Setting up Vpinball/Pinmame with Mala?

[LeedsFan]

I managed to get tables to start from Mala..... but not without the ugly popup screens that VPinball/Pinmame throw out. To get round this I believe I need a wrapper.

Well I just spent hours (literally) trying to get VPlauncher 5.1 to work with this. The installation instructions seemed really easy. It said to install in either my VPinball directory or my VPinball/Tables directory. I had to choose the latter or it wouldn't find any tables in the setup screen.

But the wrapper doesn't seem to work properly even directly from that screen. I get a "Winners don't use drugs" screen which is OK. But some tables still throw out the "Powered by PinMame" screen. I'm kinda thinking that the wrapper is working fine with VPinball but not Pinmame?

Can anyone suggest a wrapper and how to configure it in Mala to not show these popup screens? Also my default exit button on my panel only pauses VPinball instead of exiting it directly. Is there any way to change that in VPinball as well?

[Ummon]

Look up Tiger-Heli. He just posted on this recently.

[LeedsFan]

I managed to find that thread...... and boy does that look complicated! 

I did manage to get VPinball to exit back to Mala instead of just pausing. There is a setting in VPinmame Launcher Settings for checking if the Exit key has been pressed for every  x  milliseconds. Setting it to just 1 makes it exit back to Mala. The popup still appears on screen for a second but the wrapper catches it quick and sends me back to Mala.

I think I will live with how it is for now. I can access tables from Mala and get back to Mala easily. Sure I get the Pinmame popups on loading etc. but it is functional now.

[dungbeetle46]

download the following files
unzip vpinmame into your pinball folder where vpinball.exe is

unzip vpinmamereg anywhere and double click and add to registry this will stop all the nag screens

and use the hotkeys in MaLa to exit with escape

http://www.filefactory.com/file/ahbgggf/n/VPinMAME_rar
http://www.filefactory.com/file/ahbd27g/n/vpinmamereg_rar

[LeedsFan]

download the following files
unzip vpinmame into your pinball folder where vpinball.exe is

unzip vpinmamereg anywhere and double click and add to registry this will stop all the nag screens

and use the hotkeys in MaLa to exit with escape

http://www.filefactory.com/file/ahbd268/n/VPinMAME_rar
http://www.filefactory.com/file/ahbd27g/n/vpinmamereg_rar

I appreciate your help.   

Unfortunately I'm having problems with the first of those two links. I can't seem to unzip it. I keep getting a CRC error saying that the file is corrupted or something. The second one (vpinmamereg) was fine though.

[dungbeetle46]

I have fixed the link, it works now

[Ummon]

Hahn, I was about to post the same. Now no corrupted file. However, all the screens still show. AND, doing that registry thing set the vpinmame paths back to default ?? ??

[LeedsFan]

I have fixed the link, it works now

The link itself was fine. It's the downloaded file I'm having problems with. I can't unzip it. I'm still getting the same "CRC integrity check failed" error message. Corrputed archive or something. Is anyone else able to unzip that first file?

[dungbeetle46]

Hahn, I was about to post the same. However, all the screens still show. AND, doing that registry thing set the vpinmame paths back to default ?? ??

the only screen that will show is preparing table, make sure you unzip vpinmame.dll into your pinball folder and replace the existing vpinmame.dll with this new one.

The registry one tells your computer you have already answered the question that pops up the first time you play a table


click the new link in my post it is working
http://www.filefactory.com/file/ahbgggf/n/VPinMAME_rar

[LeedsFan]

OK I tried again. The registry thing worked and I no longer get that "first time ROM" thing. But I still get those PinMame splash screens and the loading table screen. Is this correct? I can live with it for now but in a cab this kind of thing spoils the look.

Oh and thanks again for putting those files up. The help really is appreciated. 

[dungbeetle46]

did you replace vpinmame.dll with the new vpinmame.dll

[Ummon]

Okay, it works now. Still see the table loading window, but it's still miles better than it was. No splash screen, and the table seems to load faster.  Point of note: you have to put the dll in your vpinmame folder, as that is where the old dll is.

Also, cos I can't find it anywhere, how do you do the hotkey thing?

And do you know anything about this?

AND, doing that registry thing set the vpinmame paths back to default...how come?

[dungbeetle46]

it probably set it back to default because that is what they are set to on mine and I made the reg entry from my own setup

[Ummon]

Ohhh. That makes sense. In any case, thank you.

[dungbeetle46]

Also, cos I can't find it anywhere, how do you do the hotkey thing?

[/quote]
I just checked and I actually use closemul for vpinball, use the following but change to the path of your pinball, place closemul.exe in the same folder as vpinball.exe

C:\Pinball\Closemul.exe VPinball.exe

[Ummon]

And what is the overall difference?

[Ummon]

I've been having some issues with this all of a sudden. It started with a table not displaying the score board at all, and some weird graphics artifacts in a part of the playfield.

To rectify the score board part, I had to un- and re-install vpinmame. The score board showed, but the graphics artifacts remained. Not a big deal, cos they aren't really in the way of everything.

However, after this, on exit, I started getting weird behavior of pinmame stopping but the table not exiting to the MaLa.

After un- and re-installing a couple more times, what happened then was that VP couldn't see the roms. The paths were fine. Re-un-install vpinmame and click yes to 'delete all vpinmame registry entries', and vpinmame would see the roms, and load.

So apparently that registry thing is now getting in the way. Not the biggest deal, cos, how often am I doing a complete vpinmame install that it doesn't remember the table's been played? But the table not exiting to MaLa, though seemingly less frequent, is still an issue. I have to stop the process (VP) for it to return.