60 replies to this topic

[Thalamus]

Are you able to make a screenshot of your monitor setup like STV provided in post #31

 

http://www.vpforums....=38703&p=389549

 

And, can you please provide the full content of your current screenres.txt

[GSGregg]

For the sake of continuity, I strung three threads together and hopefully didn't clutter things up for everybody else.....
 
_____Old Guy with Equipment Problems (No Jokes, Please)_____
 
Mar 4, 2016 ) BG and DMD monitors go dark; GTX 275 no longer listed with PF 285. Display Settings show PF monitor and one GPU.
 
Mar 6 ) After miraculous self-healing , 275 goes out again . Device Manager listed 2 cards, 6 default monitors, and 3 Plug n Play monitors with 275 working, but only GTX285, 4 default and 1 Plug n Play monitor with 275 inop. 
 
Later Mar 6) roxy reseated the GTX275; "did the trick"
 
_____Old Guy Messes Up Cabinet Monitors_____
 
May 26, 2017 ) Pressed Start several times; PF monitor dark, but part of PF image is on DMD monitor - hiding DMD? BG image rendered, but non-functional.
 
Question 1) What part of PF - top? side? bottom? corner ? Regular? shrunk? ballooned?
 
Question 2) When PF monitor is dark, does Desktop change to another?

my guess the dmd monitor became #1 or main display.

The backglass monitor = 2 is wrong for your setup.

...try backglass monitor number from 1 to 15 until the backglass appears in the correct location

Why this happen? Windows monitor number assignment changes when you use different video ports or If you plug/unplug or enable/disable different combos of monitors

A poor connection losing its 'grip' has lots in common with unplugging..... When the 285 went out and took the PF image with it, that may have been the start of the monitor-numbering puzzle(?)

 

_____Old Guy with Video Card Problem_____

 

Sept 24, 2017 ) New GTX285 in and working. Startup and Hyperpin cycle on PF monitor, which then goes dark/ inactive (Visual Pinball is being sent to the wrong (or nonexistent?) monitor.)

 

Sept 29 ) Working in NVidia C.P; PF monitor (#1) displays PF image, but BG and DMD are reversed and show only Hyperpin logo.

 

After Edit (and presumably more attempts): #1 now listed as a secondary monitor, with #2 as Primary and displaying the Playfield. #3 showing BG - and covering DMD?

 

Device Manager shows 2 default and 3 Plug n play monitors.....Aargh! Need sleep!

________________________________________________

 

You said you had trouble pulling up Windows settings; did you mean that your Desktop did not appear on any monitor?

 

The screenres.txt you attached to post #36 looks wonky; 800 x 600 seems mighty low-rez for a 27.5-inch screen.

 

Getting loopy.....gonna have to hang it up for now.

 

 

Gregg

 

 

Edited by GSGregg, 04 October 2017 - 11:43 PM.

[roxy]

I apologize for my slow response but my stupidity got in the way.
No, I am sorry I cant do a screen shot but the the monitors are 1, 3, 2, going from left to right. The PF (primary display) is #1, BG is #3, the DMD is #2. This arrangement seems to be working.
The complete screenres.txt is below. As far as I know, they were put in by the cabinet builder, boogies2.
1920
1080
800
600
5
0
0
0
0
0
0
Thank you Gregg for your summary, even if it exposes all my VP issues - at least not all my issues. 😎 I am trying to figure out just where we are and Ill post soon. I was sort of ready to give up, but not now, thanks to all the help from you good people.

[roxy]

I dont know if this problem is solvable at a distance but I hope youre willing to give it a shot while my wife is taking a shot of Jameson.

Before having to replace the the GTX 285, everything was working. The 285 card installation went well but we ended up with monitor problems. The monitor problems have been solved with the PF and BG images functioning in the proper place and the DMD still being a little bit of a mystery.

Some tables work and play fine (K&Q, Domino, Aztec, et al), others (games with and without DMDs) do weird things - freeze, very slow to action, strange changes in the PF, crashes and error messages, etc.

For what it is worth, Als Garage Band does have all 3 monitors in the right place, including the DMD. The game is not playable but the DMD is present. A couple of other DMD games that I have tried (Adams Family, Creature from Black Lagoon) have error messages or crash, so the presence of a DMD can not be determined.

What should we try now ? Thank you.

[GSGregg]

...while my wife is taking a shot of Jameson.

For what it is worth, Als Garage Band does have all 3 monitors in the right place, including the DMD. The game is not playable but the DMD is present.

I hope that shot of Jameson has distracted your wife from doing one of those humane things you mentioned...

 

When you installed the new GTX285, did you update the driver -  with either one from NVidia, or one included with the the card? While looking into a B2S Debug tool topic, I followed some links to late 2013/early 2014 discussions about NVidia drivers breaking monitor identity, and while the topics are old, so is the card.....so, who knows what driver may have been supplied with it?

 

In Device Manager, select Display Adapters > Properties > Driver and see if the driver is numbered 331.xx or 332.xx. If this pans out, 'rolling back' to 327.23 or whatever else you had may fix something.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention that someone else had one table (Twister) that put images on the correct monitors when none others did and may have had the above-mentioned driver problem.....

 

 

Gregg

Edited by GSGregg, 08 October 2017 - 08:06 AM.

[roxy]

I was thinking about drivers but, as usual, I know little about them.

No, I have done nothing with updating drivers. I assumed (mostly hoping) that the old driver would play nicely with the new video card and all would be right in pinball land.

The driver listed for GTX 285 on my cabinet is version 6.14.11.8250 with a 3/27/2009 date.
On the CD that came with my newly installed GTX 285 card, the driver name is Win2k_xp, version 182.06, with a 2/2009 date.
On the NVIDIA website for Windows XP, GTX 285, they list version 340.52 with a date of 7/29/2014.

So many different version numbers. Does the system want old or new ? Which version should work the best ? Can I revert back to the old one in case something goes awry ? Thank you for your suggestions.

[GSGregg]

roxy;

 

You said the images are appearing on their correct monitors now; meaning, working tables, flashing lights, flipping flippers, bumping bumpers, working score readouts and DMDs, etc? What about any table whose playfield  still goes dark after Hyperpin has started up and a game has been selected? And the monitor numbering; did you delete the extra 'default' monitors, or just let them build up?

 

Are there any errors that are common to several tables, and could you list them? I looked into the B2S Debug tool again, and I think the logs can be used to plot a layout of what monitors there are - even if they're imaginary  (like those 'default' monitors that aren't there) - a blank playfield means that Visual Pinball is being sent to some incorrect place.  

 

On the other hand, if it's no longer broke, we shouldn't try to fix it. Right? Hope you get in more playing time than diagnostic time!

 

Gregg 

[roxy]

Random errors are the hardest to solve. I am looking for a pattern so that you talented VP experts out there might see a possible solution.

The pattern seems to revolve around games with DMD's. Non-DMD games play fine (i.e. Wild Card, Wizard, Escape, Defender, Vortex, Crescendo, Flash, K&Q, Domino, Aztec, et al).

DMD games (i.e. Adams Family, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Fish Tales, Scared Stiff, Attack from Mars, et al) there is no image on the DMD monitor, just the Hyperpin logo. The BG (THIS IS AN ERROR. No BG is present when run in VP for DMD games) and PF appear normal but error messages appear. Script Error - line one out of memory , Type Mismatch - unbound , seem to be common throughout. Sometimes Line one - out of memory: outCtrl pops up.

The pattern seems to still revolve around the mysterious DMD. DMD games with PF and BG images in place do not play and have essentially the same error messages. Games without a DMD play okay.

The only exception I have found so far for DMD games is Als Garage Band. It does have all 3 monitors in the right place, including the DMD. There are no error messages but the game is not playable but the DMD is present.

I hope this pattern is worth something to all you VP experts. Thank you for helping me in my lengthy quest and Ill be one happy fellow if we (you) solve it.

Edited by roxy, 13 October 2017 - 02:14 PM.

[Thalamus]

Do you get the same error(s) if you are NOT starting the tables via Hyperpin ?

 

Ie. open the table by clicking the *.vpt file. I have a feeling that we are not going to be able to resolve this without any remote access to you PC.

[roxy]

My fault for not being clear. When I check the DMD tables in VP.exe, I get the same error messages. There is no BG, there is no DMD, there is a proper PF image, and VP sometimes crashes with the message - VP 9.9.0 has encountered a problem and needs to close.

I absentmindedly use Hyperpin sometimes because it is easier to go from table to table. I will try to stick solely with VP.

[Thalamus]

If you have any table that crashes like this each time - lets focus on that. If you have such a table. Can you open the script and make it so that it doesn't try to start the backglass ? Do you know how to do that ? If you don't - please supply the exact table name and even better a link to where I can download it. If you managed to disable the db2s, does it still crash ?

[roxy]

In VP there is no BG present for any DMD games. No, I am sorry to admit, I dont know how to keep it from trying to start the BG or how to disable d2bs. You can have your choice of DMD games - Fish Tales, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Attack from Mars, et al, all were downloaded from good old VP Forums. Thank you.

[Outhere]

Go to the VP editor under preference,  keys and nudge and DOF you can turn the back glass off in there

[roxy]

I always work diligently at following your suggestions. I went to VP > Preferences >Keys. I found Button Assignments, PinMame Buttons, and Global Options. I did not recognize anything related to back glass or DOF. I am hoping it may have to do that I am running Windows XP and not an error on my part.

Once again Als Garage Band is the only DMD table so far that does not give error messages. In fact, in Hyperpin the game is actually playable. The DMD is active and the PF and BG are good. It may have a few minor quirks in playing but I cant be sure. In VP all the screens are okay but the DMD is static and the game does not play. I find that interesting, for what its worth.

[Outhere]

I'm sorry I didn't realize you were running VP 9.9.0

[GSGregg]

roxy;

 

Having to brush up, I dug up a couple of old items dealing with B2S installing and disabling); also looked up 'Line 1 out of memory' and 'Type mismatch - Ubound' (no 'N' in the first syllable) which seems to pertain to an upper boundary of something that's been measured. Both IDs seem to fit VBScript rather than Visual Pinball, but what do I know?

All 'Line 1...' results I found are worded differently (so important - Out of memory at line: 1) and several answers questioned the Paging File (virtual memory) being too small. I can't imagine what would have recently changed that, but it's a long shot if you're curious. The recommendation is 150% of your RAM (My 2GB XP is set for 3 GB (3072MB)), but your cab has EIGHT GB; unless your cab-builder put in what's called a 4GB Patch, XP can't read a full 4.....let alone 8. But, even if it was left at 3GB, that's probably sufficient; I did mention long-shot, right?

 

EDIT: To check the paging file size, Start; Right-click My Computer > Properties. In System Properties, >  'Advanced' tab. In System Properties'  'Advanced' tab, > Performance's Settings. In Performance Options, > 'Advanced' tab. In 'Advanced tab, > Virtual Memory's Change.  Note the size values and ticked option. If acceptable, > Cancel or OK to exit. If you make a change, > Set, then OK. Cancel or OK two remaining dialog boxes to close.

 

My two cents: Thalamus' TeamViewer idea is a good one. I'd volunteer, but I'm a ragged typist whose fingers might brush against the wrong key, and that wouldn't be a good thing.....

_____________________________________________

 

 What Is B2S.JPG   122.39KB   1 downloads  Setting Up B2S.JPG   132.17KB   1 downloads

 

Outhere;

 

I came up empty with "Keys and Nudge and DOF", too, in 9.9.0 and 10.0. Do you have one of the VPX.x revisions?

 

 

 

 

Edited by GSGregg, 14 October 2017 - 01:45 PM.

[Thalamus]

Does you PC have internet access ? It sounds to me that the best solution now would be to share access to it via Teamviewer.

[roxy]

Thank you for your ideas. I am looking into connecting my cabinet to the internet but it may take awhile.

For the Virtual Memory the following was recorded:
total paging file size 2046 mb
initial size: 2046 mb
maximum size: 4092 mb
minimum allowed: 2 mb
recommended: 4206 mb
currently allocated: 2046
drive C: space available 23,306 mb
I hope it means more to you then it does to me.

Does Als Garage Band working when other DMD games do not, tell us anything ? For once I thought I discovered something helpful. 😃

[Thalamus]

Which one ?

 

http://www.vpforums....&showfile=11308

http://www.vpforums....showtopic=32485

http://www.vpforums....s&showfile=5439

 

Don't have time to check tonight - we're on very different time-zones. But, being specific may be important at this stage.

[roxy]

I apologize for not being more specific. I do not keep track of the particulars when I download the tables. I know I should but I didnt. Most all of the tables came from VP Forums but I believe, by chance, Als Garage Band came from Itchigos table list on Rogue Pinball. I think its the 000player1000 edition, version 1, with a release date of 11/4/2013. I hope that is the information you need.