ItchyRobot

This dude is putting out some cool looking pinball instruction cards. http://www.pinballcards.com/. I cropped them (.PNG) to only show the rules, so i could quickly bring them up during the BigBox pause screen ('Game Controls' pause theme). Here is a video of them in action... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9SU9aCSTAM

@JoeViking245 making it -60000 worked. All is perfect now @ed20910 I use a single button Pause... I was actaully having issues trying to use a 2-button combo for BigBox pause. It was hit and miss when it would work, so I reverted back to a single button and have had no issues since. From what I understand, VPX does not have a true pause. I just wait until I gutter ball, or get a hold with the flipper... then hit pause.

I like your perseverance. And it paid off !!! I just tried about 10 tables and it worked great for all of them but "The Flintstones". But that one is a known long loader - it must have a bunch of code or graphics compared to the other tables. Thanks for taking so much time figuring this out. Hopefully it is something you will use in your build too.

I did not the first time... just made two beeps, then the normal pinmame splash screen. Then it worked the second time without me changing anything. So, I think the splash screen timing depends on the PC load... maybe it had things running in the background or something... who knows. Now I just need to play with the times a bit, like you said, to find a happy medium. If that doesn't work, then it's back to, god forbid, pressing the button at the splash screen! ?

@JoeViking245 That worked. I hear two beeps now, two different tones. Though, I have a feeling this will not work since each table loads at different times due to how complex the design is. It will probably have to be individual timings for each table. That could be a lot of work figuring out the perfect timings.

I don't think the script is being run at all when I open a table. Also, I do not have the full version of autohotkey installed... only what came with Lanchbox. I should be updated to the latest official build of Launchbox, by the way (non-beta). I think I'm just going to click the damn button myself Thanks for joining me in this wild goose chase. ? I least I learned my Autohotkey does not work. Should I report this as a bug?

do i need to set the path the autohotkey.exe path somewhere? Or is that assumed since it came with the Launchbox installation?

nothing =( #NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases. SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability. SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory. SoundBeep,1000,1000 Done = 0 SetTimer, WaitedTooLong, -15000 While (!Done) { WinWait Preparing Table SoundBeep,,1000 Sleep, 9000 Send {s} Exit } WaitedTooLong: Exit

Bam! I got one long beep... 2 secs or so

No beep. But I can here a quick low volume hum then thud ... meaning, I can hear the speaker make a slight sound like it is activated then shuts down.

@JoeViking245 Still no beeps. Yeah, I browsed to the .ahk file. I do not trust my ability to type what I read ? For shits and giggles, I double clicked the autohotkey.exe and got this error... if that even matters. I am installed on the Z drive, the error says C

I just import the entire rom sets. Then I do some YouTube searches for "best of". And start adding games to my favorites list for each platform. These favorites will show up at the top of the game list, basically acting like a filter so you dont have to scroll through everything (I use a text view, no clear logos - this will add a star/asterix in front of the games that are shown at te top of the game list). The way I look at it is if I have enough storage space, I might as well add them. No telling when I will hear of a new game to try, then I can just do a search of my library and add it to the Favorites list.

I assume you meant, edit application, since I already have it made.

@JoeViking245 No beep =( Here are my paths

@JoeViking245 Thanks for the detailed instructions... I see AutoHotKey.exe in the following folder... Z:\LaunchBox\AutoHotkey I assume I do not need to install it; but rather Launchbox/BigBox uses it to activate the script. Correct me if I am wrong. It looks like I have a "Z:\LaunchBox\AutoHotkey" folder, so I used that path instead of what you showed.... you had a "Thirdparty" folder ahead of the "AutoHotKey" folder. Mine does not. My path = Z:\LaunchBox\AutoHotkey\MyAHKs\VPX.ahk I also edited the .ahk file to send "s" instead of space, due to my arcade button setup. With these changes, I could not get it to work. My pimame splash screen does not show up until about 9-10 seconds (timed with stopwatch); so I tried to edit the scrip accordingly to but did not have any luck. Any ideas on what to try? #NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases. SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability. SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory. Done = 0 SetTimer, WaitedTooLong, -15000 While (!Done) { WinWait Preparing Table Sleep, 9000 Send {s} Exit } WaitedTooLong: Exit

Sorry, I am still a noob with these more advanced features in Launchbox/BigBox. I assume I just need to copy/paste that code into a .txt file then rename it VPX with an extension of .ahk. Though I don't know what you mean by ... "set it to run as an Additional App for your tables". Can you further explain this in layman's terms. Thanks!

@JoeViking245 How would I simulate clicking a 's' on my keyboard when the PinMAME window pops up? I have found that if I press the key I have bound for Start in VPX, it will make the PinMAME window disappear and load the table faster.

Same here. Looks great in MAME

I ended up setting I ended up taking your advice a bit. In RetroArch I set up my 'Xbox back button' as my hot key. Then set the right thumb stick button to activate the Menu, when used with the Xbox back button. I was even able to mimic the same key sequences in MAME to make the emulator's settings menu come up. The way RetroArch organizes all those settings is a bit weird to say the least, Especially when coming from MAME. But it makes sense now. Especially once I realized there are two Menu setting under the Hotkeys section; one towards the top of the Hotkeys settings page, and one at the bottom. Here is an example of the buttons I use in RetroArch (image is using the Game Controls BigBox pause them) ... https://drive.google.com/open?id=1W9EZoInwTzyGzuYG1AV-TwH2fnyN_tVC

I recommend this too. It helps keep all your files organized and separate instead of mixing them in the rom folders.

No solution since it the guide button (#10) can not be deleted from the "Hotkey Binds > Menu toggle" default like the other inputs allow. I have got used to just dealing with the extra Retroarch menu though. Annoying though, since it breaks up the clean flow of the rest of my setup. Which button is #7, the right analog stick button? If so, does that not interfere with any of your games? I can think of any conflicts, but imagine it could.

Are any of you guys having pause issues using a two button combination to bring up the BigBox pause theme screen? I was, and would get inconsistent pause actions ... sometime it worked as intended bringing up the BigBox pause theme, other times it would just pause the screen (MAME pause) and not bring up the BigBox pause window. Once I switched to just using one button to enact the BigBox pause theme, it has now been working correctly consistently. In BigBox settings, I used to have 'Keyboard Automation' checked to be turned on. And used my player two start button (keyboard # 2) + my Coin1 (keyboard # 5) button to enact the BigBox pause menu. Once I turned 'Keyboard Automation' off, and set my pause to be one button (keyboard letter C) under the 'Keyboard Mapping' options section, all my pause inconsistencies went away ... for now

Here is an example of me using a BigBox pause theme to bring up an image showing the layout of my Arcade controls (custom) and Gamepad controls (Xbox). From the pause screen I can select "View Manual" to bring up a PDF I created showing all the characters moves. Notice that both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat each have their own custom controller layout images. I am slowly starting the process of creating all the control layouts and move lists/guides for my favorite games. For Visual Pinball X (desktop mode) I use the "View Manuals" selection to show the instruction cards. BigBox Pause Theme: "Game Controls (Beta) 1.0.0b", by Retro808. BigBox Theme: "Colorful (BETA)", by viking.