Visual Pinball X – Top Scores (hiscore) Viewer 1.2.0

View the Top Scores for your Visual Pinball X Tables (LaunchBox only)

This plugin uses DNA Disturber’s PINemHi app to read a tables top scores that are stored in the nvram files created by VPinMAME.  PINemHi currently it supports 425 roms.

(Oct. 8, 2021 Updated to v1.1.  See change log for details)

Instead of scrolling through these (in game)

See this (in LaunchBox)

If you’ve signed up on the PINemHi Leaderboard site, this plugin will also let you view your Personal Top 10 Scores (these scores are tracked separately from the Tables’ top scores) as well as the Best Top 10 Scores on the Leaderboard.  Signing up is free and you only need to provide a username.  No email address, proof of citizenship nor vaccinations required.  (See Top 10 Scores below)

Requirements

• This plugin downloaded and setup (see Setting up the plugin below).
  • PINemHi v3.3.1 (included with the plugin download)
• The emulator the table uses needs to point to “VPinballX.exe”.  This is needed to get the rom info for the table(s).

Optional Requirements

• Sign up for PINemHi Leaderboards. (see Top 10 Scores below)

Setting up the plugin

1. Download and unblock the zip file. (right click the file, select properties and check the Unblock check box and click OK)
2. Copy the VPXHiScores folder (from inside the zip) into your \LaunchBox\Plugins\ folder
3. Edit the pinemhi.ini file (\LaunchBox\Plugins\VPXhiScores\PINemHi\pinemhi.ini)
   • Under [paths] (10th line down), edit the path to the Visual Pinball (VP) “nvram” folder located inside your Visual Pinball installation.  (example)
     • VP=D:\Emulators\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\nvram\
   • The path MUST end with a slash!!
4. (optional) Under [user] (line 25), type in your PINemHi Leaderboard name and code. (see Top 10 Scores below)
5. Save and Close pinemhi.ini

Using the plugin

1. Start LaunchBox.
2. Right click on one of your VPX tables and select View VPX Table HiScores. (see What to expect below)
3. Click anywhere on the popup window and drag to move it.
4. Click a button at the top of the window to view the different Top Scores. (see Top 10 Scores below)
5. Click the red “X” to close.

How it works
To get the top scores for a table, we 1st need to know which VPinMAME rom it’s using.  To get this, the plugin uses VPinballX.exe to extract the table’s script.  It then searches the script for the name of the rom that table uses.  The rom name is then passed to pinemhi.exe which extracts the top scores from the nvram file associated with the rom.

What to expect
The 1st time you run the plugin for a given table, you will see the Visual Pinball editor window appear, then close. This is where it extracts the tables’ script. The script gets saved to the same folder as the VPX table, using the exact same name as the table but with a .vbs file extension.  Depending on the table, the .vbs file will be somewhere between 20 KB and 150 KB in size.

The next time you go to view that tables’ top scores, the plugin will see the .vbs file and not extract it [again].  So you won’t see the VPX editor window unless you delete/move the tables’ .vbs file.

Top 10 Scores
To be able to view your Personal Top 10 and Best Top 10 scores, you need to sign up at http://pinemhi.com/hiscores.php.  This is where you’ll get your name and code to add to “pinemhi.ini “. (See note #4 under Setting up the plugin [above])

You will also need to have PINemHi’s Rom Monitor (“pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe”) running.  This is a tiny executable that runs in the background and detects when a VPX table is loaded and then keeps track of your Personal top scores as well as downloads the Best Top 10 scores for that table. 

Please read through “PINemHi LeaderBoard installation and config.txt” located in the plugin folder.

• (\LaunchBox\Plugins\VPXhiScores\PINemHi\ PINemHi LeaderBoard installation and config.txt)

Some main points in the documentation (for use with this plugin):

• Setup your Visual Pinball (VP) path and user (name) and code.
• **Keys** Make note of which shortcut keys do which action. There are 5 different hotkeys.  Change them as necessary. Controller buttons are also supported.
• Run “pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe”.

Other IMPORTANT notes: ****

• “…set the pinemhi_rom_monitor file to always execute with administrator rights.” 
• “The pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe was made with AHK (AutoHotkey).
  • Microsoft Defender will frequently call AHK executables to be a virus/trojan 
  • This is a false positive. Feel free to test it with other anti-virus programs
  • There is an option in Microsoft Defender to allow the program to still be used (make an exception for that file)”

****For me, setting the Rom Monitor to run as Admin created issues.  As in it would not start.  I get the message “The requested operation requires elevation”.

The fix (what worked for me):

• Follow step #1 in Setting up the plugin.  Specifically, unblock the zip file before extracting. 
• Do not set pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe to “Run this program as an Administrator”.

With this, I would still get the UAC prompt when trying to run it from Windows Explorer.  However, when starting it from within LaunchBox. (See Starting/Stopping pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe below) it ran just fine.

Results may vary. This is what happened on both my main PC and on my cab. There’s a good chance both computers are slightly wonky, and that indeed you DO need to run the Rom Manager with admin rights.  So if one way doesn’t work, try the other.

Starting/Stopping pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe
You can toggle the Rom Monitor On/Off from the Tools menu.  Depending on its state, you’ll see this:
 
Or this:
 

When you launch a Table with PINemHi Rom Monitor running, you’ll get a popup after the table loads showing your Top 10 Scores. Press “L” on your keyboard to have it go away (unless you changed “key=L” in the pinemhi.ini file).  This is a nice indicator that the Rom Monitor is running and that your Personal Top Score will be saved.

PINemHi Leaderboard

Along with Personal Top Scores, PINemHi Leaderboard has some other cool features not directly accessible through this plugin like daily, weekly and 5-minute challenges. (These are accessible using the shortcut keys mentioned above.) It tracks Player 1 scores [aka Personal Top 10 Scores] as well as Special Scores (i.e. 20 loops [Back To the Future] or 50 martians killed [Attack From Mars]).  You can add up to 9 friends and view each other’s top scores.  There are also a number of Badges that can be earned on various tables.

Main Site:                       http://www.pinemhi.com/
Leaderboard:                 http://pinemhi.com/hiscores.php
VPForums discussion:  https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=44580

Special thanks to DNA Disturber for creating PINemHi for the Visual Pinball community and allowing permission to use it here, making this plugin possible!!