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Hi Tom, thank you for providing PinballX over the years. This is still my favourite frontend! But now my question: I like to use also other programs to manage my database-xml-files. E.g. PinballX Database Manager because it provides additional properties like <IPDBnr> or <dateadded>. But when I am in PinballX to rate a table, PinballX will delete the additional properties of that table. When using Games Manager, the additional properties of all games will be lost after save. It would be greate, if PinballX would only change e.g. the rating-property and leave the others unchanged. Thanks and have a greate day, Stefan PS: I am using PinballX Version 5.31, the attached file shows the lost properties of the first game Attack from Mars 3.02. VPX 7.0 - Kopie.xml

I always have problems with databases mismatching some of my games titles & description. And then of course some databases are simply incomplete. What is the best practice to mix database information with custom information, with regards to games titles and description? Mainly I want to be able to achieve the following: 1) Have GameEx use database titles and games descriptions as a starting point 2) Overwrite titles & description with custom values when for some reason there is a mismatch 3) Add custom titles & description when the game is completely missing from the database I understand that GameEx uses .map files for titles. These are easy to modify manually, but will be re-generated every now and then (when exactly?), so if I fix any wrong title here, I have to do it again over and over. Is there a way to disable the re-generation of the map files, once I am confident that I won't change my set of games at least for a while? I understand less about how GameEx uses the database files... which files can I edit manually to add missing games descriptions? Is it possible to edit them with normal text editors, or what software is needed? Will those files be re-generated sometimes? Thanks for help!

I edited my database XML files by hand for Future Pinball, VP993, VPPM5, and VPX. I needed to change many occurrences of a couple of tags and figured doing it by hand would be faster than using Game Manager. After editing PinballX would just bounce me back into Windows once started. So I tried loading each database in the Game Manager. All of them loaded fine except for the VPX file. This database gives me an error about an illegal character in the file. Is there a quick way to locate a typo/illegal character, or am I stuck eyeballing the entire XML?

Is there a Zinc database out there? There are built in Arcade databases for Atomiswave, model2 & model3. But I could not find one for Zinc and one have one or can point me to it? Thanks.

Hi, I'm trying to reorganize my Cab, and im at my Karaoke section right now. I use a MAP file to show a clean list in GameEx but I would really love to use a Database file so people could sort by Song Title or by Artist my files are named like this; Artist@SongTitle^Category.zip I use the @ and the ^ symbols so I can keep a clean list in an EXCEL file, that can do things like make my MAP file. My Map File looks like this; Artist@SongTitle^Category.zip|SongTitle by Artist I've tried many times to make a Database File (mdb) but I can't seem to make it work. i put the FILENAME in the NAME column and in the GOODNAME column, the ARTIST in DEVELOPERS COLUMN and the CATEGORY in CATEGORY column, but in GameEX I still get the name in the MAP file. I see the options for DELVELOPER, CATEGORY, YEAR etc but when I select any, the list is empty. Im using Microsoft Access and have tried MDBPLUS, but if there is a better solution, please point me in the right direction. Thanks for any help

someone help me with this. as soon as i start up gameex, the music plays, i see loading databases but as soon as it done loading, the music abruptly stops and the controller stops working. plz help GameEx.ini log.txt

hello folks, trying to add to pbx the new table for vpx america's most haunted i couldn't found here's the link http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=6161 thanks

Hi All, I'm working on the finishing touches of my cabinet, and running into an issue with custom groups that is driving me insane. I want to display the following custom groups in the menu: ! Favorite! Kid FriendlyEra 1 - Pre 1970Era 2 - 1970'sEra 3 - 1980'sEra 4 - Post 1990Make - BallyMake - GottliebMake - OriginalMake - SternSystem - FPSystem - VP 91System - VP 99System - VP 99 PhyModType - Elec-MechType - Non-PinballType - SS (no DMD)Type - SS (with DMD)This divides up the tables well, and through earlier (also unsuccessful) experimentation, I know that this will fit nicely on the screen and gives all the options I would really want. As you could probably guess from the "system" menus, I have configured 4 systems (Future pinball and 3 version of Visual Pinball). I have 1115 tables total. So, I've copied the 4 system databases to create the "System - X" custom databases, all the rest are created with custom groups. Each custom group maps to databases for each system, for example "! Favorite.xml" contains : <group name="! Favorite"> <database>Future Pinball\! Favorite</database> <database>Visual Pinball\! Favorite</database> <database>VP99\! Favorite</database> <database>VPMOD\! Favorite</database></group> Therefore, there are 4 + (14 x 4) = 60 custom databases. The issue that I'm running into is that not everything is showing up. Initially, it appeared that the VP99 related content was missing, so I spent a hellova long time trying to troubleshoot that to see if I had any errors with my VP99 config. However, everything appeared to be configured properly. Then, I noticed that the log file was showing that not all the custom databases were being loaded. Check out these attachments: lognew.txt logold.txt logold.txt - From this log, you can see the 4 main system databases loading, then it starts loading all the custom databases. First it loads the 15 custom databases for FP, then the 15 for VP 91, then gets to 11 databases for VP 99 PhyMod and stops. So, you can see that 4 "VP 99 PhyMod" custom databases do not load, and ALL 15 "VP99" custom databases do not load. 41 custom databases load, then it stops. lognew.txt - As an experiment, i deleted and removed the "Make - Original" database from the VP 99 PhyMod custom group (it was empty anyway... unfortunately the remaining databases are not empty). Now when you look at the list of custom databases that are loaded, it loads one at the end that it was unable to load before (VP 99 PhyMod, "Type - Elec-Mech"). Again, 41 custom databases load, then it stops. If my conclusion here is correct, it appears then that either a) There is some sort of memory limit that I am hitting into that halts the loading process, or b ) there is a limit to the number of custom databases that can be loaded (41?) Does this make any sense? Is there some way around this apparent limitation? Sorry for the long-winded description, hope I've explained that well. If you've managed to read this far you have my gratitude! Any help or insight that can be offered to solve this problem would be GREATLY appreciated!!! Would be glad to share any other relevant config info that might help solve or workaround this issue... Regards,dinodino

Hi everyone, After surviving a move and then a flood a year ago, I'm finally getting my cab back in shape. I used to have everything pretty much working but along the way I lost lots of my custom settings and have had to re-learn alot. Right now I'm dealing with the Karaoke section of my cab. I have a custom setup using Karafun. I have Game Ex list all my songs and then once I pick one it launches Karafun. The problem I now have is that I used to be able to use a Database file (MdB) that I created to sort songs by artist, title, category etc.... I don't know what happened but that MDB file doesn't seem to do anything anymore. I know Game Ex now uses DB3 files but I'm not sure how to use those or if I have to. The way my Songs are formatted is ARTIST @ SONG TITLE.ZIP Then in the mdb file I used the GOODMERGE,PUBLISHER and other fields to organize the songs in GAME EX. It used to work so not sure what I messed up. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks. PS: Lets not pay attention to the song selection ok.... I have lots of people to entertain... mostly woman!

Recently I have changed over to Pinballx from Hyperpin utilizing the same database for Hyperpin and installing it into Pinballx. I use a very neat and tidy database everything looks like the below example. There are no special characters to muck things up. Once I read the database into "Game Manager.exe", and made one change to it and saved it, the database was rebuilt with the new fields added like the example below, except 100 tables were omitted. I have 565 tables but "Game Manager.exe" will only read 465 tables into it so any attempt to make a change using this program, leaves a newly written database with 100 tables missing. This of course is dangerous and I am glad I retained a copy of the original so I decided to try an experiment. I created another XML file with the remaining 100 tables, executed "Game Manager.exe" to read in the remaining 100 and all of them read into the program perfectly. I then made a change to a record and saved the XML file. Now I had two separate XML database files so I manually combined both of them into a single "Future Pinball.xml" file and started up Pinballx. All 565 tables were there working perfectly so why does "Game Manager" have this limitation is my question? Is this a known bug? <game name="2001 (Gottlieb 1971)"> <description>2001 (Gottlieb 1971)</description> <manufacturer>Gottlieb</manufacturer> <year>1971</year> <type>EM</type> <hidedmd>True</hidedmd> <hidebackglass>True</hidebackglass> <enabled>True</enabled> <rating>0</rating> </game> <game name="24 (Stern 2009)"> <description>24 (Stern 2009)</description> <manufacturer>Stern</manufacturer> <year>2009</year> <type>SS</type> <hidedmd>True</hidedmd> <hidebackglass>True</hidebackglass> <enabled>True</enabled> <rating>0</rating> </game> <game name="24 MOD (Stern 2009)"> <description>24 MOD (Stern 2009)</description> <manufacturer>Stern</manufacturer> <year>2009</year> <type>SS</type> <hidedmd>True</hidedmd> <hidebackglass>True</hidebackglass> <enabled>True</enabled> <rating>0</rating>

I'm trying to setup Future Pinball in GameEx. I checked the database file in the Data\Emulators folder for Future Pinball, but it seems to be empty? I've tried downloading the DB again from the GameEx website but that DB also seems to be empty? Am I missing something? Thanks