Update:
-From 0.89 onwards I recommend to first try the special internal vp launcher.
-fe3darcade.exe -vpdxfix, this commandline option can be used by the internal vp launcher to set directdraw to use software acceleration only and after running the vp game it will turn full hardware accelerartion back on. Works the same as the batch file Scapino made available on the vp forums. Seems vp needs this with some newer graphic drivers or it will slowdown a lot. This is not a fe issue but a vp issue.
-When the playfield window does not show up in front after launching a table you can from 0.92.4 forwards set the vpforcetablefocus property in the general cfg menu or directly in cfg\fe.cfg to true.
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Ok I get this question a lot and now I finally got a new nividia driver that lets me play vp again here is how it works for me...
-First install visual pinball and make sure you can run visual pinball normally.
-Be sure not to not maximize the visual pinball editor window.
-Vp gamelists can be created from folder contents in the gamelist section of the listmanager in the fe. You can optioanlly point to a vplauncher.dat file to add some interesting data to the list automatically. Depending on the launch method you choose below you will have to include the .vpt extension or not and choose as emulator type app or pinball.
There are three ways of launching vp games with the fe. I list them in the order I think most people will prefer.
1. the frontends internal vp launcher hides the launching of vp and checks for a quit key to close down vp. (updated for 0.89 and later)
emupath|c:\pinball\visual pinball\|
gamepath|c:\pinball\visual pinball\tables\|
workingdir|c:\pinball\visual pinball\|
shortnamepath||
mame|VPinball.exe/VPinball.exe|
emuoption|-play -|
noquotes|false|
renderfix|false|
gamelist entry:
|Attack From Mars|Attack From Mars|1995|Midway Mfg. Co., a subsibiary of WMS Industries, Inc.|afm_113||VPinMame||Yes|pinball|pinball||||||An Unstoppable Earnings Invasion!/ Mayhem, Madness and Destruction Were Never so Much Fun!/ The Attack is on.get it or get left behind.|||Brian Eddy|Doug Watson||Lyman F. Sheats Jr.|Dan Forden|Dan Forden|Robert C. Friesl|Ian Boffin|M41|||||||||
field 2 name woth or without .vpt
field 10 emulator to use, in our example cfg\emulators\fepinball.cfg so use pinball
field 11 emulator type, use pinball this will tell the fe to use the internal vp launcher
in fe.cfg:
kquitvp|27|#keys|key to quit visual pinball, 27 is the key "escape" ...because the frontend has to check for the key being pressed I can not set the frontend in wait mode while vp is running as for the other emulators, to keep the loss low there is a latency...|
vpwait|1000|#editable|larger numbers give more time to vp but decrease the response to the quit key...|
2. using the vp wrapper from Lazarus hides launching of vp and waits for a key to close vp.
-Get the latest vp wrapper from http://www.oscarcontrols.com/lazarus
-Put vp-launch2.exe in the folder with your tables.
-the wrapper is by default setup to quit vp with the escape key.
in your pinball emulator cfg file, i use cfg\emulators\fepinball.cfg
-paths
emupath|c:\pinball\visual~1\tables\| --note I use shortnames. somehow I get an error when pinmame loads under xp when using long names with spaces. I am still using the old version of pinmame.
gamepath||
workingdir|c:\pinball\visual~1\tables\|
shortnamepath||
-commandline options
mame|vp-launch2.exe/vp-launch2.exe||
emuoption||
noquotes|true|--seems like the wrapper needs this
renderfix|false| --set this true if you drop back into software mode after returning to the fe (yeah this overides the section in fe.cfg, undocumented feature
)
gamelist entry:
|Attack From Mars|Attack From Mars.vpt|1995|Midway Mfg. Co., a subsibiary of WMS Industries, Inc.|afm_113||VPinMame||Yes|pinball|app||||||An Unstoppable Earnings Invasion!/ Mayhem, Madness and Destruction Were Never so Much Fun!/ The Attack is on.get it or get left behind.|||Brian Eddy|Doug Watson||Lyman F. Sheats Jr.|Dan Forden|Dan Forden|Robert C. Friesl|Ian Boffin|M41|||||||||
field 2 name including .vpt
field 10 emulator to use, in our example cfg\emulators\fepinball.cfg so use pinball
field 11 emulator type, use app
3. the frontends regular launcher you will see vp launch and you can not quit vp with one key.
emupath|c:\pinball\visual~1\|
gamepath|c:\pinball\visual~1\tables\|
workingdir|c:\pinball\visual~1\|
shortnamepath||
mame|VPinball.exe/VPinball.exe|
emuoption|-play -|
noquotes|false|
renderfix|false|
gamelist entry:
|Attack From Mars|Attack From Mars.vpt|1995|Midway Mfg. Co., a subsibiary of WMS Industries, Inc.|afm_113||VPinMame||Yes|pinball|app||||||An Unstoppable Earnings Invasion!/ Mayhem, Madness and Destruction Were Never so Much Fun!/ The Attack is on.get it or get left behind.|||Brian Eddy|Doug Watson||Lyman F. Sheats Jr.|Dan Forden|Dan Forden|Robert C. Friesl|Ian Boffin|M41|||||||||
field 2 name including .vpt
field 10 emulator to use, in our example cfg\emulators\fepinball.cfg so use pinball
field 11 emulator type, use app
kquitvp|80|#keys|key to quit visual pinball, 80 is the key "p" ...because the frontend has to check for the key being pressed I can not set the frontend in wait mode while vp is running as for the other emulators, to keep the loss low there is a latency...|
vpwait|1000|#editable|larger numbers give more time to vp but decrease the response to the quit key...|
hope this helps
peter
