Visual Pinball X – Top Scores (hiscore) Viewer 2.0.0

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.

New v2.0  Now viewable in BigBox (Requires LaunchBox/BigBox v13.19 or newer)

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

• LaunchBox/BigBox v13.19 (or newer)
• This plugin downloaded and setup (see Setting up the plugin below).
  • PINemHi v3.6.3 (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).
• The game needs to point to a valid Visual Pinball table (i.e. file extension .vpx) This is required 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. Copy the VPXHiScores folder (from inside the zip) into your \LaunchBox\Plugins\ folder
2. (new install) rename New_pinemhi.ini to pinemhi.ini  (see below if Updating)
3. Edit the pinemhi.ini file (\LaunchBox\Plugins\VPXhiScores\PINemHi\pinemhi.ini)
   • Under [paths] (11th 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 27), type in your PINemHi Leaderboard name and code. (see Top 10 Scores below)
5. Save and Close pinemhi.ini

Updating to v2.0 (if updating from a previous version of this plugin)
The pinemhi.ini file has new options since the one originally included with this plugin.
I have renamed it to New_pinemhi.ini so it doesn't overwrite your old settings

After copying the files into the plugins' folder

• Navigate to the \VPXhiScores\PINemHi\ folder
• Open pinemhi.ini
• Open/Edit New_pinemhi.ini
• Copy from your original pinemhi.ini
  • under [paths]
    • the path to your VP \nvram\ folder
  • under [user]
    • your 'name' and 'code'
• Paste (or just type) these into New_pinemhi.ini
• Also adjust any other settings you may have changed.  i.e. [keys]
  • Note: under [keys] is a new feature "send_button".  This allows you to submit your score without exiting the table.
• After saving and closing New_pinemhi.ini, rename your original pinemhi.ini file (just in case.  i.e. OLDpinemhi.ini).
• Then rename New_pinemhi.ini to pinemhi.ini

 

Using the plugin

LaunchBox

1. Start LaunchBox.
2. Right click on one of your VPX tables and select Visual Pinball Table HiScores
3. Select View Table High Scores
4. (see below for Starting/Stopping pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe)

BigBox

1. Start BigBox.
2. Go to the Game Details for one of your VPX tables and select VPX HiScores
3. (see below for Starting/Stopping pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe)

Navigating the window in BigBox:

Use Left Joy Up/Down or DPad Up/Down to scroll… you guessed it…  Up/Down.
Use DPad Left/Right to switch between the score types.
Use your BigBox assigned Back button to close the window.
Right Joy will move the window.

 

Plugin Updates (new v2.0)

If an update for the plugin is available, the right-click menu will start with (U)  i.e.  (U) Visual Pinball Table HiScores
(LaunchBox only) When viewing high scores, click the information/support icon and click the Update Available button to take you to the plugins download page.

 

 

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 searches the table for the name of the ROM that it uses.  It will then search VPMAlias.txt to check if it has a ROM alias. 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.

(v2.0) The plugin now searches the tables file directly for the ROM name. No need to extract the .vbs file.  Power users: If you use an extracted/modified .vbs and change the cGameName = to a different ROM, be sure to change (at least that part) in the table itself.

 

 

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 6 different hotkeys.  Change them as necessary. Controller buttons are also supported.
  • under [keys] is a new feature "send_button".  Setting and using this allows you to submit your score without exiting the table.
• Run “pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe”.

Other IMPORTANT notes: 

As a final note...
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)

 

 

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:
 

(In BigBox, in the Game Details screen, you’ll see either "Start PINemHi Monitor" or "Stop PINemHi Monitor")

 

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” (default).  This is a nice indicator that the ROM Monitor is running and that your Personal Top Score will be saved.  Alternately, you can set on_at_start=0 in pinemhi.ini to disable the popup.

 

 

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!!