176 replies to this topic

[blackvulcan3]

 

a) Do you run Windows 7? Did you switch it back to its "classic" theme (which disables Aero stuff etc.). This did the trick for me (on a less powerful system).

b) Did you enable cabinet mode on the DMD? Right click DMD, show settings, enable cabinet mode. Now restart VP and align the DMD again.

 

 

Yep, Windows 7 and I have tried aero both on and off. No change.

 

I will check tomorrow re cabinet mode but I'm 99.9% sure I have. Thanks for the tips.

[DJRobX]

A lot of people are using 750GT's and it should be enough power for VPX at 1920x1080.   If you have stutter even in VP9, that is definitely not the problem.

[Thalamus]

Win7 + 750 Gtx Ti myself - can run most tables in 4k, so, like Rob said - if you have problems even with VP9, then there are other issues.

Edited by Thalamus, 13 January 2017 - 12:51 AM.

[blackvulcan3]

Win7 + 750 Gtx Ti myself - can run most tables in 4k, so, like Rob said - if you have problems even with VP9, then there are other issues.

 

Ok. Thanks Thalamus, I'll keep searching, running SSD, i5 4490, 16gb ram. No other programs running, latest compatible nvidia drivers. 

 

Aero on & off - no change. Its only when the ball is coming down the table. vsync set to 1 but seems better at 60 (screen refresh).

 

Advance frames set to 2. All ball graphics unchecked. 4xAA set to quality, but off is no change. 

 

Can work out what may be causing it.

 

All TV settings set to off (as in the TV is not post processing).

 

Cant work it out as some tables play beautifully without a hint of stutter, some just visually jerky but does not effect timing, just visual. 

[Thalamus]

Hmm. Sound very close to my setup. I don't have anything set in nvidia - so, it is letting VP decide. I believe I run 4xAA as standard - but, I can't remember ( @ work right now ).

You run forced full-screen or windowed modus ?

 

I should add that I don't use a TV though. It is a 43" 4k monitor @ 60 Hz. Do you have a backglass ? Checked that both are running on the same Hz ?

Edited by Thalamus, 13 January 2017 - 09:16 AM.

[blackvulcan3]

Hey Thalamus, thanks again for the tips.

 

I did have cabinet mode unchecked, don't know how or why but prior to going away everything stayed as it should. Come back from holidays and the computer is a little different....anyway, thumbs up on that one.

 

I did check the refresh rates, both at 60Hz, but differing resolutions 1920 x 1080 for playfield and 1680 x 1050 for backglass. My backglass is B2S. I have three monitors from 2 video cards, this problem was there when I had all three from the GTX750ti. I have the onboard Intel driving the DMD monitor.

 

I have noticed today that the longer I play the svchost.exe gets larger and this correlates with the degradation of the issue. i.e. the longer I play, the worse it gets.

 

I will investigate this, but big ups for the starting point and especially for the cabinet mode.

 

EDIT - So I was playing with Windows Services and turning little things off and on, of course, Windows didn't like that and then would only let me boot to safe mode. 5 times of trying to fix what I had done and I was ready to get it started so I could just move to Windows 10. Anyway, once I did manage to get 7 to boot up, I thought I would play the problem table to see how it was. You wouldn't believe it, it was a lot better. In fact out of the 5 games I played, stuttering appeared on only one ball & it wasn't terrible.

 

I may delay the Windows 10 install after all. 

Edited by blackvulcan3, 14 January 2017 - 08:16 AM.

[blackvulcan3]

Nope. Upgraded to Win 10. But, of course, the first upgrade didn't take, stuck at 99%.

 

Trying again with Windows Updates for Win 7 off in the background.

 

So when it works defender will go off. 

[blackvulcan3]

I bought a GTX970 4GB OC Version and upgraded (after much effort to Windows 10).

 

The new card is about a metre long so I will need to decade the computer (no big deal). Fun, fun, fun.

 

Not today as the Chiefs are hosting the Steelers!!! GO CHIEFS!!

[blackvulcan3]

So now I have the machine running as good as I could hope for, have mounted the backglass monitor on a swivel mount (only because I had one) & started the PinballX fun.

 

It is not much fun so far. Its only found 11 of the table I have, not sure why, I have around 50 but the 11 it found are from each of my 4 folders....anyway...

 

I loaded up Dirty Harry and now I get a controller error in line 111 of the script that I didn't have this afternoon when I played it.

 

Not sure about this but it sure is nice to hear Pinball Wizard when I started her up. It'll be even nicer when its working.

 

Going to order some perspex or similar with black edging to cover the back box to the speaker panel. I am making the speaker panel from 7mm ply (same stuff I used for the playfield border). It's almost done (for now).

[blackvulcan3]

Really struggling with my cab today, can't get tables to run at all.

 

Since the misadventure into installing PinballX I can't get a single table to run, in or out of PinballX, across VPX 10.2, 9.9 or 9.1

 

I have downloaded new tables and the same, there is no reference to controllers at all in the scripts and when I write lines of code in for the B2S server I get ActiveX errors.

 

I am beyond frustrated today. One of those days I guess. I don't know what to do and no one seems to have an answer for me, so I am lost.

Edited by blackvulcan3, 18 January 2017 - 10:03 AM.

[trapperjohn]

It is not much fun so far. Its only found 11 of the table I have, not sure why, I have around 50 but the 11 it found are from each of my 4 folders....anyway...

PinballX' algorithm to detect tables is kind of weird (it tries to match anything that looks like a VP table...). Ensure that you have the correct table folder configured and remove any additional files (all .zip etc.) from it!

 

If you have e.g. a table base folder at "C:\VP\MyTables" and a table named "My Cool Table (Williams 1969)", you should have

- a folder "C:\VP\MyTables\My Cool Table (Williams 1969)"

- a table file "C:\VP\MyTables\My Cool Table (Williams 1969)\My Cool Table (Williams 1969).vpt" (or .vpx for VP 10)

- a b2s file "C:\VP\MyTables\My Cool Table (Williams 1969)\My Cool Table (Williams 1969).directb2s"

- a screenres file "C:\VP\MyTables\My Cool Table (Williams 1969)\screenres.txt"

 

Especially remove zip files that might contain VP tables or have a similar naming scheme!

 

Nevertheless, PinballX should not have any influence on starting tables directly from VP ...

 

And note: for VPX tables, you should not have to edit the controller stuff in the scripts!

 

What's the exact error when you start to run a table directly from VP?

[blackvulcan3]

Thanks for the reply trapperjohn - and yes you are spot on about the naming conventions for PinballX. I had made an error that I copied and pasted over to the remainder. Easy done.

 

The errors in VP were controller based but I tried a number of things today that did not fix them so I did a fresh install, painful but now working. I now have to go through the nut drag of setting up all the tables again. I want to install PinballX but I am once bitten, twice shy now.

 

I may do a system back up and create a restore point once I have the tables up and running again. Live and learn.  

 

I'm still drawing breath so its still a good day. Thanks again.

[blackvulcan3]

So it would appear that I have picked a helluva time to go away. This 10.2 update and controller.vbs files that I knew nothing of 3 weeks ago, now are doing my head in.

 

Some tables are working, others are not. Having trouble with non-rom tables now. Errors everywhere on some, versions, high scores.

 

I spent 8 months building this damn cabinet, a decade of dreaming of it and now I'm being beaten by code.

 

I'm not giving up but I have hit the canvas a few times over the past few days. I reckon I have read threads for a solid 20 or so hours over the past few days and haven't scratched the surface.

 

My head and my cabinet is a mess. 

[trapperjohn]

You should start with 1 table after the other and not try to get everything running at once. I think, most people run into similar problems because the whole process of setting up a pinball cab is quite complex due to the many different tools working together where each of them has different configuration mechanisms and different issues.

 

Often the fix of issue A leads to the new issue B in a completely different scenario (e.g. fix performance on table A leads to a missing backglass on table B).

 

And please be more specific! What's the exact error you get? With which table?

[blackvulcan3]

Hey trapperjohn, good advice. I actually started doing that a couple of hours ago, each table one by one.

 

I started it for different reasons as I knew I would have to reset backglasses (I hide speaker panels on my backglasses) and adjust DMD's.

 

I only got about 5 tables with errors.

 

Anyway I got through about 20 of them on VPX each incident gives the same or similar errors and I believe they are DOF related.They all give the index out of range error and in the script this points to a controller error with DOF in the same line.

 

I really appreciate your help and once I get through all of the tables I will individually go through each table page to see if I can find something similar per table, as you suggest.

Edited by blackvulcan3, 19 January 2017 - 12:58 PM.

[blackvulcan3]

Finally, all tables are up and running.

 

I have 34 VPX tables, I went through each one individually and 8 of them gave me the following error - Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of collection. Parameter name:index.

 

I went through so many trials and tribulations but I found the drama.

 

Windows 10 is the drama. Since I started playing Virtual Pinball the first thing I always did was - 'Run as Administrator".

 

As soon as I turned this off, all 8 tables worked.

 

Oh. My. Goodness.

 

What a couple of days this has been.

 

Now to start on my physmod5 tables, they are running between 5 and 15 FPS, all of them.

 

Maybe I should do the same there too...

[blackvulcan3]

Since I have spent the last week and bit repairing and reinstalling software all over the cab, I took a break today to cut out the speaker panel.

 

I also bought some perspex for the upper part of the back box, I will blacken the inside edges of the perspex so only the monitor can be seen. I'll do this tomorrow with some suitable black plastic paint.

 

I'm really happy with how the speaker panel came out. 7mm ply and speaker fabric. I have two holes cut out for each speaker, tweeter and mid range but as they were off centre and would have looked terrible if exposed I have covered the lot bar the DMD (of course).

 

My woodworking is still terrible but the speaker fabric masks over most of the damage. 

 

I have reinserted the playfield insert and now only have the rails and the glass to put on. They will not go on until everything is complete and PinballX is running (which may be a while going off the last attempt).

 

Here is the cab as it looks today, I played Tee'd Off and I'm pretty happy with setting the table hi score on my first go round. 

 

[blackvulcan3]

Today was all about the back box which is now finished. I painted the plexiglass and it came out nice.

 

I still need to cover the small area underneath the DMD as there is some light bleed from underneath.

 

It's almost looking like a pinball machine.

 

[blackvulcan3]

Made up a little light blocker for the light bleed between the back box and the playfield this morning. It works a treat.

 

Truth be known its a 7mm bit of ply cut to the size of the bottom of the DMD monitor, painted black and held in place with velcro. Looks the part and velcro will outlive us all.

 

I am going to make a back up of the drive shortly as I almost have everything the way I want it. There is no way I'm starting that bloody PinballX again until I have ghosted my drive.

 

Once the glass goes on I won't be taking it off until I realise I can't live without DOF & nudging. I was never much of a nudger anyway. 

 

I have had so much fun the past few days, more than makes up for the dramas. The tables are so playable at present, having a ball.

 

I have 68 tables at present in VPX (two multiples), 15 VP9 and 3 Physmod 5 tables. That's some entertainment right there.

[blackvulcan3]

Hey all, I've been very slack at present, only because I have been enjoying playing the cabinet so much. I have been really into an original version of Champions League (not sure how the forum feels about that table so that will be the last I mention it, but it is a cracker).

 

I still don't have the glass on but that is all. As I mentioned previously the glass on means its finished, which it isn't, so no glass (means lots of playfield wiping to keep clean).

 

I have started researching DOF and nudging solutions for the cab. I have absolutely no idea on both so it will be good to get some knowledge on those. When I think of how much I have learned in the last 6 months its awesome.

 

I am getting grief from the kids and the wife because FP is not working properly (backglass displaying in DMD monitor since going to Win 10) so I have to fix that also.

 

I also saw a real nice version of MAME on RustyCardores cab so I think I may start to incorporate something similar. Always something happening.