More madness; different table

[GSGregg]

Since dna disturber and the PINemHi_Leaderboard community have retired JP's Attack From Mars v2.3.1 (91x table, I think) in favor of v2.4, a 914 table, I thought I'd try it out. I don't recall the exact problem, but I think it rendered but wouldn't play since the highest VP I had was 912.

So I DL'ed 915 and the new Freeimage.dll, with which AFM was a bunch of overlapping colored rectangles. So, bravely I stuck my toe into the frigid waters of the Editor and decided to experiment; I unticked the 'visible' box for every alpha ramp that didn't cast shadows or otherwise appear to have 'physical' substance or be a working part of the table. I hit 'Play' and.....

VOILA! I could see the playfield---all except for one rectangle with the 'forcefield' drop targets sticking through near the top (with HDR on, it's green and with HDR off, it's invisible until gameplay activates it, at which time it turns red, the forcefield targets are obscured, and the framerate dive-bombs to as low as FOUR! Lots of fun during multiball when you can hear the pop bumpers going nuts but can't see anything moving and you just hold the flippers up and 'wait for a sign'.

I couldn't invisiblate or even identify that rectangle because apparently it's beneath so many others that the mouse pointer was unable to locate an exposed part of it.

My purpose in all this was to reduce rendering demand for my schlock HD4670 AGP vid card, but it doesn't appear to have worked. QUESTIONS: Could those alpha ramps still be consuming processor time even while invisible? Is it advisable to delete them,or even possible without killing the table?

In the words of late-night TV host Craig Ferguson, "I look forward to your letters!"

[Itchigo]

Sorry Gregg, forgot about this one. Try this one.... This is actually 9.16 which has been renamed to 9.14. To be honest, I don't use alpha ramps, but it's possible they could be taking resources. You can try deleting them, if it does kill the table- don't save your changes.

[GSGregg]

For what it's worth, the red rectangle I can't get to or shut off corresponds to the red 'arrowhead' light in front of the center 'force field' target.

Thanks for the VP914, Itch; is it the 'stable' 914?... or one of the daily builds. It actually seems a bit worse than the 915 I grabbed; even with only a single ball on the table, hitting any of the flying saucer targets (and playing the accompanying music/sounds) blanks the ball out momentarily and when it comes back, it micro-stutters for maybe a second, often leaving insufficient time to aim or even select a flipper shot. And multiball is no different, thanks to my rig.

I suppose deleting ramps isn't likely to land me in Pinball Prison, and the worst that can happen is I'll just have to download it again, right? Thanks again;

Gregg 

[Itchigo]

It's one of the daily builds. It's 9.16 that I had to rename to 9.14 to substitute it for my old .exe. I have 9.14 installed, so renaming that to 9.14 get's it to use that files as if it really is 9.14.

[faralos]

which vp ya' want?
 i got 9.0.7, 9.1.2,  9.1.3, 9.1.4, 9.1.5
and vp8

[GSGregg]

Hiya, faralos;

I don't know that I need, or would benefit from, any particular 'exe's. On my old hard drive, which was scrambled into permanent reboot-loop by a defective memory module in Feb 2011, I had 8, the default 902, 906 (courtesy of Add-a-ball Bob over at PN) , 907 (I think) and 909. Since reinstalling on the current hdd, I didn't upgrade to anything until 912, and nothing since until 915 about two weeks ago, trying to handle the colored squares, etc. that my ATI gpu seems to forget about. DAMN, I'll be glad when I can get some obstacles cleared so I can upgrade (replace) my computer like I've been threatening to for two years!

Itchigo;

I deleted every one of the ramps that I previously 'cloaked', but it failed to improve framerate one damned bit. DAMN (read my closing sentence in the above paragraph).  

[Itchigo]

Sorry Gregg. I thought I had heard that deleting the ramps was the only way, but I wasn't sure. Upgrading isn't a bad thing, if you can. Vp can do more and more things, but it also is taking more and more computer too. My old IBM A31 laptop (first computer) would run 9.01. 9.07 was my favorite, since then, I've been upgrading since I had to, and not because I wanted to. I haven't found anything this desktop can't run, but put it on my Dell From Hell (��) and it says wtf?

[GSGregg]

I thought I had heard that deleting the ramps was the only way

No apology necessary; I'm sure I read that in numerous forum posts, but I've never wanted to fart around in the Editor. Why now? Well.....it's my latest 'last resort'. My last one was buying the last available model of one-gig AGP-8X vid card made, just to have a one-gig card, and having it come up short.

The dilemma (although I probably mentioned it before) is, to get a PCI-e vidcard, I need to change motherboards which means I have to change CPUs, and my perfect-working 400-watt Corsair PSU will be rendered insufficient.....and then the fun of making sure they all plug into one another. Whoopeee! Pour me another one! (*hic*) Get one for yourself, while you're at it! (Where are all the drunk Smilies?)

[Itchigo]

If you were closer I'd build it for you, I love building things! Can you tell?
Great idea, we need a drunk smiley.