Up Squared Visual Pinball Test Up Board 2

Testing Visual Pinball on the Up Squared Computer

I recently had some people ask me to test visual pinball on my up squared computer, so I decided to give it a try. The up squered is an 8th generation Intel Core i3 based laptop that comes with 4GB of RAM and a built-in Intel HD 505 GPU. While this hardware may not seem like the most powerful machine, I wanted to see how well it could handle visual pinball games.

First things first, I had to determine which tables I would test on my up squared computer. Since some tables are created better than others, I knew that there was a good chance that some of them would run poorly on this hardware. The first table I tested was Attack from Mars. I ran Fraps to measure the frame rate and display it in the top right-hand corner of the screen. At 1080p landscape resolution, the game struggled to reach 60 frames per second, with a current frame rate of around 40 FPS.

I then switched to 720p window mode to see if this would improve the performance of the game. To my surprise, it did. With the same table and settings, I was able to get over 60 frames per second at 720p resolution. However, I had to turn off sound effects for the game to run smoothly. This was an interesting observation, as some tables seemed to work better than others in terms of performance.

The next table I tested was Spider-Man. Like Attack from Mars, it struggled to reach 60 frames per second at 1080p landscape resolution, with a current frame rate of around 30 FPS. However, when I switched to 720p window mode and turned off sound effects, the game ran smoothly at over 60 frames per second. It was clear that some tables were optimized better than others in terms of performance.

One table that stood out as running well on my up squared computer was Ghostbusters. This table had copyright music in it, but when I played it without the music, it worked perfectly. The game ran smoothly at 1080p landscape resolution, with a current frame rate of around 60 FPS. However, this was an exception rather than the rule.

The final table I tested was one of my favorites, which also happened to be well-optimized for performance. When I played it on my up squared computer, I got a whopping 150 frames per second at 1080p landscape resolution. This was a welcome surprise, as some tables had struggled to run smoothly on this hardware.

However, not all tables were created equal. The Robocop table, which is also a well-known game in the visual pinball community, ran poorly on my up squared computer. At 1080p landscape resolution, it struggled to reach 30 frames per second. When I switched to 720p window mode and turned off sound effects, the game improved slightly but still didn't run smoothly.

In conclusion, while my up squared computer can handle visual pinball games, there are some limitations to consider. The performance of the game can vary greatly depending on the table and settings. Some tables are optimized better than others in terms of performance, which means that you may be able to find a good balance between resolution and frame rate.

If you're looking to use your up squared computer for visual pinball, I would recommend running the games at 720p window mode instead of 1080p landscape. This will give you a better experience, but keep in mind that the graphics may not be as sharp as they are on higher-end hardware.

I also want to remind my readers that I have a Patreon account and offer monthly giveaways for those who support me. If you're interested in helping out the channel, I appreciate your consideration.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on guys to CTA Prime back here again today I'm back with the up board squared otherwise known as the up board 2 and I want to test out visual pinball 10 now I have a few tables here that I want to test out I'm only using a single display in this video because the DisplayPort on the up squared does not recognize my DisplayPort to HDMI adapter for some reason I tried to get it set up but it just won't recognize it up does make a few revisions of this board but this has the highest end CPU that they make in the up squared I only have 4 gigabytes of RAM they do offer an 8 gigabyte model but I don't think that's gonna help out with visual pinball that much the GPU is a built in Intel HD 505 it's not top of line or anything but it does play older games pretty well I'm gonna be running these machines at 1080p fullscreen I will show you a 720p windowed version it does run better at 720p the lower resolution the higher framerate you're gonna get but when you're building a visual pinball machine you want the highest res you can get the first table I'm on the test is attacked from Mars I do have fraps running so the FPS will be listed in the top right hand corner so here's the first table I wanted to test we're only at 40 fps this is at 1080p landscape I didn't go to portrait mode we're only at 40 fps and I really feel that these games should be running at 60 or higher moving at 720p it struggles to hit 60 but not all tables are created equal I did find a couple tables that run pretty good I'm gonna go ahead and switch this a 720p window mode I'm gonna actually set up my whole computer to run at 720p I just really want to see the performance gain here now when you're building a visual pinball machine or virtual pinball machine you definitely want the highest resolution you can get so I don't think the up squared is gonna cut it let's move over to 720p windowed with the same table here's the same table at 720p windowed we're above 60fps this is going to be nice and playable but the graphics have been deteriorated going from 1080 to 720 and I had to put it in window mode to get to 720p even if my computer set to 720p the resolution it lets me go to still lags a lot it's around 30fps now you could play these games at 30 but like I mentioned 60 is the sweet spot for a fast-moving game like this here's a spider-man table all the rest of these tables that you're gonna see in this video are at 1080p and we don't even have a second monitor hooked up for the back display so that could definitely take some power away from the CPU and GPU in the long run next table I tested was Ghostbusters I have to turn the sound off sound us worked great with the Ghostbusters table but it does have copyright music in it we got a little higher FPS here but we're still not at 60 like I mentioned in the beginning not all tables are optimized or created the same the next table that I'm going to show you is one of my favorites and it actually runs perfectly on the up squared and here's the table that runs really well we're at a hundred and fifty FPS I have the settings exactly the same as the last tables you saw this table is very well optimized it runs great on a lot of hardware I actually tested this on the up one and it ran at 60fps we're at a 150 fps so yes there are tables that you're going to be able to find that will run perfectly at 1080p on the up square but there's probably more tables out there that aren't gonna run well on this board here's a Robocop table and nothing has changed from the Simpsons to this just the game itself and we're under 30 fps so if you're looking to use the up squared for a visual or virtual pinball machine I suggest looking somewhere else unless you want to run at 720p then most of these tables are gonna run over 60 fps and you have a great experience but you definitely want that resolution if you have a nice table here's the last table I'm gonna test in this video I did test South Park and it runs under 30 so a lot of the stuff isn't working well so that's it for this video guys I really appreciate you watching I did this video because I had a few people ask me to test visual pinball on it and as you can see a lot of the stuff does not work well don't forget to check out the first video did on the up squared I'm gonna leave a link in the description and on screen now I did test and steam games and some emulators and it does a pretty good job for what this board is if you guys could hit that like button and subscribe and like always thanks for watching real quick I just wanted to remind you guys that I do have a patreon and if you're interested in helping the channel out I really appreciate it I also offer monthly patreon giveaways so go ahead and check it out links in the descriptionhey what's going on guys to CTA Prime back here again today I'm back with the up board squared otherwise known as the up board 2 and I want to test out visual pinball 10 now I have a few tables here that I want to test out I'm only using a single display in this video because the DisplayPort on the up squared does not recognize my DisplayPort to HDMI adapter for some reason I tried to get it set up but it just won't recognize it up does make a few revisions of this board but this has the highest end CPU that they make in the up squared I only have 4 gigabytes of RAM they do offer an 8 gigabyte model but I don't think that's gonna help out with visual pinball that much the GPU is a built in Intel HD 505 it's not top of line or anything but it does play older games pretty well I'm gonna be running these machines at 1080p fullscreen I will show you a 720p windowed version it does run better at 720p the lower resolution the higher framerate you're gonna get but when you're building a visual pinball machine you want the highest res you can get the first table I'm on the test is attacked from Mars I do have fraps running so the FPS will be listed in the top right hand corner so here's the first table I wanted to test we're only at 40 fps this is at 1080p landscape I didn't go to portrait mode we're only at 40 fps and I really feel that these games should be running at 60 or higher moving at 720p it struggles to hit 60 but not all tables are created equal I did find a couple tables that run pretty good I'm gonna go ahead and switch this a 720p window mode I'm gonna actually set up my whole computer to run at 720p I just really want to see the performance gain here now when you're building a visual pinball machine or virtual pinball machine you definitely want the highest resolution you can get so I don't think the up squared is gonna cut it let's move over to 720p windowed with the same table here's the same table at 720p windowed we're above 60fps this is going to be nice and playable but the graphics have been deteriorated going from 1080 to 720 and I had to put it in window mode to get to 720p even if my computer set to 720p the resolution it lets me go to still lags a lot it's around 30fps now you could play these games at 30 but like I mentioned 60 is the sweet spot for a fast-moving game like this here's a spider-man table all the rest of these tables that you're gonna see in this video are at 1080p and we don't even have a second monitor hooked up for the back display so that could definitely take some power away from the CPU and GPU in the long run next table I tested was Ghostbusters I have to turn the sound off sound us worked great with the Ghostbusters table but it does have copyright music in it we got a little higher FPS here but we're still not at 60 like I mentioned in the beginning not all tables are optimized or created the same the next table that I'm going to show you is one of my favorites and it actually runs perfectly on the up squared and here's the table that runs really well we're at a hundred and fifty FPS I have the settings exactly the same as the last tables you saw this table is very well optimized it runs great on a lot of hardware I actually tested this on the up one and it ran at 60fps we're at a 150 fps so yes there are tables that you're going to be able to find that will run perfectly at 1080p on the up square but there's probably more tables out there that aren't gonna run well on this board here's a Robocop table and nothing has changed from the Simpsons to this just the game itself and we're under 30 fps so if you're looking to use the up squared for a visual or virtual pinball machine I suggest looking somewhere else unless you want to run at 720p then most of these tables are gonna run over 60 fps and you have a great experience but you definitely want that resolution if you have a nice table here's the last table I'm gonna test in this video I did test South Park and it runs under 30 so a lot of the stuff isn't working well so that's it for this video guys I really appreciate you watching I did this video because I had a few people ask me to test visual pinball on it and as you can see a lot of the stuff does not work well don't forget to check out the first video did on the up squared I'm gonna leave a link in the description and on screen now I did test and steam games and some emulators and it does a pretty good job for what this board is if you guys could hit that like button and subscribe and like always thanks for watching real quick I just wanted to remind you guys that I do have a patreon and if you're interested in helping the channel out I really appreciate it I also offer monthly patreon giveaways so go ahead and check it out links in the description\n"