[RESOLVED] Pinball Arcade - Disable the keypresses provided by the integrated support

[Draco1962]

OK, my newbishness is going to shine here, but here it goes anyway. Is the camera mod being run from the integrated Pinball Arcade setup and, if so, can someone please provide an image copy of either the setup within setup wizard or extract the settings and post them from the pinballx.ini? Thanks.

[Ginsonic]

OK, my newbishness is going to shine here, but here it goes anyway. Is the camera mod being run from the integrated Pinball Arcade setup and, if so, can someone please provide an image copy of either the setup within setup wizard or extract the settings and post them from the pinballx.ini? Thanks.

Now that a variable delay is implemented in PBX, I will try to get from my loading script back to the internal PBA support. If it succeeds, I will post some screenshots !

[DrEvil]

Are you using Camera Mod setup as another system? Or the integrated support without Camera Mod?

What you are reporting is not consistent. We might need to see updated pinballx.ini and log.txt files.

OK I give up for now. I am using PinballArcade11. I will check back when TPA releases a cabinet supported version.

[TerryRed]

Here's a screenshot of my settings.

Note that my camera mod is not in the same folder as the actual game. It's in c:\games\PinballArcade, This is how I have it but it's not a requirement.

Pinball X launches the camera mod (set to run as administrator)...

Camera mod settings.ini file looks for the shortcut of PinballArcade11. (that I made in the PBA game folder and called it Start_PBA)

Start_PBA shortcut is set to "Run as Administrator" with "skipwhatsnew" (no quotes) at the end of the Target field after PinballArcade11.exe

Ignore my Launch Before and Launch After....I use that to have multimonitor tool switch my screen orientation for PBA to be in portrait and back again after I quit.

[Ginsonic]

TerryRed: That is exactly my configuration and it works like a charm here too.

I will check back when TPA releases a cabinet supported version.

I'm afraid, that this will never happen...

[Draco1962]

TerryRed: That is exactly my configuration and it works like a charm here too.

I'm afraid, that this will never happen...

I have seen many forum posts in the TPA Fans forum and this has been a request since 2013 from what I have been able to determine. It took Zen a while to get around to it for FX2, so I am hopeful, but not holding my breath.

[TerryRed]

Is there a way to disable the "autorotate" that the integrated Pinball Arcade support in Pinball X does before launching a table? For me, when Pinball X rotates the screen, is messes up my DMD and Backglass videos no matter what I do. I didn't have this problem on an older version of Pinball X, when I used "multimonitor tool" to rotate my screen before launching a table. If I have the playfield screen rotated ahead of time at the startup of Pinball X, I don't have this problem, but that makes it a pain for the rest of my system.

I could get around this by setting up Pinball Arcade in a custom system, but I would lose the auto table launching feature of Pinball X.

Anyway to disable that auto rotate at all?

[Draco1962]

Not seeing your pinballx.ini I can't guess what is going on with your setup that could be causing your issue. In mine, I have the following settings with no issues:

[Display]

Monitor=0

Rotate=270

Windowed=False

WindowWidth=480

WindowHeight=720

WindowX=0

WindowY=65

[TerryRed]

I don't have current access to my cab right now, but my settings are the same as yours Draco, and nothing has changed except upgrading PinballX to 2.11. My previous Pinball X version didn't have the auto rotate built-in.

What happens is, it does the rotate before launching the table, and the backglass / dmd videos freeze up and no longer plays and also has part of the desktop on them. I thought it was a codec issue, so I tried LAV / FFDSHOW, etc until I realised that this is the same kind of problem I had when using programs like Display to do my rotations instead of multimonitor tool.

Pinball X seems to use a similar method for rotation to those other programs (not multimonitor tool), and this is where my problem lies.

I need to have my 3rd screen(DMD) located below my backglass screen (in windows) in order to have my "extended backglass" for Future Pinball to work properly. (The 2nd screen backglass "extends" or "spills" down onto the top half of the DMD screen in Future Pinball). When Pinball X does its rotation, it seems to want to rearrange my 3rd screen incorrectly somehow.

Multimonitor tool deals with all 3 of my screens at the same time in terms of position / rotation / primary screen / etc, not just the playfield and that's why it works with no problems.

I will post my .ini later, but I know the problem is in Pinball X's method of rotation, which is not necassarily wrong, but it is the source of my problem. Not everyone has the cab screens arranged the same, so this could be an issue for others in the future as well.

An option to simply NOT rotate the playfield screen automatically would be a good thing instead of a feature that could cause issues down the line.

For me the Pinball Arcade support is perfect except for this one thing.....

Either way, thanks for the fantastic work Tom. Hopefully I'm not being a pest...

[TerryRed]

I decided to try Pinball FX 2 system's optional "rotate" feature in Pinball X to see if I would have a similar problem to Pinball Arcade, and it does the exact same thing. DMD and Backglass screen videos will stop and show part of the desktop. When I exit Pinball FX2 back to Pinball X, all is good again.

[Draco1962]

Yeah, I think it is time to cough up your pinballx.ini and log.txt files so Tom and others can take a looksie. Thanks!

[TerryRed]

Alright, here's my files.

I'll include pictures of what I am seeing happening as well.

The program I use for changing screen layouts is called "multimonitor tool". This program will take your ENTIRE desktop monitors layout (position, rotation, screen number, primary, etc) and save it to a cfg file. This makes it VERY easy to change your entire PC's monitor layout by running one command line. I just make a different BAT file for every layout I want and use those for a pre-launch command for each system in Pinball X. So when I want to run TPA through Pinball X, I normally would run TPA.BAT first and then TPA would launch normally and the backglass and dmd videos worked great! Then after I exit TPA, my post-launch Pinball.BAT would return my screens to normal.

This is my default layout. This works for everything on my cabinet including Future Pinball, MAME, PBFX 2. I MUST have my layout like this because I use a custom "extended backglass" in Future Pinball that extends from screen 2 down on to the first half of screen 3. The bottom half of screen 3 is for Future DMD.

When Pinball X loads up this default Layout is called Pinball.BAT. When I return from Pinball Arcade to Pinball X, this is what the screens look like, because I use Pinball.BAT after exiting .

This Layout is what my Pinball Arcade Layout (TPA.BAT) looks like when using multimonitor tool, "without" Pinball X's autorotate as was the case in older versions. This works perfectly.

This layout is what happens when Pinball X does the rotation. Even if I use multimonitor tool, it seems that Pinball X either overrides my MMT rotation, or Pinball X executes its rotation AFTER my MMT layout takes affect.

After I exit from Pinball Arcade my Pinball.BAT returns everything back to normal, and all is good again.

I know my layout is not the normal layout that most people use, but the forced rotation should be changed to an option regardless, as The Pinball Arcade may make changes that we don't know about in the future. Also, if we can have a checkbox option for rotate in PBFX2, why not also TPA?

Here's a video and pic of my cab if this helps visualize what my FP layout looks like. I will try to get better pictures or video of Pinball X in action to demonstrate if that would help.

log.txt

PinballX.ini

[TerryRed]

OK, so to try to get around this issue, I decided to try to use ginsonic's method for Pinball Arcade. I am using version 2.12 of Pinball X

I have completely disabled and removed any trace of the "Pinball Arcade" system files that I had in Pinball X. So the Pinball Arcade is "disabled"... no database, etc...

I added a custom "other" system and called it "The Pinball Arcade". I then setup ginsonics AHK method, and removed any trace of "display" or rotation in his settings and files and recompiled it. Sure enough his script loads up Pinball Arcade without rotating when run on its own (not through Pinball X).

However, when I load a Pinball Arcade table in Pinball X, Pinball X is STILL forcing the rotation. Gin's script works as it should, but I cannot get Pinball X to stop doing it's rotation no matter what I do. My monitor layout no longer gets messed up with this method, but my backglass and dmd videos still freeze up.

So I assume that Pinball X is monitoring for the Pinball Arcade process (pinballarcade11) even if we have the "Pinball Arcade" system disabled. When it sees it (or maybe the camera mod?) run, it does the forced autorotate.

Is there ANY other way to disable this forced autorotate? I went from being able to use Pinball Arcade without any problems on an older version of Pinball X... to unusable dmd and backglass screens. It wouldn't be so bad if I could download an older version (2.06), but all I can get is the newest version. 2.12

Please help Tom!

[TerryRed]

Don't know why, but now I have gotten rid of the autorotate with this custom Pinball Arcade system. Not sure what changed, but I just rebooted the system and now PBX won't autorotate. So this takes care of my first problem with my screen arrangements getting messed up with rotation. That part is all good.

Now I have my last issue... if there is ANY kind of rotation using any method (mmt or PBX) when launching PBA or PBFX2, the backglass and dmd VIDEOS playing in Pinball X will still freeze and have parts of the desktop on them. They stay that way until I go back to Pinball X. If I only have a still image for the DMD screen and backglass screen, they look fine and are unaffected with any kind of rotation.

I have tried LAV codecs, ffdshow, and native Win 10 codecs. No change. Videos freeze, but not still pics.

I also tried arranging my monitors layout in windows just like everyone does, but no change.

I just started putting videos for my DMD and backglass for TPA, so that's why I must now be noticing this. Is this an issue that I cannot get around and it cannot be fixed?

If so, please let me know so I can stop driving myself crazy...

ANY help at this point would be appreciated. Does anyone else have videos on their backglass that still play fine when the autorotate takes affect?

My videos are in (h264) mp4 format.

UPDATE: Now matter how my screens are arranged...even in a way that they NEVER move position when a rotation occurs, the videos will still freeze. They don't get any desktop corruption, but they still freeze. Happens with any system in Pinball X. Pictures still look fine....

[Tom Speirs]

I think its something I need to fix with the backglass and DMD videos. I will look at it.

[TerryRed]

Than you VERY VERY much Tom! I can now know I'm not going completely bonkers here. I didn't want to make a whole bunch of Pinball Arcade and PC Games DMD videos (which for my setup would still be animated while playing), just to find out I can't use them. I'll hold off on that bit for now and find a middle ground. Hopefully its something that isn't a pain for you.

Thanks.

[markx]

Here's a screenshot of my settings.

Note that my camera mod is not in the same folder as the actual game. It's in c:\games\PinballArcade, This is how I have it but it's not a requirement.

Pinball X launches the camera mod (set to run as administrator)...

Camera mod settings.ini file looks for the shortcut of PinballArcade11. (that I made in the PBA game folder and called it Start_PBA)

Start_PBA shortcut is set to "Run as Administrator" with "skipwhatsnew" (no quotes) at the end of the Target field after PinballArcade11.exe

Ignore my Launch Before and Launch After....I use that to have multimonitor tool switch my screen orientation for PBA to be in portrait and back again after I quit.

Hi, I did exactly the same but I always get a "skipwhatsnew not found" error

When I try without the skipwhatsnew parameter, the game works but then I get the whatsnew page very often.

Like the description above, I put the skipwhatsnew at the end of the Target field after PinballArcade11.exe.

Any help would be appreciated

[Ginsonic]

Hi, I did exactly the same but I always get a "skipwhatsnew not found" error

When I try without the skipwhatsnew parameter, the game works but then I get the whatsnew page very often.

Like the description above, I put the skipwhatsnew at the end of the Target field after PinballArcade11.exe.

Any help would be appreciated

I only get this error, when my Steam client is not running ! Please check, whether that is the case.

[markx]

I only get this error, when my Steam client is not running ! Please check, whether that is the case.

Thank you! That was the reason for the error message. Now it works