A few questions about launch and closing scripts

[DJM468]

I really like this program, but find the documentation (or lack thereof) confusing. Am using v1.4.6 with DOF and a pinball Pixelcade (and that stuff is working fine, though I have one question I'll post later about the Pixelcade marquees).

 

For example, closing lines that are often spotted in examples in forum posts, the docs, etc. often include a call to PUPCloser.exe with various command line options. Near as I can tell, there is no documentation at all for these incantations. Apologize if it was staring me in the face and I just missed it, but Googling (or AI-ing) brings back no explanations, just lots of examples with various numbers.

 

Or how about the (oddly named) VPXStarter, which also appears in lots of (launch) examples and has even more undocumented arguments (near as I can tell, anyway)? Weeks in and I'm still clueless as to what that program does.

 

Are either or both of these required or can I just do what I want in these generated BAT files? For example, with MAME, it can close itself just fine with Esc; so, I would think the below should work as a closing script. Note that PUPCLOSER is commented out.

 

Should that be expected to work? It's the strategy I always used in Hyperspin, to eliminate HyperLaunch, force closing, etc. from the equation. RetroArch works the same way in my HS setup; HS does absolutely nothing to close it.

 

rem Shouldn't need to do this at all, as MAME can close itself on Esc. (?)

rem "[STARTDIR]LAUNCH\PUPCLOSER.EXE" PROC "mame64" 3 1

rem Lose pixelweb, as conflicts with Popper

taskkill /f /im pixelweb.exe

 

Alternatively, could do a taskkill of mame64.exe here, but I wonder if there is more to this PUPCloser.exe, given the numbers and all. Not to mention that this method would kill the high scores.

 

I have read accounts where Esc for Exit Emulators caused issues with certain setups, but am hopeful it can work for me, as it seems the most intuitive mapping for the Exit button on the cabinet. Used the same for Menu Return, of course.

 

Will post back with test results; but, last I checked, without commenting out the "stock" PUPCloser call, Esc closed MAME as usual and closed Popper. And no, I didn't map Esc to exit Popper (that's Q at the moment). Not sure if it is crashing or what, but will check that too.

 

And, in any event, does anybody know what the arguments to these two programs mean?

 

Thanks in advance for any hints, links, etc.! I really like this program so far (and the PUP tables), but having a few problems with things other than FP and VP. Have read tons of tutorials, watched a few YouTube videos (usually those explain very little) and been through the instructions on Nailbuster's site several times as well. Hard to analyze and troubleshoot (and hopefully fix!) what look to me like magic spells at the moment.

 

And many Safe Returns (ahem). That's another one that I've often pondered. What exactly is a Safe Return and if that option is unset, does that imply a hazardous return? At the moment, I tried both for MAME and it didn't change anything. Please bear with me, I'm just flailing around with this thing at the moment, so figured I'd ask where the answers should be easy to come by.

 

Thanks again for slogging through all of this!

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2024 by DJM468

[DJM468]

On 5/15/2024 at 2:03 PM, DJM468 said:

I really like this program, but find the documentation (or lack thereof) confusing. Am using v1.4.6 with DOF and a pinball Pixelcade (and that stuff is working fine, though I have one question I'll post later about the Pixelcade marquees).

 

For example, closing lines that are often spotted in examples in forum posts, the docs, etc. often include a call to PUPCloser.exe with various command line options. Near as I can tell, there is no documentation at all for these incantations. Apologize if it was staring me in the face and I just missed it, but Googling (or AI-ing) brings back no explanations, just lots of examples with various numbers.

 

Or how about the (oddly named) VPXStarter, which also appears in lots of (launch) examples and has even more undocumented arguments (near as I can tell, anyway)? Weeks in and I'm still clueless as to what that program does.

 

Are either or both of these required or can I just do what I want in these generated BAT files? For example, with MAME, it can close itself just fine with Esc; so, I would think the below should work as a closing script. Note that PUPCLOSER is commented out.

 

Should that be expected to work? It's the strategy I always used in Hyperspin, to eliminate HyperLaunch, force closing, etc. from the equation. RetroArch works the same way in my HS setup; HS does absolutely nothing to close it.

 

rem Shouldn't need to do this at all, as MAME can close itself on Esc. (?)

rem "[STARTDIR]LAUNCH\PUPCLOSER.EXE" PROC "mame64" 3 1

rem Lose pixelweb, as conflicts with Popper

taskkill /f /im pixelweb.exe

 

Alternatively, could do a taskkill of mame64.exe here, but I wonder if there is more to this PUPCloser.exe, given the numbers and all. Not to mention that this method would kill the high scores.

 

I have read accounts where Esc for Exit Emulators caused issues with certain setups, but am hopeful it can work for me, as it seems the most intuitive mapping for the Exit button on the cabinet. Used the same for Menu Return, of course.

 

Will post back with test results; but, last I checked, without commenting out the "stock" PUPCloser call, Esc closed MAME as usual and closed Popper. And no, I didn't map Esc to exit Popper (that's Q at the moment). Not sure if it is crashing or what, but will check that too.

 

And, in any event, does anybody know what the arguments to these two programs mean?

 

Thanks in advance for any hints, links, etc.! I really like this program so far (and the PUP tables), but having a few problems with things other than FP and VP. Have read tons of tutorials, watched a few YouTube videos (usually those explain very little) and been through the instructions on Nailbuster's site several times as well. Hard to analyze and troubleshoot (and hopefully fix!) what look to me like magic spells at the moment.

 

And many Safe Returns (ahem). That's another one that I've often pondered. What exactly is a Safe Return and if that option is unset, does that imply a hazardous return? At the moment, I tried both for MAME and it didn't change anything. Please bear with me, I'm just flailing around with this thing at the moment, so figured I'd ask where the answers should be easy to come by.

 

Thanks again for slogging through all of this!

 

 

 

 

Ah, okay. Give me a beef and cheddar, curly fries and a large coke.

 

But seriously, I guess everybody is on Discord now. Kind of sucks when scouring the Web for info, but what can you do? I know, try to search Discord, as any mod will tell you; too bad its search feature is a joke, at least compared to Google, Bing, etc. Who would want to search chats anyway?

 

But I digress. To answer my own questions:

 

Yes, you have to run both "VPXStarter" (and yes, it is some legacy name that makes no sense now) and "PUPCloser" in the launch and closing scripts respectively. No two ways about, as the functionality of these little utilities is tangled up with hiding and showing the PUP menu. It's a bit off, particularly as this thing uses AHK behind the scenes, just like HypserSpin. Such tangling could have been avoided for sure, but whatever.

 

So when PUP detects Esc (or whatever) to close emulators, it generates and runs the closing BAT and then... does nothing. It's up to the BAT to run "PUPCloser", which then "calls back" to PUP to tell it to re-show its videos. And when it launches, it runs "VPXStarter", which watches for a window to pop up with a matching title (one of its mysterious arguments). Then it focuses the window for n seconds and... What? So it focuses, counts down seconds and then does what exactly? Never did figure that out, but don't really care at this point, as everything launches consistently and reliably.

 

As posted examples offer no explanation of what these incantations do, copying and pasting is pretty useless, as one man's "MAME" is another's "MAME4Lay" or whatever. Use the wrong string without knowing what Popper will do (or not do) in response leads to a lot of head scratching.

 

As for the arguments, I finally found the "treasure room" for those in the Launch folder. There's a TXT file that (sort of) explains what the arguments do. It's a little vague, but at least gives some clue about what the mysterious numbers mean. Timeouts, delays, etc.

 

So once I finally got the rules for the two utilities, there was just one last issue with MAME. Using the DOFLinx version, I had stupidly set it to Run As Administrator, likely due to some outdated or just bad advice in a forum post or video. Poison. Captures the keys and Popper is clueless. So, when I escaped out of MAME, it closed as usual, but Popper was oblivious, as it didn't know Esc was pressed. Pressed Esc again and there's Popper! That's when it clicked.

 

Working well now, though I occasionally hear a standard Windows key-reject sound ("dunk!") when navigating the wheels. Perhaps because I have another window open behind Popper. Not sure if Popper even focuses itself, as I've heard warnings to close all other windows before launching Popper. Whatever.

 

Well, thanks to all who... Oh wait.

 

Guess I will try Discord in the future. Does AI scrape Discord? If not, AI is going to have huge holes in its knowledge, particularly for anything related to retro gaming.

 

PS. Some feedback. Yes, I like the rotated menu. No, I can't stand the GUIs.

 

PinUp, DOFLinx, pinball programs, emulators, etc. The list goes on. Why can't any of these developers put together a basic and competent GUI for configuration? I virtually always resort to watching their INI files to see what they are trying to do, which is often not apparent from looking at their forms and controls. If the GUIs were standard and intuitive, they would need very little documentation (which is typically what you get with these things).

Many Safe Returns (whatever that means).