Need help getting started and playing [RESOLVED]

[Undertaker666]

Hello everyone, i just want to say thanks for the help in advance, and i'll get to it.

My setup: 2 screens, 8 buttons connected with a usb board. 

It's my friend's cabinet, he had it built and installed by someone, and it was working but then stopped the controls did not move anything in game, so he brought it to me.

a bit about me, i'm no stranger to emulators, and worked as a pc tech for over 10 years, that why he brought this to me.

now i've been at it for a week or more, here' what i found out: the version that was installed had fx2 and pinball arcade, fx2 was a cracked version with all tables unlocked, and it went to the tables from the pinballx menu. pinball arcade never worked.

what i did: removed the pirated version and removed all left over software and started from scratch, clean installed Pinballx, created a steam account for my friend and downloaded FX3 and Arcade from steam, configed pinballX with the controller and the displays, and figured out how to use the game manager.

so far so good, but right now i have 2 tables one that comes free with Arcade and one i downloaded for future pinball. the arcade one does not respond to the controls i set in pinballx and requires a mouse to navigate the menus, the Future one launches from PBX but again controls don't move anything, i tried launching FB separately and testing it there, some of them work but i never got the game to start.

So this is where i'm stuck, i searched everywhere for a tutorial on how to get started and setup proper, i looked at the wiki for the config, but that only says what options are available, and not when you should use them.

FX3 doesn't work because he has an older card which he will replace as soon as i get one game to actually play, he doesn't want to invest hundreds of dollars of software before he knows that the machine works.

That's where i'm at right now, i need to get this cabinet to work with no mouse or keyboard input, launch to PBX on windows start and just play.

i forgot to mention it's a WIN10 home with amd 9750 quad core cpu and 8gb of ram.

i would appreciate any links or tips on how to get this started,

have a great day!

log.txt

PinballX.ini

SetupWizard.xml

[rablack97]

what encoder are you using? and did you setup the emulators and get them playing before you even put them in PBX.

That's rule 1 get the emulators running normal outside of PBX if they don't run outside they sure wont run inside of PBX.  Check your settings in FP and map the controls as applicable.  You will need an encoder in place of the keyboard.  IPAC or any type of keyboard encoder.

Pinball Arcade is a PITA, i for one didnt bother setting it up, from what i understand there was always an issue getting the grid to match up so it booted correctly into a table via PBX.

Regardless you need to do some research on the emulators, PBFX3, VP10, and FP first and get those running correctly, then once you do that we can help you get them implemented into PBX.

I would also recommend getting your hardware up to speed.  Going cheap is only going to give you more headaches, get a good graphics card.

[Undertaker666]

hey thanks for the reply, i think i mentioned that i got them to run outside of PBX, but PBA doesn't respond to the buttons and FP responds to some since i set the buttons as a joystick in the settings.

what do you mean by encoder? the controller is recognised as a generic usb joystick, and i just tap the buttons i want to set in the settings of every emulator.

the hardware is more than enough for most tables, and he is willing to buy a DX12 Graphics card, but he wants to know that we can get the software to use the buttons and that he won't need a keyboard and mouse with it.

 

you mentioned getting the emulators to run outside PBX but they are running, but is there a guide or something that you can recommend for FP and PBA because i've looked at both websites and forum for answer and found nothing useful.

thanks.

[rablack97]

So are you using a joystick instead of button sdirectly on the cab? or did you hack a jstick to the buttons.

I meant that if the buttons aren't working outside of PBX you need to get all of that working first, you need to be able to fully start, play and exit the game before you implement into pbx.

I can assure you the softwares work without a mouse and keyboard, but if he's set on waiting just keep in mind if you run into any issues it could be due to harware deficiencies.

What table did you try to run in Future pinball, did you map your buttons per the manual (link to manual is under help).  IMHO you're doing this the hard way by using a j-stick, at the the end of the day you won't be using a jstick to play the tables, you will be using an encoder that will map keyboard strokes to the buttons on the cab.

If you want to continue this route you will have to meticulously test and figure out what button goes with what setting in the emulator, vs a keyboard is stragiht forward.

This is an encoder.

As you see here the commands are mapped to keyboard controls.

Your trying to use jstick, which requires you to figure out what button goes what button in the dropdown here

If it works with a keyboard and mouse your wasitng your time with the controller, for any pinball related emulators.

I unfortunately don't have any experience with PBA, If you load up, VP10, FX3 and FP, he will have plenty of tables to choose from and play, so i would concentrate on those.

As stated before, the grid for PBA kept changing, so Tom stopped trying to keep up with PBA which is why PBA has what I call an ugly launch.  So heads up before you spin your wheels trying to get PBA working right with PBX.

All others work well.

My recommendation is ditch the stick, wire up the cab correctly to an encoder and then start testing.

Also, you will have create a shortcut to PBX and shell into that shortcut if you want to boot into PBX, the start with windows feature in PBX takes you to the desktop first then boots.  I used an AHK script to black the screen out until PBX loads.

You will also have to do some tweaking to the login screens, to bypass the login and change the color of the windows login screen.

[Undertaker666]

Hey thanks for all the help, i may have been unclear before i said windows recognizes the buttons as a generic joystick. there's no physical joystick, only buttons connected to a board that plugs into the usb.

these buttons work, as i see them show up when i config which button does which function, but i couldn't get FP to work. i try the Star Trek 79 board (my friend loves star trek) and it boots into the board but i can't get the flippers or the pinball to launch, and i also have a problem with the second screen where it shows the FP console and not the Image even though i went through the config and everything was ok.

 

i set the buttons in FP like the screenshot you took of the mouse joystick screen shows. and still no luck. would it help if i took a pic of what the buttons are connected to? do you think that's causing my problems? because when i set a button and press one of them they all work and show their number.

[rablack97]

yes take a sacreenshot of the encoder board you are using and the screenshot of the setup  control screen screen

screenshot your display config on the PC and the display config for future pinball.

[Undertaker666]

here's everything, i hope this helps.

 

 

[rablack97]

Yes sir, perfect, let me review what you have and get back you.

[rablack97]

"Arcade mode" needs to be checked.....

uncheck "render the gameroom"

uncheck "Cabinet (Playfield?tanslite Glass)"

check "enable non power of 2 textures"

Pinball roller is not your plunger, you need to map a button to digital plunger = button 11 in FP

You also need to map your credit and exit emulator buttons here

try this for starters, if your flippers aren't working, then you might have a bad button or bad encoder.  The mapping looks like its correct

[Undertaker666]

10 hours ago, rablack97 said:

"Arcade mode" needs to be checked.....

uncheck "render the gameroom"

uncheck "Cabinet (Playfield?tanslite Glass)"

check "enable non power of 2 textures"

Pinball roller is not your plunger, you need to map a button to digital plunger = button 11 in FP

i've followed everything, here's what i got:

if arcade mode is checked the screen is at bottom left and only a portion of the board visible.

i didn't understand which setting "Pinball roller is not your plunger, you need to map a button to digital plunger = button 11 in FP: is referring to.

with arcade mode off, i tried one of the flipper buttons and got a menu of sorts. i can't get the game to launch the pinball with button 11, that might be the reason the flipper don't move.

[rablack97]

Looka at your button settings, you have your launch ball set to pinball roller, map it to digital plunger.

5 hours ago, Undertaker666 said:

i didn't understand which setting "Pinball roller is not your plunger, you need to map a button to digital plunger = button 11 in FP: is referring to.

Sorry, uncheck arcade mode, that is for BAM, and you dont have that.

Are you adding credits (button 7) and actually starting the table (button 9)?

Once the table has started you should be able to use the flippers, regardless if you have plunged or not.

Watch this, and you should be good to go.  There is a section at the end that shows you how to define your buttons, if you follow this and its still hosed.  Your encoder board is trashed and you need to get another one or just upgrade to an IPAC.

 

 

 

[Undertaker666]

ok that video helped me figure out what went wrong. i was testing and setting the numbers of button via PBX config. apparently PBX config is giving button the wrong number, and once i mapped the controls with the control panel mapping i managed to play.

 

now i have 2 problems, 1 in bam i set arcade mode forced and it looked great on the table screen but still no backbox image or it was offscreen. 2 it did not save that setting in bam, so when i started the table again it went back to an angled view.

and the major issue that might be a bug in PBX is that it is setting the wrong number, can i set the right ones in the ini?

have a great weekend and thanks for showing me that vid and all the help you supplied so far!

[Draco1962]

4 hours ago, Undertaker666 said:

ok that video helped me figure out what went wrong. i was testing and setting the numbers of button via PBX config. apparently PBX config is giving button the wrong number, and once i mapped the controls with the control panel mapping i managed to play.

 

now i have 2 problems, 1 in bam i set arcade mode forced and it looked great on the table screen but still no backbox image or it was offscreen. 2 it did not save that setting in bam, so when i started the table again it went back to an angled view.

and the major issue that might be a bug in PBX is that it is setting the wrong number, can i set the right ones in the ini?

have a great weekend and thanks for showing me that vid and all the help you supplied so far!

I would suggest for the sake of the sanity of all involved, open one thread for each issue, and only do so one at a time. For each issue, attach copies of your pinballxl.ini and log.txt files and a detailed description of the issue and screen captures if necessary. 

You will need to make sure that the the exe has full rights to the folder. You may run into a problem if the programs are installed to c:\program files or c:\program files(x86) as these have a higher level of protection within Windows than if you install to a folder at the "root" or c:\VPX or c:\PinballX for example. I believe that there is instruction on how to ensure your apps have the rights they need to overwrite the configurations.

[rablack97]

Doesn't matter what they are set to in PBX, all you need there is navigation buttons, if you are able to navigate thats all you need.  The settings in the emulator are what matters.

Even though the numbering may be off, if you press the auto config button and press the button you want to map it to then you should be fine in PBX.  FP Jstick config used dropdowns so you had to use the control panel to see what numbers correlated with what button.

Ok,

You're still asking questions for each emulator or a 3rd party app, none of this has anything to do with PBX.  I found the video by googling future pinball setup.  You need to research the emulators and apps.  So i would start first by going to the BAM site and reading about that app.  Not sure why your are trying to use BAM if you dont have a kinect or IR eye to produce the 3d effect.

If you've set BAM up correctly, press M while in the table, you should get a Menu for BAM within that menu there are settings for the backglass, resize and reposition.  Once you do that, you have to save the table via xml before you exit out of the menu so the settings stick when you launch the table again.

Your skipping alot of steps, go back and research and learn about what your working on otherwise, your basically asking us to do the research for you, and we all had to do this to build our rigs.  There's a reason why your friend passed this off to you, cause if you don't enjoy the hobby you have no desire to learn you just want to play.

Setting up the emulators is step 1 before even messing with PBX, I promise you the information is out there, you gotta be strategic in what you look for, its not always in the forums, but it is on the net somewhere.  Those searches will give you the knowledge you need to help your friend's project.  We can assist with FP to PBX integration, but do your due diliegence on the external pieces first.

[Carny_Priest]

BAM is so, so much more than head tracking. Anyone with a cab and Future Pinball should also use BAM. Section with tutorial is at gopinball.com.

 

Otherwise, yes, reserve your support requests at PinballX forums to PinballX.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[rablack97]

5 hours ago, Carny_Priest said:

BAM is so, so much more than head tracking. Anyone with a cab and Future Pinball should also use BAM. Section with tutorial is at gopinball.com.

I agree @Carny_Priest my thoughts were get the basics setup first before you even dive into the advanced 3rd party apps, BAM is an add on to FP, and OP is struggling getting the game to just play period.

[Undertaker666]

ok since i last posted, i got everything to work outside of PBX, i mapped the keyboard keys to joystick with joy2key and everything works well.

now i want to address something that was a few comments up, i'm not expecting you guys to do the research for me or feed me with a silver spoon. if you go back and read my original post, i was asking for places where i can find tutorial so i could figure out what to do when.

with that being said, the only problem i have right now is how to configure PBX to launch into a table, doesn't matter if it's FX or Arcade, they are both steam versions and we already bought a season dlc for the arcade one.

i read somewhere that i need to add -table_[tablfile] in the path in PBX settings, but that did not do anything and it was a post from 2017 so not really sure how up to date that is.

again, not asking you guess to write a tutorial just for me, just to point me in the right direction because google is pointing me anywhere but.

 

thanks

[Draco1962]

From my experience, PBA is not worth the effort it takes to keep up with the UI changes, the requirements for preloaders (Free camera mod), etc.

We have a basic PinballX setup tutorial in the FAQ section that is now very dated. When I was an admin I had asked for volunteers to create and maintain tutorials.  Unfortunately the response was tepid at best.

There is a wealth of information, but you have to dig for it and often. This is much how it is within the emulation community and not just here.

[rablack97]

5 minutes ago, Draco1962 said:

From my experience, PBA is not worth the effort it takes to keep up with the UI changes, the requirements for preloaders (Free camera mod), etc.

I tried to mention this to the OP early on in this thread.

However if you set on spinning your wheels on TPA, here is a google link to get you started.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pinball+X+pinball+arcade&oq=pinball+X+pinball+arcade&aqs=chrome..69i57j0j69i64.5501j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/17231-need-assistance-setting-up-pinball-arcade/

Your choosing the hardest emulator to set up, reason being, is the table selection is a grid.  So PBX sends keytrokes like, down, down , right, up right, in hopes the table you selected is in that position, every time a new game is added, the position of the games change, there was also a rotation issue, along with genuine cab support.  So you best bet is to play that outside of PBX. 

https://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/19676-pinball-fx3-setup/

Did you get a cabinet mode code for FX3 from Zen?

What are you using in your searches, I found these in like 5 mins.

[Undertaker666]

40 minutes ago, Draco1962 said:

We have a basic PinballX setup tutorial in the FAQ section that is now very dated.

yeah that's why i asked because most of the stuff i found predates the PBA support. 

so i need to install FreeCam for this to have a shot at working?

 

17 minutes ago, rablack97 said:

Did you get a cabinet mode code for FX3 from Zen?

not yet, they asked for pictures of my setup so they could verify is non commercial.

18 minutes ago, rablack97 said:

What are you using in your searches, I found these in like 5 mins.

i tried a lot of things, mainly i tried "pinballx launch directly to table" and then add PBA or FX but like i said, most videos are of working cabinets that are just showing the games. no one actually goes through the setup. and solutions i did find were outdated and as mentioned before this thing keeps updating all the time.

[rablack97]

You understand, that even if you get PBA to work, its not going to select the games properly don't you?

Get your code first, that a big step in getting fx3 to work with PBX.

Try things like "FX3 setup with Pinball X" are you looking for just videos, i will tell you the majority of your answers will be in verbiage not in you-tube videos.

[Undertaker666]

it worked before i uninstalled the previous installation that was cracked, so i know it can launch into games at least for fx. and i am searching for everything not just videos.

[rablack97]

Pinball Arcade? 

Yes FX3 works well with PBX but you also keep asking about TPA, just trying to keep you from spinning your wheels on that emulator, its a waste of time if your you going to use PBX.

Get VPX, FX3, and FP up and going first.

 

[Undertaker666]

FP is working. it launches the Star Trek table and works, granted it takes a few seconds to load but in the end it launches and you can play.

there's no need for mouse and keyboard. i can't remember if PBA was working or not, but that's what my friend wants, he wants those old cabinets and that's the only way i found to run them legally. 

[rablack97]

That's normal for FP.

For a Vpin, VPX, FP, FX3 are the standards.

If you wanna use TPA, your gonna need a mouse and keyboard, to navigate to the tables.

So you might wanna disclose that to the owner, or have him settle for what VPX has as there are tons of old tables w/i that emulator.