Getting FX2 to run on 1.97 or 1.98 (For first time users)

[sc205]

After spending the better part of 2 days playing and fighting with ini files, XML files and add on programs I thought I would summarize what I learned to get Pinball FX2 playing happily within a PinballX cabinet. Now I know that there is a 13 page thread about this but it starts when there was no built in support in PinballX until now when there is. It is hard to know when to jump in and start to try what has been recommended. If you are just first trying FX2 for the first time, I think this will help.

As usually said your mileage may vary based on your cabinet design and what version of PinballX you are using. This is written while using 1.97 or 1.98 and may be totally wrong with a few more updates of the program or changes in FX2. I am also using the Steam version of Pinball FX2 on Windows 7 64bit. (I5 processor)

My cabinet is fairly simple button wise. I have 4 buttons plus a plunger and flippers which I use to run Visual pinball. Left and right flippers (no magnasave), Start table button, extra ball, Exit and a push button launch to use on tables that do not support a plunger. For input I am using a Virtua plunger V2 which handles the button inputs as well as the plunger.

The built in support for FX2 does work but it took me to setup Nuke Launcher and go through their forum and learn more about Pinball FX2 to get everything set up right which allowed the built in support to work.

The first hurdle is that Pinball FX2 was not designed to run in a front end like PinballX and some workarounds need to happen in the backend. (scripts to select the proper table based on setup information that we provide) The pinball FX2 xml file has to be correct for the program to select the right game. Unfortunately the xml file is based on the grid setup that you see on your screen when choosing an FX2 game. The grid setup is based on which games you own. If you own none and are just trying out the program, Sorcerer’s lair is at position 1x1. If you have purchased all of the games it will be the last one which will change as more games are purchased. I got everything working and bought 4 games. I had to change the XML file grid positions of each game because of this. This can be done by modifying the XML file or in game manager. My grid is 7 columns by 8 rows. This changes if you go to desktop mode.

In the PinballX guide section 6.3 there is a sample xml test that you can copy and use as your XML file but you will have to change the grid numbers to correspond to your table layout. Upper left corner is 1x1 next to the right is 2x1, second row first column is 1x2 and so on. You should be able to just use the defaults on the pinball FX2 page of the PinballX settings program. Click the check mark. This will set the parameters to “ –applaunch 226980” No clue what that means but it has to be exact including the – at the beginning.

Go into game manager and under FX2 you should see all of the games. Just un-check enabled to any game that you do not have. All except Sorcerer’s Lair if you are just testing (this may also be labeled “Looter”) If you do not see the grid position under Pinball FX2 list then you are not on the built in FX2 page.

You also want to keep hide backglass unchecked as you want to use the backglass image or video that you have during attract stay on during the game.

The game should now be listed on your wheel when running PinballX and with any luck when you click on it the Microsoft Studios page should come up followed by automated clicks to start your game. At this point you can only play it with the keyboard or an Xbox controller. Hit escape on your keyboard and see if you return to the PinballX wheel. If you do, try to go back and forth to a few of your regular games and then back into and out of FX2 if it works you are 90% there.

The exit process from FX2 can get messed up at times especially if using the same commands as you have for PinballX.

Unfortunately there is no support for cabinet type joystick button interface for Pinball FX2 like there is for VP and FP. So you have to run a keyboard emulator in order to play FX2 using your cabinet buttons. There are several free programs out there. I choose XPadder as that was what many have used successfully and there are instructions in the PinballX documentation 6.8 to use it to get nudging and a plunger to work. I am a rank beginner at using Xpadder and it has many options that may make it work better but this is how I got it to do what I needed.

I went through multiple different button assignments in Xpadder before arriving at something that seemed to work in so far all cases. Zeenon’s Xpadder files helped me figure this out. I found that sometimes I would end up on a screen in FX2 that I needed to exit from like at the end of a game where it tallies your scores and rank or whatever. (Wish that could be turned off) and you would need a mouse or arrow keys to navigate. Choosing the left, right, up and down arrows as button inputs along with enter for the launch button will let you navigate and exit these pages if they come up.

Left flipper is left arrow, right flipper is right arrow, my start button is up arrow, extra ball button is down arrow, and launch button is enter. The exit button is mapped to escape.

Now start FX2 outside of PinballX and you can now select the same keyboard shortcuts in FX2 under help and options > control inputs. Left flipper is left arrow, right flipper is right arrow, and launch ball is enter. Also pick something for the left and right nudge. The PinballX documentation has A and D which is what I used.

Now if Xpadder is running you should be able to play FX2 from your cabinet buttons.

I have no use for Xpadder while not playing FX2 so I choose to have it only run when FX2 was active. There is an Xpadder plugin which you can access from the plugin manager in the pinballX directory. You just need to give it a path to the xpadder program and choose FX2 for it to run. It should then activate when calling an FX2 game and deactivate when you close it. If Xpadder and PinballX use the same keys for an action you might get a double input if it were running all the time.

As far as PinballX setting I have the following which is working for me in this setup Under keyboard inputs left and right are the shift buttons, Quit and exit emulator are both escape and select is return. For the joystick setting, buttons. Left and right are my flipper buttons, select is start game and quit and exit emulator both map to my exit button.

In section 6.6 of the PinballX documentation it shows how to set up Xpadder for nudging and plunger support. It does work although so far the plunger support only allows the plunger to be pulled back like pressing the launch button and not like it behaves in VP. Not sure if it can be adjusted to work like that or not.

Now Zen studios has not been totally deaf to our requests. They did make it possible to put the DMD on a second screen. http://forum.zenstudios.com/showthread.php?6497-DMD-now-working-for-Cabinets-Heres-how-to-set-it-up!! I wouldn't be surprised if they change the interface and make it much easier to load the games through PinballX and add joystick button support as well in the future.

Videos are available for all of the FX2 games to use for the Playfield, Backglass, and DMD images during game selection from PinballX. I got mine from the GameEX FTP site and I know that they are available from other sites as well. If you have hide backglass unchecked in game manager then the backglass will stay up on your monitor when playing the game.

I did not try any of the DMD frame removal tricks at this point, so I can’t comment on how easy they are to implement.

Another issue that apparently is pretty common with FX2 itself is flipper lag. Not related to PinballX or using Xpadder as I originally thought. Steam has a pinned topic on this and their simple suggestion changing max rendered frames to 1 in the Nvidia control panel fixed my issues. The games are much more playable. See this pinned thread. Covers Nvidia and Radeon cards. http://steamcommunity.com/app/226980/discussions/0/666827315349070543/

Long post but hopefully it will save a few, the hours of experimenting that it took for me to get to this point.

Stuart

[DazzleHP]

Thanks for providing such a wealth of information for the first time user. I've used NukeLauncher in GameEx, and while it's a great workaround, it's not really a permanent solution because as you mentioned, the tables themselves get moved around the grid each time you purchase more.

Let's hope that Zen hears everyones cries and enables us to launch tables directly in a future update.

[tthurman]

Nice "Cliffsnotes" style of guide there Stuart

[zeenon]

Stuart great write up!!!!!!

As a side note, is there anything you would advise adding to the PinballX Guide to make life easier?

I just want to make sure we capture this somewhere, to make it painless for new users.

Z

[sc205]

Stuart great write up!!!!!!

As a side note, is there anything you would advise adding to the PinballX Guide to make life easier?

I just want to make sure we capture this somewhere, to make it painless for new users.

Z

OK you asked so my thoughts

Adding Pinball FX2 to a cabinet is the first issue (It was not meant for one). I would have appreciated at least the mention of this in 4.3.12 to let me know I would need some sort of keyboard emulator for now. And any other likely issues.

Some additional information about the sample FX2.xml file would be helpful. The absolute requirement to change the grid position to what shows on your screen with perhaps a picture as an example would have really helped. Baffled me as to why my game positions were all different from those that people posted. Now that I understand Zen's system I understand but for a new person..... And just a reminder where to put it. Perhaps a link suggestion to look at a pinned topic on this forum with a downloadable up to date XML file as you can't copy and paste from the pdf.

6.4 sample ahk scipt. No explanation of what this is and how you would use it. Is there still a use for it? I understand before 1.97 but now it just confused me.

Basically the things I mentioned in my post were the areas that were not straight forward and required further searching and experimenting.

Hopefully a few people starting out will be able to follow this thread and make it work instead of wading through the other post which unfortunately has a lot of out of date info. And in a couple of months when FX2 has cabinet ready features added and supports B2S backglasses (wishfull thinking) my post will be obsolete

Thanks

Stuart

[zeenon]

Anyone have an image of the Pinball FX2 table grid with all the current games?

I've tried to take a snapshot with snagit and have issues.

Z

[Draco1962]

If you are connected to Steam with the grid displayed, I believe you can hit F12 and save a copy in your content of your Steam account. From there you will be able to "snag" a copy.

[sc205]

This is what mine looks like. Only the first 4 are purchased.

[sc205]

After playing the machine for a few days I have found some issues with running FX2 several of which seem to have been taken care of and 1 that has not.

1) The advertising type popups from Steam interfered with proper entry and exit out of games in PinballX. There are lots of things to turn off in settings under the Steam App to try to prevent these notifications. I basically turned them all off.

I also tried to run offline but Steam had to let me know each time that I was in offline mode and I could not find a setting to turn off that pop-up.

2) Sometimes Steam or FX2 did not close down properly on exiting a table. The next time you would try to enter a Zen table you would get the notification that the program was already running. To fix this I created a small bat file that runs taskkill for both steam and FX2. Probably overkill but I have it set to run when FX2 loads and exits in the PinballX setup program.

3) This one I have not figured out. When the machine first boots up into PinballX if the first game you select to play is an FX2 game then the backglass video is lost as the game starts. After exiting and restarting the table or if you run a visual pinball game first it shows up just fine?

Stuart