1622 replies to this topic

[mjr]

Is anybody able to load a Future Pinball table via BAM/FPLoader using PinballY? I'm using the latest BAM DLL 1.4.238. I cannot load a table. The default parameters /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit /arcaderender do not seem to work. I tried playing around with it to no avail. If I point PBY to Future Pinball.exe, tables load fine. 

 

EDIT:

 

I tried on the Run command line with a specific table and FPLoader launched it.

 

C:\Games\Future Pinball\BAM\FPLoader.exe /open "C:\Games\Future Pinball\tables\ABraCaDaBra.fpt" /play /exit /arcaderender

 

Mike,

 

Does [TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE] need to be changed in the code?

 

 

Changed to what?

 

You might try enabling logging for table launch (in the options - Log File page) and then looking at the log file (PinballY.log in your install folder) to see the exact command line.  Maybe that will shed some light on it.

 

martin0 - here's a quick test build for you.  I changed the problem area to use shader model 4...

 

Thank you! It's working.

 

Great!  That change will be in future builds, so hopefully it'll keep working for you.

[mjr]

In image/video capture dialog box change remaning typo to remaining.
 
What I really like in the PinballX wheel menu are the manufacturers logos. Would even like the option to make the logos what they were for a given year span. Like when Gottlieb changed their design over the years. Can you add those at some point? Put in res folder? We can gather.
 
Also, since we can specify SS, EM, ME, can this be displayed in the info boxes? 

 

I've added those for the Alpha 9 build.

 

Put manufacturer logos in <media path>\Company Logos, as PNG files.  The file name is matched to the manufacturer name in the game database.  You can create era-specific logo files by putting a year in the name:  Gottlieb (1972-1985).png.  You can also use open-ended ranges like 1982- (1982 and later) or -1975 (1975 and earlier).  

 

Software system logos go in <media path>\System Logos.  Also PNG files, also matched on system name.  File names like Visual Pinball.png will be matched as prefixes, so you can create a generic file called Visual Pinball.png to match systems "Visual Pinball 9.2", "Visual Pinball X", etc.  You can also create files with the exact names if you want to use different logos per vresion.

 

I don't have any logo files to include in the distribution right now, but you can drop your own files into the folders mentioned above to create your own.  If anyone wants to contribute an original set for me to include in the distribution, that would be great.  (Please don't send me someone else's artwork without permission; original work would be appreciated.)

[Carny_Priest]

This is not at all a complete set, but my work is free to use by the community for projects such as this:

 

https://www.gameex.i...-company-logos/

 

In any case such images are trademark of their respective owners, and I make no claim on them. I am not responsible for any misuse. You know? Maybe like the tables or the software, don't include them in the package. Especially if you don't have permission from the IP holders. Why bother taking any sort of legal risk? Leave it up to the end user to find their media for copyright and trademarked images like manufacturer logos. It's not like there is a lack of places to leech that stuff. 

Edited by Carny_Priest, 14 August 2018 - 02:10 AM.

[Draco1962]

 

In image/video capture dialog box change remaning typo to remaining.
 
What I really like in the PinballX wheel menu are the manufacturers logos. Would even like the option to make the logos what they were for a given year span. Like when Gottlieb changed their design over the years. Can you add those at some point? Put in res folder? We can gather.
 
Also, since we can specify SS, EM, ME, can this be displayed in the info boxes? 

 

I've added those for the Alpha 9 build.

 

Put manufacturer logos in <media path>\Company Logos, as PNG files.  The file name is matched to the manufacturer name in the game database.  You can create era-specific logo files by putting a year in the name:  Gottlieb (1972-1985).png.  You can also use open-ended ranges like 1982- (1982 and later) or -1975 (1975 and earlier).  

 

Software system logos go in <media path>\System Logos.  Also PNG files, also matched on system name.  File names like Visual Pinball.png will be matched as prefixes, so you can create a generic file called Visual Pinball.png to match systems "Visual Pinball 9.2", "Visual Pinball X", etc.  You can also create files with the exact names if you want to use different logos per vresion.

 

I don't have any logo files to include in the distribution right now, but you can drop your own files into the folders mentioned above to create your own.  If anyone wants to contribute an original set for me to include in the distribution, that would be great.  (Please don't send me someone else's artwork without permission; original work would be appreciated.)

 

Some Visual Pinball logos I created can be found here... 

https://www.gameex.i...&comment=155071

 

You are more than welcome to use them for your distros.

 

Mike

[hlr53]

 

Is anybody able to load a Future Pinball table via BAM/FPLoader using PinballY? I'm using the latest BAM DLL 1.4.238. I cannot load a table. The default parameters /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit /arcaderender do not seem to work. I tried playing around with it to no avail. If I point PBY to Future Pinball.exe, tables load fine. 

 

EDIT:

 

I tried on the Run command line with a specific table and FPLoader launched it.

 

C:\Games\Future Pinball\BAM\FPLoader.exe /open "C:\Games\Future Pinball\tables\ABraCaDaBra.fpt" /play /exit /arcaderender

 

Mike,

 

Does [TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE] need to be changed in the code?

 

 

Changed to what?

 

You might try enabling logging for table launch (in the options - Log File page) and then looking at the log file (PinballY.log in your install folder) to see the exact command line.  Maybe that will shed some light on it.

 

Alpha 9 build

 

Everything else in log file is identical. Just showing table launches. With Future Pinball.exe, table launches OK.

 

Table launch: AirAces_V100, table file AirAces_V100.fpt, system Future Pinball
+ launch: full table path C:\Games\Future Pinball\Tables\AirAces_V100.fpt
+ table launch: executable: C:\Games\Future Pinball\Future Pinball.exe
+ table launch: applying command line variable substitutions:
+ Original> /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit /arcaderender
+ Final   > /open "C:\Games\Future Pinball\Tables\AirAces_V100.fpt" /play /exit /arcaderender

 

With FPLoader.exe Future Pinball launches, but no table.

 

Table launch: AirAces_V100, table file AirAces_V100.fpt, system Future Pinball
+ launch: full table path C:\Games\Future Pinball\Tables\AirAces_V100.fpt
+ table launch: executable: C:\Games\Future Pinball\BAM\FPLoader.exe
+ table launch: applying command line variable substitutions:
+ Original> /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit /arcaderender
+ Final   > /open "C:\Games\Future Pinball\Tables\AirAces_V100.fpt" /play /exit /arcaderender
+ table launch: process launch succeeded
+ sending startup key sequence
+ table launch: child process exited normally
+ table launch finished successfully
 

Would it be useful to put PinballX on my laptop (or cab again) and have it build XML files?

 

I tried an explicit launch and put this into the command line parameters. The table launched and closed correctly.

 

C:\Games\Future Pinball\BAM\FPLoader.exe /open "C:\Games\Future Pinball\tables\ABraCaDaBra.fpt" /play /exit /arcaderender

 

That is why I asked about TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]. FPLoader doesn't like it. Wondering what code change would work?

Edited by hlr53, 14 August 2018 - 10:14 PM.

[mjr]

hlr53 - I sure don't have any guesses about what the difference might be.  I can't think of anything I could change on the PBY end that would affect this one way or the other; it's a very straightforward process launch.

 

One thing you might try is to disable the startup key sequence, or add a lot more time padding to that.  Maybe the startup key sequence is putting focus in the wrong place and interrupting the load somehow.

[tspeirs]

 

Im still not sure if I pissed you off at some point in my life or not, but I wanted to say good job anyway. The main issue I see with this project is its going to be ripped off by the Chinese and other bootleggers who will be adding credit/coin systems, rebranding, and generally doing shady things. Therefore doing a lot of stuff people in the community are not going to like. Although It looks like your not worried about people copying off other peoples work even on a community camaraderie level.

 

Tom - sorry if anything I wrote gave you the impression this was meant as a slight against PinballX.  It's not; the motivation is that I wanted an open-source launcher for my pin cab, and I thought a few other pin cab people might like the same thing.  I appreciate your concern about someone "ripping off" my code, but one of the features of open source is that you can't steal what's freely given.  So no, I'm not worried about people copying or reusing or elaborating upon my open-source work; the point of releasing it as open source is to make that possible.  I won't try to make the case for open-source here, as others have done that better than I can, and it's off-topic anyway, but I see it as a positive for the community for projects like this to be open to unrestricted collaboration.

 

 

No worries. I am over it. Only human for me to be upset with someone copying my features, design and ideas and criticizing at the same time. I was just slighted by that. You have obviously copied many of the ideas and the design from PinballX but had nothing nice to say about it. I just got upset with that but I am British and we tend to be very polite and nice etc.. Anyway, moving on. All good. It is off topic but I have no way to contact you. I don't have a problem with the open source stuff and competing products I was just upset with what you wrote, pretty much seeing as the product uses all of the ideas you could have said something nicer and named it something else. Anyway, good luck. I don't see any issue really (I was just upset) accept maybe that its in a lower level language. I wouldn't have gone with C myself as its going to take 5-20 times longer to develop and support and you will get less contributors. For example, I implemented most of your worthwhile unique features into PinballX in 3.10, released it and it took me one day.

 

Anyway, happy to compete on a friendly level as I have always done with every gaming front end in existence. I've always been like that and helped people out and have done open source projects too. Good luck, sincerely. Im also happy to work with you in some capacity if you ever felt like reaching out.

Edited by tspeirs, 15 August 2018 - 01:28 PM.

[hlr53]

hlr53 - I sure don't have any guesses about what the difference might be.  I can't think of anything I could change on the PBY end that would affect this one way or the other; it's a very straightforward process launch.

 

One thing you might try is to disable the startup key sequence, or add a lot more time padding to that.  Maybe the startup key sequence is putting focus in the wrong place and interrupting the load somehow.

 

I personally didn't think it was a timing problem but more of a path problem. After [expletive deleted] around with it for an hour or two the following parameters work using either FPLoader.exe or Future Pinball.exe.

 

/open "C:\Games\Future Pinball\tables /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit /arcaderender

 

I know /arcaderender is an artifact that is no longer needed with BAM, I have to test using just the Future Pinball.exe. Though, ALL newcomers to FP need to be directed to BAM.

 

Tomorrow, back to the cab to test some media and real DMD stuff :-)

Edited by hlr53, 15 August 2018 - 01:12 AM.

[dopdahl]

That's bizarre.  Are you sure that you have the double quotes correct in your post?

[hlr53]

Won't let me quote your post this morning? I cut & pasted out of the parameters field but might have missed something. I can check after work.

 

I tried all kinds of combinations on the command line last night and that is what worked on my 2 monitor laptop. I still have to try on the cab. Both are Win 10, laptop being home and cab is Pro.

 

Do you have FP on your system? I really don't play it that much but wanted to get it to work.

 

I am trying PBY without PinballX being installed, for now. I wanted to test for MJR as a "new" cab owner starting from scratch.

Edited by hlr53, 15 August 2018 - 03:48 PM.

[dopdahl]

It looks like you're missing the end quote after the first path...  Just trying to clarify if that's a typo on your part, or if that is required to get things working... or if it doesn't seems to matter at all to the loader.  It ultimately depends on how good the loaders command line parser is as to whether or not it would work as written.

 

I don't have FP setup currently...  I will soon though.  I'll try it out.

Edited by dopdahl, 15 August 2018 - 04:21 PM.

[mjr]

hl53, dopdahl - I was wondering the same thing about the missing quote mark.  I couldn't tell if it was a copy-and-paste problem or if it's somehow working around a bug or something in FPloader parsing the quotes.  Having a second layer of launcher programs makes it really hard to tell what the final command line is going to be because the second layer is going to do something unpredictable with quotes in the command line it receives.  There aren't really any standards in Windows for how programs handle quotes, so it ends up being a function of which language FPloader is written in and possibly a function of FPloader itself.

 

But what I suspect is going on here is that FPloader is stripping quotes it sees and not passing them on to FP.  The question is how to "quote the quotes" so that the right amount of quoting is left intact in the final FP command line.  There are a couple of things that commonly work that you could try:

 

 

   ""[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]""        - stutter the quotes (change quote to quote-quote)

   \"[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]\"         - add a backslash in front of each quote; works for a lot of ported Linux software

   ^"[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]^"        - add a circumflex in front of each quote; often works if CMD.EXE is invoked at some point in the process

[dopdahl]

Right, or in the alternative... change the location to a path that doesn't include spaces.

[hlr53]

Right, or in the alternative... change the location to a path that doesn't include spaces.

 

/open C:\Games\Future Pinball\tables /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit

 

Quotations not needed - parsing must ignore. I must have put in by mistake messing around.  /arcaderender is not needed either for BAM.

 

I took out the /exit but PBY would show the table exiting but the table wouldn't terminate. I took out the /play but only FP would load and not the table. Makes sense.

 

EDIT: The /open at beginning didn't make sense so I removed it and tables launched fine. so: 

 

C:\Games\Future Pinball\tables /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit

 

Log file:

 

Table launch: Eight Ball Deluxe 400, table file Eight Ball Deluxe 400.fpt, system Future Pinball
+ launch: full table path C:\Games\Future Pinball\Tables\Eight Ball Deluxe 400.fpt
+ table launch: executable: C:\Games\Future Pinball\BAM\FPLoader.exe
+ table launch: applying command line variable substitutions:
+ Original> C:\Games\Future Pinball\tables /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit
+ Final   > C:\Games\Future Pinball\tables /open "C:\Games\Future Pinball\Tables\Eight Ball Deluxe 400.fpt" /play /exit
+ table launch: process launch succeeded
+ table launch: child process exited normally
+ table launch finished successfully

 

Off topic: Can you guys recommend a lightweight C++ IDE. I'm going through "Thinking in C++" and would like to compile/run without having to build project files, etc....Or just use VS Community?

 

Thanks,

 

Harry

Edited by hlr53, 15 August 2018 - 08:34 PM.

[mjr]

C:\Games\Future Pinball\tables /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit

 

So it looks like the difference between BAM and regular FP launching is that BAM requires that additional table path argument at the beginning of the command parameters.  Is that correct?   For flexibility, I'd suggest rewriting it as [TABLEPATH] instead of the explicit path.

 

Does this look right?

 

regular FP:   /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit

 

BAM:            [TABLEPATH] /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit

 

You said earlier that the /arcaderender argument is no longer needed, so take it that can be omitted in both cases.

 

 

Off topic: Can you guys recommend a lightweight C++ IDE. I'm going through "Thinking in C++" and would like to compile/run without having to build project files, etc....Or just use VS Community?

 

I'd personally go with VS Community.  It's big and complicated, but it's a very good IDE with a very good debugger.  It's daunting to look at because of the usual Microsoft kitchen-sink approach to menus and toolbars, but if you want to just experiment a bit with C++, the learning curve really isn't too bad.  You just have to learn a few basic commands and workflows.  Look for a tutorial on writing a basic C++ Hello World type of program and work through it; that should show you most of what you need to tinker with your own C++ projects after that.

[hlr53]

 

So it looks like the difference between BAM and regular FP launching is that BAM requires that additional table path argument at the beginning of the command parameters.  Is that correct?   For flexibility, I'd suggest rewriting it as [TABLEPATH] instead of the explicit path.

 

Does this look right?

 

regular FP:   /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit

 

BAM:            [TABLEPATH] /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit

 

You said earlier that the /arcaderender argument is no longer needed, so take it that can be omitted in both cases.

 

 

Yes, it boiled down to BAM needing the table path at the beginning. I just tested how you rewrote them with each executable and both work correctly.

 

Thanks!

 

Harry

Edited by hlr53, 15 August 2018 - 10:49 PM.

[mjr]

Yes, it boiled down to BAM needing the table path at the beginning. I just tested how you rewrote them with each executable and both work correctly.

 

Great.  I'll add a section to the System Options help page for "Future Pinball + BAM" with those as the suggested settings.  Thanks for figuring it out!

And doing a quick test, it looks like FP is actually fine with including the [TABLEPATH] prefix all the time, so I'd say the thing to do is to include that in the default parameters for FP across the board.  That way no change to the parameters is needed when switching between regular FP and BAM.

[hlr53]

Excellent! I see it's now in DefaultSettings.txt

 

Next, I'm going to work on FX3 and Pinball Arcade. For PBA there are some recent AHK scripts out there via PBX that may call a table up directly without the convoluted wait times. Using the Arcooda table package (must use the DX11 version) and without. I'm going to see if that works and how it's behavior can transfer to C++.

Edited by hlr53, 17 August 2018 - 01:24 PM.

[tspeirs]

Just to reiterate on the open source thing. My original point is not with Open Source is with the abuse the front end will get with people doing shady things.

 

So to get to my point, please do us all favour and stipulate no commercial use. I was upset but that was what I was getting at.

 

Make sense?

 

If it doesn't make sense, see this for example:

 

https://www.vpforums...599#entry411976

 

PS: Again, I have no way to contact you, so apologies for public posts.

Edited by tspeirs, 17 August 2018 - 08:51 AM.

[chepas]

Could have made it not look like PinballX init.