114 replies to this topic

[mjr]

I'll probably be buying one next month.  I actually doubt it will work well, but there are *none* on eBay, so I expect if it sucks for pinball someone will buy it for it's intended visor-y purpose.  If I lose $5 or $10, well, I'll consider it a sort of lottery - if this works perfectly it'd be hard to imagine better, short of the $350 or so for a real DMD.

 

Cool!  Look forward to hearing what you think of it.  Other than authenticity for its own sake (for which there's something to be said), I think the only practical advantages of a real DMD are brightness and viewing angle.  If I could find a full-color display that could match a plasma DMD on those axes, I think I'd actually *prefer* it to a real DMD, because of the greater flexibility (e.g., for alphanumeric games).  As it is I like my 16" Hanns-G solution despite the viewing angle compromises.

[bosvrucht]

 

i had a 14"  16:9 laptop screen in mine, this is the smallest monitor that can match the actual DMD size

 

Did you have to do anything special to convert it from laptop use to PC use?  I haven't looked at the insides of my old laptop myself, but I've read that it requires some extra electronics because they don't usually have standard VGA/DVI connectors.

 

yes, you need a controller board. You can get them from china via ebay, They are not expensive:

 

http://stores.ebay.c...=p2047675.l2563

[mjr]

Interesting data point relevant to this thread.  I was in a local arcade this weekend and came across a Medieval Madness tricked out with a ColorDMD.  They use a "standard laptop LCD panel", according to the Web site, although (not surprisingly) they don't provide a manufacturer or model number.  I made a point of observing it from as wide a range of viewing angles as I could, and I was impressed - I didn't see any loss of contrast or brightness from anywhere I could stand.  

 

I'm encouraged because this demonstrates that a panel with the right properties in the right size actually does exist.  If I knew what model they were using I'd just pop over to eBay and buy one.  If anyone has any idea what they're using, I'd love to know.

Edited by mjr, 21 April 2014 - 06:45 PM.

[mjr]

Quick follow-up: vampirolatino2 posted this on one of the other sites, but I wanted to post it here too for those who don't follow both sites.  There's a thread on pinside (https://pinside.com/...-mans-color-dmd) about doing DIY replacements on real pinball machines of the DMD with LCD, and they have a particular LCD panel they recommend: LG PHILIPS LP156WF1(TL)(F3).  Looks promising - people on the thread report good viewing angles.

[striggell]

This is awesome news - I'd been looking at similar screens and controller boards on ebay.  Their quoted response time and viewing angles were pretty poor comparatively though, - I've ordered one of these LG screens and the controller this morning - I'll report back when I get them.  I was almost about to splash on a real dmd and pindmd2 but this is about 1/3rd the price and allows me to set my DMD colours to match games.

[vampirolatino2]

This is awesome news - I'd been looking at similar screens and controller boards on ebay.  Their quoted response time and viewing angles were pretty poor comparatively though, - I've ordered one of these LG screens and the controller this morning - I'll report back when I get them.  I was almost about to splash on a real dmd and pindmd2 but this is about 1/3rd the price and allows me to set my DMD colours to match games.

 

Well .... you can only change all the dots colors, not by shades with pinMAME .... if you can code, you can see in one of the.c files that it IS possible to code each 3 levels (4 if you count 0%) of the color "brightness" and attach each shade/dot 4 to 16 possible to a specific color ...

[mjr]

This is awesome news - I'd been looking at similar screens and controller boards on ebay.  Their quoted response time and viewing angles were pretty poor comparatively though, - I've ordered one of these LG screens and the controller this morning - I'll report back when I get them.

 

Wonderful!  Look forward to hearing what you find.  

[connorsdad]

This is awesome news - I'd been looking at similar screens and controller boards on ebay.  Their quoted response time and viewing angles were pretty poor comparatively though, - I've ordered one of these LG screens and the controller this morning - I'll report back when I get them.  I was almost about to splash on a real dmd and pindmd2 but this is about 1/3rd the price and allows me to set my DMD colours to match games.

I too am looking forward to hearing your feedback before I place an order.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[striggell]

I'm in Australia so it will probably take around 3 weeks for the order to arrive. I can't wait - my cabinet is completely built except for the dmd and cabinet glass

[vampirolatino2]

Exchanged emails with David, from DrPinball ... and he told me that DMDExtender is compatible with PinDMDv2 ...

 

Here is a quote" DMD Extender is designed to interface with a real DMD controller and allow selection of the colours displayed – this is NOT the same as ColorDMD which selects colours for each frame – DMD Extender uses the same palette for all frames.

 

DMD Extender may work with pinDMDv2 – I have worked with many people to get the software to work with Sega, Stern or Data East etc. If you want to buy a DMD Extender then I can help to modify the software and get the system working with pinDMDv2 – I have debug software that can record the digital signal coming from the 14 way ribbon cable."

 

Hope this help!

So if I understand correctly we need DMDExtender, PinDMDv2 to do as the link shows with the LCD/Controller combo ... not so cheap aproach.

~$120 for DMD Extender

~$100 for pinDMD

~$150 for LCD and controller

The configuration will be ... PC-> PinMame -> PinDMD-> DMDExtender -> LCD Controller-> LCD?

 

And we need the raspberrypi? Need to ask him.

[Carny_Priest]

Seems to me that you would not need the pinDMD or DMD Extender if VPinMAME were modified to allow selection from a color palette for each shade. That seems to be the feature that comes with the DMD Extender software.   With that change the configuration would be the same as any three screen cabinet with the DMD signal driven by your video card.

Edited by Carny_Priest, 24 April 2014 - 04:34 PM.

[vampirolatino2]

Seems to me that you would not need the pinDMD or DMD Extender if VPinMAME were modified to allow selection from a color palette for each shade. That seems to be the feature that comes with the DMD Extender software.   With that change the configuration would be the same as any three screen cabinet with the DMD signal driven by your video card.

 

True, but the last time I codded was like 5 or 7 years ago!

[mjr]

 

So if I understand correctly we need DMDExtender, PinDMDv2 to do as the link shows with the LCD/Controller combo ... not so cheap aproach.

~$120 for DMD Extender

~$100 for pinDMD

~$150 for LCD and controller

The configuration will be ... PC-> PinMame -> PinDMD-> DMDExtender -> LCD Controller-> LCD?

 

I sure think you're setting yourself up for a lot of headaches if you go that route.  The PinDMD and DMD Extender essentially cancel each other out.  The PinDMD's function is to turn a VGA signal into the electrical signal required for a real DMD.  The DMD Extender's function is turn the DMD electrical signal into a VGA signal.  So what you end up with, effectively, is a really expensive VGA cable, plus the risk of configuration and compatibility issues.  Granted, you'd probably be able to use it to get the colorizing effect, but it sure looks to me like that can be achieved relatively easily in the VPM software, if you can wait for the VPM developers or someone else to do the coding work.  I'm definitely going to look into it myself once I get some time for it, if the VPM guys don't beat me to it.

[blashyrk]

Seems to me that you would not need the pinDMD or DMD Extender if VPinMAME were modified to allow selection from a color palette for each shade. That seems to be the feature that comes with the DMD Extender software.   With that change the configuration would be the same as any three screen cabinet with the DMD signal driven by your video card.

 
True, but the last time I codded was like 5 or 7 years ago!

You can do it

[Carny_Priest]

I think it was toxie who had tried some development work with VPinMAME in the area of improving the quality of DMD image output: defining 16 shades instead of 4 for systems that can handle it, improving spacing between simulated pixels, size and shape of pixels, etc. Don't know what became of the effort. Maybe it wound up becoming a VP10 idea to have VpinMAME simply generate the signal to be rendered by VP. I think that is the way it is handled with Unit3D? I don't know for sure as I have not tried the alpha yet.

 

In any case, the DMD Extender is hardware for a real machine. It's just not needed for a virtual cab. The color selection software interface is a simple and clever idea though, and it is surprising how good the results look. Really good.

[vampirolatino2]

Yeah! ... and I want it

[russdx]

pinDMD supports 95% of alphuameric games it just draws them as virtual alphnermic on the DMD looks pretty cool actually

 

pinMame to pinDMD to dmdExtender to LCD is craaazy talk. Just rewrite pinMame to do that dmdExtender is doing

[Carny_Priest]

A bit off-topic from DMD, but also take B2S as another example. It's rendering of alpha-numeric displays within active backglasses look so much better than VPinMAME in my opinion. 

 

edit - I should clarify - VPinMAME to a Window

Edited by Carny_Priest, 24 April 2014 - 08:59 PM.

[vampirolatino2]

pinDMD supports 95% of alphuameric games it just draws them as virtual alphnermic on the DMD looks pretty cool actually

 

pinMame to pinDMD to dmdExtender to LCD is craaazy talk. Just rewrite pinMame to do that dmdExtender is doing

 

we need a programmer ... I'm retired

[mjr]

 I'm definitely going to look into it myself once I get some time for it, if the VPM guys don't beat me to it.

 

I'm literally waiting for paint to dry, so I took a few minutes to get VPM built from source - success!  I did a very quick and rough proof of concept, just plugging in some arbitrary colors for the intensity levels.  It actually seems to work.  Here are some screen shots of TOTAN attract mode.

 

 

 

 

 

That's just a random color scheme, not optimized for this game or anything, but it's kind of cool.  It'll take a little work to make this real, though - mostly I'll have to add a suitable section to the options dialog, and get the registry storage working for the new settings.

Edited by mjr, 25 April 2014 - 12:13 AM.