Hello, this seems the right subforum for a VP announcement. Our upcoming MiniPin Kickstarter. Nudging, real analog plunger, optional tactile feedback, goldleaf buttons with fast response, stainless steel side rails and lockbar. Works with ALL iPad pinball apps.
gibsonspinball.com

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Idea sounds nice! Hope you have your artwork licensed... Else the c&d is just a glimpse away...

The artwork is just an example on a prototype to get an idea. With attack from mars being a pinball game on the iPad from Zen pinball it simply looked nice as an example. The actual artwork will be a new design.

Hey guys Im new to this Virtual stuff, I just purchased a VP cabs LE. Im a little nervous that I may be disappointed going from real machine to virtual. But I dont have more room for new machines like a Diner, and a few old classics I wanted to have. Did I make right decision with a VP cabs LE?

Virtual pinball is different. On one hand people dismiss it since it is not physical and doesn’t behave 100% exactly as the physical games but on the other hand you have hundreds of games you would never play, ever. Try to find a Big Bang bar, an import game, a pitch and bat, an Ice cold beer locally. You have them in vp and can play them anytime 24x7.

Vp cabinets have their place in a collection. One footprint, hundreds of games. A perfect complement to your pinball collection -enjoy your game and learn to update it as new tables come out every week.

I think virtual pinball is super underrated in this place...

Yea it’s not 100% like the real thing, but with DOF, strobes etc it can be freaking awesome. Real pinballs can feel very different across games and eras, VP is pinball... it just feels a little bit different.

Yes, I feel Virtual Pin will eventually take over not because of preference but reality,hundreds of games,1 pin, nothing breaks. Same thing is going to happen with electric cars! They just need an easy way to update from what I hear.

One of my favorite things about my VP, nothing breaks, it always works. It’s similar to the real thing, but also different, yet it’s still fun. The latest tables keep getting better both graphically and playability. No regrets here 6 years later.

yes

There is a guy on youtube that has a virtual pin and shows a bunch of games. He has an interesting LCD that sits way at the top and acts like a topper. Where do I get that and will it work w/ VP cabs?

The add-on called Pinup Popper allows animated content to 5 separate screens and there are a bunch of pup packs (content) available. You have to install pinup popper. It interfaces with vpinmame and vp. Several authors have added video content to Transformers, and a bunch of games and there are some pup only releases like Harry Potter that only work with pinup popper installed.

this is the add-on 1.45 latest
https://www.nailbuster.com/wikipinup/doku.php?id=release_notes

an older video explaining what the heck the pinup popper is ....

Hint: For new VP cab owners you really need an account on vpforums, vpinball and vpuniverse. All 3 sites have various content/tables, etc and one or the other has content not found on the others.

OMG this VP stuff seems to be more complicated then a real pinball machine. With a real one I just order a part and screw it in, VP I have to use windows! (sad music).

I guess I better start reading...

You can play what you have and it will work forever but if you want to try new stuff or improved tables, you have to check the sites.
Its more of a journey than a destination.

Enjoy for a while. Then start learning by downloading your first few tables. Then you can start playing with things like PUP. Vpinball.com is probably the best site right now.

For me it is an absolute have! Someone once said that it’s more like comparing
A racing to real racing ! No not the same as real pinball. but really really fun. I agree! They now have installers which makes it much easier and user friendly.
I personally really enjoy the pup videos
It helps the immersion and makes the game better.

if you don't know computers well or understand how they work, I would advise you don't do this. Strongly advise and I'm someone that has worked on these things for years.

The visual pinball junkies group on Facebook has a comprehensive FAQ guide. A lot of cool people that can help with some of the components to get it running. It's always best to build yourself VP cabs does a great job but at some point you're going to need to understand how to add new tables & add them to front end popper. Always read the read me the new GOTG is awesome & there's new 4k scanned tables of the older Bally/williams!! Looks like we may end up getting batman 66 & DP soon too!!

what did you pay for your Vp Cabs LE. did you get any tables preloaded? yes its complicated . I feel your pain. I bought a machine and still learning this shit. dont bother asking for help on the forums. the Egos run high and just a bunch of douches that won't help.. but iam here for ya buddy. I can help with what I know.. dont ask me how to work PupPacks. I don't mess with that garbage. pinball is a backglass and playfield. i don't need a video playing in the background. i can't wait till AtGames releases their Virtual Pinball and Has alot of awesome classic tables.. one in particular iam waiting for is GUNS N ROSES!

Has anyone ordered from https://www.xtremegamingcabinets.com.au/? Their machines look great on Youtube but dealing with their customer service to get my questions answered (before placing an order) is making me go insane. I feel like they are basically telling me to pay or go away.

I wrote out exactly what I'm looking for in detail (took me a while) and I got a one sentence response say that it would be better I call her. I had already explained it would cost me international fees to call since I'm in Canada.

Reassurance from someone that purchased from them would be great (how long it took, import fees, etc. would also be great!).

Thanks.

Nothing against xtremegamingcabinets but have you tried Virtuapin or vp cabs? They are both in middle USA and it may be way easier to get support/questions answered based on your location.

If they can’t be bothered to answer an email I’d tell them to go eff themselves

I purchased a widebody "flatpack" from VirtuaPin about 15 months ago. Totally delighted. I put it together with glue, nails, and pipe clamps and it feels like it's built like a tank, just like a standard WPC widebody cabinet. I think VirtuaPin will customize a cabinet any way you want it but I'm very happy with the standard design: in addition to standard holes for flipper buttons, leg mounting and everything else, it came with holes for magnasave buttons, holes for both an analog plunger and a launch button, holes for "add credit" and start buttons, holes under the cab for air intake, holes in the back of the cab for exhaust fans... and they did some clever things: an adapter was included that allowed me to put in a momentary contact push button instead of a toggle switch where the on/off switch normally goes in a WPC cabinet; an extra hole in the front of the cabinet allowed me to install a USB jack; a hole under the cabinet, up front, enabled me to mount an "exit" button (so I can exit out of any game and return to the menu). In my flatpack, the wood was coarse sanded and all of it needed fine sanding before painting and applying decals (no big deal). On the backbox, instead of gluing and nailing the back panel, I used screws (to make the back panel removable). I think it made my life easier (and saved money) by getting the button assortment from Virtuapin, along with all the hardware and even the cabinet decals. The only thing to watch out for is lead time, i.e. it's something you should ask about

No, I want one with everything pre-installed ready to play.

Virtuapin sells a ready to play system with no tables (add your own). They also sell do it yourself systems.
VP Cabs sells ready to play systems with licensed tables and the ability to add your own.

Does anyone sell nice ready to go 4K builds?

https://virtualpinball.com/products/classic?variant=18666804359

I dunno, man. It's got an i3 and a 1050ti. That was a budget build 5 years ago, in 2020 it's a flat out joke for that kind of money. Anyone trying to run VPX tables in 4K on that rig will be hating life. Maybe you can run MAME fine on that, but VPX will be awful, 4K VPX much more so. Their Wizard option is better, but I still don't think it's a great value.

I'll sell you my cab. i have a I7 4790 processor,16GB memory, Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 4gigs video card.

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They have custom options and you wanted a plug and play solution. Contact them and tell them what you want, then decide.

It’s been long work in progress and I still have to add toys but at least it’s mostly playable now. I can’t see myself getting rid of my real Pins but I can see lots of possibilities with this VPin (that and I don’t have the room for any more Pins)

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I’ve been researching this a bit more and they are starting to look really good.

I haven’t been all that impressed with the Vp Cabs stuff.

I found some over in AU that look absolutely fantastic from a company called retro play.

Anyone have one that can comment?

Don't shoot me as I am just the messenger, but buying from Retro Play will get you a lot of flak from a lot of people in the virtual pinball world. Retro Play completely ignores the terms of use (or whatever it is called) for the software and the table (games) designs and pre-loads everything on to their cabinets. This sounds great as a consumer, but it does really piss off the people that do all of the software/coding for free when someone else basically profits from their hard work.

Also, there are continual posts on Facebook groups about people having issues with their brand new machines from Retro Play and others like them. So out of the box things need tinkering with, and again, the second you say that you got your machine from a company like them, people will back off from helping you and you will get some that will say "you need to learn to do this yourself" and so forth.

I am somewhere in the middle. I COMPLETELY respect the software developers and their usage regulations, but also wish that it was easier to get the software going when I first started. It isn't overly complex once you "get it" but it is daunting at first for sure.

I just wanted to give you some fore warning of the issues around using a company like that in that people have software issues right out of the box, and the push-back you will get from a lot of people.

I get it but the product does look nice with great features and good specs and really seems to be one of the better I’ve seen.

I like that it comes with all the software ready to go as I don’t really want to deal with loading all of that stuff and getting into programming.

What are your thoughts on playing on a nice 4K machine? Pretty realistic?

Whatever you get remember this - if you want to play something that is not on your cabinet you'll have to learn how to find the tables and artwork and update your cabinet. There is simply no way around it. It doesn't require programming, just file management/copy, paste, etc.

whats a Vpin from Retroplay cost? wouldnt shipping be spendy overseas? I like their terminator machine. but for side graphics I would like the image from the T2 backglass off the real machine that would be cool.. so whats your thoughts on Arcade1up and AtGames releasing a virtual pinball?? maybe for beginners that would be a start to buy one of those to give you a idea on the hobby. and not spend alot of money. if you build your own cab or find someone to help you build one. you will alot of cash. VpCabs are overpriced in my opinion. but of course they need to make a profit to stay in business. I have alot of empty pinball cabs. I wish i knew someone in my area. I would like to build a few

4K machine loaded $5700aud which is roughly $4200 us plus $850 shipping.

Still cheaper than VP cabs with more standard features and beTter components and looks a heck of a lot nicer too. No art upcharge as long as it’s a theme that’s been done before from what I gather as well.

Can someone who is wiser than me also comment on the Virtual Reality pins from Retroplay?

Will VR make the virtual pin look more like a regular pin?

Pros? Cons?

Link to their VR pins:

Theatre of Magic at 10m 47s. Looks impressive.

And this is why the authors of the software and recreations hate these companies. RetroPlay did not develop any of the software or recreations. These are all community driven and free for anyone to take the time and learn. Even buying from these all in one places you will have to learn how to update if you want newer tables and the learning curve for installing on existing is much higher than learning it from scratch. The VPX VR stuff is even more complicated than normal vpx. You can see all of the available VR pins here https://vpinball.com/VPBdownloads/categories/vpx-vr-tables/

Thanks for the link to VR pins.

Now, please don't bite my head off as I am new to all this.

I am in my 70's and not computer literate. I really don't think I have the ability to learn how to download and adjust tables.

I appreciate that the tables are produced by 'hobbyists' but is it really so terrible if I could buy and enjoy a virtual pin that already had my favorite tables loaded? I could understand the displeasure more if the seller was charging for the tables but it doesn't appear he is doing that.

Again, I am new to this, so please be gentle with any response!

PS: Back to my original question. Will VR make the virtual pin look and play a lot more realistically than the non VR virtual pins?

Thank you.

Man I just want to buy one of these pinsim controllers but hardware only. Where can I buy? I don't need software.

Most of the time, the community considers it to be charging for the tables if they sell a cabinet with all the software already loaded, which still falls outside the "noncommercial use only" part of the Visual Pinball license. They're not biting your head off here, what's going on is they're trying to warn you is that it'll be much harder to get support (and it will be harder to upgrade if you get into needing to download and adjust tables) from the community - at best the recommendation will be to nuke what software the cabinet builder put on there and start fresh. And that will involve a much steeper learning curve because you then also have to figure out what configuration the cabinet's "toys" needs to be functional.

And if you're going down this route, check very carefully... some of these cabinet sellers are still using VP9 (that's the case for the minicabs for one here in Denver), because they can put a weaker (and cheaper) computer in the box than is required for VPX. VPX is lightyears better than VP9.

Pretty sure retro play is using vp 10.6 beta in their cabs according to one of their many YouTube vids.

Spoke with them yesterday and they are so busy it’s a 20+ week wait to get a cab. Couldn’t believe it.

Same here bud. I have no issues doing the software or wiring it up. Just need a box. I would want it to be deeper than most that I have seen online though. I am thinking 20 inches or so for depth. Real lockdown bar and receiver would be best too.

Good way of saying things here. As soon as someone pops up on the forums or facebook groups saying "I just bought this ____ system from ____, and it was loaded with stuff. Now please help me fix/add/update/change", they will turn on you.

wow that's crazy. The profit margins on these things is INSANE

Told me they have 70+ cabs to build at the moment, I was about ready to pull the trigger on one but don’t want to wait 6 months.

Didn’t realize VP was that popular. I’m just looking for some variety as I only have room for maybe two more cabs and was thinking on going virtual for one of them.

Variety. That is the beauty of having a VP cabinet. I have a nice pinball collection but this VP cabinet scratches my itch for games I would never see, never want to own, or games I am just curious about. The quality of the games is constantly improving. It has allowed me to study rules on games, to refresh childhood memories of many EMs I have played in the 70s and continues to delight me with non-pinball games like Ice Cold Beer, pitch and bats, etc when I feel like something different. Good luck on your decision, its a fun thing to have to accompany your pinball machines.