Pinmame, Pinup Player, PupPacks

[lees1964]

I've spent the better part of this day, watching videos (play, pause, play, back up, play again), in an effort to make what I THINK are "Pup-packs" work properly on my 2 screen cabinet.  I've got the latest vpx installed, just got Freezy's installed last week and working perfectly (thanks to Scutters and Mike for that!) and have come to a place where I'm more confused than when I started.  I don't seem to have Pinup Player installed (or a pinup player folder), but can't find a link to download it that doesn't come with Baller (and I'm happy with PBX).  Some of the neatest games use a puppack, so I'd really like to get that working correctly.  I learned from my last mistake that installing things and changing files can have some catastrophic effects, so I'm hoping to get a little guidance on this.  I have the newest b2s Server and newest pinmame installed as well.  How can I get JUST the pinup player (and will it work for the pupacks without the Baller program) and where do I put the pup-packs folders that come with the game?  I should note that I have a "Tables_pup" folder in the Visual Pinball folder and a "Pinup Systems" folder in my PinballX folder, and finally, a "Pupvideos" folder in my C drive.  I also noticed that I can no longer find pinballx ini OR xml files to attach.  Can't imagine where those went to.  Everything is still working as it should, so that's a mystery all by itself! (attaching some files, but not sure they will bwe applicable for this question - If any OTHER files would be more helpful, please let me know and I will add them).  Thanks! 

log.txt PinballX.dll PinMAME32ui.ini

[scutters]

My understanding of the baller installer is that pinup player & dependencies are installed with it, and pup packs should 'just work' when a VPX table is launched that uses them (assuming you have the pup pack files)

Best place to read up is https://www.nailbuster.com/wikipinup/doku.php?id=puppack_troubleshoot

But be warned - pup packs do have a cpu overhead, you might get some performance issues if you're on a low end cpu.

13 minutes ago, lees1964 said:

I should note that I have a "Tables_pup" folder in the Visual Pinball folder and a "Pinup Systems" folder in my PinballX folder, and finally, a "Pupvideos" folder in my C drive

I have no idea about the first two, seems odd to me (i've never used baller), what's in the 'pinup systems' folder (exe's? - if so is that where pinup got installed?). Pupvideos is normally where the puppacks go (under a folder of their game or rom name)

[lees1964]

[lees1964]

I dragged this folder over from the Pinball Emporium folder (the front end that I abandoned). 

[scutters]

Ahh.. ok i thought you had a 'pinup system' folder in your pinballx folder. There are more questions from your screenshot though!

I have no idea what the pinupplayeronly folder is. On my system i have only the c:\PinupSystem folder with the same folders and files in it as you have, but no pinupsystem_v_1_xxx folder, and the pupvideos folder is only in the c:\PinupSystem folder 

I'd try removing the C:\pinupplayeronly , c:\pinupsystem_v_1_xxx , and c:\pupvideos folders (maybe back them up somewhere 1st to be safe) to clean up the folders and see if things make more sense then.

To be honest though you'll probably have better luck raising pup pack questions on vpforums (it's not really a pinballx thing and you're more likely to have other baller installer users there)

[lees1964]

Thank you, Scutters!  I don't have any specific desire to use the pup-pack thing, other than it seems like a lot of the tables I am checking out won't work correctly without it (or more likely I'm not installing them correctly).  I go out and find the b2s file for that game (and I mean more generically, like "Munsters" is a good example), and it may or may not even show on the backglass, and if it does it usually doesn't have the Freezy DMD overlay, and the f1 key isn't opening up any screen that might help me adjust that.  Other times there will be no backscreen at all, even though I have them named identically.  I also can get some to work (i.e. Twilight Zone) and when I say "work", I mean the playfield and backglass will both come up, but the buttons will be dead and nothing works.  If there are certain games (or types of games) that I should just avoid altogether, I'm good with that.  Like I said, I LOVE PinballX and I'm customizing it more and more each day (visually), so I have no desire to switch frontends. 

[scutters]

Munsters is a 'scripted' pup pack table so that does need pinup player working and the files in the \pinupsystem\pupvideos\ subfolder for the videos to work.

Twilight Zone is a rom based table but i think there may be an optional pup pack for that, so that table should work as normal with a backglass if you're not trying to run the pup pack (does either of the pupvideos folders have a subfolder named tz_92 or tz_94 [whichever rom you use for that table] with any files in it? - those would be the pup pack for that table)

[Mike_da_Spike]

If the directb2s file will not appear(for example your twilight zone), the b2server is properly not initialized correctly in the vp table.

Not sure about if that is the case for that specific table, but recently I had stilltables where I needed to modify the vbs script to have a directb2s backglass

 See for example a very old post

https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=26012

 

[lees1964]

I ended up having to use the pinupedit(or config) program to get the Munsters to work, but it's probably the neatest (looking) game of all that I currently have.  I do find the video distracting though, and it IS a "pinball" machine, not a VCR or DVD player), lol, so...  I only have a couple of folders in the pupvideos folder, but neither of them have the tz subfolders.  I've had Strip Joker Poker for some time now, and had it on the back burner because I couldn't get the little playfield video to work (and you know you GOTTA have that little video screen or it's not really "strip" ANYTHING, right??  LOL!).  Yesterday, when I move that folder to the pupvideos folder (and after removing the other junk and moving the pupvideo folder to the correct place - which, ONCE AGAIN, I would have never, EVER figured out without your help), that video would work, but the strangest thing, it would only play HALF of the screen.  To be clear, it wasn't the placement of the video, it was exactly where it should be, but half of the screen was black.  It's the only exception I've seen (so far) to the rule of "get things working in VPX BEFORE you mess with it in PBX.  When I run it through PinballX, the entire screen plays just like it should, but back in VPX it goes back to half screen.  Not a big deal though, because I will only play it (and the other games) through PinballX, but still a bit of a mystery. 
  I have to say (and I know I'm repeating myself here), as a guy who has had MANY hobbies (stamps, coins, old books, antiques, pocket knives, fishing, and on and on and ON), this is one of the most enjoyable hobbies I've ever ventured into, and what's MOST important to say here is that if it had not been for you and Mike, and your endless help, my frustration would have led me to push it to the side and, at my age, I may have never gotten to the point that I am NOW, getting so very much joy out of not just PLAYING it, but working on it, customizing it, and becoming part of the online virtual pinball community.  So, just one more THANK YOU (I know it's getting old - I'll stop thanking you eventually )

[scutters]

Sounds like you're on the right lines anyway (i think!!), glad your enjoying the ride