Howard: Visual Pinball Wrapper Questions...

[bdp]

Howard,

Was taking a peek at your Visual Pinball wrapper.  I'm currently still using EmuWizard just until the Lazarus bugs stabilize and I have a good while to sit down and configure it.  So I'm considering taking some wrappers to use outside of Lazarus.

I noticed that you created a DAT file -- Or does one exist for Visual Pinball that's regularly updated?  If so, anyone know where I can get it?

Second, does your wrapper support zipped table files (VPTs) or do I need to keep those uncompressed?  I know that loading tables through visual pinball directly still requires them uncompressed but I have seen tables renamed using some sort of standard naming convention somewhere, and they were zipped.  So maybe there IS a way to launch them compressed.

Finally, if this DAT file exists, where is it kept?  Visual Pinball tables are released so often it's tough to keep it updated, but it would be nice to have something to run through Clrmame or otherwise to see what tables I'm missing.

As always Howard, thanks for what you're doing for the emulation community.

BDP

[Howard_Casto]

I didn't create a dat file, I got my dat file from datadragon.  It's part of the vplauncher front-end and can't be downloaded seperately.  It isn't regularly updated but you can make a new dat file easily using the vplauncher's edit feature as it gets internally stored table data.

Btw, this is all irrelevant for non-lazarus use as you still need to get the table data into the front-end.... All the wrappers do is launch it, nothing else.  You still need to have all of the tables loaded into emuwizard's gamelists.    

If you can't do it normally with vp then you can't do it with the vp wrapper... it simply passes the table data to the visual pinball.exe so if it doesn't support the launching of zipped files then the wrapper won't do it either.  It's much better to unzip your tables anyway as all of the good vp front-ends don't support zips.  

I direct you to the manual on my page under the visual pinball section for any further questions.  


As for bugs.... other than the screensaver there aren't any relevant, known bugs in lazarus.  With all due respect to the users of lazarus, all of the "bugs" that have been reported so far are due to user error.  There have been a few noteable exceptions though, but those are fixed now.  

If you don't follow the instructions (or are confused and don't understand them)   or delete something your not supposed to you will get an error.  It will always be this way as I'm not going to waste my time putting in error handleing for errors that will go away with a proper configuration.  

I'm not being mean at this point I just wanted to let everyone know that for public record.  I've saw a few posts about the "bugginess" of lazarus and I've been a bit confused.  Apart from the screensaver issues there are NO known bugs in lazarus.  

Sorry I didn't mean to rant there it's just lazarus is extremely stable if you set it up properly. I take offense to it being called buggy.  

[bdp]

Sorry Howard,

I certainly didn't mean to not RTFM or imply that Lazarus is buggy.  I just haven't had adequate time to sit down and set it up properly, my own fault.  With the amount of ROMs I'm trying to put in there, it's a daunting task!

Keep us posted as to when the addon screensaver module feature is available (unless it's already in there).  I really dug the idea of the integrated screensaver, just because I liked all the features that could be remapped to my contron panel buttons -- Hopefully I can find a screensaver with MP3 capability that can do just that.

Thanks again.

BDP

[Howard_Casto]

No don't take my response personally.  It wasn't directed to you just everyone in general.  I just don't want the misconception that this fe is buggy (like rd certainly was) when it's not.  I would hate for someone to not try it over hearing that it's unstable when it's not.  And for some reason I keep hearing it's buggy.  It's not it's just not user friendly, if you set something up wrong instead of telling you what is wrong it just halts or crashes.

The screensaver will be done shortly... I was actually working on it today.  The good news for machines with lower resources is this will take the wrangled memory down to about 5 megs from the rather large 20+ megs it takes now.  Hopefully that will make a lot of people happy.  

[Dave Dribin]

No don't take my response personally.  It wasn't directed to you just everyone in general.  I just don't want the misconception that this fe is buggy (like rd certainly was) when it's not.  I would hate for someone to not try it over hearing that it's unstable when it's not.  And for some reason I keep hearing it's buggy.  It's not it's just not user friendly, if you set something up wrong instead of telling you what is wrong it just halts or crashes.

Hey Howard, I wouldn't get too bent out of shape over this.  You'll always get the full gammut of responses from "This FE is the BEST" to "This FE is the buggiest, suckiest FE out there."  Just look at the full range of comments when people describe Linux or Windows.  I've just learned to deal with it as there are no absolutes in this world.  That fact of the matter is that users do "weird" things, things that you never tried on your own machine.  For example, I've never had a single problem running Game Launcher.  That's because I understand how it works, from top to bottom, and would never do anything that pisses it off.  My users find all sorts of ways to "break" GL.  And they're usually doing things that I know work.  Sometimes I can reproduce the problem on my end, sometimes I can't.  And if I can't reproduce it, fat chance of it getting "fixed".  Often times its a configuration issue.  Tech support is probably *the* toughest part of software development, as is shown by huge tech support departments of large software companies.  "What do you mean my computer doesn't have a cup holder?  What else would that ejectable tray be for?"

BTW, I consider non-user friendly-ness to be a bug.  Don't take that personally as GL is considered by some to be *very* non-user friendly.  That's ok.  I like the feedback, anyway.  Maybe one day I'll retire early and fix all these "bugs" and rough edges.

Anyway, sorry for the rant.  Just letting you know that I know how you feel.  Try not to get too bent out of shape about it.

-Dave

[x-wing]

Well said, Dave.  I was a long time GL user and even though I am not using GL anymore on my cab, I am still subscribed to your mailing list in attempt to keep current with GL issues.  If anyone were to subscribe to the GL mailing list prior to setting up GL, you would probably assume that nobody could make it work.  
The error log file is definitely a handy tool, that's for sure.

I am currently using Lazarus and I didn't have any problems at all setting it up and getting it to work.  I personally think that the posted "bugs" with Lazarus is surprisingly small considering how universal it is, as well as being a completely new re-write of a previous front end.

I think that Howard has definitely put a stake in the ground and shown what can be done with a totally universal and configurable FE like Lazarus.  Great job, Howard, and don't let error reports get you down.  Think of it this way... for every "bug" report you get, there may be 10 to a 100 success stories that you don't even know about.  

[x-wing]

Well said, Dave.  I was a long time GL user and even though I am not using GL anymore on my cab, I am still subscribed to your mailing list in attempt to keep current with GL issues.  If anyone were to subscribe to the GL mailing list prior to setting up GL, you would probably assume that nobody could make it work.  
The error log file is definitely a handy tool, that's for sure.

I am currently using Lazarus and I didn't have any problems at all setting it up and getting it to work.  I personally think that the posted "bugs" with Lazarus is surprisingly small considering how universal it is, as well as being a completely new re-write of a previous front end.

I think that Howard has definitely put a stake in the ground and shown what can be done with a totally universal and configurable FE like Lazarus.  Great job, Howard, and don't let error reports get you down.  Think of it this way... for every "bug" report you get, there may be 10 to a 100 success stories that you don't even know about.  

[Howard_Casto]

Well said, Dave.  I was a long time GL user and even though I am not using GL anymore on my cab, I am still subscribed to your mailing list in attempt to keep current with GL issues.  If anyone were to subscribe to the GL mailing list prior to setting up GL, you would probably assume that nobody could make it work.  
The error log file is definitely a handy tool, that's for sure.

I am currently using Lazarus and I didn't have any problems at all setting it up and getting it to work.  I personally think that the posted "bugs" with Lazarus is surprisingly small considering how universal it is, as well as being a completely new re-write of a previous front end.

I think that Howard has definitely put a stake in the ground and shown what can be done with a totally universal and configurable FE like Lazarus.  Great job, Howard, and don't let error reports get you down.  Think of it this way... for every "bug" report you get, there may be 10 to a 100 success stories that you don't even know about.  

Actually I found gamelauncher to be one of the easiest fe's to setup.  It can be really picky about things, but so is mine, so I can't talk there.  I hope everyone realizes that before I made rd gamelauncher was all I used.  It was the one one out there that wasn't designed around just mame.

Actually regarding users, they're opinions don't bother me at all, in fact I encourage them to tell everyone truthfully what they think about it.  I just like to correct mis-conceptions about it.  It's the same as if someone said it could do "thing a" but actually it could only do "thing b" it's not my way of getting defensive, it's just my way of spreading knowledge about the fe as I feel it's sort of my responsibility.  

Anyway this is silly to keep talking about this...

Oh and for our original poster......  I have a new version of the vp wrapper I'm working on specifically for users with NT-based systems.  It will take the vpinmame led display and make it translucent.... so you can double the size of it and lay it right over the playfield, similar to how m$ treated the cue ball wizard in their pinball arcade collection.   It will make for a much improved field of view on some games (baby pac, baywatch, batman forever)  once it's finished.

Other wrappers are on the way too including a modified command line wrapper that support the individual launching of the tables in pinball arcade.

I'm getting stressed with the coding though, so it may be a while before I have anything ready.  I've got to take it slow.