71 replies to this topic

[FDSystems]

No crash or crash dump files today. Unable to set it to 3 balls.

 

F6/ set to 3balls/ok/ F3

 

An unactive ball comes.

 

5 to get credit, I get the credits, 1 to play & nothing happens.

 

I also tried not to use F3, but closing the game instead.

 

No nvram file in the nvram folder.

 

My other tables are working fine.

Edited by FDSystems, 10 May 2020 - 11:37 PM.

[Thalamus]

Then I don't know.

[FDSystems]

I've been able to play it with 3 or five ball by pressing F6, setting the ball number, ok  add credit & play. Still does not write any nvram file, & does not keep the settings. I give up. I have plenty of other tables to play.

[Thalamus]

You haven't got any kind of antivirus running - like defender ? If so, turn it off. That is the only thing I can think of that makes random stuff like this happen.

[FDSystems]

Once again, thank you for your patience.

 

No way I'm going to turn off the antivirus on my work computer!

I have many other working tables to enjoy.

[Thalamus]

Yeah. Well, then I think you will end up with not only problems as you describe, but also performance degradation. You really should turn off the antivirus while playing at least !

[Robsoie]

Hello,

 

I have a problem with this table, everytime i have VPX launching Andromeda, once the table is starting up and the first few sounds are heard a ball will come added after a few seconds to the plunger line, despite i have not added any coin and never pressed start .

If i press F3, the ball is still there then another ball will be added.

 

Basically to be able to start playing i must first kick that ball out of the playfield.

 

deleting the andromed.nv change nothing, everytime i'll have VPX loading Andromeda it will always add a new ball once the table start.

Edited by Robsoie, 20 July 2020 - 03:01 AM.

[Thalamus]

Hmm. I've seen that happen to more than a few tables. But looking at the script, the fix is already there, and last I played it, it was working with no issues.

You find this line in the script ...

 

vpmTimer.AddTimer 2000, "Controller.SolMask(0)=&Hffffffff'"

 

For fun, try to increase the timer to 3000 or more. See if that helps.

[Robsoie]

I played with this setting and it seems to delay the arrival of that ball, but unfortunately does not allow me to start playing before that ball arrive.

 

I have deleted the apron to see what's going on under the hood, and when the table finish loading there's a ball on the bottom at the location of the "Drain" element, then when the table start working (sound happens) there's a ball that is spawned at the "BallRelease" element while the ball that is at the "Drain" element is deleted. Then the ball at "BallRelease" is pushed in the plunger line.

 

I moved the Drain element to the middle of the table to see what would happen.

When the table is loaded the ball is still there at the bottom of the table, then when the table start working, the other ball is still spawned at "BallRelease" , but because there's no "Drain" element anymore under the ball on the bottom this one will not be deleted. So at least it confirmed it's not something related to the Drain element.

 

In the script by editing the bs.Trough setting near the  top of the script, it's possible to prevent that unwanted ball to be pushed in the plunger line, but it will still be spawned in "BallRelease" and so will prevent you to start actually playing.

 

It's very strange and i wonder if the source of this oddity is not in fact in the rom and not in the script.

 

edit : tried with the andromea.zip rom and it is the same problem.

Then i just tried the VP9 version and there was no erroneous ball spawned when the table start working, seemed good.

But then after pressing F6 to change that 1 ball per game into the more classic 3 balls per games, the VP9 table throw an error.

Hmm, i think this table is just cursed regardless of the VP version, oh well  at least there are other tables keeping my attention

 

edit 2 : i noticed on the pinballnirvana board, the user ikochnito made dip switches scripts for Andromeda :

https://pinballnirva...274/#post-78664

Sub editDips
    Dim vpmDips:Set vpmDips=New cvpmDips
    With vpmDips
        .AddForm 700,400,"Gameplan Andromeda - DIP switches"
        .AddFrame 2,0,190,"Credits per coin",&H0000001F,Array("1 credit - 2 coins",&H000000031,"1 credit - 1 coin",&H00000002,"2 credits - 1 coin",&H00000004,"5 credits - 1 coin",&H0000000A)'dip 1-5
        .AddFrame 2,76,190,"Maximum credits",&H06000000,Array("10 credits",0,"20 credits",&H02000000,"30 credits",&H04000000,"40 credits",&H06000000)'dip 26&27
        .AddFrame 2,152,190,"High game to date award",&HC0000000,Array("no award",0,"1 credit",&H40000000,"2 credits",&H80000000,"3 credits",&HC0000000)'dip 31&32
        .AddFrame 210,0,190,"Replay or free ball award",&H18000000,Array("no award",0,"50,000 points",&H08000000,"extra ball",&H10000000,"replay",&H18000000)'dip 28+29
        .AddFrame 210,76,190,"Balls per game",&H00C00000,Array("1 ball",0,"2 balls",&H00400000,"3 balls",&H00800000,"5 balls",&H00C00000)'dip 23+24
        .AddFrame 210,152,190,"Specials per game",&H00004000,Array("1 special only",0,"2 specials",&H00004000)'dip 15***
        .AddFrame 210,198,190,"Spinner points",&H01000000,Array("start at 100 points",0,"start at 1,000 points",&H01000000)'dip 25***
        .AddChk 2,235,150,Array("Extra ball control",32768)'dip 16***
        .AddChk 2,250,150,Array("Match feature",&H20000000)'dip 30
        .AddChk 2,265,150,Array("Free play",&H00000080)'dip 8
        .AddChk 2,280,150,Array("Recall bonus multiplier",&H00000040)'dip 7***
        .AddChk 210,250,150,Array("Recall extra ball lane",&H00001000)'dip 13***
        .AddChk 210,265,150,Array("Recall spinner value",&H00200000)'dip 22***
        .AddChk 210,280,150,Array("Enable extra ball",&H00002000)'dip 14
        .AddLabel 30,320,300,20,"After hitting OK, press F3 to reset game with new settings."
        .ViewDips
    End With
End Sub
Set vpmShowDips=GetRef("editDips")

Replacing the ones in the vpx andromeda script seemed to work for me, it enable more options in the F6 menu.

Unfortunately it does not help with the erroneous ball getting into the plunger line at start

edit : after a few more games it's not even possible to start a new one anymore, even with the wrong ball kicked out, maybe the dip switches went wrong on my test or maybe Andromeda is just cursed  !

sneak edit  : apparently this dip switch script is the exact same that is in the VP9 table (and that will crash the table when you change to 3 balls by game)

 

EDIT 2 : if somehow this problem does not happen for some other people playing Andromeda, i wonder if the actual source of the problem is that i'm using a recent vpx beta 7 in combinaison with a recent pinmame , hmm maybe i'll have to retry with the default vpx beta 6 and pinmame from the installer and see how it goes

Edited by Robsoie, 20 July 2020 - 05:06 PM.

[Thalamus]

Hmm. Yes. You should definitely try with 10.6.1 - just rename VPinballX.exe to something and get only the VPinballX.exe from the latest 10.6.1. IF that changes anything, then please report it to the beta thread.

[Robsoie]

for each test, i deleted the andromed.nv (from the ..\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\nvram\ folder), deleted the andromed.cfg (from the ..\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\nvram\cfg\ folder) and deleted the andromed entry in the registry ( [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame\andromed] ) to be sure each test would start as if Andromeda was loaded for the very first time.

 

 ** tested with 10.7 (a beta from a few weeks ago) + vpinmame 3.3 (not sure if it was the latest beta or the one just before) ---- same problem when the table start working, a ball just come into the plunger line.

 ** tested with 10.7 (latest beta at time i write) + vpinmame 3.3 (latest beta at time i write)  ---- still the same problem when the table start working, a ball just come into the plunger line.

 ** tested with 10.6 + vpinmame 3.2 ---- still the same problem when the table start working, a ball just come into the plunger line.

 ** tested with 10.6.1 + vpinmame 3.2 ---- still the same problem when the table start working, a ball just come into the plunger line.

 

for fun, decided to test with 10.6.1 + vpinmame 2.8b  , unfortunately it does generate the same exact problem, that wrongly spawned ball get in the plunger as soon as the table start working..

 

very strange very few people report this problem, as the condition i'm loading that table is "first time" condition (pinmame even ask for authorisaton), so one would expect everyone should be getting this wrong ball when the table start working.

 

I wonder if the reason very few people notice this (out of none playing this table of course) is that most of them may have played an older version of Andromeda (or possibly a vp9 version or even lower) and so have then a nvram created by those older versions in which the table had no problem so they never noticed this one has this bugged ball spawning.

Because out of this possibility i'm clueless at this bug.

Edited by Robsoie, 20 July 2020 - 05:05 PM.

[jpsalas]

I haven't a clue either. It works fine with my 2 computers. Just remember to press F6 at the start of the table to set some defaults, like the match or the number of balls.

[Robsoie]

I solved a part of the puzzle, why only a part it's because solving it lead to even more head scratching because it seriously looks like this table is a real twilight zone

 

For doing more testing with settings and scripts changes , i needed the table to load very fast so i could change things and test quickly.

 

To do so i went to Table -> Image Manager and deleted all the textures there.

 

Loaded the table and ... there is no wrong ball spawned when the table start working ?

Huh, deleting all the image suddenly fixed this wrong ball spawning in the plunger line ?

 

I re-tested, deleting only a few textures, etc... until i could pinpoint which was the texture that once deleted would fix that nasty problem :

 

Hmm, hard to think why deleting this "ballinplay3" image entry will stop this wrong ball to spawn in the plunger line, but the fact is that it does.

So i looked where the ballinplay3 image is used, it's in the element BallinplayR

 

Its States has Motor Steps to 1 , Update Interval 50, its Timer isn't enabled and has Interval 100.

Why would deleting the image change anything to this and would prevent that bugged ball to spawn ?

Tested by not deleting the image and simply unchecking the "Visible" option change nothing  ,the wrong ball will still spawn

 

Tested by not deleting the image but instead deleting the  "BallinPlayR" element and in the script deleting the lin

NFadeReel 45, BallinPlayR '"Ball in Play"

Doing that will also prevent the bugged ball to spawn.

 

So it's either delete the image itself or delete the element using that image (and the reference to it in the script) to fix this annoyance.

 

It does not make sense to me but what is sure is that it actually work, the table does not spawn an useless ball in the plunger line anymore when the table start working.

unless "ballinplay" is some kind of trigger somewhere either in vpinmame or visualpinball and an image named with that exact wording my wrongly trigger some ball spawning function ?

Edited by Robsoie, 20 July 2020 - 10:55 PM.

[Thalamus]

I'm pretty clueless myself. This tables was a breath of fresh air coming from JP. I can't recall having issues with the other version either and this seems quite weird, because when I read the feedback it is clear to me that you are someone that actually know what you are doing. Often, we can point to something that you need to test next, but, right now, with the feedback. Nothing comes to mind, at least right away.

 

UUps. See that you posted a solutions - just as I posted this one

 

Reading the solution, this is something I think we should make devs aware of.

Edited by Thalamus, 20 July 2020 - 11:02 PM.

[Robsoie]

It is indeed a very good table, now that it does not spawn that wrong ball anymore i can play it with such relief

 

But i would be very interested to know why that bizarre solution is working, if there's indeed something related to the actual name of the image that could perturb the code of either vpinmame or visual pinball.

I hope someone that is running into the same "useless ball spawned in the plunger line at start" would tell us if for them too simply deleting this "ballinplay3" image solve the problem, as very strange as it seems, it would confirm that there's something going on under the hood with the image name.

[luvthatapex]

I have no problems running this table at all on my cab. No phantom balls, etc. Here is my 3 ball nvram if you want to try it.

I am using andromed rom in case there are others....

vpinmame 3.3 SAMBuild_r5042

windows 10 64bit

vpinball 10.6.0 final

 

 

It is indeed a very good table, now that it does not spawn that wrong ball anymore i can play it with such relief

 

But i would be very interested to know why that bizarre solution is working, if there's indeed something related to the actual name of the image that could perturb the code of either vpinmame or visual pinball.

I hope someone that is running into the same "useless ball spawned in the plunger line at start" would tell us if for them too simply deleting this "ballinplay3" image solve the problem, as very strange as it seems, it would confirm that there's something going on under the hood with the image name.

Attached Files

•  andromed.zip   248bytes   10 downloads

Edited by luvthatapex, 20 July 2020 - 11:37 PM.

[jpsalas]

UPDATE

 

4.0.0 Updated 6.9.2022

- Updated to my VPX7 physics

- cleaned up and deleted unused graphics & reduced the size of the table

- Added my VPX7 LUT changer to darken the table (hold down LEFT CTRL while change with RIGHT CTRL). Including GI brightness adjustment. Use the LUT changer together with the day/night slider to give the table the level of darkness you prefer.

- Updated my mechanical set of sounds to a more "under the glass" sound, as people seem to like those kind of sounds better.

- Changed the Environment image to enhance a little the object shadows.

- Made the light inserts warmer.

[leeoneil]

Thank you, this table have a crazy art style !

[tristero74]

Love the game! It looks/sounds/plays terrific. --Though hitting F6 causes it to freeze and I have to force quit VPX altogether. Any thoughts? I tried deleting the nvram, just to see if it would help, but nothing doing. I don't remember having this issue with the previous version... Thanks in advance for any advice!

[jpsalas]

Love the game! It looks/sounds/plays terrific. --Though hitting F6 causes it to freeze and I have to force quit VPX altogether. Any thoughts? I tried deleting the nvram, just to see if it would help, but nothing doing. I don't remember having this issue with the previous version... Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

I don't know what can be wrong. I have just installed Windows 11, and I have installed all the VC++ runtimes from this link: Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes All-in-One (Jul 2022) Download | TechPowerUp and everything works well, as you can see by the screenshot