thedevilbunny

Have just ran into another wacky issue..and this one may be me overstretching a good thing, but what the hell. I pulled down some of the PAPA video pinball tutorials...I figured i'd stick them in the appropriate tables under the "TV Advert" area so I could watch 'em before I played..they are quite great. Anyway, after I got a few install, I ran gameex...the previews worked fine but when I tried to go full screen..crash. So I turned off the change resolution setting...now it works but doesn't correctly display the full screen video..it doesn't know theres a 90 degree shift going on. I tried setting up a webpage under this same setup and got the same deal..it was not in vert mode. I guess I'm asking if anyone knows a work around..or if there is one. I hesitated to even ask something so trivial, but I figure someone else might wanna know, and I'm definitely interested. Any thoughts?

It's worth it man...haha. It'll be awesome when yer done.

It's not a real difficult process really...but there are steps. You'll have to setup windows for 2 screen, in extend mode, with screen one being the "table" and 2 the "backglass". You'll want to go into Future Pin's video setup, and just setup 2 screen and adjust the rotation..it's all there and very simple. Also on future, you'll have to adjust EACH and EVERY table to fit your rig...that gets old but MUST me done. When you load up in 2 screen mode you'll see very little or the end of a table on the table screen, and the backglass will be out of whack. You have to then hit the scroll lock key to get into screen adjust mode....when there page up and down move through the four options...first option moves the table on the screen, second shrinks and stretches the table, third moves the backglass, and fourth stretches and shrinks the backglass. You use the number pad arrows to control each option..it's easy, if not time consuming if you have a ton of tables. Once you have it the way you like it, you can go back to the editor and SAVE THE TABLE..otherwise your work is gone. Do that over and over for all the tables, and FP will be done. Visual pin and UVP setup can be annoying. Right away, setup visual pin for your screen in vert mode...that's the easy part. Now for UVP. For starters, you have to download the ultravpserver software. Now, this software is setup to use in hyperpin for the file structure, but the program itself isn't used. Basically put the software in c:\hyperpin and make a directory in hyperpin called uvpserver. This is where the little *.uvp files go. Now, you'll need ANOTHER directory in hyperpin called Visual PInball, and yet another in that directory called "backglass". This is where you'll put the backglass file. Now, here is an important point that caused me pain..the UVP file, the backglass file, AND the table file all must have the EXACT same name. Example: Twilight Zone (Bally 1994).uvp, Twilight Zone (Bally 1994).png, Twilight Zone (Bally 1994).vpt ..you get the picture. This you cannot fudge on. Finally, you'll have to edit the table...don't worry it's not hard...you load up the VPT table in the visual pinball editor, and you hit the script button. You'll be removing one line and adding one. Look for Set Controller = CreateObject("VPinMAME.Controller") and change it to Set Controller = CreateObject("UltraVP.BackglassServ"). Don't forget to save the table. Now, once all that is done...goto the C:\hyperpin directory and double click on the ultravpserver file...you have to do this one time...after this you should be good to go. I'll post a top notch faq when I find where I saw it...it really holds your hand. I'm sure I missed a ton and I'll be the first to say sorry..haha. Agreed on the B2's...it's all done for you and i've had no prob using those with Gameex.

It's actually not all that difficult...there are a TON of faq's and youtube video's on setting up future pin and visual pin and UVP....the Gameex software makes rigging the frontend pretty dang simple. First you setup gameextender to send and recieve on 127.0.0.1, and set the viewer setting to display on the secondary screen. That'll get you imaging on screen 2 (the backglass monitor). After that, it's just setting up the images....I set the Image Path in the emulator setup to my backglass directory..that'll get you backglasses on the 2nd screen. Then you set the rest...example I have background snap to my table pics, title set to the wheel image logos, and box and cart images as front and back of the pin flyers. I will say I had to fiddle with the instruction cards and ended up putting it on addtional art 1....I had it on controls and instructions, but when gameex showed them as it loaded the game, it blew them up to fill a vert screen and they looked horrid. One important note, make sure you setup visual pinball to turn off the gameextender on load so you can see your UVP backlglasses. That's pretty much the long and short of the setup.

I'll admit bk, it's NOT real pinball...no doubt. That said, it lets me play a fairly faithful game of pinball on SO many machines I will NEVER own. Me and my brother own 6 actual pinball machines (FYI Mr. and Ms. Pacman, Whodunnit, WWF Royal Rumble, Firepower II, Motordome, and of course Star Battle)...but I will prolly NEVER own say a Twilight Zone, or a Humpty Dumpty....this lets me play 'em. flocke28, if you let me know what info you're after, i'll be more then happy to tell you how I did it.

It's quite easy these days. Can you give me some info about your setup? Are you on a two screen vert setup? Are you using gameextender to shoot pics to the second screen? Give me some details and i'll get you setup.

Actually, I do have a tilt function on the machine, Rocky. We're using the old MS Sidewinder Freestyle gamepad gimmick. One of the drawbacks to using a machine like ours is that it's SO wide and bulky down low, it's REAL hard to get a tilt or affect the ball all that much...i'm still fine tuning that. That's the first I've heard of pinemhi...if you could work that into the game submenu's Tom, that would be quite an awesome deal.

A good question. The short answer to why GameEx on a pincab...I didn't start off going that route. I've used GameEx for EVERY machine I've built over the years, but everyone was using another frontend for 2 screen pins, and I figured i'd give it a shot..if for any reason to just fool with the other frontend. I spent ALOT of grueling days working on that install. One thing people don't know about the other frontend..it's NOT intuitive. With GameEx, it shows you what you have to play..with the other one it shows you EVERYTHING..then it's your job to make the stuff fit. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine frontend...very glitzy and very showy. HOWEVER, GameEx is not only more versatile, it's easier to setup, gives me a ton more options, AND is constantly supported and updated. Another big reason, usability. We always have HUGE multiple game lists on our arcade emulation cabs...gameex is easier to navigate quickly...the same is true for the pins. We (my brother and I) fancy ourselves as game players..we like our machines to accommodate that. We want speedy access to everything..GameEx delivers. Honestly, after toiling away for a few months on the software side with the other frontend..and finishing btw, I was like 'Hmm...wonder if the old standby could be used on here'...and that was all it took. That was prolly less then a month ago, and here we are. As for FPLaunch..I have it setup on the other emm rig..I thought about adapting it too but I can't justify it to myself to bother..like you said it only covers the load spam and give you a few pause options...meh. I might change my mind tho...but right now I think i'm satisfied. What'd be cool is if GameEx could load the table highscores up in the front end like it does the mame high scores..a much more elegant solution.

You have fine taste in pinball my friend...Funhouse is right up in my top 10 for sure. I'd have to say my favorite table right now is Taxi, but i'm really getting into Attack from Mars.

Well, as you know if you fool with Future Pin and Visual PIn, the high score saves are not straight forward for sure. I can say that both emulators are saving the scores..at least on the machines I've tried that save them (example being STNG for visual and pretty much all for Future PIn). That said, other then in game settings I've got no idea how to display them in GameEx...I've setup FPlaunch before but it's not something i've tried to get to function with GameEx. I've actually been looking into how those scores are kept to come up with a way to display them from the frontend, but so far i've not really dug into it much. I'll shoot some well lit pics for you...you can look the machine up on IPDB.org to get a better view...search for "Star Battle".

I posted this video in another thread but figured I might as well put it where it should go, here in the user cabs section! I have built several GameEx based machines, but i'm most proud of my Cocktail Virtual Pinball Machine. Tom really helped me with a few added options in the new version of GameEx to get this thing running nice and smooth. After watching a lot of the vids and seeing a lot of the pics in here, I wish I had the cosmetic flair ya'll have, but sadly I'm barely just creative enough to make it work, and not creative enough to make it pretty...haha. http://youtu.be/60qGYFDY38s

Ok, as promised, here's a little video we made to show my pinball project. We've pretty much finished up software wise...I still need to add a few buttons and the plunger, but otherwise it's done. I'm pondering a way to add a menu item to access the great tutorial videos over at pinball.org, but so far I haven't gotten the in gameex browser to orient things the right way. Still, at this point it's just icing on the cake. http://youtu.be/60qGYFDY38s]

New update fixes this for me. Thanks again, Tom.

I think we can put this topic to bed. The new release has worked flawlessly for me, and the ability to turn off gameextender seals the deal on visual pinball. Well done, Tom.

Great news. I appreciate it.