Mana Games

[antimouse]

Hello, Manu!

I recently started to play on Steam version and I intended to continue my career there, but I noticed something odd. It seems player movement in my non-Steam installed version (1.0h) is a bit more fluid than in the current Steam version (1.0j) set to 60 FPS. My non-Steam installation doesn't have the FPS setting, so I'm assuming it was fixed on 60. The curious thing is: player speed on the non-Steam version is somewhere in between the 60fps and 120fps in the Steam version. If I play on Steam, 60 feels too slow, to the point that I fail to reach balls I would normally reach. On the other hand, 120 feels too fast, to the point that I can reach almost any ball (and I'm below 90 points on player speed). So, 60 made the game tougher for me, and 120 made it easier. Is there an explanation for that or am I going crazy?

Thanks!

[manutoo]

Hello,

I guess you're going crazy...

Gameplay can't be changed by framerate. Worst case situation, global speed of the game would change, but relatively to the ball your player would never be faster or slower.

How do you play at 60 fps with the Steam version ? Is it by turning on V-Sync ?

[antimouse]

Sorry, I think I didn't properly explain myself. It's not actually gameplay speed, but player's reaction time. It responds quicker when I turn V-Sync off (yielding me 120fps), which is perfectly understandable. What I found weird was that the Steam version with V-Sync on (60fps) had a slower response time to controls than my currently installed non-Steam version (which does not have V-sync option in menus). I noticed that when the opponent caught me on wrong foot. In these cases, I'm having much more trouble getting to the ball in Steam version (with V-sync on) than I have in the non-Steam version. If I let V-sync off in Steam, it responds almost immediately and the computer hardly gets me on wrong foot, making the game feel easier.

To illustrate this, I was playing Davydenko, at the same level and the same tournament in my career (I copied my career files to Steam):
- Non-Steam version: the match is quite balanced (that's what I'm used to when playing Davydenko)
- Steam version with V-sync on (60fps): my player feels sluggish and I take a beat
- Steam version with V-sync off (120fps): my player feels lighter and I dominate the match

[manutoo]

When you play at 60 fps, you'll see your player with about a delay of 1/120th of second (against 1/240th at 120fps). However, he won't be actually slower as he'll still reach the ball in exactly the same time, but maybe it's enough to throw you off and make you lose your sensations.

[antimouse]

Yes, but my question is: is there any difference between versions 1.0h and 1.0j that may explain why the "V-Sync on Steam version" (1.0j) is feeling different than my non-Steam version (1.0h)? With V-Sync on, the delay in 1.0j should be the same as in 1.0h, shouldn't it?

[manutoo]

In v1.0h, there's no smoothing so there's no delay at 60fps.

You can turn off the smoothing in the latest version, but then it's more jerking than before as the sync/timing method has changed.

I did a quick test at 120 fps with & without smoothing, it felt the same for me, except it looks much less smooth with smoothing off...

[antimouse]

Yeah, maybe it's that. Is it the "SmoothRender" option in Tennis.ini? I changed that, but didn't notice anything.
Anyway, I played in 120 fps and almost lost to Davydenko, so I'm happy now I just didn't want easy wins.

Thank you for the attention, Manu!

[manutoo]

Yes, it's "SmoothRender" ; you can find it in Video Options -> Advanced (available when "Misc -> Advanced Options" is on).