Mike_da_Spike

New version 2 in a new thread : https://forums.gameex.com/forums/topic/31733-flexdmd-plugin-20-and-it’s-not-just-for-real-dmds/

This project originally started to help users who were experiencing issues with the standard XDMD implementation. However, I wanted to push the boundaries of what could be displayed on a real DMD. That vision led to the creation of FlexDMD V2.0, a highly optimized plugin designed for both Virtual and Real DMD setups. Why upgrade from the built-in DMD player? FlexDMD V2.0 gives you complete control over your DMD attract mode. To see exactly what makes this plugin special, let's take a look at the configuration options. Installation Download the attached .zip file. Extract and place the DLL into your PinballX\Plugins folder. Open PluginManager.exe. You should now see FlexDMD V2.0 in your list. Highlight the plugin and click Configure. Core Features & Media Control When you open the configuration, you'll see a range of new options. By default, the plugin behaves similarly to the standard PinballX DMD player: it plays media from your Real DMD Color Videos, Real DMD Videos, or DMD Videos /Images folders, followed by the table's highest score. However, FlexDMD V2.0 adds powerful customization: Loop Control: Choose exactly how many times a video loops. If you are using static pictures, you can define exactly how long they stay on screen. Custom Text Colors: Don't want the default orange? Use the built-in color picker to match your cabinet's theme. HD Panel Support & Custom Clock As of version 1.3, the plugin fully supports 256x64 HD resolutions. This is incredibly useful for Virtual DMD users and those running ZeDMD HD panels. You can also turn your DMD into a customizable clock : Check Show Clock to enable it. Interval: Set the minimum time before the clock appears. (Note: The plugin will always finish its current media or high score animation before cutting to the clock). Duration: Choose how long the clock stays on screen. Format: Toggle between 12-hour and 24-hour formats. Left :128x32 DMD with 24hour format, Right : 256x64 (useHd is checked) with 12 hours format Advanced PINemHi Integration If you are a PINemHi user, this plugin unlocks a whole new layer of features. Simply point the plugin to your PINemHi folder using the PinemHi Path text box to enable these options. Show Badges: Proud of your achievements? This option cycles through the badges you've earned for the current table. It looks especially stunning on a 256x64 HD panel. (Please note: Badge images are exclusive to HD panels and will not be displayed on standard 128x32 screens). Show High Scores: Enable this to pull and display detailed PINemHi scores. You can use the checklist below to select exactly which score categories you want to see. Weekly Challenge Countdown For the competitive players, there is a dedicated Show Count Down feature designed to work seamlessly with @scutters PinballX Pinemhi Challenge Table Launcher plugin. When you launch the weekly 5-minute challenge table, this feature triggers a live 5-minute countdown on your DMD. Because VPX takes a moment to load, you can add "Extra Seconds" in the configuration to ensure the 5-minute timer aligns perfectly with the actual start of the game. It acts as a perfect visual helper so you know exactly when PINemHi will terminate the VPX session. (Note for Real USB/COM DMD users: The plugin locks the display during the countdown, so standard VPinMAME information will not be shown until the challenge table ends). How the Carousel Works (And a Quick Warning) FlexDMD V2.0 displays all your selected features in a smooth, continuous loop (a carousel). Here is the order of operations: Splash Screen: Briefly shows whether you are running the Standard or HD rendering mode. Media Display: Your DMD videos or images. PINemHi Badges (If enabled). PBX High Scores. PINemHi High Scores (If enabled). The Clock will interrupt this sequence based on your interval settings. Here's a visual overview : Important Tip: Be mindful of how many PINemHi high score categories you enable. If your PinballX "Attract Mode" interval is set too short, PinballX will move on to the next table before the DMD has enough time to display all the information you've selected! Below is the dll and the code will be available on github as well https://github.com/MikedaSpike/PinballX-Plugin-FLEXDMD PBXFlexDMD.zip

Database Manager can create and manage filter definitions, but as Scutters mentioned, it doesn’t control the sorting of those filters. The sorting logic is still handled entirely by the frontend, which currently forces alphabetical order. If Tom wants to adjust that behaviour in the frontend, then it could become possible, but as it stands today, custom sorting isn’t supported.

Tom is referring to the PinballX.runtimeconfig.json file located in the root directory of PinballX. I have attached a modified JSON configured to use .NET Core 8. Please try that version. PinballX.runtimeconfig.json

I believe he is referring to the internal Pinball FX3 system. I haven't used the cabinet recently and have only been playing other Steam games, but I suspect that because ZEN has renamed the executable, the internal FX3 system may not be functioning as intended. It might still be possible to configure it properly for a custom system, I presume.

Not sure if it will help, but try changing the setting within VPX: "window" or "exclusive fullscreen." As a workaround, I made the following tool for VR (also GL) as it also could lose focus when starting VP GL. Just run it, and it will appear in your system tray. Launch a GL game from PBX and check if it gains focus on the screen quicker (just for you, not for PBX). BringVPtoFront.exe

No, there isn't. Not sure, but try to use a transparent image for the nobackglass.png .

Thanks Tom. I'll test some this weekend. I just didn't have the energy to test this week.

The exit control function is called, but look like it is taking around 53 sec9nds to close it. Maybe you pressed the q or esvbutton as well. I don't know the codr, but I asume PinballX uses a keyboard/joystick hook. So every keyboard/joystick event can be captured by pinballX as well. On cabinet machines it can be shown easily. For example, i have 3 displays. Display 3 is my playfield, display 2 my backglass and display 1 is my 'desktop" if i launch PBX and switch to my desktop and set the focus to abother program(for example Visual Studio), pinballX will still act and the keyboard and joystick events. DBM has this as well where you can pause or quit the recording when an emulator is starting Edit: Can you retry your test, by pressing the exit and wait for about 1 minute? Just to be sure that PBX is not closing correctly your VP setting. Edit2: Another thing, I think of. In the settings.exe , there is for visual pinball a setting with a full screen hack(don't know the exact name). Try to switch that as well

It's in the first post Draco . @Tom SpeirsI don’t understand the behavior for pcraenme. He said that when setting ‘Use DirectB2S in Front End’ to ‘no,’ PinballX hangs and he has to log off or kill PBX. When he runs it as administrator, it works fine but doesn’t show the media. When set to ‘yes,’ it shows media files instead of the DirectB2S files and runs without admin priviliges. The only difference in the logging, aside from the admin, is that I see 'Main display running full screen windowed.' displayed when using Direct B2S. I tried to reproduce it, but on my setup, setting it to ‘yes’ shows B2S files and setting it to ‘no’ shows media. Any thoughts on this?

Hey buddy, can you create a log file where you launch a table, play the game, press exit, wait for a bit, and if it doesn’t quit, close the emulator another way (pressing Q twice usually works), then post that log? Your current log file doesn’t show an attempt to launch a game, so it’s hard to see what PBx is doing. Also, could you share a screenshot of your VPX ‘Configure Keys, Nudges, and DOF’ screen? I see in your logfile : 20:10:01.24 23-3-2026: Touch screen detected Are you using a touchscreen? (Just curious, nothing to do with your settings.) thanks

As a workaround, try using the record option in DataBaseManager. It has a separate recording engine that doesn’t rely on FFMPEG.. I (and @Tom Speirs I believe as well) would be curious to see what error message appears when you run the FFMPEG command from the command line in your PinballX folder.

The brief black screen in when scrolling the wheel was randomly. Not a specific video. The black screen after the loading videos is constant the same for differrent tables

Please be aware that Tom is working on a version where latest nvidia driver is causing issues. Maybe it also cause issues with recording/snapshots Yes, it's fully explained in the documentation. On the download site, pick a previous version and download. Which issue are you showing here? I believe Tom will be releasing a new version shortly. Let us kindly await that. Should you continue to experience difficulties with the new version, please feel free to create new issues, with one thread allocated per issue, to facilitate effective tracking.

I gave it a try as well, and within the front end it works flawlessly. With over 1000 VPX tables in my list, I went through many of them and only noticed twice a brief black screen lasting half a second between switches, but otherwise transitions were very quick. The only thing I observed was that the transition between loading video and VPX shows a black screen on the playfield for 1–2 seconds. Is it a showstopper? Definitely not, but I do prefer a clean transition between the loading video and the VPX table. I loaded multiple games and they all worked fine. (maybe this can be a configuration setting as well, so show the loading media a bit longer before switching to VPX ?) Anyway, great job, Tom (and chatGPT ?) ! log.txt

Just continue on this for the b2s issue and copy the other to a new thread.

@Draco1962 Can you split this thread for the 2 different issues ? thanks buddy !

Isn't the complete AI part still in its infancy? (The Dutch phrase is funnier, as we say: "Isn't it still in children's shoes?") I thought I read not so long ago that AI could be compared with a grown-up with an IQ of 87. Not too bad, but not good. Only the AI has a large amount of data it can look into, and that is much faster than a person with an IQ of 135. That's why AI looks smart, but doesn't understand words/sentences right. Anyway, I hope it helps Tom with the video playback Not offensively, but if David Paiva found another way of showing multiple videos on screen without using VLC, could any good code programmer do it? (And Tom is one of the best; he is at the top of my list.)

Hello Patrick, Welcome! We appreciate you contacting us. Could you please provide your pinballx.ini file? Additionally, we would be grateful if you could include a log file captured when you launch PinballX and then press the exit button on your game controller. This will help us determine if PinballX is registering the exit command. Furthermore, to clarify a few points: do you experience video playback when "use direct b2s in front end" is enabled, and does disabling it lead to a crash? Could you also confirm if 'B2SBackglassServerEXE.exe' is present in your PinballX directory (if so, try to remove it and rerun)? Regarding your exit button, we recommend configuring this specifically within PBX rather than VPX. Are you currently running VPX as an administrator? You might consider reducing your User Account Control settings and then attempting to run VPX. Please note that if VPX is not executed with administrative privileges, you will not receive a UAC prompt.

So no VR, or at least VR in 2D?

I think you can better ask de visual pinball standalone guys (like jsm) Don't think we have a lot of users here using 10.8.1

To be honest, I don't use AI as I dont trust it. I have Copilot on my PC, and it is always crashing. The subscriptions for AI are pretty expensive (for me and my usage). I tested Google AI Studio, which created a complete web app just by giving some prompts, but the output had a lot of errors. I tried to use NVIDIA Docker images to run an AI tool locally. I made myself a script, which requires an input video file and output a translated SRT file so I could watch a tv show which isn't translated to dutch. With testing, etc., it looks fine, but trying to use a translated SRT and watch a TV show, it didn't work out that well. I'm not a developer, but just an enthusiastic user, but I still want to understand my functions. The only way is to create it myself (and maybe I have too much free time to do it like that) I hope ChatGPT Pro can guide you through DirectX11, Tom. I always assumed you’d be the last person to team up with Skynet for world domination 😜

For a second I almost believed you were letting an AI rewrite your DirectX11 code… and it’s not even April 1st yet. Nice try though!

Yes, that's the correct way. Maybe I was not clear to you, but I'm glad you found it. It's the only way to get to the systems again. Via the select button you can get to more options, like filters, favourites. Check the manual for all options !

Fortunately, your configuration appears to be in order. Therefore, if you have selected Visual Pinball, you can press 'select' (joynr 7 according to your ini). This action will display a list, with "launch table" at the top. Within this list, you should find an option labeled 'systems'. Selecting this option should return you to the main screen, allowing you to choose FX3. I hope this helps