New WIP Pirates of the Caribbean pup-pack

[LTek]

20 minutes ago, kcirrick said:

I got both 64bit and 32bit versions working.  I started the game in 64bit using the ocean background with original config and it crashed in about three minutes.  I've been playing with the video and graphic settings as the game is playing really crummy.  Once I've got that zeroed in I can do some hardcore testing.

Not sure if this will help: For my setup the default NVidia settings worked well with the attached (nearly default) VPX settings. You can also try setting NVidia Control Panel 3D setting  ...

Background Application max framerate -- this will lower the framerate for background apps that use GPU

Low Latency Mode ... I've seen this hurt performance on my system, but others say it helps

 

if you are having PuP video issues then you can try PinAffinity it helps your PC keep non-pinball apps from taking more CPU cycles than they need

 

Edited March 2 by LTek

[PIPAllah]

Peace,

 

Upgraded to 10.8 1873 64bit and got a crash.  Perhaps I'll try LTek's settings and see if that helps.

[kcirrick]

I had some really weird stuff go on that I won’t get into, but I’ve been doing a lot of successfully failed tests. Working with the backglass I took turns turning different parts off and I could barely go three minutes before a crash. I then put everything back to normal, went into triggers and disabled the six “boom” triggers that show explosions behind the coins. I lasted nearly eight minutes before crashing. I then went in and turned off the six pirate triggers that show pirates behind the coins as well. (Not the attract ones.) I completed a 15 minute came. I thought about it a few minutes, started a new game and it crashed in about 30 seconds.

 

I’m going to try using your idea of making the backglass videos and images all triggers using D0, turn the booms and pirates back on and go from there.

[kcirrick]

Well, I admit to being thoroughly stumped.  No matter what I do this thing crashes.  Right now I'm going through every video, animation and image to verify that they are all the same size, frame rates and resolution and I'm comparing them to the media in other pup packs.  I certainly appreciate all of your help, but I can't ask you to waste more time on this.  If you want to continue to tinker and post if you find something that would be great, but either way, if I ever get this thing uploaded for the community to enjoy, you will get special credit for going the extra mile.  I'll keep checking back and if I find the solution I'll be sure to post.

[kcirrick]

I'm still going through videos, but haven't found anything out of whack yet.  I'm holding off on that and trying something different.  I had all the backglass stuff setup as triggers and disabled all the other triggers.  I played a game and no crash.  I enabled the explosion and pirate triggers that appear behind the aztec coins and I crashed.   Tomorrow I'm going to switch back to the original configuration, disable all triggers and play a few games to see if it crashes.  If it doesn't crash then I'll start enabling triggers maybe ten at a time to see if it crashes.  The hope is that it is certain triggers that are causing the crash.  Luck to me.

[PIPAllah]

Peace,

 

Tried LTek's settings.  Didn't work for me.

 

Stable on 10.7.2 32bit.

[kcirrick]

I've been working on it all day updating, cleaning things up, moving things around etc including resolving some errors in the dmddevice.log, but still not stable.  One error I've not been able to resolve is:

 

[PinUpOutput] Attempt to find PuP_Trigger function but dmddevicePUP.dll is outdated

 

No matter what I do I can't find a dll file it's happy with.

 

I'm sure your 64bit system is more stable than mine and I found a simple thing that didn't help me, but might help you.  In Nailbuster's docs I found that an empty file called ExactColorMatch.txt needs to be in the puppacks pupcapture folder.  It doesn't seem to be needed in the 32bit version, but may help in a stable 64bit version.

[outhere]

On 3/2/2024 at 5:57 PM, kcirrick said:

I've been working on it all day updating, cleaning things up, moving things around etc including resolving some errors in the dmddevice.log, but still not stable.  One error I've not been able to resolve is:

 

[PinUpOutput] Attempt to find PuP_Trigger function but dmddevicePUP.dll is outdated

 

No matter what I do I can't find a dll file it's happy with.

 

I'm sure your 64bit system is more stable than mine and I found a simple thing that didn't help me, but might help you.  In Nailbuster's docs I found that an empty file called ExactColorMatch.txt needs to be in the puppacks pupcapture folder.  It doesn't seem to be needed in the 32bit version, but may help in a stable 64bit version.

Per NailBuster

It's not an error. He told serum dev to change to info only. It's a future feature in serum

Edited March 28 by outhere

[kcirrick]

ok  thanks

[kcirrick]

It’s going to take a little bit of work on my part, but I expect the pup-pack will be fully stable by the end of today.

 

I tried running with no triggers enabled and it ran with no crash.

I tried with triggers for screens 13 and 14 enabled and crashed in three minutes.

I tried with just triggers for screen 2 enabled and played a 45 minute game with no crash.

I tried with triggers for screens 2 and 0 enabled and played a 30 minute game with no crash.

I changed the lost ball chest animation on screen 15 to 1920 x 1080 and activated only that trigger on screen 15 along with screen 2 and 0 triggers. No crash.

 

I had to stop there and share the good news.

 

Without changing the rest of those chest animations to 1920 x 1080, (they’re 1920 x 540 and there’s about 40 of them), I’m going to try running screens 2,0 and 15. If it crashes then I’ll change them all to 1920 x 1080 and run it. Easy to do.  If no crash after that then all I have to do is work on the images for the explosions and pirates on screens 13 and 14  (Aztec coins). They are 500 x 500 PNG files and 64 bit definitely doesn’t like that. I’ll change them all to 1920 x 1080 PNG files. If that doesn’t work then I’ll make MP4 files.

 

Confidence is high.

Expect a new upload link tonight.

[kcirrick]

Okay, it now plays all the way through without crashing, but of course a couple of new issues showed up.

 

A minor issue is the screen where Jack Sparrow is looks fine when testing, but when starting the game it and all the animations that pop up there, is slightly smaller. Aspect ratio is okay, but there is about a half inch of black space on either side of him. Not a deal breaker, but something to work out.

 

The big issue now that the pup-pack doesn’t crash is that there is now some lag. A slight lag on the table, sometimes a bit of a lag on videos and the DMD lags horribly. The lag is there whether any videos or animations are running or not. I redid all media, videos and PNG files to MP4 1920 x 1080 30 fps (except for the Alpha) and ran nailbuster’s bat file to make sure everything was met prerequisites. I worked on screens and triggers and never touched any files directly. I don’t know where the lag is coming from. At least it’s not crashing anymore. I’ve got about two and a half hours to get the thing uploaded tonight.

 

[kcirrick]

Found the problem, but not the solution.

 

The black ends on Jack Sparrow was just the Aztec coin screens blocking it. Easy fix.

 

The lagging issue happens when those Aztec coin screens are set as Backglasses. I set them up in the screens.pup and there is severe lag. Put them in the triggers.pup and defining them as SetBG also causes the severe lag. I’ve found no other setting so far that lets the coins work correctly without causing the lag. The good news is that without the coins as backglasses the pup-pack plays great now. No crashing. I’ve got some ideas I’m going to try tomorrow.

[kcirrick]

It’s not quite ready for prime time, but it’s ready for anyone who wants to give it a shot. No crashing in 64bit or 32 bit. I’d appreciate any feedback or suggestions.  Word of warning.  It's a bit CPU intensive.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uegHz5mmtKiAGbSBcvvN-BpnQD0pA2B1/view?usp=sharing

[LTek]

any updates?

 

[kcirrick]

It's running well under 32bit and 64bit both.  I keep trying to add "just one more thing" so never feel like it's finished.  I finally looked at some videos of the old pack and figured mine is at least comparable so I've stopped trying to keep improving it and have just been doing a little refining.  The backglass on the desktop version has a minor glitch, but it otherwise works fine.  I'll do a bit more testing and make sure all the triggers are the same for the different options and I'll upload.  Probably tonight or tomorrow. 

[LTek]

14 hours ago, kcirrick said:

It's running well under 32bit and 64bit both.  I keep trying to add "just one more thing" so never feel like it's finished.  I finally looked at some videos of the old pack and figured mine is at least comparable so I've stopped trying to keep improving it and have just been doing a little refining.  The backglass on the desktop version has a minor glitch, but it otherwise works fine.  I'll do a bit more testing and make sure all the triggers are the same for the different options and I'll upload.  Probably tonight or tomorrow. 

cool, I have time to test today if you want

[kcirrick]

Thanks LTek.  I feel like I'm running in circles.  I make something work the way I want, go work on other stuff and later that first something no longer works.  It's amazing how something that does not look like it will affect anything else does just that.  Of course, my wanting to keep adding things and modifying things ensures I'll never be done.  Two things: I’ve been working hard to spell HEART, PARLAY and JACK. Because the pupcapture screens are so similar, (Parlay, PArlay, PARlay, etc), and with various lamps randomly flashing on and off I’ve found it all but impossible to get them to work correctly.  Looking at the triggers for that POTC FullDMD pup-pack available for download, (to add to the original pup-pack enjoyed by a few lucky people), I find it difficult to accept that they worked correctly.  Just looking at them, I know for a fact that some of them won't work.  I even went ahead and tried the same trigger combinations and none of them worked for me.

 

Also, something has seemingly corrupted the sound on many videos. Messed up when I normalized and resized? I don’t know, but you get static on some of them.  Or maybe it's my NVIDIA?

I’ll continue to work on spelling correctly at the correct times and I’m going through the videos and fixing the sound. Close to 90 of them to check and fix. Once I’m satisfied with these two things I’ll offer the pack to the community. Let me know if you encounter any serious issues and I’m open to suggestions. I’ve found that doing a pup-pack using pupcapture is a bit of a PITA. If I do another one, it won’t be a rom based table.

 

Here is the link to download the current pack.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1afxQUrstbi3BfBAlOEJWgiNWMJd31oN0/view?usp=sharing

 

Oh, and I resolved that desktop glitch by simply creating a larger Alpha to frame the backglass videos and eliminating the animated background around the Alpha.  It's all I could think of to get rid of some bad artifacts and stop different screens from fighting for dominance and overlay each other.

Edited March 30 by kcirrick

[PIPAllah]

On 3/30/2024 at 1:07 PM, kcirrick said:

Thanks LTek.  I feel like I'm running in circles.  I make something work the way I want, go work on other stuff and later that first something no longer works.  It's amazing how something that does not look like it will affect anything else does just that.  Of course, my wanting to keep adding things and modifying things ensures I'll never be done.  Two things: I’ve been working hard to spell HEART, PARLAY and JACK. Because the pupcapture screens are so similar, (Parlay, PArlay, PARlay, etc), and with various lamps randomly flashing on and off I’ve found it all but impossible to get them to work correctly.  Looking at the triggers for that POTC FullDMD pup-pack available for download, (to add to the original pup-pack enjoyed by a few lucky people), I find it difficult to accept that they worked correctly.  Just looking at them, I know for a fact that some of them won't work.  I even went ahead and tried the same trigger combinations and none of them worked for me.

 

Also, something has seemingly corrupted the sound on many videos. Messed up when I normalized and resized? I don’t know, but you get static on some of them.  Or maybe it's my NVIDIA?

I’ll continue to work on spelling correctly at the correct times and I’m going through the videos and fixing the sound. Close to 90 of them to check and fix. Once I’m satisfied with these two things I’ll offer the pack to the community. Let me know if you encounter any serious issues and I’m open to suggestions. I’ve found that doing a pup-pack using pupcapture is a bit of a PITA. If I do another one, it won’t be a rom based table.

 

Here is the link to download the current pack.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1afxQUrstbi3BfBAlOEJWgiNWMJd31oN0/view?usp=sharing

 

Oh, and I resolved that desktop glitch by simply creating a larger Alpha to frame the backglass videos and eliminating the animated background around the Alpha.  It's all I could think of to get rid of some bad artifacts and stop different screens from fighting for dominance and overlay each other.

Peace,

 

So the good news.  The latest build is stable.  Just put up 130 million with no crashes.  VPX 10.8 64bit.

 

The topper on your backglass is off by 1 pixel on the left.

 

The topper on your backglass has dead space while playing.  In between videos, I can see the windows desktop behind it.

 

The batfile for the 3 screen ocean didn't work.

 

The backglass didn't show so I had to change screen 2 from "show" to "forceback."  Not a biggie since forceback is what I use for my pup packs.

 

I only played two games so I haven't found anything else.

 

This pup pack is coming along nicely.

[kcirrick]

 That's pretty good news if those are the only issues you've found so far.  Those should all be easy fixes.

I've probably already fixed that bat file.  I was working on them already and probably didn't finish before I uploaded.

Same thing for the backglass show/forceon.  I was experimenting.

That pixel haunts me.  I'll get to it.

I'll check on that dead space between videos.  Did I set the backglass screen as transparent on that last upload?

 

I'm almost done fixing sound on the videos.  I found 43 that where the sound was messed up somehow.

I'll go check out the stuff you mentioned right now.  Top of the list is that backglass pixel.

 

Thanks for the help.  Nearing the finish line!

 

[kcirrick]

I'm taking the day off to prepare the site outside for a green house I'm building.  I've been working on this pup-pack almost constantly.

 

The good news is I figured out what's going on with the static in the video's sound.  I do all my editing on my regular workstation and move files back and forth to the pinball machine over the LAN.  Somehow this messes with the sound.  After chasing my tail fixing the same videos repeatedly I now zip the files up before transferring them over the network and they are staying clean.  I'm now going through every video again.  Fixing sound, sharpening, and often rebuilding entire clips from scratch.  New and repaired videos can take anywhere from ten minutes to a couple of hours each.  (Leaning towards the latter.)  It will be worth it when I'm done.

[kcirrick]

Well, I think it’s done – except it’s not. My frustration with call outs has forced me to do something about it. I didn’t like the French pirate call outs or the woman with the bad Jamaican accent (that I think is supposed to be Tia Dalma) or some music call outs like Yo Ho A Pirates Life For Me conflicting with music and dialog from the videos. Altsound is not an option here.  I can hack the ROM, but I wouldn’t be allowed to share it. Instead, I’m setting up additional pup-pack options. I’m keeping the existing options where the table still spews out it’s own call outs, but I’m adding an option that will use my call outs instead. Just turn the tables volume all the way down. I’m using some existing call outs, created a new one or two plus using some movie dialog. I am now down to normalizing volumes and arranging things so Jack Sparrow doesn’t talk over himself. There will be minor speech conflicts with videos, but I feel it’s acceptable. I created Music screens 17,18 and 19 for call outs and am also using screen 4. I know that’s meant for Popper, but there will be no conflict. Screen 19 is as high as I can go. I’m already using screens 11-16 and I can use as many “Music” screens as I can get. I’m also working on a surprise or two for the table. If I can make them look decent and not cause table lag then I’ll include them with the pup-pack.

 

I know. I just can’t stop myself from making more work for myself, but as I said before, it will be worth it.

[LTek]

19 hours ago, kcirrick said:

Well, I think it’s done – except it’s not. My frustration with call outs has forced me to do something about it. I didn’t like the French pirate call outs or the woman with the bad Jamaican accent (that I think is supposed to be Tia Dalma) or some music call outs like Yo Ho A Pirates Life For Me conflicting with music and dialog from the videos. Altsound is not an option here.  I can hack the ROM, but I wouldn’t be allowed to share it. Instead, I’m setting up additional pup-pack options. I’m keeping the existing options where the table still spews out it’s own call outs, but I’m adding an option that will use my call outs instead. Just turn the tables volume all the way down. I’m using some existing call outs, created a new one or two plus using some movie dialog. I am now down to normalizing volumes and arranging things so Jack Sparrow doesn’t talk over himself. There will be minor speech conflicts with videos, but I feel it’s acceptable. I created Music screens 17,18 and 19 for call outs and am also using screen 4. I know that’s meant for Popper, but there will be no conflict. Screen 19 is as high as I can go. I’m already using screens 11-16 and I can use as many “Music” screens as I can get. I’m also working on a surprise or two for the table. If I can make them look decent and not cause table lag then I’ll include them with the pup-pack.

 

I know. I just can’t stop myself from making more work for myself, but as I said before, it will be worth it.

I'm not clear on your goal and what problem you have, questions...

1. When you say "table's callouts" are you meaning the ROMs callouts?

2. Do you want to stop ALL ROM audio? If yes, I dont see how turning the table volume down help more than simply setting  set AltSound mode = 1 (which mutes the ROM completely)?

3. Why multiple Music screens? You can easily have a single Music Screen and change (enable / disable) Triggers.

 

Overall it seems like you just need to do AltSound

[kcirrick]

Yeah, it’s the ROM call outs I’m not happy with. Most of the Jack Sparrow call outs are okay, but the generic pirate, the French pirate and Tia Dalma(?) I wanted to get rid of. Defeat the Kraken and you are rewarded with the “Pirate Jig” and “Yo Ho A Pirates Life For Me” plays until you’ve lost your balls. Should a video be triggered it’s like listening to music on two different radio stations at the same time. Distracting.

 

Changing Altsound to 1 wasn’t working for me. Doesn’t affect the sound at all so I just turn the volume down using the number 8 key. VPX sound manager is not affected by turning the games volume down which works out perfectly as sound effects for bumpers, slings etc are still heard.

 

I’m using multiple Music screens so more than one call out sound can be heard at a time. With just one screen, if Jack Sparrow is saying something then you won’t hear pirate grunts when hitting the standups, you won’t hear the sword sounds when hitting the bumpers or hear monkey sounds as you spell JACK and so on. Just one call out sound at a time. I can either have no other call outs play when another call out is playing or I can have call outs interrupt each other. Neither option was satisfactory. With multiple Music screens I can play multiple call outs at the same time.

 

I initially attempted to do an Altsound, but found I could not dump the ROM, (I experimented dumping other ROMs and had no problem), and as mentioned earlier, hitting F1 and changing Altsound to 1 didn’t mute the table. I think this is a Stern thing. Something about not using a separate sound board in their machines if I recall correctly.  Else something is flaky with my setup, but I've got the latest of everything installed.  Changing Altsound to 1 works for me on other games, but not on POTC. Changing altsound to 1 on POTC mutes the ROM for you?

 

No worries though. I’m there. I’m just updating the two Desktop options with all the changes I’ve been making along with and without my call outs and then I’ll upload.

 

I’ll have six option bat files.

Cabinet with ocean

Cabinet with ocean and my call outs

Cabinet with FOY map

Cabinet with FOY map and my call outs.

Desktop with static background around the backglass

Desktop with static background around the backglass and my call outs.

 

Hmmm, 1:00 AM right now. I might have this uploaded before I hit the sack.

[kcirrick]

I’m uploading the pup-pack. It’s huge so I need to trim out the stuff that’s not being used – sounds and videos. I’ve got to clean up the playlist too and get rid of unused folders. I’m still tweaking volumes a bit. Some too loud and some too soft. They seem the same to my ear when I create them, but when playing the game the differences can be drastic.

 

The thing is taking two hours to upload so I’ll post the link in the morning, but after I get all the unused stuff cleaned out I’ll upload again and provide a new link.

[kcirrick]

Pup-pack link

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14qRTOhx7MtEmWBVK-wqyAjMg5fZ8W7Kv/view?usp=sharing