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Batocera VPinball Cabinet.md

Using Batocera for a Visual Pinball Cabinet

Disclaimer

The multi-monitor support information below is based on personal experimentation and is not supported by the Batocera team. Please do not contact them for assistance with this setup.

Initial Setup

  1. Download the latest Batocera beta at: https://mirrors.o2switch.fr/batocera/x86_64/beta/last/

  2. Write the batocera-x86_64-x86_64-39-20240119.img.gz file to a USB drive using Etcher

  3. Boot the computer off the flash drive

  4. Verify playfield screen shows the EmulationStation interface.

  5. If the playfield screen does not show the EmulationStation interface, rearrange the cables from your video card to all the monitors and repeat steps 3 and 4.

  6. Rotate your playfield monitor if necessary in EmulationStation:

System Settings -> Screen Rotation  -> 270 degrees
  1. Enable WiFi:
Network Settings -> Enable Wifi

After connecting, keep track of the IP Address

Adding the Backglass and DMD screens

  • Because Batocera and EmulationStation are really designed to support single monitor setups, we will need to extend the display.
  1. SSH into Batocera (using the IP Address from above)
ssh -l root 192.168.1.201

The password is linux

  1. Determine your playfield screen:
export DISPLAY=:0
batocera-resolution currentOutput && batocera-resolution currentResolution && batocera-resolution listOutputs

DP-1
1080x1920
DP-1
DP-2
DP-5

This means your playfield is on DP-1 and has a resolution of 1080x1920, and you have 3 screens connected, DP-1, DP-2, and DP-5

  1. Add the backglass screen:

Extend the display to include the backglass monitor by putting the backglass monitor DP-2 to right of the playfield monitor DP-1

xrandr --output DP-1 --auto --output DP-2 --right-of DP-1 --auto

Confirm by running:

batocera-resolution currentOutput && batocera-resolution currentResolution && batocera-resolution listOutputs

DP-1
DP-2
1024x768
DP-1
DP-2
DP-5

So now we know the resolution of our backglass monitor is 1024x768

  1. Add the dmd screen:

Extend the display to include the DMD monitor by putting the DMD monitor DP-5 to right of the Backglass monitor DP-2

xrandr --output DP-5 --auto --right-of DP-2 --auto

Confirm by running:

batocera-resolution currentOutput && batocera-resolution currentResolution && batocera-resolution listOutputs

DP-1
DP-2
DP-5
1360x768
DP-1
DP-2
DP-5

So now we know the resolution of our dmd monitor is 1360x768

  1. Create a /userdata/system/custom.sh script to automatically extend the desktop on startup:
#!/bin/bash

case "$1" in
    start)
        # give some time for the playfield monitor to setup and rotated properly
        # you can adjust this value based on how fast this happens

        sleep 10

        export DISPLAY=:0
        export PATH=.:$PATH

        # Extend display to include backglass monitor to the right of the playfield monitor
        xrandr --output DP-1 --auto --output DP-2 --right-of DP-1 --auto

        # Extend display to also include dmd monitor to the right of the backglass monitor
        xrandr --output DP-5 --auto --right-of DP-2 --auto

        # Give some time for xrandr to finish  
        sleep 1

        ;;
esac

exit $?
  1. Adjust /userdata/system/configs/vpinball/VPinballX.ini to use these new displays:
PinMAMEWindowX = 2104
PinMAMEWindowY = 160
PinMAMEWindowWidth = 1360
PinMAMEWindowHeight = 340
.
.
.
FlexDMDWindowX = 2104
FlexDMDWindowY = 160
FlexDMDWindowWidth = 1360
FlexDMDWindowHeight = 340
.
.
.
B2SBackglassX = 1080
B2SBackglassY = 0
B2SBackglassWidth = 1024
B2SBackglassHeight = 768
B2SDMDX = 2104
B2SDMDY = 160
B2SDMDWidth = 1360
B2SDMDHeight = 340

You may have to launch a table once before this file is created.

  1. Reboot
reboot

Installing VPXDS

If you want EmulationStation to change the backglass image when selecting games, you can use VPXDS

  1. SSH into Batocera (using the IP Address from above)
ssh -l root 192.168.1.201
  1. make two new vpxds directories:
mkdir /userdata/system/configs/vpinball/vpxds
mkdir /userdata/roms/vpinball/vpxds
  1. Download and extract the vpxds binary:
cd /userdata/system/configs/vpinball/vpxds
wget -q https://github.com/jsm174/vpxds/releases/download/vpxds-0.0.1/vpxds-0-0-1-linux-x64.tar.gz
tar -zxvf vpxds-0-0-1-linux-x64.tar.gz
rm vpxds-0-0-1-linux-x64.tar.gz
  1. update the vpxds.ini file to match the settings you derived earlier:
TableWidth=1080
TableHeight=1920

CachePath=/userdata/roms/vpinball/vpxds

Backglass=1
BackglassX=1080
BackglassY=0
BackglassWidth=1024
BackglassHeight=768

DMD=1
DMDX=2104
DMDY=0
DMDWidth=1360
DMDHeight=768
  1. update /userdata/system/custom.sh to launch the vpxds executable on startup:
.
.
        # Give some time for xrandr to finish  
        sleep 1

        cd /userdata/system/configs/vpinball/vpxds
        vpxds > /dev/null 2>&1 &
.
.
.
  1. In EmulationStation, enable the Web API access:
System Settings -> Frontend Developer Options ->  Enable Public Web API Access
  1. Create an EmulationStation game-selected.sh script to call vpxds when a game is selected:

/userdata/system/configs/emulationstation/scripts/game-selected/game-selected.sh:

#!/bin/bash

Gamepath="${2}"

urlencode() {
  local string="${1}"
  local strlen=${#string}
  local encoded=""
  local pos c o

  for (( pos=0 ; pos<strlen ; pos++ )); do
     c=${string:$pos:1}
     case "$c" in
        [-_.~a-zA-Z0-9] ) o="${c}" ;;
        * )               printf -v o '%%%02x' "'$c"
     esac
     encoded+="${o}"
  done
  echo "${encoded}"
}

vpx=$(urlencode "${Gamepath}")

curl -S "http://127.0.0.1:8111/update?display=backglass&path=${vpx}" > /dev/null 2>&1

Make sure to make this file executable:

chmod +x /userdata/system/configs/emulationstation/scripts/game-selected/game-selected.sh
  1. Reboot
reboot

Capturing Backglass Images

  1. Launch a Visual Pinball table

  2. In a web browser, access vpxds by going to http://192.168.1.201:8111

  3. Click the Capture Backglass button

  4. Exit back to EmulationStation

  5. Verify the captured backglass appears when cycling through games

Modifying EmulationStation to work with Pinscape controllers:

  1. SSH into Batocera (using the IP Address from above)
ssh -l root 192.168.1.201
  1. Update the inputConfig in /userdata/system/configs/emulationstation/es_input.cfg:
        <inputConfig type="keyboard" deviceName="Keyboard" deviceGUID="-1">
                <input name="up" type="key" id="1073742049" value="1" />
                <input name="down" type="key" id="1073742053" value="1" />
                <input name="left" type="key" id="1073741904" value="1" />
                <input name="right" type="key" id="1073741903" value="1" />
                <input name="a" type="key" id="49" value="1" />
                <input name="b" type="key" id="13" value="1" />
                <input name="pagedown" type="key" id="1073742052" value="1" />
                <input name="pageup" type="key" id="1073742048" value="1" />
                <input name="select" type="key" id="8" value="1" />
                <input name="start" type="key" id="50" value="1" />
                <input name="x" type="key" id="61" value="1" />
                <input name="y" type="key" id="45" value="1" />
        </inputConfig>

This maps to:

   <input name="up" type="key" id="1073742049" value="1" />        LEFT FLIPPER  (Left Shift)
   <input name="down" type="key" id="1073742053" value="1" />      RIGHT FLIPPER  (Right Shift)
   <input name="left" type="key" id="1073741904" value="1" />
   <input name="right" type="key" id="1073741903" value="1" />
   <input name="a" type="key" id="49" value="1" />                 START BUTTON  (1)
   <input name="b" type="key" id="13" value="1" />                 LAUNCH BALL  (Return) 
   <input name="pagedown" type="key" id="1073742052" value="1" />  RIGHT MAGNA  (Right Control)
   <input name="pageup" type="key" id="1073742048" value="1" />    LEFT MAGNA  (Left Control)
   <input name="select" type="key" id="8" value="1" />
   <input name="start" type="key" id="50" value="1" />             EXTRA BALL  (2)
   <input name="x" type="key" id="61" value="1" />
   <input name="y" type="key" id="45" value="1" />
  1. Reboot
reboot
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