TPA on the PS4 - First Impressions

[Daniel Osborne]

My ps4 bumper buttons stick.
Lol
Rudy's eyes make a noise when they move now. I've noticed more sound snippets on totan and mm. Well, stuff I've not heard before anyway.

 

[smbhax]

Those red flipper rubbers on Ripley's are really bouncy now.

 

[---stone---]

Cirqus Voltaire - Love the dark lit setting (same with pretty much any table so far)...especially with with my room lights off. Kinda provides that old school arcade dim lit atmosphere.

One thing I miss over the ps3 version is the random colored menagerie balls and the different florescent tube lighting on right side of the table that you got with different colored menagerie balls. Green ball, green light, yellow ball, yellow light, blue ball, blue light etc. Any idea when or if they will add this back in?

 

[gsxrboy]

Just picked up my PS4 from a walk-in buy, (which is tricky here in oz), bought the season pass. My q is there a download all table option as per iOS etc?

 

[Azuri]

Just picked up my PS4 from a walk-in buy, (which is tricky here in oz), bought the season pass. My q is there a download all table option as per iOS etc?

Choose one table to play all the rest will download automatically with no warning unlike IOS.

 

[Queue]

I haven't experienced any input lag, which is good. However, I do experience occasional, seemingly random framerate drops, particularly on effects-heavy tables like Cirqus Voltaire. They typically only last a second or so, but they're annoying nonetheless. I recall somebody complaining about the framerate of the retail pre-release demo, so it seems that this issue was never completely addressed. I hope that it isn't permanent, because I would expect a console as powerful as the PS4 to be able to push 60 frames per second on a DLC title like TPA.

Luckily, my L1/R1 triggers seem to work without a hitch, but due to their size and placement on the controller, they're rather uncomfortable to use. The DualShock 4 seems to have been designed so that the index fingers are naturally placed upon the rear triggers. I'll be very happy once controller mapping support is added to the game — hopefully soon.

 

[Shaneus]

Just picked up my PS4 from a walk-in buy, (which is tricky here in oz), bought the season pass. My q is there a download all table option as per iOS etc?

Hah, I got mine like that as well! JB were selling pre-order stock (and I also heard reports EB were as well). Got it Monday

 

[gsxrboy]

Hah, I got mine like that as well! JB were selling pre-order stock (and I also heard reports EB were as well). Got it Monday

JB for me too Bless them

 

[SilverBalls]

I haven't experienced any input lag, which is good. However, I do experience occasional, seemingly random framerate drops, particularly on effects-heavy tables like Cirqus Voltaire. They typically only last a second or so, but they're annoying nonetheless. I recall somebody complaining about the framerate of the retail pre-release demo, so it seems that this issue was never completely addressed. I hope that it isn't permanent, because I would expect a console as powerful as the PS4 to be able to push 60 frames per second on a DLC title like TPA.

Are you finding that the framerate drop is showing itself as a small ball stutter? Does it seems to tie in when particular ROM sounds playing? I don't have a PS4 but even with my beefy Core i7 PC with a GTX 480 I occasionally get that and it seems to be related to ROM sounds.

Funny thing is I had similar problems with my Cab setup with VP a couple of years ago and it was related to ROM sounds being played by the emulation. These were solved by setting the VPinMame process to a separate thread (via UVPServer) than the main gamewplay thread plus sometimes sampling down the ROM sound rate to 11025 from 44100 also helped. I am wondering if Farsight are running the ROM emulation in a separate thread from the main gameplay, and if not would this help on the PS4/PCs/etc. ?

 

[Queue]

Are you finding that the framerate drop is showing itself as a small ball stutter? Does it seems to tie in when particular ROM sounds playing? I don't have a PS4 but even with my beefy Core i7 PC with a GTX 480 I occasionally get that and it seems to be related to ROM sounds.

Yes, the ball exhibits a stuttering effect for a very brief second or two, and then the framerate returns to normal. I haven't been able to pinpoint the exact cause, as it seems to happen almost randomly, but I have noticed that it occurs more frequently on tables with lots of light and audio effects. The tables run at 60fps otherwise, but that arbitrary stuttering certainly dampens the experience.

 

[smbhax]

How often do you get stuttering? I haven't had any--that I've noticed, anyway.

 

[Queue]

How often do you get stuttering? I haven't had any--that I've noticed, anyway.

Depends on the table. It happens frequently enough with Cirqus Voltaire to be noticeable, at least by me. Someone else reported the ball stuttering on the master bug list, so it's definitely a universal issue. I have fairly high flicker fusion threshold, though, (I can see DLP color rainbows) so I'm more likely to notice something like this than the average observer.

 

[Megahurtz]

The first table I tried was TotAN. First thing I noticed was that the DMD still doesn't display on the actual machine the way the later DLC tables do. I haven't checked all of the season 1 tables yet though. Did any of them get updated to display the DMD? I assumed that would be included with all of the lighting updates and bug fixes in the ps4 version.

I'm also getting what feels like noticeable lag on the flippers. I never had it on the ps3, but my ps4 is hooked up to a new tv that I've never played TPA on before. The L1 and R1 buttons feel like they have much more travel than what I am accustomed to playing TPA with a 360 controller or on a vita (even more than on ps3). I haven't figured out yet if the lag is from the increased distance L1 and R1 need to move to register a button press, or some sort of processing lag on the tv. Maybe both? L1 and R1 also feel like they need to be pressed pretty much directly straight down. If you try to press them on an angle, sometimes it won't register or will take longer to register. The 360 bumpers were sensitive enough and had a short enough travel that you could press on them from any part of the button and it would immediately activate.

I have a monitor I will try connecting the ps4 to. That should at least eliminate the display as introducing any lag into the equation and let me isolate the ds4 as the potential cause.

 

[SilverBalls]

I found a couple of good quality videos on YouTube showing the PS4 dark light setting. It really looks good and I look forward to seeing it in the PC version. Did anyone ever work/find out what the strange dark circular shadow is in the middle of the playfield? It really shows in the MM video below. It can't be normal as none of the other lights are reflecting in that area. I hope FS fix won't be to just lighten up the setting as that would be a shame.
MM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw8Dnlw77mc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
CV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K54xphzBzmY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[ER777]

The light dissipation is too abrupt I think (at least based on these videos, I haven't seen it in person yet). It gives the effect of spotlights shining down from above, as others have mentioned before. The transition from light to dark should be smoother and when the bright GI is on under the slings and ramps the center of the table shouldn't be quite that dark.

 

[smbhax]

The MM video you linked (I didn't check the second one) looks way darker than the game looks on my screen, and I *think* I have my gamma adjusted correctly; at any rate, the shadowy area in the middle of the table in Dark lighting mode is much less pronounced for me. I'll grab an actual screenshot of the table from my PS4 later tonight.

 

[Kolchak357]

Multiball start and destroying the castle on MM look pretty sweet.

 

[brakel]

The MM video you linked (I didn't check the second one) looks way darker than the game looks on my screen, and I *think* I have my gamma adjusted correctly; at any rate, the shadowy area in the middle of the table in Dark lighting mode is much less pronounced for me. I'll grab an actual screenshot of the table from my PS4 later tonight.

That's about what mine looks like although my TV is over due for a calibration. It's been almost two years and I usually don't go more than a year before calibrations.

 

[smbhax]

Here's what the PS4 thinks MM looks like in Dark lighting mode:

The dark central playfield is a little unnatural-looking, not nearly as dark as what came out in that YouTube video though. This is a straight PS4 Sharing-button screen capture.

 

[SilverBalls]

Here's what the PS4 thinks MM looks like in Dark lighting mode:

The dark central playfield is a little unnatural-looking, not nearly as dark as what came out in that YouTube video though. This is a straight PS4 Sharing-button screen capture.

Thanks for the screenshot. Although the dark area does look a bit unnatural is looks so good in general compared to the existing lighting we have in the PC version can live with that.

Is this dark area on all tables or specific to MM? I can't seem to find many PS4 dark mode videos to compare.