2 replies to this topic

[Tesla]

Zen Studio's Pinball-FX3 seems worthy-enough to install and take a look. They got some of the major

licenses after Farsight. Among others, they have some nice-looking recreations for famous Williams tables and they support Cabinet-Mode with a separate DMD (on a 3rd screen).  

 

Installed Pinball-FX3 from Steam, and requested/received my Cabinet key-code from Zen-Studios.

You should be able to keep your 3 monitors setup in Windows the same way (as works for TPA):

- 1,2,3 left to right (all sitting on floor at same level) as PlayField (portrait), BackGlass, and DMD.

So that Pinball-FX3 DOES NOT have trouble starting-up on a Portrait orientation-ed monitor

- Be sure No controllers are connected

- Be sure Steam-Input is forced Off in the game's Steam Properties

- - If those are present, seems to think you are playing on a conventional-HDTV

Click the top-icon of pinball-cabinet and enter your cabinet-code.

 

Enter your various display coordinates and display resolution sizes.

They should be placed in a 2-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, where the origin

is your primary display’s top left corner (0;0), and the unit of length is a pixel.

 

You have to find your own BackGlass images for Pinball-FX3.

They can be formatted as .bmp .gif .png .jpg .jpeg. My BackGlass monitor is 1920x1080, so I like to find those, or at least similar high-res ones in a 16:9 aspect raio. 

You copy them into your Pinball FX3’s data folder. For example: 

[Your Steam installation directory]\steamapps\common\Pinball FX3\data\steam\

You should rename your images to match the table’s name you want to display. You can find

the list of tables also in the data\steam folder.

If Cabinet mode is setup (using BackGlass), as you navigate through your Collection, it will display the necessary path and filename for any missing images.

Here are a few examples:

PinballFX3.jpg - This image will be displayed at startup or while browsing the menus of the game

Citadel.jpg - this image will be displayed while playing on the Sorcerer’s Lair table

Aliens.bmp - this image will be displayed while playing on the Aliens table

UNIVERSAL_Jaws.png - this image will be displayed while playing on the Jaws table

 

If you have a real DMD monitor, in game options

- you can turn off the virtual-DMD (from also appearing on playfield and/or BackGlass).

You can also turn-off the pop-up cloud-like scoring amounts.

On Williams tables, the animations must be disabled each time after starting the game.

Camera view #1 seems to be the best for me on Williams tables. It seems to be persistent.

However, I see no way to stop it from occasionally zooming-out to show the cabinet's plunger.

 

For now, I use a separate JoyToKey profile for Pinball-FX3 (but it's intentionally very similar to the one I use for The Pinball Arcade). There is also a Keyboard-Multi feature in JoyToKey that can help with functions of buttons on front of cabinet. When used, normally pressing a button does one thing, while pressing it for about 1-second provides another.

 

My cabinet is an AtGames Legends Pinball machine (ALP with VIBS and 8-inch-LCD for DMD) in OTG-Mode. My Windows-10 computer is an older Dell XPS, but it has an Intel-i5, C-Drive is a SSD, and the video-card is a Nvidia GTX-1660 . The above it what I saved in my notes, and I thought it might be helpful to some just starting-out.

Edited by Tesla, 14 April 2023 - 12:24 AM.

[Sparcky]

FYI: 

 

Pinball FX3 runs very smoothly and real fun here,   +200 FPS :  5 year old Laptop ASUS ROG Strix GL503VS-EI038T  ( Intel Core i7-7700HQ and a 1070 GTX )  (HDMI and USB-C to HDMI for the  VIBS, no DMD )

The pinball arcade is not so smooth  at 60 FPS... (Choppy feeling with some lag, but playable) 

[Tesla]

FYI: 

 

1. Pinball FX3 runs very smoothly and real fun here,  

 

2. +200 FPS :  5 year old Laptop ASUS ROG Strix GL503VS-EI038T  ( Intel Core i7-7700HQ and a 1070 GTX )  (HDMI and USB-C to HDMI for the  VIBS, no DMD )

 

3. The pinball arcade is not so smooth  at 60 FPS... (Choppy feeling with some lag, but playable) 

 

1. Good to hear. I see there is a re-creation of the Theater of Magic table and some other Williams tables ... I would not mind buying some of those.

 

I think my new ALP is awesome ... much better than a swiveled 24-inch LCD, desk monitors, and keyboard on my desk.

 

2. Interesting. Initially, I tried using a spare Dell XPS-9520 with RTX-3050 . I could never get completely rid of the flipper-lag (in TPA or FX3). Not sure if it was due to (I think non-Exclusive-Mode) Nvidia, video-card sharing, using ThunderBolt/USB-C for everything, or what (I tried various things). It is a very nice laptop, but just not a good-fit for this use-case it seems. 

 

I ended-up buying a Zotac Nvidia GTX-1660 (almost as fast as a desktop-class GTX-1070 ... which is still a pretty nice card) for the old (but still capable) Dell XPS-8300 desktop and everything runs great (fast and smooth). I think maybe because the GTX-1660 is a "dedicated video card" and it has 3-4 native video outputs.

 

3. Hmm ... not seeing that here. If your laptop definitely runs FX3 fine, sounds like the laptop is probably capable enough. Maybe try switching Nvidia Control Panel to "Use Advanced Settings" and define settings for each game (like Vertical-Sync, etc.). Remember that with TPA, you will have to pick the proper .exe . I'm using (real $150) Arcooda Cabinet mode. I have all the 1990's Bally/Williams tables.

Edited by Tesla, 14 February 2023 - 10:44 PM.