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SAM Build with modular DMD drivers for pindmd1,2,3 and PIN2DMD


lucky1

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On 1/11/2017 at 6:17 AM, lucky1 said:

No ! Still orange. I debug that later for you .

Speaking of orange, if using your Twilight Zone PAL file, what color is the full intensity score supposed to be? 

With Freezy's latest DLL I see a "default orange" score but other colors (blue and red) seem to be correct.   I have VPM set with default colors and the colorize option turned on.    I think I saw a video you posted - isn't the score supposed to be white? 

It sort of seems like it's mixing the default/VPM colors with what's in the .PAL file.

 

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28 minutes ago, freezy said:

Yes, those of you having crashes, please make sure it's really the DLL causing it. You can test that by unchecking "External DMD" in VPM, if it still crashes it's not the DLL. If you're using dmdext's DmdDevice,dll, look for an exception at the end of the log, that's another hint. If you don't see a log, make sure that DmdDevice.log.config is at the same location as the DLL. If the DLL is at a location you cannot write to as non-admin (e.g. SystemWOW64), edit DmdDevice.log.config and change the path of the log file to another folder. This is important, I can't fix stuff without a log.

Well, I don't know if it is the dll or VPM but I definitely do not get a crash if External DMD is disabled and I am using the VPM renderer, Disabling at91jit was a last ditch effort to avoid a crash in-game. 

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1 hour ago, DJRobX said:

Speaking of orange, if using your Twilight Zone PAL file, what color is the full intensity score supposed to be? 

With Freezy's latest DLL I see a "default orange" score but other colors (blue and red) seem to be correct.   I have VPM set with default colors and the colorize option turned on.    I think I saw a video you posted - isn't the score supposed to be white? 

It sort of seems like it's mixing the default/VPM colors with what's in the .PAL file.

 

Yeah something with the virtual DMD seems to be screwed up. Debugging as we speak..

PinDMD3 users: Is the sound still stuttering?

EDIT: If it does, try this one. I've moved the output code to different thread so VPM doesn't get stalled while sending stuff to the DLL (also the virtual DMD bug mentioned above is fixed).

DmdDevice.dll

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5 hours ago, CarnyPriest said:
Well, I don't know if it is the dll or VPM but I definitely do not get a crash if External DMD is disabled and I am using the VPM renderer, Disabling at91jit was a last ditch effort to avoid a crash in-game. 
 

 


Maybe it is just the tron table, the one with the modulated tubes. I've gone through and adjusted several other tables to use virtual DMD and I have not had to disable at91jit for those, includes st le.


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Edit - I've gone through my collection to swap in the dmddevice renderer on all SAM and Alvin G, as well as Gottlieb for which lucky1 uploaded a pal file. So far, the only other table giving me trouble is twd_156 fren's VPX. It will crash my graphics driver or crash with low on memory if I try to use my screen capture script. Seems to play ok if I run from the  editor. Guess it may be a bridge to far for configuration. I am using the DJRobX experimental VP build so there may be debugger code running as well. I have not yet tried any patched roms. Getting a little late so I'll save that for later.

 

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4 hours ago, freezy said:

Yeah something with the virtual DMD seems to be screwed up. Debugging as we speak..

PinDMD3 users: Is the sound still stuttering?

EDIT: If it does, try this one. I've moved the output code to different thread so VPM doesn't get stalled while sending stuff to the DLL (also the virtual DMD bug mentioned above is fixed).

DmdDevice.dll

Just gave this version a pretty good spin on AC/DC Physmod 5 version and no stuttering like before. Also confirmed colour rom on the pinDMD3... had to check the color checkbox in vpinmame to get it to colour but that is as expected... off to play some mustang and spiderman on VPX now! Thanks a lot freezy... looking really great.

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6 hours ago, stefanaustria said:

Also had crashes with mtl170c (and others) with Setup.exe and Test, but over .vpt or .vpx Table, all runs fine !

I think the ROM test menu in setup doesn't look at registry entries, so AT91Jit is not getting disabled in that scenario. 

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On 1/12/2017 at 4:48 PM, freezy said:

Yeah something with the virtual DMD seems to be screwed up. Debugging as we speak..

PinDMD3 users: Is the sound still stuttering?

EDIT: If it does, try this one. I've moved the output code to different thread so VPM doesn't get stalled while sending stuff to the DLL (also the virtual DMD bug mentioned above is fixed).

DmdDevice.dll

Using this version. I set up several patched sets: AC/DC, Big Buck Hunter, Family Guy, Metallica Pro, Mustang Pro and LE, POTC, Shrek, Avengers Pro. They are all working OK. Still have lots of play testing to do. :)

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To have something positive: I could finally get the modular dmd drivers to work on my cabinet, before it crashed more than working.

What I did, if it helps others:

Renamed old VPinball folder. Used latest VPinballX 10.2 installer, which reinstalls everything clean.

Used the PinMame folder installed here - and just copied my old Rom, nvram, pinmame.dll back here, so I had a clean installation, with my old roms and the SAM pinmame, but everything else on default. Finally all issues went away.

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> can you please make a modified dll to fix the issues where it clears the dmds logo after launch in pbx!

this modification seems to produce a new issue with PinDMD2. If behaves as if - when PinMame is closed - the driver/display is not cleared anymore. So when you play a table directly from VPinball and quit the application, the DMD is still displaying the latest content.

Only way to get another content is to launch another table, launch PinballX (which displays something) or restart the computer. That's a little bit disturbing if you play directly from VPinball another table not using the DMD, like an EM table. The latest content stays there forever.

BTW, it does not help for PinballX at all. As soon it launches a table (even if the table is not even existing, so it would return directly), the DMD goes blank/black (and yes, DMD setting is false, it work for backglass but not DMD). Something seems to be different here for PinDMD2.

Would it be possible to have a setting in the ini file for PinDMD2 to get the old behavior back?

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9 hours ago, Westworld said:

> can you please make a modified dll to fix the issues where it clears the dmds logo after launch in pbx!

this modification seems to produce a new issue with PinDMD2. If behaves as if - when PinMame is closed - the driver/display is not cleared anymore. So when you play a table directly from VPinball and quit the application, the DMD is still displaying the latest content.

Only way to get another content is to launch another table, launch PinballX (which displays something) or restart the computer. That's a little bit disturbing if you play directly from VPinball another table not using the DMD, like an EM table. The latest content stays there forever.

BTW, it does not help for PinballX at all. As soon it launches a table (even if the table is not even existing, so it would return directly), the DMD goes blank/black (and yes, DMD setting is false, it work for backglass but not DMD). Something seems to be different here for PinDMD2.

Would it be possible to have a setting in the ini file for PinDMD2 to get the old behavior back?

For now you can try Freezys DLL. It still contains the ClearScreen at the end, but I try to add it to pinmame to clear the table on exit.

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On 1/12/2017 at 2:48 PM, freezy said:

Yeah something with the virtual DMD seems to be screwed up. Debugging as we speak..

PinDMD3 users: Is the sound still stuttering?

EDIT: If it does, try this one. I've moved the output code to different thread so VPM doesn't get stalled while sending stuff to the DLL (also the virtual DMD bug mentioned above is fixed).

DmdDevice.dll

Twilight zone is still showing an orange score with this DLL.   

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Are you using a pin2dmd.pal file with TZ?

In any case, I was going to report some weirdness with the same build. I had everything working Friday night, but tried today without success. Come to find that dmddevice.ini was entirely overwritten and only had a section for virtual dmd - x,,y,height, and width values. I had been testing dmdext mirror [outputting to virtual dmd] in between getting tables set up to use dmddevice.dll and today. I can't think of anything else that occurred that might explain anything. No logs written. 

I restored the dll and ini from my latest backup. I've only re=tested a little. I got BBH set up at least through Setup.exe -> Test. Tried TWD LE and it is consistently crashing where it was working Fri night. I did swap out to a soundtrack remix. 

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1 hour ago, CarnyPriest said:

Are you using a pin2dmd.pal file with TZ?

Yep, the one in that zip of Lucky's palette files.   The other colors (red & blue) are coming through.   Its just the score that's in orange, which I"m pretty sure is coming from VPM default.   I used to have a brighter color set for VPM default, before I flushed back to default values, and that showed through at least with the old DLL.  

TWD LE with Cleland audio works fine for me, with Lucky's Pin2dmd.pal.   It has a white->yellow->brownish palette that looks pretty nice.   Haven't seen any crashes, but do remember that the TWD table is very sensitive to memory fragmentation issues. 

 

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Yes, I had twd le working a couple of nights ago. At least, working well enough to capture screens for PinballX. Was looking forward to actually playing tonight but it was a no go even after shutdown and reboot. That table is just on the edge of what my hardware can deal with, I guess. I know dark and co are further optimizing models for the next update.

I normally have orange as default. I got what you were seeing with the version that went out with official VPM. I haven't seen that the last few versions.

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It's strictly a memory thing, as long as you have more than 4gb of memory you really shouldn't be running into crashes post reboot.   Share the crash.txt file and maybe that will give me more of a hint as to what's going on.  

I noticed something else weird about Freezy's virtual DMDDevice.   More recent updates have segmented displays showing dotted output now, however, these result in strange MAME behavior.    I noticed it on Taxi first, the Taxi ROM sometimes screeches and beeps particularly if you delete the NVRam file.    The game sometimes starts and works OK though, if you get past that.   

Then I tried some early 80's pins like Mata Hari... The ROM would seem to crash and restart over and over, the game wasn't playable.    Just switching from ShowPinDMD=0 and ShowWinDMD=1 makes everything go back to normal.   It only seems to be a problem for games with segmented output, all the dot matrix games seem to work beautifully.    

So it seems like something really bad is happening for segmented output.    I can't imagine what would have THAT effect though!   

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2 hours ago, CarnyPriest said:

I normally have orange as default. I got what you were seeing with the version that went out with official VPM. I haven't seen that the last few versions.

A-ha!  You're right.  My cab had a VPM from around the same time as the official VPM release.  I ran it with a fresh build and now the palette is correct.    So now just have the segmented display issue mentioned in the previous post.   Thanks!

 

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5 hours ago, DJRobX said:

I noticed something else weird about Freezy's virtual DMDDevice.   More recent updates have segmented displays showing dotted output now, however, these result in strange MAME behavior.    I noticed it on Taxi first, the Taxi ROM sometimes screeches and beeps particularly if you delete the NVRam file.    The game sometimes starts and works OK though, if you get past that.   

Then I tried some early 80's pins like Mata Hari... The ROM would seem to crash and restart over and over, the game wasn't playable.    Just switching from ShowPinDMD=0 and ShowWinDMD=1 makes everything go back to normal.   It only seems to be a problem for games with segmented output, all the dot matrix games seem to work beautifully.    

So it seems like something really bad is happening for segmented output.    I can't imagine what would have THAT effect though!   

I don't do anything fancy for segmented output. Have you been able to test with another dmddevice.dll as well? Would be cool if we can figure out whether the problem's on DLL or VPM side before we invest more time into this.

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5 hours ago, freezy said:

I don't do anything fancy for segmented output. Have you been able to test with another dmddevice.dll as well? Would be cool if we can figure out whether the problem's on DLL or VPM side before we invest more time into this.

Don't have a way to test anything other than your virtual DMD driver, but I would think it almost has to be on the VPM side.    I am looking into it.     

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On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 5:48 PM, freezy said:

Yeah something with the virtual DMD seems to be screwed up. Debugging as we speak..

PinDMD3 users: Is the sound still stuttering?

EDIT: If it does, try this one. I've moved the output code to different thread so VPM doesn't get stalled while sending stuff to the DLL (also the virtual DMD bug mentioned above is fixed).

DmdDevice.dll

Mostly everything seems good with my PinDMD3 now.  Except there is a strange problem with Star Trek 25th Anniversary (Data East).  On the external DMD, only the top half of the display is showing up, and it's duplicated on top and bottom.  The virtual DMD does not have this problem, but it also seems to have different dimensions which could be causing the issue.

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1 minute ago, doogie2301 said:

Mostly everything seems good with my PinDMD3 now.  Except there is a strange problem with Star Trek 25th Anniversary (Data East).  On the external DMD, only the top half of the display is showing up, and it's duplicated on top and bottom.  The virtual DMD does not have this problem, but it also seems to have different dimensions which could be causing the issue.

Thanks for the report, something with non-standard resolutions seems indeed to be buggy, I'm currently looking into it.

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I've run a build since the patches were incorporated for jit with color mod. BBH and FG crashes without starting with jit enabled. The remaining are starting and running with with jit enabled. Performance with MT LE is better with jit enabled but I still get looping audio. Had a crash in-game with Avengers but that appears to be a one-off. I was able to restart VP and play a complete game. I can a TWD LE remix with the palette if jit is disabled.

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