Dedicated Pinball PC Build Resolution Question

pureinstinct93 · Nov 25, 2015

Hello,

New forum member here.

I am not looking to build a cabinet, though I would love to own a Virtuapin ultra widebody. I am just looking to put together a dedicated pinball PC. I have a good idea on what CPU and video card specs I need, but I don't have much understanding about the optimal monitor resolution. I am looking at getting a 27" Dell monitor, but I have 3 resolutions options to choose from: 1920x1080, 2560x1440, or 3840x2160 (4K). I plan to only use a single monitor to run TPA.

When I looked at www.pinballarcade.com, I did not see any clear mention of the max resolution that the PC version of Pinball Arcade supports. I am leaning towards the 27", 3840x2160 monitor so that I can also use it to watch 4K movies, but I am willing to reconsider, if the pinball experience will be poor on it. Does Visual Pinball support 4K resolution at this time?

Also, I am looking at purchasing the Nanotech Pinball Wizard controller: https://www.nanotechent.com/pinball-wizard.php . I do understand that I will have to use a utility to map the buttons to work with TPA, but do I need to do the same for this to work with Visual Pinball? Will the nudge functionality work with either Visual Pinball or TPA?

Any sage advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Damon

SilverBalls · Nov 25, 2015

pureinstinct93 said:
Hello,

New forum member here.

I am not looking to build a cabinet, though I would love to own a Virtuapin ultra widebody. I am just looking to put together a dedicated pinball PC. I have a good idea on what CPU and video card specs I need, but I don't have much understanding about the optimal monitor resolution. I am looking at getting a 27" Dell monitor, but I have 3 resolutions options to choose from: 1920x1080, 2560x1440, or 3840x2160 (4K). I plan to only use a single monitor to run TPA.

When I looked at www.pinballarcade.com, I did not see any clear mention of the max resolution that the PC version of Pinball Arcade supports. I am leaning towards the 27", 3840x2160 monitor so that I can also use it to watch 4K movies, but I am willing to reconsider, if the pinball experience will be poor on it. Does Visual Pinball support 4K resolution at this time?

Also, I am looking at purchasing the Nanotech Pinball Wizard controller: https://www.nanotechent.com/pinball-wizard.php . I do understand that I will have to use a utility to map the buttons to work with TPA, but do I need to do the same for this to work with Visual Pinball? Will the nudge functionality work with either Visual Pinball or TPA?

Any sage advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Damon

Welcome to the forum. I would recommend you steer clear of the Nanotech and don't lose a lot of money. Just do some research on the internet and you will find out why. A lot if people don't get their goods, etc.

eg:

http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=14046

Virtuapin did do a controller at some point but not sure if they do anymore. You could quite easily make one using the their plunger kit. Others may be able to help more

suffocater · Nov 25, 2015

I run 2160x3840 settings on a 1080x1920 monitor (portrait only for TPA) and it looks completely normal ( a little bit better than full-HD of course ;-) ) The tables are fine, but the menü is a little bit off the buttons, because TPA DX11 doesn't completely support downscaling with the actual UI, but if 4K is the native resolution it should be fine.

Crawley · Nov 26, 2015

The higher the resolution of your monitor the better video card you will need to play any games at that resolution. Right now even NVidia 980 Ti's will struggle to hit 60 fps on many games at 4k resolution at max settings. So I don't think video cards are quite ready yet to support those resolutions with a good performance.

That said NVidia cards have something called DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) which I use for a few games, including TPA. Basically it renders the game in the higher resolution and displays it in your monitors native resolution (also known as down sampling). So for TPA my native monitor resolution is 1920x1200 but I'm using DSR to render TPA at 2560x1440. It helps make the textures a bit sharper without a performance hit. If I go higher than that resolution with all the features at max I start seeing frame rate drops - this is on a NVidia gtx 780.

But that DSR functionality just works great and with very little fuss. Some games it'll automatically show the higher resolution options without doing anything. Ones that don't you just turn that option on for the game in the NVidia Control Panel and then it's there. You can also apply this to your desktop resolution. So you can display up to a 4K resolution if you wish. This gives you lots of room to work with but the icons are pretty small - so for that reason I don't do it.

I have not tried DSR with video playback yet so not sure how that works.

pureinstinct93 · Nov 26, 2015

Thanks, everyone.

After some additional research, right now I am focusing on a 27" monitor at 3840x2160 (4K) delivered by an Nvidia 980ti. I imagine that this card should handle TPA very well at max (DSR) or near max settings, since this card is designed for FPS games.

Additional thoughts, do's and don'ts are welcome.

relaxation · Nov 26, 2015

The point of a higher resolution would be less jagged edges (aliasing) on things and a more photorealistic experience with a higher PPI form factor. Comments were made by the devs that their textures are 2K by 2K in resolution so if you're running 4K(2160p) with an 8K (DSR or back buffer width, DSR isn't required) output the textures would already be maxed and the metal trim and railings (edges) would be less aliased.

I run DX11@1440p (no AA) on my 24" 1080p screen, and while 4K(2160p) is possible I find the less aliased to be so negligible that I found it not worth the processing power (.8 USD a month).

Another thing to consider is distance from the monitor, 27" might be in your peripheral vision when in landscape but if you play in portrait like I do, 24" I have to sit further back(our sitting positions/desks may vary) to get the full screen in view for less rapid eye movement (eye strain). Another facet to portrait gaming is the panel itself and how it well it looks in that orientation. I'd look at reviews that showcase the monitors viewing angles since portrait has a thinner viewing angle profile it's more prone to contrast shifting (you do have more leniency when sitting further away).

DX9:
last 3-4 generations of mid-low tier (60w) graphics cards can downscale 4K TPA content, with GeDoSaTo
you downsample to avoid the horrible blurred mess post-processing and their AA had, so turn PP&AA off)

DX11: (just config the backbuffer, DSR, or VSR)
last 2 generations of mid tier graphics(>60w) cards can downscale 1440p TPA content easily.

Personally, my next choice in a gaming monitor would be a 2nd+ generation of VR product with an OLED screen, more gains than diminishing returns.

mpad · Nov 27, 2015

Too bad some of the older textures are only 16x32 pixels

Dedicated Pinball PC Build Resolution Question

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