Discussion thread about the FreeCamera Mod

[Robert Misner]

I would try making a custom resolution, it might be that 800 wide is just to low,don't forget the playfield itself is stretched 1080x293 onto the next display.
Try making a custom display of 1024x600 or something and see if that works.

You can use PinballX to change the 3rd backglass display's image to video or custom images now , or use utilities like showbackglass.

NoEx is working on away to provide a complete 3 screen solution..just gonna take some more time...Not Farsight "TIME" ;-) but awhile longer I might have a sneak peak video ready this weekend to tease where NoEx's is taking us with the Mod.

 

[Darquayle]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm very glad NoEx is working on a 3 screen solution. In the meantime, I was able to work out a solution for my problem. I was able to configure a custom video resolution of 800x768 with my video card. That did the trick! So now I truly have a decent, temporary 3 screen solution. I'm having to use the showbackglass utility to display my backglass image and I use the FreCamMod for my DMD screen. It works incredibly well. Now I just have to tweak a bunch of images in Photoshop to make the DMD bezel look right. I'll post an image tomorrow of how it turned out. VERY happy. TPA on a cabinet really can be done!

 

[Robert Misner]

PICS Please!
glad you got it worked out for your setup.

 

[KBJAXMAN]

I am looking to set this up in my cab. If I am reading the setup guide correctly, I first need to manually change my main monitor to portrait and align it under the 2nd monitor. Does this mean that whenever I want to switch back to FX2 or VP9, I would need to manually change back to landscape, then go through all this again if I want to play TPA again? Can the monitor rotation process be automated?

 

[Robert Misner]

pinball fx2 lets you set the game to portrait as well..i leave them both that way
or are you saying you play pinballfx2 in landscape and tpa in portrait?\
for vp9 i use abatch file with the display.exe utility to auto turn back and forth ..i use that in pinballx as a launch before and launch after.
VP10 supports portrait properly which makes it unnecessary

heres link to utility
http://superuser.com/questions/447155/how-do-i-set-up-a-hotkey-or-shortcut-to-rotate-my-screen-in-windows

and section in pinballx.ini for Visual pinball 9

[VisualPinball]
Enabled=True
WorkingPath=D:\games\Visual Pinball
TablePath=D:\games\Visual Pinball\Tables
Executable=VP_physmod5.exe
Parameters=/play -"[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE]"
LaunchBeforeEnabled=True
LaunchBeforeWorkingPath=D:\games\PinballX
LaunchBeforeExecutable=display.exe
LaunchBeforeHideWindow=False
LaunchBeforeWaitForExit=True
LaunchAfterEnabled=True
LaunchAfterWorkingPath=D:\games\PinballX
LaunchAfterExecutable=display.exe
LaunchAfterHideWindow=False
LaunchAfterWaitForExit=True
LaunchBeforeParameters=/rotate:0
LaunchAfterParameters=/rotate:90

that said I can't see why you couldn't just set it all up with just rotating backglass to verticle instead and line them up long ways..but I've not tried that " ---|"

 

[Darquayle]

So, I've had a good weekend with TPA and my 3 screen setup. I've created a bezel for each of the DMD screens that match the original style of the pinball machines. I think it turned out good (at least for my hobbyist needs)... Here are some screen shots of the results. Sorry they are not well lit, its dark out and my "man office" doesn't have a lot of lighting. Also, KBJAXMAN, yes, you will have to change your monitor rotation and position to make at least the current version of the FeeCameraMod to display correctly on your screens. The good news is that I found a freeware utility that does a great job of saving / setting your monitor settings from the command-line. It basically creates a snapshot of your current configuration (rotation, location, resolution) and stores it into a config file. Then whenever you want to use that screen configuration you just tell it (from a command line) to use that config. Works REALLY good and was easy for me to integrate into PBX. The tool is called multimonitortool and it is available at nirsoft.net.


Looks like I don't know how to post photos... so instead, here is a link to the photos:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/te9rp9x2p4mti/TPA_Images

 

[Dan Jaquint]

First off, thanks so much for the mod! I just started trying it on my cab.

So I've had just slight stutter here and there in gameplay (pretty sure more so with the mod on).

Are there any recommendations for NVidia settings? I have an i5, 6gb ram, GTX 750 Ti and I'm running the 2 monitor version of mod. I have prerendered frames at 1 and all quality settings pretty low. I'm trying vsync on and off without a huge difference. I'm trying to keep it off for more responsiveness (of course, it's pinball!). Is there anyway to have a lower resolution on backglass but have it still look right? I'm curious about any tips to keep everything snappy.

 

[NoEx]

Your computer specs should run the game flawlessly even with the mod ON (even if it's not taking much more ressources). Please make sure that Aero is enabled + an aero windows theme is selected.

 

[mpad]

Yes, your specs are totally fine. In fact you should be able to run the highest settings possible.
If you still have troubles disable every quality, AA, or fx setting in TPA config. And enable everything in the Nvidia control panel. Worked for a lot of people and allows for better quality as with the in game post processing.

 

[Darquayle]

Here are a few screen shots of the 3 screen setup I was able to create with the 1.3v of the free cam mod tool. I now have all 63 tables working with this config. Due to my screen resolution / size, some of the non-dmd scoring doesn't look perfect but I am very pleased with it overall. Moving the scoring area to the third screen brings TPA so much closer to the other virtual pin apps. Still looking forward to the movable screen solution from noex but until then his current version is still an excellent solution.

 

[SilverBalls]

Just a quick thanks to NoEx and Robert for all their work on the new Cab Mod release. I can't try it until next weekend but am looking forward to playing with the movable DMD. I appreciate it must have been a ton of work, so thanks again!

 

[L33]

Wasn't sure were to post this, but it does kinda refer to the freemod setup, so...

The settings require a back buffer height of 2200...however...what do all the other settings mean and is it just a case of whacking them up to full to get the best picture etc? Just trying to get a better understanding of what the numbers mean or do so that I can get the best setup possible.

 

[LucidLight]

NoEx, fantastic work on the Mod. Then new 3-monitor v1.4 is working great, though I have a few requests if you could be so kind.

1. Allow text input of camera axis settings, or have a up down arrow for single digit changes. I am unable to use the slider in fine enough increments with my mouse to adjust camera the way I want it.

2. Allow scaling changes to floating DMD in the main settings.ini. I have found that my one set of settings would work for a lot of the tables. I would like to be able to make that a starting point.

I have a widebody cabinet with a 47 inch monitor. The non-widebody tables can look overly distorted when stretched to the width of the screen. Is there anyway to "squish" them back to standard pinball ratio?

 

[Robert Misner]

Wasn't sure were to post this, but it does kinda refer to the freemod setup, so...

The settings require a back buffer height of 2200...however...what do all the other settings mean and is it just a case of whacking them up to full to get the best picture etc? Just trying to get a better understanding of what the numbers mean or do so that I can get the best setup possible.

backbuffer height and width just must maintain the ratio. I recommand if your system can handle it pick a higher value like 2160x4400 you get whats commonly called Downsampling

From a Gaf article

What is downsampling

Downsampling, also called OGSSAA : Ordered Grid SuperSampling AntiAliasing, is in this case the concept of rendering the game at a much higher, custom made, resolution than your monitor is capable of displaying and subsequently having the GPU rescale the image ( as in downsample ) to that of your monitor's native resolution to which the end result is a "cleaner", sharper and less aliased image.


Why

King of all AA methods, affects virtually every kind of aliasing but it's also very taxing which is why we have other less demanding alternatives, SMAA, MLAA, FXAA etc. Sadly we are in a position where we have pc-games shipping with "AA on/off" options or have AA implementations that leads much to be desired making people use other forms of externally forced AA.

We're also at a point in this "generation" where the discrepancy between pc and console hardware is bigger than ever giving pc-users a much larger performance overhead. What I mean by that is that there are a lot of people out there with hardware that can run many/most new games and virtually any older game at higher resolutions than 1920x1080 while still maintaining an acceptable framerate even though 1920x1080 is still the standard resolution of most of our monitors.

Using downsampling you almost never will have to worry about a game's image quality being ruined by lack of AA since it works in almost any 3D game out there. Compared to other types of AA solutions like SMAA/FXAA-injectors or "Nvidia Inspector AA" you won't need to fiddle with settings or files at all, when it comes to downsampling via custom resolution once you got it up and running it's just a matter of using that resolution in any game and presto you got yourself some AA brewing. It is worth pointing at that downsampling still works great with those aforementioned AA methods ( injectors, inspector etc ) and whatever kind of AA solution/s the games you want to play offer, you can mix,match and stack AA to your heart's content.

msaa samples are used by you guessed it msaa Anti Aliasing and Msaa quality as well.
Heres a good read that explains it since theres a lot I wont' quote
https://mynameismjp.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/msaa-overview/
my recommendation is to set to samples to 1 and quality to 0 and just use downsampling as explained above.

anisotropy filtering should be set at 16x

In 3D computer graphics, anisotropic filtering (abbreviated AF) is a method of enhancing the image quality of textures on surfaces of computer graphics that are at oblique viewing angles with respect to the camera where the projection of the texture (not the polygon or other primitive on which it is rendered) appears

heres an example

brighten ball should be on if you like your table settings dark
and window mode should be window cuz the mod requires it

 

[Robert Misner]

NoEx, fantastic work on the Mod. Then new 3-monitor v1.4 is working great, though I have a few requests if you could be so kind.

1. Allow text input of camera axis settings, or have a up down arrow for single digit changes. I am unable to use the slider in fine enough increments with my mouse to adjust camera the way I want it.

2. Allow scaling changes to floating DMD in the main settings.ini. I have found that my one set of settings would work for a lot of the tables. I would like to be able to make that a starting point.

I have a widebody cabinet with a 47 inch monitor. The non-widebody tables can look overly distorted when stretched to the width of the screen. Is there anyway to "squish" them back to standard pinball ratio?

1. you can set a key to adjust them just adjust the camera speed to 1 then use the selected hotkey for the particular move function to adjust the camera..thats how i setup all the camera positions for the mod..its a very fine movement at speed 1.
make sure you setup all the keys in the settings.ini
2. good idea
3. not sure what that means but is your tv a 16:9 display?
If your using the default settings of stretch 293 and using the provided camera files (separate download)that shouldn't be an issue. can you post a screenshot so i can see what you mean?
If your making all your own camera files a higher FOV setting will help allow the image to square up with the monitor more..if you mean that the bottom 1/3rd of the screen with the camera files seems squashed vertically abit ..thats due to the high FOV of 6.5 used. ifyou lower the FOV to 1 for example it will make the bottom 1/3rd stretched (farsights default view is stretched this way) but by doing this the top of the playfield will get significantly narrower and won't fill the screen like a cab should. So its abit of a compromise.. Whats needed to resolve this is an adjustment for keystone correction to the output ed image like many HD projectors have this wouldn't affect the assets just the visual output to square up the image and keep the proportians more accurate..
Like this for example

NoEx would have to comment if this kind of camera adjustment could happen at the mod level or if it would require farsight to allow it ingame.

 

[mpad]

I recommend to set both msaa and anisotropy to zero in the tpa config and instead to set all quality and performance settings in nvidia control panel. Much better performance and higher quality possible. I run it at 32xCSAA

 

[L33]

Thanks guys...really good info. I'm just in the middle of setting it up. Had a nightmare today when one of the displays suddenly became unrecognised. Spent most the day messin around. One thing I'm struggling to find though is the option to change csaa etc in the control panel. Can't seem to find the option to make those changes. Does every nvidea card have those options. I have the 970 and have downloaded the control panel/Experience etc.

Edit. Found It under 3d settings...odd cause I don't have 3d.

Can't get it to work properly when down sampling but then any changes I make seem to impact performance. Strange really cause I thought the 970 should have no problems. I test everything on circus Voltaire which just seems to play in slow motion for some reason. Pity the ps4 doesn't have cab support.

 

[firebrand007]

Wow, I'm really impressed now that I was able to test the latest version of the mod , thanks a lot guys for the great work including cameras , backglass and now floating DMDs!
Quick question regarding the offline mode : I didn't understand how to make it work - once you double click on the Free Camera Mod icon in the taskbar, I see it generates a file, but what do I do then to ensure the offline mode is activated ?
cheers

 

[NoEx]

Start the mod once in online mode and double click the icon, grab the generated file, copy it on an usb key (or whatever you want) and paste it the mod folder on the computer/cabinet where you don't have an internet connection.

If the mod isn't able to connect to the update server, it will check if the offline file exists and get all the needed data from it. You can see that the offline mode is activated in the notification message displayed when you start the mod, it's written (OFFLINE MODE) in the title.

 

[Powerus]

Steam is telling me there is a new update for Pinball Arcade. I set the update speed to 16kb/s and the time from 3:00AM to 4:00AM because I fear that the mod won't start with another version of the game.
I remember that I tried the mod on 1.42.7 and it didn't work (it's not far from 1.42.8) so what happen if I update the game by mistake?