PFME - Updates and New Releases

[BarXQueen]

PFME v0.3.5
Fixed

• Seven machines were being worked through the wrong button panel and have been rewired.
• After a STAKE press on Celebrity Winwall the TOTAL BET box kept the scraps of the stake animation, and on the second spin most of the reel window went black. Both gone.
• Winwall Show Me The Money's top box said no players were connected and never left that screen. The stations were being set up in the factory's soak-test mode, which takes them off the link about a minute after power-up. They are set up for normal play now: the top box finds each station and shows its Winwall attract. A black block in the corner of the top box's screen and a station's status panel painting over its background have gone too, and the top box's two screens sit side by side.
• Twenty-five linked programs were never on the link wire at all, so their top box reported NO COMMS TO MASTER however long it waited. They talk now. Pure Gold Community, both builds, comes as a three-station bank.
• A linked cabinet whose top box has no lamps and no screen kept its speakers off for ever. The cabinet now waits for every station to boot, then the sound comes on.
• The volume control in a machine's own refill and test menus works. Each step is relative to where the machine arrived, so nothing gets louder or quieter by itself; up is louder, down is quieter, zero is silence. A game that asks for a quiet sound under a loud one gets it.
• Bloom on a lamp with a lit photograph landed inside the lamp, washing the lens out, with only the fringe reaching past the edge. It sits outside the lamp now.
• A lamp showing a blend of several colour lines glowed in the first colour only, so an amber lens burned red round its edge. The glow follows the mix.
• Desktop Machine (Ctrl+Shift+D) came up as a black box. It is now a frameless machine sitting on your desktop: drag it by the machine itself, resize with the mouse wheel, and press Ctrl+Shift+D again to come back.
• The artwork editor listed a symbol once per reel, so a picture printed on six reels needed six file dialogs. One row per symbol now, and Replace, Reset and Rename reach every reel in one undo. Game Configuration, the key map and the artwork editor stay in front of the cabinet whichever window you click, and a symbol still on its built-in picture no longer shows an empty frame on an installed copy.
• The help and menus say layout where they said face.

Known

• The first launch of each machine after this update starts it from cold instead of where you left it. Meters and settings are kept.
• Of the Winwall machines only Show Me The Money is checked. Spinwall and Celebrity Winwall are set up the same way and have not been re-tested. Community play on the wall itself is still being worked on.
• A STAKE button on a Winwall station does nothing, and that is the game: each stake plug gives one fixed stake (10p, 25p or 50p), so change it in Cabinet > Game Configuration rather than at the panel.
• The three symbols on the Pure Gold Community top box are a best guess in prize order. If one looks wrong, say which.
• The blended-lens glow has only been checked by test, not on screen. If a lens still glows the wrong colour, say so.
• The Double Decker top box lists each cell twice, as lamp-r7-c3 and lamp-b1-r7-c3. Same bulb; use the shorter name.
• The station's stake panels are guesswork. No photograph of a dual-stake glass has turned up.
• Roughly seventy machines have no reel index of their own, so a win line that looks a row out is worth reporting.
• Sit-down and upright are checked both ways on the Double Decker only. On the other eight, a lamp lighting with no name in the editor is worth reporting.
• Nothing else has changed in how a machine plays.

Reported or asked for by re-emulated and others on the forum.
Download https://www.dadsfme.com/ec/pfme/PFME-Setup-latest.zip

[lotechking89]

@BarXQueen
Hey I managed to get Astra Winwall show me the money 3 player working perfectly, but the top box uses three screens two use one source for the wins (which I can get by default when inserting a screen from toolbox), however the middle screen uses a separate source to pick up the feature board, I saw on Dads release he got two screens working together on single player Winwall (Celebrity), could you tell me how I can change the source of a screen to pick up the second output please? Many thanks for your superb work!!

[lotechking89]

@BarXQueen ,
One more unusual issue I have found with Party Time Platinum, the slaves attract perfectly in Arena Panther Cab mode, but when you select High Wire, for Casino, the lamps do not attract on slave machines again..?? They stay all lit up.

[DAD]

@BarXQueen
Hey I managed to get Astra Winwall show me the money 3 player working perfectly, but the top box uses three screens two use one source for the wins (which I can get by default when inserting a screen from toolbox), however the middle screen uses a separate source to pick up the feature board, I saw on Dads release he got two screens working together on single player Winwall (Celebrity), could you tell me how I can change the source of a screen to pick up the second output please? Many thanks for your superb work!!

Although I released Celebrity Winwall it's not my work, that's down to BXQ.  As far as choosing different screens I don't think a 'user setting' has been added to PFME just yet.  I'm almost sure that can be added in a later Emu release.

[lotechking89]

Hey! I have been doing my first layout in DX @BarXQueen - when I have made layouts on MFME lamping had a toolkit for merging clusters of lamps, and on single ones can edit out by drawing a colour around and turning it invisible, will there be a future build update that allows more detailed lamping effects? I have changed from panel to bulb which is circular but when I use this to crop from photo lit and unlit the whole square is lamped rather than the spherical bulb if that makes sense? I can't edit them for round circles only squared items it appears. Or is it already within the emulator to crop lamps into more specific areas but I haven't yet fathomed it out LOL?

Also when lamping reels the lamps make the artwork appear faded rather than lit from behind, would the emulator be able to be adapted for making reels default to dark when a lamp is embedded so the artwork when 'lit' appears like the original artwork provided?
Thank you so much :-)

[BarXQueen]

@BarXQueen
Hey I managed to get Astra Winwall show me the money 3 player working perfectly, but the top box uses three screens two use one source for the wins (which I can get by default when inserting a screen from toolbox), however the middle screen uses a separate source to pick up the feature board, I saw on Dads release he got two screens working together on single player Winwall (Celebrity), could you tell me how I can change the source of a screen to pick up the second output please? Many thanks for your superb work!!

The top box on that machine has two video outputs on the one Pluto 6 board: output 0 carries the wins picture, and output 1 carries the feature board. In PFME each screen element has a setting for which of the board's outputs it shows, but I have not yet put that setting on the property panel, so a screen dropped in from the toolbox always shows output 0.

You can make the change yourself in the config file: a .pfme file is a zip. Rename a copy to .zip, open layout.json inside it, find the middle screen's videoDisplay element and add "card": 1 alongside its "fit" line, then zip it back up and rename it to .pfme.

E.G.

Before:

    {
      "type": "videoDisplay",
      "fit": "uniform",
      "bezelThickness": 2,
      "cornerRadius": 4,
      "id": "f894cac7",
      "name": "Screen",
      "x": 2050.0,
      "y": 66.0,
      "width": 720.0,
      "height": 540.0
    }

After, with one line added:

    {
      "type": "videoDisplay",
      "card": 1,
      "fit": "uniform",
      "bezelThickness": 2,
      "cornerRadius": 4,
      "id": "f894cac7",
      "name": "Screen",
      "x": 2050.0,
      "y": 66.0,
      "width": 720.0,
      "height": 540.0
    }

I'll add an Output selector to the screen properties in the next build.

[BarXQueen]

@BarXQueen ,
One more unusual issue I have found with Party Time Platinum, the slaves attract perfectly in Arena Panther Cab mode, but when you select High Wire, for Casino, the lamps do not attract on slave machines again..?? They stay all lit up.

My first thought is that if it is sent to Bingo rather than Arcade, this sometimes makes the lamps "quieter" as sometimes machines are in the main bingo hall and can be a distraction.

On saying that, I ran the Platinum station on its own in PFME for 200 seconds with no coin in, once strapped Panther and once strapped Casino, and counted every bulb on the lamp matrix over the last 100 seconds. It attracts in both. In Panther it chases 96 bulbs. In Casino it chases 37: the reel window lamps, the three nudge lamps and NUDGE NOW, the stake lamps, and the three prize ladders with their value lamps. Those 37 chase at exactly the same rate in both cabinets.

The other 59 bulbs are the top glass legends: the PARTY TIME and PLATINUM letters, ARENA, the balloons, the stars and ribbons, and the number 1. In Casino mode the program never drives them at all. They are not held on and they are not chased, they are simply dead for the whole run. That fits what you found earlier about the two cabinets being lamped differently: the upright Casino glass does not have those bulbs, so the program has no reason to light them.

So on a layout drawn for the sit-down glass, switching to Casino leaves every legend lamp showing whatever the layout uses for off. If the backdrop is a photo taken with the glass lit, off looks lit, and the whole top glass appears stuck on while the small lamps carry on chasing. If yours looks like that, that is what is happening. If the reel and nudge lamps are also frozen, that is a different problem and I would like to see it: the layout name and a screenshot would do.

I also checked that flipping a station that has already been set up as Panther over to Casino does not upset the machine. It boots straight through CHECKING CSUM, CASINO CAB and INIT REELS into the attract roll with no alarm and no request for a RAM clear.

[BarXQueen]

Hey! I have been doing my first layout in DX @BarXQueen - when I have made layouts on MFME lamping had a toolkit for merging clusters of lamps, and on single ones can edit out by drawing a colour around and turning it invisible, will there be a future build update that allows more detailed lamping effects? I have changed from panel to bulb which is circular but when I use this to crop from photo lit and unlit the whole square is lamped rather than the spherical bulb if that makes sense? I can't edit them for round circles only squared items it appears. Or is it already within the emulator to crop lamps into more specific areas but I haven't yet fathomed it out LOL?

Also when lamping reels the lamps make the artwork appear faded rather than lit from behind, would the emulator be able to be adapted for making reels default to dark when a lamp is embedded so the artwork when 'lit' appears like the original artwork provided?
Thank you so much :-)

Round lamps first. At the moment a lamp is either a panel or a bulb, and the bulb does draw as a circle, but the moment you crop a lit and unlit picture into it the crop fills the whole box. There is no way yet to mask that crop to a circle, so what you are seeing is the editor working as built, not something you have missed.

There is a route that gets close to the MFME trick. Cut the bulb out in a paint program, fill everything round it with one flat colour, save the lit and unlit pair, then use Insert > Add Lamp from Sprites. That import treats the flat surround as see-through, so the lamp keeps the round edge. It only works on the sprite route, not on crops taken straight off the cabinet photo.

Merging clusters is not in yet. Group in the editor is only a selection aid while you are arranging things, and it is not saved. The one case that is covered is several lamp lines behind one lens mixing colour, which is what the blend setting on a lamp is for. A real cluster element, one box driven by several lamp numbers, I will look to get in the next version.

On the reels you are right, and I agree with your fix. Today a lit row lays a pale wash over the strip, which is why the artwork looks faded rather than lit. The proper behaviour is the one a real machine has: the strip sits dark until the lamp behind it comes on, and lit means the artwork at its true colours. I will change it to work that way in the next release.

Keep the questions coming, they are what shape the editor.

[lotechking89]

@BarXQueen thank you so much for your replies, I have read those and helps an awful lot! Look forward to monitor screen options and cluster lamping elements in a future build!! I will give your list to install a second monitor a try later this week ( I am a bit clueless with developing things lol) My Party Time Platinum was on bingo version have edited it into upright arcade and has now fixed my attract issue (huge thanks) always wondered what Bingo mode meant - now I know! Thank you for looking into redesigning the reel lamps in the next build this will improve lit bands perfectly :-)

Quick feedback, Divas Reels 3 Player upright top box, the top reels are showing no lamps for this, as well as the Jackpot balloons each side which flash until it awards one after JP lands on reels, I owned a real top section and these were fed off a different part of MUX on the Pluto 6 board. Would you be able to find these?

On a separate note, some Astras used a 12v chaser lamp board which would do a chain of 4 bulbs that went around boarders example of a Party Time top box or the decals on a Double Decker, which is not off a Pluto 6 board itself, but could you do a little tool box for chasers, its literally a series of 4 bulbs on repeat, 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 etc one at a time. Sadly MFME never developed this so would be a nice little additional touch for bringing the artwork to life etc :-)

[lotechking89]

By the way @BarXQueen, its the Dil switch bank 1 switch 2 coin subdued alarm that's affecting the attract! If it is turned on lamps freeze on :-) It may need renaming in the emulator. Needs to be pre set to 'normal zero coin alarm' for attract to work :-P

Could the win line on reels be a central line though the middle rather than boxes on centre reel? with an option to choose thickness of win line if any :-)