Features for DMD owners that aren't officially supported
Real DMDs for virtual pinball cabinets are pretty cool but they need to be supported by the software running the games. This is an attempt to fill some gaps.
Currently supported displays:
- PinDMD v3, full RGB support
- PinDMD v2, 4 bit (16 shades) support
- PinDMD v1, 2 bit (4 shades) support
- PIN2DMD, full RGB support
It's also possible to render to a virtual DMD on the computer screen if you want to test or debug or you don't have a real DMD.
The primary goal of this project was to add support real DMDs for games that don't provide support out of the box. The first game was Pinball FX2 and Farsight's The Pinball Arcade is supported as well.
The command line tool can also display image files on the DMD device and render frames to bitmap files.
Get the latest release,
copy the content of the zip file to your hard drive, preferable in your PATH,
and unblock the .exe file (right-click, properties, unblock).
- Open a command prompt ([Windows]+[R],
cmd, [enter]) - Type
dmdext test[enter]
You should see a test image on your DMD as well as on a virtual DMD.
- Enable cabinet options in Pinball FX2
- Resize the DMD to:
- Width:
1040 - Height:
272
- Width:
- Move the DMD to somewhere hidden like off-screen or behind the playfield
(usually at
0/0). - Open a command prompt ([Windows]+[R],
cmd, [enter]) - Type
dmdext mirror --source=pinballfx2 --no-virtual[enter] - Start Pinball FX2
For further tweaking, see options below.
For TPA we're pulling frames off the DMD texture from TPA's memory. Thus, you must be running the tool as administrator.
- Open an administrator command prompt ([Windows], type
cmd, right-click oncmd.exe, click on "Run as administrator") - Type
dmdext mirror --source=pinballarcade --no-virtual[enter] - Start the DX11 version of The Pinball Arcade.
Currently TPA's shades are re-mapped to custom values in order to achieve better contrast. If you think the shades come out wrong, feel free to open an issue with comments.
Also note that currently only 128x32 DMD games are supported, that means no EM games neither Frankenstein which has a different resolution.
All options are documented in the tool.
C:\>dmdext
DMD Extensions v1.2.4
USAGE: dmdext <command> [<options>]
mirror Mirrors pixel data from the screen or memory to all available
devices.
play Plays any media on all available devices (currently only images).
test Displays a test image on all available devices.
C:\>dmdext mirror --help
DMD Extensions v1.2.4
USAGE: dmdext mirror --source=<source> [--destination=<destination>]
-s, --source Required. The source you want to retrieve DMD data
from. One of: [ pinballfx2, pinballarcade, screen ].
-f, --fps How many frames per second should be mirrored.
Default: 25
-p, --position [screen] Position and size of screen grabber source.
Four values: <Left> <Top> <Width> <Height>. Default:
"0 0 128 32".
--grid-spacing [pinballfx2] How much of the white space around the
dot should be cut off. 1 means same size as the dot,
0.5 half size, etc. 0 for disable. Default: 1.
--grid-size [pinballfx2] Number of horizontal and vertical dots
when removing grid spacing. Two values: <Width>
<Height>. Default: "128 32".
--no-shading [pinballfx2, pinballarcade] Disable shading, i.e.
artificial downsampling for RGB displays. Default:
false.
--shading-numshades [pinballfx2] Number of shades for artifical
downsampling for RGB displays. Default: 4
--shading-intensity [pinballfx2] Multiplies luminosity of the parsed dot
so it covers the whole spectrum before downsampling.
Default: 2.5.
--shading-brightness [pinballfx2] Adds luminosity to the parsed dot after
being multiplied. Useful if even black dots should
be slightly illuminated. Default: 0.1.
--dmd-crop [pinballfx2] How many pixels should be cropped off
the DMD window. Four values: <Left> <Top> <Right>
<Bottom>. Default: "12 8 8 12".
-d, --destination The destination where the DMD data is sent to. One
of: [ auto, pindmdv1, pindmdv2, pindmdv3, pin2dmd,
virtual ]. Default: "auto", which outputs to all
available devices.
-r, --resize How the source image is resized. One of: [ stretch,
fill, fit ]. Default: "stretch".
--no-virtual Explicitly disables the virtual DMD when destination
is "auto". Default: false.
--virtual-stay-on-top Makes the virtual DMD stay on top of other
application windows. Default: false.
--virtual-hide-grip Hides the resize grip of the virtual DMD. Default:
false.
--virtual-position Position and size of virtual DMD. Three values:
<Left> <Top> <Width>. Default: "0 0 1024".
--use-gray4 Sends frames in 4-bit grayscale to the display if
supported. Default: false
--flip-x Flips the image horizontally. Default: false.
--flip-y Flips the image vertically. Default: false.
-q, --quit-when-done Exit the program when finished, e.g. when Pinball
FX2 doesn't receive any frames anymore. Default:
false
-o, --output-to-file If set, writes all frames as PNG bitmaps to the
provided folder.
C:\>dmdext play --help
DMD Extensions v1.2.4
USAGE: dmdext play --file=<image path> [--destination=<destination>]
-f, --file Required. Path to the file to play. Currently
supported file types: PNG, JPG.
-d, --destination The destination where the DMD data is sent to. One
of: [ auto, pindmdv1, pindmdv2, pindmdv3, pin2dmd,
virtual ]. Default: "auto", which outputs to all
available devices.
-r, --resize How the source image is resized. One of: [ stretch,
fill, fit ]. Default: "stretch".
--no-virtual Explicitly disables the virtual DMD when destination
is "auto". Default: false.
--virtual-stay-on-top Makes the virtual DMD stay on top of other
application windows. Default: false.
--virtual-hide-grip Hides the resize grip of the virtual DMD. Default:
false.
--virtual-position Position and size of virtual DMD. Three values:
<Left> <Top> <Width>. Default: "0 0 1024".
--use-gray4 Sends frames in 4-bit grayscale to the display if
supported. Default: false
--flip-x Flips the image horizontally. Default: false.
--flip-y Flips the image vertically. Default: false.
-q, --quit-when-done Exit the program when finished, e.g. when Pinball
FX2 doesn't receive any frames anymore. Default:
false
-o, --output-to-file If set, writes all frames as PNG bitmaps to the
provided folder.
C:\>dmdext test --help
DMD Extensions v1.2.4
USAGE: dmdext test [--destination=<destination>]
-d, --destination The destination where the DMD data is sent to. One
of: [ auto, pindmdv1, pindmdv2, pindmdv3, pin2dmd,
virtual ]. Default: "auto", which outputs to all
available devices.
-r, --resize How the source image is resized. One of: [ stretch,
fill, fit ]. Default: "stretch".
--no-virtual Explicitly disables the virtual DMD when destination
is "auto". Default: false.
--virtual-stay-on-top Makes the virtual DMD stay on top of other
application windows. Default: false.
--virtual-hide-grip Hides the resize grip of the virtual DMD. Default:
false.
--virtual-position Position and size of virtual DMD. Three values:
<Left> <Top> <Width>. Default: "0 0 1024".
--use-gray4 Sends frames in 4-bit grayscale to the display if
supported. Default: false
--flip-x Flips the image horizontally. Default: false.
--flip-y Flips the image vertically. Default: false.
-q, --quit-when-done Exit the program when finished, e.g. when Pinball
FX2 doesn't receive any frames anymore. Default:
false
-o, --output-to-file If set, writes all frames as PNG bitmaps to the
provided folder.
This application is based on .NET 4.5, which only runs on Windows 7 or later. Probably on Vista too, but who cares. If you're still running WinXP then you have my sincerest sympathy, but that's as far as I go. ;)
- NoEx for the excellent TPA grabber code.
- Cropper for some of the neat screen capture code
- Tom Speirs, Lucky1, CarnyPriest and Russdx for their help on the DMD code
GPLv2, see LICENSE.