Various PBX/VPX Issues (Noob)

[jamai36]

Hey!  Going down a bit of a rabbit hole here, but I have run into a number issues that Google is having a hard time solving.  The background is I am running PBX as a frontend for VPX and only VPX, mainly to save highscores, as I already had Launchbox set up as a front end and outside of not saving high scores, works fine.

However, with PBX I have run into a number of minor problems that combined - become a bit of a dealbreaker.  I am hoping some of these can be easily rectified.  As a note, even though I have PBX set to load through Launchbox, I have tested PBX without Launchbox, and all of the problems persist in the exact same way.

1. Most tables run at about 1.5x speed.  It seems to be the VPinMAME tables, only, though.  They run perfectly fine when run independent of PBX.

2. 5/6 tables tested so far do not save high scores. The fact that 1/6 has makes it weirder - may just bad luck with the small sample size? Not sure.

3. The Game Manager only detects .vpx files in the root directory.  i HOPE it's just a checkbox I missed, because it would be an absolute nightmare to reconfigure at 434 tables to be run out of the root directory (and an eyesore).  Surely it can't look for vpx files in the folders?

I looked at previous posts and a log is typically requested, so here is one running Dungeons and Dragons, a table that has both issues of not saving a high score and running at about 1.5x speed:

12:50:02.64  2020-01-21:  PinballX - Version 4.06 x64
12:50:02.68  2020-01-21:  Windows 10 Home 64-bit (16GB)
12:50:02.68  2020-01-21:  Loading Settings
12:50:02.70  2020-01-21:  Initialize Component
12:50:02.71  2020-01-21:  Initialize Display
12:50:02.75  2020-01-21:  Testing Flash engine.
12:50:03.92  2020-01-21:  Loading PlugIns
12:50:03.93  2020-01-21:  Looking for startup images
12:50:04.14  2020-01-21:  Hiding Cursor
12:50:04.15  2020-01-21:  Hiding Taskbar
12:50:04.15  2020-01-21:  Getting GPU and CPU Information
12:50:04.17  2020-01-21:  CPU:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz
12:50:04.17  2020-01-21:  6 cores, 12 threads
12:50:04.17  2020-01-21:  GPU 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080
12:50:04.17  2020-01-21:  Displays: 1
12:50:04.17  2020-01-21:  Load Game List
12:50:04.20  2020-01-21:  Loading Database: Visual Pinball
12:50:04.21  2020-01-21:  Loading Custom Database: dwad
12:50:04.21  2020-01-21:  Initial load gamelist took: 15ms
12:50:04.24  2020-01-21:  Finding and matching artwork and videos
12:50:04.25  2020-01-21:  Took: 15ms
12:50:04.25  2020-01-21:  Loading Game Statistics and Scores
12:50:04.94  2020-01-21:  Main display running full screen windowed.
12:50:05.00  2020-01-21:  Loading Surfaces
12:50:05.04  2020-01-21:  Finished Loading Surfaces
12:50:05.04  2020-01-21:  Initialize Audio
12:50:05.14  2020-01-21:  Set Keyboard Controls
12:50:05.14  2020-01-21:  Initialize Joystick
12:50:05.22  2020-01-21:  3 Joysticks Attached
12:50:05.22  2020-01-21:  Started
12:50:08.92  2020-01-21:  Launch System
12:50:08.92  2020-01-21:  Waiting for threads
12:50:08.92  2020-01-21:  Disposing display
12:50:09.10  2020-01-21:  E:\Downloads\Visual Pinball\VPinballX.exe /play -"E:\Downloads\Visual Pinball\Tables\Dungeons&Dragons (Bally 1987) v1.1.1.vpx"
12:50:09.12  2020-01-21:  E:\Program Files\PinballX\vpauto.exe 
12:50:18.54  2020-01-21:  Found PinMAME ROM: dungdrag.nv
12:50:18.94  2020-01-21:  Visual Pinball Player window foreground
12:51:00.94  2020-01-21:  Hidden Visual Pinball Editor Window
12:51:30.83  2020-01-21:  Exit System Control Pressed
12:51:33.37  2020-01-21:  Main display running full screen windowed.
12:51:39.94  2020-01-21:  Exiting
12:51:39.96  2020-01-21:  Showing Taskbar
12:51:39.96  2020-01-21:  Unhiding Mouse Cursor
12:51:39.97  2020-01-21:  Disposing Plugins
12:51:39.97  2020-01-21:  Saving Settings
12:51:39.97  2020-01-21:  Bye
 

Any help would be great - thanks!

Edited January 21, 2020 by jamai36

[scutters]

Strange issues!

Can you post your pinballx.ini file (attach it rather than paste contents) from the pinballx\config folder as well as statistics.ini from the databases folder. Thanks

Edit- just re-read your post. Re the high scores not saving, are you saying they're not available to pinballx in the front end, or that vpinmame isn't saving them (in game)?

 

[jamai36]

As requested:

I'm not sure about vpinmame saving them or how to check for that, but I know for the game it does work with, it creates a high score txt file in the High Scores folder within PinballX (and also displays it in the information section inside the front end).  With any other game it creates no such txt file in there.

 

PinballX.ini Statistics.ini

[scutters]

Easiest way to check if saving to high scores in game is to enter initials exit out and then restart game, see if high scores are there still. You can probably also just add a load of credits and exit out, restart and see if they're still there. Both ways should save to the same romname.nv file in your Visual Pinball NVRAM folder.

[jamai36]

Yeah nvram folder is good.  After trying out some more tables, I still only have the one table that saves Highscores, but I think it may really have just been down to bad luck.  Some of the tables I tried have default high scores, which I wasn't beating.  Some other ones don't seem to support high scores at all (they are older tables and don't ask for initials or mention any high scores on the DMD).  The only table that does work - Excalibur - supports high scores but has no defaults, it's the only one like that - so it's not surprising that it works.

I am guessing high scores have to be programmed into the ROM or whatever, or maybe it's some sort of setting I have to manually enable for these tables?  It just so happened that a lot of the first tables I tried didn't have that built in - I guess?

I'm still not sure of the other two issues though (1.5 speed on almost all tables and not recognizing .vpx files unless they are in the root Visual Pinball folder specified).

Also thanks for the help so far!

edit: Looks like using an fps limiter did the trick for the speed.  Not sure why it started happening after using PinballX but it looks good now.  Really just the vpx files not detecting, which I am starting to worry is intentional.

[Tom Speirs]

I am happy to help as is everyone else, but gees, why do people continue to recommend competing products on my own site whilst putting down my products but still, wanting to use them!? Maybe its just me but is that acceptable? Do they think that will get them preferential treatment? Do they not realise this stuff gets indexed by Google and acts as free SEO and advertisting?

 

 

[Tom Speirs]

If it is only detecting vpx files, what other files do you have in the folder? Do you have VPT too?

First you said it was only detecting VPX then you said it was all but not. Could you please clarify? Only rom root folder? Do you mean root\tables folder? Generally with Visual Pinball, only the tables folder is used. Please provide more details. Thanks.

Tables are best running in the version they were designed for. So not sure why you want to run other than VPX with VPX? Generally you would setup multiple versions of Visual Pinball in PBX if you have mixed tables.

I cant remember how I coded it now, but would consider that a feature rather than a bug if its only allowing vpx to run with vpx!

High score support is automatic for the most part. For Visual Pinball only PinMAME tables are supported right now. Support for non PinMAME tables is on the way.

[scutters]

9 hours ago, jamai36 said:

edit: Looks like using an fps limiter did the trick for the speed

Best done in VPX video options, set to 1;

9 hours ago, jamai36 said:

Really just the vpx files not detecting, which I am starting to worry is intentional.

It will look for tables in your tables folder as setup in Settings for Table Path

9 hours ago, jamai36 said:

I am guessing high scores have to be programmed into the ROM or whatever, or maybe it's some sort of setting I have to manually enable for these tables?  It just so happened that a lot of the first tables I tried didn't have that built in - I guess?

Don't think i've ever seen a rom / SS table without high scores, and enabled by default. From your stats file i don't have any of the tables you do so i can't confirm, but maybe there is a rom setting to enable high scores... news to me but possible, try going through the options for the roms (have a look on vpforums for rom adjustment guides)

[jamai36]

Each individual table in my tables folder is made up of sub folders, hundreds of them - for each table.  I am guessing only the root Tables folder itself, not the sub-folders, are searched.  I can *.vpx and move all of the individual tables to root directory if I need to.

 

6 hours ago, scutters said:

Best done in VPX video options, set to 1;

It will look for tables in your tables folder as setup in Settings for Table Path

Don't think i've ever seen a rom / SS table without high scores, and enabled by default. From your stats file i don't have any of the tables you do so i can't confirm, but maybe there is a rom setting to enable high scores... news to me but possible, try going through the options for the roms (have a look on vpforums for rom adjustment guides)

That's interesting. Hmm.. must be a setting, as most of my tables do not have/save high scores, yet some do.   I did get a pack of tables of someone and those tables have a lot of issues like 90 degree flipped dmds etc.  I feel it's possible that all of those tables are just plain messed up because the user may have gone in and played around with various settings for them.

[scutters]

10 minutes ago, jamai36 said:

That's interesting. Hmm.. must be a setting, as most of my tables do not have/save high scores, yet some do.   I did get a pack of tables of someone and those tables have a lot of issues like 90 degree flipped dmds etc.  I feel it's possible that all of those tables are just plain messed up because the user may have gone in and played around with various settings for them.

That's why packs are a bad idea!

[Mike_da_Spike]

3 hours ago, scutters said:

That's why packs are a bad idea!

Totally agree. Diwnload tables, roms and backglasses separately.  Test per table(make adjustment per table). If all is fine, add it to PBX