1622 replies to this topic

[Steve G]

Hi MJR,
 
Maybe this is just a problem with my setup but when lunching from PinballY (or capturing media) a table that incorporates the DMD with the Blackglass (B2S DMD), the focus goes to the real DMD instead.
If I run direct from VP or from PinballX the focus is on the B2S DMD.

 

I hope this makes sense?

 

Steve G.

[Brer Frog]

I went to setup a new table & selected “Capture images & videos” instead of “Find game media online”.

I now have a purple window in the corner on the screen that says

Screen capture in progress please stand by
Capturing playfield image
Time remaining (seconds):
Current Item: 0

The next line is partially cutoff but looks like it says Total

I close PinballY but when I reopen it the purple window is still there.

How do I get rid of it & anything else it that might have added?

[gtxjoe]

Reboot the computer should fix it

[mjr]

I close PinballY but when I reopen it the purple window is still there.

How do I get rid of it & anything else it that might have added?

 

Question for you:

 

When you say "I close PinballY but when I reopen it the purple window is still there", does this mean...

 

a)  The purple window disappears and then COMES BACK as soon as you relaunch the program

 

b)  The purple window never goes away at all

 

My guess is (b), in which case you're probably not *really* closing the program the first time through - you're probably closing the main window, and the program isn't exiting at all because it thinks it still has a capture to wait for.  In which case you can get rid of the window by going to Task Manager and killing the PinballY.exe process.  If it's (a), though, I have no hypothesis for what's going on.

 

In either case, a second question:

 

Was this a one-time glitch, or can you get it to happen again?  If it was a one-time glitch, I can't do too much more unless you can remember EXACTLY what you did to trigger it in enough detail that I can reproduce it on my machine.  I'm guessing that the description of the reproduction steps you gave...

 

 

I went to setup a new table & selected “Capture images & videos” instead of “Find game media online”.

 

...must be leaving some steps out, because when you select "Capture images & videos" there are more UI steps you have to go through before the capture should actually start.  At least, I don't get a purple window when I perform those steps; I get a menu asking about capture setup.

 

If you can remember the exact steps, or better yet, if you can reproduce the problem at will, I can try to reproduce it if you can give me the full procedure.  Try to pretend that I can't see what you're doing and what's on your screen - I need to know the exact steps so that I can make the same problem happen on my machine.

[Brer Frog]

a)  The purple window disappears when I close PinballY and then COMES BACK as soon as I re-launch PinballY.

Here’s what I remember doing. I setup a new table & wanted to get the media pack but instead clicked on “Capture images & videos”. Here’s a screen shot of what I ended up with.

 

 VP The Machine.jpg   84.07KB   1 downloads

 

I don’t recall doing anything else because when the Game Setup screen comes up the only thing that I could do is select something, & the purple message box indicates screen capture in progress. IOW that should be what I selected. Maybe, when I saw what was happening I tried to escape/abort/close out the capture process. Anything is possible.

Currently if I close PinballY by clicking on the “X” in the upper right corner the Task Manager does not show anything relating to PinballY. I re-open PinballY and the screen shows the purple message window or box again.

If I scroll to another table the purple box disappears, but re-appears when I scroll back to the table that created it. IOW it only shows up with this one table.

If I play the table the purple box disappears, but when I exit the table & the PinballY screen comes back up so does the purple box.

I can try to reproduce the problem but will need to download another table in order to have one that does not already have a media pack.

 

It’s interesting there are two “PinballY Backglass” windows. The one covered by the purple box cannot be moved. Maybe that’s a clue to what happened?

 

[mjr]

a)  The purple window disappears when I close PinballY and then COMES BACK as soon as I re-launch PinballY.

Here’s what I remember doing. I setup a new table & wanted to get the media pack but instead clicked on “Capture images & videos”. Here’s a screen shot of what I ended up with.

 

Oh, I think I see what's going on.

 

You don't actually have a separate purple window, if I'm reading this right...

 

...you have a PICTURE of a purple window.

 

I think what happened is that you just captured an image or video of the program trying to capture an image or video of the screen...  so you have a screen shot showing the "I'm taking a screen shot" window.

 

You should be able to confirm this by looking at the JPEG or MP4 in your Table Images or Table Video folder for this system.  

You can restore sanity by just deleting that wacky screen shot.

[Brer Frog]

mjr -

 

Thank you -  the image was a .png in the Table Images folder. It's deleted and PinballY is back to normal.

[hlr53]

I haven't messed with the cab since late October due to my Winter obsession with iRacing. Just installed Beta 2. This caught my eye within the docs!

 

Javascript customization. Starting with the Beta 2 version, PinballY lets you write custom Javascript code to modify and extend the program's standard features. This offers extensive new customization capabilities that let you go way beyond what you can do with simple option settings, but without the need to get into the C++ source code. Javascript is an extremely powerful and expressive programming language that's also easy to learn and use. PinballY's Javascript API gives your scripting code access to a lot of the program's functionality, to make a wide range of customizations possible.

 

When you get a chance down the road please provide some examples. I think I can handle some JS. Thanks!

[mjr]

Javascript customization. Starting with the Beta 2 version, PinballY lets you write custom Javascript code to modify and extend the program's standard features...

 

When you get a chance down the road please provide some examples. I think I can handle some JS. Thanks!

 

The help files have lots of little example snippets, so hopefully that will help you get started.  It would be nice to build up a collection of useful Javascript modules to serve as examples as well as drop-in extensions, though - code contributions are certainly welcome.

[Brer Frog]

It's time to update PinballY and I noticed I'm using the 32 bit version & am not sure why I originally chose this since I am using Windows 7 64 bit. Perhaps because the PinballY website says "The most broadly compatible version". I am not using any 4K (Ultra High-Def) video media. Is it recommended that I still use PinballY 32 bit?

[hlr53]

It's time to update PinballY and I noticed I'm using the 32 bit version & am not sure why I originally chose this since I am using Windows 7 64 bit. Perhaps because the PinballY website says "The most broadly compatible version". I am not using any 4K (Ultra High-Def) video media. Is it recommended that I still use PinballY 32 bit?

 

During alpha testing the 64 bit version worked much better on table recording. It removed the memory constraints. I was only recording in 1080p.

Edited by hlr53, 02 February 2019 - 07:37 PM.

[mjr]

It's time to update PinballY and I noticed I'm using the 32 bit version & am not sure why I originally chose this since I am using Windows 7 64 bit. Perhaps because the PinballY website says "The most broadly compatible version". I am not using any 4K (Ultra High-Def) video media. Is it recommended that I still use PinballY 32 bit?

 

If you're not using 4K video, you really can go either way.  The main 64-bit advantage is that the video decoders are more efficient in 64-bit mode even with HD or lesser resolutions, so there'll be a little less CPU load, which can make the UI a little smoother and more responsive.  The 32-bit advantage is that the whole rest of the virtual pinball ecosystem is mostly still 32-bit code, so 32-bit PinballY, so there are fewer chances for compatibility hassles.  But there shouldn't be any *serious* compatibility hassles at this point.  You don't lose any functionality; you just have to make sure you're up to date with a couple of other programs.  Namely: (1) you need one of my recent DOF R3++ updates, and (2) you need the 64-bit version of dll-extensions, if you're using that at all.  Both are covered on the PinballY web page:

 

http://mjrnet.org/pi...ballY.php#64bit

 

I'd go with the 64-bit version myself for the slightly better performance.  Given that it's also the one with the 64/32-bit inter-op issues, it's better from my perspective if more people are using it, to make sure that there aren't any *other* inter-op issues that I haven't heard about yet.

During alpha testing the 64 bit version worked much better on table recording. It removed the memory constraints. I was only recording in 1080p.

 

That's a good point - another 64-bit advantage.  (Although that's probably purely a function of FFMPEG.  You could run 64-bit FFMPEG with the 32-bit PinballY, since FFMPEG is launched as a child process and so the bit-ness doesn't have to be the same as the parent.  You'd just have to manually replace the 32-bit FFMPEG that comes with 32-bit PinballY with the 64-bit version.)

[Brer Frog]

I was going to do the 32 bit minimal update & when unzipped I noticed a Farsight folder which contains pinball filenames. What is the function of this folder since my current PinballY folder does not have this?

 

If I update to the 64 bit version can I use the minimal update & copy files to my existing PinballY folder? Or do I need to delete the 32 bit version & do a new full install of the 64 bit version?

[mjr]

I was going to do the 32 bit minimal update & when unzipped I noticed a Farsight folder which contains pinball filenames. What is the function of this folder since my current PinballY folder does not have this?

 

If I update to the 64 bit version can I use the minimal update & copy files to my existing PinballY folder? Or do I need to delete the 32 bit version & do a new full install of the 64 bit version?

 

You need the full installer for that.  I've already ditched the minimal update version anyway.  It was an ill-conceived idea and was just creating confusion, because there was no way to determine if it had everything you needed.  At some point maybe I'll look into a proper Web-based differential updater that figures out what files you need to update based on your actual installation.  The minimal update edition was never that, unfortunately; it was just a half-assed attempt in that direction.

 

I think you can just install the 64-bit version in your existing 32-bit folder without deleting anything first, although I'd probably do an Uninstall first to get rid of unnecessary files.  If you don't uninstall first, you'll have some old 32-bit-only files that are no longer needed.  They won't do any harm other than wasting space and creating confusion down the road about why they're there, but those are good enough reasons for me to want them gone.  Note that if you're doing everything manually rather than using Windows Setup and Uninstall, you'll want to be careful to preserve (at least) your GameStats.csv and Settings.txt files before you wipe the folder.  An Uninstall/Setup cycle will preserve those automatically.

As for the Farsight folder, that contains proxy files representing the set of all available Farsight's "The Pinball Arcade" tables.  TPA doesn't use individual table files the way most of the other systems do, so these are fakes purely for the purposes of PinballY's table discovery scheme.  PBY searches your table folders for game files that haven't been set up in the database yet.  For VP, FP, and even FX2/FX3, the actual playable table files serve that purposes.  Since TPA doesn't have playable table files in the same sense as the other systems, these proxy files serve that purpose.

Edited by mjr, 04 February 2019 - 09:06 PM.

[Brer Frog]

mjr - thanks for the information.

 

You mentioned that I can install the 64-bit version in the existing 32-bit folder. But my PinballY isn't in either the 32 bit or the 64 bit Program Files folders. It's installed in the C: root directory. I don't recall why it's there, perhaps that was the default install. Should PinballY be installed in a Program Files folder?

[Phazer51]

I just found this thread after another member pointed me towards PinballY.  I'll be trying PinballY as soon as possible because after a recent reinstall of cabinet's system (forced to move to Win10 from Win7 after HD crash), I'm sick of fighting with PinballX: https://www.vpforums...topic=41727&hl=

 

Thanks for your contributions to the community, mjr.  Your work has been invaluable.

[hlr53]

mjr - thanks for the information.
 
You mentioned that I can install the 64-bit version in the existing 32-bit folder. But my PinballY isn't in either the 32 bit or the 64 bit Program Files folders. It's installed in the C: root directory. I don't recall why it's there, perhaps that was the default install. Should PinballY be installed in a Program Files folder?

I have mine installed off the root directory. I believe that is the default.

[mjr]

But my PinballY isn't in either the 32 bit or the 64 bit Program Files folders. It's installed in the C: root directory. I don't recall why it's there, perhaps that was the default install. Should PinballY be installed in a Program Files folder?

 

Nope, you have the right idea keeping it in C:\ or somewhere simple like that.  It doesn't have to be C:\ or any other particular place, but the one place you definitely do not want to put it is Program Folders.  Click "Why?" here for details:

 

http://mjrnet.org/pi...llY.php#install

Edited by mjr, 05 February 2019 - 11:23 PM.

[Phazer51]

I installed the 32-bit version of PinballY.

 

I selected "share PinballX folders" during installation.  However, PinballY is not showing any of my table media (no wheel images, backglasses, DMD videos, or table videos).  

 

I have PinballX installed into C:\PinballX

 

Whenever I start PinballY, I get the error:

 

I'm attaching my PinballY log and my settings. 

 

Thanks for any help and for your hard work, MJR.

 

If I can get this working, I think it'll replace PinballX for me since many tables that I start through PinballX will not load b2s backglasses.

Attached Files

•  PinballY log.txt   478bytes   3 downloads
•  Settings.txt   65.17KB   4 downloads

Edited by Phazer51, 09 February 2019 - 09:43 PM.

[mjr]

I installed the 32-bit version of PinballY.

 

I selected "share PinballX folders" during installation.  However, PinballY is not showing any of my table media (no wheel images, backglasses, DMD videos, or table videos).  

 

If you could go to the options dialog (press letter "O" (that's the letter O, not a zero)), select the Log File page, and check the boxes below, it'll put more information in the log that should hopefully explain it:

 

  Player system setup and table searches

  Media file searches