Pinball FX released

[Crawley]

Well its moved out of early access and is on multiple platforms now. Figure I'd start a general thread for comments.

New content with the release:
Addams Family
Gearbox Collection (Homeworld, Brothers in Arms, Borderlands)
Garfield Pinball
Marvel Pinball Collection 1 (10 of those tables)

 

[Crawley]

As an pretty heavy early adopter I wasn't sure what was going to happen with my extra tickets and the new table packs where I might have purchased one or two tables that are in the pack. Well, Zen did say they were going to do right by the early adopters and that was 110% true.

What they ended up doing is if you purchased a table or two from what is now part of a pack they would just give you the entire pack of tables. So for instance in the Gearbox collection if you purchased Homeworld you also no have Brother in Arms and Borderlands. Pretty fantastic.

I made out pretty good due to this. For the Jurassic Park collection I had two of the tables but not the third. So now have all three. For Zen Originals I had only one or two of these. Now I have all 7. Same thing with some of the Star Wars packs. I had one or two of those tables now have a bunch.

So pretty incredible customer service. Was not expecting that. And definitely never had anything close to that level of bonuses for being an early access subscriber. So a big kudos to Zen there.

I did run in to one issue so far with the Addams Family purchase. I purchased that in-game instead of via the Epic store. And even though it shows it as purchased in in my library via Epic its still locked as a Trial. So in the mien time may want to purchase outside of the game - I have opened a ticket for the issue.

Other things noticed. The few remaining tickets I had were converted to coins. I didn't see what you could use these on. I only have 7 coins so not sure what, if anything, could use them on without purchasing more.

 

[dmil666]

As an pretty heavy early adopter I wasn't sure what was going to happen with my extra tickets and the new table packs where I might have purchased one or two tables that are in the pack. Well, Zen did say they were going to do right by the early adopters and that was 110% true.

What they ended up doing is if you purchased a table or two from what is now part of a pack they would just give you the entire pack of tables. So for instance in the Gearbox collection if you purchased Homeworld you also no have Brother in Arms and Borderlands. Pretty fantastic.

I made out pretty good due to this. For the Jurassic Park collection I had two of the tables but not the third. So now have all three. For Zen Originals I had only one or two of these. Now I have all 7. Same thing with some of the Star Wars packs. I had one or two of those tables now have a bunch.

So pretty incredible customer service. Was not expecting that. And definitely never had anything close to that level of bonuses for being an early access subscriber. So a big kudos to Zen there.

I did run in to one issue so far with the Addams Family purchase. I purchased that in-game instead of via the Epic store. And even though it shows it as purchased in in my library via Epic its still locked as a Trial. So in the mien time may want to purchase outside of the game - I have opened a ticket for the issue.

Other things noticed. The few remaining tickets I had were converted to coins. I didn't see what you could use these on. I only have 7 coins so not sure what, if anything, could use them on without purchasing more.

Yeah, I'm having the same problem with Addams Family. I guess I'd better open a ticket too. I got the pack fill-outs too, so another warm fuzzy to Zen.

 

[Crawley]

So I did end up getting Addams Family unlocked.

Only able to play a few games - its been a while and I'm sucking.

I do have to say I hate the plunger animation. The golf club takes up too much of the screen. And you have to wait for the animated golf club to line up before you can plunge again. Most times after I drain, I want to plunge again ASAP. So this is the first table where I've turned off the extra special effects.

 

[Zaphod77]

I bought it too. had the same issue with purchasing, but it got fixed. the table is reasonably brutal, lke Funhouse until you get a feel for it and find some sweet spots.

It's much more lively than TPA was, but still a bit easy. Power isn't right, but better than tpa was. there's a silly 80% reliable insta catch after bear kick ramp, and letting the ball past the mini flipper is safe.

But bricking a shot is dangerous. You need to react FAST, and you may still lose the ball. I smiled when i bricked the chair from the right flipper and it slammed rigtht between the flippers. better to aim late than early here.

 

[Crazy Newt]

Yuck, I suppose I shouldn't have had high expectations for this game's optimization. Despite owning a 3080ti graphics card that runs FX3 smoothly, FX never feels right and stutters at times regardless of what I try. It's the only game I've had issues with, and I play a variety of games on my PC that is primarily designed for gaming. This was the case before upgrading to Win10 Pro, and even now with Win11 Pro. I keep everything up to date, including drivers and software versions.

I play on a 2K (2560x1440) G-Sync monitor, but I haven't found a suitable compromise between performance and quality. The best option I've found is to reduce the resolution to 1920x1080, which maintains the same aspect ratio, and lock the frames to 120. Ray tracing is out of the question, and I've only used it a few times to check it out. It's a resource hog and poorly implemented on the 3000 series Nvidia cards.

Despite monitoring the performance parameters of my video card and CPU, I don't see any signs of them being pushed too hard. However, I still experience frequent graphics stutter and/or input lag that messes up my shots, resulting in a ball drain sometimes. Although it plays fine most of the time when I reduce the visuals to 1920x1080, I keep motion blur and HDR disabled since my monitor doesn't support HDR. I turn up the TAA anti-aliasing to high with 1920x1080 to minimize the jaggies on the 32-inch screen.

I'm disappointed because I was hoping there would be a significant performance improvement for the PC when this game launched. However, it seems like there's just too much to do with all the console launches and hectic table release schedule, and not enough engineers and testers to keep up with it. It's a shame because there's a lot of potential, but I don't see it ever being great for me while remaining profitable for the company. Good enough will have to do as more content is shoved down our throats, exemplifying quantity over quality.

 

[dmil666]

So I did end up getting Addams Family unlocked.

Only able to play a few games - its been a while and I'm sucking.

I do have to say I hate the plunger animation. The golf club takes up too much of the screen. And you have to wait for the animated golf club to line up before you can plunge again. Most times after I drain, I want to plunge again ASAP. So this is the first table where I've turned off the extra special effects.

Mine unlocked too, and so far I stink out loud playing. I turned off the animations too, like I have with most of the other tables - they're very cute & well done, but just too distracting for my little pea-brain.
It's a fun table though.

 

[Crawley]

Yuck, I suppose I shouldn't have had high expectations for this game's optimization. Despite owning a 3080ti graphics card that runs FX3 smoothly, FX never feels right and stutters at times regardless of what I try. It's the only game I've had issues with, and I play a variety of games on my PC that is primarily designed for gaming. This was the case before upgrading to Win10 Pro, and even now with Win11 Pro. I keep everything up to date, including drivers and software versions.

I play on a 2K (2560x1440) G-Sync monitor, but I haven't found a suitable compromise between performance and quality. The best option I've found is to reduce the resolution to 1920x1080, which maintains the same aspect ratio, and lock the frames to 120. Ray tracing is out of the question, and I've only used it a few times to check it out. It's a resource hog and poorly implemented on the 3000 series Nvidia cards.

Despite monitoring the performance parameters of my video card and CPU, I don't see any signs of them being pushed too hard. However, I still experience frequent graphics stutter and/or input lag that messes up my shots, resulting in a ball drain sometimes. Although it plays fine most of the time when I reduce the visuals to 1920x1080, I keep motion blur and HDR disabled since my monitor doesn't support HDR. I turn up the TAA anti-aliasing to high with 1920x1080 to minimize the jaggies on the 32-inch screen.

I'm disappointed because I was hoping there would be a significant performance improvement for the PC when this game launched. However, it seems like there's just too much to do with all the console launches and hectic table release schedule, and not enough engineers and testers to keep up with it. It's a shame because there's a lot of potential, but I don't see it ever being great for me while remaining profitable for the company. Good enough will have to do as more content is shoved down our throats, exemplifying quantity over quality.

That's strange. I'm also playing in 1440p with a 3070 ti and with ray tracing. No issues. Rarely I get a short stutter while running in enhanced mode. I notice it happens when a big new animation plays out - like in Medieval Madness the dragon flying around the table for one of the animations.

I just chalk that up to using a regular HD rather than SSD. Its probably taking a second to load that animation up. Once it happens the first time it doesn't happen again.

I'm not sure what my fps is. At least 60. I'm guessing 65-85 area. I run without vsync and have a g-sync monitor.

Update: I went back and checked the FPS on some of the tables using the Xbox overlay thing (win+g and pin the performance tab).

Addams Family - Ran between 95-100 fps with enhancements on. Not much difference off. Just a steady 100fp

Borderlands - 110 fps. Was pretty steady.

Indy - 90-95 with enhancements on. A few dips during multballl with the planes flying around the table.

Arabian Knights - 82-85 with enhancements on. Would drop in to the high 70s when I had multiball going and a lot of stuff on the screen. I think this may be the most graphic intensive table.

So I think something is off if your fps is low and getting stuttering on a 3080ti.

 

[gameaddict4life]

I'm on Xbox Series S. So the Zen tables have Williams physics now? Playing Wild West I'm not sure I can tell. It is a stable 60 fps though. Not blown away and the UI text is a bit too small for TV play. How long till the first sale? Haha.

 

[gameaddict4life]

After playing more the physics do seem improved although it crashed on me once in the middle of a game. UI is solved by using the Magnification tool on Xbox. Prices and lack of progress and things to do are a turn off though. Everything seems to just revolve around unlocking cosmetic items for your virtual shelves. No leveling up your profile.

 

[Crazy Newt]

That's strange. I'm also playing in 1440p with a 3070 ti and with ray tracing. No issues. Rarely I get a short stutter while running in enhanced mode. I notice it happens when a big new animation plays out - like in Medieval Madness the dragon flying around the table for one of the animations.

I just chalk that up to using a regular HD rather than SSD. Its probably taking a second to load that animation up. Once it happens the first time it doesn't happen again.

I'm not sure what my fps is. At least 60. I'm guessing 65-85 area. I run without vsync and have a g-sync monitor.

Update: I went back and checked the FPS on some of the tables using the Xbox overlay thing (win+g and pin the performance tab).

Addams Family - Ran between 95-100 fps with enhancements on. Not much difference off. Just a steady 100fp

Borderlands - 110 fps. Was pretty steady.

Indy - 90-95 with enhancements on. A few dips during multballl with the planes flying around the table.

Arabian Knights - 82-85 with enhancements on. Would drop in to the high 70s when I had multiball going and a lot of stuff on the screen. I think this may be the most graphic intensive table.

So I think something is off if your fps is low and getting stuttering on a 3080ti.

Frames are great, just with a distracting stutter now and then. I'll have to check ray tracing again, maybe the drivers have improved. I normally play in portrait mode, which has some wonky menu user interface issues, but I was able to get decent performance without any stutters in landscape at 2560x1440. I use view 2 mostly with landscape and enhancements disabled. I will keep testing.

 

[Crazy Newt]

I can get the render latency to under 4ms consistently, and this appears to make the game more enjoyable. Locking the frames to 120 with my G-sync monitor seems to be the best option for me. Interesting that the performance while playing a table is much better than when navigating the user interface menu between games.

I still have not tried ray tracing lately, but reading other forums it seems like it is still a hot mess with most Nvidia cards outside the newest 4000 series. Also, from what I had seen, it does not make any significant improvement to my eyes.

 

[gameaddict4life]

While I was playing Medieval Madness I noticed one of the call outs was bleeped. Are the Williams tables truly uncensored? I wonder if family mode is turned on and you can't turn it off.

 

[Gorgar]

While I was playing Medieval Madness I noticed one of the call outs was bleeped. Are the Williams tables truly uncensored? I wonder if family mode is turned on and you can't turn it off.

I believe the “who the f*ck are you?” quote is bleeped on the original machine. But a hack exists where it is not bleeped. So they are uncensored.

 

[gameaddict4life]

I believe the “who the f*ck are you?” quote is bleeped on the original machine. But a hack exists where it is not bleeped. So they are uncensored.

Ah, ok. I only played it briefly during the free Pinball Pass.

 

[gameaddict4life]

So is anybody else just doing the super skill shot in Wild West Rampage and draining the ball to unlock the "Event" rewards? I'm not sure what the solution is to make this three or so month event better but this seems the only logical way to play. Once I get all the rewards I guess I could play for the leaderboard but does it get you anything? You get an achievement for getting max level in the event which only leaves that cup one. Hmmmmm.

 

[Railoffroader2]

So I did end up getting Addams Family unlocked.

Only able to play a few games - its been a while and I'm sucking.

I do have to say I hate the plunger animation. The golf club takes up too much of the screen. And you have to wait for the animated golf club to line up before you can plunge again. Most times after I drain, I want to plunge again ASAP. So this is the first table where I've turned off the extra special effects.

Re: Addams Family

In addition to having to wait for the oversized golf animation to finish to launch a ball, the end of game match sequence is equally annoying as it makes you watch the entire thing like Pinball Arcade did before letting you restart a game or having to go to the options menu to override it.
FX3 allowed a restart immediately during the end of game match sequence.

I hope they fix this on a future update.

 

[KillRideMedley]

Does the game look any better on ps5,xbox series s or x? I tried it on a xbox one and it looks awful and worse then fx3.

https://imgur.com/a/u4vSYql

Even before the capture compression the wire ramps look awful and the far textures are blurry.


pinball fx 3 on xbox one

https://imgur.com/a/zD9ES6g

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Do you have any Anti-aliasing settings on the Xbox One version of PinFX? Those jagged rails look awful, I agree, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's 100% worse.

The big differences are in the HDR and ray-tracing as far as graphics are concerned, and those won't be found on lower-end systems. Zen mentioned this in their Discord servers, because they made the FX3 tables look really good as they are.

 

[KillRideMedley]

Do you have any Anti-aliasing settings on the Xbox One version of PinFX? Those jagged rails look awful, I agree, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's 100% worse.

The big differences are in the HDR and ray-tracing as far as graphics are concerned, and those won't be found on lower-end systems. Zen mentioned this in their Discord servers, because they made the FX3 tables look really good as they are.

No option for any AA in the menus. Only Gama and Motion Blur Amount.