Jump to content
SpesoftPinballXConvert-It

All my products and services are free. All my costs are met by donations I receive from my users. If you enjoy using any of my products, please donate to support me. My bare hosting costs are currently not met so please consider becoming a contibuting member by either clicking this text or the Patreon link on the right.

Patreon

If neither of those of work for you, you can donate any amount by clicking here.

Launching Pinball FX 2 tables from GameEx

greenwire

By greenwire
in General

 Share

Recommended Posts

greenwire Member

greenwire

Posted
Posted

Pinball FX 2 added the ability to launch tables individually from command line, which is great for people with cabinets. I'm trying to get it to work and can't figure out a working solution.

Tables can be launched from command line as follows:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 226980 [TABLENAME] 

e.g "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 226980 Western  - succesfully launches the Wild West Rampage table.

I've tried creating my own setup by modifying the Visual Pinball emulator through the setup wizard, I've googled and I've searched the forums for solutions about how best to implement this with GameEx, but I haven't come across anything that's helped.

Has someone been able to implement this correctly? My cabinet is an upright 2 player mame cab, and I'd prefer not using something exclusive for pinball sims like PinballX. Thoughts or advice? Thanks!

greenwire Member

greenwire

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I've made some progress, but it's still not working correctly.

I've made a .bat file that launches the game directly to my table of choice, and I've set up a custom emulator in the wizard and put .bat files for each table I use and everything shows up and works correctly.

However, when launching a table .bat from GameEx, it launches correctly and then quickly tabs back to GameEx while the game runs in the background. Any thoughts? Anyone?

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

Posted
Posted

I think you need to use "[ROMPATH ROMFILE]" command line and *.pxp as your rom type. Your file path will be the location of these files in your Pinball FX2 directory. 

  • Like 1
greenwire Member

greenwire

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks for the response Draco!

Unfortunately that does not work. The command line needs to say - 

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 226980 Western

What is working for me right now is having the following settings: 

working path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\ 

rom directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pinball FX2\data_steam

rom filter: *.pxp

command line: Steam.exe -applaunch 226980 [ROM]

These settings correctly filter the rom list, and succesfully launches the game to the correct table. 

The problem is that GameEx immediately switches back to GameEx once the game launches and blocks it from view. Is there a setting somewhere that I'm missing? What determines exactly what GameEx views as an emulator vs. background or other apps? Is it thinking that Steam.exe is the emulator? Thanks for any assistance.

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

Posted
Posted

Let's have a look at your gameex.ini and log.txt file as it may tell us something rather than guessing. Click on the GameEx How to ask for help linkj in my signature for information on how to locate and provide these files for us to review.

greenwire Member

greenwire

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Here is my gameex.ini

  Reveal hidden contents
greenwire Member

greenwire

Posted
  • Author
Posted

It's in there at the bottom. It got messed up because of how it formatted the spoiler into quotes >.<

Here's just the log file:

  Reveal hidden contents

I should also note that when I launch PFX2 through GameEx's Steam list, it runs fine without GameEx switching away from it. But then of course you have to wait through all of the loading screens and select the table from within PFX2, which is annoying.

Also, if I launch the table through my setup, and then after it auto switches back to GameEx launch PFX2 through GameEx's Steam list, it switches to the open PFX2 window and stays there.

I have a feeling that GameEx is not properly detecting PFX2 when I launch it through the command line like that because technically it's launching Steam.exe with PFX2 as a command line option. There probably isn't anything I can do to fix it, unless there's something Tom can do with hooking into a custom .exe.

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

Posted
Posted

It may be a matter of listing a watched process. I believe this is in the Advanced Emulator configuration in Setup Wizard, but I am at work so cannot confirm this.

greenwire Member

greenwire

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I made really good progress thanks to your advice! It ALMOST works perfectly <3

In the advanced config, I added Pinball FX2 as a process, and it loads up and stays there perfectly, which is great. I even changed one of the keys under the keyboard remap section and it works!

The only problem that I have now is that it doesn't exit with the key combination like the other emulators do and I can't figure out how I should implement it. Do you have any ideas for what options I should be looking at? Or is this maybe something I should be using AHK for, which I don't currently have installed...

Anyway, thanks again for your support. I'm making really good progress on this so far :wub:

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

Posted
Posted

In the advanced emulator setup, locate the Advanced Config and select [Mapping Off] Exit (Esc), save and start GameEx. See if that works for you. If not, then try  [Mapping Off] Exit (Process Close). I don't think you need AHK for this.

 

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...