Bug Slow downs on rMBP and El Capitan

[Pinbal]

Runs great on a Mac running Windows

Just wanted to point out that I have an apple certified refurbished early 2013 MacBook Pro with the nvidia card. Bought in February this year. Right out of the box, on my factory fresh machine, pinball arcade had slowdown issues in OS X . Every single table. I'd get into a game, then a couple minutes in the speed would drop to about a quarter of what it was. This would continue for another couple minutes, go back to full speed, and repeat endlessly. Btw, this happens even when I turn the video card completely off. Same results.

HOWEVER!! A few months ago I installed Windows 8 with bootcamp on the same MacBook. Booting into Windows on the same machine, Pinball arcade runs perfectly. Full retina resolution, full graphics. Everything is crystal clear, beautiful, and full speed. Computer doesn't even break a sweat. This obviously shows that there is an issue with how the Mac version of the game interacts with OS X. The issue isn't with the hardware itself, the retina screen, etc.

Anyway, I'm tired of having to reboot my computer into Windows every time I want to play some great pinball. I try the Mac version again every time I hear rumor of an update, I've tried changing all settings, nothing works. Of course, I run El Capitan now, so I guess it's up to farsight so fix at this point. It's easy to reproduce the issue on my machine. You just try to play normally. I don't know why they can't reproduce it.

 

[Jay]

For the heck of it, I installed the Steam version of TPA on my Win7 virtual image running in Fusion. First, the graphics were noticeably more realistic in that version. The menu and options system was also nicer, though I couldn't find a way to alter my graphics settings and control options.

What was surprising was that there were no slow-downs at all. Framerate wasn't the best, since the game was running virtually, but it was consistent. I never encountered the sluggish behavior of the OS X native version.

 

[Jay]

I just discovered something else interesting. I was burning a DVD using Toast. While I was waiting for it to burn, I launched TPA and played Addams Family. The entire game went in slow motion, from start to finish (about 12 minutes of playing time). When the disk was finished, I quit TPA and Toast, and then relaunched TPA. The table played normally. I didn't stick with that one long enough to see if the slow-down returned. But I thought it was interesting that using Toast while playing apparently forced the game into slo-mo.

 

[RSchwantner]

Been taking a look at this for a while; unfortunately, I cannot reproduce this on my machine.
So if anyone wants to try any of this, please understand that i have not been able to test its effect myself.

Has anybody tried resetting their System Management Control?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

You may also want to try bringing up your fan levels manually with a 3rd party utility such as http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol.


Other mac gamers have reported similar issues and had good results after making sure their fans are up to speed.

For those with laptops, you will also want to be sure you are not in a battery save mode.

 

[MadAxeMan]

Open Quicktime
File > New Screen Recording > click record button
Now go open and play Pinball Arcade
this should bring PA to a unplayable snail pace

~Alternatively~
Go to YouTube play any video
(I just tried a video at 240p, and it reproduce it)
and play PA
This will slow down PA to it's more traditional slow down pace (with occasional sped up moments).

Common sense would say: "Don't do these things, and the game won't slow down"
But it still happens without, for no apparent rhyme or reason.
These are just a few things I noticed that will reproduce it

27" iMac 2.93ghz i7 - 20gb ram - 10.9.5 - ATi Radeon HD 5750 1g

 

[RSchwantner]

Open Quicktime
File > New Screen Recording > click record button
Now go open and play Pinball Arcade
this should bring PA to a unplayable snail pace

~Alternatively~
Go to YouTube play any video
(I just tried a video at 240p, and it reproduce it)
and play PA
This will slow down PA to it's more traditional slow down pace (with occasional sped up moments).

Common sense would say: "Don't do these things, and the game won't slow down"
But it still happens without, for no apparent rhyme or reason.
These are just a few things I noticed that will reproduce it

27" iMac 2.93ghz i7 - 20gb ram - 10.9.5 - ATi Radeon HD 5750 1g

Got it.
It actually took 4 youtube videos running at 1080 to slow TPA down.

Running a 3.06Ghz Intel core 2 duo - 4gigs of ram - NVidia GeForce 8800 GS 512

Your CPU, ram, and video card all outspec mine, which leads me to believe that the SMC on your machine is not allowing the fans and CPU to function properly.

TPA only uses max 13% of my CPU

 

[Jay]

Interesting. Now I'm experiencing that slow-down occasionally when I first launch the game (as when I had Toast running in the previous post). In fact, even the table menu screen is in slo-mo. This is with no other apps open. The game will run in slo-mo for as long as I play. If I quit TPA and relaunch it, everything works fine. The slow-down appearance seems to be completely random.

 

[wizard33]

Interesting. Now I'm experiencing that slow-down occasionally when I first launch the game (as when I had Toast running in the previous post). In fact, even the table menu screen is in slo-mo. This is with no other apps open. The game will run in slo-mo for as long as I play. If I quit TPA and relaunch it, everything works fine. The slow-down appearance seems to be completely random.

this is my EXACT experience .. also with monitoring CPU's

First launch = awful (just quit)
Second launch = fine (15% or 20% cpu)

 

[Jay]

Guess what? With the new 10.11.3 update to OS X, the slow-down is back.

 

[MadAxeMan]

this happened to me awhile back after I updated.
I brought it up in one of these threads....

 

[FlippyFloppy]

I'll inform the Mac Programmer.

 

[Jay]

Thanks! I'm becoming more frustrated with Apple lately. The update also broke Nvidia graphics drivers for a lab of Mac Pros that I maintain. It seems like that kind of stuff is happening more frequently. I guess it's best at this point to simply follow the old rule: if your system is working fine, don't update until all the new bugs have been shaken out.

 

[RSchwantner]

Has anybody been able to try this?..

Several other games have had the same reported issues that were fixed this way, and unfortunately this is not something we can optimize on our end.
The SMC and fan levels control the power running to the CPU, so if this is low, as it sounds like many Mac users have been reporting, the CPU does not have enough headroom to run the game. I think this is why the CPU can show max cap sometimes when it should be around 15%.

Been taking a look at this for a while; unfortunately, I cannot reproduce this on my machine.
So if anyone wants to try any of this, please understand that i have not been able to test its effect myself.

Has anybody tried resetting their System Management Control?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

You may also want to try bringing up your fan levels manually with a 3rd party utility such as http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol.


Other mac gamers have reported similar issues and had good results after making sure their fans are up to speed.

For those with laptops, you will also want to be sure you are not in a battery save mode.

 

[Jay]

I did try resetting the SMC on my Mac Pro. It didn't make a difference. This has to be a software issue, and not necessarily on FarSight's part. TPA was running fine for years until Mavericks came out. It got fixed with a point system update. Then it was broken again with the next update. With El Capitan, the problem seemed to vanish. But now with this point update, TPA is broken again. In a way, I feel bad for FarSight. It must be really frustrating to work at squashing bugs, only to have success crushed by another system update. I wonder if FarSight is part of the beta testing group for Apple's software updates. That might be give them a heads-up on approaching problems.

 

[JohnAtl]

Is anyone working on this issue?
The SMC reset/fan hack is a red herring. If this were causing the problem, users would be experiencing issues in other programs.

 

[Jay]

The new OS X 10.11.4 update subtly changed the behavior of TPA. The slow-down still occurs, but it's not as choppy and doesn't last for quite as long.

 

[Jay]

Just updated to OS X 10.11.5. The slow-down problem is still present.

 

[szielins]

OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 on an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4096 MB, running from Steam, full-screen mode. For me, the key setting seems to be Lock to 30 FPS. Tested on tables Tales of the Arabian Nights and Red & Ted's Road Show:

No slowdown observed: Post Processing: On; Level of Detail: High; Lock to 30 FPS: On; Anti-Alias Mode: 2x.
Slowdown observed: Post Processing: Off; Level of Detail: Low; Lock to 30 FPS: Off; Anti-Alias Mode: Off.

 

[RSchwantner]

We've got it consistently recurring in office now.
Programmer is looking into it when he can.

 

[Jay]

Great! Thanks. Hopefully the next fix will be permanent and won't be broken by the subsequent OS X update.