZP2, theyve put out PERFECT ports of their tables onto the vita with NO problems, it plays better than the iOS which shouldnt be hard considering how powerful the vita is...theres no excuse for this. if they have to step back and say release a new pack every 2 or 3 months for the vita, im fine with that! preserving these tables are way more important than getting a new pack that sucks every month. i knew they biten off more than the can chew..

 

[Dinosaur Toy]

Trust me, there's no "entitlement" in protesting Farsight's level of quality. It's bad and getting worse with each passing month.

The Vita build of Pinball Arcade is humiliating, straight up. The sheer number of bugs and glitches in all their builds is pretty terrible. While I'd like to be proven wrong, I wouldn't hold out hope they'll be able to scrape the budget together to produce a 2.0 version of PA for the PS3 and Vita - at best, we'll probably see a port of the PC version w/ full quality assets for PS4. Farsight has definitely taken on a bigger project than feasible for their manpower and ability. Right now they seem to be stuck in a degenerating loop of being forced to release rushed table packs every month to eek out a little more money. And from there, apparently cannot spare the resources to go back and fix previous problems in a timely manner.

If I didn't have a PS3 and thus was able to play the new table pack on that (due to cross-buy for Sony platforms), I would feel Farsight outright swindled me for the Vita table pack. They knew its performance was broken and they submitted it to Sony anyway for publication. It's no different from Bethesda publishing Skyrim on PS3 fully aware that version of the game was heavily screwed up.