Stern tables

ryzombie619 · May 9, 2016

So I am a bit confused on the whole Stern thing that is going on. Why don't they just add those tables to the Pinball Arcade? Why create a whole new app when you can add to the already existing arcade? It'd be nice to have them all in one thing instead of having to get a bunch of new apps.

EldarOfSuburbia · May 9, 2016

They need to create a new app for two reasons:
1. Because Stern want a standalone presence and don't want their tables mixed in with the WMS, Gottlieb, etc. tables. Stern is the driving force here, not Farsight. Farsight are just the contractors.
2. Because the new app will have a very different core game engine than TPA. Stern Pinball Arcade (SPA) will be directly running the code developed by Stern for their SAM and SPIKE-based tables, thus bypassing the emulation layer present in most TPA tables, and allowing the tables to be free of all the niggly restrictions imposed by having to run code via the emulation layer. The CPU will be freed up to allow a better physics engine, and also to run at a higher clock cycle instead of being pegged to 60Hz as it is now. Higher clock = better granularity = smoother, more realistic flipper physics, among other things.

soundwave106 · May 9, 2016

ryzombie619 said:
So I am a bit confused on the whole Stern thing that is going on. Why don't they just add those tables to the Pinball Arcade? Why create a whole new app when you can add to the already existing arcade? It'd be nice to have them all in one thing instead of having to get a bunch of new apps.

My guess is marketing is a big part of the reason. I'm sure Stern wants a showcase application that they can more directly point players to their real-life pinball games (as well as cross-promote etc.).

Another reason I can see is that apparently the game engine will be different (not emulated ROMs).

relaxation · May 9, 2016

Stern wants you to know it's owned by Stern, even in TPA.

EldarOfSuburbia · May 9, 2016

relaxation said:
Stern wants you to know it's owned by Stern, even in TPA.

It would be nice if they could make up their mind where to put the Stern logo in relation to the rest of the image.

vikingerik · May 10, 2016

EldarOfSuburbia said:
The CPU will be freed up to allow a better physics engine

This is kind of a myth. A pinball physics engine doesn't take any meaningful CPU time on today's processors, even phones. Even if it's a thousand calculations per frame per ball, that's still well under a millisecond.

What would allow better physics is getting the simulation unlocked from the 60 Hz constraint of the emulation, so the physics could step at higher temporal resolution. That would obviously help the railroad problem. (You might be using "freed up CPU" as a shorthand for this, but I think it's worth distinguishing.)

Of course, that only matters if Farsight actually implements a better physics engine as well. Still hoping they'll port in a physics engine from Visual Pinball or somewhere. Nobody's going to be happy if "Physics 4.0" is the same tiny stuff as 3.0 was.

Kolchak357 · May 10, 2016

I think we'd all prefer just one app. But I guess our vote doesn't count on this one. I can see why Stern wants a stand alone, but it's inconvenient from a user perspective to have it this way.

EldarOfSuburbia · May 10, 2016

Kolchak357 said:
I think we'd all prefer just one app. But I guess our vote doesn't count on this one. I can see why Stern wants a stand alone, but it's inconvenient from a user perspective to have it this way.

Well, yes, but think about it this way: if you want to play Zaccaria tables, you need to launch a different app. Or Zen tables or ColorMonkey or Pro Pinball. The only difference is, the developer of TPA and SPA is the same.

shutyertrap · May 10, 2016

EldarOfSuburbia said:
Well, yes, but think about it this way: if you want to play Zaccaria tables, you need to launch a different app. Or Zen tables or ColorMonkey or Pro Pinball. The only difference is, the developer of TPA and SPA is the same.

Yep. I think we all need to think of FarSight being a hired gun here, with Stern calling all the shots. Every conversation I've had with guys from FarSight has essentially come down to "I can't tell you anything until Stern says it's okay". And since I don't have an NDA with Stern...

wizard33 · Nov 25, 2016

I played Mustang yesterday. It's pretty cool. There was a Kiss table too, but Mustang definitely looked better and newer

kaworu · Nov 25, 2016

wizard33 said:
I played Mustang yesterday. It's pretty cool. There was a Kiss table too, but Mustang definitely looked better and newer

man if you are talking about real tables, pls, do it in appropriate sub, because otherwise its kind of disorienting when you say "there was a Kiss table" in SPA topic

Stern tables

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