Vpinball and Mamewah

[Krynos]

I found out about vpinball last night, and have been loving playing the old pinball machines I can no longer play in reality!!

Also I have gotten it working with Mamewah. I have seen some posts on the forum of people asking how this is done so I will attempt to explain how I got it working together here

(1) Install vpinball and vpin mame as per the instructions, get your tables up and running etc.

(2) download the vpinball wrapper from the the Dragon King site.

(3) Unzip the wrapper and place the exe in your /tables directory

** for the rest of this I will assume the paths are c:\pinball\tables for the pinball install

(4) Make a directory in c:/pinball called /links

(5) Open notepad and type the following in there without the quotemarks.. "c:\pinball\tables\vp-launch2.exe <name of table file here including spaces etc>"

So for example: "c:\pinball\tables\vp-launcg2.exe fun house 1.03"

(6) Click "save as" and make sure you change the extention type from txt documents to all documents, then save the file in you \links folder as "Fun House.bat"

(7) Go to the \links folder, right click on the .bat file you just made and drag it and select make shortcut. Rename that short cut to what ever you want that table to called in your mamewah list.

( Go to your mamewhat folder, and into the files folder.

** for the next section I will assume pinball will be the second emulator on mamewah.

Find the emulator2 config file.

(9) In that file, set the emulators executable to "PC". Set the Rom path to be "C:\pinball\links". Set the Rom extention to be "LNK"

(10) Now go into mamewah and go to your new emulator page, look for the list by option, change it to "rom name only"

(11) Refresh your game list and now your table should be there.

(12) Repeat sections 5 though 7 for each table.

- Krynos

[hulkster]

wow this is great!  if it works....im having a few problems.  i followed your instructions, but dont know where to put the shortcut of the bat file that i created.  do i put this in my roms folder?  or what.  my table shows up in my list, but when i push start to begin the game, it doesnt do anything.  im guessing cuz i dont have the bat file shortcut in the right folder.  help??

[Howard_Casto]

I found out about vpinball last night, and have been loving playing the old pinball machines I can no longer play in reality!!

Also I have gotten it working with Mamewah. I have seen some posts on the forum of people asking how this is done so I will attempt to explain how I got it working together here

(1) Install vpinball and vpin mame as per the instructions, get your tables up and running etc.

(2) download the vpinball wrapper from the the Dragon King site.

(3) Unzip the wrapper and place the exe in your /tables directory

** for the rest of this I will assume the paths are c:\pinball\tables for the pinball install

(4) Make a directory in c:/pinball called /links

(5) Open notepad and type the following in there without the quotemarks.. "c:\pinball\tables\vp-launch2.exe <name of table file here including spaces etc>"

So for example: "c:\pinball\tables\vp-launcg2.exe fun house 1.03"

(6) Click "save as" and make sure you change the extention type from txt documents to all documents, then save the file in you \links folder as "Fun House.bat"

(7) Go to the \links folder, right click on the .bat file you just made and drag it and select make shortcut. Rename that short cut to what ever you want that table to called in your mamewah list.

( Go to your mamewhat folder, and into the files folder.

** for the next section I will assume pinball will be the second emulator on mamewah.

Find the emulator2 config file.

(9) In that file, set the emulators executable to "PC". Set the Rom path to be "C:\pinball\links". Set the Rom extention to be "LNK"

(10) Now go into mamewah and go to your new emulator page, look for the list by option, change it to "rom name only"

(11) Refresh your game list and now your table should be there.

(12) Repeat sections 5 though 7 for each table.

- Krynos

umm maybe it's my brutal lack of knowledge regarding mamewah, but according to your instructions, you are completely bypassing the wrapper.  


you should do steps 1-3 then you need to make a list of all your tables(not roms, vpts) so they will show up in mamewah.  (I'm not going to go into details on that, as I'm unsure about the mamewah specifics.) I can tell you that you can generate a dat for your tables using izarams dat maker that's available on my site. You point to the directory and give the file extension, it does the rest.  

Intstead of pointing to visual pinball.exe in mamewah's options for visual pinball, you point to vp-launch.exe as the exe name.  

Turn on send rom only in the mamewah options and you are done.  


I'm not sure where you got this info, but it's completely wrong. You have two possible methods of getting visual pinball to work in mamewah squished together.  Bats and lnk files are the hard way.(but some people don't understand how to use my wrappers and use it anyway)  When using my wrappers you don't have to do any of that, thus it's the easy way.

I hope that clears up some confusion.  Mamewah isn't my area of expertise, but I couldn't stand and watch you getting little to no help, only to come up with misguided answers on your own.  

[Krynos]

I'm new to mamewah, new to vpinbal --- new to everything really.

But the method I detailed above while not being the slickest works for me, I got it up and running on my mamecab last night

Basically what it is doing is running vp-launch2.exe with a command line from mamewah.

The wrapper is intergral to this process and is not being bypassed!

They way I figured it was I could run vp-launch2.exe and select a game in the window - cool! Then I thought I wonder if it has command line switches... I bet it does! So I went to the command line and typed in c:\pinball\tables\vp-launch2.exe <name of game here> ... sweet it worked

So I thought I can make a batch file from that, so I opened notepad and made a file <name of game>.bat with the commandline as text within it.

Excellent that worked too. The batch file is calling vp-launch.exe with the game.

Then I went to the FAW of mamewah and saw that you can launch windows programs... sweet. Followed that FAQ which says you can launch from bat and lnk files. Unfortunately I couldn't get it launch a bat file... so I though okay I will make a shortcut (*.lnk) file, and see if mamewah will launch that. Yup works.

So in mamewah I have a second emulator called Pinball, which lists the *.lnk files as game names on the screen. I can select those the same as anything in mamewah, they launch, then when I am done P1+P2 brings me back to mamewah.

Basically mamewhat runs the shortcut file (*.lnk) which is a shorcut to a batchfile, which contains the path of vp-launch2.exe and the game name.

It is a long winded way I know, and means you have to manually create a batch file and shortcut to that batch file for each table... but it works

As for where I store the shortcuts, I store them with the lnk files in the \link directory - as these are manually created files having them in the same folder means it is easier to cut and paste and so on.

I think I am using a combination of your wrappers and the mamewah lnk file way. the lnk to launch the wrapper to launch the table lol.

One thing to mention is that you MUST have played the table outside of mamewah first for this to work, as the first time you launch some tables it will pop a window asking if you are legally entitled to play the table yes/no --- this needs a couple of mouse clicks to do, and when launching from within mamewah the wrapper hides this window so you just get a black screen.

I'm sure this would be a whole lot easier if I was using Dragon King to begin with... but I have just gotten mamewah just how I like it for my arcade games.

I just thought... what I really need is for mamewah to have all my games, and dragon king to have all my tables, and a front end for the front ends, something I can switch back and forth between the two easily... lol.

- Krynos

[hulkster]

well i must be doing something wrong, cuz i got the table to show up in my list, but it still doesnt work.  i still dont understand why you have to create  a shortcut, and then have it in the same folder with the bat file orginal???

[Howard_Casto]

You and me both.

[Krynos]

The version of mamewah (latest download) I am using will not launch bat files. It will launch lnk files. Thats why I had to do it this way.

- Krynos

[hulkster]

well mine still doesnt work...

[Rocky]

hulkster, what OS are you using?  98se has issues with .BAT files and .LNK files.

when you make a shortcut of a BAT file in 98se, it creates a PIF file not a LNK file and Mamewah doesn't allow PIF as a valid extension for the PC emulator choice.

It is possible to use BAT files with Mamewah, but you get strange results.  Select the BAT file as the emulator and make the BAT file run the wrapper and appropriate ROM.  While you're playing the game, Mamewah doesn't know that it is supposed to be sleeping, so it may run it's screen saver or music in the background (even though you can't hear or see it it uses up CPU resources).

Just running the wrapper is probably the simplest method.


my $.02,

Rocky

[Krynos]

While my method may not be very elegant... it does work I now have 250 vpinmame tables running on my cab, all with screenshots and selectable from mamewah. Took me the best part of a day to set it all up - but well worth it.

- Krynos

[hulkster]

hmm, well im using win98...not sure if its SE, cant remember.  but i have howards wrapper, but have no clue what to do with it.  wish i knew how.  read the documentation, but im still confused.

[Minwah]

It is possible to use BAT files with Mamewah, but you get strange results.  Select the BAT file as the emulator and make the BAT file run the wrapper and appropriate ROM.  While you're playing the game, Mamewah doesn't know that it is supposed to be sleeping, so it may run it's screen saver or music in the background (even though you can't hear or see it it uses up CPU resources).

You can launch batch files OK, but use this method:

start emulatorname.exe /wait

exit

That way MAMEWAH will not continue playing music etc.

I am not familiar with V Pinball, but will try to give it a go at some point so perhaps I can be more helpful...

[Minwah]

OK I've just had a go...here's what to do (assuming VPinball etc. is ready to go):

1) Set the Emulator Executable to VP-LAUNCH2.EXE (Howards wrapper, in the tables folder)

2) Set the ROM Path to your tables folder

3) Set the ROM Extension to VPT

4) Set the List Generation Method to ROM Folder Only

5) Refresh the list

6) Warm up your fingers for those flippers

Sorry if that repeats whats been said, thought it may be of some help...

Cheers for the wrapper again HC  

[hulkster]

well everytime i try set the emulator executable to vp-launch2.exe, i push enter, then nothing happens...just deletes it.  did you actually get yours to work?

[Krynos]

I just tried miniwahs method --- works great. Same results as my method without the need to create 300+ bat files by hand lol.

- Krynos

[Minwah]

well everytime i try set the emulator executable to vp-launch2.exe, i push enter, then nothing happens...just deletes it.  did you actually get yours to work?

Did you include the full path (eg c:\pinball\tables\vp-launch2.exe)?  Sorry, I should have said that above...

[hulkster]

ha, im so dumb....but anyway....WORKS GREAT!  thanks so much.

[Krynos]

The only problem I am occasionally having with vpinball and mamewah is that sometimes (and there seems to be no reason I can see for it) the pinball screen when loaded is not the front window - the editor is kind of on top.

I can alt+tab to bring it to the front pretty easy as both alt and tab or mapped to my arcade controls. But it's not as slick as I would like.

- Krynos

[Minwah]

The only problem I am occasionally having with vpinball and mamewah is that sometimes (and there seems to be no reason I can see for it) the pinball screen when loaded is not the front window - the editor is kind of on top.

I can alt+tab to bring it to the front pretty easy as both alt and tab or mapped to my arcade controls. But it's not as slick as I would like.

- Krynos

I've had this once or twice too.  I think you will just have to live with it - Visual Pinball was not really designed to be launched in such a way

[)p(]

The only problem I am occasionally having with vpinball and mamewah is that sometimes (and there seems to be no reason I can see for it) the pinball screen when loaded is not the front window - the editor is kind of on top.

I can alt+tab to bring it to the front pretty easy as both alt and tab or mapped to my arcade controls. But it's not as slick as I would like.

- Krynos

I've had this once or twice too.  I think you will just have to live with it - Visual Pinball was not really designed to be launched in such a way

When I check for the exit key I also force the vp window in front if it's not...seems to work 100%...
Howard do you check for this also?

peter

[Krynos]

I can live with it

I'm just happy to have vpinball working without a windows style frontend (which pretty much all of the frontends out there for vpinball are)

So a bigh thank you to HC and Miniwah !!

- Krynos

[Howard_Casto]

The only problem I am occasionally having with vpinball and mamewah is that sometimes (and there seems to be no reason I can see for it) the pinball screen when loaded is not the front window - the editor is kind of on top.

I can alt+tab to bring it to the front pretty easy as both alt and tab or mapped to my arcade controls. But it's not as slick as I would like.

- Krynos

I've had this once or twice too.  I think you will just have to live with it - Visual Pinball was not really designed to be launched in such a way

When I check for the exit key I also force the vp window in front if it's not...seems to work 100%...
Howard do you check for this also?

peter

Yeah I check for it, but I only set it once or twice during the launching process.  Any more and it eats up the resources from pinmame.