Question about v-sync, lag and game-speed

[Hef Hughner]

Hi,

first: i love the game! Thank you so much for finally bringing this to pc.

This is the only problem/question i have: at first there was a significant input lag. I can completely eliminate this through setting the max pre rendered frames to 1 and disabling v-sync/triple buffering.

- But i really dislike disabling v-sync because the game tears a lot. Is there any method to eliminate tearing without the need to enable v-sync?
- I noticed if i play without v-sync, the frame rate is locked at 62. With v-sync its 60. Is the game speed tied to the frame rate? I recently played the pc version of Fez and the higher the frame rate the faster the game plays. I know its not a huge difference but i want to play the game exactly as designed.

 

[goforthewall]

60 fps should be the "designed to be played" speed.

 

[Sumez]

Since the game is physics based, I find it very difficult to believe the speed is tied to the frame rate. This would also explain the "ball through the flipper" bugs.

Tearing happens when the game can't keep up with the intended framerate, so apart from somehow improving performance, v-sync is usually the only way to properly prevent tearing - but always at the expense of a slight lag, which would be a pretty bad thing in a game like this where you need immediate response time. I'd definitely disable v-sync at all times.

 

[Hef Hughner]

I'd definitely disable v-sync at all times.

You are right. Its better to deal with tearing instead of lag, so i will play with v-sync disabled. But that still leaves the question if the game runs around 3% faster without v-sync. Usually games which have a locked frame rate are locked to 60 like goforthewall wrote.

 

[Sumez]

What V-sync does, is tieing the number of render/draw routines to the display's refresh rate, so it will always be at 60fps if possible. I can't tell you how TPA is programmed, but I'd assume that even with 62 frames per second, the game will still only update logic 60 times a second.

 

[Gozer]

Did you try running the game in windowed mode?

I heard people saying that it helped them with input lag.

 

[Epsilon]

Can't you force triple buffering independently of vsync on the video card settings? I'm no expert by any means, but I thought triple buffering eliminated screen tearing but didn't literally affect the number of frames processed per cycle like Vsync does.

 

[Gozer]

Can't you force triple buffering independently of vsync on the video card settings? I'm no expert by any means, but I thought triple buffering eliminated screen tearing but didn't literally affect the number of frames processed per cycle like Vsync does.

If i remember correctly, triple buffering helps eliminate input lag when vsync is being used. I don't think it's used to help with screen tearing.

Basically, triple buffering is useless if your not using vsync.

 

[Hef Hughner]

Thanks for your help. I tried all the different combinations and in fullscreen it still feels best if vsync/tb is disabled. I hope Sumez is right and the game still updates 60 frames and not 62 if the game speed is tied to the frame rate.

 

[oqvist]

bump. I have been experimenting with this and it seems like it may run a bit faster with no v-sync. But the difference is so slim I can´t be sure and I am no pinball wizard

 

[Galacsin]

I have an old CRT monitor with a refresh rate that is higher than 60hz. If I play the game in higher refresh rate, the game run 62 frame rate. If i set to 60hz, i got 60 fps. Changing the Vsync settings does not affect anything.

 

[oqvist]

The game lock the fps to your refresh rate. Hmm maybe should try 24 hz lol

 

[Galacsin]

Sadly 60hz is the lowest! King Of Fighters XIII Steam Edition has similar problem. Other settings than 60hz, the game runs too fast.

 

[MagnumXL]

Vsync + Full screen Window mode got rid of all the problems on VMWare Fusion Virtualized Windows XP on my Mac for the Windows version. It plays as smooth as the native Mac version now (lighting is very different is the main thing, although I get the feeling the flippers aim a bit different as I have no trouble hitting Bob's bunker over and over on the Mac version of RoadShow. If I want DX11 effects, though I'll have to set up Boot Camp with Win7 or newer and reboot.

My complaint about "speed" though has more to do with the virtual table slope. It feels too shallow on 1990s games (i.e. slow acceleration under 'gravity' back towards the drain). This makes the games too easy and the gameplay too slow. Real world tables often had slopes of 7 to 8 degrees. This feels more like 4-6. I shouldn't be able to rip through every wizard mode on my first or second try. I'm good at pinball in the real world, but even I need to warm up a few games before I start wiping out every score on the game, particularly on games I haven't played in awhile. Here, it's wizard modes and high scores every time. I'm no Tarek Oberdieck (not sure I'd even enjoy pinball if I were THAT good at it since it obviously represents no challenge to him what-so-ever), but I'd still like a table slope option to speed the ball play up. Pro Pinball was much closer to the real machines game play despite being completely made up. It also had full table slope control. Still, it's better than no pinball given how hard it is to find these tables in the real world anymore short of a Papa tournament.

 

[Oindinsballs]

Why is Window mode so slow in Ball play then Fullscreen mode i cant get backglass and dmd to show in Window Fullscreen Everything is ok put slow Ball what is the Error here Please help someone