Important! Visual Pinball Launcher 6.1 (bugfix) released!

[Howard_Casto]

We found a bug in the launcher I released a few weeks ago.  Apparently the in-game menu completely errors out if certain command line paths are sent. 

The issue is already fixed, so just go to my website (click my footer) to download.  I apologize for any inconvenience. 

[Howard_Casto]

BAH!  VB didn't compile the exe properly!  The zip is fixed, re-download if you've already gotten it today.

[Gray_Area]

I get the error 'Visual Pinball exe not found". The default in the box is "VPinball912.exe", wherein I changed it to "Vinpinball.exe", pressed save, and tried to load a table via the list at the bottom, and it says 'can't find'. I exit and come back to the 'Global/Debug' page, and it shows it wasn't saved. I had to change it in the ini.

Tables now load (and much quicker, that's nice), but I see the blue VP loading screen for half a second before the vp-launch Loading screen appears. Exit is quick and clean, especially when used with my front end.

Behavior was the same with 6.0 and 6.1 .

I wanted to change the loading screen, and put a different one in there, naming it 'loading.jpg' and re-naming and then re-moving the original one. Somehow, vp-launch is still using the original one...  Also, I saw no option for it in ini or cfg, though being able to select the image from the ui would be nicer.


Note to users: make sure your 'anti-stretch' aspect ratio in vp-launch is set for your monitor. Also set your FE options appropriately - for example, in Mala one can remove the exe part of the command line options.

[Howard_Casto]

That setting shouldn't even be in there, sorry.  The launcher will attempt an auto-detect for the exe.  I did try vinpinball.exe though and it launched just fine.  Do you have a bunch of exes in your visual pinball folder?  Ditch em!  Make sure the exe name of visual pinball has a lower value alphabetically than that of the vp launcher.  It should work just fine as long as you don't have any extra exes in your folder. 


I've hidden the loading screens the very best way possible.  They are hidden at the registry level... in other words, the window is moved via visual pinball's own settings.  It doesn't show up at all on my machine.  If it does on your machine, I'm sorry, but there isn't anything I can really do about it.  I'm already using the most reliable method for hiding the load screens.  If you are referring to the DMD (pinmame) load screens then the launcher isn't designed to hide those.  There is a special, cabinet-friendly build of visual pinmame over the vpfourms that doesn't have any splash screens.  That's what I use and it works great!

Notice the different loading screens in the folder (loading169, ect)?  You have to change the appropriate one.  It did this so I could supply multiple loading screens for different aspect ratios.  If you remove the others it defaults to loading.jpg though. 

Hope that helps and thanks for letting me know about the exe issue!

I'm not currently working on emulation-related projects for the next several weeks, but I'll release a bugfix build when I get time. 

[Gray_Area]

Ohh. I had Closemul might've been the problem, but taking that out, and using a fresh vp_launch config folder didn't fix that. It still will not see VPinball.exe, nor save it when I type it in the box. -shrugs-  Hope that works better for noobs.

I've never noticed a difference with the 'splash-free' VPM. I thought maybe that was making a problem for vp_launch, but going back to VPM 2.3 I still see the Visual Pinbal loading screen (says Randy etce.....).

Still, all considered, your loader is WAY better.


One last thing: besides re-naming the vp_launch loading image, what do I need for it to be used? - ie: file type, image size, etc.....

[Howard_Casto]

It just needs to be jpg. 

Size and aspect isn't important, it just stretches to the screen (for speed's sake) this is why I allow different images for each aspect.

[Gray_Area]

It just needs to be jpg. 

Size and aspect isn't important, it just stretches to the screen (for speed's sake) this is why I allow different images for each aspect.

That's what I originally thought, but that isn't what's happened, nor happening.