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This plugin is created as work around for issues with the XDMD API that is used within PinballX. See : https://forums.gameex.com/forums/topic/27873-realdmd-still-in-use-by-pinballx-after-table-is-launched-when-attract-mode-was-active/ In short : I have a real DMD (PinDMDv3) and after PinballX running attract mode (screensaver mode) in PinballX and launches a table that uses the DMD (via Pinmame, or DMDext) the display is still in use and nothing is showed during game. Exiting the game will sometimes release the DMD again and next launch of table will sometimes works fine. Or I need to relaunch PinballX. Side effect is that exiting PinballX could take up minutes to close the XDMD dll. This plugin will use FLEXDMD (as this is part of Visual Pinball now) and will show the videos from your realDMD directory. Pre-requests for this plugin : Working Flex DMD 1.9 or higher (https://github.com/vbousquet/flexdmd/actions For non public version, you need to login to Github) Turn off XDMD to initialize the real DMD during start This can be accomplished, by editing the PinDMD.ini in your PinballX directory (if not exists create the file) add/modify the next line : comport=COM7 (the comport bust be a non existing comport of your real DMD) Copy from the attached zip file the PBXFlexDMD.dll to your PinballX\Plugin directory Starts from your PinballX folder (in your start menu) the option Plugins (or from your PinballX directory PluginManager.exe) From the Plugins program, enable FlexDMD Plugin by checking the checkbox and click exit (nothing to configure) Launch PinballX If FlexDMD is configured correctly you will see on your DMD display : When PinballX is started , you will see the corresponding video for your table. The videos are searched in the following order : Extension in priority: MP4 AVI WMV GIF PNG Name : Filename (tablename) Table description - system - \Media\Videos\No Real DMD Color.avi This means it will first search for the exact filename (tablename) with extension .MP4. If not found, it will search for the AVI, still not found for a WMV file. Not matched, it will do the same on table description (with the extension). Still no match, it will check if there is a file - system -.MP4 (avi and WMV) Still no match , it will display the default \Media\Videos\No Real DMD Color.avi The same as PinballX does, the plugin will look in your XML to the HideDMD. If this is set to false, it will display the current video during game play. As I could not get a good scrolling with FlexDMD, the highscores check in settings.exe will be ignored by now. In the plugin directory a log file will be created : PBXFlexDMDDisplay.txt The log file will show all the events that are happening. If you got any question, requests or need support, just ask and I'm willing to help. Most important thing: A big thanks to @scutters who is the 'PinballX Plugin Wizard' and the overal 'FLEXDMD master'. I used parts of his statistics plugin for this plugin, as I was too lazy to do the initialize of FLEXDMD. Thanks buddy ! 2024-11-02 : Updated to v1.3 - added 256x64 support Need to be enabled via PLuginManager.exe PBXFlexDMD.zip

If you download the program and you like it, please leave a review with 5 stars rate at the download page ! After 2 1/2 months of programming, @scutters and I are proud to present to you PinballX Database Manger We created a program to manage your PinballX database files and your media files on a easy way. The download can be found in the download section : There is a manual attached in the setup as well. Thanks for the testers @simbamame, @BrandonLaw, @greynurse and @joyrider3774 GreyNurse give us the idea, to get information populate data from Visual Pinball tables (Author,Version and Rom) Very special thanks to Joyrider3774 who did a great job to find all kind of bugs during Beta testing. Thanks @Tom Speirs for letting us use PinballX logo's and for his approval to use FTP support. And off course for the great program PinballX he created with still a lot of support on it. Also that Tom added our custom fields to be filters in PinbalLX (PBX version 4.54 or higher) Thanks to Dux Retro who created a Google sheet with info for us that is used since version 1.9 ! Thanks to our translators @PcTeknic (Spanish), IJsblokje (German) and Rute O.(Portuguese) for helping translate 600+ words/sentences And a big thank to @scutters. Don't forget to mention him Without him, this program wasn't what it is now. Enjoy !

I just wanted to bring PINemHI leaderboard again to everybody's attention. This small program from @Dna Disturber is really awesome, light weighted and super easy to use. What does it do ? PINemHi LeaderBoard is a program that catches the score and specialscores from player 1 The normal score doesn't have to be on the hiscore table of the game, even scores like 1000 can be submitted. Special scores however can only be submitted if they are over the score of the hiscore table. Special scores are for instance , 20 loops (back to the future) or 50 martians killed (attack from mars) and so on... If you wanna go for SPECIAL SCORES the use of a new,clean nvram might be handy as you can get the scores more easy (especially helpful when trying to get a challenge) If you have a nice score, just don't start a new game but just quit the game, PINemHi LeaderBoard will do the rest. When quitting a game you don't have to rush , just as long as you don't start a new game the score(s) can be retrieved. The scores are sent to the website http://pinemhi.com/hiscores.php Here you can look at your scores and the scores from others and even do challenges. In the new version of PINemHi Leaderboard it is not necessary to use a plugin for a frontend. There is a monitor that you start and that will monitor for activity. You can play in a frontend or just by starting visual pinball. The monitor wil register your scores. At the moment 131 games are supported. During a game it now also is possible to see your top 10 best scores that are on pinemhi leaderboard by pressing a button and of course special scores that you made (for example 20 loops), Also you can add 9 friends to see their scores as well you can see the top 10 best score for a table from people that joined the online leaderboard you can see the cup standings top 10 and your place in the cup Icing on the cake, there is a badges system in place that you can bring up during gameplay to see what kind of achievements you have made ! More icing on the cake , there is a challenge system that you can start with a single press of a button Installation Download from http://www.pinemhi.com/ (right upper corner) You can unzip the files to any folder you like. If you have an older version of pinemhi installed then i would recommend to rename the old pinemhi.ini as you might need some data from that to put in the new pinemhi.ini file. First thing to do after the unzip is to set the pinemhi_rom_monitor file to always execute with administrator rights. You can do this by right clicking and then properties,compatibility and there you will see the option to turn on execute as administrator open pinemhi.ini with your favorite text editor (I prefer notepad) And adjust the following settings : [paths] VP=C:\Visual Pinball\nvram\ FP=C:\Future Pinball\fpRAM\ Set the paths to VpinMame and Future pinball nvrams and fprams folder Set the paths and remember that the last character must be a \ By default the 3 options are set to enabled. You can change this by setting this to 0 [options] replays=1 hiscores=1 buyins=1 replays - this shows the replays when on hiscores - this shows the hiscores when on buyins - this shows the buyin hiscores when on For getting an account to send statistics, go to http://www.pinemhi.com/hiscores.php to register your name and get a code put these in the user section [user] name=XXXXXXXX code=YYYYYY The key section is to set a keyboard key to get challenges and information on screen Challenges are to be displayed in your frontend and information is during gameplay I hope this will be changed, so we can use a button as well (instead of a keyboard key) [keys] key=l challengekey=` I would suggest you pick a key that is not used by visual pinball or the frontend as the key will not function during gameplay, only to show the popups of course challengekey, this is the key to start your challenges with In the display section you can change how the information.chalanges are presented to you Don't forget to set cabinetview=1 if you use a cabinet (this will rotate the information popup) [display] fontcolor=cFFFFFF bgcolor=c000000 font=courier fontsize=s10 fontspecial=bold no_background=0 no_badges_background=1 cabinetview=1 screen=1 The online part will let you choose what you want to display [online] personal_scores=1 personal_special_scores=1 best_scores=1 friend_scores=1 cup_scores=1 badges=1 challengeskill=1 challengeskill is the level of challenges you want (1 = kiddie , 2 = normal , 3 = insane) would recommend kiddie to start with Add your friend(s) (maximum is 9) using their PINemHi Leaderboard name [friends] friend1= friend2= friend3= friend4= friend5= friend6= friend7= friend8= friend9= This looks hard, but this is a one time setup Now you need to do is run pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe at startup of Windows, so it will run always in the background If you run Visual Pinball with highest privileges (admin mode), you need to run PinEmhi Monitor also with high privilege. For some reasons , the program didn't want to run as admin when it runs automaticly. Although the EXE was set as run as admin, the program runs as normal user I created a little batch file that will run the monitor always as admin (Adjust last line with the correct path) This is only needed when running VP or FP as admin ! @echo off REM --> Check for permissions >nul 2>&1 "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\cacls.exe" "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\config\system" REM --> If error flag set, we do not have admin. if '%errorlevel%' NEQ '0' ( echo Requesting administrative privileges... goto UACPrompt ) else ( goto gotAdmin ) :UACPrompt echo Set UAC = CreateObject^("Shell.Application"^) > "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" set params = %*:"="" echo UAC.ShellExecute "cmd.exe", "/c %~s0 %params%", "", "runas", 0 >> "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" del "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" exit /B :gotAdmin pushd "%CD%" CD /D "%~dp0" C:\Pinball\PinemHI\pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe For this an UAC will popup, but I disabled UAC popup on my system. And now use it ! Within your favorite front end press the challenge key and a new challenge will start If you start a challenge it will show you what table you must play and what the challenge is Just start the table and play ! But remember. When exiting this table, it will check at that moment the players 1 highscore ! So if you want to submit your score, after the "Game over", just exit the table and highscore will be submitted If you just want to set highscores, go to http://www.pinemhi.com/hiscores.php This page will show you the last submitted highscore from any user Click on the 'HI-SCore Section' And you can selection per user the stats. Also per table If you select your name and hit submit, you can see your stats. You can see also the NOT played games (The tables under highscore and not played are the tables that are supported now) You can also earn badges. It's very fun and you can show the rest of the world how you play (pretty bad, looking at my scores but I just set it up) Thanks again DNS Disturber for this tool that is already years available and still maintained I used a lot of texts from his installation manual and hope that more people will use this program. EDIT : KBE91's discovered the ability to use the Shift, Control, and Windows keys in combination with other keys. For instance, using '+m' as a hotkey triggers the action assigned to the 'Shift+M' key combination. Detailed combinations and their effects can be explored in the AutoHotkey documentation for hotkeys. https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v1/Hotkeys.htm Example: key=+m above will trigger when you press 'Shift" and 'm'

Finally Zen studio added direct table launch to his latest Pinball FX . This guide will make it easy to setup FX direct table launch from your PinballX installation (without using @joyrider3774 his awesome table launcher file). If you didn't have a FX setup system in PinballX, open PinballX settings (otherwise skipp this part): Go to 'Other Systems' Select the first free slot to add a new system : Create a new system with the following settings: name/Folder : Pinball FX Enabled : Yes System Type: Custom Working Path: C:\Pinball\steam Table Path: Executable: Steam.exe Parameters: -applaunch 2328760 -table [TABLEFILE] -GameMode Classic Process to monitor: PinballFX-Win64-shipping.exe (Where working path is the path of your steam directory) if you play PinballFX in cabinet mode and PinballX is started in landscape mode, you need to rotate your screen within Pinball FX to rotate 270 degrees : Now that we have a system setup, we need a database file file that has all correct entries in it. Attached is a Pinball FX.xml file that was created on the 9th of June, with the tables till that that. Place this file in your PinballX\Databases\Pinball FX folder Now you can launch Game Manager or Database manager to add @joyrider3774 his media he created This result in something like this : If you found all the media, you can launch PinballX and launch Pinball FX with Direct table launch : If you have a real DMD, don't forget to change the DMD option within the cabinet settings for FX (set External DMD): @freezy did a great job with Zen studios to have his dmddevice integrated in this softwrae. When setting this setting, it works directly for me : It should be possible to use the altcolor, but didn't get that (yet) to work) I got Freezy to work with Colored VNI and pall, buit I needed to update my DMDdevice64.dll in my vpinmame\dmdext direectory (not sure why it looked at that See freezy/dmd-extensions: A toolbox for virtual pinball dot matrix displays. (github.com) for altcolor directory names here's a small demo, launch a table directly from PinballX EDIT : Because I already have all the backglass images in PinballX, I disabled the Backglass images within Pinball FX To show the backglass from PinballX during game play, you can uncheck the "Hide Backkglass" in game manager : Or via Database Manger, uncheck "Hide Backglass during game" As this is time consuming, you can also open the PinballFX.XML file and replace <hidebackglass>True</hidebackglass> for <hidebackglass>False</hidebackglass> Don't forget to save the database file ! SETUP CABINET BUTTONS: a small other thing . I use X360CE for 'translating' my Pinscape buttons (and plunger) to an Xbox 360 controller. it is free and working. I still use an older 3.x version, as this doesn't need to run constantly (and causing double key presses) The only thing I needed to do is to copy the following 2 files to the following steam directory : ..\Steam\steamapps\common\Pinball FX\PinballFX\Binaries\Win64 x360ce.ini xinput1_3.dll (64 bit version !) The X360CE.ini is my default ini file, I use for all my steam apps, but be aware you need xinput1_3.dll 64 bit 9and not the 32 bit as you maybe use for other games! FX Launcher To setup a direct table launch, for differrent modes or multiplayer, I modified @joyrider3774 his PinballX launcher, to use for FX The files are in FXLauncher.zip Install instructions : extract the files from the zip to your harddrive Modify PinballFXLauncher.ini where needed (Steam path, keys and button settings). See https://github.com/joyrider3774/PinballX_Launcher_app for all settings Update PinballX system : and enjoy ! Edit : If you want to setup Pinball M , you can use this tutorial as well, but just use the following for your custom system : For Pinball M : name/Folder : Pinball M Enabled : Yes System Type: Custom Working Path: C:\Pinball\steam Table Path: Executable: Steam.exe Parameters: -applaunch 2337640 -table [TABLEFILE] Process to monitor: PinballM-Win64-shipping.exe (Where working path is the path of your steam directory) Pinball FX.xml FXLauncher.zip Pinball M.xml Pinball FX.xml Pinball FX_128Tables.xml

Hi, followed this and managed to get to work, launch the tables, etc. https://forums.gameex.com/forums/topic/28881-guide-setup-zen-pinball-fx-and-pinball-m-in-pinballx-steam-version/page/2/#comment-218180 Only problem is exiting the table. Whilst it does exit in PinballX, the main program Pinball FX remains open in the background This means the more tables you open and close through PinballX for Pinball FX, the performance starts to suffer. Anyone else had this problem? Just need to make sure when table is exited, Pinball FX exits also. I think the problem is no way to close Pinball FX by a key, i.e. Esc. You need to go to setting tog with mouse and select Exit Game and then selected Yes I have Pinball FX 3 in PinballX and that closes correctly

Hi - I did not want to start a new thread. Hope you can help I am nearly there with colourisation of the roms in FX - so close, yet so far. For example Fish Tales loads up a blue DMD and Indiana Jones and Creature from the Black Lagoon also similar - DMD all messed up colours but works in some sections - strange. The roms works in fine in VPX - just here there is a problem Testing using Desktop Activated cabinet mode Selected Dotmatrix Window / External DMD Device* Renamed tables in altcolor folder: 108 (Fish Tales) for example. Renamed as pin2dmd.pac Tried using Enviromental Values as in certain FAQ's Attached pics of Fish Tales - can see title very faint - when ball is locked it shows the scene 100% ok. Indiana Jones is all messed up - but shows the planes ok when you go up the ramps. Creature from the Black Lagoon starts fine but as soon as game starts, all messed up. *With the DMD log - unsure if this is correct - I could only get external DMD to show as an option in cabinet mode if I dropped my DMDDevice, DMDDevice.log.config and DMDDevice64.fll in the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pinball FX\PinballFX\Binaries\Win64 That does not seem to be in any guide - is that correct? I am guessing there needs to be something in Pinball FX to link it to where your external DMD is saved? Hope someone can help DmdDevice.log

If PinballX crashes and you lose your mouse pointer, the best approach is to attempt relaunching PinballX and then close it properly. To accomplish this using only your keyboard, proceed with the following three steps. Step 1: Open search bar Press the Windows Key Step 2: Launch PinballX Type 'PinballX' (without the quotes) and press enter Step 3: Close PinballX Press ALT-F4 to close PinballX sucessfully If PinballX is still crashing, or your mouse pointer does not appear after PinballX has closed successfully, the next steps will guide you on how to restore your mouse pointer using only the keyboard. Step 1: Open Settings Press Windows Key + I to open the Settings menu. Step 2: Navigate to Devices Use the Tab key to move through the options until “Devices” is highlighted (bluetooth and devices in Windows 11). Press Enter to select it. Step 3: Go to Mouse Settings Use the Tab key again to navigate through the options on the left side until “Mouse” is highlighted. Press Enter to open the Mouse settings. Step 4: Change the Mouse Pointer Use the Tab key to navigate to “Additional mouse options” and press Enter. In the Mouse Properties window, use the Tab key to navigate to the “Pointers” tab. Press Enter to select it. Use the Tab key to navigate to the “Scheme” dropdown menu, and use the Arrow keys to select a different pointer scheme. Press Enter to apply the changes. Step 5: Apply and Save Use the Tab key to navigate to the “Apply” button and press Enter. Then, navigate to the “OK” button and press Enter to close the window.

When you need to remove the flash.ocx ,because your log file shows: 01:21:02.14 10/26/1985: Please try deleting flash.ocx in the installation folder and then reininstall PinballX. 01:21:02.14 10/26/1985: You may need to change security properties on the file. 01:21:02.14 10/26/1985: If PinballX does not initialize you should address this issue. It could be a difficult thing to remove the file. I hope this tutorial will make it easier. Navigate to your PinballX folder via the windows explorer (My example is in c:\pinball\PinballX, but could be installed in another drive/folder) and locate flash.ocx. Right click on it and select Properties Click on the security Tab and select Edit In the Permisissions for FlashOCX, make sure Everyone is selected And click on the Allow Full Control Click Apply and click OK after that Now click on Advanced There will be 2 entries for Everyone. Select the Deny Everyone and click remove Click again on Apply and click OK Click OK to close the window Now you are able to delete the Flash.ocx file

Starting from Visual Pinball 10.8, the settings from VP is moved from registry to INI file. This make the flexibility of Visual Pinball easier during transfer, but you can also have more Visual Pinball systems on your system, and uses different settings files for this. Start with some back ground : To use Visual pinball, you need a complete setup of VP. For the basic you need to have a working VpinMame and Directb2sserver (this can be accomplished by using the AIO installer from the Vpinball github ) if you want more advanced work, You properly will use DMDdevice.dll, FlexDMD, DOF and pinup player If all is working for your desktop/cabinet/vr/head tracking environment, you can have add multiple versions to your system as well. You can use this for testing a Beta, adding GL support or separate versions between 32 bit and 64 bit. the issues with all versions before VP 10.8 was that when you launch any version of Vpinball in any location, it uses the registry and all has the same configuration. From VP 10.8 the ini file is located in %appdata%\VpinballX and by default it uses VPinballX.ini When this file is not present, it will check if there is any registry entry and will transform the registry keys into the VPinballX.ini file. When file is present, all instances will use this file. But if you want a different setting for a specific table, or even for a complete system, without changing registry (see for example my post over setting up VR https://forums.gameex.com/forums/topic/28465-pinballx-with-vr-on-oculusmeta-quest ), there will be an easy way now When launching from the command line VpinballX.exe (Vpinball_gl.exe, vpinballX64.exe or Vpinball_gl64.exe) with the parameter -ini <Full path to ini file> it will creates a new INI file on the path you specified. the INI file is directly created and contains the values which I have from my registry. As I launched VpinballX, I can make a configuration changes and this will all be saved in the newly created file When Launching the GL version of VpinballX, an extra option is available for VR. The VR settings will also be available in the INI file. But, if you want to have different settings for VR as your normall version, just launch the GL version with a different setting : (in my example I mixed VP 32 bit with GL 64 bit) So now I got 2 settings files. 1 completely configured for VR and 1 for regular playing (this is just an example, you can also do it for tables with issues, head tracking, or even switching between desktop and cabinet.) to use this file during game play ? At the time this post was made, PinballX can only switch command line parameters via setting up a new system, or using a custom launcher (with a variable that can be set). launch Settings.exe and go to your Visual pinball system add to 'Parameters' the -ini option with the path to your ini and for the 2nd system : I showed just 1 example for different INI files, but it's up to you to use it for setting up different INI files for your system. Having issues with 1 or 2 table with the performance, and don't want to set it for all tables, just create a INI file with a bit lower specs that runs the table fine and launch this table with it. Make sure you make a backup of your ini file, in case something happen to your system ! Default file is %appdata%\Vpinball\VpinballX.ini (if you launch the VpinballX without the -INI parameter, it will use this file)

@Dacstyle asked me for documentation for settings up Vpinball 10.8 (still in beta) with different settings. Some use cases : Default cabinet support Used for tables with that needs some lower graphics settings VR system Headtracking devices In previous versions all settings where set in the registry and using for example another system needs a launch script to change the value in the registry. Starting from VisualPinballX 10.8 all the settings are stored in an INI file When launching the VpinballX.EXE (VpinballX_GL.EXE, VPinballX64.exe or VPinballX_GL64.exe) for the first time, it will copy all the settings from the registry to %appdata%\VPinballX\VPinballX.ini When this file exists, everytime you launch VpinballX 10.8 (or higher) it will use this INI file. any change you make to the configuration will be made to this file as well To use Visual Pinball with different settings, you can make copies of this file. In my example I will make 3 different settings files : Standard Visual Pinball Visual Pinball 64 bit GL for headtracking Visual Pinball 64 Bit GL for VR But as I said, you can make your settings file If you save the INI file next to your table file, with the same table name, it will use this ini file for the specific table as well ! (But hard to manage 1100+ tables like me) My steps : Copy the file %appdata%\VPinballX\VPinballX.ini to your Visual Pinball Directory. For me it is C:\Pinball\Visual Pinball Rename the file so, it you know the purpose of it In my example : Will be the standard VP settings (no extra ini, just the one from appdata) Visual VPinballX_Headtracking.ini Visual VPinballX_VR.ini So I got 2 ini files in my Visual Pinball directory : To launch Visual Pinball with a specific INI file, you need to launch the exe from the command line with a special -ini parameters : For example to launch the VR : This is not really user friendly, so I want to make it a bit easier. When just checking tables, I'm not using my front end, but just using file explorer. When I right click on them, I want to options that I created (see the 3 above). Like this : Open and Edit are still the default But 'Edit Kinect' and 'Edit VR', I added (with the correct Ini files). Create a text file call VP.reg (or anything with the extension .reg) paste the following into it : Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VPX_auto_file\shell\Edit VR] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VPX_auto_file\shell\Edit VR\command] @="\"C:\\Pinball\\Visual Pinball Beta\\VPinballX_gl64.exe\" -ini \"C:\\pinball\\Visual Pinball\\VPinballX_VR.ini\" -edit \"%1\"" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VPX_auto_file\shell\Edit Kinect] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VPX_auto_file\shell\Edit Kinect\command] @="\"C:\\Pinball\\Visual Pinball Beta\\VPinballX64.exe\" -ini \"C:\\pinball\\Visual Pinball\\Visual VPinballX_Headtracking.ini\" -edit \"%1\"" Modify the names to display ('Edit Kinect' and 'Edit VR') for your own purpose Also change the paths to the EXE files and the INI files to your own needs save the file and should show up like this : Double click the file click Yes and click Yes to confirm Now you have the 2 extra menu options Note : If you want to setup for all users, replace the following lines from: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VPX_auto_file\shell to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\VPX_auto_file\shell If you now right click on a VPX file, you can edit this in the system you want, and when exiting Visual Pinball , it will save it to that file. For example, we only copied the files to the Viusl Pinball Direcorty. now I want to setup my VR environment : I right click on a VPX and select Edit VR Visual Pinball will open (Gl version with the ini file for VR) I can make my adjustments for any settings and close Visual Pinball. this will automaticlly save the INI file Testing a table ? just click run (F5) in the editor Now do this for all your ini files. If you want to setup a specific INI file for a table that needs special threatment. just copy an in ifile to the location where your VPX table is, and name the INI file with the same name : How to setup your frontend ? Different configs needs to be separated by extra System (I hope that Tom will add this feature request ) to the parameters, add -ini with the INI file as well I have my VR tables in a different folder and set it up like this :

What a great tutorial, this has been a big help! one question if I may about the fx launchers for pinball fx: when exiting a game and starting a new one it always starts the previous game instead. Is it a parameter somehow that I’m missing? Thank you !

HIRez00 created a long time ago some underlays for me. He asked me to NOT distribute them, and I respected that. As I understand from him, he was massive fallout, backlash and accusations for his latest release of Halloween. Some big names (I will not mention them by name) slammed him publicly and even went as far to get him banned / thrown off of Facebook, which was the last straw for him. He will no longer be posting any of his creations for the VPX community to download freely on any public site. But he gave me permission to post his underlays. The files are all 4k If put the underlays on FTP with suffix [HIRez00 4K] in the name on /-PinballX-/Media/System Underlays and can be downloaded easily with Database manager Here are some examples: I re-created some of those files in red and resolution is 2k (1440x2560) as my playfield monitor is just QHD Also on FTP with Suffix [Mike DA Spike 2k] Here are some examples as well : I want to thank HIRez00 for all his great work and contribution for the pinball community in the past years. Thanks buddy, I really appreciate the work you did ! Within PBX it can show like this :

Just wanted to share my setup with VR on my cabinet and with PinballX as front end. I could not use a single version/config of PinballX, so I ended up by installing PinballXSetup_XP_and_32bit in a different directory. This is not ideally yet as PinballX is not aware of the VR environment, but Tom will work on that There is an awesome VP VR launcher, that is created in unity and work directly on my VR glasses, but when using this launcher I have several issues : Pressing the exit button, won't exit VPX tables Tables are populate automaticlly from the VPX tables dir, but I don't see them all Because of this 2 issues, I wanted a good and trusted front end. My setup : Full cabinet, with Real DMD, DOFlinx, Pinscape joy controller and SSF As VR VP need some other settings than VP itself, I created some batch files and registry keys (i will discuss those later) I didn't want to screw up my complete cabinet, because that is working fine. Directory structure to keep all seperated : C:\Pinball <-- Base Pinball Directory ..\PinballX <-- PinballX core for cabinet use ..\PinballXLegacy <-- PinballX XP and 32 version for VR ..\PinballX Database Manager <-- Database manger to manage both PinballX versions ..\Visual Pinball <-- Complete Visual Pinball Directory (version 10.7.3 at the moment) ..\Tables\VPX <-- Directory with only VPX tables for cabinet ..\Tables\VR_VPX <-- Directory for VPX tables use in VR ..\Visual Pinball VR <-- minimal VPinballX_GL.exe 10.8 version. No pinmame ..\Tools <-- All kind of tools are located here ..\DisplayTools\DC <-- Easy tool to rotate screen ..\PBX Tools\StartScripts <-- All my PinballX launch/start scripts The "c:\pinball\Visual Pinball VR" only contains the VpinballX_GL_xx.x.x-xxx zip file from https://github.com/vpinball/vpinball/actions As this is still a beta and some files are shared with Visual Pinball itself, it will be safe to have it next to each other. NOTE : This doesn't means that the settings for key's, graphics etc are stored on 2 differences places. These are located in the registry As I have a real DMD that is using Freezy's DMDdevice.dll. Within Visual Pinball the VR DMD won't work if the real DMD is running. So using the VR, I need to disable the real DMD when launching VR and do when using cabinet, I need to enable my real DMD again. To do this, I did the following steps : Copy current DMDdevice.dll from C:\Pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME to C:\Pinball\Tools\PBX Tools\StartScripts\DMDdeviceINI\dmddevice_Cabinet.ini Make copy of dmddevice_Cabinet.ini to dmddevice_VR.ini Change the following entries in the dmddevice_VR.ini : [virtualdmd] enabled = true [pindmd3] enabled = False This will show the virtual DMD on screen and disables my real DMD Benefit of this, that it also shows the colored DMD in the VR environment (Didn't test the alphanumeric as well, but should work as well For playing in VR, I need to adjust some settings in Visual Pinball as well. Settings for Visual pinball are stored in the registry under the users reg key : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Pinball\VP10 If you want to be save, export the registry key and save it to a file For VR, the main differences for Visual pinball are : Disable Directb2s (as the backglass should be in the FSS mode of the table) Disable Full screen mode (not sure why ...) Disable antialiasing Capture external DMD set Max texture dimension to 3072 (instead of unlimited) I created to reg files, with these settings (could be that you need to tweak it yourself a bit) VisualPinballVR.reg (for VR mode) : [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Pinball\Controller] "ForceDisableB2S"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Pinball\VP10\Player] "FullScreen"=dword:00000000 "FXAA"=dword:00000000 "ForceAnisotropicFiltering"=dword:00000000 "CaptureExternalDMD"=dword:00000001 "MaxTexDimension"=dword:00000C00 VisualPinballCabinet.reg [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Pinball\Controller] "ForceDisableB2S"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Pinball\VP10\Player] "FullScreen"=dword:00000001 "FXAA"=dword:00000001 "ForceAnisotropicFiltering"=dword:00000001 "CaptureExternalDMD"=dword:00000000 "MaxTexDimension"=dword:00000000 With these files, I was easily to switch between cabinet and VR, but another issue came up : To show PinballX on my VR, I need to enable Quest link (Air link in my case). With Quest Link on the VR glasses and the oculus software on my PC, I can show the desktop screen in Quest Link on the VR. But to do that, my cabinet display needs to be set in portrait mode, otherwise the VR show a landscape with a 90 degrees rotated screen, but Visual Pinball needs to run in landscape mode otherwise the Pinmame would not work in VR. I created the following batch files : InitVR.cmd @echo off C:\Pinball\tools\DisplayTools\dc\dc64cmd.exe -rotate=right c:\windows\system32\reg.exe import "C:\Pinball\Tools\PBX Tools\StartScripts\vpisualPinballvr.reg" copy "C:\Pinball\Tools\PBX Tools\StartScripts\DMDdeviceINI\dmddevice_VR.ini" "C:\Pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\dmddevice.ini" /y exit InitCabinet.CMD @echo off C:\Pinball\tools\DisplayTools\dc\dc64cmd.exe -rotate=up c:\windows\system32\reg.exe import "C:\Pinball\Tools\PBX Tools\StartScripts\VisualPinballCabinet.reg" copy "C:\Pinball\Tools\PBX Tools\StartScripts\DMDdeviceINI\dmddevice_Cabinet.ini" "C:\Pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\dmddevice.ini" /y exit I changed the PinballX XP and 32bit version settings.exe Display : Startup script : Visual Pinball system: Exit Script : This means that launching PinballX XP and 32bit version, the screen will be set in portrait mode PinballX should not rotate it (horizontal) The DMDdevice.ini for VR will be copied to the pinmame directory Registry settings for VR will be imported. As Visual Pinball system is set to the VPX_VR tables path and the program is set to VPinballX_GL.exe, gamemanager.exe and DatabaseManager will use the correct path to search your tables. The screen will be rotated to landscape when launching a table and will be set to portrait mode again when exiting a table. Exiting PinballX, will set the registry keys for cabinet, use DMDdevice.ini for cabinet and rotate your screen to landscape mode When launching PinballX XP and 32 bit version, I can put on the VR glasses, launch Quest Link in VR and connect to the PC. Here's a video I tried to grab with my phone. It gives an impression how it works. For some reason the top and bottom part are cut off VID-20230105-WA0002.mp4

As VPX is fully supported for 64 bit, but some tables still need to run with 32 bit, I made a small explanation how to use PBX to run Visual Pinball with alternate exe in 32 bit (and have 64 bit as default I moved completely to 64 bit (see https://github.com/vpinball/b2s-backglass/wiki/64bit-VPX-Pincab-Setup-Guide how to setup) , but have 1 table that need to run in 32bit VPX. I only extracted from VPinballX-10.7.3-395-2bd9ac3-Release-win-x86.zip (could be another version as well, as long it is the x86 file, and preferable matching the version of your X64 version) the following 4 files :Bass.dll, freeimage.dll, scilexervp.dll and vpinball.exe to a TEMP folder Rename in this temp folder the Vpinball.exe to Vpinball_X86.exe And now copy(or move) these files to your current \Visual Pinball directory (where your 64 bit exists. Now you can run 32bit (X86 aka Vpinball_X86.exe ) and 64 bit (X64 aka Vpinball.exe) Note that your file association is set to VPinball.exe (so the 64 bit) Setup in Databasemanager that only this table should run with this vpinball_X86.exe (see alternate exe) and selecting this table in PinballX would load this game in 32bit : 05:55:17.28 18-3-2023: Working directory set to: D:\pinball\Visual Pinball 05:55:17.28 18-3-2023: D:\pinball\Visual Pinball\D:\pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinballX_X86.exe -play "D:\Pinball\Visual pinball\Tables\VPX\Ghostbusters LE (Stern 2016).vpx" -ExtMinimized 05:55:17.31 18-3-2023: D:\Pinball\PinballX\vpauto.exe 05:55:21.19 18-3-2023: VPX Full screen exclusive mode detected 05:55:21.19 18-3-2023: VPX Full screen exclusive focus hack set 05:55:41.75 18-3-2023: Exit System Control Pressed 05:55:46.49 18-3-2023: Created DirectX BackGlass Window 05:55:46.50 18-3-2023: Main display running full screen windowed. @Tom SpeirsIf I add "D:\pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinballX_X86.exe" to my alternate exe, it will show the folder twice in the log If I change the path to another fodler, it will ignore taht and searches in the default path of Visual Pinball. Should alternate exe be set without a path ? it will always launch that EXE from the default Visual Pinball directory, and not from the path I gave

The complete PinballX Documentation View File The complete PinballX documentation to setup your Pinball cabinet. All the options/screens are explained how you can modify PinballX to show what you want. Thanks for the previous persons that worked on the document. I received the template @Draco1962and used an old version of the document (Thanks to @zeenonwho created the first version of the documentation) I re-used some texts, but most I completely re-create on a PC that didn't had PinballX on it. It took me around 4 months to get it all together. Version of document is the latest version of PinballX on date of publishing this document. All the features that are described in the document are available in the same version of PinballX Any new features of new releases should be added Submitter Mike_da_Spike Submitted 02/21/22 Category Documentation & Tutorials  

Hi All ! I created a small script (I'm not a programmer !) , that will create videos for DMD and Toppers I was inspired from@Thalamus videos posted on Vpinball forum. Thalamus created videos for real DMD color that first shows the wheel image for some seconds, than the year published and finally the company logo. This all makes a video of around 7 seconds. If you enable high score showing in PinballX, it is a nice show when scrolling through your front end. I wanted a program that could create this automatically and only created the missing ones And this is the result ! Based on your PinballX installation , the program will find your database/and media directory. Based on the tablename\Displayname in Gamemanager/Database manager it will check all your tables for a system. It will searches your wheel images, search for Company name and added the year with it. The logo is just the file it finds in the "Wheel images" directory The Company is the name that is found under "Media\Company Logos" You can use the same naming convention that PinballX is using (so also between, before and after year) The year is made by me. It is a directory that is in the ZIP file. Just place it somewhere and point in the CreateVideos_settings.exe to it. You can off course create your own year files with the font and color you like . Make sure the files are in PNG format and has a 228x142 resolution and name them like <year>.png if you got the Wheels and company and year setup, run the CreateVideos_settings.exe that is attached Image path: This is the path where you have your year images located PinballX systems All the Systems that are found in PinballX excluding the systems that needs to be created for videos Systems to create video In this section, put the systems that you need to create your video's . Add them with the > button or remove them with < DMD Videos Creation Enable/Disable DMD video creations. This will be save in the correct DMD folder ('DMD Videos', 'Real DMD Videos' or 'Real DMD Color Videos') Topper Videos Creation Enable/Disable Topper video creations. This will be save in the 'Topper videos' folder Overlay Used: None : No overlay is used. Small : Overlay with 320x80 pixels Medium : Overlay with 256x64 pixels pixels Large : Overlay with 128x32 pixels pixel NOTE : Real DMD video's are always 128x32 without overlay ! (system will detect if real DMD is used) EXTRA note : Starting from Version 3.3.2 I have added animated images as well that can be used as source file. A good animated source pack is @scuttersCompany Logo pack. Unfortunately, this pack shows pretty awesome in the PinballX front end, but the animations are adjusted for the frontend. If you use this pack directly to create your DMD or Topper videos, the videos do not show correct. To avoid this problem, I introduced a 'non documented' feature. You are now able to select a different path for company tables, or for your wheel images. Doing this, the wheels/company logo's do still shows fine in your frontend, but you can use a different set to create your DMD/Topper videos. In the download file, I have added a folder called AlternateCompanysLogos. This folder contains the awesome Scutters animated logo's, but I modified them to be used for this tool. To use another folder for company logo's, you must edit the CreateVideos.ini file with (for example) notepad.exe under the [images] section add the following line AlternateCompanyPath= followed by the complete path where you have logo's The same can be done for wheels as well. In the [System] section, you must add a line AlternateWheelPath followed by the system number and with the path behind it This will ignore the default path that PinballX is using and uses your other path for creating your video's Here's an example of mine INI file I used an alternative company path and only for visual pinball a different set of wheels to create my videos [Images] PathtoImages=C:\Pinball\Tools\CreateDMDToppervideos\YearImages AlternateCompanyPath=C:\Pinball\Tools\CreateDMDToppervideos\AlternateCompanys [Global] LogSize=0 LogPath=C:\Pinball\PinballX\LOG LogFileName=CreateVideos.log LogLevel=LOGLVL_INFO [System] 1=Visual Pinball 9 4=Visual Pinball (P-ROC) 2=Visual Pinball 3=Zaccaria Pinball AlternateWheelPath2=C:\Pinball\Tools\CreateDMDToppervideos\AlternateVisualPinballWheels [Videos] DMDOverlay=None CreateDMD=True CreateTopper=False Example Videos : RealDMD : None: Small: Medium: Large : I hope all makes sense Here is the program, including the Year folder (put that somewhere on your drive and make sure the CreateVideos_settings.exe is pointing to that folder) Just run the CreateVideos_settings.exe and setup your configuration Launch CreateVideos.exe to create your missing videos. By default the logfile is set to the same directory as where you run the program from. missing wheel/company and other errors will be displayed in here. As I said : I'm not a programmer, so please be kind if you have some feedback. Special thanks to @Thalamus who inspired me to create this script. Also special thanks to @scutters who gave the template of the large 128x32 overlay (based on that I create the other overlays) And thanks to @joyrider3774 for the extra feature request and testing of all this

Recently I reinstalled my Pinball cabinet because I swapped my PC and my TV. As I needed to reinstall and setup almost everything, I wanted to share how I setup my Pinball Cabinet. This doesn't explain how you need to setup and configer a program like Visual Pinball/Future Pinball etc, but just some tips and tricks to setup your PC to launch PinballX automaticly, etc This is not how to build a pinball Cabinet, but how I setup the PC with a default Windows 11 pro installation and PinballX as a front end. Installing Operating system I’m not going to explain how a windows installation needs to be installed on a PC. I just used the official Microsoft ISO and installed it with a valid Pro key that I bought. Install the drivers etc that is needed to run the PC smooth I installed the NVIDIA GeForce experience as well, as I used the record function to record the playfield (see https://forums.gameex.com/forums/topic/25055-guide-how-to-setup-gpu-driver-capture-nvidia-only/ ) With a tool called Brutal Removal Tool (BRU - https://github.com/arcadesdude/BRU), I removed the bloatware on the OS that I did not want to use in the operating system. Be carefully that you don’t delete apps/software that is needed for the operating system ! Set windows to Auto logon As the Cabinet needs to be logged on automaticlly, I use the windows auto logon feature. It is maybe not recommended, but I use my Microsoft account to logon to the system. Its properly better to use a local account (not admin), but that’s what you prefer Here’s an article that shows different ways how to turn on auto logon : https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-auto-login/ Note : One thing that I didn’t want is to sync my theme across my PC’s as the cabinet is setup with a background from PinballX : loading.png Here’s a small instruction: Go to Settings > Accounts > Windows Backup Expand Remember my preferences and uncheck Other Windows settings I also turned off Remember my apps Restore AC Power Loss This is a very imported option. You must enter your bios of the computer and enable this feature. Why ? Most of the cabinets doesn’t have a computer switch on the outside of the cabinet. Just the PC is inside. This option let the computer turn on, when you completely power off your cabinet and restore the power again. In my cab I made a switch that complete turn off (and on) the cabinets plug extension boxes (and devices attach to it) Disadvantage of this, is that you create a large power peak when turning all the devices at once. Advantage is that you can turn on your complete cabinet with just 1 switch. Here are 2 different BIOS version screenshots to power on the pc after AC power loss. Check your motherboard manual how to setup it for your device. Managing the PC As my cabinet has an Ethernet connection on the back, I manage my cabinet software (and pinball updates) remotely. I use the free version of Team Viewer for it. This is because TV can show all the monitor as a separate screen, and shows the screens 1:1 (resized to the client your running from). Microsoft RDP is possible as well, but the RDP window isn’t the actual screen size. On the cabinet I use Teamviewer host that only allows local connections (not from the internet) Set Incoming Lan Connections to Accept exclusively to only allow LAN connections and no Internet connections Windows Screen Setup The screen setup should be configured correctly to show the front end and the emulators in the correct positions. PinballX can be setup in portrait mode and in landscape mode. Within the settings.exe the rotation can be set, to show the screen correctly. For years, the recommended setup is to setup all screens in windows in landscape mode : I use this setup : As I have a real DMD (pinDMDv3), my screen2 is just an HDMI dongle that simulates a screen. This virtual screen is most of the time disabled in the config. I enable this (via command line) for Emulators that shows a virtual DMD and I want to mirror it on my real DMD (like Visual Pinball Proc tables, Pinball Wicked etc) To create different profiles for the screen setup, I use DC2.exe from 12 noon (free version). It can be found here: https://12noon.com/?page_id=641 With dc2.exe, you can export the current display config to an XML file. First, set your entire displays configuration correctly. This includes resolutions on all screens and the refresh rate of the screens. Make sure you use the scale & layout settings to 100%. If the config is fine, run the command to export. For example you have setup your displays for 4k, landscape and only 2 screen enabled: DC2.exe –create=Landscape_4k_2Screens.xml Do this for all the configs you need to use (you can always create afterwards also the config) I like to start my system in Portrait mode, so when the cabinet starts, the operation system shows correctly when I’m standing in front of my cabinet. But when doing administration on the cab (updating tables), it is better for me to do it in landscape mode. Directory Structure To keep every program/app/tool together for pinball, I use a simple directory structure. all is placed into my C:\Pinball directory. The advantage is that I only have to backup this directory to have a complete copy of my system As I use a 2TB ssd, I’ve not set my PinupPlayer to the c:\Pinball All my pupvideos are on d:\ drive (As they packages can be pretty large) So my steps to install the software : Create c:\Pinball directory Create a sub directory c:\Pinball\Tools Install VPX (fullpackage) to c:\Pinball\Visual Pinball Install Future Pinball to c:\Pinball\Future Pinball Install PinballX to c:\Pinball\Pinballx Install DBM to c:\pinball\PinballX Database Manager Install DOF & DOFLINX to c:\Pinball\directOutput Install PinemHi to c:\Pinball\PinemHI I’ve created my own P-roc Installation that install all to c:\Pinball\P-roc Install Steam to c:\Pinball\Steam (login and download all the pinball games) Install Epic to c:\Pinball\Steam (login and download all the pinball games) Software can be found anywhere on the internet, and also how to setup and configure this. Recommended software updates: B2SBackglassServer VpinMame If you want to create your own videos within PinballX, download ffmpeg.exe and copy it to the c:\Pinball\PinballX directory FlexDMD Small tools/ to keep your cabinet (automated) up to date, can be placed n the c:\Pinball\Tools directory: B2S Designer DMDext (for mirroring a virtual DMD to my real PinDMD3) Display Tools (to change display resolutions). Note: Make a sub dir Profiles in the display tools directory where you save all your different display profiles (XML’s) FX3Launcher, Zaccaria launcher & Pinball Wicked Launcher (by Joyrider) Joystick Gremlin and X360CE for simulating joystick for Steam and Epic Games Off course, I have more tools in this directory, but above are the most important ones to begin with. Software/Emulator testing Make sure that your software/emulator is working fine in Windows. PinballX is powerful, but doesn’t fix any issue with your setup! So make sure you play pinball with all your buttons/plunger/dof etc in Windows, before importing it in PinballX. Another Important notice: If you want direct table launch for a pinball emulator/program, test this from the command line. If this is working you can ‘convert’ this to a system within PinballX. For example a Visual Pinball command: Should launch (if you have the correct table name ) Extra Windows changes I’ve made some small modifications to my windows setup, to make it easier to manage my cabinet : Use SendTo to easily copy files to a directory Add the VpinMame ROMS directory to the ‘Send to’ dialog, to copy easier roms to the correct folder Hit WindowsKey+R icon on your system to open the Run dialog Type: shell:SendTo and hit OK I removed all the predefined shortcuts in that list (select all and delete) and create a new shortcut to c:\pinball\visual Pinball\vpinmame\roms Now the SendTo will looks like this: This makes it easier for me to save the roms to the correct location. if you want, you can do this for multiple other folders as well Clear recycle bin on startup As administrator of your cabinet, you will properly do many changes on your cabinet. Add/remove tables etc. I noticed that my Recycle Bin become full every time. So I setup a scheduled task that will empty the recycle bin during start of the cabinets PC. open Task scheduler: I created a folder Pinball In the root of the task scheduler, so all my pinball tasks can be located on one place. Right click on Task Scheduler Library and select New Folder … Right click on the Pinball Folder and select Create Task Give it a name (like: empty recycle Bin) Select ‘Run whether user is logged on or not’ Select ‘Do not store password’ Select ‘Run with highest privileges’ On the triggers tab, select New, choose ‘At startup’ and check the ‘Enabled’ checkbox On the actions tab, click New… Action: Start a program Program/script: CMD.exe Add arguments (optional): /min /c "echo Y|PowerShell.exe -NoProfile -Command Clear-RecycleBin" Click OK until the new schedule task is closed. NOTE: DO NOT ENABLE STORAGE SENSE on your cabinet. This will clears also your temp directory and causes that PinballX would take a long time to start Turn off windows notifications: To avoid any popup within window, I turned off windows notifications: Turning off Widgets in Windows: Another annoying thing in windows are widgets. Especially on the cabinet. I turned them off as well the chat and task view ‘Old’ right click options in W11 As I do a lot of copy/paste, and other stuff on a file, I’m faster to have the old right click menu on a file/directory. Even WindowsKey+f10 isn’t workable for me Create the following reg key : Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32] @="" (save about in a text file with the extension .reg and double click to import it) And reboot the cabinet PC Before on right click a file: After modification and restart of cabinets PC: Hardware capture videos For capturing playfield videos within PinballX, I setup my GeForce hardware capturing. This will give a better experience as the framerate of the PinballX will be max 30fps and for GeForce capturing it will be 60fps (smoother videos) I set it up with the following manual: https://forums.gameex.com/forums/topic/25055-guide-how-to-setup-gpu-driver-capture-nvidia-only/ Adding all together Now we setup and configure the PC, we want to have n experience where we turn on the cab, and it starts PinballX and have all set correctly. A good option is to use the ‘Run PinballX when Windows starts’ in settings.exe of PinballX This will add a shortcut to the startup folder that will run PinballX To easily go to the startup folder, type WindowsKey+r : Shell:startup But to set everything correct during launch of PinballX, you can define a program on launch within settings.exe. I have all my PinballX scripts located in C:\Pinball\Tools\PBX Commands My PinballX start command is called PinballXstart.cmd This command file controls everything I want to do during launch of PinballX Check if DOFLinx is running. If not, run it Doflinx location: C:\Pinball\DirectOutput\DOFLinx.exe Check if Steam is running Steam location : C:\Pinball\steam\Steam.exe Kill PinemHi monitoring and relaunch it (this is to avoid any 5 min challenge mode that is sarted) PinemHi location : C:\Pinball\PinemHI\pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe Set the correct screen profile with DC2.exe. If this fails, wait 5 seconds and retry DC2.exe location : C:\Pinball\Tools\DisplayTools\DC2\dc2.exe XML profiles location : C:\Pinball\Tools\DisplayTools\DC2\Profiles ** Optional ** PinballX location : C:\Pinball\Pinballx\PinballX.exe Checks if PinballX process is running, if not, launch PinballX This is because I use a shortcut to this command file on my desktop as well (so not to pinball.exe). Sometimes I double click on it and launches PBX twice. This will avoid it Here is my batch file : @echo off tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq DOFLinx.exe" 2>NUL | find /I /N "DOFLinx.exe">NUL if "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" goto SKIPDofLinx cd C:\Pinball\DirectOutput start C:\Pinball\DirectOutput\DOFLinx.exe PINSCAPE=NO timeout 3 :SKIPDofLinx tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq steam.exe" 2>NUL | find /I /N "steam.exe">NUL if "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" goto SKIPSteam start C:\Pinball\steam\Steam.exe -silent :SKIPSteam taskkill /FI "IMAGENAME eq pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe" /f cd C:\Pinball\PinemHI\ start C:\Pinball\PinemHI\pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe :SKIPPINEMHI :retry C:\Pinball\Tools\DisplayTools\DC2\dc2.exe -configure=C:\Pinball\Tools\DisplayTools\DC2\profiles\4kdisplay_landscape_60p.xml -clipboard IF ERRORLEVEL 0 goto :end timeout 5s goto retry C:\Pinball\Tools\MinimizeAllWindows\MinimizeAllWindows.exe tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq Pinballx.exe" 2>NUL | find /I /N "Pinballx.exe">NUL if "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" goto SKIPPBX cd C:\Pinball\PinballX start C:\Pinball\PinballX\PinballX.exe :SKIPPBX :End When quitting PinballX, I also run a command file, that sets the screen correct (portrait mode) @echo off C:\Pinball\tools\DisplayTools\dc2\dc2.exe -configure=C:\Pinball\Tools\DisplayTools\DC2\Profiles\4kdisplay_portrait_60p.xml With just these 2 command files, I always set the screen correct during launch and exit the front end. Also the programs I want to launch are checked if they are running and will be launched. PinballX itself can be configured in many ways to show exactly what you want. Check the full user documentation on https://forums.gameex.com/forums/topic/27395-the-complete-pinballx-documentation/ to setup PinballX as you want. Maintaining my PinballX systems PinballX can use a lot of systems. A system is a program that could launch a program/emulator that will start your Pinball program (and hopefully with a direct table launch) To maintain all the systems, I use PinballX Database Manager https://forums.gameex.com/forums/files/file/2499-pinballx-database-manager/ This program has 2 documents included in the installation file, and will explain exactly how you can use this program. To make advantage of some programs I made myself, I will show you how I update my VPX tables When I maintain my pinball cabinet, I mostly update VPX tables (And maybe in the near future VPE) To make life easier, If setup a batch file, that I launch during the start of Databasemanager, that will open 3 folders that I often use : · The location of my VPX folder (c:\pinball\Visual pinball\Tables\VPX) · Location where I put my backup zip files I downloaded · Network location where I put the new software on that I download from my normal PC. The 3 folders will be opened, and set on the correct spot in my desktop that I want: Now I can easily updates my files from my Exchange folder (right upper window) and paste it in my VPX tables folder (left upper window). if I’m done, I always put the files in a folder so I have a lot of backup files of that table (right under folder) Here’s the command file (it starts off course to set the screen to landscape for better visibility) <# : @echo off C:\Pinball\tools\DisplayTools\DC2\dc2.exe -configure=C:\Pinball\tools\DisplayTools\DC2\profiles\4kdisplay_landscape_60p.xml setlocal taskkill /FI "imagename eq explorer.exe" set "POWERSHELL_BAT_ARGS=%*" if defined POWERSHELL_BAT_ARGS set "POWERSHELL_BAT_ARGS=%POWERSHELL_BAT_ARGS:"=\"%" endlocal & powershell -NoLogo -NoProfile -Command "$_ = $input; Invoke-Expression $( '$input = $_; $_ = \"\"; $args = @( &{ $args } %POWERSHELL_BAT_ARGS% );' + [String]::Join( [char]10, $( Get-Content \"%~f0\" ) ) )" #> # Create an instance of the Win32 API object to handle and manipulate windows Add-Type @" using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; public class Win32 { [DllImport("user32.dll")] [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] public static extern bool MoveWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int X, int Y, int nWidth, int nHeight, bool bRepaint); } "@ # Get a list of existing Explorer Windows $previous_array = @() $shell_object = New-Object -COM 'Shell.Application' foreach($old_window in $shell_object.Windows()) { $previous_array += $old_window.HWND } # Open three more Explorer Windows in the current directory explorer "C:\Pinball\Visual pinball\Tables\VPX" # Pause for 1 second so that the windows have time to finish opening sleep 1 explorer "\\nasi\Pinball\Exchange" # Pause for 1 second so that the windows have time to finish opening sleep 1 explorer "D:\Pinball_install\Tables\VPX_DONE" # Pause for 1 second so that the windows have time to finish opening sleep 1 # Get the list of new Explorer Windows $new_array = @() foreach($new_window in $shell_object.Windows()) { $new_array += $new_window.HWND } # Compare the two arrays and only process the new windows $only_new = Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $previous_array -DifferenceObject $new_array -PassThru # MoveWindow takes HWND value, X-position on screen, Y-position on screen, window width, and window height # I've just hard-coded the values, adjust them to suit your needs [Win32]::MoveWindow($only_new[0],0,0,960,520,$true) [Win32]::MoveWindow($only_new[1],960,0,960,520,$true) [Win32]::MoveWindow($only_new[2],0,522,960,520,$true) This can be modified to whatever you want to launch, but I think it is very handy DBM exit Script I also have a Database Manager Exit script defined, that will set the screen to portrait mode again (I mostly close my PC after creating videos and let the computer shutdown automaticlly when video creation is fiunished). It will also run a couple of files, that will create Loading video’s, DMD/topper videos and an old program that will create ‘Most recently’ list in PinballX, but Tom implemented this as well in PinballX itself (but my version is a bit different J) And for safety, I export my Pinmame and PinballX registry keys and saves it to a backup directory @Echo off C:\Pinball\tools\DisplayTools\dc2\dc2.exe -configure=C:\Pinball\Tools\DisplayTools\DC2\Profiles\4kdisplay_portrait_60p.xml echo Creating reg backup Pinmame SET DateName=%DATE:~-4%%DATE:~4,2%%DATE:~7,2% MD C:\Pinball\Tools\Backup\Regbackup 2>nul reg export HKCU\Software\Freeware C:\Pinball\Tools\Backup\Regbackup\%DateName%_PinMame.reg /y 2>&1 >nul reg export HKCU\Software\pinballx C:\Pinball\Tools\Backup\Regbackup\%DateName%_Pinballx.reg /y 2>&1 >nul pushd c:\pinball\pinballx\media attrib /s -r -h -s Thumbs.db 2>&1 >nul del Thumbs.db /f /q /s 2>nul popd Echo Creating recently updated "C:\Pinball\Tools\GenerateupdatedXMLs\GenerateUpdatedTables.exe" C:\Pinball\tools\DisplayTools\dc\dc64cmd.exe -rotate=right echo Creating real DMD Videos "C:\Pinball\tools\Create Real DMDvideos\CreateVideos.exe" echo Creating Loading Video's "C:\Pinball\Tools\CreateLoadingVideos\CreateLoadingVideos.exe" Here's a video when I power on my cabinet, launch a game and power off again : As you can see, DofLinx is starting (I changed the DOFLINX letters to Pinball and changed the fontsize) I use multiple plugins from @scutters The DMD videos are created automatically and are available on the FTP of gameEx Loading videos are created automatically as well and showed the correct one with the de-randomize plugin of scutters I hope you like it and can help you to setup your cabinet

I've uploaded to the FTP server my Real DMD videos library (so should be available through DBM and Game Manager). It will show the table logo (some are animated), Year number and from @scutters the animated logo. All filenames have the suffix [Logo-Year-Vendor Style], to avoid any duplicates Videos are in Mp4 format and has a resolution of 128x32 (so real DMD here some examples (converted to gif) as they should show on your real colored DMD : 24: Avengers: Back to the future : Cactus Canyon Continued:

I've uploaded to the FTP server my Topper videos library (so should be available through DBM and Game manager). It will show in DMD style (Dotted overlay 128x32) the table logo (some are animated), Year number and from @scutters the animated logo. All filenames have the suffix [DMD Style], to avoid any duplicates Videos are in Mp4 formatand has a resolution of 1280x320 here some examples (converted to gif) : 24: Avengers: Back to the future : Cactus Canyon Continued

After reinstalling my cabinet, I had strange issue with Zaccaria. Zaccaria didn't want to save the settings, as I setup in the program. With procmon I get access denies on c:\users\Mikedaspike\Documents\Zaccaria_Pinball folder. Although the ACL's where set to full control to the user and for SYSTEM, the app was not able to write. Adding the files from my other machine, looks like it could read it After adding a new controller (Virtuapin controller died and replace by a KL25Z), I had the same issue. Trying to save the config results in : This is caused by Windows 10 Controlled folder access. Controlled folder access is to protect files against threats like ransomware. maybe I enabled it (or was enabled automaticlly after fresh install). How to Fix this ? Open from your Windows the settings screen Click on Updates & Security Click Windows Security click Virus & threat protection Scroll down to Ransomware Protection and click Manage ransomware Protection Here you can control the Controlled folder access I would not recomment to turn this feauture off !!! Click on the Allow an app Through Controlled Folder access click on + Add an allowed app in the Recently blocked appsyou see the apps that tries recently to save something Or click on browse apps In my case, I added th ePinscapeConfig tool And manually added the Zaccaria pinball (and steam) as well : This allows to run the apps correctly