PFME - Updates and New Releases

[BarXQueen]

I will update the original release thread with the latest version and list build/version changes here

[BarXQueen]

PFME 0.2.8 - sound fixes, and a faster engine
Second build. Mostly this one is about sound, which two separate faults were spoiling.

Sound

• The click at the end of a sound was not the sound at all. It was the space left over at the end of the file on the card image, being read as audio and decoded at full volume. Empty space on a real card is erased flash, and it reads as silence now.
• The crackle on a machine with several boards was the opposite problem: silence was being dropped out of the stream rather than played. The sound chip's clock does not stop between one sound and the next, so the gap has to be carried like everything else.

Also in this build

• An optional engine can be activated in settings that may help users who are having speed issues on their PC.
• The machine costs about half of what it did to run before either engine is chosen, which is what makes a four-board cabinet keep up.
• Option added to settings that will tell George to use the Party Time method of nudging (lining up reels then waiting for them to move into position).

Updating
If you are already running 0.2.7 you should not need to download anything. This is the first release the built-in updater has had anything to offer, so a copy with update checking turned on will find it by itself within a day and install it for you. If you would rather it did not, the setting is in Settings.

[MultiRetroMan]

Hiya, many thanks for the updates. One thing I noticed though, is when I updated it, it deleted the existing games. I changed the default folder for the games. Would that be why it deleted them?

[BarXQueen]

Hiya, many thanks for the updates. One thing I noticed though, is when I updated it, it deleted the existing games. I changed the default folder for the games. Would that be why it deleted them?

It was a bug and will be fixed in the next version

[vectra666]

Partytime player plays a tad faster now although the sounds still slow as for double decker still the same on my crap top but that's a slow laptop anyways

[cliffc]

Since turning on the new option i am now able to play both the games fine i am looking forward to more releases on this emu

[lotechking89]

To @BarXQueen
When designing classic layouts when i click on 5p or 50p (Coin slot 6 & 7) button whether selecting with select tool, or clicking on these two coins, or attempting to delete them in the left had side tool box, or even just trying to move them, the PFME comes to a stop and terminates the programme this seems to be a bug cos I cannot move these around in the layout to make space to move reels etc, can this be looked into please?

[BarXQueen]

To @BarXQueen
When designing classic layouts when i click on 5p or 50p (Coin slot 6 & 7) button whether selecting with select tool, or clicking on these two coins, or attempting to delete them in the left had side tool box, or even just trying to move them, the PFME comes to a stop and terminates the programme this seems to be a bug cos I cannot move these around in the layout to make space to move reels etc, can this be looked into please?

Which ROM are you seeing this on?

[lotechking89]

To @BarXQueen
When designing classic layouts when i click on 5p or 50p (Coin slot 6 & 7) button whether selecting with select tool, or clicking on these two coins, or attempting to delete them in the left had side tool box, or even just trying to move them, the PFME comes to a stop and terminates the programme this seems to be a bug cos I cannot move these around in the layout to make space to move reels etc, can this be looked into please?

Which ROM are you seeing this on?

On a couple of Party Time versions, most notably on Party Time Platinum v0.07. Also all Pluto 6 multiplayers, the slaves and top box do not go into full attract mode, often slaves are lamps all off or all on fixed. Is this something you are aware of? Many thanks. Loving the work so far!

[BarXQueen]

PFME v0.3.0

In this build

• Bring your own ROMs. Opening a bare program now builds a working face by itself: the readout, a reel window for every reel that homes, the coins and notes the board takes, and a button for every switch line the program scans. It is plain and it is ugly, but it plays, and the cabinet can be drawn around it at your own pace instead of before you can start.
• A board nobody has looked at yet gets numbered buttons rather than another machine's names guessed onto it. Nothing is labelled unless the program says so.
• A button matrix listing every switch line the board scans, each one pressable with a click, so a button can be found by pressing it and watching what the machine does.
• New Layout asks which machine the face is for, so it works from the welcome screen instead of needing a cabinet open already.
• A coin slot names the money instead of a channel number. It says 50p because it puts 50p in, and the emulated validator works out which channel that program keeps 50p on.
• The note acceptor takes notes.
• Clicking a 5p or 50p slot no longer closes the program. Thanks to lotechking89 for reporting it. The properties panel only knew about six coin channels, and small coins are routinely higher than that: 5p on channel 7 is normal, and of the 74 programs measured here, 72 put some coin above channel 6. Selecting, moving or deleting one of those slots took the whole application down.
• Seven-segment displays lit from the lamp matrix, which is how a lot of these machines drive their digits.
• Several lamp lines behind one coloured lens, so a panel that changes colour reads as one part rather than three overlapping ones.
• The digits on the top glass read their value from the board's own tables instead of being guessed at.
• A reel window can show a single symbol, for the machines whose glass only shows one.
• Plugs and Switches has grown into a proper Game Configuration window, and the doors and keys window knows all three doors.
• Boards no longer stop dead partway through a run. Two separate faults, one in how the processor resumed after an exception and one in a device list that stopped walking at an empty slot.
• Several boards that would not finish commissioning now do. They were waiting on an electronic meter and on a memory chip that reads back in two halves, and both now answer properly.
• Twenty-three more machines recognised, seventeen of them Betcom Hi-Tech boards, plus a catalogue of every Pluto 6 title known to exist so the gaps are at least visible.
• A linked cabinet can be built to seat one player instead of three, which is the setting to reach for if your PC struggles with a multiplayer.
• Autoplay reads the nudge lamps the program names, so an offer is played as an offer rather than guessed at from the reels.

Known problems

• On a linked machine the top box lights nothing. The master board runs its attract sequence perfectly well, around 200 lamps of it on the Party Time Platinum, but none of those lamps has been placed on the face yet, so there is nothing on screen for them to light. They are all listed in the lamp matrix if you want to start placing them. It is a picture that wants drawing rather than a board that has stopped, and the same goes for most of the lamps on the seats.
• The Betcom Hi-Tech boards boot and reach their operator menus, then stop at the coin mech, which wants an encrypted validator that is not written yet. They are on the shelf to be looked at rather than played.
• Please back up your layouts folder before letting this one update. It is a much bigger jump than the last release, and the update path is the part that cannot be tested properly here.
• The Double Decker still has no automated test of its own. Its station-only leg cannot pass, because a station with no master is correctly refusing to trade, so the machine ships on the strength of the live four-board cabinet.
• The second engine is still experimental and still off by default. Boards drift from the interpreter on interrupt timing at block boundaries, which is reported rather than corrected.
• The nudge-trick autoplay method is still experimental. Which reel the machine leaves for the player has not been measured, so the driver aims at the cheapest one.

Download
https://www.dadsfme.com/ec/pfme/PFME-Setup-latest.zip

Check for updates will install it automatically.

The installer is not code-signed, so Windows will show "Windows protected your PC" on the way in. Choose More info, then Run anyway.

As before, if something misbehaves, say what ROM it was and what it did.

[lotechking89]

Wow thanks for this big update will be trying it out now :-P

[lotechking89]

Dear @BarXQueen
I have tested a few layouts. 1st of all the 7 Seg digital displays now work on single players, such as PT & BB Single player where the top display is in addition to Alpha displays on the base game (fantastic!).
However on all multiplayers, such as PT Platinum, Treasury - except Double Decker - the 7 seg top box display does not work still. I checked the edit settings and it says machine not giving any input for display? Think a bug still present.
The top masters all lamping works in attract now spot on, however the slaves to not interact with the attract in line with the top box, just stays dormant. I have noticed this is the same on single players Bullion Bars also, zero attract for some unknown reason.
Mutliplayer and single player layouts that feature the streak symbol made in previous version when loaded in this new update the Streak reel symbols disappeared - but I soon added these back in - other wise previous layouts work fine except the listed above.
Wow Cabbed Party Times, and Bullion Bars do not detect correct reel matrixes. These were the last pluto 6 tech game Astra released so may be a bit premature expecting these to work in the infancy of the Pfme - hope this feedback helps you. Looking forward to the good work coming. :-)

[fruitsnappa]

Many thanks for this update.

[Amusements]

Thanks for the update:)