JoeViking245

View the Top Scores for your Visual Pinball X Tables 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 Big Box (Requires LaunchBox/Big Box 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/Big Box 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 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 Copy the VPXHiScores folder (from inside the zip) into your \LaunchBox\Plugins\ folder (new install) rename New_pinemhi.ini to pinemhi.ini (existing installs) skip to Updating Existing Installs Edit the pinemhi.ini file (\LaunchBox\Plugins\VPXhiScores\PINemHi\pinemhi.ini) Under [paths], edit the path to the Visual Pinball (VP) “nvram” folder located inside your Visual Pinball installation. i.e. VP=D:\Emulators\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\nvram\ Also edit the path to the "user" folder i.e. USER=D:\Emulators\Visual Pinball\user\ The path MUST end with a slash!! (optional) Under [user], type in your PINemHi Leaderboard name and code. (see Top 10 Scores below) Save and Close pinemhi.ini Updating Existing Installs (if updating from a previous version of this plugin) The latest PINemHi app is included in the download. pinemhi.ini and has been 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 Visual Pinball \nvram\ folder the path to your Visual Pinball \user\ 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 feature called "send_button". This allows you to submit your score without needing to exit 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 Start LaunchBox. Right click on one of your VPX tables and select Visual Pinball Table HiScores Select View Table High Scores (see below for Starting/Stopping pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe) Big Box Start Big Box. Go to the Game Details for one of your VPX tables and select VPX HiScores (see below for Starting/Stopping pinemhi_rom_monitor.exe) Navigating the window in Big Box: 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 Big Box 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. The plugin searches the tables file directly for the ROM name. 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) and user (USER) 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 feature called "send_button". Setting and using this allows you to submit your score without needing to exit 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 Big Box, 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) to hide it. 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 ROM-less Tables (new v2.1.0) [Some (most?)] ROM-less table are supported to show local high scores. Thanks goes to @Sbaby (and a little bit of AI ) for doing most the work towards implementing this feature. To see online top scores, your tables will need to be modified. See PINemHi's Main Site and click ROM-LESS CODE SNIPPETS for details. Special thanks to DNA Disturber for creating PINemHi for the Visual Pinball community and allowing permission to use it here, making this plugin possible!!

Import games for use with Demul (Sega * Emulator). Purpose: This purpose of this plugin is to import only the MAME machines that can be emulated in Demul. A sort of MAME machine ‘filtered’ importer to supplement LaunchBox’s Import Tool. Why: LaunchBox can already import these machines (games) for you using the built-in Tools - Import - MAME Arcade Full Set. All you need to do is un-check the skip games unplayable in MAME checkbox. The concern is this results in over 6000 additional entries imported (even more if you uncheck any other boxes and include clones). And as in most cases, more is NOT always better. Alternatively you can also simply drag-and-drop the roms into LaunchBox. Which is great when you already have them sorted out. Included Systems: The list of machines included for this plugin was generated by running the command “demule.exe –listroms” using Demul v0.7 (Apr 28, 2018). The systems included are Naomi, Naomi 2, Atomiswave, Hikaru, Gaelco, Cave3rd (CV1000) and System SP. (Sega Dreamcast, though emulated, is not included in the list. [It’s not a MAME machine]) Naomi and Naomi 2 are each broken into 2 separate systems: Cartridge System (rom only) and GDROM (chd). What this plugin will do: Let you select some or all of the games in the selected system to import. Select games from just 1 or multiple systems. (though may only be a good idea for Naomi/Naomi 2 Cartridge System (and GDROM System, respectively) because of the different command lines needed between systems**) Import selected games into an existing Platform or create a new one. When creating a new Platform, assigns “Scrape as” to “Arcade”. (useful when downloading metadata and media) Attempt to automatically detect/select your Demul emulator. (But you can select any of your existing emulators.) (optional) Copy roms to a new location for the games you’re importing. (optional) Only import games that have a corresponding rom in your selected Source folder. (i.e. If you selected 20 games and you only have the roms for 5 of those, only those 5 games will get imported. What this plugin won’t do: Add Demul as a new emulator. Make Demul work for you. Filter parent and clone roms. Add the required command line to the emulator (**see below). ‘Bulk’ import into separate Platforms. Add metadata and media to the imported games. If copying roms (optional), only the games main rom file is copied. It will not look for nor copy any required BIOS, Device or chd files. Installing the plugin: After downloading the zip file, ‘Unblock’ the zip file. (Right click, Properties, and click Unblock) - Now copy the "DemulImporter" folder from the zip file into your ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\ folder. i.e. D:\LaunchBox\Plugins\DemulImporter\ Using the plugin: Click Tools and select Demul game Importer Select a system This will populate a list (in the middle) of all the games for that system. Select games By default, none of the games will be checked. As you start ‘checking’ games, they will get added to the list of games to be imported (on the right). Click again to remove them from the import list. Click Check All to add all games for the selected system to the import list. You guessed it, click Check None to uncheck all the boxes, removing them from the import list. At this point, you can select a different system and continue to add more games to the import list. Not recommended because of the different command line parameters needed for the different systems. (it'll make a mess when you go to ad them) Once you’re satisfies with your import list, click Next. Select a platform to import the games into You can select an existing platform from the dropdown list or click Add New Platform to create a new one. Select an emulator The plugin will automatically try to detect your Demul emulator from the ones you have in LaunchBox. If it isn’t already selected, look for it in the dropdown list. Select the folder where your roms are located (optional) If you wish to have your roms copied to a new location, type in (or better yet, Browse to) the folder [Source Folder] where they’re located. Select the folder where you want to tell LaunchBox the roms are located This is required to set each games Application Path. It’s also handy if you [optionally] choose to have your roms copied. Setup is done. It’s time to import. You have 2 options: Select Copy AND Import if you wish to have your roms copied to a new location and then the games imported into LaunchBox. Select Import Only to just import the games into LaunchBox. If you have a curated set of roms for the system you’re importing for, you can check Import games that only exist in the ROMs Source Folder. This is useful if, for example, you have a broken out set of roms just for Demul that consists of only the games you like. When selecting the games to import, select a system (i.e. Naomi Cartridge System) and then click Check All. You will need to add the Source Folder for where these rom are located (even if you don’t plan to copy them). During the final Import process, the plugin compares the list of games to be imported to the roms located in the Source Folder. If a game has a matching rom, it will be imported. Otherwise it’ll be skipped. Of course, if your “broken out set of roms just for Demul” are also already broken down by System, save yourself time and just drag-and-drop them into LaunchBox. When everything’s Complete, click Exit. NOTES: **Default Command-Line Parameters System Command Line Parameter Naomi -run=naomi -rom= System SP -run=naomi -rom= Gaelco -run=gaelco -rom= Atomiswave -run=awave -rom= Hikaru -run=hikaru -rom= Cave3rd -run=cave3rd -rom= Once import is completed, simply select the newly imported games and click Tools, Download Metadata and Media.... Information on getting these systems to run in Demul can be found here: https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/30622-sega-naomi-demul-in-launchbox/ Disclaimer: I personally only have a few of these games on my cab. So I’m not very familiar with the systems mentioned here. Also, I have no idea if Demul is even “the best” emulator for these systems. I just knew Demul had a definitive list of games it can emulate, that list was easy to get and probably isn’t going to change (it hasn’t since 2018). Which means I shouldn’t have to update the plugin (except for maybe fixing a programmer error here or there ).