Ahoy fellow Pinball Lovers!
Thanks for all the great feedback!
You can opt in to play the Update 4 Preview on the experimental branch right now!
This massive update will soon be ready for release on the default branch - after a bit more testing.
Performance Update - new Render Quality setting
Up to and including Update 3 we optimized the game to reach >60 fps in hd / 1920x1080 on mid range graphics cards with the highest possible render quality and fully dynamic lighting, thus the recommended hardware requirements.
In Update 4 we optimized a lot further, targeting a far wider range of GPUs and higher resolutions. The new Render Quality setting offers new high performance graphics feature presets. Changing this setting will take effect the next time you start the game.
Thanks to the Unreal Engine 4's new volumetric light maps even the moving objects keep looking awesome with precomputed lighting. So if you're out for more fps or a higher resolution you should definitely try the new settings!
Render Quality levels
- Low (Experimental) is suitable for many integrated GPUs and low end graphics cards, many graphics features are turned off, uses forward rendering and precomputed lighting.
- Medium uses mainly precomputed lighting and is suitable for low range graphics cards and mid range integrated GPUs.
- High mixes precomputed with real time lighting, graphics features are optimized for performance.
- Epic uses fully dynamic real time lighting for all lights and high end graphics features for the best possible render quality. This matches the only available render quality of Update 3.
On a GTX 970 / i5 2500K / 1920x1080 changing render quality, leaving the other graphics quality settings on epic, using cam 4:
Low ~260 fps (limited by cpu), Medium ~160 fps, High ~115-135 fps, Epic ~ 65-80 fps
And for a quick boost on epic settings we added the option to configure Distance Field AO and Screen Space Reflections separately - disabling these nets around 10-25% more fps in epic render quality.
Update 4 - The Dead Man's ALIVE! - patch notes
- new: The Dead Man's Chest now with it's very own Dead Man!
- new: Render Quality setting: you can now select between different graphic feature / performance presets. Changing this setting takes effect the next time you start the game.
- new: extra overrides for high end graphics features, so that these can be deactivated or configured without changing the whole quality groups
- new: Black Flaggers' White Pearl can now be selected as default ball skin
- fixed: ball loosing too much velocity on flipper collision for most cases and more physics fixes and calibrations
- fixed: the ball can get stuck if it drops below the crow ramp (the red one, left orbit) right when the ramp is about to be lowered
- fixed: kickback now shoots up the cannon ramp again
- UI: new skin, new layout, new!
- UI: added descriptions and tooltips for many settings
- UI: fixed mouse hover and keyboard / gamepad highlighting at the same time. Using keyboard or controller input disables mouse hover events until the mouse is clicked again.
- UI: the game version string is now only visible when the menu is open or the game is paused
- balancing: the ball saver kickback is now a lot more unpredictable
- balancing: updated Dead Man's Chest scores; success now lights a Super Jackpot
- audio balancing and sound channel corrections - work in progress
- possible fix for the occasional waterhole splash hitch
- fixed: force feedback could get stuck
- many more fixes and even more optimizations
What we're working on right now
- VR support for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive
- polishing Black Flaggers' sounds / lightshows / fx / dmds
- balancing / score table updates
- The Grand Finale: The Treasure Fleet
- Tilt!
- local hot seat multiplayer