directB2S not displaying backglass with VPX

[walamab]

I am running the latest PinballX on windows 7 64-bit (Ultimate) in a 3 display cabinet. I am having an issue only with VPX tables in that the backglasses will not display when started from PinballX. It isn't an issue with the VPX tables because I can start them manually without the front end and the backglass displays with no issues. I believe backglass server is running because DOF seems to function normally.even when starting from PinballX but there is a black screen on the back box. VP9 and PM5 are running on the same cabinet and their backglasses display just fine.

I've read the threads on "Hide Backglass" in the Game Setup tool. I've tried all of those suggestions but the backglasses will not display for VPX tables.

I would appreciate any insight you may have as to what could cause this.

Best Regards

[TerryRed]

Are you by chance running VPX in exclusive fullscreen mode instead of windowed fullscreen. I just started running VPX in exclusive fullscreen mode and have started getting this problem with about 50% of the VPX tables. Some b2S files load up fine...others don't.

Yet if I run them in VPX directly, there's no problems.

If I run VPX in windowed fullscreen its fine....but I need to run VPX in exclusive fullscreen to get smooth stutter-free performance.

 

[TerryRed]

I still can't this sorted out.... I hope someone can chime in. This issue literally only happens with VPX tables in exclusive full screen.

It's not that the B2S backglass is hidden behind either PBX or VPX.... its simply not getting loaded.   Even if I enable B2S in PBX....it will load up the B2S files and display them in Pinball X....but they still won't load after launching a table.

I don't understand why some will load fine and others won't.  I tried setting them to EXE and STANDARD with no change.

[MrKnister]

Hey Terry,

i might have the same issues as you. everything works fine when disabling the exclusive fullscreen function within VPX. as soon as i activate the option i get various error symptoms when starting tables within PBX. this ranges from some strange problems with an error like "could not find b2s file bla path\.b2s" to not starting the b2s backglass at all.

i tried experimenting with PBX to not start in exclusive fullscreen mode also, to prevent problems when 2 apps stay at this mode the same time, but this didnt help. 

the same "problem tables" started within VPX directly or via gamemanager from PBX runs fine !

so right now i can only circumvent this by not using the exclusive fullscreen from VPX, which would be a shame since i also use the dsr function from my nvidia card to get 4k resolution during gameplay while not messing up my desktop resolution during normal operation. this feature alone makes the exclusive fullscreen one hell of a great option (besides the performance increase i also feel). would be a shame to drop it to use PBX on the cab again. 

i hope someone from the dev team could check an test the fullscreen option with PBX for a workaround.

cheers...

[TerryRed]

For me, I got around most of this problem by setting up VPX in a custom system instead of a VP system in Pinball X. Now, only two of my db2s files won't load with full screen, but all the other work fine!

[MrKnister]

oh, thanks ... great info !!! will try that also. im curious if this works fo me also :). will let you know if this might be a "general" workaround you found

[Carny_Priest]

Where there is a will there is a way. If you absolutely could not get b2s and exclusive full screen going for a couple of tables, You could set those up in a separate system and use an AutoHotkey script to change the fullscreen key in the VP registry before you launch VPX and then change it back after you quit. You would use the RegRead and RegWrite functions. 

[MrKnister]

thx for all your input and sorry for beeing late to the party, but i had only very limited time the past few days to check further regarding your tips.

to be honest, in the end i switched back to regular windowed mode. the tips you provided and the enhancement you did to the lates release of pbx is great ! it worked magically for a lot of tables. but in the end .. it was the loading times, and the permanent flicker and switch of the windows when loading a table (maybe more flickering and switching because i used the dsr 4k function from nvidia) which made me go back to regular windowed mode where all trouble is gone.

since im happy with my hardware and the setup and see zero lag or stuttering with the windowed config i can go back from fiddling with vpx and pbx to gaming and enyoing pinball , again :).don't condemn me for that :).