1630 replies to this topic

[freneticamnesic]

Any help setting up a game controller (xbox) for use in pinbally?

[freneticamnesic]

Thanks to Slydog, joy2key works, but it's not elegant.

[Karlor]

Thanks to Slydog, joy2key works, but it's not elegant.

Its not too bad after you figure out some of its quirks and try exploring around in some of the options, you'll find somethings maybe useful.. like you can add different axis or buttons/diagonals. One thing I just noticed is if you turn up its "processing" speed you'll also have to increase any timed presses so from 500ms to like 1000ms..

 

There used to be an option to where when a combo of buttons where pressed it would activate a different key press but I cant find it.. it was handy lol

[freneticamnesic]

 

Thanks to Slydog, joy2key works, but it's not elegant.

Its not too bad after you figure out some of its quirks and try exploring around in some of the options, you'll find somethings maybe useful.. like you can add different axis or buttons/diagonals. One thing I just noticed is if you turn up its "processing" speed you'll also have to increase any timed presses so from 500ms to like 1000ms..

 

There used to be an option to where when a combo of buttons where pressed it would activate a different key press but I cant find it.. it was handy lol

 

For my purposes I just needed to bind left and right shift, and enter. Everything else is handled nicely in VPX with controller buttons mapped. Seems like it's working ok! The exit is a little jumpy but it gets there.

[Karlor]

For my purposes I just needed to bind left and right shift, and enter. Everything else is handled nicely in VPX with controller buttons mapped. Seems like it's working ok! The exit is a little jumpy but it gets there.

I used it just for that after trying the new Star Wars Pinball VR Steam game lol it wants to use a 360 pad but luckily the shifts and enter still work on keyboard so you can map it to cab controls at least somewhat. Joy 2 key saved the day again! I tried for like 2 hours getting x360ce to try to fool it into thinking the Virtua pin controller was a 360 pad but it wouldn't hook :/.. anyway joy 2 key is a handy little tool to keep in the back pocket so is X360ce if it hooks that is.

[wiesshund]

 

For my purposes I just needed to bind left and right shift, and enter. Everything else is handled nicely in VPX with controller buttons mapped. Seems like it's working ok! The exit is a little jumpy but it gets there.

I used it just for that after trying the new Star Wars Pinball VR Steam game lol it wants to use a 360 pad but luckily the shifts and enter still work on keyboard so you can map it to cab controls at least somewhat. Joy 2 key saved the day again! I tried for like 2 hours getting x360ce to try to fool it into thinking the Virtua pin controller was a 360 pad but it wouldn't hook :/.. anyway joy 2 key is a handy little tool to keep in the back pocket so is X360ce if it hooks that is.

 

for x360ce you will have much better luck with the 3.x version

the 4.x version kinda stinks, plus interferes with stuff when you dont want it to since it loads as a run always thing

[topper2k]

I'm getting a weird sound with the new 1.1.0 Beta 2 version of PinballY. I feel like I'm going crazy, because what I'm hearing doesn't make any sense.

 

There's a high pitch whine coming out of my backbox speakers when I run PBY. I close PBY and it goes away. I open the old version of PBY and it's not there. It's only happening in the new 1.1.0 Beta 2.

 

It seems to change pitch and/or volume when I move or resize the PBY windows. It's most pronounced when the backglass and playfield are in full screen. It diminishes a little if I take those out of full screen and resize the windows.

 

It's like in full screen mode, the LCDs are producing some sort of interference with my audio amp. But only in PBY 1.1.0 Beta 2 and only when the windows are taking up most of the screen. Is that possible?

[wiesshund]

Perhaps it is the turbos spooling up on the new version
in which case, better turn down your speakers in case the waste gate kicks in

 

Sorry, got nothing useful, just read this and suddenly had an image of turbo chargers in your backox

[topper2k]

Perhaps it is the turbos spooling up on the new version
in which case, better turn down your speakers in case the waste gate kicks in

 

Sorry, got nothing useful, just read this and suddenly had an image of turbo chargers in your backox

That's a little like what it sounds like! I'm doing some reading on LCDs causing a whine in computer speakers. Most of the posts are quite old. The fixes all center around adjusting the monitor brightness (usually up to full) to eliminate the buzz. It's weird that one version of a program would cause that kind of effect. I'll try playing with my screen brightness tomorrow.

[wiesshund]

 

Perhaps it is the turbos spooling up on the new version
in which case, better turn down your speakers in case the waste gate kicks in

 

Sorry, got nothing useful, just read this and suddenly had an image of turbo chargers in your backox

That's a little like what it sounds like! I'm doing some reading on LCDs causing a whine in computer speakers. Most of the posts are quite old. The fixes all center around adjusting the monitor brightness (usually up to full) to eliminate the buzz. It's weird that one version of a program would cause that kind of effect. I'll try playing with my screen brightness tomorrow.

 

 

Weird, i mean LCDs are not exactly a meca of EMF and what not

 

Now a CRT, yea, depending on speakers and where your wires ran and if the monitor was kind of devoid of shielding

I have never seen an LCD do that though.

 

Turn the LCD off, see if noise goes away

That which is Off can not make noise

[topper2k]

Ok, to prove I'm not imagining things. Here's a quick video. YouTube seems to be compressing the sound. It's much more audible even when standing at the flippers than this video indicates.

 

 

I've seen some issues like this reported with LCD monitors producing a whine. The solution in those cases was to adjust the brightness of the screen. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything in this case.

 

Unplugging all the screens does eliminate the whine. Or, using the previous version of PBY eliminates it as well.

[jogrady7]

Select a table randomly

Not sure if this has been addressed before, but I wrote code to do it.  To use

 

1. Past the below code in the top of the main.js file Pinbally\Scripts and save the file
2. Load Pinbally, and press F7 to get a random table

mainWindow.on("keydown", ev => {

  if (ev.code == "F7") {

    try {

      let allGames = gameList.getAllGames();   

      let t;

      let gamesLength = allGames.length

      for (t = gamesLength -1; t > -1; t--) { // this ignores game that were auto added, but not configured

         if (allGames[t].manufacturer === undefined) {

            allGames.splice(t,1)

          }

       }

      gamesLength = allGames.length

      let rnd = Math.floor(Math.random() * gamesLength);

      let game = gameList.getWheelGame(0) // get current game

      let index = allGames.findIndex(thisGame => thisGame.displayName === game.displayName); //current games index in allgames array

      let bigWheel = 0; // clicks need on Page Select for cabinets it is the magna right button

      let littleWheel = 0; // clicks need on Item Select for cabinets it is the flipper right button

      let alpha;

      let currentAlpha = allGames[index].displayName.substr(0, 1)

      index++;

      let ct;

      for (t = index; t < index + rnd; t++) {

        ct = t;

        if (ct > gamesLength - 1) {  //checks to see if we need to go from last table to first table

          ct = t - gamesLength;

        }

        alpha = allGames[ct].displayName.substr(0, 1);

        if (currentAlpha.localeCompare(alpha) !== 0) { // table starts with different letter than last one

          bigWheel++;

          currentAlpha = alpha;

          littleWheel = 0;

        } else {

          littleWheel++

        }

      }

      for (t = 0; t < bigWheel; t++) {

        mainWindow.doButtonCommand("NextPage", true, bigWheel);

      }

      for (t = 0; t < littleWheel; t++) {

        mainWindow.doButtonCommand("Next", true, littleWheel);

      }

    }

    catch(err) {

    }

  }

});

Edited by jogrady7, 01 May 2021 - 04:05 PM.

[topper2k]

Found the source of my mysterious whine. 

 

In the settings.txt file:

 

VSyncLock = 1

 

Set to 0 I get the whine. Set to 1, no whine.

Edited by topper2k, 01 May 2021 - 10:35 PM.

[mjr]

Found the source of my mysterious whine. 

 

In the settings.txt file:

 

VSyncLock = 1

 

Set to 0 I get the whine. Set to 1, no whine.

 

Just for future reference for others coming across this, you can also access that option in the settings dialog - it's under Audio/Video, "Lock frame rate to monitor refresh rate".

 

Based on your observation, it's your *video card* that's causing the interference, not your monitor.  What you did by locking the frame rate was slow down the GPU a bit, by telling it to only draw frames as fast as the monitor refresh rate, rather than as fast as it can. 

 

Why did this just start happening now?  Pure accident.  This option has been there for a long time, and the basic graphics algorithms have been the same for a long time; nothing fundamental about drawing changed in this version or any recent version.  It's probably NOT a matter of the GPU going "too fast".  Rather, it's probably a matter of the GPU going at a *specific speed* that happens to trigger EMI emissions from the GPU at a frequency that your audio system just happens to be particularly sensitive to.  In all likelihood, if you go a little slower than that special frequency, the audio interference will go away - and if you go a little *faster* than the special frequency, it'll also go away.  This particular version probably just happened to hit the magic number for your system, purely by coincidence and accident.  The "lock frame rate" option will probably keep it from coming back by accident again in a future PinballY version, but you might accidentally hit it in a separate program (like VPX or some other game) that happens to draw frames at the magic frequency.  Whatever's going on is some kind of analog thing that you might be able to fix through one of those analog audio magic fixes - cable shielding or ground loop interruptors or something like that.

Sensitivity to a specific EMI frequency could be a number of things, but my guess is it's an antenna effect - antennas have exactly that kind of special frequency resonance property.  So cable shielding might be the thing to look at if it comes back

(And if my system were doing this, I'd count myself lucky to have a nice reproducible test case like this - I'd turn the interference back on in the software and start fiddling with cables until I could make it go away in the hardware.  Just to be sure it doesn't come back later with some other software that maybe I couldn't as easily fix with a checkbox.)

[Karlor]

 

 

For my purposes I just needed to bind left and right shift, and enter. Everything else is handled nicely in VPX with controller buttons mapped. Seems like it's working ok! The exit is a little jumpy but it gets there.

I used it just for that after trying the new Star Wars Pinball VR Steam game lol it wants to use a 360 pad but luckily the shifts and enter still work on keyboard so you can map it to cab controls at least somewhat. Joy 2 key saved the day again! I tried for like 2 hours getting x360ce to try to fool it into thinking the Virtua pin controller was a 360 pad but it wouldn't hook :/.. anyway joy 2 key is a handy little tool to keep in the back pocket so is X360ce if it hooks that is.

 

for x360ce you will have much better luck with the 3.x version

the 4.x version kinda stinks, plus interferes with stuff when you dont want it to since it loads as a run always thing

 

Your right I just checked and I was trying the new version.. and I got it to hook, once, it was glorious to see my cab controls mapped and working.. then I shut down to try it again and back to no hooking .. I'll try the older versions where you actually put the files in the game folder.. I've had decent luck with this program a few years ago so maybe my defeat was from the new version.. Lets hope lol
 

[topper2k]

 

Found the source of my mysterious whine. 

 

In the settings.txt file:

 

VSyncLock = 1

 

Set to 0 I get the whine. Set to 1, no whine.

 

Just for future reference for others coming across this, you can also access that option in the settings dialog - it's under Audio/Video, "Lock frame rate to monitor refresh rate".

 

Based on your observation, it's your *video card* that's causing the interference, not your monitor.  What you did by locking the frame rate was slow down the GPU a bit, by telling it to only draw frames as fast as the monitor refresh rate, rather than as fast as it can. 

 

Why did this just start happening now?  Pure accident.  This option has been there for a long time, and the basic graphics algorithms have been the same for a long time; nothing fundamental about drawing changed in this version or any recent version.  It's probably NOT a matter of the GPU going "too fast".  Rather, it's probably a matter of the GPU going at a *specific speed* that happens to trigger EMI emissions from the GPU at a frequency that your audio system just happens to be particularly sensitive to.  In all likelihood, if you go a little slower than that special frequency, the audio interference will go away - and if you go a little *faster* than the special frequency, it'll also go away.  This particular version probably just happened to hit the magic number for your system, purely by coincidence and accident.  The "lock frame rate" option will probably keep it from coming back by accident again in a future PinballY version, but you might accidentally hit it in a separate program (like VPX or some other game) that happens to draw frames at the magic frequency.  Whatever's going on is some kind of analog thing that you might be able to fix through one of those analog audio magic fixes - cable shielding or ground loop interruptors or something like that.

Sensitivity to a specific EMI frequency could be a number of things, but my guess is it's an antenna effect - antennas have exactly that kind of special frequency resonance property.  So cable shielding might be the thing to look at if it comes back

(And if my system were doing this, I'd count myself lucky to have a nice reproducible test case like this - I'd turn the interference back on in the software and start fiddling with cables until I could make it go away in the hardware.  Just to be sure it doesn't come back later with some other software that maybe I couldn't as easily fix with a checkbox.)

 

Thanks MJR! The reason it started now was that I did a fresh install with the new 1.1.0 Beta 2. I must have checked that box at some point in the past and it's unchecked by default when you do a new install. Which is why it seemed related to the 1.1.0 Beta, but it wasn't.

[beowulf99]

 

Good morning!

 

 I’m loving pinballY, it’s the first thing I see when I turn on my cabinet. I would like to improve it, so I’m thinking if it's possible to show first a wheel with personalized categories and then the wheel with the tables in each category. For example, it would be great if I see first a whell that says “Star Wars tables”, “marvel tables”, “JP salas tables”, “williams tables”, etc., and when I enter the specific category, let’s say “marvel tables”, I could see “Spider-Man”, “wolverine”, etc. Then, I could use the “exit table” button to colme back to the categories wheel...

 

I’m sure it could be posible trought JavaScript, but I know nothing about programming. Can anyone help me with that?

 

thank you and have a great day!

 

I'd love to be able to do this too... any thoughts MJR?

[topper2k]

There's a github repository called something like PinballY add-ons. I think there's even a beta (or maybe not quite a beta yet) for something like you're describing.

[mjr]

The github page is https://github.com/P...ns-and-Examples

 

There's nothing quite like that kind of wheel-level category navigator right now, but it would make a good project for someone to pursue.  The way I might go about it would be to create a pseudo-system for the wheel-level categories - give the pseudo-system its own Tables folder, and then all you have to do is create a file in that Tables folder for each category you want to appear in the wheel, tricking PinballY into thinking your categories are actually tables.  That would also let you manage media (background images, wheel icons, etc) for the categories just like tables.  Mark the fake tables as hidden so that they don't show up in regular filters, and create a filter that selects just those; activating that filter would give you the top-level category wheel.  You'd also want to add some Javascript code to customize the menus when that filter is active.  For example, when you bring up the main Play menu, you'd instead switch to the filter for the current category selection.

[Samuel Villena]

Any help setting up a game controller (xbox) for use in pinbally?

 

I made a video at youtube exactly with that. The only think... it is in spanish. But i think you can have a good idea seeing the video. Only one thing: as they say, don't download the v4 of x360ce, but the v3. 

 

Here is the video!

 

https://youtu.be/RTvlBtgtGtk

Edited by Samuel Villena, 05 May 2021 - 10:13 AM.