[RESOLVED] Slow VPX Table Exit

[scutters]

This has bugged me for a while, i'm really not sure when it started happening,  but from pressing exit in pinballx when playing a Visual Pinball X table it takes some time to get back to the wheel,  anywhere 10-20secs... Is this normal with latest pinballx, or is it something to do with my system?  Cab is offline so defender disabled and no antivirus installed, lav reinstalled but no difference, and SSD used not HD. My visual pinball tables are under 'Other Systems' (approx 200 total tables) but don't think that's a factor, i added one to the regular Visual Pinball list and that had the same slow exit, also the same with & without the launch after batch file.

Bad (slow) exit example here;

I've looked at some other log files in the forums and they too seem a bit slow around 10 secs, maybe not as slow as mine but still slower than i'd expect.

So my questions... How long does it take on your system to exit back to the wheel from vpx? and any ideas what could be slowing me down (if indeed i am slow)?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

log.txt

PinballX.ini

[joyrider3774]

on thing i know could have an influence is for example with your killpup.bat launch after script if you enabled pinballx to wait to exit the batch file it can take up some time as i noticed 14:20:08.5 and then 14:20:17:.9 it created backglass window.  Although sometimes you do have to wait for such scripts to exit or not. You could simulate what pinballx and call killpup.bat and execute it manually and time that. But i don't know if something else is being done between those 2 log entries. Could be a lot more is being done in background than what log file shows and batch file does not take 11 seconds to execute. It can give biased view

My system also takes some time before showing pinballx again but i don't mind it... it's not like i'm switching tables every 5 seconds.
I might upload my log during weekend as comparision but i do have slow cpu so not sure how much that affects it with me

[scutters]

Sadly the bat file has virtually no effect on time, tried disabling it and also as no wait for exit and the timings are still pretty much the same. 

Would be good to see your log for comparison! thanks

[joyrider3774]

@scutters

here's my log when i ran wizards of ozz table in vpx 

log.txt

PinballX.ini

Ignore the plugin error, it's some plugin i wrote to control my pincontrol v1 leds inside pinballx and it errors out if i boot my pinball cabinet and the keyboard encoder has not intialized good which happens with every boot with me. Anyway it does not take as long as with you and is you'll notice i do not use DMD & it's not created. so not sure whats wrong

 

I have a mix of vpx 10.6 and 10.5 beta the tom and jerry table would only run in 10.5 not with 10.6. I do not know which pinmame build i'm using, can't remember nor the version and a bit affraid to update it so i leave as is. for the rest i got a slow cpu being "Intel(R) Pentium(R) Gold G5400 CPU @ 3.70GHz" with nvidia 1050 gtx (some single slot card). Also i'm running windows 10 pro 1803 (so not latest 1809 yet)

[scutters]

Thanks. Looks like i have a gremlin somewhere then.. weird that it rears its head on table exit, load time is a bit slower now but i think that's mainly VP10.6beta (which also seems a bit slower launching outside of pinballx), game play and wheel scrolling are all fine. I have a bit of time tomorrow so i'll have a dig around then..

[scutters]

This is my system from settings.log;

01/03/2019 08:35:46: OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
01/03/2019 08:35:46: Version: 10.0.17134
01/03/2019 08:35:46: Build: 17134
01/03/2019 08:35:46: RAM Total: 16344 MB
01/03/2019 08:35:46: RAM Used: 1346 MB
01/03/2019 08:35:46: CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz
01/03/2019 08:35:46: Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
01/03/2019 08:35:46: Video Driver: 24.21.13.9836
01/03/2019 08:35:46: Video RAM: 4095 MB
01/03/2019 08:35:46: Sound Card: ASUS Xonar DSX Audio Device
01/03/2019 08:35:46: .NET Framework 2.0 Installed
01/03/2019 08:35:46: .NET Framework 4.0 Installed
01/03/2019 08:35:46: .NET Framework 4.71 Installed

What I've tried so far to reduce vpx table exit time;

sfc /scannow - found some stuff, mainly folder ownership - no change

disabled plugins - no change

disabled all launch before & after activities - no change

Looked at taskmanager performance during table exit - momentary spike on gpu 3d, nothing maxed out (inc individual cpu cores) - Nothing there of significance

Media folder is 9GB - temporaily removed 4.5GB from it - no change

Reinstall PBX after deleting all files in c:\pinballx , leaving subfolders in place for media & databases etc - no change

Tried running pbx full screen windowed, and in plain windowed mode - no change

Tried changing pbx process priority & affinity - no change

Tried using vpx 10.5 exe instead of vpx 10.6 beta - no change

Tweaked lav settings, tried hardware acceleration, unchecking / disabling for 8 bit - no change (except not showing video when 8bit options unchecked)

Disabled Game Exit Images - This actually did something!! yay! well kind of.., exit image was set to show for 2 secs so maybe it should save 2 secs?... wrong, it saved me 5secs (?)

Before

Now

So now my main delay on table exit now when compared to @joyrider3774 logs is something happening before the launch after bat file, after game exit. When i run pbx in windowed mode i can see vpx closes almost immediately, so what does pbx do after that before going to the launch after script? 

Am i stuck with an exit table time similar to the load time?, i hope not... but i'm pretty much out of ideas now. Nearest thing i could find in the forums was this, resolved in v2.12 (i tried the exe attached to the thread but it didn't even launch, not sure if we can download older pbx version installers anywhere)

Anyone got any ideas?

And no, i'm not going to reinstall windows! although i may consider hooking the cab up online for a windows update if someone has good reason to think it'll resolve this - without breaking something else

[joyrider3774]

Just a stupid idea perhaps, but do you see a difference between using pictures instead of movies for table / backglass and dmd for the table in question? Can be easily tested. Are your video files big in size?

 

Edit: not saying you should switch to images, just wondering what the time difference might be to exclude the movies itselve as a possible influence

[Mike_da_Spike]

I was pretty curious too on my pincab. 
I don't run a after screen, because no issues with anything with my real DMD

I never noticed it was slow. Just after pressing exit button it takes arround 5.5 seonds to got back and show the menu again

I also have Windows 10 64 bit  (809) running from an SSD (but home version)

2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: Version: 10.0.17763
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: Build: 17763
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: RAM Total: 16344 MB
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: RAM Used: 2788 MB
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: Video Driver: 25.21.14.1891
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: Video RAM: 4095 MB
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: Sound Card: NVIDIA High Definition Audio
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: .NET Framework 2.0 Installed
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: .NET Framework 4.0 Installed
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: .NET Framework 4.71 Installed
2/17/2019 7:47:29 AM: Setup Wizard 3.2.0

running arround 650 VP tables, and the +/- 80 fx3 tables

I find the 5 seconds decent for closing the game, and getting to PinballX again

[scutters]

@joyrider3774 like the thinking, i had similar thoughts and went a step further i basically removed all media for all the tables in the system and launched to default pbx no media images. Tried the table again... not even 1 sec difference on exit!.  I do have to do a purge on the  media folder at some stage though, a lot of the 9GB is related to systems that are now disabled and unused (I've become a a visual pinball nazi it seems! )

@Mike_da_Spike thanks for the log info, rtx2070, very nice. Yep your table exit time is as expected with that compared to my gtx1060!

[scutters]

Well, i think i've got an exit time i'm happy with! 

What did it?

5 secs saved by disabling the Show Exit Image in Display Settings

4 secs saved by removing an errant entry in the Other Systems settings, for some reason i had vpinballx.exe as a 'process to monitor' - probably a forgotten left over from a previous failed attempt to reduce exit table time

3 secs saved by removing the launch after script (regardless of wait for exit setting), i'd tested this before and noticed no change but it is having an effect now, guess i was looking for one thing to save me 10 secs rather than a combination of smaller things - but what i'm really happy about is the fact i don't need it anymore!. I fiddled with the run as admin settings during investigating the slow exit thinking maybe it was somehow related and found I don't need to use taskill on pinnupplayer, b2s or ultradmd exes anymore, they just close down with vpx, even after rebooting to confirm .  For info, i have pinballx running as admin, but not vpx anymore, i'd definitely tried that combination before without success so i'm not entirely sure why, but i won't be touching those settings again if i can help it!

i don't know why the exit image had such an impact on things, i imagine it doesn't for others as it's enabled by default but i'm happy to live without it for a quicker exit time.

Bazinga!!