New version: dmd-extensions with pin2dmd coloring plugin and pac file support !

[Cliffy]

21 minutes ago, movieguy said:

 

The dmddevice.log in the vpinball folder doent update when loading pinup popper (and I assume PUPDMDControl), but the dmddevice.log in my vpinmame folder does.  I have attached that and the puplog here.

DmdDevice.log 2.68 kB · 0 downloads PUPLOG.txt 72 B · 0 downloads

The dmddevice.log in the vpinmame folder is from pinmame setup and I see in the log it seems you haven't enabled color in the pinmame game options (F1 menu). I would try a clean, bare dmddevice.ini (backup the one you have first) and run the game without popper, straight from vpx. Of course check your pinmame game options- external dmd, use color checked.

As a side not I went through a similar thing with the b2s server and no pups would run. I spent days trying to fix .net and c++ stuff, reinstalled windows, the whole shebang. In the end it turned out to be a bad b2stablesettings.xml. I had accidently deleted a closing > at the end of the last line. Man did I feel dumb yet relieved!

[movieguy]

Thanks Cliffy.  All VPX tables and FX3 work great with the drivers and I have no issues with color there.  The error only occurs when using pupdmdcontrol (which I assume is why the log files for the event are in the vpinmame folder).  I also tried starting with a new dmddevice.ini file and it hasn't made a difference either.  This is definitely an odd one and I hear you about looking at the basic config and checking that as well.  I've tried most things I can think of so I'm running out of ideas.

[Cliffy]

39 minutes ago, movieguy said:

Thanks Cliffy.  All VPX tables and FX3 work great with the drivers and I have no issues with color there.  The error only occurs when using pupdmdcontrol (which I assume is why the log files for the event are in the vpinmame folder).  I also tried starting with a new dmddevice.ini file and it hasn't made a difference either.  This is definitely an odd one and I hear you about looking at the basic config and checking that as well.  I've tried most things I can think of so I'm running out of ideas.

my last hope- do you get a crash.txt in the table folder?

[movieguy]

Nope.   No crash.txt.  Well, there was one, but from February.   I also checked my B2S folder and there wasnt one there.

 

- Update -  I went back and tried again to use a fresh dmddevice.ini from the files on the first page and it worked!  Everything is back to functioning.  I thought I did that, but it must must have done something wrong the first time.  Anyways - it appears that I am back to being fully functional.  That is a new one for me.

 

Only issue I have not is that the serum tables dont seem to work with this version of the files.  There is no colorization, it just shows in the default color for tables with serum files in the altcolor folders.  Not a huge deal and I can wait for the next update to see if the issue persists.

 

Cliffy, thanks again for the help.  I probably wouldn't have gone back and tried that again if not for your suggestion.

[MikeDASpike]

17 hours ago, movieguy said:

The interesting bit is if I enable the virtual DMD with the PIN2DMD in my dmddevice.ini both the PIN2DMD and the virtual work as expected.  The virtual will also function perfectly if I disable the PIN2DMD.  I have also tried Freeze's 2.1.2 driver with the same results as identified above.

I have this for years with my PINDMD3 as well. With the move to 64 bit, I managed to get it not crash anymore, but most of the things will not be displayed on my real dmd(and shows fine on tne virtual)

 

I gave up at a sudden moment as there wasnt any usefull help comming.

So no pupdmd for me abymore on my real dmd

[movieguy]

MikeDASpike,

 

   It is a frustrating issue to be sure.  I only was able to fix it by trial and error and interestingly I probably wouldnt have found the fix if not for Cliffy having me re-try something.  I am not an expert, but I am wondering if my issue was some kind of issue with my dmddevice.ini.  One weird thing that happened that got me thinking more about it was if I used lucky's drivers (keeping my old dmddevice.ini) PUP would crash, but everything else worked as expected.  If I swapped out the drivers for Freezy's, but kept my existing ddmddevice.ini  it would not read the ini file and my pin2dmd would not be activated with the virtual playing (as is the default).  If I then used the base ini file from freezy's drivers and reconfigure it I could get it to work, but it was still crashing with just the PIN2DMD enabled.  Ultimately, it all started working again when I backed up my old dmddevice.ini, copied everything over from Lucky's files on the first page including the default dmddevice.ini, and then option by option re-enabling/configuring my new ini file to match my old one.  I cant say that will work for you, only that it worked for me.  You may want to give it a try. 

[Cliffy]

14 hours ago, movieguy said:

Nope.   No crash.txt.  Well, there was one, but from February.   I also checked my B2S folder and there wasnt one there.

 

- Update -  I went back and tried again to use a fresh dmddevice.ini from the files on the first page and it worked!  Everything is back to functioning.  I thought I did that, but it must must have done something wrong the first time.  Anyways - it appears that I am back to being fully functional.  That is a new one for me.

 

Only issue I have not is that the serum tables dont seem to work with this version of the files.  There is no colorization, it just shows in the default color for tables with serum files in the altcolor folders.  Not a huge deal and I can wait for the next update to see if the issue persists.

 

Cliffy, thanks again for the help.  I probably wouldn't have gone back and tried that again if not for your suggestion.

make sure that you have no serum dll's in the vpinmame folder as they are now a plugin in lucky1's dll's.

[lafester]

What is the proper upgrade path with the freezy and lucky1 files? I just downloaded both to have the latest and greatest performance, but since a lot of the files overlap I am unsure. 

[outhere]

1 hour ago, lafester said:

What is the proper upgrade path with the freezy and lucky1 files? I just downloaded both to have the latest and greatest performance, but since a lot of the files overlap I am unsure. 

Use Either Freezy and lucky1 Files
More info - https://vpuniverse.com/forums/topic/3370-attack-from-mars-colorization/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-42753

 

[lucky1]

Update 26. May 2023

- update to latest freezy codebase

- fix conflict with b2sserver and pinup

[movieguy]

Tried the latest drivers and I still cant seem to get serum tables to work consistently.  Scared Stiff works fine, but Tron and Championship Pub only use white for all rendering on the DMD.  If I used Freezy's dmddevice64.dll all the tables work fine for color with serum.  I am attaching my dmddevice log for both Championship Pub (Not working) and Scraed Stiff (Working) when using the latest drivers here, but they look the same to me and it appears the colorization in loading properly for both.

DmdDevice_SS.log DmdDevice_cc.log

[Cliffy]

7 minutes ago, movieguy said:

Tried the latest drivers and I still cant seem to get serum tables to work consistently.  Scared Stiff works fine, but Tron and Championship Pub only use white for all rendering on the DMD.  If I used Freezy's dmddevice64.dll all the tables work fine for color with serum.  I am attaching my dmddevice log for both Championship Pub (Not working) and Scraed Stiff (Working) when using the latest drivers here, but they look the same to me and it appears the colorization in loading properly for both.

DmdDevice_SS.log 3.93 kB · 0 downloads DmdDevice_cc.log 3.55 kB · 0 downloads

#1 remove or rename any serum.dll's in the vpinmame folder

#2 make sure no .pal file exists in those altcolor folders where serum files exist

I tested every serum colored game yesterday in 32 and 64 bit, with hd scaling and without, with and without pup packs and ALL of them worked beautifully with luckys new dll's. 

 

[movieguy]

21 minutes ago, Cliffy said:

#1 remove or rename any serum.dll's in the vpinmame folder

#2 make sure no .pal file exists in those altcolor folders where serum files exist

I tested every serum colored game yesterday in 32 and 64 bit, with hd scaling and without, with and without pup packs and ALL of them worked beautifully with luckys new dll's. 

 

Thanks for the response.  Good to know its something going on with my config.  That helps narrow it down.  I dont have any serum.dll files nor do I have any other files in my altcolor folders.  I'll keep digging. 

[lucky1]

15 hours ago, movieguy said:

Tried the latest drivers and I still cant seem to get serum tables to work consistently.  Scared Stiff works fine, but Tron and Championship Pub only use white for all rendering on the DMD.  If I used Freezy's dmddevice64.dll all the tables work fine for color with serum.  I am attaching my dmddevice log for both Championship Pub (Not working) and Scraed Stiff (Working) when using the latest drivers here, but they look the same to me and it appears the colorization in loading properly for both.

DmdDevice_SS.log 3.93 kB · 2 downloads DmdDevice_cc.log 3.55 kB · 2 downloads

 

The plugin finds a pal file but not a fsq or vni. Please check the contents of your C:\Pinball\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\altcolor\cp_16 folder and the naming of the files or ask the author for a pac file to avoid such problems.

[Cliffy]

To add to what lucky1 has said, cp_16 color dmd comes in 3 varieties. pal/vni, pal/fsq and cRZ. I'm using the .cRZ (serum) myself but I keep the others in another folder under \altcolor\cp_16\backup\.  I would suggest the same regardless of format you choose to use. 

While testing for lucky1 I couldn't get the pal/vni nor the pal/fsq to work but cRZ did. I discovered I had mixed the pal files up! I had accidently paired the pal for the vni file with the fsq and vice versa- oops. easy mistake but frustrating to find so, again, much better to make a separate folder to keep them separated if you plan to keep all 3.

[movieguy]

Appreciate all the input and help, but I do the exact same thing.  I have ONLY the cRZ in the cp_16 folder and keep a backup folder inside with the previous version or alternative color files in it in case I need to revert.  I even tried deleting/moving the backup folder to make sure the only thing in the alt color rom folder was the cRZ file and I still have the same result.  

 

I saw where Cliffy was providing his version of vpinmame 3.6 pre-release in the Tron color rom support section and I tried that as well and updated to a newer 3.6 beta and I still have the same result.  I can get color from Champ Pub using the pal/vni, but not the cRZ.  The only way I can get it to work is if I delete the pin2color64.dll file from my vpinmame folder before launching the table.  If I add it back it stops working and I only get white.

 

While I could revert to the pal/vni files for cp_16, I dont have colored rom files other than cRZ for Tron and I cant get that one to work either.  I can, however, get Scared Stiff to work no problem with the cRZ file, so it isnt a problem with all serum files. 

 

 

[Cliffy]

is the file unblocked? silly, I know but grabbing at straws here. removing the pin2color64.dll kinda tells me you might have freezys dmddevice.dll instead of luckys? any new changes to the dmddevice.log?

[lucky1]

13 hours ago, movieguy said:

Appreciate all the input and help, but I do the exact same thing.  I have ONLY the cRZ in the cp_16 folder and keep a backup folder inside with the previous version or alternative color files in it in case I need to revert.  I even tried deleting/moving the backup folder to make sure the only thing in the alt color rom folder was the cRZ file and I still have the same result.  

 

Pretty much impossible since the dmddevice.log report that it has found a .pal file in the folder and serum not reporting to have found a colorization.

[movieguy]

6 hours ago, lucky1 said:

 

Pretty much impossible since the dmddevice.log report that it has found a .pal file in the folder and serum not reporting to have found a colorization.

 

Solved - Thanks Cliffy and Lucky.  This was a really weird one that had me very confused.  I went back and looked even closer at the dmddevice.log and could see where it was loading the simplepalette and the serum file in the same folder location.  I then went into the folder and there was ONLY the serum file.  I deleted the cp_16 folder and then ran it and got the default orange dmd - progress!  I then added the serum file and got color!

 

Turns out the cp_16 folder had a hidden file in it named ._pin2dmd.pal - not sure how that got there, but once I deleted it everything worked as expected. 

 

Thanks again for all the help. 

[Cliffy]

2 hours ago, movieguy said:

 

Solved - Thanks Cliffy and Lucky.  This was a really weird one that had me very confused.  I went back and looked even closer at the dmddevice.log and could see where it was loading the simplepalette and the serum file in the same folder location.  I then went into the folder and there was ONLY the serum file.  I deleted the cp_16 folder and then ran it and got the default orange dmd - progress!  I then added the serum file and got color!

 

Turns out the cp_16 folder had a hidden file in it named ._pin2dmd.pal - not sure how that got there, but once I deleted it everything worked as expected. 

 

Thanks again for all the help. 

Thats another one for the non-existent troubleshooting section  as a last resort "show hidden files and folders". Good find and one to remember!

[Oldschool4]

Solved-Great problem solving movieguy.. i deleted all crz folders created new ones all colouring shows now wierd, corrupted files maybe, only thing i noticed is no dmddevice.log generated in vpinmame.

[Cliffy]

1 minute ago, Oldschool4 said:

Solved-Great problem solving movieguy.. i deleted all crz folders created new ones all colouring shows now wierd, corrupted files maybe, only thing i noticed is no dmddevice.log generated in vpinmame.

you only get a dmddevice.log in vpinmame if you run setup.exe there. You want the dmddevice.log in the vpinball folder

[Oldschool4]

ok, yes  theres one in the vpinball folder, says that the pupdll is outdated. 

[Cliffy]

2 minutes ago, Oldschool4 said:

ok, yes  theres one in the vpinball folder, says that the pupdll is outdated. 

it always shows that- no worries. read back through this thread for some log examples and what to look for

[sundogak]

9 hours ago, movieguy said:

 

Solved - Thanks Cliffy and Lucky.  This was a really weird one that had me very confused.  I went back and looked even closer at the dmddevice.log and could see where it was loading the simplepalette and the serum file in the same folder location.  I then went into the folder and there was ONLY the serum file.  I deleted the cp_16 folder and then ran it and got the default orange dmd - progress!  I then added the serum file and got color!

 

Turns out the cp_16 folder had a hidden file in it named ._pin2dmd.pal - not sure how that got there, but once I deleted it everything worked as expected. 

 

Thanks again for all the help. 

I was having the same exact problem with same tables, so thanks for the tip on hidden file. Hidden files were in the problematic folders in my case as well.   I had hit this once before and thought I nuked all those but apparently not.  

Edited May 28, 2023 by sundogak