1622 replies to this topic

[mjr]

Got Alpha 16 and the new build of DMDDevice.dll.      PinballY shows on the DMD when starting.  After I launch AC/DC the DMD isn't blank anymore but just shows PinballY on it and the actual game DMD never displays.  I confirmed the DMDDevice was the new 08/24 build from your site.

 

Oops, I think I see the problem.  I think it should be fixed in the Alpha 17 (just posted).  

[Tempest43528]

 

 

 

Oops, I think I see the problem.  I think it should be fixed in the Alpha 17 (just posted).  

 

 

Just installed Alpha 17 and DMD is now working in game.   Quickly tested both color and non-color and so far all looks good!     

[mjr]

 

Oops, I think I see the problem.  I think it should be fixed in the Alpha 17 (just posted).  

 

Just installed Alpha 17 and DMD is now working in game.   Quickly tested both color and non-color and so far all looks good!     

 

Great!

[Tempest43528]

@mjr

 

Just went and added Pinball FX3 (Steam) and have it starting and running tables.     As a part of my scripts on several of the systems I am rotating the display from landscape to portrait.     This works fine in PBY but during the loading screen

the loading text and wheel image displayed are rotated before the game starts.   I really like how you incorporate the table you are starting as part of the loading message,  It is a great touch!      Would it be possible to add a system option to have it run a script before the loading message/wheel image is shown so the rotate is done before?    Same with when the exit occurs to give the scripts time to rotate the display back?   I think this would be something like the Launch Before Wait/Hide Windows and Launch After Wait/Hide Window options in PBX.

[Brer Frog]

I've been setting up my games & the ones with HP Media Packs go quickly. The others take a bit of time looking for decent images & instruction cards to use. Since Flash is not on my PC a lot of time is spent converting .swf cards (and .pdf ones) to .png files. But I'm getting there.

 

I thought it's probably time to update PinballY and downloaded the Minimal update version, What's the best way to update the program, just copy the new files & overwrite the old ones? I presume my settings are in the Settings.txt file and are safe?

[Armyaviation]

How close to the beta version?

[mjr]

Just went and added Pinball FX3 (Steam) and have it starting and running tables.     As a part of my scripts on several of the systems I am rotating the display from landscape to portrait.     This works fine in PBY but during the loading screen the loading text and wheel image displayed are rotated before the game starts.   I really like how you incorporate the table you are starting as part of the loading message,  It is a great touch!     

 

Would it be possible to add a system option to have it run a script before the loading message/wheel image is shown so the rotate is done before?    Same with when the exit occurs to give the scripts time to rotate the display back?   I think this would be something like the Launch Before Wait/Hide Windows and Launch After Wait/Hide Window options in PBX.

 

That should be doable.  Are you picturing something like this?

 

User selects the Play command, no UI change just yet...

Run before command A    (this is the "launch before wait/hide script")

Show the "Loading game" message

Run before command B   (in case there's more to do after that)

Run the game

Run after command A

Show the "Exiting game" message

Run after command B

Return to the normal UI

I've been setting up my games & the ones with HP Media Packs go quickly. The others take a bit of time looking for decent images & instruction cards to use. Since Flash is not on my PC a lot of time is spent converting .swf cards (and .pdf ones) to .png files.

 

I bet that's taking a while.

 

 

I thought it's probably time to update PinballY and downloaded the Minimal update version, What's the best way to update the program, just copy the new files & overwrite the old ones? I presume my settings are in the Settings.txt file and are safe?

 

The minimal update should be fine, and right, just unpack the ZIP and overwrite the old copies of the files.  I think the only third-party code that's changed in the full package is that libvlc moved from 3.0.2 to 3.0.3.  You could check your About box to see if it reports libvlc 3.0.2, and if so it might be using the full package so that you get the latest update there.  That's optional, though; I think 3.0.2 -> 3.0.3 is just some bug fixes.  In any case, your Settings.txt file shouldn't be affected no matter which package you use to update.

How close to the beta version?

 

Probably pretty close - it sounds like most of the big crashy bugs and major compatibility issues are clearing up.  Maybe next week, if nothing serious comes up in the meantime. 

 

If anyone knows of any major unresolved issue I seem to be ignoring, or otherwise thinks it's not that close to what you'd think of as "beta" level, let me know!

[Brer Frog]

The PinballY About box does indicate libvlc 3.0.2.

I did use the Minimal update version & copied/overwrote the old files. I also downloaded the full update version just to check it out & the new VLC does contain the libvlc 3.0.3 and libvlccore 3.0.3 dll  files. Can I just replace the old dlls with the new versions or is it more involved than that?

I already have VLC on the PC & it does need to be updated. What happens when/if PinballY calls on VLC? Will it use my existing version or will it update it & install the version that came with PinballY?

Since I updated PinballY this message comes up every time I run the program.

 Steam Error.jpg   84.28KB   2 downloads

 

I don’t have Pinball Arcade or Steam. In the Options I see several settings for Pinball Arcade. What should be changed to stop the message form displaying? Should I Delete System, change System Class, or something else?

Thanks again for all your help.
 

 

[Tempest43528]

 

Just went and added Pinball FX3 (Steam) and have it starting and running tables.     As a part of my scripts on several of the systems I am rotating the display from landscape to portrait.     This works fine in PBY but during the loading screen the loading text and wheel image displayed are rotated before the game starts.   I really like how you incorporate the table you are starting as part of the loading message,  It is a great touch!     

 

Would it be possible to add a system option to have it run a script before the loading message/wheel image is shown so the rotate is done before?    Same with when the exit occurs to give the scripts time to rotate the display back?   I think this would be something like the Launch Before Wait/Hide Windows and Launch After Wait/Hide Window options in PBX.

 

That should be doable.  Are you picturing something like this?

 

User selects the Play command, no UI change just yet...

Run before command A    (this is the "launch before wait/hide script")

Show the "Loading game" message

Run before command B   (in case there's more to do after that)

Run the game

Run after command A

Show the "Exiting game" message

Run after command B

Return to the normal UI

 

 

 

 

@mjr - Yes, perfect!  That would be ideal and give even more flexibility.

[mjr]

I did use the Minimal update version & copied/overwrote the old files. I also downloaded the full update version just to check it out & the new VLC does contain the libvlc 3.0.3 and libvlccore 3.0.3 dll  files. Can I just replace the old dlls with the new versions or is it more involved than that?

 

File replacement is all that's needed, but you'll have to replace the entire VLC folder tree, including the whole VLC\plugins subtree.  VLC has a boatload of other required DLLs there.  If you just copy the VLC folder via the Windows desktop it should get everything.  (That is, copy the VLC folder from the Full Update ZIP to your PinballY install folder, overwriting the VLC folder you find there.  Or, equivalently, copy *.dll plus the plugins folder from your VLC 3.0.3 install set.)

 

 

I already have VLC on the PC & it does need to be updated. What happens when/if PinballY calls on VLC? Will it use my existing version or will it update it & install the version that came with PinballY?

 

PinballY always uses its own private copy of libvlc.  (PBY doesn't actually use VLC Player; it uses libvlc, the internal technology layer written by the creators of VLC Player.)  It doesn't matter whether or not you have VLC Player installed separately, and it doesn't matter which version of VLC Player you have installed.  The two are completely independent, and neither one is aware of or has any effect on the other.  

 

 

Since I updated PinballY this message comes up every time I run the program.

 

<error about missing Steam program>

 

I don’t have Pinball Arcade or Steam. In the Options I see several settings for Pinball Arcade. What should be changed to stop the message form displaying? Should I Delete System, change System Class, or something else?

 

You can just un-check the "Enable" box in the settings for Pinball Arcade (near the top of the page, just under the system name).  You could also delete the Pinball Arcade entry entirely if you prefer, but I'd just disable it because it's easy to re-enable later if you do end up installing TPA at some point.

 

The check during loading for Steam was supposed to be helpful, to let you know immediately that TPA wasn't going to work properly, but I guess it backfired by creating more confusion than it was supposed to alleviate.  I should probably silence that warning until you actually try to launch a Steam-based game.

Edited by mjr, 28 August 2018 - 05:38 PM.

[hlr53]

Back home at the cab today.

 

A17 32 bit build FRESH INSTALL

 

Playfield image and video perfect. Error on Backglass capture. I set BG window to full screen. No capture done. I also resized the backglass to about 90% of the monitor. Same errors. Both monitors are 1920*1080. BG in landscape and playfield always in portrait.

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Tuesday, August 28, 2018, 4:25:38 PM: Session started
PinballY 1.0.0 (Alpha 17), build 6350 (x86, 20180827-2015)

 

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 697 -video_size 1920x997 -i desktop    -vframes 1  "C:\PinballY\Media\Visual Pinball X\Backglass Images\Eight Ball (Bally 1977).png"
[gdigrab @ 06414800] Capture area (1080,697),(3000,1694) extends outside window area (0,0),(2360,1920)desktop: I/O error

+ FFMPEG completed: process exit code 1

 

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 697 -video_size 1920x997 -i desktop -c:a none   -t 15  "C:\PinballY\Media\Visual Pinball X\Backglass Videos\Eight Ball (Bally 1977).f4v"
[gdigrab @ 06654800] Capture area (1080,697),(3000,1694) extends outside window area (0,0),(2360,1920)desktop: I/O error

+ FFMPEG completed: process exit code 1

 

Tuesday, August 28, 2018, 4:29:22 PM: PinballY session ending

Edited by hlr53, 28 August 2018 - 09:20 PM.

[hlr53]

A16 32 bit build

 

When I was setting up Pinball FX3 this weekend on my laptop I had PinballX also installed. PBY grabbed the tables off the XML perfectly. Same with the Pinball Arcade tables.

 

On my cab I have left PinballX off for now (I bounce back and forth installing ). I like to test PBY for you as a new user without PBX installed and as a new user with PBX installed.

 

Without PBX installed, PBY has no FX3 or PBA tables to grab on a fresh install. So, it comes up with No tables found. For a full PBY fresh install without PBX installed the user would  manually have to add both XMLs and create their associated database folders. Or, you could have PBY look for PBX, see it is not on their system and install some default XMLs? With FX3 the tables the user has installed is shown in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pinball FX3\data\steam to build a XML. Not sure about PBA?

 

This weekend I set up Zaccaria Pinball with a XML file with only one table labeled "Launch Zaccaria" since we cannot launch tables individually. At least I could launch their executable

within PBY. Same with Pinball Arcade but some fancy scripting can launch their tables. 

[mjr]

 

Both monitors are 1920*1080. BG in landscape and playfield always in portrait.

[gdigrab @ 06414800] Capture area (1080,697),(3000,1694) extends outside window area (0,0),(2360,1920)desktop: I/O error

 

Hmm, looks like PBY is generating the right window area per your description of the window layout.  Assuming the playfield is on the left and the backglass is on the right (in terms of the way Windows pictures the arrangement of the monitors in the "screen resolution" control panel), the overall desktop area should be 3000 pixels wide.  FFmpeg seems to think it's 2360 pixels wide.  2360 = 1080 + 1280.  Does that suggest anything to you?  Is anything in your system anywhere set to 1280, like maybe a percentage based DPI size or something? 

Could you post a screen shot of your Windows screen resolution control panel, showing the little diagram of the monitor arrangement?

 

(Edit:)   Do you by chance have different magnification percentages on the two screens?  It looks like ffmpeg is *halfway* DPI aware, if I'm reading its code correctly.  That is, it looks like it uses the Windows "DPI 1.0" APIs where the whole desktop used a uniform DPI.  I'm using the "DPI 2.0" APIs where every monitor has its own DPI.  That might explain it - I might need to figure out how to reverse ffmpeg's uniform DPI calculation to coerce the true screen coordinates to ffmpeg's weird virtual coordinates.  I thought just switching everything to true coordinates was the answer, but of course there's yet another layer to this.

 

Could you try this little test program and tell me what it says on your system?  Run it from a CMD prompt - it'll just print out a couple of lines of data about your monitor layout.

 

http://mjrnet.org/pi...MetricsTest.zip

 

 

 

I like to test PBY for you as a new user without PBX installed and as a new user with PBX installed.

 

Thanks - definitely good to try it with both starting points.

 

 

Or, you could have PBY look for PBX, see it is not on their system and install some default XMLs? With FX3 the tables the user has installed is shown in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pinball FX3\data\steam to build a XML. Not sure about PBA?

 

Yeah, that sounds like a good addition.  I'll have to think about how to approach it.

 

PBA unfortunately doesn't use table files; it's all in some internal database or built into the exe or something.

 

 

Same with Pinball Arcade but some fancy scripting can launch their tables. 

 

Note that the fancy scripting is built in via the "startup keys".  That sends a sequence of keystrokes and mouse clicks that you can customize, so in principle it should be extensible to any system.  Maybe you can figure out how to set up something like that for Zaccaria - if you can come up with something workable, I'd be more than happy to add it to the default settings.  The downside of that approach is that it's really twitchy because the program is just blasting out the keystrokes in the blind and hoping that the program is responding as expected - it doesn't have AI computer vision capability to read the TPA screen and see what the UI thinks it's doing.  It's kind of like remote control macros for your home theater equipment; if something gets out of sync or the timing is a little off, everything gets screwed up.

Edited by mjr, 28 August 2018 - 10:25 PM.

[hlr53]

tried .\screenmetricstest.exe in adm powershell but it did nothing?  Clicked on it direct and ucrtbased.dll was not found.

 

Both monitors same resolution.

 

Edited by hlr53, 28 August 2018 - 10:55 PM.

[mjr]

tried .\screenmetricstest.exe in adm powershell but it did nothing?  Clicked on it direct and ucrtbased.dll was not found.

 

Maybe if you just try it from a CMD prompt window?  If that still doesn't work, try a fresh copy - I just linked it statically to remove any MSVC runtime dependencies.  (MSVC annoyingly defaults new projects to link dynamically to its C++ libraries, which might be the missing library.)

Thanks for the screen shot.  Could you also click on monitor 2 on the diagram and get the screen shot from that too?  Each monitor has its own layout metrics.

Edited by mjr, 28 August 2018 - 11:01 PM.

[hlr53]

 

tried .\screenmetricstest.exe in adm powershell but it did nothing?  Clicked on it direct and ucrtbased.dll was not found.

 

Maybe if you just try it from a CMD prompt window?  If that still doesn't work, try a fresh copy - I just linked it statically to remove any MSVC runtime dependencies.

Thanks for the screen shot.  Could you also click on monitor 2 on the diagram and get the screen shot from that too?  Each monitor has its own layout metrics.

 

I also tried Win Key - R cmd propt and I get the ucrtbased.dll not found. Also tried on my regular dual monitor laptop which has 2 different resolutions. Same error.

 

Monitor 2 is 1920*1080. I'll DL and try again

Edited by hlr53, 28 August 2018 - 11:04 PM.

[mjr]

Monitor 2 is 1920*1080.

 

And what does it say for Scale?

[hlr53]

 

Monitor 2 is 1920*1080.

 
And what does it say for Scale?
 

 
Well...............that answers the scaling question on capture. I had it at 150% because I stand 3 1/2 feet away. Never paid attention that you can scale each monitor differently. I probably set that 2 years ago.
 
At 100% it works :-) Anyway to error trap that scale setting before capture and warn user?
 
Also, is there a way to get rid of the BG window title bar?

Edited by hlr53, 29 August 2018 - 01:37 AM.

[mjr]

Well...............that answers the scaling question on capture. I had it at 150% because I stand 3 1/2 feet away. Now I also know you can scale each monitor differently. I probably set that 2 years ago.

 

Hooray!  Now this is starting to make more sense.  I couldn't think of any other way ffmpeg could be coming up with the bizarre screen size numbers.

 

 

At 100% it works :-) Anyway to error trap that scale setting before capture and warn user?

 

Yeah, I just need to figure out how to map the "real" screen sizes that Windows is reporting to me to the warped sizes that ffmpeg is calculating.  Any luck running the new copy of that test program?  I'm hoping that will explain the discrepancy between my numbers and ffmpeg's numbers and point to how to do the mapping correctly.  

 

Of course, ffmpeg is going to switch to real screen sizes at some point because it's going to confound other people as well.  (ffmpeg's current treatment is actually already a bug fix that they added about three years ago.  But they only seem to have done the halfway fix, so I'm sure people have already filed other bugs about the bug fix..)  At that point this will break again and I'll have to take *out* my workaround for their mapping workaround.  And then no doubt 8K monitors will come out and Microsoft will come up with "high DPI 3.0" that will throw another wrench in it.  Never a dull moment with Windows. 

Edited by mjr, 28 August 2018 - 11:30 PM.

[hlr53]

 

At 100% it works :-) Anyway to error trap that scale setting before capture and warn user?

 

Any luck running the new copy of that test program?  I'm hoping that will explain the discrepancy between my numbers and ffmpeg's numbers and point to how to do the mapping correctly.  

 

I shut cab down for the night. TV time w/wife. I tried the Win key - R cmd prompt and a blank window comes up and I get the missing ucrtbased.dll error on both my laptop and the cab. In Powershell it does nothing. It just goes back to the drive/folder prompt.