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Another tech update, have done more improvement work on the culling system. - it now doesn't update/draw machines lamps/reels etc if they are facing away from the camera - changed grid resolution down to 50cm, these seems about the right balance between time to 'bake' the map when first using the arcade, and not showing too many extra machines (due to 'neighbour-based' system I have in there). - other misc performance improvements In this picture, you can see the machines with pink stars in front of them have their glass panels disabled (due to facing away from the camera), only drawing the cabinet model itself: And in this video, showing the latest version of the occlusion system, I keep the task manager visible on top to show CPU/GPU usage (it's the top MachineRenderer row, haven't renamed this to Arcade Simulator yet), and also in bottom left, you can see the FPS (a nice solid 60FPS ): I think next up is writing the attract mode codec along with a general overhaul on how all that works, so that hopefully I can get a performance boost there. Also it will massively speed up loading, currently it takes something like 3-4 minutes to load the arcade in the above video! ... so a much-needed improvement

There was a Simpsons wrestling game on the PS2 or PS1 and Marge used her hair to attack.

Some general optimisation work before I start the codec stuff has yielded some more performance gains ...a screengrab from a more demanding area in the recent walk around video, CPU usage at ~44%: And standing in that same spot with the new optimisations, CPU usage now at ~30%: In less demanding areas, the performance gain is more like ~4-8%. Nice to get some performances gains before I actually start the codec/lamps overhaul! ...which should hopefully yield some significant gains on top of these ones

This little link maybe of interest to some of you retro fans... Old Computer Magazines

I think in the arcade beat-em-up she used a hoover, which is also an odd weapon? Been ages since I played it

Great work dude J

Amazing, love the dev diary, thanks. Will the culling allow for a wider fov for the hopefully supported VR version?

Excellent updates again, cheers.

Got straight back on this when I woke up So, here's a demo with a much larger test arcade, with culling that is slightly lower quality (you may see a missing machine if you peek through the very narrow 1cm gaps between machines) but 'bakes' much faster when saving from the editor. Still quite a bit more to do on this task (you can see the reels are overly bouncy, this is because I still need to do more with CPU optimisation), but definitely working as planned. Should be able to get more speed yet... I also will be starting work on the 'attract mode codec' and pooling (so if you have 100x BarX machines, they'll all read from the same recording, they currently load a copy each). This codec will losslessly compress attract mode lamp (and alpha display) recordings - again reducing CPU load and also RAM required, whilst also massively speeding up load times (this latest test arcade took about 3+ minutes to load in!). New test arcade in editor: Overhead view on left showing latest culling system in action (arcade view on right): New large test arcade running full screen with latest culling:

Time for a tech update After a week's grafting, I am relieved ...to see the first actual working test of the experimental occlusion mapping system. It's working better than I'd expected, as this was all a bit of a gamble to be honest, it's totally custom stuff Right, so here is a test map in the editor: ... and here is the first working demo of the basics of it working. It is very generous (to ensure we don't see machines 'popping in' as we go around corners), and there's other (much easier) stuff yet to add, to hide machines that are simply offscreen to the left/right/behind the camera. This is the real meat though, this is determining machines that cannot possibly be visible (ie. 'occluded' by ones that are closer to us) and only drawing/updating the potentially visible ones. If the arcade contained hundreds of machines, the system would cope just fine without killing the CPU... expect a larger demo soon So on the right, you can see what you'd see when playing the arcade. On the left, you can see a debug overhead view, and you can notice a red line, that is the forward-looking direction of my camera. You will see machines popping in and out of existence on the left (so saving CPU), but on the right, you cannot tell this is happening (as the one's being made invisible are safely behind machines that are blocking our view of them)

@Dougsta You talking about swap holds. Worked on all JPMS back in the day from early 90’s, possibly on some System5 machines even. Swap holds actually work on Electrocoin Super Reels.. handy J J

I've not watched the video yet, but I assume it's this trick. If you are given a 3rd hold, you can change what you are holding to a different matching pair. The easiest example works on Spyker the Biker. If you get 3rd hold on the overlaid pig symbols, but there is at the same time 2 matching fruit, you can switch to the 2 matching fruit and it will spin the 3rd fruit in. There are setups for £4 and £6 on Spyker. With many of the JPMs of the time, this same trick worked. In fact, it worked when you got 3rd hold on 2 non-matching reels! You just switched to the matching pair for the 3rd hold and in it came. It worked on Impulse and Red Alert, until they pretty much removed it in the lackluster V5 chip.

Pure skill in the form of Cash Buster. (NOTE - My attempts may not represent 'pure skill' very well.)

and brilliant i am up n running thank you so much wearecity - i have a complaint though - its as big a rip off as my own machine, took £7 of my virtual money and i got nothing - i am now virtually skint lol

Hi @The-Stranger I've sent you a message, which hopefully will sort it. Everyone else, another member had a similar issue when updating v19 to v19.8, I sent them v19.8 in a message. Wizard had no issue in me doing this, as it was clear they had v19.

Thanks for the link Reg. Amiga Format and Amiga Shopper brings back fond memories. Last month I sold all my Amiga gear after over 30 years, including my A 1000. Someone else can now can have as much fun as I did.