I just wanted to say "Thanks" for your work and effort in this section. While I have been around for many years now and have learned many things while FP / BAM evolved along the way, I picked up some important insights that changed my setup - even if it is just a little tweak or minor change here and there. I guess that many newbies or people just interested or the occasional user profits greatly from your guide.
So, again, thank you for your time and encouragement along the way!

Thank you for your comments. I started using FP many years ago and got into having to use all the FP executables for all the different physics. It became so confusing I stopped using FP for 2 years. When I came back, we had BAM. I had to ask questions on the forum to get it set up right. It wasn't too long after I learned how to set up BAM that I started writing this guide when all the problems I first encountered were fresh on my mind. As I learned more, I revised the guide to what it is now. After I learned how to use the advanced menus, I wrote Step 15. If you read it, you might notice I still haven't learned everything (maybe never will).

It would be nice to have a guide on how to set up lighting but it is too confusing for me to write. I don't even understand what some of the parameters are. I ended up using the lighting set up of a friend after I changed post-processing to make it a bit brighter and now I apply it to all my tables.

George

what xml should we use for slamtilt 2.7 Physics >

I added a link in the paragraph just prior to Step 8. But here is a link to not only Slam's but several other xml files:

viewtopic.php?f=86&t=6173

George

thanks

I have added a "BAM Tips and Tricks" section to the first posting of this topic to add things that relate more to the operation and use of BAM than its installation. This section appears above the "Notes on Physics" section. My first addition to this section is how to add a revision to the BAM software but keep your previous settings and not loose them. My second addition describes how to change the locations where screenshots from BAM are saved. The third posting discusses how the ball trails option only works with New Renderer.

If you have suggestions on things to add, please let me know.

George

I have revised parts of Step 7 and the beginning of Step 8 of the guide. I think these change increase the clarity. If you would like to see other changes, please let me know.

George

I have followed this guide, and when I launch FPLoader.exe, I click on 'file/open', or anything else in the menus and nothing happens, the window just turns grey. Original FP runs fine. I'm running on 32-bit Win XP SP3, with an older Nvidia GeForce 8600 card. It works fine on my work PC that is running 64-bit Windows 10. Sadly, that PC is not in my arcade console... Any thoughts on what to try here?
Thanks,
Eric

Eric,

BAM doesn't seem to work so well with Windows XP anymore. I think the author of BAM doesn't have a way to test changes on XP so some sort of change he made must have made it incompatible at some point. One of the other guys had trouble trying to get it to work on XP. This is the topic:

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=6345&start=20

I think he ended up using version 1.2-81 although it still gave him a bit of trouble. You can get an old version of BAM from here:

http://www.ravarcade.pl/?en_archive,30

George

Hi George,
thanks for the info and link. After reading thru that thread, I tried launching FPLoader from the command line and that works. So I can use it with the front end program that I am running in my arcade cabinet! The only downside is that I can't make any changes to the preferences, not sure if those are default settings coming from BAM, or if it uses the same settings that are configured in the basic FP executable? I suspect it is using it's own settings, since the FPS for the same Physics 1.0 table is lower when running it in BAM compared to running it in the basic FP executable. Is there a way to change the video/rendering settings outside of the GUI? I opened a .cfg file that I found in the BAM folder and it did not appear to be a text file. But, I did that before I successfully ran a table using BAM.

I know my video card is old (Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT, ~10 years) and I am planning to upgrade it soon. Thinking of getting a Nvidia GeForce GT 730 or 1030 to replace it. with my current setup, I see FPS anywhere from the 30's (for something like Bond 50th Anniversary that has lots of detail, videos, etc.) to low 100's for older tables like Target Alpha, Silverball Mania, etc. Is it reasonable to think that a GPU upgrade will give a large performance boost, without updating the CPU? The CPU is a 2.8 GHz Pentium D (P4) and I have 2 GB of RAM. I am hesitant to replace the PC in this cabinet since I am planning to build a dedicated pinball cabinet in the next year-ish, and will definitely put something more modern (hardware and OS) in it! My thought is that if a relatively inexpensive GPU upgrade would boost the framerate significantly, I will do that in the short-term so I can play more tables on my arcade cabinet before I build a pinball cabinet.

Thanks,
Eric