)
next to the text box.
This dialog lets you configure your pinball player systems, such as Visual Pinball and Future Pinball, for use with PinballY.
PinballY tries to be as "system agnostic" as possible, so it tries to avoid hard-coded special handling for any one system. Instead, it gives you a big collection of tunable options that you can tailor to each system. The downside is that it makes the setup dialog pretty complex; it might look a little daunting when you first bring it up just because there are so many options. But it's not as bad as it looks at first glance, because you can leave many of the options blank in most cases. PinballY will try to choose a suitable default for anything you leave blank.
To add a new system, click on the "Systems" item in the list on the left, then click the "Add a new system" button. This will create a new system page that you can fill in with the system's details.
For help with figuring out those "details" actually are for a new system, read through New system setup. (You might also need to read through the material below for some of the finer points of the individual options.)
If you've already set up PinballX on your system, and you've already gone through the process of setting up its list of tables and installing media packs, you can use all of those existing table lists and media files in PinballY without moving or copying any files. (So it's not really "migrating" in the usual sense - you don't have to go through any conversion process.) All you have to do is make sure that the System name settings in your PinballY setup match those in your PinballX setup. PinballX keys all of the folder locations for its table database and media files to the system name, so PinballY will find the same files as long as you set all of the system names the same way.
The system naming is usually the same by default, so matching them can be practically invisible and automatic. However, there's one place where it's easy to get hung up: version numbers. Most people have a slew of different Visual Pinball versions installed, because many of the VP versions are incompatible with each other's files. So pay close attention to the system names for the different VP versions. Here are the default system names that PinballY uses for VP 9 and VP 10 (aka VPX):
| Program | Default system name in PinballY |
|---|---|
| Visual Pinball 9.x | "Visual Pinball" |
| Visual Pinball 10 | "Visual Pinball X" |
Those are the defaults because that's how a lot of people have things set up in PinballX. If your PinballX setup is the same, the files will all be shared automatically. But some people have their PinballX system settings sort of the opposite, with the PinballX system name for VP 10 set to "Visual Pinball", and VP 9 set to "Visual Pinball 9". If that's how you set up PinballX, you can see how this is going to create confusion for PinballY: PinballY is going to think that "Visual Pinball" means VP 9, so it's going to try to use VP 9 for all of your VP 10 games.
If you run into this, it's really easy to fix. The easiest way to go to the system settings dialog and change the system names in PinballY to match your PinballX settings. PinballY doesn't have any hard-coded assumptions about what the various systems are called, so you're free to rename them as needed. The other way is to go into the system settings for each system and set explicit folder paths for the Media Folder and Database Folder. By default, those simply use the system name that you've entered, which is the same convention that PinballX uses. But PinballY lets you override them individually if you want to look in other folders.
Some of the settings are handled the same way for all types of player systems:
If you want to share files with PinballX, be sure to use the exact same names as in your PinballX setup. Pay particular attention to version numbers for Visual Pinball versions. When you first install PinballY, its default settings use the plain name "Visual Pinball" (with no version number) for VP 9 - VP 10 is called "Visual Pinball X" in the default settings. If your PinballX setup uses "Visual Pinball" as the name for VP X, you should change the PinballY settings to match.
If you leave this blank, the System Name is used as the default folder name. That's the best choice in most cases.
Important: enter only a sub-folder name, not a full path with a drive letter. This sub-folder is always within the main Media folder, which you can set separately in the Folder Options page.
If you leave this blank, the System Name is used as the default folder name. That's the best choice in most cases.
Important: as with the Media folder, enter only a sub-folder name, not a full path with a drive letter. This sub-folder is always within the main Table Database folder, which you can set separately in the Folder Options page.
The basic settings for the most common systems are listed below. Apart from the "System Name", "Media Folder", and "Database Folder", you should simply leave any fields not mentioned in the recipes blank.
You can set the System Name to any name you'd like, with a couple of simple constraints:
The Media Folder and Database Folder boxes can usually be left blank, in which case PinballY uses the System Name as the default folder name for each item. You only need to enter names into these boxes if you want to override this default for some reason.
System class: Visual Pinball 9 or earlier
Program EXE: leave blank (see below)
Parameters: /play -"[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]"
Window Mode: Minimize
Table folder: Tables
Table extension: .vpt
For the Program EXE box, if you leave it blank, PinballY will use the Visual Pinball executable that's assigned for .vpt files in the Windows registry. This only works if you have only one version of VP installed, and you ran the VP SETUP program to set up the file associations in the registry. If the .vpt file associations aren't set up, you'll have to enter the full path to the Visual Pinball .exe file; you can click the little folder icon button next to the Program EXE box to browse for the file.
Many people keep multiple versions of VP 8-9 installed at the same time. In this case, Windows only allows one of them to be associated with .vpt files, so the "leave it blank" advice will only work for that one version that's assigned in the registry. For the other versions, you'll have to specify the version of VPinballXXX.exe to use. For example, if you have both VP 9.2 and VP 9.9 installed (as many people do), follow this procedure:
You can repeat that procedure to create additional system pages for any other VP versions that you have installed. Note that the default settings when you first install PinballY come with entries already filled in for VP 9.2, VP 9.9, and VP 10, so you probably won't have to create those yourself. But you can create as many additional entries as you need.
In the system settings lists below, type all of the text literally as shown, even when you see special characters like [square brackets] or "quotes".
System class: Visual Pinball 10
Program EXE: leave blank
Parameters: /minimized /play -"[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]"
Window Mode: Minimize
Table folder: Tables
Table extension: .vpx
PinUp Player is an add-on for Visual Pinball and other systems that displays videos in secondary windows during the game.
In principle, PinUp Player shouldn't require anything extra in the PinballY options. It should just act like a part of your VP games, so as far as PinballY is concerned, the system setup recipe for VP+PinUp is exactly the same as the recipe for VP.
However, there is a common problem that a lot of people run into using VP+PinUp, which is that the PinUp windows might stubbornly stay open after Visual Pinball terminates. This is usually due to a problem in the VP table scripts, so it usually only affects certain tables, and can usually be fixed by editing the table scripts. If you're experiencing this problem, please read the Troubleshooting section under PinUp Player doesn't close.
System class: Future Pinball
Program EXE: leave blank
Parameters: [TABLEPATH] /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit /arcaderender
Window Mode: Minimize
Table folder: Tables
Table extension: .fpt
Startup Keys: [click playfield]
DOF Prefix: FP
System class: Future Pinball
Program EXE: BAM\FPLoader.exe
Parameters: [TABLEPATH] /open "[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]" /play /exit /arcaderender
Window Mode: Minimize
Process name: Future Pinball.exe
Table folder: ..\Tables
Table extension: .fpt
Startup Keys: [click playfield]
DOF Prefix: FP
System class: STEAM
Program EXE: [STEAM]
Parameters: -applaunch 238260
Window Mode: Minimize
Process name: PinballArcade.exe
Table folder: [PinballY]\Farsight
Table extension: .pinballArcade
Startup Keys: [pace 250] [pause 25] [click] [pause 5]
up up right right right right right [click] [pause 5]
up up left left left left left right [click] [pause 10]
up left left left left left [click] [pause 5]
[pace 1000] down [gridpos down right] [click] [pause 3] [click]
Note that the Program EXE setting should be literally [STEAM], including the brackets.
Notes about those Table Folder and Extension settings: Pinball Arcade isn't like most of the other systems, in that it doesn't have "table files" analogous to Visual Pinball's .vpt/.vpx files. Its tables are more or less built in to the program. This means that PinballY's normal way of searching for playable table files won't work for this system. To make up for that, PinballY has its own folder that contains dummy files that list all of the Farsight tables. These files all have names like The Addams Family (Midway 1992).pinballArcade, so the Table folder and Table extension settings shown above will allow PinballY to find all of these files and thereby recognize the game names. The files are all empty; all of the information is contained in their names.
Farsight adds new tables from time to time, so your version of TPA might have some tables that haven't made it into the list supplied with PinballY yet. If that happens, you can simply create a new file for the new table by copying one of the old ones and renaming it to reflect the new table's name.
The "Startup Keys" sequence is a huge mess, I know, but it seems to be the only way to automatically navigate to a particular game. The key sequence is designed to step through Pinball Arcade's menu screens to get to the icon for the game, using the grid position configured for the game. You can just copy and paste that whole sequence into the field.
System class: Other
Program EXE: [STEAMDIR]\SteamApps\common\PinballArcade\PinballArcade11.exe
Parameters:
Process name:
Environment: SteamAppId=238260;SteamGameId=238260
Window Mode: Show
Table folder: [PinballY]\Farsight
Table extension: .pinballArcade
Startup Keys: same as Pinball Arcade above
System class: Other
Program EXE: C:\TPAFreeCamMod\TPAFreeCamMod.exe
Parameters:
Process name: PinballArcade11.exe (see note below)
Environment: SteamAppId=238260;SteamGameId=238260
Window Mode: Show
Table folder: [PinballY]\Farsight
Table extension: .pinballArcade
Startup Keys: same as Pinball Arcade above
Note: you'll have to adjust the C:\... path in the Program Exe entry to match the location where you've installed the program. PinballY doesn't have any special knowledge of the Free Camera Mod install location (the way it does with Steam), so that has to be entered with the exact folder path.
System class: STEAM
Program EXE: [STEAM]
Parameters: -applaunch 226980 "[TABLEFILEBASE]"
Window Mode: Minimize
Process name: Pinball FX2.exe
Table folder: steamapps\common\Pinball FX2\data\steam
Table extension: .pxp
DOF Prefix: FX2
The Program EXE text should be entered literally as [STEAM], including the brackets. Don't substitute a file path or anything else; just write it literally like that.
System class: STEAM
Program EXE: [STEAM]
Parameters: -applaunch 442120 "-table_[TABLEFILEBASE]"
Window Mode: Minimize
Process name: Pinball FX3.exe
Table folder: steamapps\common\Pinball FX3\data\steam
Table extension: .pxp
DOF Prefix: FX3
The Program EXE text should be entered literally as [STEAM], including the brackets. Don't substitute a file path or anything else; just write it literally like that.
To enable the improved "Hot Seat" physics for the newer Williams tables, add the option flag -class to the Parameters line:
Alternatively, for multi-player hotseat modes, replace the -class option with -hotseat_2 for 2-player, -hotseat_3 for 3-player, or -hotseat_4 for 4-player.
System class: STEAM
Program EXE: [STEAM]
Parameters: -applaunch 444930 -rotate left
Startup Keys: [pace 1000] [click playfield] enter enter enter enter [pace 2000] enter enter [pace 1200] enter enter
Run before: c:\Zaccaria\LaunchZaccaria.exe [[TABLEFILE]]
The program file c:\Zaccaria\LaunchZaccaria.exe is a compiled AutoHotKeys script. In order for this to work, you'll need to install AutoHotKeys (a free program) and the script. Here's the script:
Extract the .ahk file, compile it with AutoHotKeys, and install it in a C:\Zaccaria folder. You can rename the folder or put it on a different drive if preferred - just to be sure to change the Run Before setting to match the path.
Thanks to euston-r for providing this recipe (see Issue #153 on github).
The individual settings are explained below. For most systems, you should be able to leave most of the fields blank.
This is the name that PinballY displays when referring to the system in the user interface, such as in the summary information box shown when the game is selected in the "wheel" menu. The name is really only for display purposes, and doesn't have any special meaning to PinballY.
Click this button if you want to completely remove this system from your PinballY configuration.
This button has no effect on the actual installed program system that the setting page refers to. It won't uninstall your Visual Pinball player or anything crazy like that. It just deletes the PinballY settings for the system.
Check this box if you want to include the system's games in the "wheel" menu list. If this box isn't checked, the system's games will be ignored.
The main reason for this box is that it lets you retain the default configuration settings for all of the pre-defined systems, even those that you don't currently have installed, just in case you ever want to install them in the future. If you do install one of these systems in the future, you'll be able to use it in PinballY simply by checking the existing entry's Enable box, rather than having to enter all of the system's options anew.
This is the name of the sub-folder for this system's "media" files: "wheel" icons, instruction card images, flyer pages, images and videos for the playfield and backglass, etc.
This is always a sub-folder of the main PinballY media folder, which you can configure in the "Folders" page in the options dialog. The folder name entered here shouldn't contain any path prefix or any "\" characters; it's just the name of the sub-folder.
By default, each system's media folder name is simply the same as the system name. Leave the folder name blank to use this default. If you're migrating from a PinballX installation, its media folders are always named the same as the corresponding systems.
It's okay to have multiple systems sharing the same media folder. For example, if you have both Visual Pinball 9.2 and 9.9 installed, you might want to use a single "Visual Pinball" media folder for both systems.
You can enter the folder name directly into the text box, or you
can browse for an existing folder
by clicking the folder icon
()
next to the text box.
This is the name of the sub-folder for this system's "table database" files. These are the XML files that list the games for the system and provide their bibliographic details (titles, manufacturers, etc).
This is always a sub-folder of the main PinballY table database folder, which you can configure in the "Folders" page of the options dialog. The folder name entered here shouldn't contain any path prefix or any "\" characters; it's just the name of the sub-folder.
The default folder name is the same as the system name. Leave the folder name blank to use this default. If you're migrating from PinballX, its database folders are always named the same as the corresponding systems.
Every system must have its own separate table database folder. Table database folders can't be shared.
You can enter the folder name directly into the text box, or you
can browse for an existing folder
by clicking the folder icon
()
next to the text box.
We said above that we try to be "system agnostic", avoiding special handling for any one system, but a few systems are so ubiquitous that we do have some special recognition for them. Specifically, Visual Pinball 8-9, Visual Pinball 10, Future Pinball, and Steam-based games. This doesn't mean that PinballY only supports those systems; it just means that PinballY has some special handling for those systems.
You should select the option here that matches the system you're setting up. If you don't see your system in the list, it's not a problem! Just select "Other".
If the system uses separate table files, enter the filename extension for the files:
Leave this blank if the system doesn't use table files (e.g., any of the Steam-based systems).
This is a prefix code used for entries in the DOF configuration. This is just a convention used in the DOF Config Tool, to distinguish the DOF settings for the same game written in different player systems. For example, the Config Tool database includes listings for numerous re-creations of real games that were written for both Visual Pinball and Future Pinball. Entering the correct prefix helps PinballY identify the right DOF settings to use depending on which game is selected in the "wheel".
Leave it blank in other cases. The DOF Config Tool treats Visual Pinball games as the "default" system, so the different versions of VP never use a prefix.
This is the name of the application file (.exe) that PinballY will launch when you play a table using this system. There are several choices here:
Use this option whenever possible, since it's the most future-proof choice. If you use this approach, you won't have to worry about updating the PinballY settings the next time you update the program to a new version, or reinstall it in a different folder, since PinballY should be able to pick up the new location automatically from the registry.
This option is especially good for Visual Pinball, since it's common to have multiple VP 8/9 versions installed on one pin cab at the same time. All VP 8/9 versions use the .vpt file extension, but Windows only allows one program to be associated with a given extension, so they can't all use the fully automatic lookup of the "leave it blank" option. This ".exe name only" option is the next best thing in this case. As long as all of the different VP executables are installed in the same folder, this option lets you specify the specific VPinballXXX.exe program to run for each version, but still lets PinballY find the folder location based on the .vpt registry settings. That at least makes the settings future-proof against reinstalling VP in a different folder.
Enter the command-line parameters for the command here. There's no general rule to how the parameters look; the parameters are entirely peculiar to the individual programs. See the "recipes" section above for the parameter formats for the common systems.
There are some special "substitution variables" that you can use in the parameters. When the program is launched, these will be replaced with value specific to the game you're launching.
The "environment" is a Windows internal feature that lets programs create a list of NAME=VALUE strings in memory. The main use of these is to pass information from a parent program to a child program that it launches. It serves much the same purpose as the command line parameters, but it's a different mechanism. Some programs depend upon having certain information passed this way rather than using the command line parameters, which is why PinballY lets you specify these variables.
Windows has a "global" list of environment variables that you can set via the system control panel, and these global variables are passed to each program that you launch from the Windows desktop. But programs can also add their own "local" variables that are only visible to child processes they create. That's the type we're creating here. The variables you list here will be added to the environment that PinballY receives from Windows, and passed to the game program when you launch it, but they won't affect the global system environment variables at all.
To add environment variables, list them in the edit box as NAME=VALUE pairs. You can list as many of these as you want; separate them with semicolons (;). If you want to use a semicolon within a value, double it (";;") to distinguish it from a variable separator.
For example, to directly launch Pinball Arcade DX11, you have to pass a couple of environment variables to the program:
SteamAppId=238260;SteamGameId=238260
This lets you specify the initial visibility of the launched game program's first window when the program starts up:
"Minimize" mode is useful for Visual Pinball and Future Pinball, because these programs always open their editor windows first, and you don't really want to see those when launching straight into playing a game. It makes the game startup a little smoother if you don't see that editor window flash into view briefly while the game is being loaded.
"Minimize" is also good for games launched through Steam, since you don't need to see the Steam launcher window; you want the first visible window to be the game itself.
"Show" is best for any game that you launch directly (not through Steam) that goes straight to its game window. Use this when directly launching the Pinball Arcade DX11 executable, for example.
This is a weird special case needed mostly for Steam games (that is, games that are installed and launched via Valve's "Steam" system). Steam games use a two-step launch procedure where you run the STEAM.EXE application first, and that in turn runs the separate game program .exe (application) file. In Windows terminology, each running .exe is a "process". So when you run a Steam-based game like Farsight's Pinball Arcade or Pinball FX2, you're really launching two processes: STEAM.EXE, and the actual game's .exe file. This complicates things a bit for PinballY, because it needs to monitor each launched game process to determine when the game terminates, so that PinballY can take over when the game exits. And the real complication is that STEAM.EXE itself terminates as soon as it launches the game .exe, so PinballY can't use STEAM.EXE as a proxy for whether the game is running; it has to monitor the separate process where the game's .exe is running.
That's where the "Process name" setting comes in. This lets you identify the name of the game process that Steam launches. This is simply the name of the game's .exe file, without any path prefix. For example, for The Pinball Arcade, this is PinballArcade.exe.
This defines a sequence of keystrokes and mouse clicks to be sent to the launched program after it starts up. There are three main uses for this:
See the "recipes" section above for the recommended settings for the various systems. If you need to create a custom key sequence, here are the key names and special commands you can use:
| Command | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Basic keys | |
| A-Z | Alphabetic keys A through Z |
| 0-9 | Digit keys 0 through 9 |
| backspace | Backspace key |
| enter | Enter key |
| esc | Escape key |
| space | Spacebar key |
| tab | Tab key |
| Punctuation keys | |
| backslash | \| key |
| colon | :; key |
| comma | ,< key |
| dash | -_ key |
| hyphen | -_ key (same as dash) |
| lbracket | [{ key |
| period | .> key |
| plus | += key |
| quote | "' key |
| rbracket | ]} key |
| slash | /? key |
| tilde | Tilde (~) key |
| Function "F" keys | |
| f1-f12 | Function keys F1 through F12 |
| Cursor keys | |
| del | Del key |
| down | Cursor down key |
| end | End key |
| home | Home key |
| ins | Ins key |
| left | Cursor left key |
| pagedown | Page Down key |
| pageup | Page Up key |
| right | Cursor right key |
| up | Cursor up key |
| Numeric keypad | |
| kp0-kp9 | Keypad 0 through 9 keys |
| kpenter | Keypad Enter |
| add | Keypad + key |
| decimal | Keypad . key |
| divide | Keypad / key |
| subtract | Keypad - key |
| times | Keypad * key |
| Shift keys | |
| capslock | Caps Lock key |
| lalt | Left Alt key |
| lctrl | Left Ctrl key |
| lshift | Left Shift key |
| ralt | Right Alt key |
| rctrl | Right Ctrl key |
| rshift | Right Shift key |
| Special commands | |
| {comment} | Comment text - ignored |
| [pause n] | Pause for n milliseconds |
| [pace n] | Set the "pace" (time between keystrokes) to n milliseconds |
| [click] | Click the left mouse button at the current mouse position |
| [rclick] | Click the right mouse button at the current mouse position |
| [click window] | Click the left mouse button in the middle of the given window, using the PinballY window layout; the window can be playfield, backglass, dmd, or topper |
| [rclick window] | Click the right mouse button in the middle of the given window |
| [gridpos down right] | Send a sequence of down and right keys to move to the "grid position" defined for the game being launched. The grid position is set in the game's settings. The down and right keys are key names from the list above, as in [gridpos comma period] or, more likely, [gridpos down right] |
This specifies how PinballY terminates a running game launched with this system when you press the Exit Game button.
Enter the folder where this system's tables are located.
If you're new to virtual pinball, it might seem puzzling and limiting that you have to specify a single folder here. But that's the long-standing convention that's more or less forced by the design of Visual Pinball and Future Pinball, so it's assumed by most of the rest of the pin cab ecosystem. It's not great for people who download a large number of tables and want to impose some kind of order on things, but you'll just make things unnecessary hard on yourself if you try to work around it.
There are three formats for the entry here:
It's best to use this format when possible, because you won't have to update this setting if you should reinstall the player system in a different main program folder in the future. PinballY will automatically use whatever main program folder is current on each run.
Within the folder path, you can use some special substitution variables. PinballY will replace these with actual file system paths when the program starts up.
This is the folder where NVRAM (non-volatile RAM) files for the system's games are stored. The NVRAM files are where the high score listings are stored, so this path needs to be set correctly for PinballY to be able to display high scores in the game list.
This setting is only meaningful for Future Pinball and Visual Pinball, since PinballY can only read high scores from those types of systems.
There are three ways to enter this setting:
The Run Before (1) and (2) boxes let you enter commands to run just before launching a game, each time a game using this system is launched. You can use these to do any preparation needed before this system starts up, such as modifying the monitor layout, resetting hardware devices, or starting background tasks that run concurrently with the game.
The commands in the (1) and (2) slots are executed in sequence, under slightly different visual display conditions. Here's the exact sequence of events:
The important distinction between the (1) and (2) slots is that the command in the (1) slot is executed with a completely blank, black playfield window, whereas the command in the (2) slot is executed after the "Launching game" message has been displayed. This might be important to you if the command you're launching does something that affects the system-wide visual layout of the monitors, such as changing the rotation or scaling factors. You might prefer to take that sort of action in phase (1), since the blank playfield window will help make the transition to the new visual layout smoother by avoiding any obvious change in the on-screen graphics. A completely black screen looks the same at any rotation or scale, so the moment when the layout changes won't be visually apparent to the user.
You can use each slot to launch just about any Windows program. Use the standard Windows command line syntax, as though typing a command into the Windows+R "Run" box. If you want to run a series of commands, the easiest approach is to create a .BAT file containing the commands, and run that with a command line like this:
CMD /c c:\users\bob\BatchFile.bat
The .BAT format is a standard way in Windows to write a simple command script to carry out a series of commands. If you're not familiar with the .BAT format, you can find lots of information about it on the Web by searching for "Windows batch script".
You can put a special "flags" string at the very start of the command line to control how the command is processed. The flags are specified in square brackets, at the very start of the command. The flag keywords are:
The system automatically undoes the cumulative rotation for all windows after the game exits, just before returning to the main UI after the game exits. This means that it's not strictly necessary to use a ROTATE flag in the Run After to compensate for one in the Run Before. But you're certainly free to write one anyway, so that you can control the timing of the change. For example, if you place [ROTATE(PLAYFIELD,90)] in the Run Before (1) command, you'd usually place [ROTATE(PLAYFIELD,270)] in the Run After(2) to cancel out the change and return to the original rotation.
You should only use the [ADMIN] option as a last resort. Avoid Admin mode whenever possible, in part because it exposes your system to more security risks, but more so because it creates a lot of complications for other software. Windows restricts normal program-to-program interactions when an Admin mode program is running, which can cause weird problems in the user interface and can make some program features stop working.
You can specify multiple flags for the same command by writing a series of the flag keywords within the single pair of square brackets, separating the keywords by spaces. For example:
[HIDE ROTATE(PLAYFIELD,90) ROTATE(BACKGLASS,180)] cmd /c ...
There are also some "substitution variables" you can use anywhere within the command string:
The Run After (1) and (2) boxes let you enter commands to run just after the game exits. These work very much like the Run Before commands, but run after the game instead of before.
As with the Run Before commands, there are two Run After slots, which run their respective commands under slightly different display conditions. Here's the sequence for the Run After commands:
This sequence is essentially the reverse of the Run Before sequence with respect to the display conditions. The command in the (2) slot is executed with a blank screen showing in the playfield window, so it's the right place to run any command that will modify the system-wide monitor layout.
You can use the same flags and substitution variables as with Run Before. As with the Run Before command, you should be careful when using [NOWAIT] that you can count on the program to exit on its own in a reasonable amount of time.
[NOWAIT TERMINATE] is accepted for the Run After commands, but it's not very useful, since the termination condition in this case is the return to the normal PinballY interactive interface. Since that will happen almost immediately after these commands are launched, they'll only have a few moments to run before PinballY terminates them. It's difficult to think of a situation where the [NOWAIT TERMINATE] combination would be useful for a Run After command.
The overall sequence of the launch is as follows:
It's best to think of these as "nested" steps, as suggested by the indentation in the list above. The Run Before (1) and Run After (2) are the "outer" steps: they're done first and last. The Run Before (2) and Run After (1) steps are the "inner" steps, done just before and just after the game runs. And the game itself is the "innermost" step, nested within the others.
The point of this nested view of the steps is that it should help you decide where to put any necessary cleanup tasks when you're arranging your command sequence. If Run Before (1) makes any system-wide changes, they should be undone in Run After (2), since that's the matching After step for Run Before (1) in the nested view. Similarly, any system-wide changes made in Run Before (2) does should be undone in Run After (1). Cleanup is necessary for any system-wide changes you make, such as changes to the monitor layout, or changes to your mouse or keyboard settings. You'll need to reverse such changes before the main PinballY window returns, so that settings are back to normal after the game finishes.
PinballY tries to help ensure that any cleanup steps are properly executed by always running the paired commands suggested in the nesting diagram above. In particular, the following pairings are guaranteed:
The steps will always be carried out in those matched pairs, even in case of error, and even if the user manually interrupts the game launch by pressing the Exit Game button during one of the early steps. This should help ensure that your commands will always have a chance to undo any system-wide setting changes made during the launch process so that everything is returned to normal after each game session.
These checkboxes let you tell PinballY to continue displaying graphics and videos in the selected windows while games based on this system are running.
The controls here apply to all games using this system. These settings override the "global" settings in the Game Launch page. You can in turn override the system settings individually for each game, using the Game Details dialog. These three locations for the settings form a hierarchy:
You'll notice that these checkboxes are a little unusual, in that they have three possible states:
Show this window's graphics while running
Blank this window while running
Use the default global setting
The first two settings, "show" and "blank", override the global setting for the window from the Game Launch options. The third option, "use defaults", means that the global setting is used. In all cases, any conflicting settings made in the Game Details dialog for a particular game override the settings here, but only for that individual game.
Why would you want to continue showing PinballY window graphics during game play? In most cases, you wouldn't, which is why the initial default settings (globally, per-system, and per-game) are all set to blank out PinballY's graphics during play. This reduces PinballY's memory and CPU usage while the game is running, giving more system resources to the game so that it can run faster and more smoothly. However, if you have a pin cab setup with multiple monitors, you might find that some games can't take advantage of all of your display area. For example, some commercial PC pinball games don't display anything at all in the DMD or backglass area, or can only display boring still graphics. In those cases, you might prefer to let PinballY continue to display its graphics in those areas during play.
The checkboxes here apply to all games running under the selected player system, so you can use these controls in cases where all games for a system have the same handling for the various windows. For example, if a system never displays anything in the DMD area, you can use the checkbox here to tell PinballY to continue displaying DMD graphics for all games using that system. In cases where a system is inconsistent - some of the system's games make use of the DMD, say, while others don't - you might prefer to make the selection on a game-by-game basis using the Game Details dialog.
"DMD" vs. "Real DMD": The DMD checkbox refers to PinballY's on-screen window where it displays DMD-style graphics. The Real DMD checkbox refers to your physical DMD device (such as a PinDMD or Pin2DMD unit), if you have one. The Real DMD isn't a window, but the same principle applies: if you check this box, PinballY will continue to show its image or video media on your real DMD device while the game is running. This will prevent the launched game from displaying anything on the DMD, since the real DMD devices only allow access from one program at a time. (In some cases, a game that tries to access the device might detect the conflict and show an error, or exit abruptly, or even crash, so it's best to use this option only with games that don't try to access the DMD device themselves.)