Volume 6: Glitches and Slowdowns Galore

I have been really impressed with the quality of Volumes 1 to 5, which makes the glitches and slow play of Volume 6 so surprising and disappointing.

FH in particular is especially problematic. The low frame rates are glaringly obvious, although the same issue is still evident in DD and even SS as well. The ball has a strange, floaty feel, very much unlike play in previous table packs.

Over on steam, multiple players are reporting huge drops in frame rates. Sadly, I see no evidence that Zen is fixing these problems anytime soon. Maybe these problems will get fixed after, or with the launch of their new platform, maybe not. I was hoping that an upgrade in hardware might solve these issues, but players on steam with higher end PC's are reporting significant slowdowns, so it doesn't sound like that will solve the issue.

The dropoff in performance is very frustrating. What's even more frustrating is that there seems not to be a fix for any of this.

This might be limited to just the PC platform, since haven't noticed any frame rate drops on the PS4 version.

The console versions are censored unfortunately. Also, console GPU's can't be upgraded like PC's, is that correct?

Having said that, my next platform will be whatever allows me to play all williams tables without the slowdown in frame rates

ODB123 said:

I have been really impressed with the quality of Volumes 1 to 5, which makes the glitches and slow play of Volume 6 so surprising and disappointing.

FH in particular is especially problematic. The low frame rates are glaringly obvious, although the same issue is still evident in DD and even SS as well. The ball has a strange, floaty feel, very much unlike play in previous table packs.

Over on steam, multiple players are reporting huge drops in frame rates. Sadly, I see no evidence that Zen is fixing these problems anytime soon. Maybe these problems will get fixed after, or with the launch of their new platform, maybe not. I was hoping that an upgrade in hardware might solve these issues, but players on steam with higher end PC's are reporting significant slowdowns, so it doesn't sound like that will solve the issue.

The dropoff in performance is very frustrating. What's even more frustrating is that there seems not to be a fix for any of this.

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Zen never fixes anything.. complete joke to be honest..

Actually, Zen did fix the lag bug (and some other things) on the Vol 6 tables back in December. This was mainly a DMD issue and if you are still experiencing the problem (which was more prevalent in cabinet mode) you might need to make sure you have your monitor set correctly to borderless fullscreen mode, etc.

However, there has always been a random lag bug in the game that continues to be a problem for an unfortunate few, but that is a windows scheduling and network use issue that can only be fixed by playing offline.

Captain Caveman said:

Zen never fixes anything.. complete joke to be honest..

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Liiiiiiies!

trash80 said:

Actually, Zen did fix the lag bug (and some other things) on the Vol 6 tables back in December. This was mainly a DMD issue and if you are still experiencing the problem (which was more prevalent in cabinet mode) you might need to make sure you have your monitor set correctly to borderless fullscreen mode, etc.

However, there has always been a random lag bug in the game that continues to be a problem for an unfortunate few, but that is a windows scheduling and network use issue that can only be fixed by playing offline.

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Well, it's march and the Vol. 6 tables still lag badly on mobile, even in offline mode. The Vol. 6 tables play completely differently than any tables from the previous 5 packs.

What hardware are you running it on?

ODB123 said:

Liiiiiiies!



Well, it's march and the Vol. 6 tables still lag badly on mobile, even in offline mode. The Vol. 6 tables play completely differently than any tables from the previous 5 packs.

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You mentioned Steam which is a PC platform and which was patched back in December, but now you are suggesting the actual issue you have is with the mobile version. These are two different game engines and each have their own unique bugs and feature set.

shogun00 said:

This might be limited to just the PC platform, since haven't noticed any frame rate drops on the PS4 version.

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After having frame-rate issues with all PFX3 tables on Steam for about a year I switched to the PS4 version. No frame rate issues at all on the PS4.
Two minor things on the PS4 version -dmd is too large for the alphanumeric games and the music volume is set too low and cannot be adjusted for the same (i've tired.)
The DMD games look and sound fine. I can deal with the censorship.

rehtroboi40 said:

Two minor things on the PS4 version -dmd is too large for the alphanumeric games and the music volume is set too low and cannot be adjusted for the same (i've tired.)

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The music volume for some reason is tied to the sound effects slider on the alphanumeric tables.

I'm playing on a google pixel xl.

rehtroboi40 said:

After having frame-rate issues with all PFX3 tables on Steam for about a year I switched to the PS4 version. No frame rate issues at all on the PS4.
Two minor things on the PS4 version -dmd is too large for the alphanumeric games and the music volume is set too low and cannot be adjusted for the same (i've tired.)
The DMD games look and sound fine. I can deal with the censorship.

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Do you think low frame rates were due to your CPU and/or GPU?

Your problem sounds different from mine, where volumes 1 - 5 play very well, but volume 6 tables are pretty awful, especially funhouse.

There is some speculation over on the steam forums that zen hired a different group of developers for volume 6, with hints that they were individuals who had developed Visual Pinball tables. I don't know if these rumors are true or not: I do know that the volume 6 tables play very differently compared to any williams tables prior.

This is without a doubt the buggiest app I have ever used.

I've used (or at least tried to use) many open source apps that just flat out don't work. But those are apps with a single developer with zero budget (aside from their free time).

The williams pinball app however is a mainstream gaming app supported by many thousands of man hours of development, yet there are non stop bugs, every single time I use it.

There is something very fishy about the disparity in quality before and after Volume 6.

ODB123 said:

I'm playing on a google pixel xl.



Do you think low frame rates were due to your CPU and/or GPU?

Your problem sounds different from mine, where volumes 1 - 5 play very well, but volume 6 tables are pretty awful, especially funhouse.

There is some speculation over on the steam forums that zen hired a different group of developers for volume 6, with hints that they were individuals who had developed Visual Pinball tables. I don't know if these rumors are true or not: I do know that the volume 6 tables play very differently compared to any williams tables prior.

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From Big Bear

I actually like PA tables a lot. For some reason, they're terrible on android, but very smooth and fast playing on IOS.

Is anybody getting fast frame rates for volume 6 on android? What devices are you all using?

No framerate issues on my iPhone 7 Plus. No framerate issues on my PC using an NVIDIA 1050i vid card and running two monitors.

I'll squash that Steam forum rumor for you too. I know for a fact that Peter 'Deep' Grafl worked on Space Station, and that Zoltan worked on Doctor Dude and Funhouse. Both have been at Zen for many years. Do yourself a favor, step away from the s**tshow that is the Steam forum. You may as well be reading the comments section from a Yahoo News story.

Naildriver74 said:

From Big Bear

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This steam forum poster claims zen devs are/were collabing with VPX and suspects this might be the reason for the problems. None of us have any way of knowing. However, if the collab dates back a year or so, it is a bit of an odd coincidence that Volume 6 is so bug ridden when all previous releases played smoothly:


PinballVirtual.es-Victor has Pinball FX3 Oct 25, 2020 @ 8:36am
By changing the resolution of the playfiel from 4K to FHD (1920x1080) the tables already run smoothly with DMD.
In Virtual Pinball with a newer computer than mine and with a better graphics card, they don't give problems either.
My Intel Core i5 is already a few years old, it is fourth generation and the graphics is a GTX1060 that for the FHD I was doing very well, but it seems to have fallen short for the new Zen tables.
With that computer I was moving Visual Pinball (VPX) without problems, when VPX has always been much more demanding in terms of PC requirements, apparently now it is just the opposite, we need a more powerful computer to move FX3 than to move VPX.
With that computer all systems work fine in 4k except Pinball FX3, VPX OK, TPA OK, Pro-Pinball OK, Zaccaria OK, Wicked OK, Future well, it's Future, but fine, Malzbies OK, SlamIt OK ... Just I have problems with Pinball FX3.
Zen always had in mind to maintain a balance to reach the largest possible number of "customers" being a commercial game, however I heard a little over a year ago that VPX developers would collaborate with Zen and since then it seems that something has gotten out of control Could it be a coincidence? Perhaps, I do not believe coincidences.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/442120/discussions/0/5063694237350012822/?ctp=2

shutyertrap said:

No framerate issues on my iPhone 7 Plus. No framerate issues on my PC using an NVIDIA 1050i vid card and running two monitors.

I'll squash that Steam forum rumor for you too. I know for a fact that Peter 'Deep' Grafl worked on Space Station, and that Zoltan worked on Doctor Dude and Funhouse. Both have been at Zen for many years. Do yourself a favor, step away from the s**tshow that is the Steam forum. You may as well be reading the comments section from a Yahoo News story.

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It's obvious that zen employees worked on zen products. The question is, did they consult or collab with others which may have slowed their progress or created unnecessary problems? Too many cooks spoil the soup as they say.

No one has been able to explain why these tables have so many problems. On my google pixel xl, the volume 6 tables play very differently than any williams tables prior. There is ghosting, slow ball movement, and a very limited number of ways that the ball behaves meaning shot trajectories are extremely predictable, similar to Sorcerer's Lair (a 2012 game?).

As far as steam being a sh*tshow, it is true that there is one isolated racist troll, but aside from that, the complaints are all legitimate as far as I can tell. Their customers have been complaining for months but with no fixes. It seems like they addressed the cabinet issue for some users, but that is a small minority of the userbase. Are you suggesting that these are all fictional, exaggerated or strictly troll accounts? That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.

I am suggesting that the Steam forum is rife with false leads and rumors, and when someone comes in with factual knowledge, they are shot down as being nothing more than a shill or those statements are just completely ignored because people much prefer the sound of their own voice.

Our show, the BlahCade Pinball Podcast, has a very good line of communication with people at Zen. Not once have we heard anything to suggest they sought outside help from VPX developers when creating their emulation code for alpha numeric machines. That is not to say it didn't happen, but considering the info we have been privy to in confidence, it seems odd that would not have been mentioned to us.

shutyertrap said:

I am suggesting that the Steam forum is rife with false leads and rumors, and when someone comes in with factual knowledge, they are shot down as being nothing more than a shill or those statements are just completely ignored because people much prefer the sound of their own voice.

Our show, the BlahCade Pinball Podcast, has a very good line of communication with people at Zen. Not once have we heard anything to suggest they sought outside help from VPX developers when creating their emulation code for alpha numeric machines. That is not to say it didn't happen, but considering the info we have been privy to in confidence, it seems odd that would not have been mentioned to us.

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You are "suggesting?" I don't think calling an entire forum membership a "sh*tshow" is suggestive; "extremely accusatory" is more like it, lol.

"Rife?" How "rife" is it? Care to post any facts where zen's critics have been proven wrong, definitively? You're saying anyone who defends zen is literally gunned down in a verbally violent fashion? There is a difference between rhetorical flair vs. out and out fabricating conspiracy theories and I'm afraid you are very close to crossing that line, if you haven't out and out decided that zen is basically a religion that you worship already.

As I have shown previously, yes there is ONE, I repeat ONE racist troll on steam, but otherwise, most everyone else is simply documenting bugs and practically begging for fixes on products that they've paid for and CANNOT RECEIVE REFUNDS FOR! Do you understand why people would be upset if they purchased a defective product and furthermore couldn't get their money back?

As far as zen not mentioning any collab, zen has a reputation for being notoriously tight lipped. Why would it seem odd then that they don't tell you ("we?") everything? This sounds like it's more par for the course than out of character.

So far, you are creating weird black and white, us vs. them imaginary scenarios in your own mind where zen is a knight on a white horse and anyone who is even slightly critical must be devilish "trolls" as you call them. This is so bizarre one has to wonder how someone could even get to that point.

ODB123 said:

You are "suggesting?" I don't think calling an entire forum membership a "sh*tshow" is suggestive; "extremely accusatory" is more like it, lol.

"Rife?" How "rife" is it? Care to post any facts where zen's critics have been proven wrong, definitively? You're saying anyone who defends zen is literally gunned down in a verbally violent fashion? There is a difference between rhetorical flair vs. out and out fabricating conspiracy theories and I'm afraid you are very close to crossing that line, if you haven't out and out decided that zen is basically a religion that you worship already.

As I have shown previously, yes there is ONE, I repeat ONE racist troll on steam, but otherwise, most everyone else is simply documenting bugs and practically begging for fixes on products that they've paid for and CANNOT RECEIVE REFUNDS FOR! Do you understand why people would be upset if they purchased a defective product and furthermore couldn't get their money back?

As far as zen not mentioning any collab, zen has a reputation for being notoriously tight lipped. Why would it seem odd then that they don't tell you ("we?") everything? This sounds like it's more par for the course than out of character.

So far, you are creating weird black and white, us vs. them imaginary scenarios in your own mind where zen is a knight on a white horse and anyone who is even slightly critical must be devilish "trolls" as you call them. This is so bizarre one has to wonder how someone could even get to that point.

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You are obviously new here.

Shutyertrap is one of the people behind the blahcade podcast, has an extensive history with both Farsight and Zen, and has been a mostly fair and balanced critic of Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX. Outside of a handful of participants (And they are all over here anyway), the Steam forums are generally a waste of time and filled with uneducated and out of context rants and responses. Plus, Zen has never participated in any meaningful way on the forums since BarbieBoBomb left a few years ago.

If you want to report a bug, submit it to the support email. Zen has responded quite well to the cabinet lag, sound and DMD bugs with the latest pack considering the current state of things. Are there other things they could work on? Sure, but this isn't going to happen since development is focused on the new Pinball FX platform.

Farsight, FP/BAM/VPX devs, etc. have never collaborated with Zen and to suggest this is absurd. There is more that I could share from back when Zen took over the WMS license, but it wouldn't further this discussion. Just know that you should consider your thinking so far out of the realm of possibility that this should be the only time you mention this if you ever want to be taken seriously again. So why did the latest Williams pack have so many issues...

Music channels are tied to Sound channels in the ROM, this is different from all other tables. Alpha Numeric display does not work correctly with the proprietary Zen DMD display layer. The physics are still the same old Zen and Classic/Pro physics found on the previous pack but with table specific tuning (like always), including a slightly lower perceived playfield slope which results in period correct "floatiness."

Why doesn't Zen tell us everything? Zen is a company that manages many licenses and platform partners. You cannot announce things before contracts are official, business doesn't work that way.