OASIS (working title)

[BigE]

Keep up the good work!!!

Sounds like an immense amount of work done so far, and plenty more to do!!!

Massive respect from me though and probably the rest of the community on what has been done so far!

[johnparker007]

Starting some initial tinkering with the new lighting model for Oasis.  Various things are wrong even with this very basic test, but it shows the additional control planned for lighting  

 

[thealteredemu]

Sweet

J

[johnparker007]

Experimenting more with ray tracing - there is definitely a slight but noticeable lag between the reflection and the scene.  Here I'm just enabling/disabling the player renderer, and the reflection in the brass ball is a realtime ray traced reflection:

The idea is so we can then have reflections on glass/plastic/metal - like in this quick grab from youtube:


My PC does occasionally Blue Screen Of Death on me though, as my power supply is knackered, and ray tracing seems to be giving my NVidia 3060 quite a work out!  So I'll have to sort a new PSU out soon, as I'm losing work.  Doesn't matter too much as the mo since these are just experiments...

[thealteredemu]

I’ve got to say this is pretty exciting stuff.  Look forward to seeing evolve

J

[thealteredemu]

I guess a pretty hefty card will be required for this.  Is a 3060 bare minimum.

I run a laptop with an rtx4070, it is the mobile version but it should perform as good as a desktop 3060 maybe.

J

[johnparker007]

57 minutes ago, thealteredemu said:

I guess a pretty hefty card will be required for this.  Is a 3060 bare minimum.

I run a laptop with an rtx4070, it is the mobile version but it should perform as good as a desktop 3060 maybe.

J

For the all Ray Tracing/new Lighting model stuff - that'd run on your card.

I'm just dipping my toe back in, as if I'm doing Oasis I want it to be a significant (and relatively futureproof-ish) graphical upgrade from Arcade Sim.

However, it does add complexity to the 'Machine Player' module.  So there will need to be two separate builds of the player-related apps (Single machine player, Arcade simulator) included in the Oasis Suite; a non-RTX for older cards (like the original Arcade SIm), and RTX for the newer cards with the ray tracing goodness   So the end user would run whicever one was appropriate for their machine, or I could possibly auto-choose that based on the machine specs in a shared Launcher for simplicity.  This lower end URP build would be what runs on Android etc also.

Edited April 18 by johnparker007

[johnparker007]

A little more experimentation with RTX reflections - this is supporting all the cut out windows for reel/7 segs/meter/prism lamps - shows the wall/robot through the gaps, in the reflection  
 

 

[thealteredemu]

That’s pretty cool

J

[dad]

Looking forward to this.  I’m overdue a laptop update anyway.  Currently on a GTX 1050 but will be getting a decent spec RTX at some point.

[Mort]

I always wanted to see what HDR could bring to the table, especially around lamp effects, hopefully avoiding the age old problem of a layout being too dark or too light in it's base off artwork.

Obviously it would require a HDR monitor/TV as well.

[johnparker007]

3 hours ago, Mort said:

I always wanted to see what HDR could bring to the table, especially around lamp effects, hopefully avoiding the age old problem of a layout being too dark or too light in it's base off artwork.

Obviously it would require a HDR monitor/TV as well.

Only some early tinkering - but yeah, there's HDR going on internally, plus HDR-capable displays can then display that extra range  

The too dark/too light issue won't be addressed by the HDR as it wouldn't be a good enough visual solution (viewing several machines at once for instance), so the plan is to build the renormalisation tool into Oasis Layout Editor.  This was the plan for original Arcade Sim at one point, but there wasn't time with all the other stuff that needed doing back then!

So what you will end up with in Oasis internally is the 'base off' artwork always initially rebalanced in the Layout Editor to attempt to get to a daylight photo/flatbed scan balance.  For instance, if we take a dark layout like the Frenzy from the recent ROM hacking:


Doing the bright/dark normalisation gives this:


So then that image is what is what is used for the 'base off' image in Oasis.  Then, it emits the color based on the light that is hitting it (ambient light/ceiling lights etc).  Then the machine's own light effects of the bulbs through the mask will add to that, to get to a final effect.  That's the general idea anyway   (So a row of switched off fruit machines will look as bright as whatever light is hitting them, rather than as bright as the original layout off image)

[niallquinn]

So I should be okay with my Ryzen 9 9950X, 4080, 128gig ram, 48TB online storage.

 

 

[johnparker007]

On 19/04/2025 at 12:44, niallquinn said:

So I should be okay with my Ryzen 9 9950X, 4080, 128gig ram, 48TB online storage.

 

 

lol yeah that sounds plenty powerful enough for some RTX action!  

[johnparker007]

Still haven't dug out replacement PSU, so I'm still getting BSODs when under load, but managed to get quick test in for how the filament 'shine through' might work, wrt non-mask areas.  There is an emissive filament test, shown on the 'Nudge Pot' trail position to the left of the number reel window  

I'll have to dig out that old spare PSU later/tomorrow, as I can't work very well with the computer BSODing all the time!

[johnparker007]

Dug out the old spare PSU (a 1200W beast from an old project) that was buried under a load of crap in the attic room, blew all the dust out of the PC case, installed it, started tinkering with the ray tracing... aaand the Blue Screens of Death are still happening  

So tedious - until I've fixed it, it's just too frustrating to work on this, as once the computer is under sustained load for 10-15 mins it BSODs.  Watching TV shows and basic web browsing are fine.

This was happening on my old GPU (1060) as well as this newer GPU, so I reckon it's probably something on the motherboard.  I've done all the uninstall/reinstall graphics drivers.  I'm sure I swapped out half the RAM then the other ages back, and that didn't fix it.  Ugh.

[thealteredemu]

Maybe a dodgy ram slot.  I had an issue years ago and it ended being the motherboard, on close inspection some caps were blown on mine!!  Aargh

J

[jasonc]

1 hour ago, johnparker007 said:

This was happening on my old GPU (1060) as well as this newer GPU, so I reckon it's probably something on the motherboard.  I've done all the uninstall/reinstall graphics drivers.  I'm sure I swapped out half the RAM then the other ages back, and that didn't fix it.  Ugh.

As a shot to nothing, it may also be worth trying the older drivers if you haven't - quite a few communities are recommending the 566.36 (December 2024) release as a temporary workaround for 40-series and earlier cards, because the 50-series drivers (bless them, they've only had seven eight attempts at it so far...) have been causing a whole raft of problems, including blue screens.

I had to roll back because it was causing issues with my 1070 - so it's not just the newest cards that are impacted.

[johnparker007]

Thanks guys - I've been trying a few more things, like underclocking CPU a bit along with disabling XMP, running CPU fan at full - still seeing issues - Prime95 errors sometimes.  So I'm still thinking probably VRMs on the motherboard (or a very slim chance it's the CPU).



Just a pain, since this is kinda old now (Intel 7600K), even though it's good enough for what I use it for - can't really justify layout out a load of wonga on a replacement legacy mobo that's already out of date - or laying out a load more wonga on a whole new mobo+CPU(+ potentially RAM if my 32GB DDR won't work with a modern setup).

Either way, it's going to cost some cash... Nvidia driver is from Aug 2024, so not some new driver.  The BSOD was happening before,e= even like 1-1.5 years back - just that only recently I've been maxing out the computer working on raytracing dev - which is BSODing.


I could potentially borrow a 7700K, and then check that in my setup - if it is the CPU (slim chance but not impossible), then it'd still be £175 for a new one... sigh.

Might try messing with the CPU voltages - boost them up a bit, that can sometimes improve stability...

I'll double check stuff over the next few days, recheck the RAM sticks from USB boot ram test, before I decide how much financial pain I can handle!

Edited April 23 by johnparker007

[spa]

Sent you £25 towards

[johnparker007]

16 minutes ago, spa said:

Sent you £25 towards

Oh that's very kind of you!  Thank you so much    I will try and figure out a way to get this stable, but I am suspecting it is a hardware issue with the motherboard (or the CPU)... it's been a rare background issue for so long, but I don't usually put the PC under load, until this recent raytracing stuff - now I'm getting BSODs like they're going out of fashion!

I just forced LoadLineBalancing from Auto to high in the BIOS, still no joy under Prime95 stress test... I have a gut feeling this won't be fixable...

Edited April 23 by johnparker007

[thealteredemu]

@johnparker007Time to go into work and slip a PC tower under your jumper

J

[johnparker007]

I don't think they'd be too happy about that!  On the plus side, I realised I should check on eBay, and found there are old CPUs and mobos of this spec at reasonably cheap prices - so once I can narrow it down further, the replacement bits shouldn't cost too much after all...   I was looking on Amazon for replacement parts, but Amazon's only good for new stuff, they're charging a bomb for these old 7600K CPUs compared to the used ones on eBay.

Edited April 23 by johnparker007

[johnparker007]

After more testing today, I think I've got a fix for my dodgy PC   Don't want to jinx it, but running just 2x RAM sticks instead of the full 4x RAM sticks seems like it might have fixed the stability issue.  I think it's weak VRMs on the motherboard.  I can certainly get by with with 16GB instead of 32GB for now, if it stops the dreaded BSODs!

So been able to run Unity (so far) again with the ray tracing tests - one of the previous ones, it's not that good as I see lag and also ray tracing noise in the reflection.

So here I've tried with 'light cookies', unfortunately again that technique has similar issues (and it is more expensive to run).

I'll try some more ways, though these reflections may end up being tricky!

 

[johnparker007]

I've been doing more research and experiments with ray tracing, and I've come to the conclusion that while it has definite benefits for some types of game, for rendering the lit glass art of fruit machines, it is basically not great.  

The issues are to do with how realtime ray tracing works for games - it's not the same as how a single frame of say Toy Story (the movie) was rendered.  To achieve real time speeds there's all manner of chicanery going on.  The ray counts are relatively sparse, and then 'accumulated' over frames, and aggressively 'denoised'.  Then if you want to use something like DLSS, again the game is rendered at a lower resolution and upscaled with AI - adds a little input lag, and more artifacts on fine detail.

In the original Arcade Sim, I was doing fairly raw rendering - but I could make a light look a specific way on a single frame for instance - with real time ray tracing, that is just not possible (I've checked Unreal's Lumen solution - has the exact same issues, it's the tech not the software).

In Unity there are 3 'pipelines':
Built In (BiRP)
Universal (URP)
High Definition (HDRP)

So my original plan was to use the HDRP, I am now leaning towards the URP.  URP works on mobile, HDRP does not.  URP doesn't do ray tracing, so zero issues with 'ray tracing noise'.

As I want the arcades to be fully customisable, pre baked light/shadow maps are not an option.  Some arcade sims have the approach of prebaked lighting, but all you can do is swap different games into fixed cabinets at fixed positions - which I feel is far too limiting, compared to being able to place any cabinet anywhere you want.  So no prebaked lighting/shadows possible.

This is a basic room mockup, with some cube 'cabinets'.  There are 8x point lights in the ceiling (most offscreen to the right) - it shows the cubes casting shadows on the floor, walls, and each other - all dynamic (for weaker graphics cards these shadows can be disabled in settings).  While they're not ray tracing level shadows, they are still a massive step up from original Arcade Sim with no shadows option!

Next things I'll be researching are reflections and lamped art under URP.

Incidentally I checked the new Visual Pinball rendering engine (which does look very nice) - this is made in Unity under HDRP, and I see suffers the same issues with noise/reflections/etc - so I think going URP is the way, since I'm really bothered about getting the lamps/reflections to a higher standard.

~
Reflection wrong


Maybe RTX light noise

Edited April 26 by johnparker007