Pinball Arcade with SweetFX - lightness control, bloom, etc.

[JPelter]

Is it safe to do this to steam games, i wont get banned or anything will i, and i wont lose PBA if i use this will i?

It doesn't modify any original game files so I'm pretty sure it should be fine. Someone who knows for absolute sure can pipe in though. I know people who use it regularly in FPS games and stuff and I haven't heard of anyone ever getting banned for it anyway.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Is it safe to do this to steam games, i wont get banned or anything will i, and i wont lose PBA if i use this will i?

People have been using ENBs with Skyrim for 3 years and nobody's complained This is nothing new.

 

[SilverBalls]

Here's a picture from my setup with GaussSigma 1.5 and GaussStrength 1.0

Those two seem to be pretty good for controlling the spread and intensity of the bloom. I'm sure there's other stuff to make it look better but it's a pretty decent approximation of a dark room setup now.

edit: Of course I managed to snap a picture with all the insert lights out, but you get a general idea. I'm honestly kind of astounded how good the game looks with a simple external post processing system.

Thanks- they do seem like the ones to play with after a quick test. I also tried playing with the 'RGB_Gamma to float3' - for me a slightly increased value from PinballPersons setting to about 0.7 for each param seems quite good - obviously a personal thing so good to have the flexibility.

I like how you can 'Alt-Tab' to the window with the setting config file open, make changes, alt-tab back to PA, Hit END and Scrollock to reload the config and it takes affect immediately.

 

[Firefox2000]

It doesn't modify any original game files so I'm pretty sure it should be fine. Someone who knows for absolute sure can pipe in though. I know people who use it regularly in FPS games and stuff and I haven't heard of anyone ever getting banned for it anyway.

Ok thanks, i will wait until i know it is 100% safe, looks great as well but i want to be sure before i do it.

 

[mpad]

Ok thanks, i will wait until i know it is 100% safe, looks great as well but i want to be sure before i do it.

? How will you determine it is 100% safe?
If nobody got banned after 10 years of use?

I have used several third party files in the steam folder for pincab controller support for a long time now. as long as no original game file is affected it is all safe.
Sweet fx is used with steam games for several years now, never heard of a problem before. The best settings are officially featured in the leading german pcgames magazine.

 

[Xanija]

This is a nice way of getting a nice "dark room" lighting effect. The problem I found is: Settings, which might look great on one table, are horrible on another one. I started experimenting on TOTAN, and when I had a nice lighting on that table, I went to look how it looks on AFM and Black Rose... Wasn't nice at all on those tables. I might have to use different setting files for some tables, which is getting quite painful to change if I want to play different tables.

Sweet fx is used with steam games for several years now, never heard of a problem before. The best settings are officially featured in the leading german pcgames magazine.

There are even a lot of Steam Workshop mods using ENB / Sweet FX for Skyrim. Would be hilarious if Steam banned the players for using those

 

[Jeff Strong]

There's no way in hell you'd ever get banned for this.

Thanks for the thread. This is a really cool idea.

 

[priested]

I am going to have to play around with the settings I guess. While the look is cool, it may just be me but I actually prefer playing the game using TPA post-processing. The tables look neat with the darker lighting but everything is more blurry and the ball is much harder to see and follow. It is cool though and maybe I can find some settings that are more pleasing for my setup. I appreciate any of these tools that attempt to improve the look while we wait...forever it seems...on Farsight to release the lighting upgrade. Thanks for posting this.

 

[Firefox2000]

? How will you determine it is 100% safe?
If nobody got banned after 10 years of use?

I have used several third party files in the steam folder for pincab controller support for a long time now. as long as no original game file is affected it is all safe.
Sweet fx is used with steam games for several years now, never heard of a problem before. The best settings are officially featured in the leading german pcgames magazine.

I only asked a simple question, no need for such a condescending reply, some of us don't spend 28 hours a day on the internet to know this stuff off the cuff, we are after all here because we are all pinball fans.

 

[mpad]

Sorry, it's only my bad form of humor and lack of sensitivity
Meant it in an encouraging way!

Sweet fx is sound and safe at least 96%.
Go try it, looks really cool.

 

[priested]

The ball is just plain ugly and not nearly as realistic looking without TPA post processing on - at least on my system. You can even see this in the screenshots that have been posted. Now I have found that you can keep TPA pp on while using SweetFX and the ball looks much better. I just can't yet find settings that I like. I mean they make great screen shots but you lose a lot of the table details in the darkness and added blur.

It's really odd. I like the way it looks when just looking at it but I don't like it as well while playing. And when I turn it off, it's like everything looks so much sharper. I guess like with everything else, there are pros and cons. I'll keep experimenting.

 

[mpad]

+ I use both pp systems as well because of ball reflection. To bad you can't turn it on independently.

Yet have to find playable settings as well

 

[SilverBalls]

Remember you can turn the SweetFX settings on/off with one keypress (Scrolllock key by default but that is configurable). I plan to assign a key in my cabinet so I can do that.

It also should be possible to knock up a quick AHK script to switch between setting files. Have a button to skip to the next settings file in your list (ie: settings001.txt, settings002.txt, etc). The script would copy the settingsnnn.txt file to the live file. The script could also do the forced refresh (ie: End key). That way you could quickly cycle through a list of setting files until you get one that looks good for the table you are on

If you want to get even more sophisticated you could automatically load a setting file for the table being played, a bit like the script I think that Bigboss knocked up.

Another option is FS give us DX11 before Christmas!

 

[Crawley]

Another option is FS give us DX11 before Christmas!

^ Best option.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Man, these screens look pretty sweet. I think this will be a nice trade-off until DX11 comes.

 

[priested]

Well, after playing with this quite a bit, I have decided that it is an improvement - but only for SOME of the tables at a time. The improvement is pretty dramatic for even tables like Central Park but like someone else said, settings that improve some tables make others worse. The main problem to me is the darkness. When I have it set perfectly for, say, Funhouse (which looks VERY good with SweetFX), I can't even see the table on High Speed and Black Hole it is so dark. Sure would be nice if you could set individual settings per table. Hopefully one of you smarter fellas will figure out how to do that

 

[SilverBalls]

SweetFXIniSwitcher for PinballArcade

I wrote an AHK script which can automatically cycle through different ini files after one keypress. I made it configurable via an ini file so it should work for any program, however the default ini is for Pinball Arcade .

If people have good config files for Pinball Arcade that they can share I can add them to the zip file, so we can build up a library and use this program to toggle through them.

SweetFXIniSwitcher v1.2 - Updated 27/11/2014)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oyjm0khcf5xjemz/SweetFXIniSwitcher.zip?dl=0

I wrote a readme, but here it is for convenience:

SweetFXIniSwitcher v1.2:

This program will launch your program (usually a game), and give you a key you can press to cycle through a list
of different SweetFX config files.

This program looks for all config files in your game folder that contains the normal SweetFX config file.
When you press the key the program simply copies the next config file to the 'live' SweetFX_settings.txt file and
then it sends a keystroke to SweetFX to tell it to reload the new config. This allows you to instantly switch between config
files with one keypress.

For example If you have say 7 config files, the next one will be loaded after each keypress. On pressing the key you will hear a beep
to acknowledge the change, wait about 2 seconds and you will here a second beep to confirm the change. On the 8th press the SweetFX
is turned off (you hear beeps with a different pitch), and on the subsequent keypress the first config is loaded again.
This allows you to cycle through all config file, plus the games default settings with no SweetFX changes happening.

Update for v1.2 (27 Nov 2014): As you switch to each config file if the program find a WAV file of the same name it will play it. This way you know which settings file you are using.

Installation and Config:

This is quite straightforward:

(1) YOU MUST Backup your SweetFX_settings.txt file! This program will overwrite it each time a new config is loaded.

(2) Copy contents of SweetFXIniSwitcher's zip file into the folder where you have your SweetFX configs.

(3) Rename each of your SweetFX_settings config files to PAsettingsXXX.txt where XXX is anything you like that desribes
the file.

For example Rename SweetFX_settings.txt to PAsettings_my_000.txt

If you wish to prefix your ini files with something other than 'PASettings' then you can change it in the ini file
for this program.

Make sure each of your config files for SweetFX have the same key codes for key_toggle_sweetfx AND key_reload_sweetfx.
The same keys must also be defined in the SweetFXIniSwitcher.ini described below (ie: Entries sweetFXToggleOnOffKey and sweetFXReloadKey).


(4) Open the SweetFXIniSwitcher.ini file and define the various parameters.

The config file is already prepared for 'Pinball Arcade'.

The parameters are:

switchIniKey=z
Change this to the key you want to press to toggle through the ini files you have

sweetFXToggleOnOffKey=ScrollLock
Change this to the key that SweetFX uses to Toggle itself ON/OFF. ScrollLock is the SweetFX default.
Note: SweetFX uses Javascript key codes whereas AHK uses keycodes.

sweetFXReloadKey=End
Change this to the key that SweetFX uses to Reload the current INI file. The End key is the SweetFX default.
Note: SweetFX uses Javascript key codes whereas AHK uses keycodes.

switchIniPrefixFileName=PAsettings
SweetFXIniSwitcher will toggle between all ini files starting with this prefix.
eg: if you have PAsettings001.txt, PAsettings002.txt, PAsettings003.txt, PAsettings_Fred.txt these will all be cycled
through after each keypress

runExe
Your game that you run with the full path

runExeNoPath
Your game exe with no path

runExeWinTitle
The window title of your game

preRunExe
The exe you want to run before your game (leave blank after the = if not required)
eg: Useful if you want to rotate the screen.

postRunExe
The exe you want to run after your game (leave blank after the = if not required)
eg: Useful if you want to rotate the screen back.



(5) From now on to play your game run SweetFXIniSwitcher.exe instead in your normal game folder.

 

[mpad]

Sweeeet

 

[Xanija]

I wrote an AHK script which can automatically cycle through different ini files after one keypress. I made it configurable via an ini file so it should work for any program, however the default ini is for Pinball Arcade [...]

Nice, thanks! Now I'm trying to limit the numbers of ini-Files I need for all tables. I hope I won't need more than 5.

 

[SilverBalls]

Did anyone have time to try the ini switcher? If anyone does and has problems please let me know. It would also be good to try out some other ini files if people want to share them.

btw: the source code is in the zip.