1622 replies to this topic

[mjr]

 

I added a small change to the Alpha 13 that I'm hoping will work around the problem, without the need to turn off colorization globally.   But if that still doesn't fix it, it should work for now to turn off colorization in the dmd-extensions.ini file.  I filed the dmd-extensions issue on github (https://github.com/f...ions/issues/125) but Freezy hasn't responded to it yet.

 

Same error persists using Alpha 13 release.    I will disable color tonight and see if that gets things working.    I saw the fix request on GitHub.  Thanks!

 

Well, shoot, I was hoping that would fix it.  Hopefully the config change will solve it.  If not there might be some other issue involved that needs more investigation.  Let me know what you find.

[hlr53]

A13 Build

 

Playfield captures right side up now - thanks! My backglass image still didn't scale correctly (too big for window) and PBY window was filling BG monitor before I started capture. I will have to post some screen shots tomorrow. Pressed for time today.

 

Options added is NICE! Saw you added that yesterday as I was reading GitHub source on my tablet last night vegging on the couch. I added table type today but see how the text came up:

 

[hlr53]

Great looking work so far,  now that I am passed that hope to really check PinballY out.      Hopefully the PinDMDV3 coloroization issue is an easy fix for Freezy.

 

I will have specific feedback eventually but want to chime in quick and let you know I've been using this for the last few weeks. Love where it is going. Keep up the good work!

 

"Me too".    I've left the "X" behind completely at this point.   Thanks mjr!

 

Me FOUR (but still renewed my X membership this week :-)

 

Hey guys,

 

Are you getting high scores to display in the wheel info boxes? I'm still not seeing them but only tested on my cab and not my gaming laptop (cab is Win 10 Pro and laptop is home). I ran pinemhi on the command line against a few NV files and it reads them OK.  I did check to see that everything was pointed correctly.

 

I've been testing PBY on only a couple of JP's tables. If you see it working on your tables can you give me an example table that is VPX and  FP, if you run that also. 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

--Harry

Edited by hlr53, 22 August 2018 - 09:37 PM.

[mjr]

I added table type today but see how the text came up:

 

That's a weird one - looks like a line wrapping problem with the super-long manufacturer name.

 

 

Are you getting high scores to display in the wheel info boxes? 

 

Just to make sure you're looking in the right place, if you bring up the main menu, there will be a "High Scores" command if PBY was able to fetch a high score.  In addition, if you use the "Information" command, that will show a little "High scores>" indicator at the bottom that lets you get to the high score box by pressing the right flipper key.  And if you have a DMD window, the high scores will also appear there, alternating with your DMD video or still graphics.

 

If they're not showing up in any of those places, go to the "Information" command and see what it shows for the NVRAM file.

 

And as far as examples of working tables go, "all VP tables with ROMs" pretty much sums it up.

Edited by mjr, 22 August 2018 - 10:42 PM.

[hlr53]

 

I added table type today but see how the text came up:

 

That's a weird one - looks like a line wrapping problem with the super-long manufacturer name.

 

That's exactly what is happening. I switched it to a shorter name and it displayed correctly. Looks like you may have to tweak the code for those long MFG names.

 

Are you getting high scores to display in the wheel info boxes? 

 

I enabled my real DMD and had the PBY DMD window displayed. The high scores do display on those alternating with "Pinball Y". I never waited long enough for the scores to come up - LOL.

 

Are we calling this the information box? Have to get my terminology correct. 

 

 

Just to make sure you're looking in the right place, if you bring up the main menu, there will be a "High Scores" command if PBY was able to fetch a high score.  In addition, if you use the "Information" command, that will show a little "High scores>" indicator at the bottom that lets you get to the high score box by pressing the right flipper key.  And if you have a DMD window, the high scores will also appear there, alternating with your DMD video or still graphics.

 

If they're not showing up in any of those places, go to the "Information" command and see what it shows for the NVRAM file.

 

Sorry, I'm still a little fuzzy on the above? What are you calling the main menu? The one I right click on the playfield to bring up? The information command? 

[Tempest43528]

 

 

I added a small change to the Alpha 13 that I'm hoping will work around the problem, without the need to turn off colorization globally.   But if that still doesn't fix it, it should work for now to turn off colorization in the dmd-extensions.ini file.  I filed the dmd-extensions issue on github (https://github.com/f...ions/issues/125) but Freezy hasn't responded to it yet.

 

Same error persists using Alpha 13 release.    I will disable color tonight and see if that gets things working.    I saw the fix request on GitHub.  Thanks!

 

Well, shoot, I was hoping that would fix it.  Hopefully the config change will solve it.  If not there might be some other issue involved that needs more investigation.  Let me know what you find.

 

 

@mjr

 

Just changed colorize to false in the dmddevice.ini file and tried to run PinballY.    If I set to Enable or Auto, PinballY starts and the virtual DMD is on the screen and then the program just exits back out to Windows.    

 

; enable or disable frame-by-frame colorization (inactive in VPX bundle)

colorize = false

 

I have DMD logging turned on in PinballY and I am getting the following:

 

Searching for real DMD device DLL

+ No DLL found in the PinballY folder; checking for a VPinMAME folder

+ VPinMAME COM object registration found at C:\Pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\vpinmame.dll

+ DLL found in VPinMAME folder at C:\Pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\DmdDevice.dll

 

Detecting and configuring real DMD device

+ Searching for dmddevice.dll

+ found DMD interface DLL: C:\Pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\DmdDevice.dll

+ retrieving file version info for DLL, to check for special handling

+ Version Info data: version=1.7.1.0, product name="Universal DmdDevice.dll for Visual PinMAME", copyright="Copyright © 2018 [email protected]"

+ This appears to be the dmd-extensions version of the DLL, based on the product/copyright strings

+ Based on the version number, this version has a bug in PM_GameSettings,

  so we won't call that function; as a result, per-game coloring from your

  VPinMAME settings won't be used during this session 

+ Checking if dmd-extensions virtual DMD mode is enabled

+ Loading DmdDevice.ini from DLL folder (C:\Pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\DmdDevice.ini)

+ DmdDevice.ini successfully loaded; scanning

+ It looks like virtual dmd mode is disabled in the dmd-extensions DLL, so we're enabling the DLL.

+ dmddevice.dll successfully loaded

+ It looks like virtual dmd mode is disabled in the dmd-extensions DLL, so we're enabling the DLL.

[bord]

I'm having a hard time getting video capture working properly. I'm using build A13 (64 bit), a 4k monitor for table, 1080p for bg. When I capture video the prompt screen stays visible and it only captures about 1/4 of the PF image (2560x1440 to be exact).

 

Also:

• Image capture behaves the same way


• After capture concludes the prompt screen persists and I need to exit PinballY to get rid of it


• While loading a game VPX appears on top of the loading screen

Edited by bord, 23 August 2018 - 04:09 AM.

[mjr]

 

Sorry, I'm still a little fuzzy on the above? What are you calling the main menu? The one I right click on the playfield to bring up? The information command? 

 

The menu that appears when you press Start (the "1" key by default):

 

 

That has a "High Scores" command is high scores are available for the game, right under "Information".  And if you go to the "Information" box via that menu item...

 

 

...that information box will have a "High Scores" marker at the bottom right, if scores are available:

 

 

Press the right flipper button to switch to the high scores.  That's just the same thing you get by going there directly with the "High Scores" command.

 

The main thing is I want to make sure you're not looking for this in the AUTOMATIC info box that's always there.  It's only in the High Scores box, which you have to call up via one of these commands.  Some games have rather lengthy high score information, so it really needs to be in a box by itself:

 

[mjr]

I'm having a hard time getting video capture working properly. I'm using build A13 (64 bit), a 4k monitor for table, 1080p for bg. When I capture video the prompt screen stays visible and it only captures about 1/4 of the PF image (2560x1440 to be exact).

 

Go to the options dialog, select the Log File page, and make sure that the Media Capture logging is enabled.  Then do a capture, quit the program, and take a look at your PinballY.log file (in the main install folder).  That'll let us see the ffmpeg command being attempted, and any errors back from ffmpeg.  

 

One thing to be aware of is that the capture area for a given media type (playfield, backglass, DMD) is always identical to the *PinballY window* for that media type.  PinballY doesn't have any separate knowledge of where the VPX window is going to come up.  It counts on you to set up the PBY window layout to match your VPX layout, and captures video from that area.  So it's important to set up your PBY windows so that they cover the same monitor area as the VPX windows.

[mjr]

Just changed colorize to false in the dmddevice.ini file and tried to run PinballY.    If I set to Enable or Auto, PinballY starts and the virtual DMD is on the screen and then the program just exits back out to Windows.    

 

Okay, I guess there must be something else going on apart from that first issue, then.  I'll have to think about how to debug that with you.  I'll probably have to create some special builds of dmd-extensions for you with a bunch instrumentation so we can get an idea of where it's crashing.

 

I'm going to post a new build (Alpha 14) tonight, with some other changes for the real DMD access.  I don't know if they'll help but you could try it out if you have time.  I've been working on tracking down the root cause of the *other* two dmd-ext mystery crashes, and I think I might have a handle on them, but in the process I also realized that PBY has been making free-threaded calls into the DLL, and there's no reason to assume that any of the DLL implementations (dmd-exts or any of the native ones for the various devices) can handle that.  So it's possible that the crash you're running into is a result of that.  I've battened all of that down to ensure serialized access to the DLL, so if that was the problem, Alpha 14 should fix it.  If not, we can figure out next steps.

[hlr53]

 

 

Sorry, I'm still a little fuzzy on the above? What are you calling the main menu? The one I right click on the playfield to bring up? The information command? 

 

The menu that appears when you press Start (the "1" key by default):

 

 

[snip] Will check it out after work.

 

I know I am slow but I get it eventually. I have never brought up that menu before and didn't even know you could press Start/1 to bring it up. Need to RTFM better.

[Tempest43528]

 

Just changed colorize to false in the dmddevice.ini file and tried to run PinballY.    If I set to Enable or Auto, PinballY starts and the virtual DMD is on the screen and then the program just exits back out to Windows.    

 

Okay, I guess there must be something else going on apart from that first issue, then.  I'll have to think about how to debug that with you.  I'll probably have to create some special builds of dmd-extensions for you with a bunch instrumentation so we can get an idea of where it's crashing.

 

I'm going to post a new build (Alpha 14) tonight, with some other changes for the real DMD access.  I don't know if they'll help but you could try it out if you have time.  I've been working on tracking down the root cause of the *other* two dmd-ext mystery crashes, and I think I might have a handle on them, but in the process I also realized that PBY has been making free-threaded calls into the DLL, and there's no reason to assume that any of the DLL implementations (dmd-exts or any of the native ones for the various devices) can handle that.  So it's possible that the crash you're running into is a result of that.  I've battened all of that down to ensure serialized access to the DLL, so if that was the problem, Alpha 14 should fix it.  If not, we can figure out next steps.

 

 

I'll take a look at Alpha 14 and let you know.   More than  happy to run any test builds you want so you can track it down further.

[Tempest43528]

@mjr 

 

No change in Alpha 14.    If DMD set to On or Auto (with colorize = false)  the application shows a black screen and immediately exits  

 

(I do noticed startup is much slower in this version.   Where PBY would start up in a second or two in last build,  there is now a ~20 second delay before it looks like the software is starting.)

[mjr]

No change in Alpha 14.    If DMD set to On or Auto (with colorize = false)  the application shows a black screen and immediately exits  

 

(I do noticed startup is much slower in this version.   Where PBY would start up in a second or two in last build,  there is now a ~20 second delay before it looks like the software is starting.)

 

Okay, let me see if I can figure out a plan of attack.

 

Just to make sure we're looking in the right place, does it run okay when you delete or rename dmddevice.dll, so that that never gets loaded?  

 

And as for the startup delay, does that happen if dmddevice.dll is removed?

 

Anyone else seeing a startup delay in Alpha 14?  It's still starting pretty much instantly for me (even with dmd-exts in place).

Edited by mjr, 23 August 2018 - 05:54 PM.

[hlr53]

 

No change in Alpha 14.    If DMD set to On or Auto (with colorize = false)  the application shows a black screen and immediately exits  

 

(I do noticed startup is much slower in this version.   Where PBY would start up in a second or two in last build,  there is now a ~20 second delay before it looks like the software is starting.)

 

Anyone else seeing a startup delay in Alpha 14?  It's still starting pretty much instantly for me (even with dmd-exts in place).

 

 

Just installed A14. Pretty much instantaneous.

[hlr53]

A14 32 bit build backglass image capture problem. 

 

BackglassWindow.Position = 1115,760,2301,1193
BackglassWindow.Rotation = 0
BackglassWindow.MirrorHorz = 0
BackglassWindow.MirrorVert = 0
BackglassWindow.Visible = 1
BackglassWindow.FullScreen = 1
BackglassWindow.Maximized = 0
BackglassWindow.Minimized = 0

 

Sorry images are rotated - 1st time uploading to VP Forums image hosts. It is absolutely horrible BBS forum software for posting images.

 

Image capture example using FP Slam's F-14 table.

 

Image One showing PBY backglass in full screen before capture

 

http://vpforums.org/...fullscreen0.jpg

 

Image Two showing loaded table backglass

 

http://vpforums.org/...lelaunched0.jpg

 

Image Three shows PBY BG capture

 

http://vpforums.org/...ybfcapture0.jpg

 

I've had problems with BG scaling on all tables.

Edited by hlr53, 23 August 2018 - 10:01 PM.

[mjr]

I've had problems with BG scaling on all tables.

 

If you could check what the captured BG file looks like in an external viewer, that would determine whether the capture is grabbing the wrong screen area or the playback is scaling it wrong.

 

I can't tell what your physical monitor setup looks like, but is there any chance that you're in Full Screen mode with the PBY window but not with the B2S window, or vice versa?  I'm still thinking this is the issue - the PBY and B2S backglass windows need to have the same display coverage for the sizing to work.

 

Could go to this program...

 

<your visual pinball install folder>\Tables\B2S_ScreenResEditor.exe

 

...run it, and see what it says for Backglass Width, Height, X Pos, Y Pos?  Then go to your <pinballY>\Settings.txt file and see what it says for BackglassWindow.Position = left,top,right,bottom.  The X Pos and Y Pos from B2S should match up with the left and right in your PBY settings, and you'll have to do the math to figure the right/bottom that correspond to X Pos + Width and Y Pos + Height.  If those don't match up, that's got to be the answer. 

 

If they don't match, you can just plug in the numbers from B2S by hand in the PBY Settings.txt file.  That should guarantee that they're exactly right.

 

If they do already match, the next thing to check is the log file to find the screen location that ffmpeg is being told to capture.  You'll need to start a new session and do a fresh capture, since the log file gets overwritten on each run.  The ffmpeg capture area is given in some fairly self-evident parameters:

 

   ffmpeg ... -offset_x 123 -offset_y 456 -video_size 789x543

 

So check that against the areas from the two sets of settings and see if that matches.

Edited by mjr, 23 August 2018 - 10:17 PM.

[Tempest43528]

Just renamed the dmdevice.dll and it shopped crashing PBY so it appears to be how the DLL is being called.    Startup speed was back to normal after I rebooted again so crash due to DMDDevice.dll or not it must have been a background process or something when I tested Alpha 14 earlier that was causing the slow load.    Sorry for the false alarm on that part.

 

I'll wait to hear back if you want me to test anything else regarding the DMD.

[hlr53]

 

I've had problems with BG scaling on all tables.

 

If you could check what the captured BG file looks like in an external viewer, that would determine whether the capture is grabbing the wrong screen area or the playback is scaling it wrong.

 

I can't tell what your physical monitor setup looks like, but is there any chance that you're in Full Screen mode with the PBY window but not with the B2S window, or vice versa?  I'm still thinking this is the issue - the PBY and B2S backglass windows need to have the same display coverage for the sizing to work.

 

Could go to this program...

 

<your visual pinball install folder>\Tables\B2S_ScreenResEditor.exe

 

...run it, and see what it says for Backglass Width, Height, X Pos, Y Pos?  Then go to your <pinballY>\Settings.txt file and see what it says for BackglassWindow.Position = left,top,right,bottom.  The X Pos and Y Pos from B2S should match up with the left and right in your PBY settings, and you'll have to do the math to figure the right/bottom that correspond to X Pos + Width and Y Pos + Height.  If those don't match up, that's got to be the answer. 

 

If they don't match, you can just plug in the numbers from B2S by hand in the PBY Settings.txt file.  That should guarantee that they're exactly right.

 

If they do already match, the next thing to check is the log file to find the screen location that ffmpeg is being told to capture.  You'll need to start a new session and do a fresh capture, since the log file gets overwritten on each run.  The ffmpeg capture area is given in some fairly self-evident parameters:

 

   ffmpeg ... -offset_x 123 -offset_y 456 -video_size 789x543

 

So check that against the areas from the two sets of settings and see if that matches.

 

 

MJR,

 

This was a Future Pinball table. I'll try with a VPX table checking B2S. External viewer of captured image shows same image.

 

EDIT: Tried with a VPX table and it looks like the top quarter quadrant was captured. I'm not following so

here are the settings from B2S_SetUp which creates a ScreenRes.txt file on install. That is what ships with latest VPX full install v10.4. 

 

X        Y       Width      Height

0         0      1920        1080

 

PBY

 

Left     Top     Right     Bottom

1155   760     2301      1193

 

Media capture: Capturing Backglass Image: launching FFMPEG
> "C:\PinballY\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe" -y -loglevel warning -probesize 30M -thread_queue_size 32  -f gdigrab -framerate 30 -offset_x 1080 -offset_y 674 -video_size 1280x720 -i desktop    -vframes 1  "C:\PinballY\Media\Visual Pinball X\Backglass Images\Cowboy Eight Ball (Midway 1981).png"

+ FFMPEG completed: process exit code 0

 

Media capture: Capturing Backglass Video: launching FFMPEG
> "C:\PinballY\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe" -y -loglevel warning -probesize 30M -thread_queue_size 32  -f gdigrab -framerate 30 -offset_x 1080 -offset_y 674 -video_size 1280x720 -i desktop -c:a none   -t 15  "C:\PinballY\Media\Visual Pinball X\Backglass Videos\Cowboy Eight Ball (Midway 1981).f4v"

Edited by hlr53, 23 August 2018 - 11:04 PM.

[mjr]

Just renamed the dmdevice.dll and it shopped crashing PBY so it appears to be how the DLL is being called.    Startup speed was back to normal after I rebooted again so crash due to DMDDevice.dll or not it must have been a background process or something when I tested Alpha 14 earlier that was causing the slow load.    Sorry for the false alarm on that part.

 

Great - I figured the DLL is the place to focus, but always good to do some simple checks to make sure we're not on a wild goose chase.