Pinball and MAME?

[Rando]

Hi all,
On MAME PC’s both here and elsewhere I keep seeing people install flipper buttons on the sides of their Control Panel for Pinball.  Are there good MAME Pinball games out there to make this modification worth it?  And if so, are the buttons generally just repeats of the first two Player 1 buttons?

Looking for some good Pinball titles to try to see if I want to make this modification before I finalize my CP.

Thanks!

[Grimoz]

I think you will find that its not for MAME pinball it is for Visual Pinball and Future Pinball, there arent many pinball games (as far as I know) in MAME. I have visual pinball setup on my MAME cabinet running about 20 tables, and its fantastic, takes a bit too setup but once its done its well worth it.

[Rando]

I think you will find that its not for MAME pinball it is for Visual Pinball and Future Pinball, there arent many pinball games (as far as I know) in MAME. I have visual pinball setup on my MAME cabinet running about 20 tables, and its fantastic, takes a bit too setup but once its done its well worth it.

Thanks Grimoz,
I've heard Visual Pinball referenced here and there but didn't see too many details on it.  Is it basically a separate emulator that runs Pinball instead of arcade games, and are those the actual emulator names?  Could you point me to a starting point for some research?

Also, I'm using an older P4 machine and envision visual pinball being more processor hungry, fact or fiction?

Thanks.

[paigeoliver]

I have future pinball on a machine that is probably 6 years old and it runs fine. The version I am using is from like 4 years ago.

[compute]

I think you will find that its not for MAME pinball it is for Visual Pinball and Future Pinball, there arent many pinball games (as far as I know) in MAME. I have visual pinball setup on my MAME cabinet running about 20 tables, and its fantastic, takes a bit too setup but once its done its well worth it.

Thanks Grimoz,
I've heard Visual Pinball referenced here and there but didn't see too many details on it.  Is it basically a separate emulator that runs Pinball instead of arcade games, and are those the actual emulator names?  Could you point me to a starting point for some research?

Also, I'm using an older P4 machine and envision visual pinball being more processor hungry, fact or fiction?

Thanks.

vpforums.org .  I haven't tried FP, but the min requirements are outside any machine I have presently (that is, just high enough).  Visual Pinball runs fine for me, though.  Give it a shot, I like it a lot.

[Gray_Area]

The lack of googlefoo here rather bemuses me.

[Grimoz]

Im running Visual Pinball 8 on my P4 machine and it runs great, VP9 didnt run very good so if you have a low powered machine i'd say try VP8, just make sure you download all the required programs like pinMAME as well otherwise it wont work. As already stated vpforums.org is where you can get everything you need. Hours of fun too be had 

[BobA]

With Visual Pinball you also need Vpinmame.  It uses Roms just like mame and I think it is based on the guts of mame to control the displays and pieces within the cabinet. When that is working Visual Pinball uses table files (.vpt) to create the full pinball emulation. With Visual Pinball you have a choice of the older version 8 or newer version 9.  Version 8 seems to run on older hardware while some version 9 tables are very slow on older computers.

 

[compute]

With Visual Pinball you have a choice of the older version 8 or newer version 9.  Version 8 seems to run on older hardware while some version 9 tables are very slow on older computers.

There are some other compatibility issues between vp8 and vp9.  I use 9, and the spacing works slightly different, so many tables for vp8 do not work.  Many tables for '8' were fixed for 9, so you won't miss much either way.

[DarthMarino]

I find it best to keep both VP8 and VP9 to get the most out of it. There's more available for VP8 but usually the VP9 versions are superior.  The ball gets stuck sometimes if you use the wrong version.  I label each of my table files with the version that it works best with.  As BobA was saying, you are basically running 2 programs at the same time so it may be a little confusing at first.  You need to acquire the ROM as well as the fan made tables (.vpt). Sometimes separate sound files are needed as well.  Once you are up and running, you only need to run Visual Pinball. In addition to recreations of classic tables, there are some original creations as well which aren't half bad.  It's quite impressive how accurate the recreations are so it's well worth a look if you want to add some pinball to your set up.

[drventure]

+1 on the FP and VP comments.

All the Mame pinball games I've tried so far aren't terribly good.

But Future Pinball and VP are quite nice (particularly if you can rotate the monitor vertically).

2 flipper buttons is a requirement though. You'll also likely want to consider a plunger or a button for emulating the plunger.

And some way to simulate tilts to the back and either side can make things interesting!

[DarthMarino]

I use down on my right joystick (player 2) for the plunger and it works quite well.  I use the left stick for tilting but setting up a motion controller is a cool idea.

[Grimoz]

I use down on my right joystick (player 2) for the plunger and it works quite well.  I use the left stick for tilting but setting up a motion controller is a cool idea.

+1 Exactly what i do as well