So, I need some recommendations.

[Punisher]

I've been bored altely, and I kind of want to sniff around for another pinball game for the PC, specifically a free one. Something that's realistic like TPA. Future Pinball isn't really Solid State friendly, Visual Pinball is way to complicated to install tables and such into, and, well, most older virtual pins don't give you that sense of depth. I need something that does have a few good recreations of existing tables today, that I can play on my computer. Anybody got any good ideas?

 

[CycOd3liC]

Not Free, but the Pro Pinball series is probably the best pinball series for the PC. They can be had for 6 bucks each on GOG. Might even find them cheaper elsewhere.

 

[Punisher]

Pro pinball, eh? I've played BRUSA when I was a kid on the PS1. Loved how the game's disc was also an audio CD if you put it in any music player. It had some nice music, I'll tell you that much.

 

[SilverBalls]

Pro pinball, eh? I've played BRUSA when I was a kid on the PS1. Loved how the game's disc was also an audio CD if you put it in any music player. It had some nice music, I'll tell you that much.

The PC versions support much higher resolutions than the console versions so you might be pleasantly surprised. Also lookout for a revamped Pro Pinball over the next few months.

 

[Jim O'Brien]

Visual Pinball isn't as hard as you think it is to install, there are a few videos out on youtube on how to do it and their forum like this one is very helpful.

 

[Jutter]

Visual Pinball isn't as hard as you think it is to install, there are a few videos out on youtube on how to do it and their forum like this one is very helpful.

What initially turned me off, was that even if you follow the simple steps (unzip table in the Table Folder, and place the zipped rom in the PinMAME\roms folder) things are still far from guaranteed to run once you click on PLAY. Also cranking the resolution to the maximum (that your GPU plus Monitor are capable of) is a bad plan, even if you have a beefy DirX11 card like me. Had to drop that sucker a couple of notches. It also took a while to realize that often a table-crash will be due to having played to many different tables in a row, which is quicly fixed by closing and restarting VPinball. Oddities that those instruction videos don't warn about... at least not the ones I saw.

Once you get the hang of it, it's fairly smooth sailing though and roughly six out of ten table/rom downloads will work right away, without complaints about missing roms, or balls getting stuck halway down a ramp.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

It's a common characteristic of open-source/hobbyist-written software: anything you only have to do once is likely to be irritating and trouble-prone, because it doesn't bother the developers sufficiently for them to tighten up the user experience.

 

[DrainoBraino]

Pro Pinball is awesome, some say it has the best physics ever for pinball.

VP is really the only way to go for real pins. In fact, its mostly all I play anymore. TPA is cool for portable, but it's not as realistic as most of the well done VP tables. I just don't like the physics of TPA, especially the sluggish flippers. Also, VP is fully customizable.

It's 100% worth it to go through the trouble of setting up VP. It's really not that hard just a little reading and tweaking settings. Once you get your settings right, it will work really well. If you need any help let me know.

 

[CycOd3liC]

Pro pinball, eh? I've played BRUSA when I was a kid on the PS1. Loved how the game's disc was also an audio CD if you put it in any music player. It had some nice music, I'll tell you that much.

They're all great tables.... My favorites (in order)

1. Timeshock
2. Big Race USA
3. Fantastic Journey
4. The Web

And yes, they are going to be remastering them all at some point, as well as making an all new table with Pat Lawlor. They had a kickstarter for it, but they didn't meet the goals (was a pretty hefty goal). They are FB as Pro Pinball (some good reading).

 

[Jeff Strong]

+1 for Pro Pinball.

 

[superballs]

If you want recreations vp is your only real option. If you want mukti screen cabinet mode its complicated if not after some initial setup it really isn't.

Create a folder on your desktop with shortcuts to your tables and roms folders.

 

[Punisher]

I gave Visual Pinball a shot, and decided to get the 2.0H ROM of CV, to compare to TPA. The ball... teleports. O_O

I've read up about a free download of BRUSA somewhere in these forums, but when I went to the link provided, I didn't find any download link to get it. So, uh... how can I get that? x_X

 

[CycOd3liC]

I gave Visual Pinball a shot, and decided to get the 2.0H ROM of CV, to compare to TPA. The ball... teleports. O_O

I've read up about a free download of BRUSA somewhere in these forums, but when I went to the link provided, I didn't find any download link to get it. So, uh... how can I get that? x_X

I know when they were doing their kickstarter they offered BRUSA for free (I grabbed it at the time). I also bought the 4 pack of the game several years ago.

 

[immortalmindz]

Just download the vp installer, it does it for you, you can then just dl the current vp version. Thats what i did anyway.

 

[fenderbendr]

I bought the four pack of the pro pinball games on Amazon for about $10 and they all work great except I can't get The Web to install.

 

[Tabe]

If you've got an Nvidia video card, then Nvidia's pinball game is very good.

Tabe

 

[Animator_pin_fan]

And again, just to reiterate, as I'm sure others have posted elsewhere, to fully experience Visual Pinball, you really need to play the full screen versions (16:9 monitor in portrait). I've tried to enjoy the 4:3 versions of many tables but most seem to really pale in comparison to TPA.

 

[Punisher]

If you've got an Nvidia video card, then Nvidia's pinball game is very good.

Tabe

I got an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670. :S

I really need a new computer, lol. Anyway, it's mind-numbingly hard to find a... workaround... to get the Pro pinball games. Is it possible at all to be linked to Big Race USA? That's one I really want, lol.