This is (mainly) a client for downloading your config files from http://configtool.vpuniverse.com and for applying additional tweaks to them. In addition it contains some tools to administer the Visual Pinball system itself.
The latest version could always be downloaded from https://github.com/mkalkbrenner/dof_configtool_client/releases
Important! If you never did before, download and install the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 first!
Some, but not all features are demonstrated in short video clips at DOF Configtool Client YouTube Channel.
The DOF Configtool is a great tool that covers most of the use-cases for the majority of it's users. But DOF itself is more powerful. If you want to achieve special things, you can to that using the DOF Configtool by adjusting the individual table settings. But doing so has to downsides:
- you might have to repeat such an adjustment for a lot or all games
- as soon as you have done that, you're decoupled from the upstream (the centralized table database) and you need to track changes manually
All downsides could be avoided if we add more layers of configuration to the DOF Configtool, for example per port or per toy. Since it's currently not possible to contribute to the DOF Configtool directly this client aims to add this missing layers by introducing a kind of rule-set config file and a client that downloads your pre-configured configuration files from the DOF Configtool and tweaks them accordingly.
This client will never replace the awesome DOF Configtool! But whenever you need to make an individual adjustment for all tables for a specific port of an output controller, this tool might become usefulο»Ώ π
In addition to the available tweaks described below you can think of various other tweaks, for example inverting an effect or anything else described at http://directoutput.github.io/DirectOutput/inifiles.html. Just open an issue at https://github.com/mkalkbrenner/dof_configtool_client/issues if you have an idea or require something special.
The client is written in PHP because of the fact that the configtool itself is written in PHP. That will hopefully ease an adoption of (some) features by the DOF configtool itself in the future. The client itself very light wight. But due to the fact that PHP is uncommon for most Windows users, there two variants to install the client: As a light wight PHP application as usual requiring a working PHP installation or as an all-in-one package based on php-desktop.
Another advantage of this PHP based wev application approach is that you can use the tool remotely, for example using your laptop and your preferred browser.
There's no warrenty!
If you use this software, you do it on your own risk!
-
Select
Settingsfrom the top menu. -
Complete your
Settings:-
You'll find your
LCP_APIKEYon the start page after login into http://configtool.vpuniverse.com -
As
DOF pathyou have to provide the directory where DOF is installed. In most cases this should beC:\DirectOutput\config. Note: you have to ensure that this directory is writable. In case you get an error right click on the directory in Explorer in check this setting. -
As
Visual Pinball pathyou have to provide the directory where Visual Pinball is installed. In most cases this should beC:\VisualPinball. Note: you have to ensure that this directory is writable. In case you get an error right click on the directory in Explorer in check this setting. -
Enter the location of
bspatch.exeas `pspatch Binary' to be able to colorize ROMs. If you used the full installation of the DOF Configtool Client, everything is pre-configured here. -
Decide wether you want to
Enable Version Control via Gitor not. Once enabled, every change to your DOF configs will be tracked. Other features like the day night switch depend on this version control. Therfore enabling version control is highly recommended .-
Enter the location of
git.exeas `Git Binary'. If you used the full installation of the DOF Configtool Client, everything is pre-configured here. -
Even your local git repository requires a user name and an email address. As long as you don't want to share and therefore push you DOF configs to a server, the values don't really matter and you can keep the defaults for
Git UserandGit Email.
-
-
-
Select
Downloadfrom the top menu. -
Download your configs using the corresponding button. (Note: Sometimes the configtool is slow. So the download could take some time.)
Warning: Existing files will be overwritten if you didn't
Enable Version Control via Git.
Note: The tweaks will be applied to the files located in DOF_CONFIG_PATH. Therefore the download settings have
to be properly configured as mentioned above, no matter if you really download the files before tweaking them.
Select Tweak form the top menu. First of all you have to define your tweaks. To do so select Edit tweak settingsand
continue as decribed in the next sections.
To apply your tweaks hit the corresponding button. That will tweak your existing configs according to your settings. But before the tweaked configs will be finally saved you'll see a confirmation screen that indicates the resulting changes. There you'll have to hit Save to finally persist this changes.
Warning: The client doesn't detect if a config file has been tweaked already. So executing the tweaks twice
without downloading the original configs before might have unwanted effects. You shoul always replace the config files
by a fresh download first, before applying new tweaks.
While absolute value tweaks like effect_duration should be kind of safe, multiplications like adjust_intensity will
be applied again on top of the previous tweak if you apply the tweaks twice.
In general I suggest to use a tool like git to track your config files and their tweaks, but maybe that might be "too much" for the standard user π
Tweaks could be applied globally per output controller per port or individually per output controller per game per port. In case that both - a global setting and an individual one for a specific game - exist, the individual one wins for that game while the global one gets applied for all the other games.
[directoutputconfig40.ini]
; Global settings for output controller #40.
default_effect_duration[23] = 100
default_effect_duration[26] = 100
[abv106]
; Individual settings for game *abv106* for output controller #40.
default_effect_duration[23] = 230
[directoutputconfig51.ini]
; Global settings for output controller #51.
default_effect_duration[11] = 60
[abv106]
; Individual settings for game *abv106* for output controller #51.
default_effect_duration[13] = 120- The effect duration for port 26 on output controller 40 will be set to 100ms for all games.
- The effect duration for port 23 on output controller 40 will be set to 100ms for all games except for game abv106 where the individual overwrite sets it to 230ms.
- The effect duration for port 11 on output controller 51 will be set to 60ms for all games.
- The effect duration for port 13 on output controller 51 will be set to 120ms only for game abv106.
The standard DOF configs define global and individual effect durations. Individual durations need to be set per game per output controller port per trigger.
Using the DOF configtool it's impossible to set a different default duration other then the global one on a specific port. You would have to do that for all tables.
Using this option you can set such a default duration per port for all games at once. But this will only happen if
there's not yet set an individual duration. To modify some of such individual durations see effect_duration,
target_effect_duration and drop_target_effect_duration below.
So default_effect_duration[23] = 100 sets the duration to 100ms for all triggers on output 23 of a given output
controller if an individual setting doesn't exist already.
If you got a mix of different contactors or solenoids in your cabinet, for example some smaller quick ones and some really heavy ones which need a longer trigger to fire correctly, it makes no sense to adjust the global effect duration for all effects just to satisfy these heavy contactors because that will have a negative effect on your force feedback toys in general. Your setup will become more sluggish. Using this tweak you can limit the modification to the ports where you need it.
The standard DOF configs define global and individual effect durations. Individual durations need to be set per game per output controller port per trigger.
Using this option you can set an individual effect duration per port, regardless what duration has been set before.
So effect_duration[7] = 400 sets the duration to 400ms for all triggers on output 7 of a given output
controller.
If you got a mix of different contactors or solenoids in your cabinet, for example some smaller quick ones and some really heavy ones which need a longer trigger to fire correctly, it makes no sense to adjust the global effect duration for all effects just to satisfy these heavy contactors because that will have a negative effect on your force feedback toys in general. Another good example a "Ding Dong" door bells which give a "Ding" at the beginning of the effect and "Dong" at the end. To get the best sound, you need to adjust the effect duration to the door bells' mechanics.
The standard DOF configs defines global effect durations for targets and drop targets. Individual durations need to be set per game per output controller port per trigger.
Using the DOF configtool it's impossible to set different durations other then the global ones on a specific port. You would have to do that for all tables individually instead.
Using these options you can overwrite the global duration for targets or drop targets per port for all games at once.
So target_effect_duration[23] = 100 sets the duration of a target to 100ms for all triggers on output 23 of a
given output controller if an individual setting doesn't exist already.
Same as for default_effect_duration.
The turn_off tweak allows you to turn off specific ports of your output controller for specific games.
So turn_off[18] = hs turns off the port 18 for the game named hs.
The turn_on tweak allows you to turn on specific ports of your output controller only for specific games. It is
the complement to turn_off. So turn_on[19] = f14,rs turns on the port 19 only for the games named f14 and
rs.
In most cases these two tweaks will be combined to keep the number of tweaks small.
The DOF Configtool only handles one Beacon. But a common setup is to have three of them with different colors:
- red
- orange/yellow
- blue
It most cases you won't run them all in parallel for any game. Therefore you should attach them to three different ports of your output controller and assign Beacon to all of them in the DOF Configtool. Using this tweak you can now turn them of individually.
Given the three beacons example you now have the choice to configure High Speed using the red beacon like used on the original machine. Or create a nice police effect by turning on the blue and the red one but turn off the yellow one in the middle. But for Road Show you might want to have the orange beacon to be the only one turned on. For F14 Tomcat you would keep all three active.
Another use-case is the handling of the heavy contactors we already covered in default_effect_duration. While these
are great for simulating bumbers their noice might be too much for other effects, for example the moving head on the
top left in Monster Bash. But instead of turning off that contactor entirely for that table you can mount small
contactors "in parallel" in your cabinet but attaching them to separate outputs. Now you can decide to use the heavy or
the small one depeneding on your game.
Don't apply turn_off to an RGB port! Use rgb_brightness[...] = 00 instead!
This tweak allows you to boost or reduce the intensity off an effect by a given factor on specific ports of your output
controller. So adjust_intensity[28] = 1.2 will boost all existing intensities by 1.2. For example an intensity of
32 will become 41.
This tweak internally ensures that the intesity will not exceed the DOF maximum of 48.
In case of reducing the intensity by using a factor like 0.3 the tweak will not reduce the intensity lower than 1.
Maybe for safety reasons the maximum intensity for a shaker set be the DOF Configtool is 32 of 48. In case you have a small shaker motor you might want to reach the maximum by boosting the default by 1.5.
Since you have different effect levels within the same game, adjust_intensity uses a factor instead of absolute
numbers to keep these intensity ratio.
This tweak allows you to pulse a constant effect in a configurable frequency on specific ports of your output
controller. So pulse[28] = 100 will pulse all the signals on port 28 with a frequency of 1/100ms=10Hz. The value
must has to be between 1 and _500_ms.
The effect is not just a simple on/off but more like a zigzag curve.
Some shaker motors just create a high frequent vibration which is totally different from a shaker effect in a real pinball machine. Using this tweak the shaker might behaves more like realistic, especially smaller ones.
This tweak merges two ports. In fact it appends the entire content of the second port to the first port. So
merge[7] = 14 will append the entire configuration of port 14 to port 7. merge[7] = 14,16 will append the entire
configurations of port 14 and port 16 to port 7
In some way this tweak is comparable to combos in the DOF Configtool. But beside the fact that a merge could be
applied to a specific game only, the main difference is, that merge is a kind of inverted combo. Instead of
combining two toys as one in general, you can replicate one toy on another toys and both are triggerd.
For example you might wish to turn on your beacon in addition when the fire button or the start button gets illuminated. Or you would turn on the fan in addition to the shaker.
merge_and_turn_off basically works exactly like merge in turn_off in combination. so merge_and_turn_off[7] = 14
will append the entire configuration of port 14 to port 7 and then turn off port 7 in general or a given game.
Similar to merge you can turn on a beacon but now instead of the fire button or the start button.
This tweak works like merge as it merges all given ports. But instead of appending their content to a port's
configuration they replace it. So replace[7] = 14,16 will merge the configurations of port 14 and 16 and replace
port 7 by it.
For example you can turn off the standard beacon effects by replacing them by the fire button. So the beacon will only be turned on when the fire button gets illuminated.
This tweak swaps to ports. So swap[7] = 14 will assign the configuration of port 14 to 7 and vice versa.
Maybe you want to swap the gear and the shaker motor for a specific game, who knows? π
This tweak entirely overwrites a port with a custom setting. So string_overwrite[7] = ON Red will assign the value
ON RED to port 7.
Note: This tweak might make most sense per table instead of overwriting a port in general.
Note: set is just a synonym for string_overwrite and behaves exactly the same. But you can use both in your
ruleset to better express what you mean: string_overwrite to replace a DOF setting, set to to add a setting where
DOF doesn't provide anything.
Note: This tweak could also be used to entirely remove an effect or disable a toy. Just set the value to 0:
set[38] = 0.
For example you can use a different color for your flipper buttons. Or you can add effects for your fan or shaker on your own if there's no effect for that toy at all.
This tweak appends a string to a port's configuration. So string_append[7] = Blink will append the value Blink to
port 7. For example ON RED becomes ON Red Blink port 7.
A simple example are blinking flipper buttons (FYI fading is possible.)
Using this tweak you can extract the triggers for a drop target from a port and attach them to a
different port. So move_drop_target[17] = 23 will remove all drop target instructions from port 17 and attach them
to port 23. move_drop_target[17] = 23,36 will remove all drop target instructions from port 17 and attach them to
the ports 23 and 36.
For most tables the drop targets are assigned to the bumpers in the online configuartion tool. If you mount heavy contactors at the wall of your cabinet, they sound great for bumpers. But for drop targets the sound effect might be too heavy. In this case you might want to move the drop target effects to smaller contactors or contactors not mounted at the wall. The bumper effects themselves will not be touched and remain assigned where they should be.
Note: These dedicated drop target contactors are for sure not listed in the DOF configtool itself. Once mounted to your controller the DOF Configtool Client introduces them. Like for bumpers you can have up to 6 dedicated drop targets. If you use combos instead of 6 dedicated bumpers, they apply 1:1 for the new drop targets.
Using this tweak you can extract the triggers for a (stand-up) target from a port and attach them to a
different port. So move_target[17] = 23 will remove all target instructions from port 17 and attach them
to port 23. move_target[17] = 23,36 will remove all drop target instructions from port 17 and attach them to
the ports 23 and 36.
For most tables the targets are assigned to the bumpers in the online configuartion tool. From my point of view this is completely wrong. A stand-up taget neither sounds like a solenoid nor the haptic feedback is similar to a solenaoid. Therefore it is a good idea to move the target effects to smaller contactors or contactors not mounted at the wall. The bumper effects themselves will not be touched and remain assigned where they should be.
Note: These dedicated target contactors are for sure not listed in the DOF configtool itself. Once mounted to your controller the DOF Configtool Client introduces them. Like for bumpers you can have up to 6 dedicated targets. If you use combos instead of 6 dedicated bumpers, they apply 1:1 for the new drop targets.
These two tweaks work exactly like move_drop_target and move_target decribed above, except that the instructions are
not removed from the original port.
The standard DOF Configtool allows to adjust the three brightness values (only globally for all tables and controllers and their ports):
- PF Strobe MX
- Flasher
- Ledstrip Flasher
For other RGB toys there's no explicit setting at all.
Using this tweak you can set the brightness of any RGB toy (stripes, flasher, flipper buttons, ...) individually per
controller per port (and individually per table if you like). So rgb_brightness[11] = 80 will set the brightness of
port 11 to 80. The brightness has to be set as hexadecimal value between 00 and FF. So FF means 100%
brightness, 80 means 50%.
Note: A RGB toy is alway attached to three controller ports in a row. So the example above would automatically adjust ports 12 and 13, too. So there's no need to provide dedicated settings for these two ports.
Maybe you want to have your addressable LED stripes mounted under the cabinet to have the full brightness while the brightness of the playfield stripes should be reduced.
For example, if you configured the first three teensy driven stripes to be playfield left, top and right and the fourth is the complex undercab illumination, your corresponding tweaks.ini section to set the playfield brightness to 50% (hex 80 equals decimal 128, which is 50% of hex FF or decimal 256) and undercab to 80% (hex CD) will look like this:
[directoutputconfig30.ini]
rgb_brightness[1] = 80
rgb_brightness[4] = 80
rgb_brightness[7] = 80
rgb_brightness[10] = CDThe settings in the standard DOF Configtool for strobes are made for simple lamps / LEDs. Blinking / flashing effects and their duration and frequency are created by DOF itself by turning the controllers outputs on and off quickly. But if you own a "real" strobe that flashes by itself using an adjustable or fixed frequency, the original settings might cause flashing effects that look "ugly" and "unprofessional" because the manual triggers of DOF doesn't match the frequency of the strobe.
So strobe_fixed_freq[30] = 8 pins a strobe which flashes on its own connected to port 30 of
the controller to a fixed frequency of 8Hz.
The settings in the standard DOF Configtool don't provide a dedicated toy for Ball Out which is usually a big solenoid
that pushes the ball out of the ball pocket in front of the plunger. Usually people assign this effect to the right
slingshot or the right flipper instead. By setting append_ball_out[46] = auto an algorithm tries to auto detect the
triggers for the ball out and appends those to the port 46 on success. In this example port 46 drives a big solenoid
mounted at the cabinet's wall, like the existing ones for bumpers or a dedicated one to simulate the ball out.
[directoutputconfig40.ini]
; Set an effect duration of 100ms on device #40 ports #23 and #26.
default_effect_duration[23] = 100
default_effect_duration[26] = 100
[directoutputconfig51.ini]
; Set an inverted effect duration of 500ms on device #51 port #11.
effect_duration[11] = 500
; Turn off red beacon on device #51 port #18 for Road Show.
turn_off[18] = rs
; Turn on orange beacon on device #51 port #19 only for F14 and Road Show. (That
; implicitly disables the orange beacon for other games like High Speed.)
turn_on[19] = f14,rs
; Turn off blue beacon on device #51 port #20 for Road Show.
turn_off[20] = rs
; Boost the intensity of the shaker motor on device #51 port #28 by factor 1.5.
adjust_intensity[28] = 1.5
; Pulse the shaker motor on device #51 port #28 with 1/50ms = 20Hz.
pulse[28] = 50
[taf]
; Reduce the intensity of the shaker motor on device #51 port #28 by factor 0.7
; only for taf.
adjust_intensity[28] = 0.7Some VPin controllers offer a night switch to turn off noisy toys during the "night". Some users include a kill switch in their cabinet to turn off power supplies for noisy toys for the same reason. But based on the tweaks and the version controll via git, the DOF Configtool Client offers a sophisticated day night switch that has a lot of advantages compared to the the common approaches mentioned before:
- Independent from concrete VPin controllers, works for any controller and any mix of controllers
- Much more flexible compared to a "kill switch":
- for sure you can simply turn off noisy toys
- you can adjust/reduce the intensity of any RGB toy
- you can adjust/reduce the intensity of shakers
- ...
The day night switch can be controlled via the user interface of the DOF Configtool Client. But it's also possible to do the switching via the command line. In this case the DOF Configtool Client' doesn't need to run at all, not even in background because the switching is based on git (and therefore really quick.).
The required commands could be easily integrated in your preferred VPin frontend. Just copy the required commands as shown in the DOF Configtool Client user interface.
Using the Windows task scheduler you might also automate the switch.
The DOF Configtool Client user interface currently only supports three states of the DOF configuration:
- download: the original configs generated by the DOF Configtool
- day: the tweaked config to be used at daytime, having all noisy toys turned on
- night: the tweaked config to be used at nighttime, having some noisy toys turned off and some illuminations with reduced intensity
In fact, this concept is not limited to these three mode. If there's demand by the community, more or custom modes could be added.
[directoutputconfig51.ini]
move_drop_target[22] = 23
move_drop_target[24] = 23
move_drop_target[25] = 26
move_drop_target[27] = 26
default_effect_duration[23] = 100
default_effect_duration[26] = 100
target_effect_duration[23] = 100
target_effect_duration[26] = 100
adjust_intensity[28] = 1.2
rgb_brightness[50] = 80
string_append[50] = Blink fu500 fd1550I have a 10 Bumper setup. The three bumpers of the middle row are mounted to the ports 22, 23, and 24 of a Pinscape controller. The back row is attached to the ports 25, 26, and 27. The both contactors in the middle atteched to the ports 23 and 26 are not mounted against the cabinet wall. That's one reason why they sound different then the others. The second reason is that they are of a different model which is heavier. Therefore they require a longer effect duration then the 60ms default to get fired completely.
default_effect_duration[23] = 100 increases the default effect duration from 60ms to 100ms only for this
port/contactor, which doesn't slow down the others. The global effect duration for targets is et to 60ms, too.
target_effect_duration[23] = 100 increases this one as well.
Since the sound of the contactors in the middle is much more appropriate for drop targets compared to the one's mounted
against the cabinet's wall, move_drop_target[22] = 23 removes the drop target effects from port 22 and attaches them
to port 23. The other effect reamin on port 22 as pre-configured in the DOF Configtool.
BTW The global effect duration for targets of 120ms is not touched as it fits for the contactors in the middle, too.
Since my shaker motor attached to port 28 is rather a small one compared to other user's setup, I increase it's intensity using
adjust_intensity[28] = 1.2.
The design of my speaker panel contains an image of a face. The eyes are illuminated via two RGB LEDs using the
Flipper Buttons RGB toy. But using the default value of FF is way to bright if you stand in front of the cab.
rgb_brightness[50] = 80 reduces the brightness by 50% (80 hex). string_append[50] = Blink fu500 fd1550 turns the
static illumination of the eyes into a "scary" pulsing effect π
[directoutputconfig51.ini]
turn_off[22] = *
turn_off[23] = *
turn_off[24] = *
turn_off[25] = *
turn_off[26] = *
turn_off[27] = *
adjust_intensity[28] = 0.5
rgb_brightness[50] = 40
string_append[50] = Blink fu500 fd1550Compared to the day setup, the tweaks for the night mode look different. The contactors atteched to ports 22-27 are turned off entirely. The intewnsity of the shaker doesn't get increased but reduced by 0.5, just to be still able to feel it but not to heavy to disturb others. The eyes keep their pulsing effect but the brightness is reduced to 25%.
The RegEdit feature isn't directly related to DOF config files. But VPinMame will store it's configurations in the Windows Registry. If you ever ran into the situation that you have to change such a setting for all your games, you might know uncomfortable that task is. π
- Select
RegEditfrom the top menu. - Adjust the settings for all games at once.
- At the moment the moment the adjustable settings are limited for good reasons to ...
- cabinet_mode
- ignore_rom_crc
- sound
- samples
- ddraw
- showpindmd
- showwindmd
- dmd_colorize
- synclevel
The TextEdit feature isn't related to DOF config files only. It offers quick edit access to various Virtual Pinball related configuration files. The editor offers basic syntax highlighting and error detection. The error detection and enhanced auto completion will be added in the future. Currently you can edit these files:
- Cabinet.xml
- GlobalConfig_B2SServer.xml
- B2STableSettings.xml
- DmdDevice.ini
- ScreenRes.txt
- ...
The DMD output of ROM files could be colorized. Depending on the ROM there're two different ways to do so. While one just requires to put some files at the right place in the VPinMAME folder structure, the other requires to patch the ROM binary, name it correctly and to put files at the right place in the VPinMAME folder structure.
The Colorize function provides a wizard that does everything for you and avoids that you have to deal with Windows command line.
The first step is to select and check the color patch zip file you want to apply. Then you just need to follow the instructions.
Note: In case that a ROM file needs to patched, the wizard starts bspatch.exe. So Windows might ask you to allow
it to apply modifications to the file system, which is required.
Note: bspatch.exe is already included in the DOF Configtool Client. There's no need to download it separately.
DirectB2S Backglasses need to match the VPX table name. So if you have several versions of a table you might need to have multiple correctly named copies of a backglass. And if you use PUP Packs you need to delete a backglass or rename it.
This simple tool eases such tasks as you can simply assign a backglass to a table or select to use a PUP Pack instead. All the required file system tasks happen tranparently in the background.
In addition, the tool suggests backglasses for table.
- https://symfony.com - MIT
- https://github.com/sagebind/windows-registry - Apache 2.0
- https://github.com/erusev/parsedown - MIT
- https://github.com/iphis/fine-diff - MIT
- https://github.com/cpliakas/git-wrapper - MIT
- https://getbootstrap.com - MIT
- https://jquery.com - MIT
- https://popper.js.org/ - MIT
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/bs-custom-file-input - MIT
- https://ace.c9.io/ - BSD
- https://github.com/ace-diff/ace-diff - MIT
- https://github.com/cztomczak/phpdesktop - BSD 3-clause license
- http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/ - BSD Protection License
- https://git-scm.com/ - GPLv2
The DOF Configtool Client source code is licenced under GPLv3.