[RESOLVED] Visual Pinball via GameEx

[BritInVA]

I'm having an issue running Visual Pinbal via GameEx. As I had been using Ranzo's install guide (highly recomended) I was posting my issues over in that thread but thinking might get better visibility here.

Problem I'm having is when I navigate thru GameEx to a pinball game and choose to play, all I get is a Visual Pinball logo and nothing else. The pinball I'm testing with plays fine directly in Visual Pinball.

I had been thinking I'm running into limitations on what my PC can do.

Spec of PC I'm using is:

- 1.3GHz Celeron

- 512Mb RAM (at Max)

- XP SP3 32bit

- Radeon 9200 Video card with 128Mb

The Visual Pinball Logo I think is the logo that the VPLoader app uses to hide any Visual Pinbal screens as when I Ctrl-Alt-Del to exit I see some Visual Pinbal windows maybe Errors (happens to quick to see).

So I tried reconfiguring to not use VPLoader App so can see the windows behind logo and now get Error Loading -"Game Name"

Attached is my Visual Pinbal Config.

My .vpt files are loaded in D:\Emulators\Visual Pinball\Tables and I'm using VP9 Originals so they don't need a ROM file.

Appreciate any help..... still think its a PC issue but want to be sure before I give up on Visual Pinbal in MK1 of my MAME.

Thanks,

Mark

vpinball.txt

[Adultery]

I'm going to start using Tempest's loader soon, but as of now things work fine without it. Could you try and just use vpinball.exe and let us know if this works?

[BritInVA]

Hi Adultery,

The games I've got work fine in Visual Pinbal

I've changed from Ranzo's config to just calling vpinball.exe to try to see what errors are

Command=..\VPinball.exe -play -"[ROMFILE]"

This is where I'm seeing error Error Loading -"Game Name"

[Adultery]

Can I get you to try a couple things?

-Remove the MAP file and see if it works for you.

If not,

-Put the MAP file back and try and run a table. When it doesn't work, please post your GameEx log.

If yes,

-The problem is in the MAP file.

A couple other things I thought of off top of my head:

Are your tables zipped?

Can you post your MAP file so I can hava a look at it?

[BritInVA]

I checked the location C:\Program Files\GameEx\MAP FILES\Pinmame specified in the vpinball.ini and nothing there. Assume maybe this is related to Ranzo's build.

So deleted line from the config and still getting same error Error Loading -"Game Name"

The correct MAP FILES directory looks like should be

D:\FrontEnds\GameEx\MAP FILES\

but I don't see a file called Pinmame in it.

Pinball tables are not zipped

I've attached log.

Thanks,

Mark

log.txt

[BritInVA]

Well after browsing a number of threads I noticed some were using

Command=..\VPinball.exe -play -"[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]"

So I changed the command in the Visual Pinbal config and now the game loads. But now seeing further errors

1)

Could not create texture of screen surface

Then when click OK

2)

The application failed to initialize properly

I think this is because of the Graphic Card memory - that sound right?

Worth me trying another card?

Like this one

Latest log attached

[mesk]

I dont play pinball,but to respond to your question of thinking you have reach the limitations of your pc is wrong.visual pinball requires a pentium 166 or above,which you exceed

VPINBALL SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

sorry I cant be more help,pinball just isnt my thing

[BritInVA]

I dont play pinball,but to respond to your question of thinking you have reach the limitations of your pc is wrong.visual pinball requires a pentium 166 or above,which you exceed

VPINBALL SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

sorry I cant be more help,pinball just isnt my thing

I think that relates to VP v6.1 and I'm running VP v9.09. Not been able to see on VPForum and minimum specof the PC CPU/RAM just that minimum 512MB video required.

Can anyone confirm if a PCI 2.1 card is OK with a mobo with PC1 1.0? I believe its backward compatible with PCI 1.0, just the 2.x card will just be limited to the bandwidth the v1.0 slot is capable of providing.

[Adultery]

You sure you're using VP 9 tables and not old ones on the new EXE? A lot has changed this build.

I never had much luck getting VP to run smoothly on my machine until I upgraded my mobo to a Dual Core and my video card to a Sapphire 1GB DD3 AGP 8x. You may very well be a bit on the light side. On the other hand I use vpinmame, so I can't confirm this.

.:EDIT:. A quick googling says these two are indeed backwards compatible.

[BritInVA]

You sure you're using VP 9 tables and not old ones on the new EXE? A lot has changed this build.

I never had much luck getting VP to run smoothly on my machine until I upgraded my mobo to a Dual Core and my video card to a Sapphire 1GB DD3 AGP 8x. You may very well be a bit on the light side. On the other hand I use vpinmame, so I can't confirm this.

.:EDIT:. A quick googling says these two are indeed backwards compatible.

Yep - def VP9 tables

I too thought would be OK to use a 2.x card. Seems thou what I've read 2.0 might be OK but 2.1 could be problematic. Spoke to someone in EVGA Tech support and he didn't think would work but in their forum someone thought it would be OK..... so confused

If anyone is more techy my mobo is trigem 011027

And attached pics of PCI slots and current ATI RADEON 9200 card

These are a couple of resonably priced cards that have s-video & DVI

EVGA 512-P1-N402-LR GeForce 6200 512MB 64-bit DDR2 PCI 2.1 Video Card

EVGA 512-P1-N724-RX GeForce 8400 GS 512MB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Low Profile Video Card

Starting to think thou that this PC is not worth the bother and should look at getting something better but didn't really want to be spending upwards of $300 on a PC

[Adultery]

Video card aside, I got the board on mine on eBay and the CPU from Tiger Direct, and the RAM from Newegg and spent less than $200. But I understand your situation. I just got fed up with mine enough to start getting parts.

Funny thing is that it was Visual Pinball not working that finally drove me over! Ha!

[BritInVA]

Video card aside, I got the board on mine on eBay and the CPU from Tiger Direct, and the RAM from Newegg and spent less than $200. But I understand your situation. I just got fed up with mine enough to start getting parts.

Funny thing is that it was Visual Pinball not working that finally drove me over! Ha!

Well my working out is:

Mobo (ASRock M3A770DE)= $60

CPU (AMD Athlon II X3 455 )= $90

RAM (G.SKILL NS 4GB) = $40

Video Card (EVGA 512-P1-N402-LR GeForce 6200 512MB)= $50

OS (XP Home) = $75 (Don't think I can use existing OS of this HP)

So circa $315 and thats assuming I use my existing HD, PSU, CD/DVD etc and don't use a case.

Might be a possibility after summer but not right now.

[GeorgeT]

That GeForce 6200 won't really run VisualPinball. I have a GeForce 7600GT 512mb in my arcade cab and at least 10-20% of the tables are choppy. FuturePinball is even worse!

[Adultery]

Well, mine's like this and it's good to have CPU...

ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA ($30) with Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 ($125)

GSkill DDRII 2GB Dual Channel kit ($29)

Also had the other parts before except the Sapphire 1GB AGP ($79) which does have S-Video and dual DVIs, and it runs almost everything I've thrown at it so far.

Visual Pinball not only runs like a dream, it actually works in my resolution! Never thought I would see the day.

Also using XP Media Center that came with the old Compaq computer I replaced this with. The license key is tied to the software, not the machine. I just borrowed someone else's install disc and used my key from it.

[BritInVA]

Found this

http://www.4allmemory.com/video-card/compaq-hp-pavilion-502n/

Ordered so fingers crossed - not expecting this PC to play everything but if it a least can play some basic tables and kids are playing it a lot then I can justify spending on a better PC and Monitor.

What else other that MAME will play nicely with a low end PC and integrate with GameEx?

[Adultery]

Lots of console emulators will, like SNES9x or ZSNES, NEStopia, Kega, Magic Engine, and MESS (just to name a few).

[rockyrocket]

Have you had a try with hd render turned off?

Does it complain about being unable to create offscreen z surface?.

Also vp9.12 is now out and has some other options built into the editor that gave me a notable performance increase in both my mame cab and also my hyperpin cab.

Have try with the new exe and play with the settings.

Hope you can sort it out.

[BritInVA]

Some good news to report - I purchased a EVGA nVidia GeForce 6200 512MB PCI card and now am able to run some pinballs via GameEx front end. Still go lots of twaeks to do but its taking a bit of a back seat while I do some other work in house.

Will definitly be upgrading to vp9.12 if that helps further.

[Draco1962]

Britt - Glad you were able to get it up and running with the new card. One thing people tend to forget is that the minimum requirements do not equal will run the program slick as snot! It just means that it will run it OK but more than suggested minimum requirements is recommended. You also must factor in all the other minimum requirements for your OS, your front end, and other programs you may run. All of these will be competing for CPU and GPU cycles, RAM, etc. Then start adding any additional hardware drivers, anti-virus/anti-malware, well.. should I continue?

Mesk - I looked at the page properties for the Vpinbal link you provided for the system requirements and you are correct.. for Friday, October 22, 2004 2:55:00 PM (date that page was last modified)

[Krakerman]

With ATI cards set your resolution to whatever you have it at x16 (bit) not x32 (bit) at the end as VP9 runs smooth as a whistle when you set that way. Example I have mine set at 1920x1080x16 Then you can enable the Hardware Device Rendering box and not get the gfx resolution corruption.

[BritInVA]

Thanks - hopefully get some time at weekend to do some more work on cabinet and PC. At moment got to finish a tiered celing in the master bath

[BritInVA]

Well so far things are much better with VP and the new graphic card.....using the VpinLoader now too. Got about 6 tables that work quite well.

So can mark this as [Resolved]

Thanks everyone!

[fRequEnCy]

Well so far things are much better with VP and the new graphic card.....using the VpinLoader now too. Got about 6 tables that work quite well.

So can mark this as [Resolved]

Thanks everyone!

Done! FYI this can be done by the OP as well.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Draco1962
This thread is marked as Resolved and is now closed. If the problem re-occurs, please start a new thread.