Alchemy: Video Pinball Shmup Table

[Drnick]

Is it only in Hyperspin that it is doing this, or does it do it when playing the games themselves?

Are monitors 1 & 2 aligned along the top edge, Is the playfield set as Primary screen. 

Are monitors 1&2 on the same card with 3 on the 2nd.

Is it all tables, and what format tables did you get,  full screen cabinet or other?

[griffindodd]

Only hyperpin. Primary is play field. Secondary aligned top with primary. Secondary to the right of primary. All three on one card as its a Kepler based GPU. If you alt tab through the windows you can see the back glass window sitting in the middle of screen 1 primary. But if you bring the window to focus it disappears

[Drnick]

edited above whilst you were answering.  Which tables are you using?

[griffindodd]

The tables themselves are working in the future pinball for now, I still have some position and scaling to do but I feel confident I can work that out. For some reason Hyperpin doesn't recognize the secondary monitor properly, doing research.

[Drnick]

Did you change x/y for backglass image or are they set to 0,0

[griffindodd]

Did you change x/y for backglass image or are they set to 0,0

I think they are at 0,0

[Drnick]

In which case I am all outta ideas    I see you have posted over at Hyperpin.  Undoubtedly they will advise some of the same things I advised and then its play with different driver versions I guess.   When you fix it let us know the fix. If I ever have the cash to build one of these things I will need all the online help I can find   

Although please do try with monitors 1/2/3 all in a row like little ducks. 

[griffindodd]

Still fighting away with the stuff but getting closer to my goal.



The smaller monitor on the side represents the signal that will go to the side projectors, it can mirror either of the backglass screens or have its own content.

I'm getting future pinball on three monitors by putting the back glass in a window and having it oversized dpillinv down into the third monitor. It works quite but its not quite where I want it. Slow progress on these bugs. 

[griffindodd]

Keep getting it really close but then when reopening the table after saving the back trans light seems to like to move around, not very reliable

Here's my best proportions so far

[griffindodd]

Finally got hyperpin uvp and visual pinball working with the 4 monitors, now we are getting somewhere


Love the giant dmd

[yotsuya]

The pinball part of the cab is looking good! 

[ChadTower]

I so need to build a VP cab like this.  Too many things in the queue first...

[ids]

I so need to build a VP cab like this.  Too many things in the queue first...

me too

[bearzilla333]

Inspiring indeed!   

[griffindodd]

Here's a walk through of the four screens and how I'm trying to get them to work...

[griffindodd]

In which case I am all outta ideas    I see you have posted over at Hyperpin.  Undoubtedly they will advise some of the same things I advised and then its play with different driver versions I guess.   When you fix it let us know the fix. If I ever have the cash to build one of these things I will need all the online help I can find   

Although please do try with monitors 1/2/3 all in a row like little ducks.

So I finally worked this out, and it is kinda annoying/disturbing to find the answer. The Hyperpin backglass works on the second screen ONLY if the third screen is not 'touching' the primary monitor, otherwise it jumps to the third screen. The reason non of them were initially working was my UVP server wasn't installed properly.

So to get around this I have the secondary monitor set to 1366x720 custom res and then the third monitor set to 1280x720 and I float it on the horizontal so it is centered underneath the 2nd monitor. This way the third monitor doesn't touch the primary monitor, very crazy and I'm concerned that the third monitor may be 'snapping' back to touch the primary on reboot. 

Anyway, at least I'm starting to understand the nature of this very quirky set up, if it continues to give me headaches I may have to drop Future Pinball as that's the program that's forcing me to have my third monitor under my second one, unless of course I can find a way to get a DMD from FP over to the third monitor as an individual element rather than some weird extension of the second monitor..

PHEw.....too many monitors. 

[Malenko]

This makes me think that if/when I build mine, the backglass is going to a single monitor mounted vertically, with the back glass and DMD both showing up on 1 screen. Of course that will probably introduce exciting new difficulties!

build looks good so far, I wish I had the scratch to do one myself.

[griffindodd]

I highly recommend taking the single monitor approach on the back as it is way less complicated than this. I would have done it myself but I need to be able to mirror my DMD to the side projectors so it needed its own physical screen.

[yotsuya]

This makes me think that if/when I build mine, the backglass is going to a single monitor mounted vertically, with the back glass and DMD both showing up on 1 screen. Of course that will probably introduce exciting new difficulties!

build looks good so far, I wish I had the scratch to do one myself.

That's an interesting approach. I'd like to see that one implemented.

[ChadTower]

I did a little math on how much smaller basic VP cab would cost.  I'm talking something with a PC just like griffindodd's and a two monitor setup (27" and 19").  No fancy addons or pinball cabinet hardware.  No matter how I jiggle the numbers it comes out to around a grand assuming all newly purchased parts.   Some hardware recycling could bring it down to the 800 range.  And that's a cabaret sized VP cab.

[griffindodd]

Yeah the screens are a bit of a money burner, despite buying refurbed bargains I've still got almost $1,500 into this just for screens and PJs alone 

Finally got HyperPin, Visual Pinball and Future Pinball playing the way I want them to with the screens and ironed out some of the glitches with the setup, so I'm confident enough in the software to make some more decisions on cabinet dimensions and alignment.

[rablack97]

  Too many words, need more pics....

[griffindodd]

Here...

[griffindodd]

Its becoming apparent that the amount of reshaping and adjusting I've been having to do means I'll have to do the sides again for structural rigidness. So I'm going to frame out the pattern then use it as a routing guide.

[ChadTower]

Agreed on redoing the sides.  Less sexy work but nonetheless very important.   

[rablack97]

 

He's making major improvements ladies and gentlemen, the curves the lines the detail.  Don't forget about those signature pocket screws Jim, this would not be a Griffindodd build w/o pocket screws....

Loving the night shift approach it brings an essence of peace when your able to run loud obnoxious tools at night, right Jim?  I agree, there is something special about midnight sawdust......

 

 

[rockyrocket]

This makes me think that if/when I build mine, the backglass is going to a single monitor mounted vertically, with the back glass and DMD both showing up on 1 screen. Of course that will probably introduce exciting new difficulties!

build looks good so far, I wish I had the scratch to do one myself.

That's an interesting approach. I'd like to see that one implemented.

Here you go

[Slig]

O M F G! 

[griffindodd]

Taking a little break over the next week, heading off to Oregon to have a few craft brews in Portland, drive the coast and spend some time in Eugene and Bend with the wife and peanut, time for some green trees and mountain air instead of sawdust and wood glue.

[dandro]

When/If your driving I-5 north, when you pass 205/580 near Tracy, wave! 

[Gamester]

Taking a little break over the next week, heading off to Oregon to have a few craft brews in Portland, drive the coast and spend some time in Eugene and Bend with the wife and peanut, time for some green trees and mountain air instead of sawdust and wood glue.

Enjoy!  Hopefully you'll come back to the project rejuvenated, and with a nice fresh perspective. 

[griffindodd]

Thanks guys. I must admit I'm hitting a bit of a mental wall with this, not for any bad reason, just the big projects sometimes feel a bit too big. That's why I keep side projects like the Kong barrel

[griffindodd]

I decided that the load times weren't fast enough and they were taking away from the experience too much, so I hunted down a decent deal for a refurb 120GB Corsair Neutron GTX SSD for $100 shipped, it's a screaming fast drive so hopefully it will make a big difference to the overall feel of the menus and game loads.

[griffindodd]

Having a really hard time naming this project, Identity Crisis was more of a working title, but I guess it fits quite well as the machine transforms totally based on what you are playing. I guess it would be fun if I took the Time Crisis logo and adjusted it but I can't seem to find a font anywhere for that.

This is almost the opposite to my other builds where artwork has played such a huge part in their identity, ideally this build will have no printed artwork anywhere on the cab....hrmmmmmmm

Anyone else got any super clever names for something that constantly morphs?

[ChadTower]

I decided that the load times weren't fast enough and they were taking away from the experience too much, so I hunted down a decent deal for a refurb 120GB Corsair Neutron GTX SSD for $100 shipped, it's a screaming fast drive so hopefully it will make a big difference to the overall feel of the menus and game loads.

The entire front end should be working out of memory.  Game loads, maaaybe, but I'm thinking that disc speed isn't your issue here.   This is more of a "how fast can you process the paperwork" sort of thing and not "how fast can you read the paperwork".

[griffindodd]

The entire front end should be working out of memory.  Game loads, maaaybe, but I'm thinking that disc speed isn't your issue here.   This is more of a "how fast can you process the paperwork" sort of thing and not "how fast can you read the paperwork".

Getting the FE from disk to memory is the choke and loading tables is the most noticeable issue. Also leaving tables and going back to the FE is strangely laggy as it should, like you have said, all be in memory. I'm using 8GB of 1866 DDR3 on an x64 system, so I don't understand the 6-8 seconds between quitting a table and being able to navigate in HyperPin again.

[Yvan256]

Having a really hard time naming this project, Identity Crisis was more of a working title [...] Anyone else got any super clever names for something that constantly morphs?

Morphcade? Only 9 non-related results on Google!

There's so many things inside that project that even picking one to name it wouldn't do it justice, i.e. "LCDCade" or "Projectorcade". Not to mention that those are silly names.

How about "OddCade"?

[griffindodd]

ummm I think anything with the letters "CADE' in it is an automatic /fail

[yotsuya]

ummm I think anything with the letters "CADE' in it is an automatic /fail

  *





*Unless it's a clever pun, like Shoryukade.

[griffindodd]

AFKade
Darkade
Urkelcade

are the only exceptions to this rule.