The flipper physics are so broken on VP. The 2 stage buttons won't matter. It's not like you'll be doing crazy ball control with the flipper physics the way they are anyway. I tried to test the new ton table last night. While the table quality was great in VP 9.2, the flippers were so far off they I considered it more frustrating than fun. Shooting up the middle is just nothing like on a real machine.

You're right on with VP flippers. But it's not because its a simulation. Simulations can be very good. The flippers in pinball fx2 (for example) are spot on. It's because there is no physics engine. I have some hopes that unit3d will solve a lot of these issues.

I have played all the versions as well as contributed to the VP code base. A friend a I planned to work on the flipper physics until we realized there is just no physics engine and the VP software just couldn't be fixed. (Even the ball is internally a square object floating on the table surface). I have played your tron table. And while it's very well done, the ball just doesn't move off the flippers anything even close to how it does in my real tron game. For one thing, shooting up the middle is way hard in your table. But this is normal unless you set some massive oblique values, which then adds blind spots towards the ramps. As I said, no physics engine. It's pretty unfixable without scrapping the whole thing.

While the pinball fx tables don't have hard physics settings and have (weak slingshots, not much bounce, close flipper gaps). But their flipper physics are just right on. The ball consistently goes where you aim. If they made tables with that engine with bouncier rubbers, stronger slings, I think they'd be close to nailing pinball physics in a virtualized environment. That engine implements ball spin and is much more usable.

Where are you downloading the dx9 version? This is the special version Cupid was working on?

Ok I played with this table on the dx9 test 13 version today. The performance and rendering in the dx9 version are great. But the physics is the same. There are several playability issues that are all caused by the physics engine and mostly out of your control:

1) at times the ball moves way too fast. It's unnaturally fast.
2) the flippers are just way f'ed up and nothing like the actual tron uppers. Not even close. Shots that should have gone to the center were so far off. A center shot from left flipper hits the scoop. A center shot from right flipper hits the left target bank. The flipper shots to the scoop and orbits are fairly accurate. This is not a lag issue. It's the typical visual pinball physics. I was able to make your table better (but not perfect) by increasing the angle on the flippers by 7 to 296. Then upping the strength to 1.0 and lowering the speed to .30. Then remove scatter angle. Why would you want randomness added by software on the flippers? With these changes, it's easier to shoot up the middle. But things still aren't right.

I played a couple tables in unit3d. While that physics engine has some issues, it does not seem to suffer from the horrible flipper physics of VP and FP.

I don't have enough experience with the older games to compare the VP versions. The flipper shot angles are the issue. The whole reason oblique correction exists is to bandaid the problem.

This physics engine does have better flipper physics, although it seems to have some other issues. But it is a big improvement. Will be interesting once it's more ironed out.

In my opinion, windows 7 is preferred. There was a time when XP drivers for video cards resulted in faster FPS, but the software is moving to more modern OS. And you get better performance in games like Pinball FX and Pinball Arcade in windows 7 since they use the newer APIs. All my cabinets are set up with Windows 7.

I5 or i7 is fine. Video card is more important.

There are lots of pinball simulators coming out, and supporting archaic real dmds just won't be in their charters. Even many of us with real pins are swapping dmds for led, color DMD, etc. DMD in a vpincab is a bad move with no real justifiable pro. A nice led monitor can look just as bright and nearly as black as a plasma dmd anyway. Why limit your flexibility.

All my monitors have been gravity mounted. Just screw a couple 2x2's to the inside and rest the monitor on it.

The only thing I dislike about these vpincab builds is the orientation of the playfield monitor. It is deeper in the back perhaps to simulate a real pinball playfield. But unfortunately, that makes it significantly more difficult to view the back of the playfield on the monitor. If anything you want it steeper in back so it points at you better. Then raise your leg levelers so the back is as high a possible and the front as low as possible. It may be less noticeable on a 24" mini but for sure a big deal on a full size build.

I don't expect kinect head tracking to *ever* be implemented in pinball fx2. There's some discussion on it for VP but that isn't nearly as cool as the other platforms coming out.

I just can't see how any of they helps with the sunken monitor, though. It's simply hard to see what's on the screen at the rear. Its wonderful to walk up to the cabinet and think it looks natural. But that doesn't hold up to a bit of time playing the game. The monitors don't handle off viewing angles that well. Even ones with great viewing angles are still better straight on. Why would you add to this problem further by sinking the monitor into the cabinet? The ideal viewing angle for the monitor would be if the persons eyes were centered to the center of the screen and if the top and bottom of the screen were equidistant to the eyes. This view is impossible as the player is closer to the front. So the least you can do is angle the monitor to help, not hinder, the problem.

I understand what they have. But they don't prioritize this stuff. The last effort to just to move the dmd
Window was when they had only 1 day allotted.

Pin2k is standard width. You can use a 39" for a pin2k or standard width sized cabinet.

Nothing looks odd. It's all naturally scaled. Zen pinball are all wide body games. Id go as big a monitor as you can fit in your cabinet. You should also buy a monitor, test to make sure there's no noticeable input lag before you install it.

If it were me, I would go with standard width cabinet, 39" led tv, then build the cab a bit short so there is no need for extra dead space and so DMD can be right at end of playfield. It gives a cv type play effect. You should build the PC first and get say zen pinball working on it - since its super easy to install and test with. Make sure to set max pretendered frames to 1 in vid card settings then test tvs as you buy to insure no lag. Once you find a tv without lag you can build your cab around it. Sticking to standard with cabinets lets you use standard lockdown bars though.

Ok if you want to design for optimum playability rather than looks, try to keep these things in mind:

1) low input lag monitor
2) keep monitor near glass so you can view the back easily
3) keep dmd monitor as close to the very back edge of monitor as you can
4) 40-46" all provide very good play experiences.
5) do not design for only visual pinball / hyper pin. There are better things out and you want flexibility to run everything. I think pinball fx2 is the current best thing out.
6) keep the monitor as close to the lockdown bar as possible. Do not move it back or center it.
7) use authentic flipper buttons such as leaf switches, pin2k buttons rather than arcade buttons. This helps prevent some perceived lag. Microswitches engage at the end of the press while leafs can be calibrated to engage at the start.

This is a custom built cab that has to fit under my wall mounted tv. The placement of the DMD monitor is awesome for game play.
image-133.jpg

image-900.jpg

Here is a pin2k conversion with 39" monitor and closely mounted DMD
image-770.jpg

Sounds like the plunger kit is problematic: http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=28155#entry270417

Hey. How is the input lag on this one? It looks great.

You definitely get a little less lag using leafs than micro switches since you can calibrate your leafs to trigger early. Make sure you set max prerendered frames to 1 in the vid card driver.

No there really is a small difference. A micro switch registers at the end of the press where a leaf can be set to register at the start. The small amount of throw helps in reaction time as well as in flipper tricks. I use pinball 2000 buttons which also engage early. The arcade buttons you mention may not register early enough and are not calibratable in this regard.

I don't agree. I think you'll notice. Pinball is an instant reaction game so if you go flip and find your shots late, that's lag. And a really powerful PC with nice video card can have great frame rates but still show input lag.

Unfortunately, it's not the same. Can you take the monitor you bought, install pinball fx2, set the max prerendered frames to 1, and test. If it plays well and lag seems ok, build your cabinet around it. If not, return it and get another and repeat. Don't forget to set game mode on the monitor.

Close. Max prerendered frames is a video driver setting not a setting in pinball fx. Make sure you're not testing with a wireless keyboard.

What video card you using?

That video card should be fine.

Ok congratulations looks like it'll be a winner.

Try the executable and some of the tables here and see what your physics opinion is.

http://pinballbulbs.com/files/physmod.html

Unless you're running the backglass changer app I wrote for pinball fx2. Also why so you have a DMD image? Doesn't the dmd go here?

I dislike both. I use steam big picture as a front end. And I wrote my own thing for listing and launching VP tables from it.

Future pinball is completely unplayable garbage. The flippers fire way off to the side and up the middle shots are impossible. The physics mods help but nothing fixes it. So saying something is better than future pinball sets the bar so low ...

I don't agree u3d makes everything else moot. Vp10 is pretty good and the physics enhancements on vp are actually great. Much better than the u3d physics in any of the alphas so far.

your cabinet artwork sure looks nice. But the monitor all sunk down in the back makes for terrible viewing angles.

They think it looks more real to have it tilted back. But then gameplay suffers a lot. And the worst is putting a bunch of flashers across the top. I mean it's already hard to view at that angle why would you want flashers blinding you making it worse? Especially when those flashers don't even go there in the emulated games lol.

Anyways yea I would have it as close to the glass as possible and even then you may want to raise the back legs to get a better viewing angle.

It doesn't matter how good the viewing angle is on the monitor. In fact, that's not really the problem. The further the monitor is sunken in, the further away the back side of the monitor is from the player. The higher the back, the easier it is to see the whole thing. And while monitor viewing angles help the back not being distorted, the colors still aren't as vibrant as in front of you and the distance is further away.

One of the best viewing cabinets I set up was in a tube-in cabinet. The monitor was about 45 degrees and it was a ton easier to play. Not because of monitor viewing angles but because the player is properly centered on the monitor.

The simulations, even vp now, handle the side wall.

As for flashers, why would you want a row of flashers in the back? Flashers are used to indicate a shot or event in a location. For example, the ball is about to be released from a scoop. Flash the scoop flasher. You don't flash a flasher second to right on the backboard. They don't pile flashers up in the back of the machine pointing at the player in real pinballs. They put them near the event. It is not "awesome" to pile a bunch of flashers in the back of the machine pointing at the player washing out the monitor and not even being near where they should go in the game.

The same people that talk about these things being cool seems to be the same folks that mention future pinball and BAM being cool. Future pinball is so unbelievable unplayable bad. You can't aim any shots with the flippers. They don't go anywhere near where they should. Anyone that thinks future pinball is even kind of neat obviously isn't a pinball player anyway and built the cabinet for the fun of having it.

I absolutely would do that if I could. But then you see all the flipper buttons and wires. So it's not an option.

That's right. The 2-3" is huge. Even raising the leg levelers in back helps a ton.

Photos aren't going to help here. For one thing, the idiot that built the first cabinet put the monitor 4 inches away from the front so the there's a huge black bezel and the flippers are way far away. That is probably a worse mistake than sinking the monitor for playability. Pictures won't capture viewing angles properly and they definitely don't when you're standing way far off to the side. Comparing those two machines I'm sure yours is far better but that doesn't mean the sunk in monitor is fine.

The ideal viewing angle would be where the center of the monitor is where the center of your eyes hit and the distance from your eyes to the front and back of the monitor are the same. This is seen if you lean the monitor against the wall in testing or such. It's a totally unreasonable viewing angle of course but cabinet builds should do whatever they can to come as close as possible. High in the back, longer legs in the back, no leg leveler a up front, etc.

The tubin cabinet conversion I built for a friend had the monitor at around 45 degrees. That had the most satisfying viewing angle I've ever seen on one of these. It was a cool conbo machine.

Another thing about having the monitor high in the back is that it gives you a closer view to your DMD than if the monitor is sunken down. On my cabinet, it almost feels cirqus voltaire like trying to view the DMD while playing. Of course I have a custom cab built around my monitor so there's no extra space between the monitor and DMD.

Yea? Is one of those seats near the exit door against the wall in front to the left or right of the screen? Cause that is more like the sunken screen mount view.

Irrelevant.

Huh what? I don't build $500 cabinets. Wtf who has time for that?

This looks f-ing terrible. Those leds blinding you pointing directly at you in the worst possible position. Why not just take this to its ultimate conclusion and pull out the playfield monitor entirely and just put a mass of leds in there? Think of how bad ass that would be. You would be able to say you have more led flashers than anyone and your game wouldn't be any less playable.

Assuming the sidewinder comes with the factory usb cable, I recommend someone snag that. It's the best for nudging.

Game mode to eliminate input lag. The rest is just tune to your personal taste and changes TV to TV.

Why would you put the spacer on the front and not the back? It looks bad to have the play field way up.

A 40" or 39" in a standard body case feels much more natural.

Plexiglass is fine. I use it over the Playfield.

You can run 3 monitors perfectly with 1 750ti (650ti equivalent), 4gb ram, and i3 4160 type cpu. Anything more is just overkill.

Yea minis are awesome. We have built them 35 pounds, play on your coffee table, fold up and put away when done or put on a dedicated stand. Using 23" computer monitor is easy to get no input lag.

image.jpg

image_1.jpg

Spike is not emulated yet.

Hotrod?? Any shitty cheap modernish pc from the last 5 years should easily run vp10. Yo must have a total pile of crap lol. Welcome to 1994.

The problem with adding solenoids to knock with the flippers is the out of sync sound. The solenoids kick then the game sounds for the flippers fire. It's super lame and distracting. In VP, the game sounds can be disabled and rerouted to dof. But here you'd get both.

Just crank up your subwoofer in the game. Mine makes it so I feel everything even the balls bump on rubbers. You do not need dof to enjoy the game.

Totally disagree. It's way lame looking way up that high while playing. I doubt real DMD support is ever coming in pinball fx. It's kind of lame to use a real DMD anyway. Real pinball machines aren't even using them anymore. It's way limiting in a virtual machine.

I never said it should be on the playfield. I said it should go where the DMD belongs. Why build a cabinet and include a DMD when the only software that supports that screen is some community software and not all the many other simulations?

Because people build their machines solely for visual pinball and hyperpin type stuff then expect all the many other pinball simulations to make code changes to conform to their build. Instead, a more flexible build should have been considered from the start to properly run other simulations.

The ipac use to be great but now it also shows up as a joystick device. The one from amazon would work perfectly well. There's also the freescale controller method which also provides an accelerometer for nudging. That set up works great and costs $13 in a DiY configuration.

The PC specs are light. An intel i3 or better and gtx750ti video card will do. The lag comes from. A few things. First, using micro switches for flipper buttons can add some lag over leafs. Micro switches register hit towards the end of the press while leafs can be extra sensitive. The bigger one will be the monitor itself. Most tvs have lag. Likely the tv in what you bought will have lag. There are some with a decent game mode or you can get an expensive presentation monitor. The final piece is setting max prerendered frames to 1 in the video card. By default it's 3, which caches 3 frames before displaying 1. At 60 fps, this introduces about 50ms lag.

It also depends what simulation you're running. Pinball fx2 has almost no lag while vp has a little more.

Im not an expert on which tvs to get. They chance every year also. I did some research when I built mine and got a tv with under 15ms lag but they're no longer made. You can use this http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/. I think the presentation monitors are the only real way to go for a serous build though. Neccmakes some very expensive very low lag displays but they're $1500-1800.

Looks like you have some research to do then. When someone gives you some hints, you should move forward with them rather than say what you did and what you expect.

Mame uses raw input. You won't use joytokey on it. You'd program the raw joystick presses via your key encoder that is probably registering joystick hits.

If I am understanding you, the GGG encoder shows up as a game controller. If you type into the run box in windows, joy.cpl and hit enter, you see the controller there. If this is the case, then MAME will be able to be configured to use joystick presses for each of the buttons and it won't need joytokey or care about keyboard presses at all. The configuration for all this is done inside mame by hitting tab once a game is loaded and then binding the controls. Absolutely every control can then be bound including the MAME interface buttons and things like exit (cancel) as well as all player controls.

If this still isn't working, you may need to enable gamepads in the mame.ini file.

Go with pinball fx2 and be done. Leave the real pins for playing the real games.

It's kind of close, but actually *way* more brutal. I've hit monster scores like 2+ billion on the real deal. I cant hit more than 30 mil on this.

Yea and flipper physics are as good as it gets.

This will suck. You will have sound effects along with solenoids but they don't fire off at exactly the same time and totally ruins the effect. It's like dof with full game sounds running. With a nice subwoofer in the cabinet and a tactile transducer bolted to the front you can feel almost every ball thump in pinball fx without dof.

The xbox 360 controller output is more useful if wired to say a single shaker motor in a cabinet - definitely not for controlling individual solenoids like DOF.

Super out on any forum that requires registration just to view images.

There's not one good table on future pinball due to the physics being so incredibly bad. What good is playing pinball when the flippers - the only controls in the game - don't behave anything like they should and aren't even consistent? Anyone that raves about how cool future pinball and bam are is not a pinball player and just randomly hits the flipper button when the ball is near - possibly hitting both flippers together.

DOF, BAM, these things have nothing to do with playability. Physics v2.5 does *not* fix the massively broken future pinball flipper physics. Sorry, but its really hard to take anyone seriously as a pinball player that thinks future pinball is even kind of playable. If you play those games then the real games the difference is so incredible you shouldn't even touch future pinball. At least in pinball arcade you can aim shots and the ball goes where it should. Same is now said of physmod / vp10. VP9 was better than future pinball and it was also completely unplayable. Adams Family, ACDC, Attack from mars future pinball all play super terrible and are not playable at all.

Future pinball flipper physics are not just slightly off either. There's often a 30 degree difference on where the ball should go vs where it actually goes.

So playing pinball is about using the flippers to make the ball go to where you want it to go. When that's impossible because every single shot is *way* off, how can you consider that fun? I guess adding some flashing lights with the game so leds are flashing in your face corrects all that for you. Great.

I absolutely recommend everyone *never* tries future pinball. This is what gives real pinball players the impression that virtual pinball totally sucks. You see many threads on the topic. With future pinball and VP9 and older only, virtual pinball did suck. A lot has since changed with pinball fx2, pinball arcade, and vp10 though. Those games are finally playing like actual pinball.

I'm pretty sure you can disable all ball saves. It defaults to 30 seconds. Some of the tables are pretty brutal. For example, the western one, the tron portal one can be brutal, the new star wars tables are shorter ball times.

It's not in the settings. It's in the operator menu. You can also crank up the game pitch. Once you make those changes you can't post to the leaderboards but you still get a local high score table.

@85vett: I suppose it's possible to get use to FP completely unrealistic physics and be able to make shots but those shots won't be anywhere close to how you'd make them in a real machine. Trapping the ball on the left flipper then trying to back hand a ramp that's around say 10:00 position results in the ball heading towards 2:00. If you compensate and flip earlier than you should, the ball has no power and barely moves up the playfield before coming back down. Shots when the ball is moving not trapped are a little better but still not right.

Paulo: I'm sorry but I cannot respect the opinion of anyone as a real pinball player that thinks FP physics are even kind of close. You obviously don't play the 4 games you own. That's not being negative. It's being truthful.

In vp10 settings, enable the cabinet mode.

I have an ahk that selects start, remaps some buttons, and enters full screen but I haven't tested it on the steam version.

Installing the steam version. I'll post my script shortly. Not my front end runs in portrait so rotation is not something I need to worry about for this title.

Just send f11 as a keystroke.

Remap escape to process, close, ProPinball.exe

You can also reassign keys in the games config xml file if you prefer.

Too bad the game has so much input lag. It makes it unplayable for me.

The shot angles are just way off from where they should be. It's definitely not something that you don't have. Maybe you just don't notice it but the positions on the flipper are just wrong. Everything is too far to the outter parts of the table.

For fx2 no lag, in nvidia set a profile. Disable vsync and set max prerendered frames to 1. This should make it about as fast as a real machine. The lowest lag of any simulator I've ever seen.

I answered this above. In your code that changes key presses override your exit button, in my case it's escape:

Escape::Process, Close, ProPinball.exe

Maybe your key replacement isn't running. Try putting MsgBox in place of process close and see if you can get a simple test message to pop up when hitting escape.

You can replace keys by editing
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Barnstorm Games\Pro Pinball Ultra\UserDefault.xml

Look for lines like this:
<controls_left_flipper_0>160</controls_left_flipper_0>

I believe the numbers are decimal values for the Windows keycodes and you can look them up on msdn.

Also tested my script on the steam version and it properly exits the game.

Here is my AHK script that runs the steam version, my monitor is already in portrait so I don't need to hassle with rotating it. Showpicture puts a backglass up for me. This launches the game, sets it to full screen, clicks play, binds the keys, then exits cleanly on escape.

#NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

PPdir = %A_ScriptDir%
IfNotExist, propinball.exe ; If you don't want to put Timeshockstarter.exe in your Pro Pinball Directory you can enter the path to Pro Pinball.exe below
PPdir = C:\pinball\steampinball\SteamApps\common\Pro Pinball Ultra

Run, "ShowPicture.exe" /left=63 /top=-1276 /width=1020 /height=875 /picture=Timeshock.jpg

Run, "%PPdir%\ProPinball.exe", %PPdir%
Process, wait, ProPinball.exe
WinWaitActive, ahk_class Cocos2dxWin32
Send {F11}
sleep 1000

; This is supposed to send a left mouse click to the "Start Simulation" button on the start screen.
; On your system this buttón is propably located on different coordinates then on mine especially if your resolution is not 1920x1080
; You can use Autohotkey's Window Spy to get working coordinates for your system.
MouseClick,left,300,1150
process, WaitClose, ProPinball.exe

Process, Close, ShowPicture.exe

ExitApp

; You can change your key bindings here
#IfWinActive ahk_class Cocos2dxWin32
1::s
Escape::Process, Close, ProPinball.exe
RCtrl::Backspace
LCtrl::LAlt
#IfWinActive

The fix is to tell Windows you have only 2 speakers and use only the two channels out from the pc into your amps

What are your nudge settings set at? Dead zone and gain?

The nanotech hardware sucks. I could never get it to sit idle. I ended up throwing it in the trash and using a Freescale or sidewinder. Both of those work great. The Freescale auto calibrates on power up.

Anyways, I think for vp10 you want your gain settings around 50 not 150. My deadzones are closer to 10 but my hardware is better.

It shouldnt change from table to table. So in windows do start-->run-->joy.cpl->enter. Then go into properties and see if the dot is centered and stationary. If not do a calibration.

The nanotech is garbage. My suggestion is to replace it.

The freescale solution is like $15 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DK2DBM4
For such a cheap price why hassle with garbage for even one day?

So it provides several outputs that show up as joystick buttons. It has internal accelerometer and it has outputs for analog plunger if you have that (I don't). I use xpadder and make a custom profile so everything comes in as key presses with it. What is in your set up that concerns you?

Do you even care about analog plunger or just nudging and buttons? Are you saying you can't solder? Or that you don't know what to solder where.

I don't see a photo attached. I also don't use a plunger. But the USB connects from pc to the programmed board. From there you now have an analog nudge ready to go. If you want to also use this as a button encoder, then there is a ground pin and 32 inputs. You run the ground to one side of all your switches. And home run each switch to a point on the freescale that works as an input. Now you have a fully wired controller. You can use xpadder to configure keystrokes from those buttons.

Ya but you'll have to program it. I'd offer to configure one of these to send out to you but I edited the code I use to disable the extra axis for the analog plunger since I use launch buttons instead.

One of those USB is for programming and configuring the device. The other is for normal use.

It's hard to help solve a vague problem like "my system hates the sidewinder" lol.

That looks great. Are there instructions on how to do this posted? I assume it's a replacement com object that is loaded in place of pinmame controller?

Does that support all the Sam stuff? Also are there instructions?

Pinsound on SAM would be awesome for my iron maiden project I'm working on.

There's always these combo machines. http://pinballbulbs.com/products/pinballbulbs-mini-virtual-pinball-combo

Yea. It's super hard to make a PC that would have lag in something like VP or pinball fx to be honest. I mean I built stuff in the $350 range with the power to handle all that.

These all run really great on a $60 intel CPU and $120 gtx750 video card. In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big challenge for today's computers.

There are two types of lag you might notice: frame rate lag and input lag. Frame rate lag is what a more powerful machine would address. This will show up in jerky motions mainly.

Input lag is the time it takes from when you pressed the flipper button to when you see the flipper actually flip. The input lag can be fixed a little bit with better graphic card settings such as max prerendered frames = 1 always. But it's also the result of using tv for the playfield. Many tv have extra processing and even in game mode add 50-100ms of input lag. Not much can be done in this case other than replacing the tv with something that has low input lag such as an expensive presentation monitor or a tv with a rated low input lag spec.

I'll argue that a cutting edge PC doesn't help at all. The specs I build run as these pinball simulations as well as anything:

H81 board $50
CPU: $60
4gb ram: $25
120gb ssd: $65
Gtx 750ti: $110
Power supply: $30

I bet that come to *under* $350

It's pretty tough to find those specs