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.
There are several sources where you can get DmdDevice.dll:
My recommendation is to use the dmd-extensions DLL, unless for some reason it doesn't work with your hardware, in which case you'll have to use your hardware vendor's special version. If dmd-extensions works with your device, I recommend getting the DLL directly from the GitHub project page rather than using the bundled VP version, since the bundled VP copy is often a version or two behind the latest official release.
If you're running the 64-bit version of PinballY, you must use a 64-bit version of DmdDevice.dll.
You'll probably also need to keep the 32-bit version of the DLL installed on your system, since most of the other virtual pinball programs are 32-bit only, meaning they can only be used with a 32-bit DLL (for the same reasons that 64-bit PinballY can only use the 64-bit DLL). Fortunately, there's an easy way to keep both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions installed at the same time and in the same folder:
64-bit PinballY always looks for DmdDevice64.dll first in each folder it searches (see the folder search order above). If DmdDevice64.dll isn't found, the program then looks for DmdDevice.dll.