Anyone explain Visual Pinball?

[Demon-Seed]

Hey
I am new to this visual pinabll thing. I thought it was mame pinball games, but the more i read it is a different emu all together? Are the games free? I thought I read on the net ppl make there own? if so where could i find some links if they are free. OR are they roms and u need to own the original? SORRY i am a newbie in visual pinball.

[Tiger-Heli]

Hey
I am new to this visual pinabll thing. I thought it was mame pinball games, but the more i read it is a different emu all together? Are the games free? I thought I read on the net ppl make there own? if so where could i find some links if they are free. OR are they roms and u need to own the original? SORRY i am a newbie in visual pinball.

I got out of the scene a couple of years ago, but heres a brief intro -

There are two emu's visual pinball and (Visual) PinMAME.  All tables use visual pinball, some also use Visual pinmame.  Visual Pinball plays the table.  VpinMAME works the electronic score counters and the sounds.

Both emu's are free.  Created tables are free and available.  Original tables use Visual Pinball and not Vpinmame.

People also have done Replica tables.  Some of these are stand-alone but most use VpinMAME.

There is an unspoken and sometimes broken rule against emulating recent tables.

ROMS are an odd issue.  Technically you have to own the game to have them, but you can download them directly from Williams or Bally's websites :-)))

Best I can do for a website is
http://www.excellentcontent.com/vpinball/index.htm, but hopefully someone else can hook you up as well.

[Onji]

This is the best stepbystep hold your hand instructions i could find. I went through them just the other day and as long as you follow them word for word, you'll get it installed and understand how it works better:

http://www.vpforums.com/modules.php?s=&name=FAQ&myfaq=yes&id_cat=2#5

[NoBonus]

The thing about Vpinmame and Virtual Pinball is....




... it ROCKS! It is one of the single greatest uses of hard drive space I have ever seen.

 But be careful, one of the programs (VPinMame or Virtual Pinball) expires periodically forcing you to download an updated version.  So if one day you cannot seem to get the thing to work correctly, go download the latest version.

[albrigsr]

Does anyone know if there is a service like Tombstones/Lazurus, etc. for Visual Pinball?  I have downloaded many tables and such in the past but newer versions have come out and it has gotten more and more difficult to find a complete listing of all of the VP tables as well as a site to download them.

Thanks,
Scott

[namzep]

I'm pretty sure that the expiration date of Visual Pinball (at least I think it's Visual Pinball that had one) was removed in the more recent builds.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this.

[Tiger-Heli]

I'm pretty sure that the expiration date of Visual Pinball (at least I think it's Visual Pinball that had one) was removed in the more recent builds.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Yes and no.

Visual Pinball used to expire each year, and I got out of the scene right before my copy died.

However, about a month later, they released the current version which will never expire.

OTOH, vpinMAME, I don't think expires, but many of the newer tables and the new visual pinball won't work without a fairly new version of it.

[Onji]

albrigsr check pm please

[Lilwolf]

btw, Tiger touched on this...

vpinmame is an true emulator based on mame.  It emulates all the boards in a pinball machine to tell what lights light up, the sound, and take the input for each piece on the pinball board.

VisualPinball is a super version of the old pinball construction set.  Where you SIMULATE a pinball table.  It simulates what the ball will do, and you get to design tables, and play them.  

Then they combined them so you play all the original rules of the table, with the real sounds ect (vpinmame) on a simulated playfield that looks like the original (visualpinball)

take note on vpinmame... there is a version that works with a special board that you can hook a computer inside of a pinball table if it has missing / bad circuit boards...  So you can revive old pinball tables.

Also..

There are fun VisualPinball tables that have nothing to do with vpinmame...

[Demon-Seed]

Hi
I tried visual pinball. I load a table hit play and get a microsoft error and says its closing. I downloaded it from both AJs Vpinamme site and VPFORUMS (as listed above) i followed the directions to a tee.. not sure why its not working,

[Onji]

vpforums may be the best place to ask this, but what was the ms error message?

[Demon-Seed]

Guys
I finally got it working but when I run certain cames says VPINMAME is unable to find the roms...... ?? I downloaded the roms from AJs site and unzipped to visualpinball / tables like the others but they dont work. Is there certain roms or something? can they be downloaded? anyone advise on anything  like rom burners??? please explain thanks

Jim

[Demon-Seed]

ok i got it I am dumb eheh there is a rom file you need as well as the table.. this is kick ass! now i gotta add two more buttons on the side of the cab this rocks!...does anyone know of any rom burners or otherwise on these?

[Onji]

www.allmyroms.com just came out with a 3dvd set that has about 3000 tables

[size=-1]
(i applogize if this is against the rules of these boards, im not sure of the stance on burners, if i should not have posted this please let me know and i wont do it again)[/size]

[Tiger-Heli]

www.allmyroms.com just came out with a 3dvd set that has about 3000 tables

[size=-1]
(i applogize if this is against the rules of these boards, im not sure of the stance on burners, if i should not have posted this please let me know and i wont do it again)[/size]

Yep, I don't think it's appropriate for the spirit of the boards.  Thanks for the link, BTW  

[Demon-Seed]

the link is good but I feel games should be free.......

[JoeB]

WOW!

Thanks folks for this thread..

I've had a chance to try visual pinball for the first time yesterday, and it rocks!  I'm surprised how well the developers managed to keep all the support and downloads to a single web site on the net.  The 5 minute wait between downloads is a pain (Especially when you need to download 5 files just to get this thing setup!).  But once you got it running, it's great!

I've tried running VisualPinball on my arcade monitor (640x480 resolution interlaced) and it's not bad at all!  Games like the simpsons look good, but others (like star wars) don't since the pinMAME window shows over the top half of the board.

Visual Pinball is definitly designed to be played on a PC monitor with 1024x768 resolution.  

I find it amazing how you have all these tools working together to create a seamless game.. hopefully in the future developers will incorporate the ability to launch the game directly, rather than go through the GUI.

[Onji]

hopefully in the future developers will incorporate the ability to launch the game directly, rather than go through the GUI.

The Wrapper that Howard has over at the Lazarus site does just that, and it works great with mamewah

http://www.oscarcontrols.com/lazarus/

Just click the wrappers link on the sidebar

[Demon-Seed]

some visual pinball games have music files too? what do i do with them?

[Onji]

some visual pinball games have music files too? what do i do with them?

per the instructions in the link in my 1st post above

The MP3 or any music ZIP file(s) unzip into C:/VPinMAME/Music

If you dont have that subdirectory, create it.

[Chris]

Probably a good moment to blatantly plug an original table I've created with Visual Pinball called "Fight Night"... it can be found at http://webpages.charter.net/celamantia/vp .



For people into really old stuff, I also have World's Fair Jigsaw (Rock-Ola, 1933):



--Chris

[Demon-Seed]

C:/VPinMAME/Music
Ok I installed the music into H:/pinmame/Music and unzipped as per instructions.
Still DOESNT work.

If it is a visual Pinaball game and not pinmame (uses roms) u put the music into your visual pinball directory not pinmame.

ie) H:/visualpinball/Music

then it works! FYI

[JoeB]

The install instructions are a bit wrong on the visual pinball web site.

A better way to install it is:

C:\VisualPinball  (rather than C:\Program Files\...)
C:\VisualPinball\pinMAME

The actual tables do not go into the pinMAME subdirectory (tables) but rather the tables subdirectory of VisualPinball!!!  Thing of pinMAME as a component of visualpinball.  You play visual pinball (it's the thing that puts everything together, so all the files are in subdirectories of it..)

- Tables is subdirectory of VisualPinball
- Music is subdirectory of VisualPinball
- Rom is subdirectory of pinMAME <-- you need it to get the actual writing on the screen emulated.

Hope this helps.. I was confused about it at first as well!!