Paul Stevens

We need to see the contents of your DATABASES folder and also the contents of your PINBALL FX2 folder that is in the DATABASES folder

Can you share the spreadsheet mentioned above? I am curious about the padding FX2 uses and the best way to capture pixel perfect videos. I'm still tinkering with things and am also noticing that FX2 dmd animations are not that carefully created, as someone pointed out in another thread. Thanks.

@BamBam, If FX2 with cabinet mode code entered, you have to go into cabinet settings to setup for backglass display and dmd display repositioning. For backglass display, I leave repositioning OFF and rely on the backglass displayed by pinballX to remain displayed during FX2 gameplay. This assumes your FX2 .xml file has the entry for each FX2 game "Hide Backlass" unchecked. For DMD, you have to turn DMD repositioning ON, then enter coordinates as follows: X position = 0, Y position = 0, X width = 1040, Y height = 272 That takes care of the FX2 setup in FX2. You'll need to download DMDEXT and set that up. I put it in its own folder then made sure to put that folder PATH in my environment settings, making sure the PATH environment variable contains the path to the DMDEXT folder. In PinballX, in GAme Manager, as mentioned above, the FX2 games must have "Hide BAckglass" unchecked, so any artwork you downloaded from ftp AND put in the correct PBX folder is displayed in PBX and stays displayed during FX2 play. In PBX PinballX settings, you have to setup FX2 - enter your working path and executable. Enter your STEAM related parameters (defaults may work?) The key to dmd display in FX2 is in the LAUNCH BEFORE settings. Here you point to your DMDEXT path, the exe is DMDEXT.exe, and the parameters (from memory) are "mirror --source=pinballfx2 --no-virtual -q --fps=60" I may have the syntax wrong but that's the basic idea. Some search on this site, on the DMDEXT site, and elsewhere on internet will get you the correct syntax.

Carny_Priest, when you run your script capture for FX2, are your FX2 Cabinet settings as described in freeyz's doc for DMDExt, namely Resize DMD to: Width 1040, Height 272 I presume you move your offset in your setup to x=5760, y=400 and grab from there. Thanks.

Okay thank you...

Carny_Priest, thanks for the info. I have a further question. I have a PinDMDv3 working properly with PinballX showing attract mode videos for Virtual Pinball as well as Pinball FX2. The FX2 videos I have are the black/white set from the ftp site, but I am hoping to learn how to capture them in color from the games themselves so I can display color attract mode DMD videos on the PinDMDv3. The sample file you shared, dmd.mp4, does not display on my PinDMDv3 through PinballX in attract mode - the screen is blank. I have the file properly named to match the entry in my .xml database and placed in the Real Color DMD Videos folder == no pindmdv3 output. Nor does PinballX display anything if the file is in Real DMD Videos or DMD Videos. What sort of conversion should I do to make the file (and the output of your script) playable through PinballX attract mode output onto a PinDMDv3? I hope to be able to learn how to use your script to capture the FX2 videos in color and display them on the PinDMDv3, but first I need to understand what I need to do to get your sample output file to display properly on the PinDMDv3. Thanks!

This looks fantastic. THANK YOU so much for this. I grabbed your .xml file and have PBX launching FX2 tables perfectly. Next, I'll grab your media to dress it up. Any hints on how to configure FX2 in cabinet mode to display backglass on 2nd monitor and DMD on PinDMDv3? I'm just getting started with FX2 so have not looked much online yet. I will I have cabinet mode going, but I don't yet have figured out how to display backglass on 2nd monitor and DMD on PinDMDv3. Thanks again!

Thanks, but that did not do it! There are some registry setting keys I might try deleting then rerunning and see what happens. Thanks.

So it appears that setting "autoconfigure=true" for Visual Pinball settings overwrites the Visual Pinball "Preferences->keys" to something else. Is there a way to "undo" the changes PinballX "autoconfigure" did to the Visual Pinball keys? I'm hoping there is a file to edit or registry keys to change rather than go into Visual Pinball and press each key one by one to set them back to their defaults. Problem is, I'm not sure what the defaults are supposed to be! Thanks.

I think the real issue lay elsewhere. I still am having some issues launching tables with directB2S backglasses and the score display showing properly, even with PinballX v2.29. I got to thinking that the score display is really vpinmame display, so I went looking there. I ran Setup for vpinmame and noticed under "Setup Paths..." the "Display" option was set to "DISPLAY2 on Nvidia GTX960". I must have set that at some time but I don't recall. Changing that to "[Default]" seems to have made all the difference. The tables which consistently were problematic to load through PinballX are launching fine now. I am guessing that when PinballX calls VPinball.exe and subsequently when vpinmame gets called. parameters are set, or registry settings are changed, stuff goes on behind the scenes that I have no idea about. Perhaps not having "[Default]" for the vpinmame display was causing conflicts with whatever settings or parameters are sent from PinballX to Vpinball.exe to Vpinmame.exe... Anyway, posting this observation in case it might help someone else in the future.

Solved - Sort of... I tried several things including: - updating NVidia drivers and removing nVidea experience - verifying .NET was current at 4.6.2 - unblocking all DLLs / files / directories - disabling Windows Defender - updating to latest VPINMAME None of the above helped. I did find a PinballX 2.29 setup program in another directory so I installed that. v2.29 seems to work perfectly! So, I -solved- the problem by reverting from 2.31 back to 2.29. Tom - what is different between 2.29 and 2.31? Is there anything I am missing by running 2.29? Thank you so much!

Some additional info: When the launched table is messed up, if I press CTRL-ALT-DEL and bring up the blue screen to choose Task Manager, when the blue selection screen is up, the PINDMD3 starts running. When I choose Task Manager, which shows on the playfield monitor, the backglass monitor indeed displays the DMD data. It takes up the entire screen - backglass is hidden but occasionally parts of it flash through briefly. Also, in this state, Task Manager shows an ERROR box from Visual Pinball: Fatal Error: HRESULT 88760868 at RenderDevice.cpp:420 That box only appears when Task Manager is running. BEFORE launching TAsk Manager, if I Alt-Tab around when the table is messed up, that dialog box is not there. After launching Task Manager, the error box appears. Hope that helps - Thank you!

Thanks everyone. I hate being "that guy" who asks for help but can't seem to figure it out. I really appreciate the help. Attached are log, ini and xml files. Sequence is this: Windows 10 Home 64 powered on computer immediately launch PinballX 1st game run = Al's Garage Band. It loaded successfully. Exited game back to menu 2nd game run = 24. It loaded successfully. Exited game back to menu. 3rd game run = Al's Garage Band, again. It loaded successfully. I'm excited and thinking things are working. Exit game back to menu 4th game run = 24. This time it fails to load properly. Backglass is messed up and game does nothing, vpinmame not running. Exit game back to menu 5th game run = Al's Garage Band. This time it fails to load properly. Same symptoms as "24". Backglass flashes briefly, then entire BG screen is filled with what I can best describe as "DMD Dots". Playfield monitor shows table, but no activity / vpinmame not running. Exit game. Exit PinballX. Copy log, ini, xml below. Log.txt File: PinballX.ini file: Visual Pinball.xml file Thank you all so very much for looking at this.

@tthurman and @outhere: are you running on Windows 10 Home? Thanks. I followed Zeenons guide except for: have not created killbackglass.exe because Windows 10 does not recognize tskill.exe have not created the .ahk file for the mouse click startup program I have ensured all .exe files are Run As Administrator did not use "Compatibility" settings for anything PinballX I am still having issues. I will try the create the killbackglass.exe and other compiled .ahk file as mentioned in Zeenons guide and try again. Lastly, are there any .direct2bs settings I should use or not use? I am doing defaults, which I believe are Launch as EXE. I did try "Standard" by clicking on backglass and changing, but that did not change anything. Thank you!

Is there an installation and configuration FAQ somewhere for PinballX? Game Manager? I found a large pdf covering older versions, but I am trying to setup current v2.31 with Windows 10. I have Visual Pinball working perfectly outside of Pinball X including PinDMD3, cab mode with 2 monitors (pf and bg). When I first launch PinballX, the first table I try to load loads fine. When I try to launch a subsequent game in PinballX, the B2S backglasses get messed up, the game won't load, no DMD activity, no error boxes. LOG files don't reveal anything funny, no differences between successful launch of first table and failed launch of second table. The B2S backglass will display briefly, then it becomes blank but looks like DMD dots on the BG monitor. It might flicker back to display the correct backglass image, then go back to dots. I set Compatibility of VP9.9.3 to XP SP3, Run as Administrator. Also have PinballX set to Run as Administrator. I'm hoping an FAQ can help me, or someone in the forums. If there are log files to post please advise. I don't have the computer online so I'll have to copy over and post if needed. Thanks in advance for the consideration.