"How Do I Make VP Run Faster?"

"How do I make VP run faster?"

Tips & Tricks for users who have older/slower hardware, or even on new machines having a ‘stuggering table’ result, as taken from various threads on VPForums.

disabling CPU and memory intensive tasks shutting down obvious culprits ‐ try to make sure VP is the only task using processor power. this means turning off things such as virus checkers, IM clients and web browsers with too many pages loaded. finding additional culprits with CTRL‐ALT‐DEL ‐ a simple way to find running tasks is to hit CTRL‐ALT‐DEL and note the items listed. ‐ each item is a running task which you can track down on your harddrive by the "find" function. altho most of these will not interfere with the running of VP, particularly system tasks, some of them may indeed be using processor power. ‐ any task can be shut down with the "end task" button. ‐ when in doubt, turn off all suspect tasks, run VP, and see if you gain some speed. to go back to your original state, easiest thing is just to reboot. finding additional culprits with MSCONFIG ‐ invoke this with start button/run/msconfig/OK ‐ from the "startup" tab you may find some more tasks to turn off. these will stay off until you turn them back on again. ‐ more advanced users can try turning off other options from the other tabs. finding additional culprits with ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS in XP ‐ in windows XP, invoke start button/settings/control panel/administrative tools/services ‐ you can try disabling "NVIDIA driver service", "alerter", "telnet", etc. ‐ when it comes to running processes, less is more, so to speak, and XP will run with as few as 12 processes showing in Task Manager. finding additional culprits with other tools ‐ it's been suggested that the service controller for XP tool is a very handy and comprehensive way to manage these kinds of resources. turning off resources from the BIOS ‐ BIOS mode is accessible when the machine is first starting up. you will usually see a message stating which key to hold down, such as DEL or F11. ‐ you may be able to gain additional speed by turning off serial ports and anything else that needlessly consumes resources on your system.

final note about tweaking system resources ‐ generally, turning off resources that use up mainly CPU cycles will be more effective than turning off processes that use up mainly memory. ‐ there are many sites that offer tweaks for BIOS, drivers, and other system settings, such as omegadrivers. ‐ when you're not sure if disabling/changing something will break something important, there are places on the internet that can offer a second opinion, such as eldergeek, pcflank and dead‐eye. ‐ windows XP in general is a resource hog. try turning off (file) indexing service under "properties" for your hard drives and most visual effects under "my computer", using properties/advanced/performance. this is a reminder to everyone using windows XP, earlier windows systems aren't such a drain on your CPU and RAM. ‐ to minimise the unnecessary resource use in XP, choose the "classic view" theme. from the VP editor video options ‐ go to "preferences/video options" ‐ for resolution, always use 16 bit color. also, try reducing the resolution all the way down to a basic level, around 800x600 or even 640x480 to start with. be sure to use resolutions of a 4:3 ratio. ‐ it may also help to match your system resolution to your VP resolution. ‐ depending on your video card it may be better to run VP in a window or in fullscreen. try it each way to see. ‐ uncheck boxes for "blit", "shadows" and "decals" then hit "OK". use the default VP ball image ‐ click on the "option" icon from the left side of the editor and then make sure the "ball" option menu is open on the right side. change the ball image to . this will force the game to use the generic VP ball. note: if balls are still using custom images, follow the directions in the script sections below.

‐ start the table, play a game and note any speed difference. if table runs as fast as you want, you can go back and turn back on some of those options to make the table look nicer. object is to downgrade as few options as possible to get the speed you need. graphics preview ‐ when editing a table, turn off graphics preview on any and all objects you are not working on at the time. you will quickly notice the huge difference in speed (for editing that is; it doesn't affect when a table is running).

when running a VPM table the VPM menu ‐ when the game is running press "F1" to bring up the VPM menu. ‐ check the box that says "compact display" ‐ set the "antialias" number to 0. ‐ try reducing the samplerate. make the number as low as you can go while still being clear. ‐ try changing the synclevel around. possible good values are 0, 1, or matched to your monitor refresh rate. for example, if your monitor is set at 75Hz then try 75. ‐ unchecking "use samples" may give a significant performance boost. of course some games really need the sample support, but most of them aren't very CPU intensive. using samples plus emulated sound seems to be the kicker.

‐ make all possible changes, press "OK", then hit "F3" to restart with the changes and note the effect on speed. if it's fast enough now you can try going back and upgrading some options. object is to downgrade as few options as possible to get the speed you need. ‐ if sound is simply too much load on your processor, you might have to turn it off via the checkbox. the dipswitch menu ‐ hit "F6" to bring up the dipswitch menu. some authors will include checkbox options to turn off certain CPU‐ intensive features of a table. ‐ after changing some F6 options, you may need to exit to the editor and restart the table.

from the VP table script yieldtime ‐ search for the "yieldtime" line, and if it's not there, add it as a new line. the format should be "

.yieldtime = ". ‐ what yieldtime does is to pause VP for a few milliseconds per frame to allow background tasks to run, ie VPM. ‐ the best number to place in yieldtime is highly dependent on your system specs, but a rule of thumb is to start with low values, such as 0, 1 or 2 and move upwards. numbers could go as high as 1000 or more. best thing is just to try a number, run the table, and observe the effect. the good news is, once you find the best number, it will work with most if not all of your VPM tables. ‐ note: yieldtime is cancelled where synclevel exceeds 0. removing custom ball images from script ‐ depending on the table, the script may also be forcing the use of ball images. if so, you can search the script for instances of "addball" and comment out the last portion of the line that specifies the image with an apostrophe (') ‐ another way of doing this is to go into the image collection editor and rename the custom ball graphics so that the script can't find them. try renaming them by adding a ".bak" to the end so that you will still have them available for the future.

what you can do about your hardware windows swap file ‐ first, easiest thing is to make sure you have enough spare harddrive room to properly run window's virtual memory swap file. it's a good idea to always have at least 1GB of unused drive space. ‐ make sure you let windows automanage your swap file. you can set this from control panels, system, performance, virtual memory. memory ‐ add memory (RAM). this is still the first place you can optimise your hardware. insufficient memory may slow your system down more than a faster CPU will be able to speed it up. sound card ‐ a sound blaster X‐Fi card will take the load of producing sound from the CPU, which should always be a multiple of 8000 sample rate in VPM, ie DCS is 32000 etc. but an X‐Fi can use 96000 as a sample rate. audigy cards generally use 48000. ‐ remember that sample rate can be set in the VPM menu.

****Running VP in fullscreen may be faster than playing the tables in a window.

****Disabling the ball‐shadows and ball‐decals is the first & best way to get some extra‐fps, esp. while multiball or tables with lot of balls like Hyperball or tables with captive balls.

****On extreme low hardware like my brothers old Pentium 500 all the above listed tricks from Nicolas.B. helped a lot to make his favorite table (Funhouse) playable. (Another big improvement is the PCI‐soundcard, that doesnt need so much processor‐power than his on‐board‐sound).

VP‐Man ****If you launch your tables through VP‐Man disabling 'Direct Draw' (in the 'Table Launch Options') is also a major setting to adjust. Can be separately set in VP‐Man for each individual table.

****It´s an adjusting thing. To turn off DD at DXDIAG ist totaly differnet than turn it off at the Display Settings! Go to you ‘Display Settings’ and turn the Acceleration 3 ticks to the left. This disables DX9 features and make windows emulate the DX7 System on what VP is based. You will notice a complete other Speed in VP. Nice and Smooth.

Like i said, i run all Tables without any Stutter..even all Scapino Tables on a P3 800 MHZ

I didn´t even have to turn off DD cause i have DX8 installed. VP runs like heaven.

You can have a 10 GHZ PC with 16 GB Ram, you won´t be able to run VP runs smooth without let the system emulate DX7 Parts. On DX10 it´s a disaster to play VP. So if you want smooth Tables, then build up an old PC with older Hard and Software, and you will enjoy playing!

****About the speed: the problem (as already has been explain in many threads) is that VP was written for Directx 7. Those Directx 7 hardware calls has been removed from the newer cards. So those calls need to be done in software emulation by the newer cards. By turning down hardware acceleration those calls are done by the cpu instead of the graphics card. Since the cpu now are much faster, then VP plays better when the hardware acceleration is turned off. The reels are the ones that are most affected, but dropwalls are also affected. So I should first reduced a few steps the hardware acceleration, as this usually gives a better result than turning off the fading lights. Another thing: VP uses just one cpu, so if your computer is a dual cpu, then it may perform worst, since one single cpu may be actually slower than a little older P4.

So to put it simple:

‐ if you cpu is old then turning off the fading lights will help most the speed of the table, since the cpu won't be powerful enough to do the graphics alone.

‐ if your cpu is modern and fast then turning down the hardware acceleration will help the best.

‐ if your PC is a middle one (not too old, but not very fast) then you'll need to try and see what it is the best.

It is a matter of finding out what works best on your computer. The best is still an old PC with an old directx7 graphic card, but that is difficult to find now. So now it is only a matter of waiting for Randy to upgrade VP with the Ultracade code since this has already been upgraded to use directx9 calls, thus working very fast on modern computers using Directx 9. But now Directx10 is already out and by the end of the year maybe Directx11 is out...

****when running a VPM table the VPM menu ‐ when the game is running press "F1" to bring up the VPM menu. ‐ check the box that says "compact display" ‐ set the "antialias" number to 0. ‐ try reducing the samplerate. make the number as low as you can go while still being clear. ‐ try changing the synclevel around. possible good values are 0, 1, or matched to your monitor refresh rate. for example, if your monitor is set at 75Hz then try 75. ‐ unchecking "use samples" may give a significant performance boost. of course some games really need the sample support, but most of them aren't very CPU intensive. using samples plus emulated sound seems to be the kicker.