Is some amount of input lag unavoidable? I have a 1up cab with the lots of games mod(Pinball Arcade, etc.), I have thought about doing a major overhaul type upgrade(installing a pc, etc.) but if I just end up with input lag anyways I doubt I'd care to bother with that, even with the graphical upgrade.

Ok, thanks for the info. I think I might need to actually play a good setup before committing to an upgrade, not exactly something that's easy to find though.

If you were to make a ultra premium machine yourself, how much do you figure you'd be spending on parts? And can you ever go too overboard with the hardware, where you only really need "x", not more(in terms of bang for your buck wise).

I tend to lean towards buying a pre-made machine but I do want to explore all the options. There is someone close to me that builds the things, though they are considerably cheaper than some of the options people have mentioned. Not sure what I should want as a minimum standard. Anyone familiar with woodstock custom arcades?

That's a lot of parts

If someone had no experience building anything like this how would you rate the difficulty of building something like this?

Even if I had the want to make the exterior cabinet I don't have the space so I would have to buy it. I could gut my arcade1up I guess but if I am going to go to the trouble I should go for the right form factor.

The most daunting thing for me would be getting the feedback going, and just the general electical work I'd have to do, hooking a few monitors to a computer seems like not a big deal. And I guess there is some risk in actually damaging something in the process. I'll try to watch as many videos about the process as I can.

I think at the very least I'll build some low effort attempt, that doesn't cost that much money, just to get used to it. I'll have to think about if I want to splurge.

What is the resale market like on V-pins?

So it sounds like I should wait a bunch of years until everything is more advanced and a lot cheaper.

It's definitely hard to justify shelling out for a v-pin when you can technically play everything for free, you are just losing the form factor and feedback that really completes the experience.

How much more advanced do people expect these things to get?

I played Iron Maiden briefly on my jank pc, it seemed like the real thing, for the most part. And does get you excited for when other games, like Godzilla, actually stop being produced by Stern. Since that seems to be the point where the vpx pinball makers actually start releasing good versions. The community seems generally fearful of DMCA strikes.

I've been fiddling with the software for the last couple of months, it seems complicated at first, honestly I thought it was too complicated at first, but within 2 weeks it worked relatively fine and got a few tables working really well. Though I don't really play the pinball tables much, been more tweaking and installing new things than anything else. It's like a drug really, where the tweaking is somehow more interesting than the pins.

Just start with the baller installer(that installs popper, vpx, future pinball among other things), update everything they install to the latest versions and go from there, even if you buy the software with tables you still have to do the hard part, the tweaking, yourself.

Behold, my Jank VPin version 1.0.

Started 2 months ago not knowing much about the vpx software, slowly figured it all out, was surprised that it even ran to a playable version on my old pc and laptops. Almost convinced myself that the experience was good enough like that, then tried lying one of my tvs down flat and was surprised that it made the experience almost 10 times better just doing that. Just used stuff I already had, but did buy a $320(CAD) graphics card to get better performance and VR to work.

The playfield screen is about the size of a real pinball machine, so that's cool, the screen definitely needs to be raised a bit. The keyboard was immediately uncomfortable so I used two arcade stick controllers, not ideal(mainly due to button placement), but not bad for now. Ironing board came in clutch also. In theory a third screen would make sense, but I feel all the DMD and Video stuff should be on the bottom screen, so adding a monitor just for a backglass doesn't make too much sense to me right now.

While it may look like a mess I honestly think the only thing I am missing right now is feedback for the machine(solenoids, etc.) and a accelerometer. Which definitely wouldn't justify paying 9 grand for a fully pre-built machine. I am definitely going to finish building this thing myself, only thing I can't do, because I don't have the space, is the cabinet. Have to figure out how to get a wide body cabinet without paying too much.

As for VR, honestly, it may actually be the ideal way to play virtual pinball, but it suffers from the, "I am wearing a headset!" problem.

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No pets, just a 4 year old little girl. The arcade sticks are the controllers bottom far left and right buttons are the flippers, the button above the right flipper button is the plunger. Middle bottom button is fire. There are nudge buttons configured but that feels, far lack of a better word, stupid. It may not be overly complicated to take the controllers apart to create the right pinball setup, haven't looked into that at all yet.

Tried TimeLord for the first time yesterday, pretty cool original table. I think He-Man is still my favorite original table, but it's impressive what some people are doing. Wonder how hard it is to make one of these things. I mean a good one. Anyone can technically go into the editor and add a couple ramps I guess or reskin an old thing. Though I do have a soft spot for some of the low effort Disney tables made, since my daughter loves them. Some of my other favorite originals are Harry Potter(even though I hate the theme, but it's the closest thing to a Jersey Jack style table that I've played on VPX) and Star Wars Death Star Assault(though I hate the loading).

Between needing to learn a whole lot more about the process and not actually having much time to learn and work on it, getting to a real table will take a looong time, but I'll get there. But I can definitely see how it can be more satisfying building the thing. Anyways what I have already is a blast.

The weekly competitions on the VP Discord and worldofvirtualpinball.com add a lot, I'll take all the weekly comps I can get, even though I don't tend to post top scores.

That's a particularly odd platform, not sure why you can't sign up without paying to prevent that.

Pistol Poker seems pretty buggy, probably performs worse than any other table I have on the system. It's a fun game that I've never heard of before somehow, I guess being made by a company that wasn't around long has something to do with that. I'd play it more if it wasn't a bit of a mess.

Typically in these competitions it's required you use the default settings, with the exact version of the table mentioned. Not play around with the physics and settings outside of maybe viewing angles/backglasses.

I do find myself playing the tables in the three comps I'm in almost exclusively. It adds a lot of fun to virtual pinball. There's something about just playing tables for the sake of it that's far less interesting.

If you really want more of a challenge then you should join either the discord or worldofpinball ones. Yeah you have to sign up but the competition level is far higher.

Anyone in Toronto or the surrounding area have a high end Virtual Pin I can try?(I can bring booze) I have tried the low end and medium end of V Pins, but not one with real high end parts, multiple solenoids, matrix displays. Something akin to what a company like Xtreme Cabinets puts out.

Plan is to finally build one out, but need to gauge what I am shooting for, since if I was left with what I tried at the medium end, it wouldn't be worth it.

Thanks for the link, though I feel a little odd badgering people on the discord to see if they have the kind of vpin I am looking to try and inviting myself over.

I will say, now that I've lost a bit of interest in the competitions the virtual pin isn't doing it for me lately. Still loving real pinball just vpin is seeming more fake than ever.

I went down to try it, good guy, seems to make the pins in such a way to reduce failure rates. As such you aren't getting high end, there's no solenoids, so the feedback isn't great. I also think he put the screen in the wrong place, too high, so the pancake quality comes off a little too much.

Honestly speaking, it convinced me that buying a pre-built machine doesn't get you far enough to justify the cost. Having said that if you are set on buying pre-built just be ready to modify what you get.

No problem.

Interesting that Zen is partnering with atgames, jumping ship from arcade 1up. Wonder if the update debacle that opened up a way to easily mod the machines has something to do with it.

Honestly I think these cheap options are a good starter points for vpin. These expensive high end builders can't really compete with what atgames is doing. Having said that, probably will still have bad flipper lag and bad feedback by default. But you can always mod it and hook up your own computer to get around that. I'm assuming Atgames will still make that process easy to do.

Legit feels like not just a real pinball new release, but an amazing one, this has such an amazing layout. People who don't bother with virtual pinball, or more specifically VR virtual pinball are really missing out with this one.

VR vpin makes my jaw drop in a way cabinet vpin rarely does. Even though it is a performance hit. Though I do things like stubbornly leave pup packs on even though I know it degrades performance. I do wish though I splurged more on the graphics card I bought early this year.

Welcome to the fun world of vpins, things breaking all the time, the solution is usually simple, but the process to get to find the solution can seem convoluted and a bit painful. Oh, and the endless tweaking.

With discord while there is info pinned, usually if you just ask a question someone will respond with a solid answer within minutes.

Banzai Run is definitely a example of why vpins shine in VR, you just don't get the proper experience playing that on a vcab. Latest release is pretty damned close to the real thing, definitely a lot of talented people making these pinball tables.

Cabinet builders count on people that don't even want to learn the software side for business. Once you understand you can handle the software side paying someone to build a cabinet makes less sense. I mean you can buy stuff where the wiring is done for you for a fraction of the cost of buying a whole build. The computer can start out outside of the cabinet. Personally I maintain that VR is better and at best people should make a stubby, but I get why people lean towards a cabinet, I know I did at first.

64 bit I have running with nearly every table, there are some games that run better with 32 bit, you can set a separate executable in popper for them, but I would default to 64 bit.

As for tables, I have close to 200 at this point, some are duplicates, but probably only 10ish tables get any real attention from me.

Die Hard
Banzai Run
Walking Dead
Iron Maiden
Black Knight SOR(even though it's a early wip)
Avengers
Iron Man
Harry Potter
Cyber Race
Lord of the Rings
Deadpool

I mean, it's required for a lot of newer tables, and those are the best tables with the best physics, etc. If you can get Die Hard to work well then it should save you some updating with other tables. Ideally they wouldn't require updating with each new release, but it always happens.

Some dmd stern games like walking dead and star trek have issues in 64 bit, the only ones I currently have in 32 bit.

Vpw is working on a proper version, best one I've tried is:

https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/8884-the-walking-dead-stern-2014-sg1bson-graphic-novel-mod/

I think the discord is the best place to go in general. Otherwise I just do general Google searches for tables.

And yes VR is where it's at, unless you are prone to motion sickness. Vr is so real where cabinet is very fake.