Support File George's Installation and Setup Guide for Future Pinball (Intermediate Guide)

[GeorgeH]

Translate to French or Other Language

Click on the link on the left and a new tab will open with this page translated into French. Click on the "To:" pull-down option to select a different language.

Go Back to Main Page

This "Intermediate Guide" describes changes and enhancements that you can make to existing tables without having to delve into anything too deep. This section basically helps you to change things that you want to change or don't like on some tables.

The "ZedPinball Mod" FP Executable

Hot! 1. Some of the guys still have problems with Future Pinball crashing occasionally or not performing well even after performing the Basic Guide. The "ZedPinball Mod" 64-bit version allows more memory to be used by your system than the 32-bit version so it will crash less often. Version 1.1 of the Zed mod also has the advantage of not having an FP watermark or splash on the table loading screen. The download has many files in it although most are the same files that come from the Future Pinball installation. The following files are the only files in the download that you do not already have:

Future Pinball x32 1.1.exe
Future Pinball Zed x64 1.1.exe
opengl32.dll
QeffectsGL.ini

I and others have found that using the opengl32.dll file makes Future Pinball crash. According to Zedonius himself, if you don't use the opengl32.dll file, then the QeffectsGL.ini doesn't do anything. I don't use either of these files. The only file in the download I use is "Future Pinball Zed x64 1.1.exe". I renamed it as "Future Pinball.exe" and replaced the existing "Future Pinball.exe" file in the C:\Games\Future Pinball\ folder. The Zedonius 1.1 executable file along with all the other versions is available here:

Future Pinball Installation Program and Alternate Executables

There is a 32-bit version of the "ZedPinball Mod" but I have not found it any more useful than the other alternate executables available at the link above. The "ZedPinball Mod" makes lights have a different glow pattern that I don't like as well as the other executables.

BAM fixed some memory leaks on FP which helps prevent FP from crashing so the "ZedPinball Mod" has become less important. I have read that the Zed64x has issues with some other programs that work with FP….mainly Future DMD (many images on the DMD won’t display), and DOFLinx which allows for DOF feedback and lighting, SSF, and PUP Videos (Zed64 can cause crashes in this case). I don't have a way to test this so I don't know. If you have problems, you might try one of the other Future Pinball executables, all of which are posted in the link above. Although the problems with memory management may not be bad as it used to be, you may find the Zed executable helpful.

Note: When you replace the Zedonius 1.1 executable file, it uses Zedonius physics internally. If you play a table that does not have an XML or ZIP file associated with the table, it will use Zedonius physics. You can change the default physics by adding a "default.xml" file to your BAM folder as I describe in Step 7 of my BAM guide here:

George's Installation and Setup Guide for Better Arcade Mode (BAM)

Create Shortcuts to Tables

2. If you do not have a pinball cabinet, you may want to create shortcuts to individual tables and play them without going through the Future Pinball editor. These directions show you how to do that and it also adds right-click context menu options:

Create Shortcuts to Play Tables / Setting Up Right Click Context Menu

Simple Script Changes

3a. I have tried to change the "Balls Per Game" on the "Table Info" screen which is a submenu item of the "Table" menu. I have never had any luck with it actually changing the number of balls in a game. To change the balls per game, you need to change something in the script. To open the script editor, you can click on the fourth icon on the left column of buttons or click on the "Edit" menu item and then click on "Script". You can then click on the "Edit" menu item and then click on "Find" and search for "nvBallsPerGame =" until you find the following:

nvBallsPerGame = 3

Then you just change the 3 to a 5 (or change it to the number of balls that you wish but no more than 9).

Some of the older tables unfortunately do not have this script and rely on the default number of balls per game which is 3. On these older tables, you can usually add "nvBallsPerGame = 5" below the line that says "FuturePinball_BeginPlay()" and it will usually work. In some cases however you may get an error changing the balls per game, because the DMD may be configured to have only 3 balls, or the script base may not depend on nvBallsPerGame. If this is the case, there is no easy answer. If this does not work, you can post a question on the forum as I have done.

3b. Another easy change is you can change the line in the script that begins with "Const constBallSaverTime" in order to give yourself more time to get a free ball if you lose it quickly. The time is listed in milliseconds so one second = 1000.

3c. Some tables have scripts for "MusicVolume" and "SoundVolume" where you can adjust the volume of the music and game sounds played during a game. You should however only use this option if the volume of music vs. game sounds is out of adjustment for the specific table you are adjusting. If all your tables have the volume of music vs. game sounds out of adjustment, then you should follow the directions in the manual for adjusting these sounds. The manual says, "If the sounds are too loud or too soft then you can adjust it via the Home (turn volume up) and the End (turn the volume down) keys on your keyboard. If the music (if any) is too loud or too soft then you can adjust it via the Page Up (turn the volume up) and the Page Down (turn the volume down) keys on your keyboard."

3d. Occasionally a table will be great except if it has an obnoxious sound that you don't like. If this happens, you need to click on the "Table" menu and select "Sound Manager" and play each sound until you find the one that you don't like. Then you click on "Rename" and then hold down the "Ctrl" key and type "C" to copy the name to the clipboard and then close the sound manager. Then you can search the script for the sound name and change it to something else, possibly another sound in the "Sound Manager". Or you can inactivate it with an apostrophe before the line of code that precedes it. The sound may be referenced in the script more than once so you will want to change all occurrences. If you can't find the sound in the "Sound Manager", try the "Music Manager" on the same menu.

3e. Sometimes the volume of a sound or music is too loud. You find the sound using the above method and then search for the sound or music in the script. You will usually find something like one of these:

playmusic 3,"fx_m_alienm",TRUE,0.3
playsound "s_acelerada",0.3

The 0.3 is the volume of the sound. You can change it to a value between 0 and 1.0. In some cases, the playmusic line will end in TRUE or FALSE or the playsound line may end with the name of the sound, in that case just add a comma and the number.

About LEDWiz

4. As you navigate the PinSimDB Table Archive, you may encounter references to LEDWiz. Tables identified as such, have script that operates special lights on some cabinet installs of Future Pinball. The option has become somewhat obsolete because most cabinet users tend to use the newer program called "DOFLinx". You may find that the LEDWiz version of a table has features that you want and can't find anywhere else. There is no cause for concern. You can install a LEDWiz version of a table on any standard PC that is not equipped with the lights and it will play normally without producing any error messages. The only requirement in order to play a LEDWiz table is to be sure to add the following two files to your Future Pinball "Tables" folder (they won't work in the "Libraries' folder):

LedWIZ_Class.vbs
LEDWiz_settings.ini

Both of these files are usually included in the download of a LEDWiz table.

LEDWiz is basically obsolete. I think all the pinball cabinet users have converted to DOFLinx.

Make Tables Lighter or Darker

5. If you want to make a table lighter or darker, there are two options plus a third option in Step 6 below:

a) There is an option on the "Lights" screen in BAM. It doesn't matter whether you have Forced Arcade Mode turned on or off. It is always there. You will see an option called "Lights" on the main menu or one named "Table and Lighting" and then "Lights" under that menu. The option to make the table lighter or darker is available under the option called "Presets". If you have never changed it, the option will probably say "default" but you can down arrow to the option and use the right arrow button to open "Day", then "Bright Day", then "Night" and finally "Dark Night". These options are intended to change the brightness of the table so you can display the table with a brighter screen during the day and a darker one at night. This option appears to work nicely when you are changing a Day or bright table into a Night table. It is not so hot when trying to change a dark table into a "Day" or brighter table. There is an option on this BAM screen called "New Renderer" that looks better than "FP Original" but "New Renderer" also requires more memory.

b) There is an option in Future Pinball that many of the table authors use to make a table darker. It is called "Playfield Color" which is on the right side of the screen when you first open the editor without clicking on anything on the table. Table authors often set this to a shade of gray to make the table darker. When you click on this option, a color palette opens and you should click on the button to "Add to custom colors" so you can revert back to the original color if desired. Then you can move the slider on the right up or down to make the table lighter or darker. You would probably be better off starting here to make a table brighter and then adjusting the BAM lighting settings. This change only affects the playfield although you can click on other objects to change the color also.

6. Even after making the adjustments from Step 5, I still sometimes have difficulty with parts of the tables being too dark to suit me. You can make the entire table lighter but then the lightest parts of the table are too light. I have discovered the way that table builders create "Day" and "Night" versions of tables. The "Day" versions of the tables are brighter than the "Night" versions. They basically create 2 versions of the playfield image and sometimes plastics that are saved to the texture manager in Future Pinball. Then they save two versions of the entire table where the only difference is the playfield image. Some builders create "Day" and "Night" versions of the plastics also although not very often. Still fewer change the "Playfield Color" of the "Night" version of the table so it is darker than the "Day" version. Sometimes, there seems to be a tendency to only use the "Night" version even when a "Day" version of the images has been saved to the Texture Manager although there is nothing in the notes about the table to tell you that alternate versions exist. "Apollo 13", "Batman Joker", "Bond 50" and "Elvis" all have alternate versions of the playfield that are available in Future Pinball's texture manager. The Data East version of "Back to the Future" has an alternate version of the playfield that I like better although it is not any lighter than the default. Other tables may have alternate playfields and plastics as well. If you are interested in seeing if alternate versions of the playfield or plastics exist or editing their images, perform the following steps:

a) You can identify the name of the playfield texture by opening the Future Pinball editor. Do not click on anything on the table and look at "Playfield Image" in the right pane. There are a few tables that use several images on the playfield and this field may be blank.

b) If you want to be able to see the images in the editor, you need to place a checkmark on one of the options that I said in the Basic Guide to not check. Open the Future Pinball editor and click on the "Preferences" menu item in the editor, select "Editor Options" and check the option "Load Image into Table Editor". Then you need to close the Future Pinball editor and reopen it which will then load images into the editor.

c) Click on the "Table" pull-down menu item and select "Texture Manager". Then you can click on the first item in the "Texture List" and use your arrow-down key to browse through the images on the table. You can look through the list and may find a playfield image that has a different file name from what you saw in the "Playfield Image" field of the editor. You can change the playfield image by going back to the editor and clicking on the pull-down beside the "Playfield Image" field and selecting the image that you want there. If you don't see an alternate image in the list, you can export the image and edit it and then import it again using the "Export" and "Import" buttons.

d) Plastics often have the same shape as the playfield but display the tops of the apron, slingshots and other objects on the table although they can also be individual images. To see the name of the name of the plastics image, you can click on the apron or other object on the table and look at the "Top Texture" field in the right pane. To change the image of the plastic, you can either go to each object on the table and make a change to the "Top Texture" field or it may be easier to delete or rename the existing image in the "Texture Manager" and rename the image you want to use with the old name.

e) When finished, be sure to go back and uncheck "Load Image into Table Editor" on the "Editor Options" or you will probably have problems playing your next table.

Custom Balls

7. Miownkhan and others created some custom balls that you can add to any table. If you have the "World Cup Soccer 94" table, you need to try his soccer ball. The colors on the ball match the table perfectly. You can download custom balls from the link below. The posting has everything you need to know about custom balls.

Support File - Tutorial - BAM - FP - Custom Balls

Translate to French or Other Language Click on the link on the left and a new tab will open with this page translated into French. Click on the "To:" pull down option to select a different language. Click on the "Updates" tab to read the notes...

pinballnirvana.com

Rotate Your Monitor 90 Degrees

8. If do not you have a pinball cabinet and you have a monitor with a mount that you can rotate, you may want to follow the directions on my posting of the "Twilight Zone (Bally, 1993)" table so you can use 80 to 90% of the available screen space on your monitor. There are directions in a PDF file in the download to the "Twilight Zone" table but also how to apply the configuration to other tables:

Twilight Zone (Bally, 1993)

Go Back to Main Page