tutorial LaunchBox Configuration for Pinball FX2 on Steam

silvusvalentine · January 20, 2017

Description: Tables for Pinball FX2 on Steam are treated similarly to DLC for other games. Therefore, the tables do not have their own launchers in Steam, and are chosen after starting up the main game. However, the following will describe how you can enter each Pinball FX2 table as an individual game in LaunchBox.

Note: You may need to get a code from Zen Studios to enable command line support with Pinball FX2. There is a link within the game that will send you to the appropriate form, or you can go to it directly, here: https://blog.zenstudios.com/?page_id=5981 I don't know if this step is necessary, as I had already received a code before I imported the tables to LaunchBox. So check there first if the command line arguments aren't working.

Steps:

Optional: Navigate to Tools -> Manage Platforms from the LaunchBox menu bar and click the + Add... button to add a new platform.
Optional: Enter the following metadata:
- Title: Pinball FX2
- Release Date: 05/10/2013
- Developer: Zen Studios
- Category: Pinball or Arcade
- Images: (See Image 1 for Clear Logo)
Optional: Click the ✔ Ok button and you now have a platform for your Pinball FX2 tables.

Note: The previous steps may not be necessary, depending on how you organize your platforms. The Pinball FX2 tables can be added to the platform of your choice — this is just the setup that worked well for me.

Navigate to Game -> Add from the LaunchBox menu bar, or press Ctrl+N.
Enter any necessary metadata in the Details section (Image 2). Since these titles do not exist as separate games, they are not currently in the LaunchBox Games DB, so I'm unaware of an easy way to scrape metadata at the moment.
Beneath the Details section, within the Launcher tab, click the Browse... button next to the Application Path textbox.

Note: If you see ROM File (Emulation is enabled) instead of Application Path, you will need to navigate to the Emulation tab, and uncheck Use an emulator to play this game.

Navigate to your Steam install folder, select the file named Steam.exe, and click the Open button.
The Application Path setting should now be set to something like:
- ..\Steam\Steam.exe
Next, in the Application Command-Line Parameters textbox, enter the following text:
- -applaunch 226980 "TableName.pxp"
Replace TableName in the sample text above with the name of the table you are adding (See below for the list of table names and command line parameters).
This parameter will tell Steam to launch the app with the id of 226980, which happens to be Pinball FX2, and it will pass the name of the table we want to run to Pinball FX2.
Click the ✔ Ok button and you should now see the game added to your selected platform.

Note: Since we are passing the name of the table file to Pinball FX2 through the command line, and not the table file itself, we cannot use the usual Tools -> Import -> ROM Files... method.

Images:

Table Names and Command-Line Parameters:

Spoiler

Table Name Command-Line Parameters

Alien Isolation -applaunch 226980 "Alien_Isolation.pxp"

Alien vs. Predator -applaunch 226980 "Alien_vs_Predator.pxp"

Aliens -applaunch 226980 "Aliens.pxp"

American Dad! -applaunch 226980 "AmericanDad.pxp"

Archer -applaunch 226980 "Archer.pxp"

Bethesda: Doom -applaunch 226980 "BETHESDA_Doom.pxp"

Bethesda: Fallout -applaunch 226980 "BETHESDA_Fallout.pxp"

Bethesda: Skyrim -applaunch 226980 "BETHESDA_Skyrim.pxp"

Biolab -applaunch 226980 "BioLab.pxp"

Bob's Burgers -applaunch 226980 "BobsBurgers.pxp"

Castle Storm -applaunch 226980 "CastleStorm.pxp"

Earth Defense -applaunch 226980 "EarthDefense.pxp"

El Dorado -applaunch 226980 "Eldorado.pxp"

Epic Quest -applaunch 226980 "Looter.pxp"

Excalibur -applaunch 226980 "Excalibur.pxp"

Family Guy -applaunch 226980 "FamilyGuy.pxp"

Mars -applaunch 226980 "Mars.pxp"

Marvel: Ant-Man -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_Ant-Man.pxp"

Marvel: Avengers: Age of Ultron -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_Age_of_Ultron.pxp"

Marvel: Blade -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_Blade.pxp"

Marvel: Captain America -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_CaptainAmerica.pxp"

Marvel: Civil War -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_CivilWar.pxp"

Marvel: Deadpool -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_Deadpool.pxp"

Marvel: Doctor Strange -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_DrStrange.pxp"

Marvel: Fantastic Four -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_FantasticFour.pxp"

Marvel: Fear Itself -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_FearItSelf.pxp"

Marvel: Ghost Rider -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_GhostRider.pxp"

Marvel: Guardians of the Galaxy -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_Guardians.pxp"

Marvel: Iron Man -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_IronMan.pxp"

Marvel: Moon Knight -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_MoonKnight.pxp"

Marvel: Spider-Man -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_SpiderMan.pxp"

Marvel: The Avengers -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_Avengers.pxp"

Marvel: The Infinity Gauntlet -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_InfinityGauntlet.pxp"

Marvel: Thor -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_Thor.pxp"

Marvel: Venom -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_Venom.pxp"

Marvel: Wolverine -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_Wolverine.pxp"

Marvel: Women of Power: A-Force -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_MsMarvel.pxp"

Marvel: Women of Power: Champions -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_WOP_TheNextGeneration.pxp"

Marvel: World War Hulk -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_WWH.pxp"

Marvel: X-Men -applaunch 226980 "MARVEL_XMen.pxp"

Ms. Splosion Man -applaunch 226980 "SplosionMan.pxp"

Paranormal -applaunch 226980 "Paranormal.pxp"

Pasha -applaunch 226980 "Pasha.pxp"

Plants vs. Zombies -applaunch 226980 "PlantsVsZombies.pxp"

Portal -applaunch 226980 "Portal.pxp"

Rome -applaunch 226980 "Rome.pxp"

Secrets of the Deep -applaunch 226980 "Atlantis.pxp"

Shaman -applaunch 226980 "Shaman.pxp"

Sorcerer's Lair -applaunch 226980 "Citadel.pxp"

South Park: Butters' Very Own Pinball Game -applaunch 226980 "SouthPark2.pxp"

South Park: Super Sweet Pinball -applaunch 226980 "SouthPark1.pxp"

Star Wars: Boba Fett -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Boba_Fett.pxp"

Star Wars: Darth Vader -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Darth_Vader.pxp"

Star Wars: Droids -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Droids.pxp"

Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Episode_4.pxp"

Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Episode_5.pxp"

Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Episode_6.pxp"

Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Episode_7.pxp"

Star Wars: Han Solo -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Han_Solo.pxp"

Star Wars: Masters of the Force -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Light_VS_Dark.pxp"

Star Wars: Might of the First Order -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_MFO.pxp"

Star Wars: Rebels -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_Rebels.pxp"

Star Wars: Starfighter Assault -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_SFA.pxp"

Star Wars: The Clone Wars -applaunch 226980 "STARWARS_CloneWars.pxp"

Super League: Arsenal F.C. -applaunch 226980 "Football_Arsenal.pxp"

Super League: Barcelona F.C. -applaunch 226980 "Football_Barcelona.pxp"

Super League: Juventus F.C. -applaunch 226980 "Football_Juventus.pxp"

Super League: Liverpool F.C. -applaunch 226980 "Football_Liverpool.pxp"

Super League: Milan F.C. -applaunch 226980 "Football_Milan.pxp"

Super League: Real Madrid F.C. -applaunch 226980 "Football_RealMadrid.pxp"

Super League: Roma F.C. -applaunch 226980 "Football_Roma.pxp"

Super League: Zen Studios F.C. -applaunch 226980 "Football.pxp"

Tesla -applaunch 226980 "Tesla.pxp"

The Walking Dead -applaunch 226980 "TheWalkingDead.pxp"

V12 -applaunch 226980 "V12.pxp"

Wild West Rampage -applaunch 226980 "Western.pxp"

Note: The names of the tables can be found by navigating to your Pinball FX2 directory within your Steam directory. It will be at the following location:

Steam -> SteamApps -> common -> Pinball FX2 -> data_steam

Ignore any of the files that are in lower case (game_cfg.pxp, gui.pxp, etc.), as well as the PTSData.dat file, as these are not table files.

Edited January 20, 2017 by silvusvalentine
Fixed formatting.

Lordmonkus · January 20, 2017

Very nice tutorial, I added a link to this in the Guides & Tutorials sticky post found here:

If you make any more send me a mail with a link and I will add it as well.

silvusvalentine · January 20, 2017

Thanks @lordmonkus, I will do that.

Bower84 · May 6, 2017

When this is set up which mine is now, when starting a table is it supposed to just take you to pinball FX2 table select menu but the cursor will already be on the table you just selected? Thats what mine is doing and is that correct, its not supposed to start the table and skip the selection menu etc is it? I know you can do this with future pinball but with fx2 being more of an actual game i didnt think this was possible? If so whats the command line and is there one to exit out of the whole game with the esc key like you can with the other platforms /emulators? Thanks a lot

silvusvalentine · May 6, 2017

2 hours ago, Bower84 said:

When this is set up which mine is now, when starting a table is it supposed to just take you to pinball FX2 table select menu but the cursor will already be on the table you just selected? Thats what mine is doing and is that correct, its not supposed to start the table and skip the selection menu etc is it? I know you can do this with future pinball but with fx2 being more of an actual game i didnt think this was possible? If so whats the command line and is there one to exit out of the whole game with the esc key like you can with the other platforms /emulators? Thanks a lot

You may have to request a code for the Cabinet Support feature, which allows the game to accept command line parameters. There's a button on the main menu that will launch a web page where you enter your information, and I've also linked to it in the original tutorial. Someone from Zen Studios should then contact you, and they may ask you to send them a picture of your setup. They just want to verify that your setup isn't for public use. Once you enter the code, you should be able to launch straight into the game you choose from within LaunchBox.

Edited May 7, 2017 by silvusvalentine

JaysArcade · June 5, 2017

On 5/6/2017 at 3:26 PM, silvusvalentine said:

You may have to request a code for the Cabinet Support feature, which allows the game to accept command line parameters. There's a button on the main menu that will launch a web page where you enter your information, and I've also linked to it in the original tutorial. Someone from Zen Studios should then contact you, and they may ask you to send them a picture of your setup. They just want to verify that your setup isn't for public use. Once you enter the code, you should be able to launch straight into the game you choose from within LaunchBox.

I can verify this is what I did when I set mine up a while back. Nice tutorial. Good to see other fellow pinball enthusiasts on here.

Bower84 · June 6, 2017

Yeah sorry i never replied until now. I did what the original reply said and contacted them for a code. If anyone else is interested Zen have a form you can fill out on their website which they then send you a code was quite fast too! Dont have to email them etc just fill out the form on their site. Cabinet mode is tons better!! =)

FlightRisk · March 4, 2021

Old thread and I am actually trying to make this work with Rocket Launcher through LB, but I get an error that says a steam client must be running. I have no knowledge of steam and only have it because of some other games I bought and play them through steam. I have a separate emulator folder and steam is there too. It was missing the steam_api.dll file. I didn't know what version to use, so I picked a 1.x version and tried to install that in System32. That didn't work, so I stuck it in the emulator/PinballFX2 folder with the .ini file and that error went away, but then I get a full screen that says a steam client must be running. Can I have the latest steam on this machine at the same time as I have this CP78 version? What am I missing?

silvusvalentine · March 4, 2021

@FlightRisk I'm not too familiar with Rocket Launcher or CP78. In my setup, Pinball FX2 is installed on Steam, and launched from LaunchBox. It would require Steam to be running in the background on your machine. If Steam isn't working, you might try a fresh install. You can install it wherever you'd like, just change the game's Application Path in LaunchBox to point to Steam.exe. Hope that helps.

FlightRisk · March 4, 2021

Thanks. After 2 days, looks like I figured it out. The first issue was Windows Defender quarantined the file. I had thought I had virus checking off. I made sure to exclude that folder. I then downloaded the wrong version apparently of the steam_api.dll. I put version 7.5 (according to the properties) and that found it. It looks like my regular steam installs in program files and this is a separate steam that I have under "arcade/steam". Then there is "arcade/emulators/PinballFX 2" folder where the PinballFX2.exe and dll's need to be. Thanks!

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tutorial LaunchBox Configuration for Pinball FX2 on Steam

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