How to launch PC Games from Pinball X

[TerryRed]

I was wondering how to get normal PC Games to launch from Pinball X. I have a Pinball / Arcade cabinet combo unit that I made to play Pinball as well as MAME games. Since I have two full controllers in the cab, I can also play almost any PC game that runs on a gamepad (I wired gamepads to the stick and buttons).

What I want to do is have Pinball X simply launch my PC Games (by either .bat or shortcut .lnk files). I setup PC Games as a custom system, but can't really get it to work. Is there a known way to get this to work. I really prefer using Pinball X as it makes very nice use of my pin cabinet's 2nd and third screen for artwork, and the dmd. Haaving to leave Pinball X to use Steam or GameEx is really not desired, and they can't use the extra screens like Pinball X can.

Any help would be great.

[TerryRed]

After getting no sleep.... I finally got it sorted out.... blah!

When I get more time I'll put more info on here.... but bottom line is I had to setup and use Rocket Launcher to launch my PC Games from Pinball X. I did the same thing for running MAME from from Pinball X so that I could use the nice bezels that alot of people using RL like to make.

Rocket Launcher is configured to use Pinball X as its default Frontend. After that it saw all my systems from Pinball X including my PC system. Then I had to setup the PC "emulator" in Rocket Launcher, which is PCLauncher, and I set ip up as a virtual emulator.

This video helped... I just made my frontend Pinball X instead of Hyperspin.

... and some helpful links...

http://www.rlauncher.com/wiki/index.php?title=PCLauncher

http://www.rlauncher.com/forum/showthread.php?1025-PC-Launcher-cant-find-Emu_Path&p=10333#post10333

I'm a little tired now.... so hopefully this will suffix for now.

Now Pinball X really rocks for me. I'll show a demo when I'm all setup with some artwork,etc...

[tthurman]

Glad you figured out a way to get things working the way you hoped. I know some are here are already using PBX for other games as well, and with your efforts here it seems more users are venturing out of the norm with this frontend. It's interesting to see what else it can do, and I'm sure your efforts, descriptions and instructions concerning how to do this will be appreciated by many more individuals as time goes on.

Thanks for investing the time and energy to come back and share this with everyone!

Sweet cab BTW

[TerryRed]

Here's a video of what I have so far for PC Games in Pinball X:

 

 

[noiseprisoner]

Awesome cab and thanks for the video, that's really cool! So, when you launch a pc game, does it play on the top monitor so it's the correct orientation?

Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

[TerryRed]

Awesome cab and thanks for the video, that's really cool! So, when you launch a pc game, does it play on the top monitor so it's the correct orientation?

Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

Yes... I have Pinball X use multimonitor tool to change my primary display to the backglass display before launching a PC Game.

[CapnJohno]

For anyone wondering how to get PinballX and RocketLauncher to communicate, see this link here: http://www.rlauncher.com/wiki/index.php?title=PinballX

MAN did i waste hours trying to work this out. Also, to get the screens to switch between backglass and playfield, you need to enter the instructions you want in the "parameters" section of both launch before and launch after fields in PinballX settings.

I can't tell you how much trouble it caused trying to make this happen - a word to the wise - never download dodgy files on your pc from even remotely shady sites. My butter smooth Win 7 vpin with pc games has now become a fair Win 10 setup that's buggy with FutureDMD. Best to stick with Multimonitor Tool and just nut it out.

Anyway, thanks heaps Terry, your forum posts guided me in the right direction   I'm pretty happy with how my system is running now. Good luck with your cool looking pincab!

[TerryRed]

Yah, it took me a while to get this sorted out. The Pinball X part is easy compared to Rocket Launcher's PC setup.

MultiMonitorTool is the ONLY method I recommend for changing your screens / layout when launching anything from Pinball X.

[CapnJohno]

Actually I do have a question - how did you get the sound working with PinballX with your backglass videos?

Only playfield videos play sound on my setup and i can't find a setting for it.

[TerryRed]

1 hour ago, CapnJohno said:

Actually I do have a question - how did you get the sound working with PinballX with your backglass videos?

Only playfield videos play sound on my setup and i can't find a setting for it.

 

Yes only playfield videos will play sound, but the Table Audio files will play.

I have the sound separated from my PC games videos into an mp3 file, and I put that in the Table Audio folder. It will only play it once until you come back to that game again.

Also, Pinball X will only play 60 fps videos nicely if they are on the playfield, and no other videos are playing.

If you are playing multiple videos (playfield, backlgass, dmd), then they must be 30 fps, or you will have stutter and other issues.

[CapnJohno]

Bugger.

Thought that was the case. Oh well, it'll be worth it.

Thanks again mate, you've been fantastic help.

Happy to pass on the favour to anyone who needs the help:)

 

Johno