New version! Pin2Dmd dmddevice.dll with DmdExt as plugin

[SeaberJenkins]

13 hours ago, lucky1 said:

 

Thanks for sharing the info, but that is exactly what I want to avoid with this DLL  I had a deeper look at spiderman and it seems to be a "hybrid" project which uses pinball browser AND the pin2dmd editor. I found an issue with those projects and fixed it in the version I just uploaded ! 

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

Awesome! I will test this out when I get home later today. Thanks for looking into that for us. I really love that Spiderman table and the color dmd just brought it all together. 

[lucky1]

8 hours ago, Pegula said:

 however my Mary Shelley Frankenstein table is still crashing from the new .dll's 

 

Hopefully finally fixed with the latest update i just uploaded. Please test

[lucky1]

3 hours ago, bryy77711 said:

Hello, does the new dmddll and dmdext.ini affect the pixelcade? I have it set to true but doesn't work anymore. Thanks for everybody's hard work on this great hobby! 🍻

 

What the hell is a pixelcade ?

[daveloro]

5 hours ago, nestorgian said:

 I wanted to comment on something that Zanaca72 discovered and confirmed by Super Koke is that if there are hidden files in the altcolors folders, they will not work correctly with the pal and vni files
Deleting the hidden ones both the pac and the vni work correctly

 

Sorry I messed up my silly finger and repeated the comment

 

 

THANK YOU. this was exactly my problem for all tables not working.   

[Pegula]

1 hour ago, lucky1 said:

 

Hopefully finally fixed with the latest update i just uploaded. Please test

Hi Lucky,

just tested and still didn't work.  So it's crashing right when i hit "1" to start a game and eject the ball.  The dmd is supposed to display "Mary Shelly's Frankenstein".  It freezes then just crashes the game.   If i don't use the altcolor folder and just use the basic color's it works fine.  

 

Here is the other issue I may have, you asked someone else earlier if their dll files are stored anywhere else and maybe they need to be updated in that spot.  I looked at mine and they are in the VPINMAME folder then I also have them in the PIN2DMD and DMDEXT folders which are in VPINMAME folder.   I don't know if that is right or if it matters.   I used baller installer so I'm not exactly sure which folder is actually using the new files.  Sorry I'm still learning the process.  So that's the extent of my troubleshooting.  Let me know if  you want me to text anything more.

 

Thanks

[Pegula]

1 hour ago, lucky1 said:

 

What the hell is a pixelcade ?

lol sorry that reminded me of Anchorman.  Pixelcade is an extermal dmd display that At Games Legends sells for it's arcade and pinball machines,  can be used to display titles or the dmd in this case I assume. 

[SpeedyBalls]

1 hour ago, lucky1 said:

 

What the hell is a pixelcade ?

lol, the correct name is probably bitpixel. It's another dmd screen and it's in the ini file. Just wondering why it stopped working. Thanks

[sundogak]

On 5/5/2022 at 2:34 PM, lucky1 said:

 

 

This guy had the same problems and here is how he solved it

 

After messing with it a bit more it turned out that the new install wasn't the solution but the hidden file issue as described above.   

Edited May 7, 2022 by sundogak
edited to update hidden file issue

[daveloro]

26 minutes ago, sundogak said:

After messing with it a bit more it turned out that the new install wasn't the solution.  I then had similar problems with Cactus Canyon not picking up the PAL/VNI (PAC worked fine).  Oddly, the "solution" in my case and appears to work in each case where I saw an issue with the PAL and/or the PAL/VNI combo not being picked up was to:

 

1) Got to ALTCOLOR folder.  Rename the folder with the problematic color file. In case of Cactus Canoy, to CC_13_old.  

2) Create new folder with ROM name (e.g., CC_13). 

3) copy the PAL and/or VNI from old folder to the newly named folder.  

4) Test and then delete the old folder if works.  

 

I saw this with tables like Godzilla and a few others.  It seems to be folder related versus file. This is why "elvis" worked after I did a reinstall since on the test folder I made a new one.

 

I didn't see any common issue with the folders (i.e., read only, permissions, dates, errant character) and in each case if toggled back to the Freezy DLL they worked fine.  So, for folks seeing the symptom of the PAC file works fine but the older PAL and/or PAL/VNIs not working, try the new ROM folder rename process and see if that works....or could just be something odd on my end.  

It’s not the folder it’s a hidden file in the existing folder. Go to start menu and search for “folder options” there’s a radio button in there that shows hidden files. Enable it. Then go to the rom name folder in the altcolor folder. It’ll have some files that start with a” .” Example .pin2dmd.pal delete that hidden file in all your folders and after that all the .pal and .vni should work.

Alternatively you could do it your way and just delete the folder and make a new one that won’t contain the hidden file. 

[sundogak]

4 minutes ago, daveloro said:

It’s not the folder it’s a hidden file in the existing folder. Go to start menu and search for “folder options” there’s a radio button in there that shows hidden files. Enable it. Then go to the rom name folder in the altcolor folder. It’ll have some files that start with a” .” Example .pin2dmd.pal delete that hidden file in all your folders and after that all the .pal and .vni should work.

Alternatively you could do it your way and just delete the folder and make a new one that won’t contain the hidden file. 

 

ugh, hadn't read the day's posts since it was driving me crazy and (kinda) found the solution. But you are correct, a hidden file in the folder, should have looked for that originally!  

[bigrob3773]

15 hours ago, lucky1 said:

 

Do you have any other location where a freezy dmddevice.dll could be installed that needs to be replaced ?

Lucky -  Thank you for your time and patience.  I did figure out the issue.   The altcolor folders had several ._pin2dmd the old way used to ignore those because they were not an exact match.  Your files disregard the exact name and I think just does what ever is first.    After deleting those files and only keeping the correct file everything works great!! 

 

Again thank you very much!!

[marccy1138]

On 11/26/2021 at 11:14 PM, Zedixair said:

Thank you for this mod and puppack.

 

[marccy1138]

So, I downloaded the new files and got the color working. Then I noticed that some of my pup packs werent loading right. The dmddevice.ini matches the dmdext.ini. I reloaded thebackup of my vpinmame and all good again. Something in those dll's is messing with my pup packs. When this has happened before, it

is usually in the ini file where pinup says false. 

 

I am baffled and reverted back as these .pac files help me get  iron man, monopoly and red and ted to colorize.

 

Any suggestions what could be messing up the puppack? It looks like the popper media is covering the pip video intermittently.

[harrykoseck]

Hello to all.
Thank you Lucky1 for your responsiveness in solving the Puppack problem on the Baywatch table.
I have updated the DmdDevice.dll, but it still doesn't work unfortunately.
Putting the old DmdDevice back on, the Pupapck works, but of course the colourisations of the other tables do not work anymore.

[Reneeke]

I  have followed the instructions replacing the dll`s of freeze`s 1.10.2.

I have changed the dmdext.ini to match the dmddevide.ini

 

The pac-file is in the altcolor folder in a folder named the same as the romname.

The v pinmame is on using external dmd with color.

My pal-colorization works,but nothing with the PAC-files. Still dmd but no color.

 

The following questions have in my mind; 

 

* Do I have to do something to get the plugg-in going ? 

* There are (some dll, in folders in vpinmame that aren`t replaced - can I delete them or do I have to replace them? 

    For example pin2dmd folder.

* Am I on the wrong track and is your PAC not for virtual dmd output?

* do I need the firmware installed  ? 

 

I`m sorry for these questions, but still learning and most of the installation have done with the help of instructional videos. 

 

Is it possible to help and probably other to go through the process.. 

Is it just freezy and replacing dll,s or am i missing something here

 

Help would much be appreciated

[lucky1]

8 hours ago, bigrob3773 said:

The altcolor folders had several ._pin2dmd the old way used to ignore those because they were not an exact match.  Your files disregard the exact name and I think just does what ever is first.

 

o.k. there is the difference. Freezy is looking for either pin2dmd.pal or "gamename".pal while mine is looking for the first .pal in the folder. I changed that logic to first look for the specific filenames like freezy and then take whatever it finds.

 

4 hours ago, harrykoseck said:

Thank you Lucky1 for your responsiveness in solving the Puppack problem on the Baywatch table.

 

I looked deeper into this and the problem is that the dmddevicepup.dll is not taking a copy of the original 192x64 frame but some scaled down version of it. I now need to find a way to use exactly the same scaling algorithm in order to let pup get exactly the same scaled picture. Better way would be to let pup accept the original sized frames. I will have a look.

 

11 hours ago, Pegula said:

lol sorry that reminded me of Anchorman.  Pixelcade is an extermal dmd display that At Games Legends sells for it's arcade and pinball machines,  can be used to display titles or the dmd in this case I assume. 

 

Sorry, I thought VirtualPins PinDMDV3 was the only commercial product using the pin2dmd coloring code.  Not sure what to think about such "spinoffs" making profit without  contributing . Anyway since it was working before I had a look and it should work again now.

 

Updated version is on github. Please test.

 

[bigrob3773]

1 hour ago, lucky1 said:

 

o.k. there is the difference. Freezy is looking for either pin2dmd.pal or "gamename".pal while mine is looking for the first .pal in the folder. I changed that logic to first look for the specific filenames like freezy and then take whatever it finds.

 

 

Thank you!  Everything looks like it is working now.

[Pegula]

1 hour ago, lucky1 said:

 

o.k. there is the difference. Freezy is looking for either pin2dmd.pal or "gamename".pal while mine is looking for the first .pal in the folder. I changed that logic to first look for the specific filenames like freezy and then take whatever it finds.

 

 

I looked deeper into this and the problem is that the dmddevicepup.dll is not taking a copy of the original 192x64 frame but some scaled down version of it. I now need to find a way to use exactly the same scaling algorithm in order to let pup get exactly the same scaled picture. Better way would be to let pup accept the original sized frames. I will have a look.

 

 

Sorry, I thought VirtualPins PinDMDV3 was the only commercial product using the pin2dmd coloring code.  Not sure what to think about such "spinoffs" making profit without  contributing . Anyway since it was working before I had a look and it should work again now.

 

Updated version is on github. Please test.

 

Woo hoo!  Lucky you are da man!  that last updated worked.  Frankenstein back up and running.  Thank you so much for hard work!  Have a great weekend.

 

As for your Pixelcade comment,  so I don't think he is making any profit of your colorizations, his software (pixelcade) is made to display game titles and he uses his own colored .png and .m4 files for those.  The fact that it can interact with the PIN2DMD software and .dll's to display dmd's or colored dmd's is a bonus to the community.  I'm only defending him because I helped fix a lot of the .png files early on when his product was first available for the Legends Arcade machine.  The only money being made is off the BitPixel product which is the actual dmd screen and hardware.

[Pegula]

6 hours ago, Reneeke said:

I  have followed the instructions replacing the dll`s of freeze`s 1.10.2.

I have changed the dmdext.ini to match the dmddevide.ini

 

The pac-file is in the altcolor folder in a folder named the same as the romname.

The v pinmame is on using external dmd with color.

My pal-colorization works,but nothing with the PAC-files. Still dmd but no color.

 

The following questions have in my mind; 

 

* Do I have to do something to get the plugg-in going ? 

* There are (some dll, in folders in vpinmame that aren`t replaced - can I delete them or do I have to replace them? 

    For example pin2dmd folder.

* Am I on the wrong track and is your PAC not for virtual dmd output?

* do I need the firmware installed  ? 

 

I`m sorry for these questions, but still learning and most of the installation have done with the help of instructional videos. 

 

Is it possible to help and probably other to go through the process.. 

Is it just freezy and replacing dll,s or am i missing something here

 

Help would much be appreciated

Hi Reneeke,

 

here are my responses, not sure if it will help since I'm still learning as I go but it took me a long time to get his new updates to work too. 

 

1.  don't have to do anything to get the plug-ins to work other than copying the .dll and pasting them,  I noticed I do have to re-run FlexDMDUI.exe to re-register FlexDMD everytime I copy Lucky's .dll files though.  I think that only fixes FlexDMD though.

2.  i have his .dll files in 3 diff places (VPINMAME, PIN2DMD and DMD EXT folders)  and I don't know if that's right but since his last update this morning fixed my issue I believe they just need to be in the VPINMAME folder,  you should probably have the latest firmware of this,  i know it was posted in this discussion earlier if you need to get it.

3. PAC files work for virtual dmd as that's what i have , you can also have the initial .pal and .vni files in the altcolor folder but if your testing, take them out to be sure for now.  I'm using Freezy 1.10.2 as well

4.  My original fix happened once I copied the dmddevice.ini to the dmdext.ini file but you already did that so that shouldn't be your issue. 

5.  I also copied the 2 64 bit .dll files as well.  that did fix one thing for me as well.

 

seems like you've done everything else I have so allegedly it should be working.  

[Reneeke]

Thank you very michael for your reply. The latest firmware you mean pinmame 3.4

 

I will gives it a try 

 

[Reneeke]

sorry for the "michael" Pegula, was texting on my phone.

[Reneeke]

48 minutes ago, Pegula said:

Hi Reneeke,

 

here are my responses, not sure if it will help since I'm still learning as I go but it took me a long time to get his new updates to work too. 

 

1.  don't have to do anything to get the plug-ins to work other than copying the .dll and pasting them,  I noticed I do have to re-run FlexDMDUI.exe to re-register FlexDMD everytime I copy Lucky's .dll files though.  I think that only fixes FlexDMD though.

2.  i have his .dll files in 3 diff places (VPINMAME, PIN2DMD and DMD EXT folders)  and I don't know if that's right but since his last update this morning fixed my issue I believe they just need to be in the VPINMAME folder,  you should probably have the latest firmware of this,  i know it was posted in this discussion earlier if you need to get it.

3. PAC files work for virtual dmd as that's what i have , you can also have the initial .pal and .vni files in the altcolor folder but if your testing, take them out to be sure for now.  I'm using Freezy 1.10.2 as well

4.  My original fix happened once I copied the dmddevice.ini to the dmdext.ini file but you already did that so that shouldn't be your issue. 

5.  I also copied the 2 64 bit .dll files as well.  that did fix one thing for me as well.

 

seems like you've done everything else I have so allegedly it should be working.  

Hey,thank you so much for the time to help me and give me tips.

I renamed the dmddevice.ini to dmdext.ini and that was the tric ! 

Thanks for all the help! and the great work all the contributers make. 

[Redwings13]

I placed the newest .dll in my vpinmame and test several tables and so far they’ve all worked very well.

thanks for your hard work.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Redwings13

[SpeedyBalls]

12 hours ago, lucky1 said:

 

o.k. there is the difference. Freezy is looking for either pin2dmd.pal or "gamename".pal while mine is looking for the first .pal in the folder. I changed that logic to first look for the specific filenames like freezy and then take whatever it finds.

 

 

I looked deeper into this and the problem is that the dmddevicepup.dll is not taking a copy of the original 192x64 frame but some scaled down version of it. I now need to find a way to use exactly the same scaling algorithm in order to let pup get exactly the same scaled picture. Better way would be to let pup accept the original sized frames. I will have a look.

 

 

Sorry, I thought VirtualPins PinDMDV3 was the only commercial product using the pin2dmd coloring code.  Not sure what to think about such "spinoffs" making profit without  contributing . Anyway since it was working before I had a look and it should work again now.

 

Updated version is on github. Please test.

 

Thank you, pixelcade works great! 🍻

[BeachBumTN]

Thanks Lucky1!  As some others mentioned, I was getting a few weird colors on some tables (Apollo 13, Avatar, Austin Powers) with .vni and .pal files although most worked fine.  I read thorough the posts and downloaded your latest version on Gitub. Worked like a charm!  The tables that had odd colors are all working now.  thanks again