27 replies to this topic

[007]

Hi all

I have been playing future pinball for something like two years now, on a total of three different computers, but I have NEVER been able to get the manual ball roller to work.

Can someone please go through the steps one by one, as if you were talking to a complete idiot

I have enabled the mouse in the controls setting, and when I start a table I press / on the numpad, but the ball just sits there. No matter what I do I cannot get it to move. What am I doing wrong???

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

[Gravy]

off the top of my head isnt it F11 for ball roller mode?

I have heard of a few people that can never get it to work though. Remove any joysticks if you have one connected.

Edit: Oops... nope thats manual camera mode. You are right with numpad /

I have mine setup so that left mouse button activates ball roller, try setting that in the "Button Actions" section of game keys.

Then in Analog Plunger section, set

Plunger: -none-
Test Roller X: Left-Right
Test Roller Y: Up-Down

Edited by Gravy, 28 May 2010 - 01:35 PM.

[007]

I can get the ball roller mode to engage with the mouse button, as you described, but that's the same thing as the / numpad, isn't it?

Strange thing is that I have no options for the axis selections:

Test Roller X -none-
Test Roller Y -none-

That's it. And it's been the same on all three computers I've used. And I've tried reinstalling the programme, even downloading it from third party websites, and tried that. No luck.

Weird that it's the same on different computers...

[Gravy]

it is strange and Ive heard a similar problem before (might have been you??)

So mouse is enabled (ticked) and the dropdown next to "Enable" is set to "Mouse" ?

Are test Roller X and Y greyed out?

Are NudgeX and NudgeY greyed out? (they are greyed in my setup here).

Do you have any joysticks or steering wheels attached or drivers installed?

What is the common feature of the 3 PC's? Are they all the same OS? Do they have same mouse??

Edited by Gravy, 28 May 2010 - 02:27 PM.

[007]

Nope, wasn't me.

Test rollers are not greyed out, but nudge X and Y are.

Common features:

All use NVIDIA graphics cards, one really old and crappy, one new but specifically for CAD renderings, one quite new optimised for gaming. I don't know the names of the top of my head. All tables play without problems, apart from frame rate issues and resolution/anti-aliasing issues.

All are Windows XP Professional, SP3

Different mouses, two have optical mouses and one has an old style ball type mouse. PS2 connectors: One optical, one ball type. USB connector: Optical. All mouses are standard two button with scroll wheel.

Screen resolution varies: 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200

What else should I look at?

[Gravy]

dont suppose you use some sort of fancy mouse driver or something on all 3 machines? Im all outta ideas really.

One thing I do have an issue with on my PC is I have Microsoft Security Essentials installed and when I have it set to Real Time Protection it causes most FP tables to crash. Likely unrelated to your problem though.

[destruk]

I think the manual ball roller is quite a funky feature. I can enable it in the game preferences. I set the manual roller X to the left/right for the mouse, and the roller y to the front/back for the mouse just fine. Then I start a game, press the / key to enable it, and move the mouse around and the ball roller kinda works, a little. The ball moves when I move the mouse. It is nowhere near accurate enough to have 'ball in hand' capability to hit targets on demand with. The feature could use a lot more work - and I don't think you're missing much of anything by not being able to use it. When debugging a game and testing it is much easier to simply use the keyboard to do what you need to do - in debug mode (Press F9 to play instead of the basic Play)

[light66]

As far as i can remember it has something to do with your windows version.
I have the same problem, danish windows, and it only works on english versions?
Not quite sure, it's a long time since the discussion was up on FP forums.
What version do you use?

light

[Mystman]

I also remember it having something to do with windows version..

Dutch windows here, and I also haven't managed to get the ball roller to work.

[007]

Aha, that might be it. I run non-English windows also.

Thanks for all the input everybody.

[Gravy]

ah yes I do remember something about this now with regards to non english versions of windows (if only Black hadnt pulled that plug).

Perhaps something to do with references to mouse axis being assigned internal english names or something, I dont really know what Im talking about there but I vaguely remember something like this.

I think we also suggested changing the way windows handles decimal points or something but not sure whether that fixed the issue or not and it might have been for another issue altogether.

Destruk, in regards to how well the roller works, my guess it it depends on your mouse sensitivity settings in windows as Im able to move the ball around quite well and could hit targets if I wanted to.

[sza]

Aha, that might be it. I run non-English windows also.

It works OK on Polish Windows XP, but I move the ball with a joypad, the keyboard has issues (slow + manual moving would not turn back on after turning it off)
BTW. thanks to your post I discovered the function, it makes debugging 500% faster, now I can finish scripting in no time.
Cheers

Edited by sza, 29 May 2010 - 02:13 PM.

[007]

I have a Logitech Rumblepad at my disposal. Could you tell me how you set it up?

[destruk]

Destruk, in regards to how well the roller works, my guess it it depends on your mouse sensitivity settings in windows as Im able to move the ball around quite well and could hit targets if I wanted to.

Perhaps it has an issue with optical mice? I dunno. I use the standard HID driver with a 1600dpi resolution optical mouse and it has a lot of trouble with it for me.

[sza]

I have a Logitech Rumblepad at my disposal. Could you tell me how you set it up?

and "pinball roller" assigned to a button 12

Edited by sza, 29 May 2010 - 06:30 PM.

[Gravy]

There may be a solution for those still wanting to use their mouse rather than a joystick or for those that dont own a joystick.

Go and grab PPJOY http://ppjoy.softwareandgames.com/

Then install it and create a virtual joystick, then run the included ppjoymouse.

Then start FP and go into the game keys and controls,

Change the Mouse/Joypad controller to PPJOY Virtual Joystick

Set Test Roller X to X Axis
Set Test Roller Y to Y axis

Start the game, launch a ball and press / as usual to start the ball roller (press left mouse to toggle roller on and off I think).

Hopefully you are now able to control the ball with your mouse.

There are probably other similar mouse to joystick drivers you can get but this one I found first and worked for me.

Let me know how it goes.

[007]

Thanks for the tip Gravy! Hope it works on my machine.

ppjoy.softwareandgames.com isn't good for me. Pop-ups, and pay to download etc.

I found it for free without hassle at
http://drn.digitalri...PJoy/75176.html

I'll let you know how it goes.

Edit: I installed it, and I think I did everything right. Future pinball lets me enable the PPJoy Virtual Joystick, but there is only one option for ALL settings; -none-
I tried mapping it to the keyboard as well, but the results were the same.

Oh well, I guess I have to test my tables the hard way. Or buy myself an English Windows XP.

Edited by 7, 31 May 2010 - 10:15 AM.

[Gravy]

I didnt get the popups here and it was free to download, but then I have a popup blocker so thats likely why.

I think the official site is http://ppjoy.blogspot.com/ and there does seem to be some recent movement there.

Too bad it didnt work for you though, I suspectits due to the same reason that the mouse wouldnt work in the first place. If you mention the issue to the PPJOY programmer perhaps he might have some clues as to why non english Windows are having issues.

[victorkpm]

i use portuguese(brazilian) windows and the axis are disabled too.

[Albert G]

it's the same problem with my Dutch Windows 7 version (the manual ball function won't work). On my second computer I have installed a English Windows 7 version, and on that computer the manual ball roller function is working correctly.

Edited by Albert G, 07 June 2010 - 02:22 PM.