Pike13

Thanks PcTeknic once again. I was wondering what you were going to do with the GI Joe one and you did not disappoint!

Thanks PCTeknic! Since you did mention it...if you ever have time to do America's Most Haunted and A Real American Hero Operation P.I.N.B.A.L.L. I'm sure you will have at least one person download and be sincerely appreciative of it! I'll look for the video as well.

I have to echo my thanks and appreciation for these. In fact, if there isn't an associated mega docklet image with a table, I have to give serious consideration on whether or not the table goes into the cab. So far, I don't have any non-Mega Docklet tables in. PcTeknic graciously created a Swords of Fury and Fathom one on request - otherwise those great tables were going to be sadly disabled. Good to know the history behind the name as well.

Here is a 'brief' explanation of what I have, let me know if you are still having problems and I can go into more detail...I've skipped the TPA, Steam setup parts, and info around the particulars of my setup (e.g. file locations, my monitor resolutions) and just describe launching from PBX and my script. 1. I have TPA set up as an Other System in the PBX setup. I have attached my settings page. Basically it launches a AHK script that rotates my monitor, launches DMDext, and then FCM. I compiled the script into an .exe, run it as administrator. 2. My StartPBA script actually launches another AHK script that is responsible for doing setup with the rotate and DMDext script and then at the end when done launches a script that rotates back and ends DMDext. I did this because if something got wonky (especially when initially setting up) I could just launch the EndPBASupport script to set things back right. 3. One other thing to note, I use antimicro to map one of my cabinet control keys to the letter "q" which the script is monitoring for to end PBA. One other part of the script is responsible for recording the table I played in PBX so when that gets re-launched at the end, it goes back to the right table. So this part of the script will also be customized based on what Other System # you have defined for TPA in PBX settings. And one final note, I also use this same script to launch from just a Start Menu/Desktop shortcut - so that is why you see some of the if statements in the script that is checking for a run-time parameter attached to the script .exe (PBX launches with it, short-cut doesn't) so it won't do something things based on that. 4. Regarding the start and end support scripts...in the start one you will see how I launch DMDext, based on your screen setup, it will vary (I rotate my monitor before playing TPA so the settings in there assume the primary monitor is rotated first which shifts the x/y of my DMD monitor). A note about the end support script, the only way I could kill the DMDext console was by doing that PostMessage call, the usual AHK Close commands I couldn't get to work for some reason. Hopefully this helps, if you need more detail let me know. It was a long slog to get this working right with TPA, FCM, and PBX but I'm pretty happy with it now (and the actual FCM camera settings took a while to get just right). I know there were some postings around actually having PBX take advantage of the FCM capability to direct launch a table so when that happens this might be overkill. But then again with all of the great VPX tables out there, I rarely play TPA table if they have a VPX implementation. Unfortunately Black Rose and Creature from the Black Lagoon are some of my favorites and there aren't VPX implementations yet. StartPBA.ahk StartPBASupport.ahk EndPBASupport.ahk

I have a Virtuapin Mini as well and it took me a while to figure out X360ce and the right settings to get both the plunger and nudging working to my satisfaction. As others mentioned above I use X360ce, nothing else. Here are my settings, not sure if this will translate into your particular cabinet since I'm assuming the button mappings aren't quite the same with your hardware. But if you can figure that out, this might work for you. I did something similar with slightly different buttons mappings for TPA. I first started off with what this gentlemen did in this post (in the comments section): https://blog.codinghorror.com/your-digital-pinball-machine/ I just mention it as he goes into a decent explanation around how on the Virtuapin the controller is only 'half' an axis (which leads to some different behavior when in the menu part of PBFX2, more below). Not sure if that is the case with your setup. But he didn't have the manual plunger piece working and his nudging settings were way too sensitive I felt so I modified it. I have attached some screenshots of my X360ce settings. It's been a while so I don't quite remember all of the details, but I believe these were the sections in X360ce that I modified. Within PBFX2 itself, my XBox 360 controller settings are: Flippers: LB-RB Manual Ball Launch: RS Auto Ball Launch: A View Mode: LT Nudge Table: LS So with the Right Stick and Left Stick being selected and configured in X360ce, plunging and nudging work respectively. The only oddity I have is that when my plunger is at rest it is actually registering as 'engaged' with PBFX2 so if you are at the main menu it acts like you are rapidly selecting through the different options. But in terms of actually playing a table this doesn't happen. Since I play PBFX2 from PBX that is set up to directly launch the table, it isn't an issue. The rare times I have to go into the menu is when I have to launch PBFX2 manually because I want to play multiple players (a big oversight IMHO that cabinet support doesn't, er, support this). All I have to do then is just pull the plunger back enough to be centered and hold it there while I use my mouse to select multi-player and what table I want to play.

A very sincere thank you PcTeknic.

Another thank you PcTeknic! You, along with some others who have taken the time to create media, have really enhanced the PinballX experience. Obviously PinballX being a great program as well. If you have a list somewhere of tables that you will create new wheel images for, I have two requests if you don't mind: Swords of Fury and Fathom. Out of the 130 tables I have, those are the only two that I don't have Megadocklets for. It is tweaking my OCD a little bit. Or barring that, do you have any instructions on how you do these?

In the PinballX Setup Wizard (version 2.6.2 on PBX 2.36), I can't seem to change the text of the "Tables" and "All" entries in the Text section. Well, I can change it, but it doesn't seem to be respected when running PinballX. Some definitely work like the Line 1, Line 2, and Featuring entries. I did not try all of them. Instead it seems to list a default text of "Tables" and "All". So for example, I put in Featuring="Introducing", Tables="Pinball Machines" and All="Great", just for illustration purposes. I confirmed that these are in the PinballX.ini under the [Text] section. What I get in PinballX along the bottom is "Introducing <# of Tables> All Tables" instead of what I expected of "Introducing <# of Tables> Great Pinball Tables". Tried just single characters as well, same result. Extremely nitpicky I know, but is it just me?

Not sure if you saw this post where someone switched out the USB display with a nicer, larger IPS display. The part where he swapped out the original is in the comments at the end. Not a true DMD I know but perhaps it shows what is possible. https://blog.codinghorror.com/your-digital-pinball-machine/

Not sure if it will help you, but for my TPA launch options in Steam (Go to the Steam Library entry, select Properties, select Set Launch Options), I put in: "C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\PinballArcade\PinballArcade11.exe" skipwhatsnew %command% At least that way you don't have to rename files all the time. And as Carny_Priest said, everything should be running as Admin, including Steam.

Is it the correct etiquette to make requests for certain PBX media in this forum? Or is there a better way to go about doing that? I'm looking for a Swords of Fury wheel image for Visual Pinball in the style created by PcTeknic (of to whom I'm very grateful for the ones he has created; and the TPA ones created by Draco1962, also grateful). The 'Mega Docklets' style. Besides raiding the FTP site for things posted by users and the gameex downloads section, is there another location where these resources could be had (the Mega Docklets style)?

A couple of things off of a 2-minute analysis, in no particular order: 1, I wonder if you need the Table Path field set to something in your PBX settings. 2. Based on your screenshot and script, your PBX ini file writing is going to the wrong location (screenshot shows system 4, script references system 2). Not that it matters since you never get to that point. 3. Not that it looks wrong, but why don't you take out the backglass video launching piece and add that in after you got TPA to actually run. 4. It seems that your FCM .exe is in a different folder than your script .exe. I would change your FCM launch command to include the working directory like: Run, C:\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod.exe -table %1%, C:\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod 5. Until you got things working stand-alone, I would take PBX out of the equation and just run your script .exe and see if it works. 6. You didn't really say what your set up was...cabinet? Is Steam running at Windows startup or are you relying upon FCM to do it?

That looks really good. I'm trying to find a Visual Pinball style one as well but no luck.

Folorin, what version of FCM and TPA are you trying with?

I was just going to ask Folorin the same thing: what do you mean by "Hit enter"? When it works for me it takes me all the way to the Flyover portion of the requested table. I then have to hit my cabinet launch button to go right into the table.

Folorin, can you get things working 'manually' by opening up a command prompt as administrator, navigating to the FCM folder and just launching FCM by typing something like: "TPAFreeCamMod.exe -table Gorgar"? So totally bypassing any AHK script to see if at least FCM is working. And to state the obvious, I assume you have the FCM settings all set up correct - it seems like you do if your script can actually launch FCM/TPA. Another Mr. Obvious: are you sure that it isn't running Gorgar? I posted in the TPA forums about a 'problem' where you hear the audio of the last, most recently played, manually selected table even though the actual table that comes up is the one that followed the -table parameter. I'm sure not, but just thought I mention. Maybe post your RunTPA script for people to review.

One of these days I'll post my detailed setup instructions and what I do to get things to run, but real quick, I would try and change your Run command to including the working directory, something like: Run, C:\Users\Angelo\Desktop\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod.exe -table %1%, C:\Users\Angelo\Desktop\TPAFreeCamMod I had a bunch of issues until I did that. Here is my script (modified to run PBA either from PinballX or the start menu - hence the check for the table parameter). The StartPBASupport and EndPBASupport just have commands to rotate the display and start DMDext to mirror the PBA DMD on my third screen and then kill them when done. Also I have a key mapper running to map a cabinet button to "Q" to start the kill PBA. #NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases. ; #Warn ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors. SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability. SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory. Process, Close, pinballX.exe Run StartPBASupport.exe Run, C:\Games\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod.exe -table %1%, C:\Games\TPAFreeCamMod ~q:: Process, Close, PinballArcade11.exe FileRead, xmldata, C:\PinballX\Databases\Pinball Arcade\Pinball Arcade.xml doc := ComObjCreate("MSXML2.DOMDocument.6.0") doc.async := false doc.loadXML(xmldata) table = //game[@name='%1%']/description Node := doc.selectSingleNode(table) description:= Node.text IniWrite, %description%%1%System_1, C:\PinballX\Config\PinballX.ini, Internal, lastselected Run EndPBASupport.exe if %1% { Run C:\PinballX\PinballX.exe } ExitAPP Return My StartPBASupport and EndPBASupport scripts: #NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases. ; #Warn ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors. SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability. SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory. Run, C:\Games\Display\display.exe /device 1 /rotate 90, C:\Games\Display Run, C:\Games\DMDExt\dmdext.exe mirror --source=pinballarcade --virtual-position 2370 15 765 310 --virtual-hide-grip --fps=30, C:\Games\DMDExt #NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases. ; #Warn ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors. SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability. SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory. PostMessage, 0x112, 0xF060, , , ahk_exe dmdext.exe Run, C:\Games\Display\display.exe /device 1 /rotate 0, C:\Games\Display All .exes in the mix set to Run as Administrator. Hope this helps. Let me know if you need something more detailed. I'm finally happy and got everything work with PBA, PBFX2, VP (multiple versions). What took a while was setting up all the PBA cameras but finally got that done last weekend.

Thanks, that worked. I used AntiMicro and launch it (and kill it after TPA is done) from my AHK script.

Thanks for the script examples, I finally got everything working with your way of doing things - I gave up trying to get it to run from PBX directly and then leaving PBX running. It never quite worked right 100% of the time. This way it works 95% - there are a few times where something is going on where it seems to not launch fast enough for the simulated clicks so I have to get the mouse out and move the mouse pointer over any 'button' on the screen and then it launches. But it is so much better now even with that minor glitch. To my script I also added some stuff to rotate the display and then launch dmdext to mirror the PBA DMD onto my cabinet DMD. Which may play into why it doesn't work 100%, maybe I should throw some delays in the script. However, I had question that I'm hoping someone can help with. In the example script above you are monitoring for the Escape key to shut down PBA and relaunch PBX (after updating the recently played in the PBX .ini). I'm playing in a cabinet and don't want a keyboard out so I'm trying to monitor my 'controller' for a button press to exit. I have a VirtuaPin Mini and there is a button underneath the cabinet that PBX uses to exit whatever table is running (be it Visual Pinball, PBA, PBFX2). I would like to have this button do the exiting when using this script but for the life of me can't figure out how to get the AutoHotkey script to pick up on it. The VirtuaPin controller shows up as a device in Windows and you can see the buttons being pressed in the Windows configuration tool (for me, Button 8). But when trying to get the script to pick it up, it doesn't register. I'm using the technique from AHK listed here (in the joystick section): https://autohotkey.com/docs/KeyList.htm. Joy8 doesn't seem to work. I ran the example script listed that monitors your joystick and shows what button was pressed in a tool tip window, and it is giving me weird behavior - it will pick up some of the controller buttons but not others - and for those that do work, it will list a different button than what is shown in the windows utility (example the left side flipper button will show up as button 10 in Windows but the AHK script will pick it up as button 1. Seems to know to pick up the left two buttons, the front two buttons, and even the plunger and nudge (left and right stick and shows up as changing the x, y, or z axis). But not the underneath button or the right flipper buttons). I tried the script also with using a XBox360 controller mapping utility as well (X360ce) but didn't seem to matter. Perhaps this is a question for the AHK forums or VirtuaPin, but I thought I would try here first. Any ideas?

Hi TVeI4, I have a VirtualPin mini as well that Santa delivered a few months ago and am able to get things working with pbfx2 and pbx. I do things a little differently from you I think so this may or may not help... 1. I'm using X360ce as you are, and changing the settings as detailed in the discussion section of this blog: https://blog.codinghorror.com/your-digital-pinball-machine/ 2. I'm having Steam start at Windows startup and not having PBX launch it as part of launching a table. Which also means that in order not to get any steam messages about being offline, I make sure I'm always connected to the internet by always plugging in the USB wireless adapter - I don't this on the front of the cab but rather I opened up the cabinet and put the adapter into an empty USB port off of the motherboard. I had to move some of the other USB cables to make it fit. The minor annoyance of having Steam update itself or pbfx2 or pinball arcade every now and then is outweighed with the everyday use of having pbx launch without having to wait for Steam to load itself. I know that VirtuaPin doesn't recommend this but it works for me. 3. I was having a weird issue where even though Steam was set to run at startup and pbx was set to run at startup, sometimes Steam would steal focus back and display the desktop instead of pbx (even though Steam was just minimized to the system tray). To get around this I created a Windows task to launch after Windows logon and it got around that problem. 4. I'm not doing any other special scripting or anything for pbfx2 outside of what pbx is using for the launch defaults. 5. Obviously then finding all of the backglass images for your tables and pbx resources and configuring those correctly - of which this FTP site has been a godsend and I am very thankful for people uploading their pbx resources for others to use. Someone had created a backglass video for X-Men for example and it blows people away when they see it (and then I grabbed a good audio file, wheel image, and playfield video as well). 6. As you mentioned, I'm making sure that all of the pieces have been set to run as Administrator (Windows UAC is turned all of the way off). Hope this helps. If you need more detail, please let me know.

At this point, sheer stubbornness I guess and an undying faith that there must be just one small tweak to make it work. But I think I'm going to admit defeat and try it your way. Looks like there is a possible PinballX last table fix, although it doesn't seem like it is working. Seeing the regular expressions use I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes: Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. I'm using Windows 7, 64-bit. I wonder if it is worth the ask to the FCM author to put in some sort of delay before 'pressing buttons'. But I'm not sure that would even fix it.

Yeah, I'm not sure what is going exactly, launching from PinballX is very inconsistent. I tried to take off my Launch Before and Launch After scripts (just starting them manually before PBX could start) and launching from PBX actually worked a few times in a row. But then the 4th try failed. The next time after rebooting it wouldn't even work the first time when starting. But then worked sporadically after that. <Sigh> Although it seems to work more often without Launch Before and Launch After enabled for some reason. Tried adding a delay in the Launch Before script and it didn't matter. Perhaps I can put call to set focus back to PBX after the script runs. I wonder if it is worthwhile to ask NoEx to put some sort of configurable delay in there before he fires off the simulated mouse clicks (if that is even what he is doing) or between one click and the next. It seems like he is then selecting the Recently Played option and somehow substituting the desired table with whatever used to be in Recently Played (although as noted it plays the intro audio of whatever Recently Played table was in there - a small price to pay I guess). Don't know why their offered reason of licensing would come into Farsight not putting in some sort of command line parameter and bypassing all these hacks.

No, when launching TPAFreeCamMod.exe independent from a command prompt (with administrator rights), it launches just fine (albeit with playing the welcoming audio of the table last played) with the correct table. Multiple relaunches with same and different tables continue to work. I ran my pre-launch and post-launch script manually. But when trying to tie it all together from PinballX, it just seems the timing is a little bit off. My PBX settings: Every .exe in the process (PBX, Steam, FCM, Scripts) are set to run as Administrator. Not sure if that matters or not. I don't get the annoying steam message anymore - at one time I did back in December but I think the steam launch options may have something to do with it (or maybe FCM is launching it differently; or Steam is doing something different (doubtful)). Glad you guys got it working - if I can't figure out my issue I'll give your technique a try.

This new version of FCM really is making the impossible dream of playing TPA from PinballX almost a reality. I have everything almost working except for a couple issues. I have a cabinet with three monitors and I got this to work by setting up a custom system that launches TPAFreeCamMod.exe much like bduncan's settings (the earlier post). I also have a Launch Before compiled AutoHotkey script that rotates the playfield and then launches DMDext (to mirror the TPA DMD onto my third DMD monitor). And then a similar Launch After that closes DMDext and rotates the display back. Previously I had set up my TPA configuration to be 1080x1920 from the utility. In Steam (which I'm connected to the internet with, no offline), I have a Launch Option of: "C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\PinballArcade\PinballArcade11.exe" skipwhatsnew %command% Strangely, I have to set LaunchGame .ini file setting for FCM to 0 - otherwise I get a 'game is already running error' from FCM. Not sure if it has to do with my Steam launch options or not. My only issue is that it seems like FCM is clicking the welcome screen in TPA before it actually appears (you can hear the 'click' sound). But as soon as you move the mouse pointer over the ok/check mark button, it 'clicks' it (without actually pressing the mouse button) and then launches the correct table (although it will play the short audio of the Recently Played table for some reason). Exiting out of TPA and back to PinballX and trying to launch another table gives a different problem: it seems to have made it past the intro screen but it doesn't launch the table now - until you move the mouse over the Recently Played button and it then launches the correct table! I'll give it a go another day and see if I can nail down how/why it is exhibiting this behavior. But it is close. Perhaps if FCM had the ability to customize the delay time before launching and 'pressing' the buttons.

Hi hlr53, anyway you could share your scripts to show how you are getting TPA to select the right tables? For the life of me I can't get it working with my setup. I tried to a startup script from ginsonic that was posted a while ago but can't seem to get it work - gets all the way to start screen of TPA and you can hear 'clicks' but doesn't do anything. I'd be interested in seeing what you came up with before I go roll my own. Besides launching from PinballX, I also want to launch the NoEx Free CameraMod and DMDext as well but first things first.