Upgrading From 1.x of PBX to the Latest, Help Needed

[jackblotto]

I purchased a used virtual pin cabinet (3 screen setup, including DMD) and it works quite well.  It had FX2 and Visual Pinball 9.x. when I got it.  I have since added Zaccaria Pinball and FX3 via STEAM and Future Pinball. I may add VPX later, but I like the tables I have now. I'm trying to get the two new STEAM components to work with the older PBX and just keep having issues.  Most of the data I find has to do with the later version of PBX which has support for FX3 and possibly Zaccaria directly launching. I have decided that instead of continuing to try and fix those issues in the older version I would just upgrade to the latest PBX. However, I'm wondering a few things. Some of this may be in some guides which I will be grateful for a simple pointer to those.

- Can I leave the current PBX in place for now since it works until I get the later version working? Will the new PBX stomp on existing files/directories?

- Is it possible to import any/all of the games directly from the older version?  I have a lot of work adding those games into the setup, like media files or xml files, etc. Hoping there is a way to limit at least some of the work. This is the biggest area of help needed.

- I'm assuming the new Database Manager is suggested/required for PBX vs the old Game Mgr? Maybe it can help with some of the importation of the older work?

Thank You, D

 

[Mike_da_Spike]

14 hours ago, jackblotto said:

when I got it.  I have since added Zaccaria Pinball and FX3 via STEAM

Zaccaria and FX3 both offer cabinet support and direct table launch, which should be compatible with any version of Pinballx. However, there is no support for versions earlier than the latest.

15 hours ago, jackblotto said:

Future Pinball. I may add VPX later

FP and VP are supported as well

15 hours ago, jackblotto said:

but I like the tables I have now.

I'm don't know your PC's specifications, but the differences between VPX and VP9 could be quite surprising.

15 hours ago, jackblotto said:

Most of the data I find has to do with the later version of PBX which has support for FX3 and possibly Zaccaria directly launching

I use the FX3 and Zaccaria Joyrider launcher. Thus, PinballX simply passes the parameters to a file, which then manages the rest.

15 hours ago, jackblotto said:

I have decided that instead of continuing to try and fix those issues in the older version I would just upgrade to the latest PBX

That's a very good decision!

14 hours ago, jackblotto said:

- Can I leave the current PBX in place for now since it works until I get the later version working? Will the new PBX stomp on existing files/directories?

I recommend creating a file copy of your PinballX folder, allowing you to revert to this version if needed. It's likely untested to update directly from 1.x to 6.04, which is about 500 releases behind. The database files, config file, and directory structure are probably the same, but it's always best to be cautious.

14 hours ago, jackblotto said:

- Is it possible to import any/all of the games directly from the older version?

Typically, an in-place upgrade would handle this situation. Regular users would never install two versions of PBX and transfer data between them (although I have two versions of PBX and do transfer data, but I'm not a typical user  ).

14 hours ago, jackblotto said:

I have a lot of work adding those games into the setup, like media files or xml files, etc. Hoping there is a way to limit at least some of the work. This is the biggest area of help needed.

I understand that sentiment. Having put in considerable effort over the years, if you're familiar with the XML structure, configuration, and other aspects of PinballX, upgrading to the latest version should not be too challenging.

14 hours ago, jackblotto said:

- I'm assuming the new Database Manager is suggested/required for PBX vs the old Game Mgr? Maybe it can help with some of the importation of the older work?

DBM is definitely not necessary for PinballX. GameManager is certainly the tool to manage your database and media files. The guys behind DBM does make it somewhat easier and puts in a lot of effort to assist users. It won't aid in migrating tables or systems, but it can help you identify missing media for tables, as well as media that isn't being used.It's designed as a media manager for individual tables. While it supports bulk imports from FTP and IPDB, it's not recommended for managing a large number of tables.

I hope my answers didn't intimidate you. It's important to be careful. And yes, I've made a few mistakes with my cabinet, but thankfully, I have backups.

[Draco1962]

...and there are updated guides within the upgrade media for PinballX courtesy of @Mike_da_Spike.

[jackblotto]

Hi guys, thanks so much for the help and the pointers. I'll be using the advice over the next few days.

 

One issue when I did the PinballX upgrade was with the Backglass Images being displayed on the DMD display (display #3) behind the DMD Image.  This has never happened before.  When I launch a table in Future Pinball (the only pinball software I have configured thus far) the Playfield (display #1) and Backglass (display #2) display probably and play fine.  I'm not using any of the special DMD software with FP yet. If I disconnect the DMD display the Backglass Images display fine on Display #2 in PinballX.  I have tried a bunch of things that I have found on the forums, but nothing seems to be working. Disconnected and reconnected all the displays, reloaded PinballX again. I have redone the PinballX ini file many times based upon advice I read for others trying to fix this. Tried redoing the display settings in there all kinds of ways. I'll try and attach the latest ini file, but it just seems like it should be more obvious.

I'm at a loss on this.  It only seems to affect PinballX.

I do not want to reload Windows 7!

Help ... ??

[scutters]

In PinballX the Backglass and DMD are displayed on the same screen only after updating PinballX?

Please attach your pinballx\config\pinballx.ini and pinballx\log\log.txt files

[jackblotto]

Sorry, decided to take a step back on this. Just couldn't get the display issues resolved and decided not to chase it any longer as I had tried a few of versions of PinballX.  I think between Windows 7 and PinballX later/latest version and leftover files from install/uninstall I began circling the drain and it was getting worse. Went back to my clone drive and going to start over with the older version of PinballX.  Everything works well in this version, something from a numbers of years back, like from 2015. I really only want to upgrade to make it easier to integrate Steam Zaccaria and FX3 into my PinballX config. I can launch them fine through Steam, but prefer to have one front end.

 

Next week I'm going to give it another go though. The other things I found was it seemed like I needed to go to an older version (but newer than what I'm running) of PinballX since I'm running Windows 7. I kept running into installation issues with the latest one. I know there is no support of those older versions but I'd like to run one that installs easily and simply allows the Steam integration. I may try the Joyrider Launcher mentioned above to see if it'll work with my current config first.

 

Thank you for the input and for not being forthcoming with some of the config files requested to try and help me!! I was heads-down trying to figure it out, probably doing the same things over and over expecting a different result .... dumb.

 

 

[jackblotto]

By the way, Mike, thanks for all of the good info!  Can you point me to the Joyrider launcher you mentioned?  I can't find anything about that.  If I could get that working with my existing setup and not upgrade PinballX quite yet, that would be good.

 

Thanks

[jackblotto]

Well, I finally figure the display issue where the backglass wouldn't show up on display 2.  To review, 3-screen setup.  Windows thinks 0,1,2.  With the previous version of PBX that worked great, 0=playfield, 1=backglass, 2=dmd. Upgrade to a later version of PBX, not so much.  Without spending too much time detailing everything .... the only way PBX works right now is (inside of pinballx.ini), playfield monitor=0, backglass display=0, dmd display =2.  Then set the offset for the playfield as x=1920.  Saw something similar in another post and tried making some adjustments in my ini and it worked.  WTF? Well, who cares, it's working!!! Don't question it I guess. I understand apps may sometimes get different display numbering than windows, but PinballX now thinks display 1 and 2 are a combined display space. Wish I could get about 8 hours or so of my life back.

 

 

[jackblotto]

I believe Pinball FX3 direct tables launch is now working for my system too.  This place is GREAT, thanks for all the great content!!

Just started a new thread looking for Zaccaria Pinball Table Images for PinballX.  I need that working next.

[Mike_da_Spike]

You can get zacarria working without table images as well.

I always create my own playfield videos, so not sure if images are available.

If you are able to create videos, you can grab one of the video frames and make an image from it 

Quote

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf select=eq(n=1) -vframes 1 output.png
 

Replace input.mp4 with the path to your MP4 file. This command will extract the second frame (frame number 1, since indexing starts from 0) and save it as output.png. sometimes frame0 is a black frame

Hope this helps

[jackblotto]

Thanks Mike.  I will give this a go!