Short yet full Serum installation howto

[Tikimaster]

ah, ok. thankyou @zedrummer.

[Johngreve]

Thanks for this….was pulling my hair out trying to get serum v2 woking for me in 64 bit. Installing MS C++ got me working again. I thought that was already installed…to my surprise it wasn’t. Super glad I found this guide as it’s the only instructions that I found that said C++ was necessary. Thanks again!

[TechWizard0018]

I followed the instructions . go the latest freezy dmdext created an altcolor folder in vpinmame then for example im trying to get iron man colorized. i created another folder after the rom named im_183vm then drop the crz fle into that. then went to vpiname and ran setup64 and then check off use extertnal dll then colorize dmd. i still cant get it to work

[zedrummer]

The colorization is for im_185ve perhaps you have the wrong rom:

Edited April 27, 2025 by zedrummer

[zedrummer]

Any news @TechWizard0018?

[TechWizard0018]

Hey @zedrummer So after messing around with it. I actually had to download the pin2dmd.dll and pin2dmd64.dll and then go into dmddevice.ini and point the plugins to those two dlls. Once I did that I went into alt color and made sure the folder and crz file name was matched and I got it working. Also made sure colorize dmd and use ext dmd was checked in the rom options. For any body else that wants to know. I can write up a guide and post it here

Edited April 29, 2025 by TechWizard0018
Wrong spelling

[zedrummer]

OK so you have a Pin2DMD. I didn't know that. But, for any other DMD (either virtual or real) no other files are needed than the ones in the tuto.

[outhere]

@zedrummer I have a Pin2DMD and Freezy is Working Without these Files - pin2dmd.dll and pin2dmd64.dll

.cRZ, Pac, VNi All working

[zedrummer]

Thanks @outhere, I don't know what happened to @TechWizard0018, so...

[TechWizard0018]

I don't have a pin2dmd. I used used the pin2dmd and 64 dll and I got it working that way

[GordonJames]

Thanks for this tutorial. Worked perfectly!

[Necromancyr]

I'm having a bit of trouble here and not certain what's up.  All colorizations seem to work except for Serum, which is just giving me an error that serum.dll can't be loaded when a .cRZ file is present for a table in the rom folder in altcolor.  Was on the Virtual Pinball Chat last night working through multiple possible issues (thanks ED209 ;)) but...nothing seemed to fix it.  Went through the following:

• Confirmed Visual C++ Redistributable was installed.  Restarted afterwards as well.
• Reinstalled Freezy 2.3.1.  Multiple times.  Confirmed zip was unblocked.
• Confirmed DMDdevice.ini is the version from 2.3.1 and updated to my settings.
• Tried with and without pin2dmd as as plugins (no difference - same errors)
• Tried with and without new serum.dll's from latest release (after 2.3.1 release of freezys.)
• I'm using a pixelcade - but if I try with a virtual turned on as well, it's not colored either and same errors.
• Using latest PinMame (v3.7.0-46-2b48173) and latest VPX (V10.8.1-3788-2151290, third party windows x64 release), both 64bit
• FlexDMD installed is v1.9.1 and DLL's are all showing as green checks/registered in the UI.
• This is on Windows 10 Pro

Attaching two logs - one for a PAC colored table (no serum errors, etc.) and one with a CRZ colored table (serum.dll can't be loaded errors).

Short of redoing my vPinMame folder from scratch, not sure what else to even try to get this working at this point. 😕  Any suggestions/help would be appreciated.

DmdDevice (cRZ Table).log DmdDevice (PAC Table).log

Edited December 12, 2025 by Necromancyr

[Necromancyr]

So...solved the issue.  Interestingly, there is an x86 and x64 version of the Visual C++ Redistributables - it's mentioned in this first post, but basically everywhere else it only links to the x86 one so I didn't catch it until running through and setting up another VPINMAME folder from scratch and running through the full install steps one by one from the first post.

Maybe adding a link to it on the dmdext github for addressing serum.dll not loading (in addition to the x86 link) would be good.