EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

This is the main shmups forum. Chat about shmups in here - keep it on-topic please!
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Sumez »

At least today I learned what an arcade game is.
Zeether
Posts: 1273
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:22 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Zeether »

I learned that MrJBRPG is an EXA fanboy.
<Aquas> EDMOND DROPPED OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL TO SMOKE COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF OPIUM
<Zeether> shoe failed college again <croikle> credit feed
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by BIL »

Sumez wrote:At least today I learned what an arcade game is.
:lol:
User avatar
trap15
Posts: 7835
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:13 am
Location: 東京都杉並区
Contact:

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by trap15 »

Bananamatic wrote:cv1k port to a platform with 3 frames of default lag, good luck I guess
It is currently running at 2f lag all-together on exA, the same as the original PCB and 2f less than the 360 port.
@trap0xf | daifukkat.su/blog | scores | FIRE LANCER
<S.Yagawa> I like the challenge of "doing the impossible" with older hardware, and pushing it as far as it can go.
User avatar
KAI
Posts: 4646
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 5:24 pm
Location: Joker Star Galaxy, Argentina
Contact:

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by KAI »

wait! are they porting the cv1k version of the game on this thing? why the fuck
Image
User avatar
trap15
Posts: 7835
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:13 am
Location: 東京都杉並区
Contact:

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by trap15 »

That's an odd conclusion to come to.
@trap0xf | daifukkat.su/blog | scores | FIRE LANCER
<S.Yagawa> I like the challenge of "doing the impossible" with older hardware, and pushing it as far as it can go.
User avatar
Bananamatic
Posts: 3530
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 12:21 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Bananamatic »

I'll believe you once you explain the lag reported in A&B on a CRT (or worse, in the input test mode)
User avatar
trap15
Posts: 7835
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:13 am
Location: 東京都杉並区
Contact:

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by trap15 »

A&B's lag comes from Unity primarily I believe, and I think is something like 4f in total... a bit unfortunate, but seems like an engine issue. That said, I haven't done any actual investigation into A&B, so I don't know any specifics really. I'm not sure why the input test is so fucked, maybe a lack of care since it's just for testing that controls work, but it is much worse than in-game for sure.

Infinos EXA is also 2f, and is out now, so you could check me by checking that :)
@trap0xf | daifukkat.su/blog | scores | FIRE LANCER
<S.Yagawa> I like the challenge of "doing the impossible" with older hardware, and pushing it as far as it can go.
User avatar
CStarFlare
Posts: 2999
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:41 am

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by CStarFlare »

trap15 wrote:
Bananamatic wrote:cv1k port to a platform with 3 frames of default lag, good luck I guess
It is currently running at 2f lag all-together on exA, the same as the original PCB and 2f less than the 360 port.
That's very cool. Thanks for confirming.
Restart Syndrome::
Shmup leaderboards and Video Index! | My score history on RS
User avatar
schleichfahrt
Posts: 141
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 12:50 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by schleichfahrt »

trap15 wrote:A&B's lag comes from Unity primarily I believe
I have no knowledge of A&B's code, but it is very easy to produce extra lag when using unity.
I fell into that particular trap a little while ago when making something non-game related using unity, after it became a problem a rather simple fix cut the latency in half.
When you ruin some enemy, add to score points.
User avatar
MrJBRPG
Posts: 231
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 10:42 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

trap15 wrote:A&B's lag comes from Unity primarily I believe, and I think is something like 4f in total... a bit unfortunate, but seems like an engine issue. That said, I haven't done any actual investigation into A&B, so I don't know any specifics really. I'm not sure why the input test is so fucked, maybe a lack of care since it's just for testing that controls work, but it is much worse than in-game for sure.

Infinos EXA is also 2f, and is out now, so you could check me by checking that :)
Okay...

I am intrigued by the conversation on the input lag discussion, and I believe that input lag is defined on processing the input and game logic before displaying changes on the screen.
We know that Exa Arcadia, through the CEO / Founder's own words, that maximum input lag limit is 4 frames and minimum recorded is 2 frames.

To verify the input lag measurement, is it the following:


1. JVS IO board and game software logic to the motherboard unit, with display monitor excluded
2. combined total of JVS IO board, game logic, and rendering output to the monitor from the motherboard
3. game software logic only to the motherboard, which the IO board and the monitor are excluded, which does explain additional input lag from external devices

It's great to know so developers can be more hardcore on optimizing towards lower input lag.
Last edited by MrJBRPG on Fri Mar 20, 2020 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
trap15
Posts: 7835
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:13 am
Location: 東京都杉並区
Contact:

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by trap15 »

A game can have as much input lag as it wants, technically. I would hope developers care about their input lag situation, but it's up to them in the end. Minimum could potentially be 1 frame with some trickery, I think 2 or 3 is a respectable amount.

I said all-together, so I mean comparing switch activation with on-screen action.
@trap0xf | daifukkat.su/blog | scores | FIRE LANCER
<S.Yagawa> I like the challenge of "doing the impossible" with older hardware, and pushing it as far as it can go.
User avatar
mikejmoffitt
Posts: 629
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2016 7:26 am
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by mikejmoffitt »

I spent basically all of my time after work today doing some massive changes to the video backend for Gimmick in order to bring lag down to 2f, as I was dissatisfied with the average 3-4f from the loctest.

By adding a frame-by-frame advance feature, I was able to validate that I wasn't erroneously introducing buffer stages between what the game logic perceives as input, and the act of running the logic. That is to say, if I put it in frame advance mode, hold jump, then advance one frame, Yumetaro jumps on the very next rendered frame. This gives me confidence that the game logic is not a problem. Runahead emulation does not apply in this case, anyway, so that wouldn't fix anything if there was game logic lag here.

What remains is the double-ended challenge of the input systems that feed into the game logic, and the video system that follows it.

For the input, JVS takes time to poll. It takes a lot of time for some IOs. Even better, some IO boards will take their sweet time to respond to your request, and then give you old data! The Sega "Type B" IO with the built-in JAMMA is pretty awful in this regard. The Capcom one is a bit better, but it double-buffers internally still. So far, the best has been the Sega "Type 3" Lindberg IO, and some of the Taito Vewlix ones. Two variables at play, out of our control: 1) how long the IO takes to give us data, and 2) how often, and how deeply buffered, the IO's internal updating process runs.

For the output, there are some enemies presented by many modern graphics APIs. It may be difficult to mitigate these the further you are away from the actual underlying graphics calls and drivers; working with OpenGL calls directly is a very close way that gives you a lot of control, while working with a prebaked engine (Game Maker Studio, Unity, etc) may take you a lot further away from it - or at least hide a lot of the nice knobs.

In 2020, sometimes it is necessary to jump through some absurd hoops to get the input lag under control. Everything modern wants to buffer everything for you in queues deeper than you'd like, and wants you to do everything asynchronously! If you want to be in precise control of latency, it is sometimes necessary to defeat these mechanisms of convenience.

I don't want to go into detail with it, but I rewrote Gimmick's video today to defeat some problems with a library I was using, and switched to another wholesale.

--

When measuring JAMMA boards, we can usually remove concerns about the input complexity. Most often, it's just a raw uint8 or something similar mapped to a memory address. Your delay is just gate propagation, not worth mentioning (some more complex boards like STV have a microcontroller doing the input reading, and sometimes it can fuck it up).

With JVS... it's difficult to get a clear measurement without closer introspection. You can analyze the bus to see how long it's taking doing TX and RX (and time between), but it still doesn't tell you if the data is out of date at a glance.

--

As of today, this is how I've measured my results in improving Gimmick's latency:

There's a useful free application called Is it Snappy, which lets you scrub through a 240fps recording from a phone camera and mark Input and Output frames. It will then tell you the difference.

I have an LED hooked up to Button 2 (Jump, in this game). When the button is pressed, it illuminates (it is buffered by a 74LS04 inverter to achieve this).

I have the phone in portrait, so that the rolling shutter of the camera does not cause a substantial discrepancy between Yumetaro in the middle and the LED on the bottom. Otherwise, we might get an additional 1/240th of a second error.

This first screenshot is the frame before[i/] the button is pressed. Here, a frame is 1/240th of a second; four camera frames (4 x 4.16ms) is one game frame (16.67ms).
Image

This second screenshot shows the LED illuminated. The button has been pressed. The raster is about 1/2 completed; the game requests inputs from JVS at the start of vblank. This is our Input frame.
Image

This third screenshot is the frame right before we have positive confirmation that Yumetaro has jumped.
Image

This last screenshot shows that Yumetaro has jumped. This is our Output frame.
Image

The difference between the Output and Input frames show just about two frames (33.3ms).
Image
User avatar
StarCreator
Posts: 1941
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:44 am
Location: Maryland, USA
Contact:

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by StarCreator »

Hm. I'm using the Sega rev B boards myself. If they're as bad as you say here, I'm going to have to explore alternatives.
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by BIL »

MrJBRPG wrote:We know that Exa Arcadia, through the CEO / Founder's own words, that maximum input lag limit if 4 frames
Will the ghost of Takakura Ken break into your house and chop off your hog if your game goes over 4f? :O
User avatar
MrJBRPG
Posts: 231
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 10:42 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

Discovered latest update from developer behind Vritra Hexa, with new stage and boss in progress (used translate machine) thanks to quick sketch of new boss.
https://twitter.com/saddy575/status/1240705200500830208
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by BIL »

An auspicious development - that turtle looks ready to bite an incautious handler's hog clean off :O
User avatar
6t8k
Posts: 496
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2019 2:44 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by 6t8k »

mikejmoffitt: thank you, great work! When I finally get the chance to play this, I'll be thinking about these after-work hours of yours. I mean it. :)
User avatar
MrJBRPG
Posts: 231
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 10:42 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

https://exa.ac/en/2020/03/31/exa-arcadi ... 177369a3b7

I did suspect that Exa Arcadia had to cancel physical showings out of safety, and the announcement really helps. Glad that Exa Arcadia is more communicative.
User avatar
cave hermit
Posts: 1543
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:46 pm
Location: Pennsylvania

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by cave hermit »

So, are those cartridges literal usb flash drives or what?

Also I can't see this catching on anywhere outside of Asia.

Maybe Round 1 USA will have it? I doubt it since it seems like the bulk of their games are surplus units the Japanese branch didn't need for whatever reason, usually due to them being obsolete (which is why they're still on vanilla Tekken 7)

I can't see a lot of the arcades you see nowadays that have redemption games and Raw Thrills lightgun/driving games as their bread and butter wanting to buy this. Look at it through the eyes of a boardwalk arcade owner: Why would you pay thousands of dollars for these weird galaga clones with constant japanese girl chattering that random tourists will just look at confused and walk away from when you could buy another stacker machine and rack in the dough from suckers?
User avatar
clippa
Posts: 373
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2011 6:30 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by clippa »

cave hermit wrote:constant japanese girl chattering
Oh god! I just realised, you won't be able to do this in an arcade.

Image
User avatar
pablumatic
Posts: 300
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:39 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by pablumatic »

cave hermit wrote:So, are those cartridges literal usb flash drives or what?
Looks like its either proprietary or an SSD drive in a plastic shell.
https://youtu.be/6XjaJAmWsa0?t=413
User avatar
brokenhalo
Posts: 1387
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:11 am
Location: philly suburbs

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by brokenhalo »

pablumatic wrote:
cave hermit wrote:So, are those cartridges literal usb flash drives or what?
Looks like its either proprietary or an SSD drive in a plastic shell.
https://youtu.be/6XjaJAmWsa0?t=413
Looks similar to an msata drive connection, but with a few less pins than standard. So probably a small ssd with slightly modified connector.
User avatar
MrJBRPG
Posts: 231
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 10:42 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

I wonder if any of you played NOISZ before on Steam? If not, then it might be good to rev up those skills; because an enhanced version, with new stages, is in development.

https://exa.ac/en/2020/04/10/noisz-arc% ... nouncement

I can remember playing one other rhythm color match music game, Magical Beat, with standard arcade controls, but that was on the Taito NesicaxLive when played at Round 1 Southland Mall.
User avatar
Pointman
Posts: 130
Joined: Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:16 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Pointman »

Another Steam game? Let me know when Border Down 2 shows up.
User avatar
Despatche
Posts: 4196
Joined: Thu Dec 02, 2010 11:05 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Despatche »

Someone please play Infinos EXA if they get a chance, god damn. Buy it yourself or something, I dunno. Poor game deserves better.
Rage Pro, Rage Fury, Rage MAXX!
Zeether
Posts: 1273
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:22 pm

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Zeether »

Despatche wrote:Someone please play Infinos EXA if they get a chance, god damn. Buy it yourself or something, I dunno. Poor game deserves better.
Sure, just let me empty my entire bank account
<Aquas> EDMOND DROPPED OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL TO SMOKE COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF OPIUM
<Zeether> shoe failed college again <croikle> credit feed
User avatar
z0mbie90
Posts: 639
Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:21 am
Location: Sweden

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by z0mbie90 »

Zeether wrote:
Despatche wrote:Someone please play Infinos EXA if they get a chance, god damn. Buy it yourself or something, I dunno. Poor game deserves better.
Sure, just let me empty my entire bank account
Or you can get Infinos Gaiden on steam for around 10 Euros. Sure the EXA version will have some exclusive content.
But if you want to play the game and don't wanna empty your bank account just get the steam version.
Image
caldwert
Posts: 563
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:44 pm
Location: Neutral Zone

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by caldwert »

Despatche wrote:Someone please play Infinos EXA if they get a chance, god damn. Buy it yourself or something, I dunno. Poor game deserves better.
I have it on location, but since the world's shut down at the moment, it sits and waits. Casual people were pretty big into it actually.
User avatar
mikejmoffitt
Posts: 629
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2016 7:26 am
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by mikejmoffitt »

z0mbie90 wrote:
Zeether wrote:
Despatche wrote:Someone please play Infinos EXA if they get a chance, god damn. Buy it yourself or something, I dunno. Poor game deserves better.
Sure, just let me empty my entire bank account
Or you can get Infinos Gaiden on steam for around 10 Euros. Sure the EXA version will have some exclusive content.
But if you want to play the game and don't wanna empty your bank account just get the steam version.
The exA version has 2f total input lag thanks to trap15's efforts, while the steam version will have a frame or two more than that.
Image
Post Reply