Pinball Arcade Direct Table Launch with Free Camera Mod!

[mrjadez]

4 hours ago, Folorin said:

Hi thanks for the reply.

 

From a command prompt I get the same thing running fcm direct. I'm taking a step back and ignoring ahk at the moment until I can get it working from the command prompt.

 Gets to the menu of tpa. Hit enter and its always attack from mars :-(

 

Its not running in the background separately either.

Hi Folorin, 

You don't need to hit enter, as mentioned above - from command prompt whilst in the TPA directory, assuming FCM is also in same directly, simply launching it with the table name parameter should work. Make sure name is correct - they are case sensitive(it does warn you if the name isn't right from memory). 

Once FCM loads it will load TPA, then inject. Now you will hear sounds from last table playing - DO NOT HIT ENTER PLEASE, hit nothing. WAIT. It will now select the right table and load it, now you will see the table's screen with Tick button - Now hit enter and then enter again on start button. 

Does that solve it? if still having issues after above - I suggest take it to the TPA FCM support thread.

[Pike13]

I was just going to ask Folorin the same thing: what do you mean by "Hit enter"?  

When it works for me it takes me all the way to the Flyover portion of the requested table.  I then have to hit my cabinet launch button to go right into the table.

[Folorin]

I was hitting enter when tpa went to the click to start screen. My tpa exec and fcm aren't in the same directory. I will move things around and check again.

[Folorin]

Ok I tried with the exes in Same directory.

Launches tpa, then sits at the press to start tpa menu. Goes no further

Fcm states it finds the process etc and applies the overlay

 

All apps run as admin

[Pike13]

Folorin, what version of FCM and TPA are you trying with?

[Folorin]

FCM 1.81

TPA 1.60.8 DX11

 

Im going to strip it down and reinstall both.

[Tom Speirs]

Hi, just to let folks know that I will try to add some integrated support for this for the next release of PinballX.

[Folorin]

hi all,

 

Many thanks  to all that helped. I stripped out TPA and reinstalled completely, leaving FCM alone.

 

It looks like I had a corrupt TPA install as its now working !

 

Thanks

[Draco1962]

7 hours ago, Tom Speirs said:

Hi, just to let folks know that I will try to add some integrated support for this for the next release of PinballX.

Seems that if there is a table name that can be accessed via FCM that it should be possible to program PinballX to the same. Can't wait to see what you come up with! 

[Folorin]

Gahh - I downloaded more DLC, now TPA refuses to launch into the right table again.

 

Im of a mind to abandon it and wait for Pinballx Development.

[mpad]

 

Thanks Tom for making this happen!

 

If it works it will be pretty universal and the easy setup will make a lot of people happy.

 

[JSpradlin]

I tried the script, but no joy. It kicks me back out to Windows, kills my task bar. And locks my system yp the point that I have to reboot. Here are my files and setting if someone wants to give it a look. Hopefully I'm just doing something dumb. 

Settings.ini

TPArun.ahk

[Pike13]

A couple of things off of a 2-minute analysis, in no particular order:

1, I wonder if you need the Table Path field set to something in your PBX settings. 

2. Based on your screenshot and script, your PBX ini file writing is going to the wrong location (screenshot shows system 4, script references system 2).  Not that it matters since you never get to that point.

3.  Not that it looks wrong, but why don't you take out the backglass video launching piece and add that in after you got TPA to actually run.

4. It seems that your FCM .exe is in a different folder than your script .exe.  I would change your FCM launch command to include the working directory like: 

Run, C:\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod.exe -table %1%, C:\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod

5. Until you got things working stand-alone, I would take PBX out of the equation and just run your script .exe and see if it works.

6.  You didn't really say what your set up was...cabinet?  Is Steam running at Windows startup or are you relying upon FCM to do it? 

[JSpradlin]

So I tried simplifying the whole thing just to get it to work. I mad my ahk file simply...

Run, C:\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod.exe -table TOTAN, C:\TPAFreeCamMod

I'm not sure whether or not I really need the Working Directory portion since I'm providing the entire path to the target file, but it doesn't hurt to have it regardless. When I run this simple script with Steam already running, I get the message box at the right of the screen saying TPAFreeCamMod found the Pinball Arcade process (or something to that effect). However, at that point I get the Steam message box mentioned by another user earlier in the thread about an outside process trying to run the program through Steam. When I click to allow it, it launches the Pinball Arcade, but it stops at the "Click  Enter to Start" screen rather than going directly into the table. I hardcoded TOTAN into the table call because I wanted to cut any variables out of the equation and then build on a working script.  

 

[Carny_Priest]

Run your script as admin?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[JSpradlin]

Yes I did. Steam is already running, and I launch the script as admin. The only thing that I did notice that was odd was that when I click by the "outside process" dialog box, the bottom right corner of The Pinball Arcade shows DX9 rather than DX11. I doubt this is causing the confirmation box to pop up, but I suspect it could cause other problems.

I checked my .NET framework which is up to date, and I ran dxdiag to check my DX version. It showed DX12. I assume that's good. Maybe I'm still missing something needed to run this whole process, but I'm not seeing it.    

 

[bduncan]

TPAFreeCamMod won't work with DX9, If using with the DX9 verison it will never inject itself into the process.

Pinball Arcade shows if it is DX9 or DX11 and the running version in the right hand lower corner of the screen for me during the logo launch screen.

 

[JSpradlin]

Am I right in assuming that if dxdiag reports DX12 and my .NET is up yo date it should run in DX11?

[Draco1962]

You are correct as the DirectX is backwards compatible.

[JSpradlin]

Am I also correct that if I run dxdiag from the command prompt the line...

DirectX Version: DirectX 12 

...under the System tab indicates that my video card is running DierectX 12 or is that just the latest version installed on the OS? In other words is this displaying the capabilities of the OS or is this indicative of my display drivers? The Display tab makes no direct mention of DirectX Version.

[hlr53]

It is the dsplay

28 minutes ago, JSpradlin said:

Am I also correct that if I run dxdiag from the command prompt the line...

DirectX Version: DirectX 12 

...under the System tab indicates that my video card is running DierectX 12 or is that just the latest version installed on the OS? In other words is this displaying the capabilities of the OS or is this indicative of my display drivers? The Display tab makes no direct mention of DirectX Version.

It is the 2D/3D API that Windows has installed.

[JSpradlin]

So the DX9 vs DX11 thing seems to be an issue with how the game is launched. I was testing this on the free version of TPA through Steam that only has the TOTAN table. After investigating this issue on the Steam message boards I found that the only way to get the DX11 version to run (at least when using the free table feature) is to hit Play in Steam. You are then given the option to choose between DX9 and DX11. Choosing DX11 this way does give me the DX11 version. However if I try running PinballArcade11.exe from the C:\Steam\steamapps\common\PinballArcade directory it always launches DX9. This may all be because I'm trying to use the free version. It's a shame they only offer table packs. I'd be fine paying $3 to test a table, but I hate to drop $30 only to find out I can't get this working. 

[JSpradlin]

So I read that if I changed the name of the PinballArcade11.exe file to PinballArcade.exe it would launch as DX11. I did, and clicking on this file directly did indeed launch in DX11. Apparently this is temporary as it changes back when Steam updates. This is fine as I really only need it to test. The problem is that renaming it and updating the Settings.INI file did not solve my problem with the FreeCamMod. I still get the following warning and the TPA does not go past the Click Enter page.

[Pike13]

Not sure if it will help you, but for my TPA launch options in Steam (Go to the Steam Library entry, select Properties, select Set Launch Options), I put in:

"C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\PinballArcade\PinballArcade11.exe" skipwhatsnew %command%

At least that way you don't have to rename files all the time.  And as Carny_Priest said, everything should be running as Admin, including Steam.

[kypoon1972]

I had the problem too. I was looking at a lot of thread through Google and then did the following to get it solved: I have installed Stern pinball. Play with it. Came back to fcm to Start tpa and... Then it was in dx11 and not anymore in dx9. Stern pinball is only supporting dx11 or at least is much better adapted to dx11. Tpa and Stern are done by the same company and are maybe sharing the same dll, regs or whatever else. Its Installation was solving my problem. Try it.

 

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