I was simply pointing out that nudging is not "every bit as much pinball play" as flipping.

It seemed to me that flipping is 98% of it. I rarely nudge (especially while playing Vpin), and I was good enough to win our local league for 2017 against a bunch of much younger guys including two eventual state champions.

That's the thing generally about virtual pinball, it doesn't get the 98% part of pinball to feel good.

It’s just a game. Enjoy it however you like. I’m not here to tell anyone they’re “playing wrong”. If you think 98% of pinball is flippers that’s fine. Some won’t agree.

Virtual pinball is fun. It just lacks physicality and that makes it less interesting to me

I do agree it doesn't have to be a binary choice and I can see why some people like it, but it's just not for me.

There are basically two vendors that are currently manufacturing and selling premade virtual machines with feedback, accelerometer, shaker, etc. that emulate real machines closely with game play(perfected platforms). The Xtreme and the Ultra 6.0 have similar features and are priced similarly.

https://www.recroomworld.com/UltraVP_Info.html

https://xtremegamingcabinets.com.au/presta17/14-premium

ps-If you contact RecRoom(Roland) tell him you want the special pinsider -'Roland wears black socks discount'

There is nudging in virtual! This is what I mean by reviews of virtual from an atgames or older system.
I went from 12th B division in my league to 3rd in A division in just one year. It plays just like the real thing and I have the advantage of practicing games and understanding the rules before a tournament. I played Freddy K on virtual and loved it so I got the real thing. I was not disappointed at all.
What needs to happen is getting a fully stocked game out for the public to play. A pinball show would be perfect but no one wants to do it. For virtual to take off there needs to be a distributer for them and a company who can mass produce them. I'm talking full size with all the bells and whistles.

Simple fix for adjusting nudge through pinscape. Is it as good as a physical machine absolutely not but it’s free. I’m beginning to wonder if the majority of this community has the determination & knowledge to setup correctly. Virtual is free open source only time investment necessary. imo once you start you’ll be hooked. I play games that I’ll never be able to own & it’s extremely close to the real deal.

I have been thinking of building one for a few years now for no other reason than "try before I buy"

It doesn't have to be perfect for me to get a sense if I like the layout and sound.

Great point and why VPX is such a nice alternative. It allows you to feel and hear what it’s like to play all of these games without the true price of admission. Granted it’s not the real thing but damn it’s pretty close, especially with VPX 10.7 and super convenient,

Speaking of, I recently switched over to a 4k screen (vs the VR headset that I’m using right now) and although I do prefer playing without a headset on, it’s crazy what happens when you lose the depth that VR provides. Everything is so flat it just takes me out of the experience b/c you know it’s fake and is a video game. Switching back, it was astonishing how you feel like you’re literally in the game in VR - the sense of depth that it provides allows you to actually feel like you’re hitting the scoop just like in real life b/c you can gauge the depth. You can see the height of the ramps, the distance of the bash toy, etc.

Prob beginning to sound like a broken record but I can’t stress how much I suggest everyone try VPX in VR if you can. It’s literally a game changer and provides you with what flat screen can’t - depth/3D and FOV just like you have in real life. It brings the experience that much closer. You will need a powerful PC to get it to run smooth but it’s a major space saver and still prob cheaper all in. Either way you play, VPX is a great alternative to have.

Or when someone posts that something will take place and doesn't. Or when someone is trying to say they agree with you and are thrown under a bus.

Join visual pinball junkies on Facebook & read faq. I have a pedestal build no dof but I rotate my screen to play thousands of games I use xarcade. Honestly you can more or less be up & running in a day.

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OH off topic; but everyone should try Technoparrot it's awesome real Arcade dump emulator. Starwars battlepod, HOTD, Mach Storm & more!!! FREE!

I love techno parrot. Transformers and alien!

I built a very nice VP as my gateway into the hobby. I think the forum where I documented my build is dead now sadly.

I am pretty sure I was the first person in the world to have a cabinet that took advantage of the brand new (at the time) ability to have separate sound channels for game sound and cabinet noises.

I just outgrew it, personally. But I’m glad I did it. Was a super fun project and I learned a ton. It’s just that once I started collecting real pins I lost the urge play it. But as a way to learn rules and try games? So useful honestly.

I just found a 9 year old short video of my cab I built. This must have been taken just before I sold it.

I’m the same way, but I will probably build another in the next 5-10 years. By then the tech will be way better then it was 10 years ago

Been going through this process for the past couple of months and creating this Frankenstein of a virtual pin cab has been about as much fun as playing the things. I'll definitely eventually build something more proper, slowly, maybe I'll be a vpin maker one day, who knows, but so far all
I've spent since I owned everything else was a $320CAD graphics card.

Just getting to vpx installed, connected to two monitors, and preferably one large for your playfield, lying flat is already pretty great, even greater if you already have that stuff. Honestly just the difference between playing on your TV or computer monitor widescreen and lying it flat with a second monitor is a pretty dramatic difference in immersiveness. I will say the keyboard is a terrible, and uncomfortable pinball controller so I took out a couple fighting game joysticks to use. At that point it's mainly the feedback and nudging you are missing and where the need for a fully built out cab sets in(mainly for the feedback).

Do they make 4K monitors that can do VR? I’ve seen those giant Digital billboards where it looks like somethings coming out at you. Does something like that work for VR?

I have yet to play a vpin cabinet that does the machine feedback real well, anyone living in ontario have something with all the bells and whistles, high end solenoids, force feedback, gear motors, shakers, etc.? I can exchange booze for time with the machine.

I think part of the issue maybe, with what I experienced so far, is you accept that real pinball is real, so you never question what you are feeling, even though a lot of it is fabricated, and with a vpin, you are looking for some quasi realism so it's hard to ever truly be satisfied.

My experience with accelerometers is out of date. At the time it was primitive.

I dunno what they’re like now. Can you do this?

Yes. If settings are dialed in.

The new vr headsets are all 4K. I use valve index but I super sample to make the visuals even clearer. You need a great card for that though - I have a 3090

Years ago there was an add on called BAM that tracked your head and mimicked 3d on the playfield tv to give depth of field. It looked pretty good back then, but I haven’t had any experience with it. This might get you more information, but I’m on vacation and don’t want to look for a better link ( this was at the top of a Google search )

https://www.ravarcade.pl/

I haven't tried the 3d glasses but everything I've read about it says a vr headset gives you a 100x better experience.

Xtreme offers it because it sounds good in marketing materials and is easy for them to add.

now you‘ve woken my curiosity - what would I need to add VR to my existing vp cab. Obviously some vr glasses (what are the recommended ones) and the tables? - anything else?

So which is better? Is shipping that much from Australia? There’s like a $2300 difference and it seems like the Australian model is the deal for the price. Are there other companies in the states that make something comparable in price to the extreme cabinets from Australia? It’s too bad extreme doesn’t have a distributor here in the states.

They were talking about opening a plant in the US a couple months ago but haven’t heard anything since then. That would save 1-1.5k in shipping and make them a major dealer since most of their games come stateside

Xtreme and Recroom/UltraVP are *very* disliked by the community because they sell other people's software.

In the states https://labarcades.com/ would be my go-to, and there is also https://virtuapin.net/

Seems like the vp programming community is a tight group so would it be possible for them to put together a pre-programmed ssd or complete computer setups and sell these for builders to install in their games? Table developers could get paid for their work. I could build a cab with all the hardware no problem but the software install and adjustments is beyond my scope and I don't have hundreds of hours to spend on it.

I did not look into Xtreme very much because they had like a year lead time when I was looking to buy one and I did not want to wait. From what I have heard the Xtreme is really loaded and may have a higher speed processor currently? Also consider you have to add features to the cart and it will increase overall total depending on what features are added(plus shipping). The VP Ultra 6.0 is sold here in US and they may have some in stock? The service has been excellent and I like having local support. There is also a mis-conception about the software for these platforms. A third party sells the software and certain people like to think it is against the community. Really just a perception thing like the early days of arcade MAME being released everywhere(I remember those days as well). I do not believe they(third party vendor) are getting rich(couple hundred bucks) selling software from tables made by creators that often violate trademarks, etc. I paid for the software that loads in the platform created and it runs smooth as butter. I did not download for free via the web but I still appreciate all of the efforts from the creators-go figure.
I do not believe any other manufacturers even come close to these two vendors in terms of features. I advise everyone to do their own research and find what is best for them and their particular budget.

For my MAME cabinet I was able to buy a hard drive loaded with hyperspin and roms ready to go. It was virtually plug and play, I think I just had to run an install file to get it working.

When I built my Vpin years ago I spent way more times on the software then I did building the hardware. That was by far the hardest part of the project

The only way what they do is legal is they aren't making money off it. Hence their annoyance that other people are making money when they are convinced they can't. The premise is they are making vp recreations of machines they already own, which of course isn't exactly reality.

This is a good gateway drug for Stern so it's probably why they don't completely discourage it. But the only people that can legally sell this stuff commercially are the ip owners, but it all comes down to what people can get away with.

Both vendors are top notch. It seems like you get a little bit more finesse, and stuff with the extreme from Australia. If VP ultra was selling this at about 6300 like the extreme model I’d be all over it but for almost 9 grand it’s just not there.

I looked in the building these and I understand how you could save money and also on the other side what a pain in the neck it is. I just don’t have the time and I would love to just go out and buy one like the VP but they got to be at a price around five or six not the same price as a brand new Stern premium.

I wish Australia was closer.

I'm not involved in Visual Pinball development anymore, but back in the day I was helping make interactive backglasses. If you played games like Scared Stiff I might have contributed to it.

No third party has my permission to sell anything I was involved in. Is it gonna keep me up at night? Nah. But yeah, if they don't have permission from every single person who worked on every bit they sell it's pretty shitty. These are community efforts, for the community, not something for some third party to sell.

Look into PinUP Popper "Baller" Installer; it's an all-in-one that will get all of the software installed and configured for your setup, with a couple approved tables included. There is still a learning curve as you add more hardware/software, but the barrier to entry is pretty low nowadays.

Valve index, hp reverb 2 or quest 2 would work. Get the vr versions of the tables and vr vpx and then see if you can confide to use your cabinet for force feedback. For me, I need that force feedback and I have a vr pin controller as a result.

Once you have a taste of that depth, you won’t turn back. It’s like you’re inside the table like real life

Imo kinda shameless for others to make any profit off others work.

just check YouTube, a lot of videos from both companies. Compare videos and what they use, how they build. Xgc makes the best machines period. Ultra is ok. But xgc is just artwork of perfection. If you don’t believe me, check there videos

Well, I took the plunge, got a Quest 2 headset, and after the dust settled (figuring out which VP software (10.8), how to use the occulus software, how to use SteamVR, first link cable being defective, getting the tables to appear in the right place and line up with my vpin cab, etc.), allow me to say „wow!“.

Some games work brilliantly right away, but others either have either no DMD display, no music, no backbox or generate a script error. So it appears some games require a separate b2s file, but adding this shows a backbox, but still without display. On normal vpx games sound problems (like no music and callouts) can generally be solved with alternate roms (haven‘t started experimenting with this yet). With the missing display, using f1 and trying external DMD or the standard DMD or both doesn‘t seem to fix things. And the „disable b2s“ checkbox in the keystroke menu item doesn‘t seem to do the trick.

Any thoughts, suggestions or tips would be much appreciated… What have your experiences been like?

I recently sold my Ultra VP 6.0. It's an amazing full size virtual pinball machine but real pinball has just spoiled me too much over the years. Same goes for VR pinball, tried it and moved on. Personally I liked VR pinball less compared to standard virtual pinball due to having to wear a headset (tunnel vision, not social, can feel a headset on ya, etc). Both solutions are slick but I've finally learned you can't beat the real deal.

I have several real pins (from the 90s, 2000s, as well as recent Stern). I also have a virtual pin cab. I like both but one is not an alternative for the other. Despite virtual pin being based on a facsimile of real pinball, to me the end result is a different thing. It's more akin to a hybrid video game that evokes some of the flavor of the more enjoyable aspects of pinball.

I primarily use the Vpin to play recreations of real pin tables which I like but won't fit into my real pinball collection size limit. BTW, that size limit isn't dictated primarily by space or budget. The time, effort and attention to maintain each additional pin in a collection is a major factor. The Vpin is also nice for brushing up on the rules and strategies of a game before league nights.

So having a Vpin cab is definitely worth it for us. However, I'm comfortable with configuring computer tech as well as installing and integrating disparate open source software modules. If someone is absolutely not PC tech savvy then that may be a barrier. Also, in my opinion virtual pinball gets good enough to be "worth it" when you have a high-end cabinet that's really dialed in. Between getting 4K HDR display frame rates correct, properly configuring a backglass display and third monitor for DMD, calibrating USB controller latency, dialing in a nudge sensing accelerometer, and tweaking 7.1 SSF (surround sound feedback) with haptic transducers and DOF solenoids - there's a lot to get "right". The vast majority of virtual pin cabinets I've seen aren't dialed in well at all and the owners usually don't even know it. That said, when a really top notch Vpin cab is really dialed in, it becomes something else, elevating the experience to a noticeably different level. Don't be fooled by one of those cheap $1k Vpin cabs from a warehouse club based around a glorified Android phone processor. Those things play like crap and are just trash not even worthy of the name "virtual pinball".

A really good Vpin cab is expensive to set up, requires fairly specialized arcane knowledge to configure and ongoing effort to keep dialed in. Just a good 4K HDR OLED display and a high-end graphics card each cost close to $1000 alone, before even considering the cost of two more monitors, a fast PC, the physical cab and a bunch of individual audio, SSF and DOF components. That's why I think some people who've formed negative impressions of virtual pinball have also never experienced it done right. So, even if you've decided it's not for you, if you ever have the chance to play a high-end Vpin cabinet really done right, it's worth giving it a chance. You may find yourself very pleasantly surprised.

I appreciate the insight. Did you build your own? I'm thinking about getting a Ultra VP from Rec Room World.

I'm not into woodworking at all, so I started with a bare bones cabinet I bought and then populated it from there. For someone like me I think that's a good way to go. As I got it working and learnt the ropes as well as what "matters" to me, I've swapped out or upgraded various components. I don't think it's possible to know in advance exactly what some of your preferences will be until you get a cab working well enough in the first place.

If you're going to have a vendor fully configure a cabinet for you based on their standard model, that can certainly save a huge amount of time. Just be aware that they'll be making a lot of subtle trade-off choices with what components they've chosen in their standard config. Also, IMHO, the only software really worth running on a high-end vpin is the open source "Visual Pinball" package. It has the best selection of tables and can achieve the best visual quality (given a properly powerful CPU/GPU combo). This is great because the software and the tables are all free of charge but the downside is there's a lot of configuration and setup to do involving different software components which need to interact with each other.

Being open source, it's also the one platform that vendors can't legally include as part of a commercial product. This is why vendors include one of the commercial software platforms which include a limited selection of licensed tables. Unfortunately, none of these platforms is as good as the open source Visual Pinball. VisPin is also constantly having new and upgraded tables being released by the very active open source development community. No commercial package comes even close to VisPin's rate of improvement, flexibility or new content releases. Also, keep in mind that commercial pinball software are "games" made primarily to be played on desktop PCs and/or consoles. At best, playing on a three-screen vpin cabinet is an afterthought (if it's considered at all). Whereas VisPin is a serious pinball simulation that is largely focused on cabinet usage. This is an important difference.

This is why I started with an empty cabinet and supplied the screens, PC, graphics card and software myself. Not only does this work out to be less expensive but you get exactly what you want (and nothing you don't want). Again, the trade-off is *a lot* of work and configuration setting up the software.

Thank you for your feedback!

I like it as I am new to pinball. It lets me play a lot of tables to see which ones I am interested in. I seem to like the system 11’s from Williams.

Had an Ultra VP 6.0 for about a year before selling it. It was neat, everything was plug in play. Build quality was rather impressive except for the main screen dying and needing to be replaced (covered under warranty). The screen being used as the main display is the biggest downfall of the Ultra VP IMO. It's just simply too dull, not vibrant enough, and has a washed out haze look to it when staring at it just off center.