PIN2DMD EVO HD Lag

[malibu]

Hi,

I am still in the process of testing my PIN2DMD EVO HD before I stick it into my cabinrt, so I ave it hooked up to my test laptop.
I now have it working correctly in terms of scaling, in that DMD output for various games is filling the display, so this is a positive.

Ive set the following in DmdDevice.ini (note currently I have both virtual DMD and PIN2DMD enabled in the ini file as it allowed me to comapre output going to virtual DMD to the PIN2DMD, while this isnt how I would set up my final system, I have been seeing a lag even with virtual DMD turned off.
 

; scaler mode for standard content (vpm frames): none, doubler, scale2x.
; note: see readme.md for details
;scalermode = none
scalermode = scale2x

; VNI colorizations can contain 256x64 frames for 128x32 games. this defines
; how the frames that aren't replaced are up-scaled. doubler or scale2x.
;vni.scalermode = scale2x

 

Its also worth pointing out my laptop is a modestly specc'd machine, so its possible its contributing to the issue, although the fact it doesn’t occur on a virtual display output would suggests its specific to the pin2dmd device.
 

What I am seeing is for sample games, that the PIN2DMD HD display initially mirrors what I'm seeing on the virtual display, but very quickly it falls behind, and continues to fall further behind, in what appears to be  alinear fashion. Very quickly its a minute or more behind live play .. clearly this isnt useable.

I've tried the AFM SERUM file, as well as  a colorisation for STTNG colorisation. I tfeels like the SERUM game was falling behind more quickly, while the STTNG game was also falling behind but not as quickly. 

Unsure what to look for.... its as if the PIN2DMD EVO HD cant keep up so continues to fall behind as tinme goes on, but I suspect this isnt the real answer.

A sample of my logs is attached for  a run of STTNG:

I'm running the latest freezy, with the latest firmware on the PIN2DMD EVO.,

 

DmdDevice.log

Edited June 28, 2024 by malibu
Typos

[lucky1]

Did you also try my dmddevice.dll from my github instead of freezy for comparison ?

https://github.com/lucky01/PIN2DMD/tree/master/integration/pinmame

 

[malibu]

I can’t recall -but will do an md5 check in the morning.  Having just rebuilt my cab today I will also try plugging in the new unit and trying your DLL as a comparison. 
 

(I’m having to do this in small blocks when I get free time in between looking after my 2yo at the moment) 

 

 

EDIT: looking at the notes I sent myself I followed some steps that got me to copy some colour dlls over but not the dmddevice.dll so I’ll revisit 

Edited June 30, 2024 by malibu

[malibu]

@lucky1 - I managed to make a bit of progress on one front, but took a sep backwars on another.

I grabbed your x86 and x64 zips off of your mega and dropped the dmddevice.dll (and dmddevice64.dll) into the VPinMame folder. I restarted the game and found that the DMD is in synch with the game and there is no lag .... BUT, for some reason it is no longer scaled 2X and filling the PIN2DMD EVO HD (256x64).

I also commented out the enmtires in ";plugin.0" which were adding the pin2color.dll / pin2color64.dll plugins... I think I read in one of the posts suggestng if using a real pin2dmd to use the dmddevice.dll other wise use the pin2color plugin, but cant find that link ATM.

I initially had an issue with the ini file, so copied your ini file across and used that ... 

Ive attached the ini and the log file for  a run of a game with a cRZ altcolor in case it helps.....


I have now just focussed on x86 and switched back and forth the dmddevice.DLL between the freezy 2.2.2  version and your vwrsion. When using yours - there is no lag, but the scale2x is not working.  When I use freezy 2.2.2 the scake2x is working but there is horrible lag. 

 

DmdDevice.ini DmdDevice.log

Edited July 1, 2024 by malibu

[lucky1]

1 hour ago, malibu said:

found that the DMD is not in synch with the game and there is no lag

 

It has NO lag but is NOT in sync ? I don´t understand what you mean with that !

 

1 hour ago, malibu said:

BUT, for some reason it is no longer scaled 2X and filling the PIN2DMD EVO HD (256x64).

 

It is filling the 256x64 screen but is no longer scaled ? I also don´t understand this comment.

[lucky1]

1 hour ago, malibu said:

see if I can get he scaling working again

 

You need to set scaletohd to true to activate scaling

[malibu]

11 minutes ago, lucky1 said:

 

It has NO lag but is NOT in sync ? I don´t understand what you mean with that !

 

 

It is filling the 256x64 screen but is no longer scaled ? I also don´t understand this comment.

 

thrr re first one was a typo on my part. Using your DLL it was in synch and had no lag. …. My bad on that one. 
 

The second one I said ‘it no longer scaled 2X and filling the PIN2DMD EVO HD (256x64)’

 

if it was scaled 2x it would fill the screen. I probably worded it to be slightly ambiguous but was just trying to say it’s not filling the screen. 

Edited July 1, 2024 by malibu

[malibu]

24 minutes ago, lucky1 said:

 

You need to set scaletohd to true to activate scaling

Ok - so that’s a difference from what freezy 2.2.2 is needing as 2.2.2 is not requiring that to be set - and from memory doesn’t even list that value in the sample ini file (I think)

 

do I still need to set the scale2x or double values in the other scaling fields ?

edit - your fork of DMD-extensions has the other scale fields in there so I will assume so. 
 

I’ll have to make the config change and check tomorrow, I’ll report back any issues. 
 

thanks for your help !!!!!!!

Edited July 1, 2024 by malibu

[malibu]

I couldn’t sleep and had to go try this out. Setting scaletohd to true was the final step I needed to get this working. 
 

im now using your DLL with the settings I supplied above plus the scaletohd setting and it’s no longer got a lag and is filling up the DMD. I can’t believe how good this looks - I was worried for a while that maintaining my preference for a hardware DMD wasn’t the right answer, but having seen it working now, I’m convinced it is 

 

 

Thankyou for your amazing support. 

[malibu]

@lucky1 - it appears I jumped the gun.

Everything is working perfectly for Serum altcolor files, however I am having an issue with PAL/VNI and with PAC altcolor files.
To make sure I was in a clear state, I used a brand new clean install of the latest Baller Installer to start. I then (think) I followed the steps in  your first post here:

Extracting the contents of  https://mega.nz/file/QE0RiRrA#xx3sNLVJQhsXDh-JhE7umCJvhFLvD2lgj_X1AWIf1UU into my VPINMame folder. When I do this, the virtual DMD I am comparing against works perfectly, and is coloured, but the PIN2DMD screen never displays anything.

I found that if I delete the pin2color64.dll file from the VPinMame folder that both the virtual and the PIN2DMD displays show the corrct content, BUT it is not colourised.

Ive attached 2 logs, one for the case where the pin2colour64.dll exists, the other when it doesnt. I've also included my DmdDevice.ini, which is based of the version in your zip.

 

The only other thing I noted is that the config extrsct below is NOT in my config, I ried adding it but it made no difference.... so this suggests the vni.key doesnt need to be set explictly anymore, and that plugin entries are not needed.

 

Quote

; VNI colorizations can contain 256x64 frames for 128x32 games. this defines
; how the frames that aren't replaced are up-scaled. doubler or scale2x.
vni.scalermode = scale2x
; the key to decrypt PAC files, in hex.
vni.key =f0ad135937ffa111c60b24d88ebb2e59
; if set, don't send anonymous usage statistics
skipanalytics = true
; put your plugins here, up to 10 plugins can be defined.
; since they are native plugins, you need to define them
; for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
plugin.0.path = pin2color.dll
plugin.0.path64 = pin2color64.dll
plugin.0.passthrough = false

 

DmdDevice-no-pin2color64.log DmdDevice-pin2color64-exists.log DmdDevice.ini

[lucky1]

Did you try this ...

 

P.S.

If you have a real pin2dmd you may use 
enabled = native

instead of

enabled = true 
in the pin2dmd section of the dmddevice.ini

This gives you better performance.

FlexDMD and Serum tables might need pin2dmd enabled = true either in the table specific settings or globally

[malibu]

11 hours ago, lucky1 said:

Did you try this ...

 

P.S.

If you have a real pin2dmd you may use 
enabled = native

instead of

enabled = true 
in the pin2dmd section of the dmddevice.ini

This gives you better performance.

FlexDMD and Serum tables might need pin2dmd enabled = true either in the table specific settings or globally

 

yes I did. But my example pal/vni and pac games still did not display at all on the pin2dmd if the pin2color dlls were present (as if the PIN2DMD is off), and are displayed in orange if the pin2colors are not there.

(my serum example continued to work well)

 

Edited July 4, 2024 by malibu

[lucky1]

I just tested with the following setup :

- PIN2DMD HD V4.53

- dmddevice.dll and pin2color.dll / dmddevice64.dll and pin2color64.dll from my mega drive

- WinUSB drivers 6.1.7600 installed with zadig from my github

- enabled = native set in pin2dmd section of dmddevice.ini

For each serum colorizations set e.g.

[ss_15]
pin2dmd enabled = true

 

This worked perfectly for me and gives the best performance on pin2dmd HD

[malibu]

I’ll jump on my other test laptop and do a clean pinup install, add the files you listed and try again. 

 

EDIT: This has been a success.

It appears the 2 key steps for me were :

1) set 'enabled = native' in the pin2dmd block (and add overrides for serum games)

2) set USB driver to be WinUSB drivers 6.1.7600.xxxx    ---- previously I had followed guide that had told be to use a libusb driver. (https://pin2dmd.com/installation/ point 2).

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2024 by malibu

[lucky1]

libusb should also work if you also copy libusbk.dll to your folder.

[malibu]

By any chance is there any other tweaks I should need to get pinup popper DMD displays to be displayed In The pin2dmd

 

 

running baller smaller when I get to the test DMD screen it works fine. But when I launch pinup popper I get a blank pin2dmd. The virtual DMD (if I enable it works fine)

 

while the DMD is blank while moving through popper screens as soon as I launch a VPX game the pin2dmd works. 
 

I haven’t got to testing future pinball yet. 
 

 

running the documented dmdext test command I see output on the pin2dmd but if I run dmdext play -f <some image> it doesn’t display 

 

[malibu]

This issue appears to be because DMDExt is not getting a valid ini file path to load. Looking at the source, I noted there is some logic that says:
 - if an iniPath is supplied

          - if the file doesnt exist, throw exeption, otherwise set this value as the path to read config from

- else if the env var DMDDEVICE_CONFIG is set and it corresponds to an existing file, set this vlaue as the path to read config from

- else set path to "dmddevice.ini" in the assembly path

 

I tried setting the -use-ini parameter when running dmdext and this allowed output to the PIN2DMD HD, so thats a good bit of progress. The image seemed stretched badly, but that I can sort later.

There is a log message in the source which is displayed whenever an ini file is successfully read which indicates that when I dont supply the ini file explictly, this isnt firing unless I explictly set the path using --use-ini. 

So i think ultimately this is the crux of my issue. However Pinup normally supplies the ini path is breaking

[malibu]

im now all sorted with this.  there are a few subtelties of how baller instalelr sets up that I had overlooked in my haste.