Where to Start? Any Guides?

[Magius74]

Reaching out to the community here because I have seen it mentioned that there are not any real comprehensive guides to setting up VR pinball for VPX and FP.

I have a cabinet and got a few tables working on it but the VR experience is so compelling if an wanting to refocus my efforts in that direction. Despite being moderately familiar with Popper and VPX and FP, the setup for VR has been very unsuccessful for me.

I am wondering if anyone has a good list of resources that I can check out, guides or videos. Obviously there is not a single source of information but I am wondering if people could just start shouting out places to get information maybe all the info can be pinned all together in one place.

It would obviously help me out and hopefully others as well.

 

Just in case anyone wants to know here are my current struggles just to get an idea of where a newbie is getting stuck.

So FP doesn't work at all. I am using the BAMVR launcher and can load a table into the editor. I hit play and I see Windows Mixed Reality launch followed by Steam VR. (I have an Acer WMR headset) Once FP starts to load the table it quickly errors out.

I was able to get one table working for VPX VR. It was Pizza Time. That is an easy one cuz Pup Pack and no ROM. But other tables that require ROMs or B2S for backglass don't work for me.

 

[studlygoorite]

On 8/1/2022 at 2:19 PM, Magius74 said:

Reaching out to the community here because I have seen it mentioned that there are not any real comprehensive guides to setting up VR pinball for VPX and FP.

I have a cabinet and got a few tables working on it but the VR experience is so compelling if an wanting to refocus my efforts in that direction. Despite being moderately familiar with Popper and VPX and FP, the setup for VR has been very unsuccessful for me.

I am wondering if anyone has a good list of resources that I can check out, guides or videos. Obviously there is not a single source of information but I am wondering if people could just start shouting out places to get information maybe all the info can be pinned all together in one place.

It would obviously help me out and hopefully others as well.

 

Just in case anyone wants to know here are my current struggles just to get an idea of where a newbie is getting stuck.

So FP doesn't work at all. I am using the BAMVR launcher and can load a table into the editor. I hit play and I see Windows Mixed Reality launch followed by Steam VR. (I have an Acer WMR headset) Once FP starts to load the table it quickly errors out.

I was able to get one table working for VPX VR. It was Pizza Time. That is an easy one cuz Pup Pack and no ROM. But other tables that require ROMs or B2S for backglass don't work for me.

 

Here is an older guide with some dead links but if you already have VPVR working then just the settings will help you. https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSjel9VopmDcLaDbVx5xAEYP3R_i7gY-StYYcWIh0Nxu5JOH3wfZ9AHQK5lqHggh3mMb4MHdvGQUq7a/pub#h.766pdekwexux FP can be more difficult than VPX VR to get going so I would suggest focusing your efforts on VPX VR first. Not sure what version of VPVR you are running but many tables are 10.7 now so if you have an older VPVR setup (10.6) you will have issues trying to run the 10.7 tables. Here is the latest release from Github v131 https://github.com/vpinball/vpvr/actions/runs/2614740146,  you need to be signed in and just copy everything into your Visual Pinball folder while saving everything that is getting overwritten in case you have issues and need to go back. I can't help with your WMR headset as I use Oculus Quest 2 but if it's the same idea, you need to look in the headset, connect and have it ready before you launch VPVR

[Magius74]

Thanks Studly,

Appreciate the guide. I will give it a long hard read. I did notice the transition to VPX 10.7 and have been using that. Yeah I will make sure the WMR Portal and Steam VR are running first. WMR headsets are weird in that they launch there own portal but then can take you right into Steam VR which is where most of my games are anyway. Thankfully the WMR headset is not mine. Borrowing from a friend until I get My Quest 2.......of course now with the price hike that may take a little longer

 

[Magius74]

After several days I am still struggling. I have made some progress with understanding rom sets and how to test them. Forgive me, I am used to FP. My current struggle is trying to understand how B2s Backglass is supposed to show up in VR. I have tested my VR tables in regular VPX to make sure that the BG works. They do, B2S server is running and the BG shows on the desktop and lights flash. But when I run the VR Room tables in VPX VR I noticed there is no B2S server running at all. SO how is the BG even going to show in VR if the server is not running the file. Of Course I made sure that the "disable b2s" option was unchecked in VPX settings. I know that the cabinets in most VR Rooms have backglass art but I was hoping that I could get the animated BG from the B2S files people have made it seems that others have had success with this, although it is not fully explained how they did.

Also trying to understand why DMD does not show up on some VR room tables. I am thinking there are difference in how they are scripted???? Are they utilizing the DMD in different ways? Case in point, I have VR Rooms for Pistol Poker, Diablo, and Attack from Mars. Attack from mars DMD shows up in VR with no issue. Pistol Poker does not show up in VR but is on my desktop monitor. Diablo is using UltraDMD? and I see nothing anywhere.

I think what I have here are 3 very different examples of how and what DMDs are being used and if I can figure out all 3, I think I could get just about any table to work.

 

I guess this is the big draw back of using Baller Installer to setup up VPX. It setup all my DMD stuff for me so I never fully understood the difference between FreezyDMD, UltraDMD and what ever other DMD options normally come with VPX. Also while I initially was aware of B2S for animated BG, I think I understand it now, seems pretty straightforward. But the fact that I do not understand how it works in VR would indicate that there is something fundamental I am missing.

 

Any advice or pointers to improve my knowledge would be most appreciated.

 

[Magius74]

Some progress to report. Got DMD in Pistol Poker. Realized that I was looking at the wrong DMDdevice.ini file. (I have DMDExt installed twice, one is for Future Pinball) anyway the one that VPX uses had alot of false statements in it, especially for PinDMD1, 2, and 3. I set those to True and now DMDext runs for every table and is captured into the VR Room.

Still struggling with Diablo's UltraDMD and all the B2S stuff.

[Magius74]

Couple other settings I changed that might have helped. 

Saved position of DMD was off screen. Probably from when I was setting up my cab.

DMD on top of other windows was set on false, changed to true.

Just hoping this might help someone else in the future.

[studlygoorite]

18 hours ago, Magius74 said:

After several days I am still struggling. I have made some progress with understanding rom sets and how to test them. Forgive me, I am used to FP. My current struggle is trying to understand how B2s Backglass is supposed to show up in VR. I have tested my VR tables in regular VPX to make sure that the BG works. They do, B2S server is running and the BG shows on the desktop and lights flash. But when I run the VR Room tables in VPX VR I noticed there is no B2S server running at all. SO how is the BG even going to show in VR if the server is not running the file. Of Course I made sure that the "disable b2s" option was unchecked in VPX settings. I know that the cabinets in most VR Rooms have backglass art but I was hoping that I could get the animated BG from the B2S files people have made it seems that others have had success with this, although it is not fully explained how they did.

Also trying to understand why DMD does not show up on some VR room tables. I am thinking there are difference in how they are scripted???? Are they utilizing the DMD in different ways? Case in point, I have VR Rooms for Pistol Poker, Diablo, and Attack from Mars. Attack from mars DMD shows up in VR with no issue. Pistol Poker does not show up in VR but is on my desktop monitor. Diablo is using UltraDMD? and I see nothing anywhere.

I think what I have here are 3 very different examples of how and what DMDs are being used and if I can figure out all 3, I think I could get just about any table to work.

 

I guess this is the big draw back of using Baller Installer to setup up VPX. It setup all my DMD stuff for me so I never fully understood the difference between FreezyDMD, UltraDMD and what ever other DMD options normally come with VPX. Also while I initially was aware of B2S for animated BG, I think I understand it now, seems pretty straightforward. But the fact that I do not understand how it works in VR would indicate that there is something fundamental I am missing.

 

Any advice or pointers to improve my knowledge would be most appreciated.

 

Do you have your VR tables in the same folder as your VPX tables? If not and you have them in their own folder like "VR Tables" make sure you have all of your b2s stuff in that folder also. You say that you made sure the "disable b2s" was unticked in VPX settings but do you also have it unticked in the VPVR VPinballX_GL.exe settings? As for setting the PinDMD1, 2 and 3 to true in your DmdDevice.ini, you should only be setting whatever one you actually use to true and the others to false, if you do not have a real DMD and use an LCD for your DMD set virtual DMD to true and all of the PinDMDs to false.

[Magius74]

Thanks again Studly,

I do have my VR Room tables in the same folder as the VPX tables along with all the b2s files. The b2s files that I am trying to use with VPX VR are named to match the VR Room table name. I believe there is an option in b2s that sets it to look for exact name match?

I am wondering if the b2s settings I have for VPX don't carry over to VPX VR??? I know that I can bring up the b2s options by just right clicking on the back glass, which is easy to do when on desktop but how do you rightclick on the backglass in VR? LOL

My suspicions regarding different settings for VPX VR vs VPX is because I have also noticed difference with Freezy DMD ext. I can setup a DMD for a table in VPX, change colors and size and everything. Then run the same table in VPX VR and the DMD runs with default color and size, ignoring my settings.

Bottom line I guess is that I have no idea how VPX VR runs all these external programs like b2s and dmd ext. Because of that I don't understand where it is pulling configs from.

Starting to think I have my self tied in a knot because I am fighting 2 years of setting this up for a cab using Baller installer and my own tweeks. Since I have decided to just go VR on this machine perhaps a clean install just for VR would be easier?

If so, do you have any recommends on a guide to start a fresh install for VPX VR? Sorry to ask, but like I said I relied on baller installer too much.

Thanks again for the assists Studly.

 

[Magius74]

Sorry Studly,

Forgot to respond to something you mentioned. 

Yes I do have "disable b2s" unchecked in the settings for VpinbalX_GL.exe.

Also thinks for the explanation on PinDMD1, 2, 3

[studlygoorite]

I just noticed, are you trying to use a different b2s in VR than the one that has been created for the table? If so, that would be beyond my knowledge  Start with a table that does not require the additional b2s in the tables folder, that's most of them. If your "VR Room" tables are in your regular VPX tables folder (with your b2s stuff) then all should be good. If you are using a "Hybrid" table, like the tables from VPW, make sure you go into the script and set it to VR. Lets use VPW's new Red & Ted's Road Show for example, go to line 52 in the script and change the "0" to a "1" for VR. Start that baby up (with the VPinballX_GL.exe that should be in your Visual Pinball folder) and see if you have any issues.

[Magius74]

Was able to finally get b2s files working on VR tables. Turns out I was running an old version of b2s Server that only worked on 10.6. Since I am using VPVR 10.7 I needed to also update my b2s.