PC Version 1.19.4 Discussion & Feedback

[QuiGonJ]

It's a beautiful piece of work, I love it.... but I will have to figure out a few things:

1) Where in the heck do we add funds to steam wallet?
2) Why can't the controller handle the main screen UI? Mine doesn't, at least.
and 3) I have to remember my Farsight password to get my Kickstarter T2 table on this platform.

 

[BONKERS]

If you need to use a PS3 controller for the game, use BetterDS3 and set it to Xinput mode to emulate a 360 controller. It's miles better than Motionjoy (But still uses the base driver)

 

[mortuus]

Uh what went wrong with the Terminator tables? it looks awful.. so cartoonish and not very cool as the version in future pinball for example.. all the other tables so far looks amazing ,why is this such a letdown in graphics ?

 

[Roope]

I think the problem is that FS have been catering for platforms where space is limited and low-res + compression is essential. Now on the PC resources are almost limitless (at least on higher-end systems), but I'm sure it will take a lot of work to update all that stuff. I expect it's being done for PS4 as that has to look great as a next-gen title, so I'm sure it will be ported to PC eventually.

Why is it that they have to do the PS4 version first and THEN do the high res PC version? Why can't they do the high res for PC first and use that for the PS4, since PC version is out already? I would even bet that a proper PC version with a proper Steam integration would net more money for the FS than PS4 release.

I have the same issue with the non-ROM sounds, which also seem to be lower-quality and probably compressed. No need for that on the PC, considering how relatively little space they take up.

My real concern is the tight deadline FS have set themselves for cranking out tables every month. I would be happier if they took a bit more time, fully beta tested the tables before release to squash the bugs, as well as polish quality issues like this. I don't know if their business plan supports taking more time, but the alternative is that new content always wins in terms of priorities, and that there's less and less incentive to update older tables (as they take less money over time).

I love and fully support FS's M.O. - digitize and preserve these beautiful works of interactive art. But I'm not seeing the attention to detail that I'd like, and the bugs (like the physics ones that affect all tables) seem to take forever to get addressed. I know I know, harsh realities of having to make it pay to survive. But the purist in me would like to see one guy sit down, and polish and refine everything, rather than rush out one table pack after the other. (I actually thought about programming a pin sim years ago - if I had, that's what I'd love to be doing).

I also think that this fast release schedule is overall hurting the company. They have continuous costs of making new tables all the time and at the same time they should fix items and do general improvements that would directly make the game better.
Especially new platforms like PC and PS4 and XOne in future(?) they really need to step up the quality a lot. One of my friends tried the game because it was free and didn't bother to buy more tables because the sub-bar looks of the game.

I'm also quite sure that if TB is going to review the game is going to bash it for the poor quality, and that is going to affect the sales since he has like billion subscribers. Companies seem to totally ignore the modern basic requirements for PC games. They are not mobile games and people expect more.

 

[debuggiest]

Is it xinput or directinput?

TPA needs xinput, iirc

You can try and emulate xinput with x360ce. Here's a how to with links and stuff

Yeah, it's directinput. I didn't realize game devs stopped supporting it. Thanks for the link.

 

[neilpinbot]

How can I check how many FPS TPA is running at please. My PC will not run TPA with P.P on but I can use AA up to 16x. I would like to find the best FPS that I can get with the highest xAA. Is there a built in FPS monitor or do I need to install a third party one. Thanks for any replies.

 

[Jeff Strong]

How can I check how many FPS TPA is running at please. My PC will not run TPA with P.P on but I can use AA up to 16x. I would like to find the best FPS that I can get with the highest xAA. Is there a built in FPS monitor or do I need to install a third party one. Thanks for any replies.

You can download FRAPS for free:

http://www.fraps.com/

 

[neilpinbot]

You can download FRAPS for free:

http://www.fraps.com/

Thanks will check it out later on.

 

[Rhandos]

Did the season packs get removed again from the store? I just got to download the game today but can't finde them outside the game. I know single tables are only purchasable in-game, but I could've sworn I've already seen the season packs as DLC listings in the search results and on the store page...

I'm asking because I really want to buy season 1 but don't like the idea of Steam Wallet funded licenses that aren't tied to my Steam account.

 

[JPelter]

You can download FRAPS for free:

http://www.fraps.com/

For some reason fraps shows me a constant 60 FPS even when I'm getting frameskips due to something or the other. I'm not sure what the issue is honestly. Just wanted to give a heads up that it's apparently not infallible.

 

[utblick]

I think there is still some memory management problems with TPA on Steam. For me I could play for 5-30 minutes with perfect flow, then suddenly the screen update starts to hack and a lot of frames are skipped. I have no process in the background that could create this problem. (Intel HD 4000 and 4 GB RAM).

 

[neilpinbot]

For some reason fraps shows me a constant 60 FPS even when I'm getting frameskips due to something or the other. I'm not sure what the issue is honestly. Just wanted to give a heads up that it's apparently not infallible.

Not tried FRAPS yet a bit concerned some reviews claim it can take over browser. Tried running TPA at 16x AA on ToTAN it was ok until multiball then went into slow motion/floaty so have just set it to 4x AA and low ball reflection, it plays good at this and still looks miles better than on my Android tab.

 

[Jeff Strong]

FRAPS has been around for ages and it's the standard among PC gamers for this sort of thing. You can always turn it off when you're not playing a game.

 

[Nimrod]

Can we get the option to delete a letter if we have made a mistake on the highscore for tables without a dot matrix etc?

I always make a mistake on Big Shot for some reason and you can't delete the characters.

 

[BONKERS]

IF you need more indepth monitoring of your FPS, use MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision's OSD.

You can customize it to show frametime, GPU usage,CPU usage, GPU Temps,CPU temps,etc.

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

Why is it that they have to do the PS4 version first and THEN do the high res PC version? Why can't they do the high res for PC first and use that for the PS4, since PC version is out already? I would even bet that a proper PC version with a proper Steam integration would net more money for the FS than PS4 release.

The PS4 upgraded engine was being worked on earlier this summer. A lot of that tech will transfer over to PC. Sony wanted us to be a launch title, and when a large company is offering that, you really can't turn it down.

Our engine guy is finishing up PS4 and will most likely work on DX11 next. So it won't be too far off in the future.

 

[JPelter]

Any word on possibly fixing the nudging for gamepads and such so there's an actual way to adjust how hard you shove the table? PS3 is a good reference where it worked perfectly in that a slight tap gave a very small nudge that would never tilt or warn unless you did a lot of them in a row, and a full tap gave an equivalent of a fairly rough slam on the machine. With PC a slight tap of the stick is a rough shove of the machine, and a full tap of the stick seems so close to the same I can't even tell the difference between the two. There needs to be a bigger range, considering our leaderboards are aggregate of most of the other platforms (all of them?) with much better nudge systems in place. Currently the situation is such that esp. for electromechanicals with no warning system you risk a tilt about 20% of the time with every single nudge you do because the minimum level is extremely close to the maximum. There's no way to give a slight nudge to the game whatsoever. This is the biggest problem with the game currently in my opinion along with the lack of friend leaderboards.

Big Shot and Genie are good tables to test this on because both of them will randomly tilt even with a tiny tiny tap of the gamepad as your first nudge after starting the game, and both rely on nudging heavily to get good games in.

 

[Roope]

The PS4 upgraded engine was being worked on earlier this summer. A lot of that tech will transfer over to PC. Sony wanted us to be a launch title, and when a large company is offering that, you really can't turn it down.

Our engine guy is finishing up PS4 and will most likely work on DX11 next. So it won't be too far off in the future.

I guess that is a good reason. Congrats for the recognition by Sony.
I sure hope this new engine also includes good textures as on option. I went to see a texture thread at PS4 sub forums and those pictures there didn't impress me at all. Texts on the playfield still seemed to be a blurry mess.

Here is that picture from that thread. Credit goes to the spoonman for the picture.

 

[PALADiN]

I have to give props to FS for adding the achievements for everything post Table Pack 15. I almost thought that wasn't going to happen.

 

[Slam23]

Hi guys,
I tried searching for an explanation how the PC leaderboards work, but couldn't find it. Could somebody point me to a thread? Otherwise I would like to pose the question here. I thought that all platforms had seperate leaderboards, but when I logged in on my Farsight account on my PC, I saw my own Attack from Mars Highscore. So maybe they aren't seperate at all? There is no Hall of Fame system on PC I reckon? Only Steam achievements so far that can be unlocked?
On the review side: just got to playing some tables but already impressed with the visuals and sound on my surround system! I find the flippers a bit laggy, so it feels a bit stiff to play. The tables seem harder than on iOS but that can also be perception from somebody who played this game to death on iOS and just started on the PC. I'm searching how to disable the scrolling camera, any tips?