Pinball

[Ricci]

Any recommendations on front ends or emulators for pinball?? thanks!

[fRESH_OiL]

Any recommendations on front ends or emulators for pinball?? thanks!

As far as I know there is only one option to play pinball, that is Visual Pinball.

The other emulators for pinball are PinMAME and VPinMAME, same thing, however they both only emulate the electronics. They can show the back screens but cannot emulate the other hardware, ie the bumpers and the playing field... Visual Pinball does that.

Visual Pinball is a great idea, but a terrible program from the players point of view. It is made more to duplicate the hardware and to edit/create your own tables.

As a playable emulator... well try and use it with GameEx and you will see the problems.\

Also, there are many little ZIP files going around that have Visual Pinball on there and a number of tables... its actually nice b/c to download visual pinball you need to be on the VP Forums and they limit your downloads to 1 every 5 minutes, which makes it hard to get everything you need in a timely maner.

[Ricci]

As far as I know there is only one option to play pinball, that is Visual Pinball.

The other emulators for pinball are PinMAME and VPinMAME, same thing, however they both only emulate the electronics. They can show the back screens but cannot emulate the other hardware, ie the bumpers and the playing field... Visual Pinball does that.

Visual Pinball is a great idea, but a terrible program from the players point of view. It is made more to duplicate the hardware and to edit/create your own tables.

As a playable emulator... well try and use it with GameEx and you will see the problems.\

Also, there are many little ZIP files going around that have Visual Pinball on there and a number of tables... its actually nice b/c to download visual pinball you need to be on the VP Forums and they limit your downloads to 1 every 5 minutes, which makes it hard to get everything you need in a timely maner.

Thank you for the info...I agree with you on the problems, which was why I was hoping there might be more stuff out there!! Guess I will just stick with MAME and be happy!

[fRESH_OiL]

Thank you for the info...I agree with you on the problems, which was why I was hoping there might be more stuff out there!! Guess I will just stick with MAME and be happy!

If you are putting this in a cabinet or somewhere where there will not be a keyboard, opt out if you want to opt out of trouble. Right now I am experimenting with it. The problem I am having is that Visual Pinball has no comman line strings you can pass it, and there are no plans to add them to any future version, so says the VP forums.

Thus, I get dropped into the OS and I see some windows. None of these can be on my box when it gets in the cab. I've played with my cab, its fun, but I want to make it stand alone and never touch it.

-fRESH_OiL

[Cratermass]

If you are putting this in a cabinet or somewhere where there will not be a keyboard, opt out if you want to opt out of trouble. Right now I am experimenting with it. The problem I am having is that Visual Pinball has no comman line strings you can pass it, and there are no plans to add them to any future version, so says the VP forums.

Thus, I get dropped into the OS and I see some windows. None of these can be on my box when it gets in the cab. I've played with my cab, its fun, but I want to make it stand alone and never touch it.

-fRESH_OiL

Works fine here in my cab, i'm not sure what problems you have found? My only real criticism is the obvious one of the viewpoint so it's important to be able to run in as high resolution as possible which demands a LOT of processing power especially during multiball or light activity. But you can launch it, exit, map most of the keys for flippers and nudge, Start button etc very easily.

Future Pinball also works very well in my cab but of course isn't an emulator.

Mike.

[fRESH_OiL]

Works fine here in my cab, i'm not sure what problems you have found? My only real criticism is the obvious one of the viewpoint so it's important to be able to run in as high resolution as possible which demands a LOT of processing power especially during multiball or light activity. But you can launch it, exit, map most of the keys for flippers and nudge, Start button etc very easily.

Future Pinball also works very well in my cab but of course isn't an emulator.

Mike.

How do you get around the exiting of VP? It always ask that question and the script VPauto doesn't do much.

Future Pinball, I am just checking this out for the first time, I've been into emulation for a long time and had never seen this.

And then you say it isn't emulation, well, although PinMAME is, VP isn't either. and as far as reproducing the graphics and non electronic hardware, Future pinball seems great.

[shbon]

Works fine here in my cab, i'm not sure what problems you have found? My only real criticism is the obvious one of the viewpoint so it's important to be able to run in as high resolution as possible which demands a LOT of processing power especially during multiball or light activity. But you can launch it, exit, map most of the keys for flippers and nudge, Start button etc very easily.

Future Pinball also works very well in my cab but of course isn't an emulator.

Mike.

I agree with Cratermass, VP plays reasonably well through GameEx, with no intervention, as long as you have a powerful PC and 1024 or above display, but does show windows both on entry and exit. Assuming you're using GameEx as a shell, the resulting loading window is small and unobtrusive, if previously you have made the main Visual Pinball UI window as small as possible. The exit window is three buttons that GameEx handles for you (via VPAuto), so you only see them briefly. You'd forget about the slight window faux-pas's pretty quickly IMO.

My other thought (I'm also experimenting with the software, prior to build a cab) is to use a 'black on black' windows theme or try an XP skin such as bbLean which may give more scope for hiding the windows elements. Launch before and after options may also provide other avenues...

Clearly, the VP software is not currently FE/CAB orientated, but it is playable and I love playing the old tables with the mechanical sounds.

Where there's a will there's a way...

Shaun