DMD Extensions

A toolbox for digital pinball and dot matrix displays.

This project aims to connect digital pinball games with the physical DMDs that are widespread in the community. It also comes with pretty monitor output, supports frame-by-frame colorization, and can even stream over the network.

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• Features
  • Supported Games
  • Supported Displays
  • High-Resolution DMD for Monitors
  • Segment Display Rendering
  • Frame Colorization
  • Network Streaming
  • Scaling
• Install Instructions
• Usage
  • Test
  • Pinball FX2
  • Pinball FX3
  • Pinball FX
  • The Pinball Arcade
  • Pro Pinball Ultra
  • Visual PinMAME
  • Future Pinball
  • Media
  • Pinup Player
  • PinballX
  • Frame Dumping
• Configuration
  • Output Configuration
  • Command Line Configuration
  • ZeDMD
  • Colorization
• Breaking Changes
  • v2.2.2
  • v2.1.1
  • v1.8.0
• Troubleshooting
  • Flickering with PinDMDv3
  • Still flickering?
  • DmdDevice.ini Ignored?
  • Slow rendering on certain ROMs with VPM?
  • Weird positioning or no DMD visible at all?
  • Unable to load DLL 'serum.dll'
  • Backglass covers segment displays
• Reporting Bugs
• Manual Installation
• Game Names
  • x64 vs x86
• Build Instructions
• Credits
• License

Features

Supported Games

DMD Extensions adds real DMD support to the following games:

• Pinball FX2 through frame grabbing from screen
• Pinball FX3 by reading the DMD texture data from memory
• Pinball FX by officially supporting DmdDevice.dll (thanks, Zen!)
• The Pinball Arcade by Farsight, through grabbing the DMD texture from memory
• Pro Pinball Timeshock through their message queue
• Visual PinMAME through DmdDevice.dll
• Future Pinball through using Macro's FP Intercept that sends DMD frames through a pipe.

The command line tool can also display image files on the DMD device and render frames to bitmap files. Many features like this are described in the command line options below, so have a close look at those as well.

Supported Displays

Currently supported hardware displays:

• PinDMD v3, full RGB support
• PinDMD v2, 4 bit (16 shades) support
• PinDMD v1, 2 bit (4 shades) support
• PIN2DMD, full RGB support
• Pixelcade, full RGB support
• ZeDMD / PinDMD v3.1*, full RGB support

* The display from VirtuaPin marketed as PinDMD v3.1 is a ZeDMD under the hood.

High-Resolution DMD for Monitors

DMD Extensions includes a complex shader with awesome effects for monitor users. For more info, find the documentation here.

Segment Display Rendering

DMD Extensions supports high-resolution rendering of segmented alpha-numeric displays:

Documentation how to enable and customize this feature can be found here.

Frame Colorization

DMD Extensions includes support for Serum colorizations, as well as the VNI/PAL/PAC format, originally used on PIN2DMD devices.

Colorization is enabled for most games, including Pinball FX(3), The Pinball Arcade, and Visual PinMAME.

Network Streaming

DMD Extensions can also receive frames from the network and output them to any device. Likewise, it can stream frames from any source over the network. Documentation of this feature can be found here.

Additionally, DMD Extensions can act as a web server where any number of clients can connect to, and see the DMD in real time in the web browser.

Scaling

Most of the time, your DMD will match the resolution of the game, which is 128x32. There are however two cases where scaling comes into play.

1. The game has a different resolution than 128x32. If the resolution is higher, the frames will be scaled down, using scaling algorithm defined by the resize option (stretch, fill, and fit). If the resolution is lower, the frames will be centered on the DMD, with black borders around it.
2. You're using a high-resolution DMD, like a PIN2DMD XL or ZeDMD HD, running at 256x64. In this case, frames can be be scaled up, using either a "doubler" or "scale2x" algorithm. Note that your physical display must be at least double the size of the source frame size.

The above mainly applies to hardware displays, which are limited to a fixed resolution. However, it's also possible to upscale frames to the virtual DMD. In order to do that, set scalermode so to either doubler or scale2x.

Install Instructions

Download the installer and run it. A few notes:

• The installer will overwrite any existing dmddevice.dll in your VPM folder if you choose to install it (existing INI files are untouched).
• If you're on Windows x64, you probably want to install both 32 and 64-bit versions. They can live happily next to each other.
• The reason for installing both versions is that your VPM is probably 32-bit, so you'll need the 32-bit DmdDevice.dll and if you're using dmdext.exe with the 64-bit version of Pro Pinball, it will only work with the 64-bit version.
• However, if you don't have Pro Pinball, just 32-bit will do fine, and if you don't use VPM then just 64-bit will do fine as well. And if you're on a 32-bit Windows, then just take the 32-bit version.
• The installer will add the install folder of dmdext.exe to the PATH environment variable, but only if the platform is the same:
  • DMD Extensions (64-bit) on Windows x64 is added to PATH
  • DMD Extensions (32-bit) on Windows 32-bit is added to PATH
  • All other combinations aren't added to PATH
• The installer will set the DMDDEVICE_CONFIG environment variable to the location of your DmdDevice.ini. That means from wherever you launch DmdDevice.dll (or run dmdext.exe with --use-ini), the same DmdDevice.ini will be used.
• If you re-install and your VPM installation folder changed since the last installation, a new DmdDevice.ini will be copied to the new location (if it doesn't exist), and the DMDDEVICE_CONFIG environment variable will be updated accordingly.
• During installation, when a feature is deactivated, that means the installer couldn't find the host program. For VPM that means that you haven't registered VPinMAME.dll. For Pro Pinball it means it's not installed via Steam, and you'll need to select its installation folder manually.

If you don't trust the installer and want to do it manually, see below.

Usage

Test

1. Open a command prompt ([Windows]+[R], cmd, [enter])
2. Type dmdext test -d auto [enter]

You should see a test image on your DMD as well as on a virtual DMD.

Pinball FX2

1. Enable cabinet options in Pinball FX2
2. Resize the DMD to:
   • Width: 520
   • Height: 136
3. Move the DMD to somewhere hidden like off-screen or behind the playfield (usually at 0/0).
4. Open a command prompt ([Windows]+[R], cmd, [enter])
5. Type dmdext mirror --source=pinballfx2 --no-virtual [enter] (or pinballfx3 for FX3)
6. Start Pinball FX2/3

For further tweaking, see options below.

Pinball FX3

The DMD from Pinball FX3 is pulled directly from the memory.

1. Open a command line prompt ([Windows], type cmd, [enter])
2. Type dmdext mirror --source=pinballfx3 --no-virtual [enter]
3. Start Pinball FX3 and play a game.

It doesn't matter whether Pinball FX3 is started before or after dmdext, and it works with or without cabinet mode.

Note that while the current memory grabber code should also work for future Pinball FX3 versions, we obviously can't guarantee it. If a new version breaks dmdext, you should still be able to fall back to the legacy screen grabber that is used by Pinball FX2 by using the --fx3-legacy flag.

Pinball FX

Since mid-June 2023, Pinball FX officially supports DMD Extensions through DmdDevice.dll. Note however that Pinball FX runs on 64 bit, so it's technically DmdDevice64.dll, which comes with the 64-bit version of DMD Extensions.

If you don't have Visual PinMAME installed, you'll have to set the DMDDEVICE_CONFIG environment variable to point to DmdDevice.ini, given you keep DmdDevice64.dll in the same directory.

To do that:

1. Press the [Windows] key, type "env" and select Edit the system environment variables.
2. Click Environment Variables....
3. Under System variables, click New....
4. Enter DMDDEVICE_CONFIG as variable name and the full path to DmdDevice.ini as variable value.

If you have done that, or you do have VPM installed, simply enable the external DMD in Pinball FX:

1. Start Pinball FX
2. Open the settings menu (gears icon at the top right)
3. Choose Cabinet Support
4. Choose Dotmatrix Window
5. Under Dotmatrix Window, select External DMD Device.

For customizing games in DmdDevice.ini, see this list of IDs for all supported games.

The Pinball Arcade

For TPA we're pulling frames off the DMD texture from TPA's memory.

1. Open a command-line prompt ([Windows], type cmd, [enter])
2. Type dmdext mirror --source=pinballarcade --no-virtual [enter]
3. Start the DX11 version of The Pinball Arcade.
4. Select and start a game (only then it starts mirroring, during attract mode it doesn't, even though TPA does display the DMD).

Currently re-running dmdext while TPA is running doesn't work and will be addressed soon.

Also note that currently only 128x32 DMD games are supported, that means no EM games neither Frankenstein which has a different resolution.

If you happen switch tables often and the last DMD frame gets stuck on your DMD when changing to an EM game, you can use the --idle-after option to clear the screen.

Pro Pinball Ultra

In version 1.2.1, Barnstorm Games added support for external hardware through a message queue. To get it running, do the following:

1. Make sure you have dmdext.exe in your PATH
2. Copy ProPinballSlave.bat to the Pro Pinball installation folder (usually at %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Steam\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Pro Pinball Ultra)
3. Add the following command line parameters when launching ProPinball.exe: m3 dProPinballSlave

Note that this currently works only with the 64-bit version of Pro Pinball. 32 bit binaries will be provided with a later release. If you want to change the options (e.g. show the virtual DMD), edit ProPinballSlave.bat and adopt accordingly.

Visual PinMAME

VPM introduced the possibility of delegating DMD rendering to an external DLL. The main motivation is being able to ship a single build instead of having to release multiple binaries for multiple DMDs.

Be sure to use at least PinMAME v3.4. You can download the latest version here.

Future Pinball

Copy Future Pinball/OpenGL32.dll to your Future Pinball folder, i.e. where Future Pinball.exe is located. Now, you can send frames to your DMD by running:

dmdext mirror -s futurepinball

Note that:

• The -q toggle works here, so instead of killing the process you could make it exit automatically when the table closes.
• With -g <name>, you can set the game's name, which will, when used along --use-ini, read the game-specific settings.

For more details check out TerryRed's guide here.

Media

DMD Extensions can also play videos and images. Here are a few examples:

dmdext play -f "ACDC (Stern 2012).gif"
dmdext play -f "Tron Legacy (Stern 2011).png"

Pinup Player

DMD Extensions can send unprocessed frames and scene events detected by supported colorizers to Pinup Player, which is then used to trigger videos.

To enable event triggering, you'll need a recent version of dmddevicePUP.dll and dmddevicePUP64.dll. You can download the latest version here.

Then, enable the Pinup Player output in DmdDevice.ini:

[pinup]
enabled = true

PinballX

DMD Extensions can be used in PinballX, the frontend for virtual pinball cabinets. In order to do so, copy DmdDevice64.dll to the PinballX's installation folder, and delete or rename PinDMD.dll. Then, activate the DMD output through the Settings app, and you should be good to go.

Frame Dumping

DMD Extensions can also dump frames to disk. This is needed when colorizing a new game, since both the Serum as well as the Pin2Color editor use them as the basis for the colorization.

Visual PinMAME has a built-in frame dumper, which is enabled when the dmddump folder exists, and both Use external DMD and Show DMD Window are active for a ROM. However, this doesn't work for the DMD rendering of alphanumeric games.

Dmdext's frame dumping not only works for those games, but can also be used to dump frames from Pinball FX and all the other games where VPM isn't involved.

To enable it, update DmdDevice.ini:

[rawoutput]
enabled = true

For dumping frames through dmdext.exe, use the following command line:

dmdext mirror -s <source> --dump-frames

The frames will be dumped to the dmddump folder, which is located where PinMAME is installed. If PinMAME isn't found, a dmddump folder is created in the current working directory. Existing dump files are appended to.

Note however that the frame dumper needs a source that provides a game name. Tested sources are:

• VPX/VPM
• Pinball FX
• Pinball FX3
• The Pinball Arcade
• Pro Pinball Ultra (add --dump-frames to ProPinballSlave.bat)

Configuration

Since DmdDevice.dll is called by VPM, we can't pass any configuration parameters to it. Instead, we use DmdDevice.ini which must be located in the same folder as VPinMAME.dll or at the path where the DMDDEVICE_CONFIG environment variable is pointing to.

Note however that it's also possible to make dmdext.exe use the ini instead of command line parameters (using the --use-ini parameter).

Output Configuration

You can also tell dmdext.exe to read the output configuration from DmdDevice.ini instead of passing them as command line arguments. The options are described below.

The output are described by block below.

Command Line	DmdDevice.ini	Description
-r, --resize	[global] resize	How to downscale SEGA 192x64 or other high-resolution games to smaller displays. Can have three values: stretch - Just fill the available space and ignore the aspect ratio fill - Fill it up so the whole DMD is filled while keeping aspect ratio intact. Pixels will be cropped off. fit - Scale it so the whole image fits on the DMD while keeping aspect ratio intact. There will be white space (uh, more like black space).
--flip-x	[global] fliphorizontally	Flips the image horizontally (left/right)
--flip-y	[global] flipvertically	Flips the image vertically (top/down)
--colorize	[global] colorize	Enable or disable frame-by-frame colorization (inactive in VPX bundle)
--plugin	[global] plugin{n}.path[64]	Enable a third party plugin. See Plugin Configuration
--plugin-passthrough	[global] plugin{n}.passthrough	Enable the plugin to always receive frames. See Plugin Configuration
-d virtual --no-virtual	[virtualdmd] enabled	Shows a virtual DMD that renders on the computer screen somewhat nicely
--virtual-stay-on-top	[virtualdmd] stayontop	Virtual DMD stays on top of most other windows
n/a	[virtualdmd] ignorear	If true, allow free resizing of the virtual DMD, otherwise the aspect ratio is locked to the DMD's.
n/a	[virtualdmd] useregistry	If true, read the virtual DMD position from VPM's registry.
--virtual-position	[virtualdmd] left top width height	Position of the virtual DMD. Command line takes in all four in the shown order, where the last (height) is optional.
--virtual-dotsize	[virtualdmd] dotsize	Scale dot size. Use 0.8 for previous default setting.
-d pindmdv1	[pindmd1] enabled	Enables the 2-bit pinDMD display.
-d pindmdv2	[pindmd2] enabled	Enables the 4-bit pinDMD2 display.
-d pindmdv3	[pindmd3] enabled	Enables the RGB24 pinDMDv3 display.
--port	[pindmd3] port	COM port, e.g. COM3.
-d pin2dmd	[pin2dmd] enabled	Enables the RGB24 PIN2DMD display.
n/a	[pin2dmd] delay	Delay in milliseconds to wait after loading a palette.
-d zedmd	[zedmd] enabled	Enables the RGB24 ZeDMD display.
-d zedmdhd	[zedmdhd] enabled	Enables the RGB24 ZeDMD HD display.
-d zedmdwifi	[zedmdwifi] enabled	Enables the RGB24 ZeDMD WiFi display.
-d zedmdhdwifi	[zedmdhdwifi] enabled	Enables the RGB24 ZeDMD HD WiFi display.
--zedmd-debug	[zedmd] debug	Let any ZeDMD show its debug informations.
--zedmd-brightness	[zedmd] brightness	Change any ZeDMD brightness between 0 and 15.
--zedmd-rgborder	[zedmd] rgborder	Change any ZeDMD RGB order between 0 and 5.
--zedmd-scalergb24	[zedmd] scalergb24	Scale pure RGB24 content on ZeDMD HD. Default: true.
--zedmd-wifi-address	[zedmdwifi] wifi.address	Connect to ZeDMD (HD) WiFi using this IP address.
--zedmd-wifi-port	[zedmdwifi] wifi.port	Connect to ZeDMD (HD) WiFi using this port. Default: 3333.
n/a	[video] enabled	Enables creating an .avi video from the DMD frames.
n/a	[video] path	Path to folder or .avi file. If a folder is given, it will create a file named after the current game.
n/a	[browserstream] enabled	Enables streaming the DMD in real time to your browser in your LAN.
n/a	[browserstream] port	Port of the web server to listen on
--pinup	[pinup] enable	Enables output to PinUP.
--scaler-mode	[global] scalermode	Use to upscale all frames. Can have three values: none - No upscaling. doubler - Double all pixels. scale2x - Use Scale2x algorithm.
--scaler-mode	[global] vni.scalermode	Scaler mode for VNI/PAC colorizations. Note: This only applies to 256x64 colorized content files. Can have two scaling modes: doubler - Double all pixels. scale2x - Use Scale2x algorithm.
--skip-analytics	[global] skipanalytics	If true, Don't send anonymous usage statistics to the developer. More info here.

You can also override all options per game by using the game's name as section name and pre-fixing options with the name of the section (apart from [global] options, which aren't prefixed). For example if you have a PinDMD2 and don't want to use it for Baywatch which has a different resolution, you would create a section like this:

[baywatch]
pindmd2 enabled = false
virtualdmd enabled = true
virtualdmd left = 2500
virtualdmd top = 800
virtualdmd width = 1024
virtualdmd height = 256

This is also useful if you just want to fit the virtual DMD onto different backglasses which have slightly different positions.

Also note that dmdext can retrieve the DMD's position from VPM's registry setting. That means you can use VPM to position the DMD and dmdext will take the same setting for each game. This behavior can be enabled using the useregistry option.

Command Line Configuration

Input options only apply to dmdext.exe, because the DLL is called externally from VPM where no configuration is necessary (apart from enabling it in VPM).

The following parameters are valid for all of dmdext's commands:

Parameter	Description	Default
--use-ini	Path to DmdDevice.ini to use instead of command line options. If no path is provided, the DMDDEVICE_CONFIG environment variable is used as fallback. If just DmdDevice.ini is provided, dmdext will look for it in the current working directory.	none
-c, --color	Sets the color of a grayscale source that is rendered on an RGB destination.	ff3000
-q, --quit-when-done	Exit the program when finished, e.g. when Pinball FX2 doesn't receive any frames anymore.	false
--quit-after	Exit after n milliseconds. If set to -1, waits indefinitely or until source finishes when -q used.	-1
--no-clear	Don't clear screen when quitting.	false
-o, --output-to-file	If set, writes all frames as PNG bitmaps to the provided folder.

Note that all options of dmdext.exe are also available via command line:

dmdext --help
dmdext mirror --help
dmdext play --help
dmdext test --help

Mirror Command

The mirror command has the following additional parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
-s, --source	Required. The source you want to retrieve DMD data from. One of: [ pinballfx2, pinballfx3, pinballarcade, propinball, futurepinball, screen ].	n/a
-f, --fps	How many frames per second should be mirrored.	25
--idle-after	Wait for number of milliseconds until clearing the screen. Disable with 0.	0
--idle-play	Play this file while idleing instead of blank screen. Supported formats: JPG, PNG, GIF. Animated GIFs are supported.	none
--position	screen - Position and size of screen grabber source. Four values: <Left> <Top> <Right> <Bottom>.	0 0 128 32
--resize-to	screen - Resize captured screen to this size. Two values: .	128 32
--grid-spacing	screen - How much of the white space around the dot should be cut off (grid size is defined by --resize-to). 1 means same size as the dot, 0.5 half size, etc. 0 for disable.	0
--propinball-args	propinball - Arguments send from the Pro Pinball master process. Usually something like: ndmd w0_0_0_0_w m392. Will be set automatically when called through Pro Pinball.
--fx3-legacy	pinballfx3 - If set, don't use the memory grabber but the legacy screen grabber, like Pinball FX2.	false
--colorize	Enable or disable frame-by-frame colorization. Supported on pinballfx3 (memory grabber) and pinballarcade.	false

Play Command

The play command has the following additional parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
-f, --file	Path to the file to play. Currently supported file types: PNG, JPG, BIN (raw).	none

Test Command

The test command just outputs a single image. This allows you to test different modes and resolutions without having to start a game.

Parameter	Description	Default
--format	The frame format. One of rgb24, gray2, gray4, coloredgray2, coloredgray4, coloredgray6.	rgb24

Examples:

dmdext test
dmdext test --format gray2

ZeDMD

The ZeDMD library (zedmd.dll) is bundled with DmdDevice.dll and dmdext.exe. However, you can also replace this library with a newer version if you wish. To do that, download the latest DLL from here and place it alongside with DmdDevice.dll or dmdext.exe. Note that this might break compatibility, so check your log if ZeDMD suddenly stops working.

USB mode

This is the default mode for ZeDMD. You don't need to configure anything except setting enabled to true in DmdDevice.ini for [zedmd] or [zedmdhd]. BUit in case you have multiple devices or run into issues with the auto-detection and other USB devices attached, you can set a concrete COM port to use in DmdDevice.ini using port.

WiFi mode

Alternatively ZeDMD could be flashed with a firmware that provides a WiFi mode. In DmdDevice.ini there are special devices named [zedmdwifi] and [zedmdhdwifi] to use it.

To run the ZeDMD in WiFi mode it needs WiFi credentials to establish the connection to your local network. To configure these for the first time, ZeDMD opens it's own WiFi access point. You can connect to it using ZeDMD-WiFi as SSID and zedmd1234 as password. Then open a connection to zedmd-wifi.local in your browser and configure the device. ZeDMD will remain reachable under this name even it becomes part of your local network. Therefore, a MDNS service is running on ZeDMD. If you run into issues with that, you can directly connect to the IP address that is shown on top of the logo when ZeDMD gets powered. That IP address has to be added as wifi.address to DmdDevice.ini.
You can test with dmdext.exe test -d zedmdwifi --zedmd-wifi-address=x.x.x.x (replace x.x.x.x with the IP address shown on ZeDMD).

Warning

ZeDMD will store the WiFi credentials internally! So ensure to erase them using one of the processes described above before giving your ZeDMD to someone else!

Colorization

If you are a PC monitor user or have an RGB display (PinDMDv3, PIN2DMD, Pixelcade or ZeDMD), you can enable frame-by-frame colorization for games that are supported by the creators of the virtual pinball community. This means that the DMD will be rendered in color, with up to 64 colors per frame.

There are two natively supported formats: Serum and VNI/PAL/PAC (originally only available for PIN2DMD displays). Additionally, dmdext supports colorization plugins from third parties.

Colorization File Location

All formats keep their files in the altcolor folder, which is located in the same folder as VPM (usually Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\altcolor). In this folder, every game has its separate folder, which contains the colorization files.

Depending on the source, the game folders and colorization files are named differently:

• In VPM, the game folders are named after the ROM name (e.g. cp_16 for Champion Pub).
• Serum files can be named anything, but must have the .cRZ extension.
• VNI/PAL/PAC files can be named anything, but must have the .vni/.pal/.pac extension.
• In Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX3, the games have different names. Scroll down for a list of game names at the time of writing.

For example, a structure for Champion Pub for all games and all color formats, could look like this (note that if both a .cRZ and VNI/PAL/PAC files are present in the same game folder, the .cRZ file will be used):

altcolor
├── cp_16
│   ├── ChampionPub.cRZ
│   ├── pin2dmd.pal
│   └── pin2dmd.vni
├── ChampionPub
│   ├── ChampionPub.cRZ
│   ├── pin2dmd.pal
│   └── pin2dmd.vni
├── BALLY_Champion_Pub
│   ├── ChampionPub.cRZ
│   ├── pin2dmd.pal
│   ├── pin2dmd.vni
└── 121
    ├── ChampionPub.cRZ
    ├── pin2dmd.pal
    └── pin2dmd.vni

Not about Serum: The library that does Serum colorization (serum.dll) is bundled with DmdDevice.dll and dmdext.exe. However, you can also replace this library with a newer version if you wish. To do that, download the latest DLL from here and place it alongside with DmdDevice.dll or dmdext.exe. Note that this might break compatibility, so check your log if Serum suddenly stops working.

Plugin Configuration

Enabling colorization plugins is done through the plugin.path setting in DmdDevice.ini, or through the --plugin command line option in dmdext.exe. Additionally, you can specify the plugin.passthrough option, which will send frames to the plugin independently of the whether a colorization file is present or not. This is useful for frame dumping.

DmdDevice.ini example:

; load plugins
plugin.0.path = C:\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\pin2color.dll
plugin.0.path64 = C:\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\pin2color64.dll
plugin.0.passthrough = false

You can add up to 10 plugins. The first plugin which has a colorization file present or passthrough enabled will be used.

Command line example:

dmdext.exe mirror --source pinballfx3 --colorize --plugin "C:\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\pin2color.dll" --plugin-passthrough

Note that the --plugin parameter needs to point to a DLL with the correct bitness, i.e. 64-bit dmdext.exe would need the 64-bit version of the plugin.

Also note that without passthrough enabled, the plugin is disabled if no colorization file is present.

Usage

Depending on the source, enabling colorization is different:

• In VPM, enter setup, open the ROM's game options and enable Use external DMD (dll) as well as Colorize DMD.
• In Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX3, use the --colorize option when running dmdext.exe.

Colorizations in the VNI/PAL format or the plugin are able to emit selected frames at 256x64, which is twice the normal size. In this case, all frames will be rendered at this resolution. Frames that aren't provided at 256x64 will be upscaled. In the native VNI/PAL/PAC colorizer, you can choose which upscale algorithm to use.

• For the command line, use the --scaler-mode option. The default is double.
• In DmdDevice.ini, set the vni.scalermode option.

Breaking Changes

v2.2.2

• In DmdDevice.ini, the [zedmd] has been split into [zedmd], [zedmdhd], [zedmdwifi], [zedmdhdwifi].
• ZeDMD HD devices don't use their built-in scaler anymore when attached to DMD Extension. They now leverage the common scalermode setting.
• ZeDMD firmware versions before 3.6.0 aren't supported anymore.
• Removed --scale-to-hd in favor of --scaler-mode. Set scaler mode to none if you want to disable scaling.

v2.1.1

• In DmdDevice.ini, the [ZeDMD] has changed to [zedmd].
• ZeDMD firmware versions before 3.2.0 aren't supported anymore.

v1.8.0

• Data types in configuration files are now culture invariant. Meaning if you are running under a Windows UI Culture such as German which normally represents decimals with commas instead of periods you will need to change your configuration file (such as DMDDevice.ini) to use periods for decimal data. The most common example would be those users who are using dotsize setting in your DMDDevice.ini. This was done to standardize the format of numeric data accross different languages.
• Hardware DMDs aren't probed per default anymore, unless you specifically set the destination. For most people that means that you'll need to provide the -d option when running dmdext.exe.
• If you are a PinDMDv3 user and are using colored ROMs, you'll want to upgrade your firmware.

Troubleshooting

Flickering with PinDMDv3

Some users reported heavy flickering when running via PinballX. Seems that this is linked to the desktop settings. This seems to help:

• Go to My Computer
• Click on Performance Information and Tools on the bottom left
• Click on Adjust Visual Effects at the top left.
• When the Performance Window pops up, click on Adjust for Best Appearance. All the boxes should automatically get check marked.
• Click on Apply, and then OK to get out.

Thanks to xman72!

Still flickering?

Try boosting how fast dmdext grabs the frames. For example, for Pinball FX2, try:

dmdext mirror --source=pinballfx2 --no-virtual -q --fps 60

Default is 25, which seems too slow for some games.

Thanks smoke007 for the tip!

DmdDevice.ini Ignored?

DMD Extensions comes bundled in two versions: A library which is loaded by VPM called DmdDevice.dll, and an executable, dmdext.exe for all the other applications.

The executable ignores DmdDevice.ini because it's configured through command line options (that is, unless you specifically tell it to use a config file with the --use-ini option).

Slow rendering on certain ROMs with VPM?

Use VPM 3.1. If you can't wait there's a beta build here.

Thanks to djrobx for the fix an all others at #52 for reporting.

Weird positioning or no DMD visible at all?

When you override High DPI scaling in the host app (e.g. vpinballx.exe), dmdext is put into a different coordinate system, so your DmdDevice.ini's position settings are applied differently. This can lead to wrong positioning or complete off-screen rendering.

Thanks to outhere for the tip!

Unable to load DLL 'serum.dll'

This can happen if your system doesn't have the needed Visual C++ Redistributable installed. You can download it here.

Thanks Jewer76!

Backglass covers segment displays

Try unchecking "backglass bring to front" by right clicking the backglass (source).

Thanks wiesshund!

Reporting Bugs

Make sure you include the application log, in its entirety. You can usually find it at the same place you copied your DmdDevice.dll or dmdext.exe. However, there are two premises for the log to be created:

1. You need a log config file. If there's no log config file, no log is created. The log config file is called DmdDevice.log.config for both DmdDevice.dll and DmdDevice64.dll, and dmdext.log.config for dmdext.exe. They must be at the same place as the DLL and EXE respectively.

2. The user running the host app must have write permissions to the log folder. Per default that's the current working directory. If you have copied the DLL to the Windows\SysWOW64 folder, you don't have write access. In this case you need to write the log elsewhere. You can do that by editing the log config file. The format of the log file is XML. To change the log file location, find this line:

   <target xsi:type="File" name="file" fileName="DmdDevice.log"
   

   And change the fileName attribute to somewhere you can write, for example:

   <target xsi:type="File" name="file" fileName="C:\Users\youruser\DmdDevice.log"
   

For problems with DmdDevice.dll, specially with coloring, set the log level to Trace and reproduce the problem. You can do that by editing DmdDevice.log.config and changing:

<logger name="*" minlevel="Info" writeTo="file" />

to

<logger name="*" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="file" />

If you have a crash, please also include which OS/bitness you're using. If it's about the DLL, let us know where you copied the DLL and which host application you're using (VPM's setup.exe orvpinball.exe, also which version).

You can post bugs at VPUniverse, or preferably here.

Manual Installation

1. Download the .zip archive, copy its content to your hard drive, preferably in your PATH, and unblock the .exe file (right-click, properties, unblock).
2. Download and install the Visual C++ Redistributables for Visual Studio 2017.
3. If you haven't already, download and install the .NET Framework 4.7.2.

If you want to use DMD Extensions with VisualPinMAME:

1. Copy DmdDevice.dll, DmdDevice64.dll, DmdDevice.ini and DmdDevice.log.config into your VPM folder (usually at Visual Pinball\VPinMAME).
2. Run the VPM setup
3. Click on Test, select the game and click on Game Options.
4. Enable Use External DMD and optionally disable Show DMD.

You can also set this as the default by selecting Default Options in the VPM setup, however note that games that you've already configured won't be affected.

Game Names

Title	Pinball Arcade	Pinball FX3	Pinball FX
AC/DC	ACDC
Attack From Mars	AttackFromMars	BALLY_Attack_from_Mars	119
Big Buck Hunter PRO	BuckHunter
Big Hurt	BigHurt
Black Rose	BlackRose	BALLY_BlackRose	118
Bram Stoker's Dracula	Dracula
Cactus Canyon	CactusCanyon
Champion Pub	ChampionPub	BALLY_Champion_Pub	121
Cirqus Voltaire	Cirqus	BALLY_Cirqus_Voltaire	127
Creature of the Black Lagoon	Creature	BALLY_Creature_from_the_Black_Lagoon	131
Cue Ball Wizard	CueBallWizard
Doctor Who	DoctorWho
Dr. Dude and his Excellent Ray	DrDude	BALLY_Dr_Dude	135
Fish Tales	FishTales	WMS_Fish_Tales	108
Funhouse	FnHouse	WMS_Funhouse	134
Ghostbusters	GhostBustersStern
Gladiators	Gladiators
Harley Davidson	HarleyDavidson
High Roller Casino	HighRollerCasino
Hurricane	Hurricane	WMS_Hurricane	126
Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure		WMS_Indiana_Jones	133
Indianapolis 500	Indy500
Jack·Bot	JackBot
Judge Dredd	JudgeDredd
Junk Yard	JunkYard	WMS_Junkyard	110
Last Action Hero	LastActionHero
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein	Frankenstein
Medieval Madness	Mediev	WMS_Medieval_Madness	109
Monster Bash	Monster	WMS_Monster_Bash	130
Mustang	Mustang
No Fear: Dangerous Sports	NoFear
No Good Gofers	Gofers	WMS_No_Good_Gofers	128
Party Zone	PartyZone	BALLY_Party_Zone	120
Pistol Poker	PistolPoker
Red and Ted's Road Show	RoadShow	WMS_Roadshow	125
Rescue 911	Rescue911
Ripley's Believe it Or Not	Ripleys
Safe Cracker	SafeCracker	BALLY_Safe_Cracker	122
Scared Stiff	ScaredStiff
Space Station		WMS_Space_Station	129
Starship Troopers	StarshipTroopers
StarTrek	StarTrek
StarTrek: The Next Generation	StarTrekTNG		163
Swords of Fury	SwordsOfFury		149
Tales of the Arabian Nights	Totan	WMS_Tales_of_the_Arabian_Nights	132
Teed Off	TeedOff
Terminator 2: Judgment Day	Terminator2
The Addams Family	AddamsFamily		156
The Getaway: High Speed 2	HighSpeed2	WMS_Getaway	111
The Machine: Bride of Pin·Bot	BridePB		148
Theatre of Magic	TheaterOfMagic	BALLY_TheatreOfMagic	117
Twilight Zone	TwilightZone		162
Whirlwind	WhirlWind		168
White Water	WhiteWater	WMS_White_Water	124
WHO dunnit	WhoDunnit
Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons	WhoaNellie
Wipeout	Wipeout
World Cup Soccer	WorldCup		157
World Tour	WorldTour

x64 vs x86

• For dmdext.exe, take the bitness of your OS. This is important for Pro Pinball, where the bitness of the binary must be the same as dmdext's.
• For DmdDevice.dll, we now recommend using the 64-bit version (i.e. DmdDevice64.dll).

Build Instructions

1. Download and install Visual Studio 2022
2. The unmanaged exports library needs MS Build tools, which come with .NET 3.5. Install Instructions
3. Recommended: If you want DmdDevice.dll automatically copied to your VPM folder after build, point the VPM_HOME environment variable to your VPM installation folder.
4. Clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/freezy/dmd-extensions.git
5. After cloning the repo, you'll need to restore the DllExport dependency. There is a script that does it for you. Go into the cloned repo and run:

   DllExport -action Restore -sln-file DmdExtensions.sln

6. Open the .sln file in Visual Studio and build the solution.

If you want to build the installer, you'll need the WiX Toolset v3 and its Visual Studio Extension.

Then there is an issue with Fody third party addin that may give you an error ith the $(IntermediateOutputPath). If this occurs, simply close Visual Studio and re-launch the DMD Extensions project and the issue will go away. Reference

Credits

• NoEx for the excellent TPA grabber code, as well as the Pinball FX3 memory grabber.
• Tom Speirs, Lucky1, CarnyPriest and Russdx for their help on the DMD code
• Lucky1 for instructions and details about the coloring features and Pin2DMD support.
• DJRobX for helping with the dynamic coloring, better performance and much more.
• mjrgh for debugging and optimizing stuff.
• Adrian Page from Barnstorm for his help setting up the slave correctly.
• Funkyman for 64 color support, 256x64 scaling options, bug fixes and code cleanup.
• To Zen Studios for their support and for making Pinball FX!

Finally, thanks to JetBrains for their awesome tools and support of the Open Source Community!

License

GPLv2, see LICENSE.