scutters

Post a screenshot of your LAV settings. Are they like in this post?

First post updated with two versions of the GIFs, now with an option for a darker background if you want. Note that the graphics of the frames are also improved, so even if you were happy with the background in the first version it is worth deleting them and downloading the new version (gifs_light for the same background as original)

Indeed it is!! good work, thanks.

I am!, i'm an nvidia user too so this should be great for me. Thanks Mike

Just throwing in my two cents... have you tried pinballx as admin?, also, does the focus issue exist every time you run pinballx (or just on start up)?

In Game manager check that for the tables in question have 'Hide Backglass' unchecked

Can PinballX extend it's high score support to include visual pinball ultradmd and/or EM table (post-it note style) in the frontend as well as for rom tables, holding the info in statistics.ini or as text file in the high score folders. Post it note score info is held in text files under visual pinball\user folder, which also contains a vpreg.stg file with ultrdmd scores. The scores might not be in a common format though so might be tricky, if it can't work for all but works for most that would still be great!

Did you try launching FX3 directly instead of via steam, maybe also adding the offline flag? So ini file entries like; WorkingPath=C:\Games\Pinball FX3 Executable=Pinball FX3.exe Parameters=-applaunch 442120 "-table_[TABLEFILE]" -offline

You mean like on a solid black bar across the middle of the screen, rather than the semi transparent effect?

I take it the issue with the buttons isn't just with PinballX, but also VPX etc? I don't know if it's a known issue, you might be better off posting on vpforums where mjr is more likely to respond.

We've got topics for loading images and loading videos so i figured we may as well have one for loading gifs following pinballx v3.76 (https://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/23261-news-pinballx-376/). Edit : there was a topic for loading gifs already! https://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/17042-pbx-206-animated-gifs/, check that out for a few more options. Loading gifs will be automatically placed in the centre of the screen on top of a playfield snapshot if this option is set under Settings; I've converted the DMD style image sequences i use for Loading Videos as pseudo semi transparent gifs for this use. Extract from the zip and save them to your PinballX\Media\Loading Images\ folder, Pinballx will pick one at random as an overlay on the playfield image during table load. If you want more flexibility but not straight out of the box options then you should check the Loading Videos topic. Two versions of the GIFs available, with the background lighter (more transparent) or darker (less transparent), try both and pick whichever suits your tastes best (or use both versions if you want). Gifs based mainly on DMD colourisation work; http://vpuniverse.com/forums/forum/138-pin2dmd-dmd-colorization-works-in-progress/ Please share your own! GIFs_Dark.zip GIFs_Light.zip

Same!. Cheers Tom

Yep, 3.91 looks a lot better! Thanks Tom. Not quite as quick on my system as yours @Mike_da_Spike, i get a 3 or 4 sec black screen. Might be because i'm still on the 32bit version, never did track down my 64bit gremlin

The video shows what i mean about the lower res image, or was it always that way and i was too busy watching the gif to notice?? becomes (notice the ring?)

Hey Tom, just gave 3.89 a go.. the image & gif does indeed load a lot faster than before, good work!, still not quite as fast as a loading video, but the main issue for me with it now is that the playfield image is quite low quality/res and looks pretty bad after a 4k playfield video. Also had an issue when i first ran it, log attached which does show an error, fish tales rom / vpinmame position/size settings got reset (virtual dmd position). I reset it manually and haven't been able to reproduce since, so maybe just a one off thing. Thought i'd mention it though. log.txt

Looks great Mike, and thanks for the light version! I'm still running the video tool, so i'll be re-doing my loading vids again including dirty harry in the randomiser.

Cheers Ian.. having the Last Played date info on display does give you a little nudge to play a game sometimes - it turns out there were a few tables i'd never actually played! Displaying on virtual DMD works well for me, but i also like the semi opaque overlay on the backglass too, like in mike da spikes video

I knew my not properly ratio'd virtual dmd would come in handy one day! (it's not 4:1 visible area and i stretch it a bit vertically).. Using the upheaval tt brk font i've squeezed in the stats plugin display underneath the pinballx dmd (resized that down vertically a bit in pinballx, then i resize back to full size in game for SS tables, for EM where i don't hide pinballx dmd i'm happy with black below pbx dmd video/image)... I'm very happy with my two lines of text result (i only want last played, time played and scores in the table menu) , here's what i see while scrolling through tables now on the virtual dmd, scrolling a couple of tables and then seeing lethal weapon hi-scores; (ignore the grey lines between dmd and plugin displays, OBS studio put that in when i was recording due to my error, normally black)

Updated to V1.2, notes update in first post. Added option to use images as background (@gluk), centre align text, better high score data from high score files and change to all uppercase display text. Thanks once again to @Mike_da_Spike for giving it a quick once over on his system. If you're updating from a previous version there is a new ini file, so it's probably worth copying your current setting off somewhere before updating so you can change thoose sections back). Example of new functions (using sans serif shaded font, here the lines will scroll up as the window is not displaying all lines); Better High Score Data; Centre aligned; Adding a background image (note that as it stretches to fit your display area it should normally be sized exactly as your display window height & width), here just a white image with red border; Will then give; Probably not the best example of what you can do but might give you some ideas for potential use (topper or virual dmd for something like the above?). If you come up with a great font / background combo for display then please post a pic!

I'm not a real dmd user but maybe relates to trying to use pinmame in front end?, from the ini UsePinMAME=True You're also using B2S in front end rather than videos/images. Don't know if that's intentional. UseB2S=True

Just tried 3.83 with the original test loading gif (1st post) - the animation timing looks a lot better now, thanks Tom. Still had ~4sec of black screen before the snaphot table image became visible though, so i also tried a simple 2 frame gif 540*71 (attached) and that still seemed to take 3-4secs of black playfield screen, compared to loading video transition of <1sec on my system. Could you keep showing the playfield video until the snapshot & gif are ready to display somehow to minimise the blackscreen? don't know how it works behind the scenes so sorry if that's an idiots suggestion! testload.zip

I didn't notice that behaviour in v3.78. I did have some old loading images still in the loading images folder but either the default spinning wheel gif was overlayed on an image of the playfield video or my own gif if i added it to the folder. The old loading images weren't overlayed (which may be what you're seeing? [guessing]).

Cool, thanks for updating the post Sounds a bit weird and not what i'd expect, might be worth posting in the general forum if still the case after updating to the latest pinballx version (3.78 at time of writing) I did write something up a while ago, https://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/17919-new-loading-images-ongoing-thread/?do=findComment&comment=185642 for layering a png (not gif) on top of a table image - but it was a very manual process with no automation. Or have a look at loading videos with some animated sequences ready to go; @Mike_da_Spike wrote an excellent tool to automate adding those image sequences to playfield videos converting them to loading videos; You might need to record playfield videos for that though if you don't use them already.

Cheers Tom, all seems to be working now in V3.78. Think i've been spoilt by loading videos which have a lot less black screen transitioning time, but maybe i just need smaller gifs with less frames for the playfield image option in pinballx!

'Systems' under the Table menu (select a table rather than exit) should be visible if Enabled under general settings;