Admin questions for working on your cabinet

[netdefilr]

I’m refreshing my P2K style cabinet. It was running Windows XP. I installed Windows 10 Pro.

Editted System Specs:

• Upgraded to i7-6700k from i7-920
• Upgraded to 16GB ram from 6GB Ram
• Nvidia 750 1080 with a converter for the powersupply to go from 6 prong to 8 prong.
• iPac/2, older model (pre-2015 Im sure) plugged into a usb hub
• Ledwiz plugged into a usb hub
• virtua pin plunger and accelerometer
• Upgraded to a half terabyte m.2 drive from a 64GB SSD Hard drive
• 3 RGB flashers, 2 strobes, shaker, currently disconnected contactors, light up buttons.
• Stream Deck for macros, launching apps, killing apps, changing Peace profiles.

Editted System Improvements (Maybe 6th revision in 10 years on a vpin cabinet.)

• I activated Windows 10 Pro for remote capabilities, to avoid hunching over the cabinet.
• Pin-up system installed, working
• Installed an NVidia 1080 to improve fps/latency from a 750.

Editted Current issues

• Most issues have been resolved.

Editted Long Term

• Add a topper monitor
• Get “special” access to restricted tables
•  My VirtuaPin plunger v2 is imperfect. I might need to upgrade this.

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[outhere]

Get rid of window sign in
Right click the zip file unblock before unzipping or use 7 zip – https://www.7-zip.org/
This is what I use for making color roms  — http://vpuniverse.com/forums/files/file/4808-vpu-color-rom-patcher/
Download rom from here – https://sternpinball.com/support/game-code/
After you patch the file renamed the bin file like this acd_170hc.bin
And then zip it up and name it like this acd_170hc.zip
Visual Pinball\VPinMame\altcolor\acd_170hc  <–  The PAL file go’s in the acd_170hc folder
AC/DC game update —  http://vpuniverse.com/forums/files/file/5489-acdc/

Also if you don’t already Have windows set so when you’re looking at files it shows the extensions

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[DeathInc]

Any windows 7 Pro key will work for windows 10 Pro. If not, the win 10 Pro key are like $7 on ebay. They work just fine.

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[netdefilr]

Ok, I made some progress.

• Windows 10 pro activated
• I can now RDP to my pincab
• I enabled virtual dmd, it looks like it might be the color patched rom. Not sure if 4 color.
• On boot, it signs in automatically.

Issues:

• Need the virtual dmd that’s doing the color rom to be flipy=1.
• Not sure what is holding the button on boot. As soon as one of the cabinet buttons is pressed, it stopped holding down the button for the whole windows session.

Otherwise, getting close!

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[netdefilr]

What would you consider moving to for a graphics card today? I’m probably sticking with 1080p for the playfield, but it could change. I have either a 36 or a 40″ monitor, I’m not sure.

Is there anyway to find out the panel size prior to uncasing the tv?

 

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[gtxjoe]

If you unplug the button, does windows boot normally?

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[JR]

“uncasing the tv?”   Don’t do that.

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[netdefilr]

JR wrote:

“uncasing the tv?” Don’t do that.

In my current p2k cabinet, the panel was taken out of the case which led to a smaller size with no bezel. I believe it has standoffs on a piece of plywood. Is everyone just putting the full TV into their cabinet for the playfield? It also has a thin piece of wood with the screen cut out from it that sits flat on top of it.

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[LynnInDenver]

Any TV you buy new can’t really be uncased/decased like you could even five years ago, as the gradual cost cutting process has render the case as part of the structural support for the panel itself, instead of the case being merely a decorative shell around the panel. In other words, they’ve shaved down the panel’s inherent structure and it now relies in large part on the bezel and frame of the case itself to maintain integrity.

Creator of the first PinupPlayer PostDMD mods for VPX - PostDMD for Masters of the Universe VPX and Jaws VPX.
Head Proprietor of Pisces Pinball, a VPX table developer.
Lead Technician of MC Chase Amusements, a private arcade in our home basement.

Creator of the first PinupPlayer PostDMD mods for VPX - PostDMD for Masters of the Universe VPX and Jaws VPX.
Head Proprietor of Pisces Pinball, a VPX table developer.
Lead Technician of MC Chase Amusements, a private arcade in our home basement.

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[netdefilr]

I spent a lot of time with the Visual Pinball graphics settings to help determine what works best on my nvidia 750. I tried to keep the video quality as high as possible. While this worked for AC/DC 1.4 table and a couple other ones. I saw slowdown when importing other tables. I believe its the video card after looking at the performance results from Windows. Is there specific cards that are just overkill? I’m not sure how much to really throw at this to yield max settings for 1080P on the playfield. 1060 – ~150$, 1650 – 160$, 2060 – 300-350$

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[netdefilr]

I swapped video cards with my desktop. My VPin now has a 1080. I initially began using the high end pc setting and started testing with a Monster Bash Mod table. Initially when the table starts, it’s about 60fps with vsync 1 and prerendered frames 1. But when you start lighting up the table, like getting a multiball, either the DOF or the visuals from the flashers were causing a ~50% drop in frames. I disabled DOF in b2s. Same frame drops.

I know on the 750, I was able to play with most of these settings set to high as it was. I wasn’t able to figure out the frame dropping issue last night after trying all sorts of settings. My verdict? Maybe its that particular table.

After swapping the video cards and installing the drivers, my monitors changed their display #. I ordered them properly side by side, but ran into issues with the backglass on the dmd monitor, dmd on the backglass monitor. Is there any way to mass-edit the dmd_pos_x, dmd_pos_y, dmd_height, dmd_width for all the rom registry entries?

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[outhere]

Try running your video card settings at default and start with these settings and work your way up
Also try force exclusive full screen

3 Screen set-up and more
https://vpinball.com/forums/topic/3-screen-set-up-and-more/

If this does not solve your problems make sure you re-post but let us know either way

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[netdefilr]

Will do. I did use the low end pc option in vpx video settings and loading, adding settings, loading, ect. But was seeing my FPS go from ~60 to ~30 during busy playfield lighting. The DMD audio was garbled during times where DOF RGB lights and stobes were going off, that’s why I disabled that to find it was still having the issue. Also during this time the ball would seem like it was skipping on the playfield even at 30fps. I think previous versions of VP had issues with ledwiz and latency from what I recall.

Immediately after installing the 1080, I noticed the pinballs had white squares hovering around the pinball. It seemed to be that way on other tables too, which wasn’t happening or noticeable on the 750. I tried turning off ball video features, but it made no difference.

I’ll get the exact table I used for reference. I was referencing performance monitoring and gpu temp and there seemed to be a lot of room for growth.

Edit: The motherboard supports gen 2 PCIE x16, not gen 3. From googling, it doesn’t sound like this should cause performance issues.

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[DeathInc]

A program called SetDMD will set all the dmd’s of existing entries in the registry. Then set up your default settings and any new table you install will take those settings.

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[outhere]

I noticed the pinballs had white squares hovering around the pinball.  <–  when you use F11?

What is your CPU?

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[netdefilr]

Outhere,

Steps mentioned completed:
Download rom from here – https://sternpinball.com/support/game-code/
After you patch the file renamed the bin file like this acd_170hc.bin
And then zip it up and name it like this acd_170hc.zip
Visual Pinball\VPinMame\altcolor\acd_170hc <– The PAL file go’s in the acd_170hc folder

Additional steps performed:
VPinmame settings, enable colorize display and external dmd.

Do I still need acd_170h.zip containing acd_170h.bin?
Do I change out the rom in the table to acd_170hc.bin?
* When I do change out the rom in the table for acd_170hc.bin, VPinmame doesn’t know the romname acd_170hc.bin.
Do I use the virtualdmd from dmddevice.ini?
* If so, how do I flipy like with normal vpinmame? Is this not possible?

I’ve confirmed Freezy is installed 1.7.1. No files appear to be blocked anymore. I believe after 1.7.1 was installed, I ran vpinmame setup to register/install and check default settings.

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[netdefilr]

outhere wrote:

I noticed the pinballs had white squares hovering around the pinball. <– when you use F11?

More than likely this was happening when f11 was used for checking FPS. But will need to check regular gameplay without f11.

Using an Intel i7 920 CPU.

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[outhere]

With the set up you have you shouldn’t have performance problem with any game – But there maybe 1 or 2

This is the Latest SAMBuild version 3.3   —    http://vpuniverse.com/forums/topic/4278-sambuild33-beta-thread/

Tables come as zip or rar files, you have to uncompress these, Click here  –> 7-Zip  https://www.7-zip.org/    a tool that can handle zip and rar files
Before you unzip the file, Right Click the file, go to properties unblock the file if needed…

If you are running VP with Force exclusive full screen mode checked
You may get (Rom not Found, Game crashes ), If that is the case turn off exclusive full screen in VP then try the game..
if it works you will need to go into the Windows registry and turn off ddraw for the rom if you are going to use exclusive full screen..
Ones you have Windows registry open this is the path at the top of the registry
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freeware\Visual PinMame
Then on the left pick the Rom and on the right fine ddraw and set it zero (off)
If you’re not sure how search Google

In your VPinMame folder run set up change defaults and/or Use F1 during game to change the default for that game
Turn off Show DMD and Turn on external DMD

To see what name the zip and the bin file should be – Go to your VPinMame Folder Run Setup, Click Test, Fine the Game and Click Check Rom
Example

Do I still need acd_170h.zip containing acd_170h.bin? –– No
Do I change out the rom name in the table script to acd_170hc?  — YES — But not like this acd_170h.bin

This is my — dmddevice.ini  — Adjust items in red for DMD location and size

[global]

; how to downscale SEGA 192×64 pixel games to smaller displays: fit, fill or stretch
resize = fit

; flips the image horizontally
fliphorizontally = false

; flips the image vertically
flipvertically = false

; enable or disable frame-by-frame colorization (inactive in VPX bundle)
colorize = true

; a DMD that renders with nice dots on a computer monitor
[virtualdmd]
enabled = true

; virtual dmd stays on top of all other windows
stayontop = true

; hide the resize grip
hidegrip = true

; ignore the aspect ratio of the rendered dots when resizing
ignorear = true

; use VPM’s registry values when positioning the virtual dmd
useregistry = false

; x-axis of the window position
left = 10

; y-axis of the window position
top = 10

; width of the dmd in monitor pixels
width = 600

; height of the dmd in monitor pixels
height = 200

; scale the dot size (set to 0.8 for same size as pre-1.6.0)
dotsize = 0.8

[pindmd1]

; if false, doesn’t bother looking for a pinDMD1
enabled = false

[pindmd2]

; if false, doesn’t bother looking for a pinDMD2
enabled = false

[pindmd3]

; if false, doesn’t bother looking for a pinDMD3
enabled = false

; COM port, e.g. COM3
port =

[pin2dmd]

; if false, doesn’t bother looking for a PIN2DMD
enabled = false

[browserstream]

; if enabled, stream to your browser in your LAN
enabled = false
port = 9090

[vpdbstream]

; if enabled, stream DMD to https://test.vpdb.io/live
enabled = false
endpoint = https://api-test.vpdb.io/

; if enabled, writes frames to an .avi file
enabled = false

; path to folder or .avi file. if folder, gamename.avi is used.
path =

[pinup]

; if enabled, send frames to PinUP.
enabled = true

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[netdefilr]

I’m not sure why I was on vpinmame 3.2, but I did install Freezy 1.7.1. I just copied over the files from the vpinmame 3.3 sam zip. I unblocked the files and installed, set defaults. Its crashing on load. It is showing the dead dots prior to crashing and killing itself. Testing it in setup.exe -> test as well as in vpx. I set pinup system to false in case it was conflicting. I used this color rom patch: http://vpuniverse.com/forums/files/file/4374-mustang-le/. Edit: The rom’s crc isn’t correct. I used the vpupatcher after using bspatch by cmd prompt and failing.

[global]
; how to downscale SEGA 192×64 pixel games to smaller displays: fit, fill or stretch
resize = fit
; flips the image horizontally
fliphorizontally = false
; flips the image vertically
flipvertically = true
; enable or disable frame-by-frame colorization (inactive in VPX bundle)
colorize = true
; a DMD that renders with nice dots on a computer monitor
[virtualdmd]
enabled = true
; virtual dmd stays on top of all other windows
stayontop = true
; hide the resize grip
hidegrip = false
; ignore the aspect ratio of the rendered dots when resizing
ignorear = false
; use VPM’s registry values when positioning the virtual dmd
useregistry = true
; x-axis of the window position
left = 2283
; y-axis of the window position
top = 0
; width of the dmd in monitor pixels
width = 1024
; height of the dmd in monitor pixels
height = 256
; scale the dot size (set to 0.8 for same size as pre-1.6.0)
dotsize = 1.0
[pindmd1]
; if false, doesn’t bother looking for a pinDMD1
enabled = false
[pindmd2]
; if false, doesn’t bother looking for a pinDMD2
enabled = false
[pindmd3]
; if false, doesn’t bother looking for a pinDMD3
enabled = false
; COM port, e.g. COM3
port =
[pin2dmd]
; if false, doesn’t bother looking for a PIN2DMD
enabled = false
[browserstream]
; if enabled, stream to your browser in your LAN
enabled = false
port = 9090
[vpdbstream]
; if enabled, stream DMD to https://test.vpdb.io/live
enabled = false
endpoint = https://api-test.vpdb.io/

; if enabled, writes frames to an .avi file
enabled = false
; path to folder or .avi file. if folder, gamename.avi is used.
path =
[pinup]
; if enabled, send frames to PinUP.
enabled = false

[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.085  INFO | Successfully loaded config from C:\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\DmdDevice.ini.
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.118  INFO | Determined color path from assembly path: C:\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\altcolor
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.118  INFO | Starting VPinMAME API through Setup.exe.
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.118  INFO | [vpm] Open()
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.118  INFO | [vpm] Set_4_Colors_Palette()
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.127  INFO | Setting palette to 4 colors…
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.127  INFO | [vpm] PM_GameSettings(1)
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.127  INFO | Enabling game colorization
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.127  INFO | Setting game name: mt_145hc
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.127  INFO | Setting color: #FFFF5820
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.147  INFO | Loading palette file at C:\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\altcolor\mt_145hc\pin2dmd.pal…
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.147  WARN | PAL[1754] No mappings found but there are still 5121 bytes in the file!
[1] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.158  INFO | Opening virtual DMD…
[10] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.254  INFO | Added VirtualDMD renderer.
[10] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.268  INFO | PinUP DLL starting mt_145hc…
[10] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.268  INFO | Added PinUP renderer.
[10] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.268  INFO | Transformation options: Resize=Fit, HFlip=False, VFlip=True
[10] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.284  INFO | Just clearing palette, colorization is done by converter.
[10] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.323  INFO | Resizing virtual DMD to 128×32
[10] 2020/02/05 20:26:43.334  INFO | Setting up 2-bit Colored VPM Graph for 2 destination(s)

 

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[netdefilr]

Regarding the video issues, it looks like I choose the wrong table to use last night as a benchmark. Somehow I had used Hannibal 4k Monster Bash table, on this 1080p display and that likely was the cause of the fps drop.

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