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SOLVED: PIN2DMD not Working with Visual Pinball


KiwiBri

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Hi, 
I did do a search online, and re-read instrucitons on the Pin2DMD and DMDExt sites.

I'm having a bit of trouble with my Pin2DMD install with Visual Pinball. Here is what the situation is:

I have a Pin2DMD installed in my cab for the DMD screen. Its running V2.37 I believe. 

- Windows 10  (64)
- Installed Pin2DMD to C:\Pin2DMD  
- Installed DMDExt to C:\DMDExt

Both tested and working ok. (btw - I just updated DMDExt to the 1.51 version )  Pin2DMD when run without params will give a warning about firmware being outdated, but then starts the Pin2DMD GUI ok. I believe this is a know issue with a timeout occuring and will be fixed in a future release from what i read in another thread.,

I installed PinballFX2 and tested by running DMDExt from the commandline with parameters as requires, then started PinballFX2. DMD works during game play.

I installed Visual Pinbal 10.2.0  All-In-One installer and I also installed PinballX. 

PinballX Menu plays the PinballX logo animation on the DMD when scrolling through games.  

I copied a ROM to the VPINMAME/ROM folder and a twilightzone table to the Visual Pinball\tables\VPX folder I created ( Set up the path in PinballX as well) 

I copied the dmddevice.dll and dmddevice.ini to the VPinMame folder where the existing dmddevice.dll exists. (I renamed the existing one to dmddevice,dll.old)  . I also noticed that there were folders in the Visual Pinball folder for PinDMD1, PinDMD2, PinDMD3 and PIN2DMD.   I figure possibly this is where the installer copies the support files from to the VPINMAME folder?? In any case, I also replaced the DLL in that folder with the one from DMDExt. 

The problem is that when I start Visual Pinball via PinballX or directly by clicking on a table, when the game loads, it plays fine, except I Don't see anything on my DMD.  The virtual DMD is shown on the main playfield screen. 

I have run setup.exe in the VPINMAME folder and set it to use external DMD, and also to show DMD.  Still no luck.  

Have I missed something?  Do a Need a special build of Visual Pinball? I didnt think so from what I have read? 

thanks in advance for any help.. I was up to the wee hours this morning trying to solve this. 


 

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Those folders contain the DLLs for native external DMD support written in C. If you have a PIN2DMD you won't even be needing dmdext's DmdDevice.DLL because Lucky1 already added support for everything in there. In order for the DLL to be actually used, you need to check "Use external DMD" in VPM's game options. 

I'd suggest having a try with dmddevice.dll from the PIN2DMD folder. If that works, you'll know it's a problem with dmdext's DmdDevice.dll. Then I'll need a log to tell you more.

 

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Thanks Freezy. I'll take another crack at it tonight. I thought I may have already tried that, but It was like 3am when I was fiddling with this all.  -_- zzz

I didn't realize PIN2DMD has its own dmddevice.dll as well. ..  Look's like it's in the ..\PIN2DMD-master\integration\pinmame\  folder.   (I just looked at the full install .RAR file)

 

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If it is a game that you played prior to the Pin2DMD install, the vpinmame default setting won't update those tables.  Start the table, Press F1 and check the "Use External DMD" option

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47 minutes ago, gtxjoe said:

If it is a game that you played prior to the Pin2DMD install, the vpinmame default setting won't update those tables.  Start the table, Press F1 and check the "Use External DMD" option

thats GTXJoe. I'll give that a go as well.. I had  just installed the one table for testing to keep things simple and to make sure I had the basics working,  Maybe I'll get a couple more tables . 

 

One thing I forgot to mention was that I havent installed any B2S Server media files so on startup from PinballX the table complains it can't find a B2S Server resource. I didnt think that should matter.

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You have quite the opposite problem I used to have. In order to get pinballx and ultradmd to be displayed on the pindmd3. I needed to put the dmddevice.dll files from VP\PinDMD3 folder into pinballx and ultradmd folder. I also needed to replace the xdmd.dll and xdmdnative.dll for the ones that lucky1 provided here ....

http://vpuniverse.com/forums/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=2943

Can't really help you much since I don't have pin2dmd - sorry. But, this info might give you a clue on what to try.

http://vpinball.com/forums/topic/lesser-known-features-of-vpinmame-dmd/#post-46131

I start babbling about my solution later in that thread.

 

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1 hour ago, Thalamus said:

You have quite the opposite problem I used to have. In order to get pinballx and ultradmd to be displayed on the pindmd3. I needed to put the dmddevice.dll files from VP\PinDMD3 folder into pinballx and ultradmd folder. I also needed to replace the xdmd.dll and xdmdnative.dll for the ones that lucky1 provided here ....

http://vpuniverse.com/forums/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=2943

Can't really help you much since I don't have pin2dmd - sorry. But, this info might give you a clue on what to try.

http://vpinball.com/forums/topic/lesser-known-features-of-vpinmame-dmd/#post-46131

I start babbling about my solution later in that thread.

 

Thanks for that. I'll take a look at the links. I didn't use those files from the PIN2DMD subfolder as those are older than the  files I got with the recent Pin2DMD release.. 

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An update. First I installed the B2S backglass so the error would do away, which it did and the backglass displayed correctly. Some good news for a change..

I tried the dmdDevice.dll from the Pin2DMD install and still no luck in Visual Pinball.

but Here's the strange thing.. I started the SetUp.exe and got the VPinMame setup screen. Opened up the screen to test the roms and selected  Twilight Zone ROM and selected the Test button, and that worked! The DMD showed what is supposed to show! 

Going back to Visual Pinball, still no luck.. so it looks like it works in VPinMame but Not Visual Pinball.. !  ??

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Update.. so it seems the ONE table I decided to test with (Twlight Zone 2.1) won't work.. I downloaded and instaleld LAH and TOTAN and they worked fine. Agh! 

I've kind of lost track of what DmdDevice.dll file I should have in the VPinMame Folder.  I might take a back up and do a reinstall.. Might just keep it and do some more testing etc.. Still havent tried VP9 or any newer tables.. 

 

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UPDATE: Solved

I uninstalled Visual Pinball using the uninstaller. I updated DMDExt to v1.5.2 to in my C:\DMDext folder.   I then reinstalled Visual Pinball X all-in-1 installer, and now the TZ table works! Hooray! :)

I think there must be registry settings though that are not removed on install as I still seem to have some of the weird keys I set up by mistake in some tables.   Ok, so all seems fine! 

I think I should update the dmddevice.dll in the VPinMame folder with the one I just got from DMDExt ? Or will it always pick the C:\DMDext\dmddevice.dll first as I have C:\DMDEXt as part of my PC Path?

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