This dialog lets you control how PinballY uses your real DMD device, if you have one. By "real DMD", we mean an external pinball-style 128x32 dot matrix display, using either a plasma display like those used in the 1990s pinball machines, or an LED DMD like those used in some modern Stern machines. You can add one of these to your cab by buying a commercial DMD kit like PinDMD, or by building one yourself using open-source plans such as Pin2DMD.
The "real DMD" settings don't affect the simulated DMD window that PinballY also shows on the video monitor. If you have a real DMD and want to get rid of the redundant video DMD window, simply close the window. If you've previously closed the window and want to bring it back, right-click in the main playfield window and select "Show DMD" from the menu.
PinballY supports the same sets of devices that Visual Pinball supports via VPinMAME, since it uses the VPinMAME DLLs to access the device. See below for more details.
If automatic detection doesn't work on your machine for some reason, you can use one of the manual options below.
PinballY doesn't actually detect your physical DMD device. Instead, it looks for installed software that connects to your DMD. If the right software is present, PinballY uses the software to send images to your DMD.
The "right software" is a DLL called dmddevice.dll. This usually comes from your VPinMAME installation, which in turn is usually installed as part of Visual Pinball.
PinballY searches for dmddevice.dll as follows:
If PinballY does find a copy of dmddevice.dll in either location, it proceeds as follows:
If PinballY can't find a copy of dmddevice.dll in either place, it assumes that you don't have a real DMD installed, so it simply omits any real DMD displays for the session.
The search order above is intended to make DMD setup simple but flexible. Simple, in that if you've already set up your real DMD to work with VPinMAME, then PinballY should automatically find it and use it, without making you repeat the same setup work for PinballY. Flexible, in that you can also force PinballY to use a different copy of dmddevice.dll from the one used in VPinMAME, if you prefer, sipmly by copying the alternative dmddevice.dll into the PinballY folder.
If you do copy an alternative DLL to the PinballY folder, remember to also copy any additional DLL files that it depends upon. There might be a second DLL for your specific hardware device that you have to include.