Well, I sold off my south park machine, and I couldn't decide on what get next so I took the plunge and started to build a Pinmame cabinet with the cash. I know it's not the real thing, but until I decide on my next machine it will do, and keep the girlfriend happy that I'm not swaping machines in/out every month.

So far I have 111 tables running full screen on a 37" monitor, and the fully animated backglass's running on a 23" monitor.

I bought a Nanotech pinball wizard controller, ( should be here soon, shipping)

I have to build (or find) a cabinet to put all this in.

I am thinking on building it similar to a pinball 2000 machine design, and mounting the cpu in the head the same way. I think this would make it alot easier to service than putting everything in the bottom cabinet, under the large monitor.

I can put the subwoofer in the bottom cabinet, and have the cpu in the top behind the backglass monitor.

Since I have the pinball 2000 machines I can measure and build it to scale. it would be the same size.

Just wondering thoughts on cabinet art? I want it to be original, but have done alot of stuff lately and have writers/artist block.

And also if pin 2000 complete flipper buttons mechs are available from any suppliers? the two button combo would work great and look sweet to mod into the cabinet.

Anyone have any williams coin doors lying around? I have called around locally but no one wants to sell used.

I will have some pics soon. Once I break out the table saw and start cutting.
I still have 2 other custom projects on the go as well. Yikes!

I picked up my Happ WMS replacement coindoor and legs today. I was thinking of putting arcade games in as well but I already have a mame cabinet and it would kind of defeat the purpose of a pin cabinet. As of today I have 116 full screen real tables loaded and working with Backglass animations/lights and scores/DMD's.

I think I am going to build the cabinet from scratch. I was looking at an ultrapin today and I think I can do it. Plus I have the woodworking tools tools.

Side rails and lockdown bar are on their way as well.

Here are some pics

Try to repost pics.

starwars_003.jpg starwars_001.jpg starwars_002.jpg starwars_004.jpg starwars_008.jpg starwars_006.jpg

Table List, incase anyone is interested:
2001
50/50
Abra ca dabra
Air aces
Airport
Alien poker
Amazing Spiderman (gottlieb)
Astroblast (hyperball ripoff)
Revenge from mars
Attack from mars
Back to the future
Bad cats
Baywatch
Big spender (original gambling)
Black knight
BK2000
Black pyramid
Black rose
Bonebusters
Bubble bobble (original based on arcade)
Cactus canyon
centaur
Cirqus Voltaire
Comet
CFTBL
Cyclone
Dark Quest (original)
Dead hunters (original)
Dirty harry
dr who
dr dude
earthshaker
eight ball deluxe
Elvira and Party monsters
Elvis (Stern)
evel knievel
F-14 tomcat
fathom
fireball
firepower
fish tales
flash gordon
flintstones
frankenstein
funhouse
gilligans island
gorgar
grand lizard
guns and roses
harlem globetrotters
hayburners
hurricane
Independence day
Indiana jones (WMS)
indy 500
jack bot
joker poker
Jokerz!
Jurassic park
KISS
Lethal weapon 3
lord of the rings
Mata Hari
Medieval castle (original)
medieval madness
meg man (arcade original)
metal slug (original SNK)
Monster bash
Mortal kombat (original)
No good gophers
party zone
penthouse (Harlem globetrotters conversion)
pinball pool
Pinbot
Roadshow
Ripley's believe it or not
Road girls (original)
Roller coaster tycoon
Scared stiff
seawitch
silverball mania
Simpsons pinball party
sorcerer
south park
spaceinvaders
Spiderman (Stern)
strange science
Star trek
Star trek Next gen
star wars Data east
starship troopers
strikes and spares
super mario bros
tales from the crypt
TAXI
T2
the addams family
the game show bally
Batman the dark knight (Stern)
the getaway
the machine bride of pinbot
phantom of the opera
the shadow
the simpsons data east
theater of magic
three angels (original)
TMNT
Tommy
Tales of the arabian nights
Twilight zone
Twister
whirlwind
who dunnit
worl cup soccer
Xenon

I have way more to possibly add, but most left are old EM titles, so I'm leaving them out for now.

Total cost so far $1400. That includes all hardware cpu/monitors legs buttons, etc. Total time spent setting up tables and software 20 hrs.

I figure another 16 to build the cabinet, painted black. Then I will start on the artwork.

This is the controller I bought to mod, I'm gonna put the guts inside the cabinet. It is around $100 cheaper to buy the whole thing than the parts seperately. YES, you can nudge the ball and do bang backs, it also has a fully working plunger.

http://nanotechent.com/pinball-wizard.php

So far I've spent $1400 Canadian on it. I only have to get the plywood or MDF to build the cabinet, I figure another $100 or so with wood and hardware, screws/bolts etc.

As far as the game play goes, I really like it, it will be waaaay better once I get it in a cabinet with flipper buttons though.

Since it uses the actual game roms, the DMD emulation is exact, along with menus for audits etc.

The ball physics on Virtualpinball are awesome, Future pinball not quite as good but the lighting effects are better. Thats why I am running both on the Hyperpin frontend.

There are new tables coming out all the time, AWESOME!
supposidly coming soon
Junk Yard
Big Bang Bar
Avatar
Rolling Stones (new version, Yuck but its free)
King kong
King pin
Johnny Mnemonic

thats just a few.

I just have the problem of designing the vinyl graphics for the cabinet, I can't decide what I want to do. I was thinking something sort of like this for the side art only modded a bit more, maybe some other pin characters added in but the colours kept the same. BBB is a beautiful cabinet (quick mock up in pic) But I am open to suggestions, they help the design process a lot.
But the cabinet is going to look close to a pin 2000. It will be easier to cool the cpu, and access it for upgrades. Plus the smaller size of the cab will fit the playfield monitor perfect.

imagesCAR8DGP6.PNG

"That would be sweet, particularly if you could change out some of the patrons for pinball favorites. Pinbot, BOP, BK, Rod Sterling, King of Payne, AFM Alien, or the Ringmaster to name a few."

Thats what I am thinking of doing, you pretty much got all the right ones too. Psysic?

There is a how to and start to finish tutorial. Just google pinmame, virtual pin, or future pinball. There are lots of sites forums etc. and it is all FREEWARE!

Its the setup and build materials that will cost you.

But you can also purchase premade cabinets online for $5000 +. Or build yourself for just under $2000. Mine will probably be about $1700 after all is said and done, artwork printing included.

Just make sure to get a decent graphics card, I am using a GeForce GT 240. It works great and has HDMI outputs, and 3D capable $99.99

Going based on the Pinmame forums...Generally, the consensus has been that a dual core, 2.0Ghz processor and 2Gb of RAM.

Mine is running Dual core, 3.0 Ghz and 4Gb and it runs really nice and loads fast, less than 4 sec to load a table, the menu loads instantly with no lag. DMD run perfect (so do animated backglasses) The grafics card helps alot. I tried it wth the mother board integrated card first (after building it, incase I wanted to return the vid card)but it was sometimes choppy.

You also have to update he video card software, it will not run dual monitor properly with the DMD without the factory update, from the vid card manufacturer.

Technically this can be bought cheap. I got mine brand new, built it myself. with the $100 video card cost me $350 taxes included. That includes a 500 gb Hard Drive. ( you only need about 60 gb for everything)And DVD RW I just installed windows xp myself. Or windows 7. You don't really need a tower, just the power supply. But the shop threw in the tower with power supply for free for buying everything at once.

You have to open it and make sure it runs in Virtual Pin or future pin whatever you are using. Then you have to edit the .xml file with notepad and make sure your table names in your tables folder match exactly to the game name in the .xml file in hyperpin database folder either the future pin xml or visual pin xml.

Future pinball requires you to open first, (in Future pinball.exe) and size with the sizing tab. cntr/prnt screen brings up the menu then pg up/pg dn. switches between scaling/centering the table image and backglass.

All the images have to match the discription in the .xml as well, or they wont show up. Open them with notepad, edit what needs to be edited then click "save as" and overwrite the previous file.

Eg. your tale name in your table folder should match the quoted part exactly and yopur images should match the description line exactly as well if it is any different it wont work.

Also you might have to swith the compatability mode in the preferences tab.

<game name="2001_V200">
<description>2001 (Gottlieb 1971)</description>
<manufacturer>Gottlieb</manufacturer>
<year>1971</year>
<type>EM</type>

Also make sure your Hyperpin settings paths are set up properly, you can change your paths if they are in different places save and exit. Eg.

[Future Pinball]
Show_Games = true
Exe = Future Pinball.exe
Path = C:\Games\Future Pinball\
Table_Path = C:\Games\Future Pinball\Tables\
Table_Video_Path = C:\HyperPin\Media\Future Pinball\Table Videos\
Table_Image_Path = C:\HyperPin\Media\Future Pinball\Table Images\
Backglass_Image_Path= C:\HyperPin\Media\Future Pinball\Backglass Images\

Does Hyperpin load and show the tables? And when you push enter on a tab on a table does it say anything (windows error tab) or does it go black when loading the .exe? If it goes totally black and does not load it may be an improper xml file. If anything is missing like a < or > hyperpin will not LOAD AT ALL it will go totally black. It will also kick you back to your desktop. I had this issue when I copied a xml and pasted it.

I missed the < at the beginning of .... eg.
<game name="2001_V200">

If < or " are not there on any line hyperpin databases it will not load, just check all your modified (added xml script)

Each should look like this

<game name="GAME NAME exactly as it is saved in FP or VP tables folder">
<description> WHAT THE ARTWORK FILES ARE NAMED </description>
<manufacturer> MANUFACTURER </manufacturer>
<year>19**</year>
<type>EMor SS</type>
</game>

Make sure you leave the last line </game> alone, it stays like it is, and can't be missing.

All artwork files need to be in their proper folders (wheel image,backglass, table) and named exactly the same. Check spelling and spaces. (some of the dowloadable media packs have spelling errors so if they differ from the description line they wont show)

Good luck, any other questions PM me.

I'm up to 153 tables and counting.

Open the table in Future pinball, open the video rendering options tab at the top in preferences. set it up for full screen 2 monitors and playfield rotation and fixed view.

Then click on play table: then do this

This tutorial is located in the help file under rendering options:

Pressing Scroll-Lock will allow you to adjust (scroll and resize) the display(backglass and playfield) so you can fill it with the backbox monitor and playfield monitor.

This will bring up a adjustment menu (as pictured below) which allows you to adjust the position of the graphical display, You do this with with the keypad keys 4/6 (scroll left/right), 8/2 (scroll up and down) . The currently adjustable setting is highlighted in RED. You can change between the adjustments by using Page Up and Page Down.

When you have the backbox displaying how you would like then you will have to save the table (when returned to the editor) for the settings to be saved so they can be used the next time you run this table. Pressing Scroll-Lock again will exit the adjustment mode. When in adjustment mode the translate and scale positions are displayed on the second monitor.

If set to fullscreen/ arcade mode /playfield rotated and 1024x600 res (the scale adjustmenu) will show up on the playfield.

is this located at the top of your xml?
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
if so delete it, it should just start with the <menu>

So far, I finally have a table on my playfield screen, BUT no backbox image, just blank screen

You may have to download another HGlass file update. for the backglass to show. I did this before installation of FP. This is a support for active backglasses file. Just read the instructions on how to install before dowloading, (tells you where to save/overwrite)

You do not have to change or add anything for Future pinball just overwrite the existing file. For Visual Pinball it involves adding the lines in the download doc. and making a new file and changing file names.

http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?s=528412856514ca04a0e746daada43ad5&automodule=downloads&req=idx&cmd=viewdetail&f_id=2591

As far as the monitors go, I bought them both from Walmart $659 for the PF monitor LG 37"1080p. and $100 on clearance (last one in store) new, not opened, for the ACER 23"backglass cpu monitor.