jferio

To my knowledge, they haven't yet added a "direct launch" command line option that would allow for that. It still requires the AHK script to select and launch the desired table.

FX2 more or less worked for me in offline mode; the only issue was it would autostart and kick a ball into the shooter lane when I'd do the launch using PinballX. I haven't tested it with FX3 yet.

Steam itself has the "offline" mode. You need to have the system online at first to get everything set up. Get Steam installed, logged in, download Pinball FX3 and whatever tables you purchase, get the code for cabinet mode and activate that. Then you can go into preferences in Steam and tell it you'd like to go offline. As a note, Steam will ALWAYS ask you when it starts if you want to remain offline, or go online. Also, you'll have to take it online once in a while.

Glad I wasn't buying content with the intent of putting it on the pincab. That said, I can understand the frustration. I kind of looked at what was on offer for the Arcooda. Likely a bit overbuilt, and probably a bit rich for my blood (I'm expecting the price to be $5K+), although I am curious as to where they're getting 42" touch screens at. I also noted the "All of these pinball titles and many more available exclusively on Arcooda Video Pinball" callout... so I suspect this is specifically at least part of the licensing mentioned preventing the rest of us from getting proper cabinet support. It's likely in the contract, either for a specific amount of time, or just until they decide to stop selling it, so that competitors are forced, if they wanna do it all legal, they have to resort to the camera mod and the extra mess that can entail for a retail product. I'd be curious to see it in action when it comes out. If it turns out to be the proper cabinet support they'd promise us, then I'm less likely to purchase in the future, even though when I started, doing a pincab wasn't in the cards. It is at this point, and with FX2, Pro Pinball Ultra, and Zaccaria all supporting cabinet setups easily now (indeed, I have them on the computer for my pincab build right now!), showing a third-party product with full proper cabinet support will make the regular Pinball Arcade just so much less appealing.

So, the Steam update works well, no longer needing to be in Beta to avoid the earlier issue of "are you SURE you want this". I've come up with a brand new wrinkle. Steam in online mode, everything works as it should. PinballX loads the selected Pinball FX2 table, and it runs the regular FX2 attract mode. I attempt to use Steam in offline mode (I also have an install on my main desktop machine, and it would be nice to not have to make sure that's logged off to fire up the eventual cabinet), and loading a table up via PinballX will cause the table to start a game after a few seconds, kicking a ball into the shooter lane, which is a different result from running in online mode. It does not do it just firing up FX2 and selecting and loading a table, either in online or offline modes. Any thoughts? I am up to 2.38 on PinballX.

Unfortunately, they made that change before I got the machine intended for the pincab, so I'm likely hosed unless they change it back or someone finds a way around it. I did try to autohotkey around it, but it doesn't seem to take the click that way.

I've made noises a couple of places regarding the whole "ARE YOU SURE YOU MEANT TO DO THAT" that's making it so I don't want Steam on my future cabinet. I even emailed the person at Zen who got me my cabinet mode code to let them know that this is actually an issue that might effect my DLC purchases. But, since it's the holiday weekend, I'm not expecting much response until at least Tuesday. Unless I can figure out automating clicking the OK (the default is "Cancel", so just a return doesn't do it), they're basically leaving it with "Run three DIFFERENT front ends", which is unreasonable for the way I want the cabinet, and 6-8 tables (Pro Pinball and selections from Zaccaria) is not enough to justify having the cabinet internet connected.

Try checking the properties for the backglasses and tables that are giving you the errors. Some files will have an "Unblock" button on them that you'll need to click. Whatever Windows is doing to block the files (because it needs to protect you from potentials in files from other computers) doesn't prevent the files from running, but can cause backglasses to crash out with .NET exception errors. I was having this happen with backglasses on VPX, even without using PinballX as my loader.