mace

Just a thought but the other thing that may be worth trying is ticking the Disable desktop composition' box under the same tab Draco. That was the only way I could get Zaccaria Pinball to recognise the .ahk I made to automate the start up to menu for that game. If not it just sat there, I could hear the clicks but they made no impact on that program.

I'll rebuild things when I'm back Sunday evening and shoot a video for you Tom. Re my post above could you confirm that none of the config files are changed by swapping the .exe please. Draco, apologies in advance of you've already tried this but have you tried going into the TPA set up app and swapping the windowed/full screen windowed/ full screen setting? It makes quite a difference on my set up?

Hi Tom, I'm working away until Sunday but I gave it a quick spin before I left. Unfortunately it seemed to start sending the key presses too quickly after the first click on the opening screen so the last game panel gets clicked and then after a short while PinballX crashes with a error. I tried replacing the latest version with the previous .exe but the same thing carried on happening? Is there a PinballX entry other than the .ini, say in the appdata folder that could have been changed by the latest version? If not I need to restore back to one of the saves. :-(

Righto Tom, As I was stuck in due to the rain I've managed to give the new file a run out, the only hiccup was that steam updated Pinball Arcade so I had to revert to the earlier 1.52.8 version so we are not dealing with a moving target. Here are the results. Note: 'WaitFor' is set to '0' in the [Pinball Arcade] section of PinballX.ini SHORT DELAY (50) Random selection of Addams Family, I believe related to the error below: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ao6k3CIlgOqjm819AF-wzNPhfU3HaA Correct selection of tables only providing they are on screen and scrolling is not required to reach them, otherwise the selection is incorrect by one step too far down, the extra step seems to happen as the cursor moves down onto the table selections: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ao6k3CIlgOqjm81-QgpZoTIgAP-ZZA MEDIUM DELAY (100) Works!: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ao6k3CIlgOqjm81__FZEB_sjB1tASw LONG DELAY (150) Not working, the selection is incorrect by one step too far down, the extra step seems to happen as the cursor moves down onto the table selections: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ao6k3CIlgOqjm84AAcLbseeAZOpXMA VERY LONG DELAY (200) Not working, the selection is incorrect by two steps too far down, again the extra steps seem to happen as the cursor moves down onto the table selections: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ao6k3CIlgOqjm84BfnzESlwHDfR6Ug

Hi Tom, Just ran it for about 50 selections, the results are encouraging: - Short does not work on my rig, I get the Addams Family selected an awful lot or random overshoots - Medium, long and very long work consistently, unfortunately they always make the selection below the target i.e. one row down - every time. So selecting the first four table is not possible - There are some fairly long waits in-between some sections - Tested direct and with TPAFreeCamMod using TPA v1.5.8 I thought that a video would probably explain the above so the following is with the wait set to very long for clarity and shows Diner being selected (this results in El Dorado playing): https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ao6k3CIlgOqjm8s8k1VH5v3pkzUnJw Hope this helps

Happy to help Tom, here's my spec's: My cab runs an i5 4570 at 3600Mhz, linked to a 40" main screen running via a GTX670 2G card and the 2nd 32" backglass screen and third 17" DMD screen running off the on board Intel video supplied by the CPU and the ASUS H81-M Plus motherboard. There's also twin SSD's, a good quality modular PSU, additional USB ports and 4G of1600MHz Viper Ram. There more in a post on my cab here: http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=32481&hl Prior to the change I had the two TPA timings set to '1' in the ini and everything worked every time. After using V2 there seems to be little difference to the results on any of the timings.

I've lost count of the timing changes in my AHK's as TPA has expanded and evolved. I'm not too worried about cab support as the TPAFreeCamMod takes care of that but if we could just call the tables directly... Thanks for what you do Tom, it's appricated.

I'm calling TPA from an AHK .exe in order to run LedBlinky as well as TPAFreeCameraMod, but to test just using the DX11 version on its own I go into the TPA folder in the SteamApps folder and rename PinballArcade11.exe to PinballArcade.exe. Not the most elegant solution but it does work as long as you also rename PinballArcade.exe to something else first.

You could try changing the pinballarcade.exe entry in the .ini to pinballarcade11.exe as it makes a difference to the focus.

Does the DX11 version do the same thing Draco? Good to see Zaccaria Pinball in there as well, it's a great program can't wait for full cab support :-)

Hey Tom, like Draco I've tested this on all settings and with/without the TPAFreeCamMod, everything works but the table selection is still screwed. The most common fall down is the up/down selection going one step too far or the Addams table gets randomly picked . I'm no coder but I do have access to some tools and by my best guess PinballX is blameless, it seems to be the V2 interface in TPA is stupidly sensitive to key press length timing, for example even simple down presses on my keyboard can send the selection skipping. My best suggestions would be to either shorten the time of the PinballX key stroke rather than the time between keystrokes, or if that's not feasible just wait until Farsight decide to sort the whole thing out........ I do have a working solution which is to drop the direction keystrokes in favour of the mousemove/ mouseclick command, that does work but needs a screen scroll for the lower icons on my cab, at the moment the code is beyond me so I have knocked up a simple AHK which allows TPA to have it's own entry in PinballX to fire up LEDblinky, TPAFreeCamMod and TPA, it then auto clicks through to the menu and I use the cab buttons to chose and select the table. TPAFreCamMod then takes care of the DMD and backglass. It's not elegant but it works.....

I've been repairing real pinball machines for years, sadly in that time I've received threatening legal letters for running an FTP site with repair tips (copyright theft for quoting manuals), making and importing no flickering LED's (use of trademarks in a website) and making replacement plastics. I've even been moaned at for making a WindowsPhone App (yes well, we all go for the wrong platform some times). From the moment I saw TPA I knew that their licences would balk at pincabs, FX2 gets around this as they own the IP of the tables. Once Farsight signed with Stern that was the final nail in the coffin, I can well remember discussing the need for home software with Gary Stern at the Brighton Slam some years ago and he basically said that he could never allow user access to their code or any mods as they could get sued in turn if the modder then released the code. I was also trying to point out the home market needed deeper rulesets, now we have pro, LE and premium table I'd like to think that maybe he did listen to that audience. I love my pinbcab and I'm keeping TPA because it's an accurate model and that's very handy if you repair these things, it runs fine with PinballX, LEDblinky and DMDext even though the new menu is awful, and poorly coded to boot - see next post. Gary would probably have a fit if he could see the LE AC/DC machine in my workshop at the moment, it's been modded out to the max by the owner. Ironic as the v1.68 code is still bugged and unfinished.....

IO Cheers, I am but I'm also running it stat on the cab and the same issue affect each unfortunately

On a slightly different it may be my PC set ups but after finishing a game I can enter a high score but after that its impossible to start a new game on the table without the mouse i.e. the buttons all lose focus. no great issue but it does mean closing and reopening the table. I've passed the info to FarSight as it affects non cab versions too.

I've had similar issues, to get over the selection for now I've been testing TPA table selection as a standalone system and using <SendKeysOnStart> command in the database .xml to pick the games, here's an example: <menu> <game name="Addams Family"> <description>Addams Family (Midway 1992)</description> <rom>taf_l7</rom> <manufacturer>Midway</manufacturer> <year>1992</year> <type>SS</type> <hidedmd>True</hidedmd> <hidebackglass>False</hidebackglass> <enabled>True</enabled> <rating>0</rating> <SendKeysOnStart>"^%{Up}"{sleep 6000}{Enter}{sleep 500}{Up}{Right}{Enter}{sleep 500}{Enter}{sleep 500}{Enter}{sleep 3000}{Enter}{sleep 500}{Enter}</SendKeysOnStart> </game> </menu> It's pretty crude (the initial "^%{Up}" is the rotation the rest is self evident. The issue seems to be that the new interface is wildly sensitive to button presses sometimes the commands above jump two spaces. I'm no programmer so if anyone knows a way to speed up AHK key commands I think it could help for now.....

Just stick a space in the Tables box Andy

Thanks Tom, makes sense

OH FFS! Sorry for wasting your time, just got that now I've popped a space in the 'Tables' section and renamed the groups database to add 'Tables' onto the end of the pinball groups which took all of two minutes. While I have your attention though, is there a way of obscuring the Pinball Arcade loading screens with a custom 'loading please wait' image? I only ask as kids don't realise they have to ignore the 'push any key' while PinballX automates the loading. Embarrassed Mark

I apologise if I've missed it, I've had my cab a while now and I've tried making new filter .xml's and so on with no issues other than the 'tables' appended every time.......so if there is a simple way please embarrass me by pointing it out.

Hi Tom, Would it be possible to remove the function in PinballX which appends the word 'Tables' to all menu items both standard and customised please? I know it's a small thing but 'Jukebox Tables' and 'Arcade Tables' look a bit out of whack. Thank You Mark

All slow <alternateexe> tagged vpinball exits have now been fixed by Tom in 2.12

Hi Jupiter, It was flagged before, I mentioned it here: http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/15762-pinballx-enhancementsfeatures-requests/page-13#entry141143 and Sir Cheddar noticed the same thing. Dave's auto hockey solution here: http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/14632-multiple-exe-for-vp/ works really well, it offers a new tag for alternate versions of VP which means if Tom does have time to fix the issue reverting back to the programs tags would be very easy. Mace

Finally got around to writing up my PinballX build as I promised some members quite a while back: http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=32481​ There's a lot of thanks in there too.....happy to help with questions if I can.

My issue with the button not coming into focus appears to be fixed with the latest update to 1.41.11 - yay!

When I close my app I have a TASKKILL command to shut every ruunning program associated with whatever it is VP etc., for PinballX I slam the door on around 14 programs - easy command to use in a batch file it ignores programs that are not running even if you list them too. I've had to use that to stop TPA since it went to the 1.4x.xx versions. Just make a text file add in as many lines as you need and then rename it to a .bat file, here's my TPA.bat which I use PinballX to run when I hit exit: @echo off taskkill /t PinballArcade.exe taskkill /t NukePA.exe taskkill /t "Actual Windows Manager.exe" REM put quotation marks around processes with spaces in their titles REM use task manager to determine running programs to add tot he list above I have a similar start file which activated the Actual Window Manager program when TPA runs to mirror the display to the back monitor. It uses resources so this way it only runs when its absolutely needed. Let us know how it goes with 1.93 Frodus