Uninstalling PBX

[greynurse]

If I uninstall PBX, is there a specific routine to re-install it? At this point, I'm having too many issue with the game manager and I need to determine whether those issues are indiginous to my PC or whether the game manager is as sucky as I perceive it to be. (No offence Tom, but the game manager is the only part of PBX that seems to really need some work.) If a re-install doesn't improve matters, I'll post the issues I'm having.

 

Cheers,

Nursie

[Draco1962]

Why not just post your issues and attach your pinballx.ini and log.txt files so Tom can review them?

Uninstalling/reinstalling is not likely to resolve whatever issues you are encountering. 

[scutters]

If it's just to test i'd install to a new location and then copy media/database xml across, test then delete.

[BrandonLaw]

@scutters Makes a great point.  This will not only relieve your current registry targets, but will create new paths and essentially be 'new' across the board.  Also try to slim down the running tasks in that windows session of installation and testing.  Keep task manager open and just keep an eye on what's juicing your system if anything.  Maybe post your specs and hardware.  We can get to the bottom of this.  

Sidenote:  I used to LAN a LOTTTTT.  When someone's PC would hose up, everyone knew that their PC was like a lock and the user was more or less the Key to fixing it.  All computers (other than thin clients hehe) are like snowflakes and only the user knows their idiosyncrasies.   But damn if we can't try  

[Mike_da_Spike]

+1 for Draco.

But the main quedtion is :Whats wrong with gamemanager?

What issues do you have, that you want to reinstall.

Explain your issues, post logs and maybe it can be fixed easily 

[greynurse]

Okay, here are the issues I'm encountering. Just before I list them, I'm aware that it's likely that some of these issues are indeed indigenous to my PC. Other issues are what I find frustrating with the game mangager as it's currently coded. And I'm happy to be corrected if I'm indeed mistaken. Also, I am running at even what I think is probably just enough processing power (both CPU and GPU) to play most tables comfotably. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait until I actually have a cab before I can go "entry level" with the PC part of it.

 

Scrolling:
In most programs, when you scroll with the mouse wheel, it interacts with the scroll bar. My experience is that It wants to interact with the list drop down menu. Brandon has been helping me with this and I've reconfigured my mouse settings but with little effect. (likely indigenous to my PC)

Sort by:
Ok, we have a number of sorting options in the main program window, but how about some sorting options / filters in the Game Manger itself. Like filtering table types, year, manufacturer, tables with / without image types. This would make it easier to to perform housekeeping (see Clean up below) for those who are time poor or not confident editing XML files. (Suggestion)

Clean up:
I don't know about you, but unless I diligently edit PinballX everytime I install / delete a table, I wind up with many irrelevent entries.
The ability to select those entries in the Game Manager and group delete save the user a lot of time. (Suggestion)

Mind of it's own:
Almost every time I open the Game Manager, I find that certain wheel images I have so painstakenly selected are either missing or have changed. A quick look in the corresponding wheel folder confirms the missing wheels are for real. I believe this issue may have been experienced by other members, if memory serves.
From what I can deduce, the changed wheels are the result of the Game Manager deciding it's too hard to differentiate between two similarly named tables, so it goes for the soft option. Example, Playmatic's Attack wheel logo is changed to The Attack From Mars wheel logo image, even though the two tables have different manufacturers and dates.  Sure, this only happens in the Game Manager and not in the main program window, but still, this appears to be an issue with the Game manager's coding. Yes?
Lastly, I still can't work out why it reports that my EM tables have DMD's, Real DMD's and toppers when there are no corresponding files in those folders. Anyone else experiencing this?

The image database:
Too many old, poor resolution images and videos for todays monitors and graphics cards to do justice. I appreciate the community contributing to the database via the FTP site, but there should be either a minimum quality allowed for upload, or a "shadow" data base for low res images and videos. I know that we've been given the option to record our own videos and still images of tables and backglasses, and that's a good thing. And it would be nice if we had a more current selection of wheels, and a bigger selection of flyers and instructions to download rather than having to surf the web. I was thinking some incentive for non subscribers to upload their quality images to the FTP. This would entail having a naming convention so that the resulting list in the Game manager would make sense, of course. I think it would be worth exploring. It would enhance PBX as a product. (Very much a suggestion and i would be happy to discuss further & contribute)

Well, that's it. I know it's a lot and I hope that Im not being too big a PIA with things that turn out to be user error.

 

Cheers,

Nursie

PinballX.ini log.txt [SETTINGS].log

[Draco1962]

You have some good suggestions. We have an open thread for them so please post them there! 

You should be able to modify via Setup Wizard to require an exact match for your media.

Away from my setup so can't tell you where to go in Setup Wizard, but in the pinballx.ini -

To use exact matching:

[FileSystem] EnableFileMatching=False 

To use "fuzzy matching":

[FileSystem]
EnableFileMatching=True

Hopefully that will be if some help to you where similarly named pins media is loaded.

 

[Mike_da_Spike]

And additional to bad quality videos. 

I remove the downloaded files and regenerate the backglass and playfield videos with gamemanger. I  regenerate all my 4k playfield videos (around 800 for vpx) 2 weeks ago, and was done in 1 hour and 10 minutes (45 seconds vids).

[greynurse]

I just checked out Batman Dark Knight.mp4. Very nice. It's the same quality as my still image for the same table. But with the subtle lights, it comes up better. Thanks Mike.