Tried giving Visual Pinball a shot

[TNT]

love Pinball Arcade but obviously unless FarSight keeps making tables for 20 years there will be tables we won't ever see on TPA. Even then the licensed ones may be too expensive.

Ouch. That was a waste of about 3 hours. Installed everything from the installation guide and still couldn't get tables to run. It was either a VB run error (even though I updated the VB stuff as part of the process) or failed to create Direct 3D device error, even though I am running a Nvidia card with the default monitor selected and the run full screen box unchecked. Even tried the VP-Man 5.50 front end but couldn't get tables to run there either.

Too bad.

 

[MontanaFrank]

After a few attempts, I can't grasp the way to do it either. I bide my time and hope that someday the process will be easier for potential users like me. I want to enjoy ready-to-play tables that are plug-n-play and not have the ability to create some of the masterpieces that are in VP.

I want to play the EM's so bad. I cut my pinball teeth on Gottlieb machines from the 70's and playing them again is like a dream to me and a reality for Jeff and others.

I am so thankful for TPA. Tables that I love and easy to access.

 

[Extork]

After a few attempts, I can't grasp the way to do it either. I bide my time and hope that someday the process will be easier for potential users like me. I want to enjoy ready-to-play tables that are plug-n-play and not have the ability to create some of the masterpieces that are in VP.

I want to play the EM's so bad. I cut my pinball teeth on Gottlieb machines from the 70's and playing them again is like a dream to me and a reality for Jeff and others.

I am so thankful for TPA. Tables that I love and easy to access.

Frank you would like the EMs on Zac.

I'm not even gonna try VP just because my CPU is such an artifact. And I couldn't even tell you all the technical mumbo jumbo. Like, I don't even know if I have a graphics card.

 

[TNT]

After looking over Jeff's instructions in the other thread I got it working. The official installation guide on the VPforums is way way WAY too complicated. I accomplished more in 15-20 minutes using his directions and files than I did in 4 hours going through the official setup guide and all of the endless files.

What ended up working for me was following Jeff's instructions, then adding a VPinMAME subfolder in the Visual Pinball folder, adding the VPinMAME.dll file into that subfolder and then adding another subfolder in the VPinMAME folder called roms and then putting the rom.zips in there.

Now it's a matter of figure out what I am doing and the controls. The resolution looks terrible on the Jurassic Park table I am looking at at the moment.

 

[Fungi]

Oh Frank, you haven't dived into the Zacc tables yet? You definitely should. Total EM awesomeness, and at 20 bucks for 29 tables and counting, a bargain.

 

[MontanaFrank]

I do have to put some effort playing Zac pinball. I am just spoiled with having TPA on Steam. I have looked at Zac's tables and they do look fun.

 

[Bahnzo]

There is a bit of a learning curve getting VP installed, but in the end it's very worth it.

One thing is to make sure you are running all the VP executables as administrator. That alone fixes most the errors. The rest is just making sure you have the latest everything. I ran into a lot of troubles by not having the latest VB scripts updated.

 

[TNT]

Sweet. Been playing Back to the Future. Now it's a question of getting it looking as sharp as it is in Jeff's screenshots.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Sweet. Been playing Back to the Future. Now it's a question of getting it looking as sharp as it is in Jeff's screenshots.

Hey man, glad to hear my guide was helpful. As for the resolution, try going to Preferences >> Video Options, then set the "Video mode" to match the resolution of your monitor (mine is 1920 x 1080 fullscreen). Also make sure the tables you download are "widescreen" desktop tables, otherwise they'll be stretched.

 

[TNT]

Hey man, glad to hear my guide was helpful. As for the resolution, try going to Preferences >> Video Options, then set the "Video mode" to match the resolution of your monitor (mine is 1920 x 1080 fullscreen). Also make sure the tables you download are "widescreen" desktop tables, otherwise they'll be stretched.

Ah. That make sense. Can you tell which tables are widescreen? Looking at the photos you can generally tell I suppose if it's 4x3 or widescreen.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Ah. That make sense. Can you tell which tables are widescreen? Looking at the photos you can generally tell I suppose if it's 4x3 or widescreen.

Sometimes they're labled "WS" or 4x3. You can still play the 4x3 stuff in windowed mode.

I usually sort by "Most Recent" as the newer stuff generally has better graphics and is usually widescreen.

 

[TNT]

Thanks. Good to know.

So I only see 4x3 resolution options in the preferences >> video section. Am I missing something?

 

[Jeff Strong]

Thanks. Good to know.

So I only see 4x3 resolution options in the preferences >> video section. Am I missing something?

Hmm, what is your windows resolution set at?

 

[TNT]

Hmm, what is your windows resolution set at?

2560x1440. Needless to say TPA looks AWESOME. Maybe my settings aren't right in VP as some tables look good while others look not so good. Of course I have heard folks comment on this board that that quality on VP varies from table to table.

 

[Bahnzo]

In my experience, tables are either FS(full screen for pincabs), or WS(widescreen)/DT(desktop) for normal PC. Many times if a table is only in FS, there is a patch available to turn it into DT/WS.

 

[Jeff Strong]

In my experience, tables are either FS(full screen for pincabs), or WS(widescreen)/DT(desktop) for normal PC. Many times if a table is only in FS, there is a patch available to turn it into DT/WS.

Yeah, I was talking about the desktop versions, which are mostly widescreen these days, but there used to be a lot of 4:3 tables too.

 

[TNT]

Thanks. Good to know.

So I only see 4x3 resolution options in the preferences >> video section. Am I missing something?

Ugh. Looked around and it was this:

http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=29236

"I am not behind my PC right now so I can only guess. Please go into that option and put a checkmark at the option
'Use one scaling for all screens' or something like that. Then put the slider in the top to project 100% and apply. Then start VP and see if you have the right resolution."


As everything is so small in 2560x1440 I had set Windows to enlarge everything to 125%. Once I set this to 100% there was a 2560x1440 windowed option in the VP menu which stretches it to full screen. However if I set it to 1600x1200 it is in a window but looks much sharper and looks like a window in 2560x1440 resolution. At least this is what happened on the BTTF table I was playing. Crazy. Course now text and everything in Windows is super small. Oh well. Pick your poison.

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

 

[mpad]

Also make sure you use the build in AA or forced AA with Nvidia driver, that makes a big difference in graphics quality.

 

[Reagan Dow]

After a few attempts, I can't grasp the way to do it either. I bide my time and hope that someday the process will be easier for potential users like me. I want to enjoy ready-to-play tables that are plug-n-play and not have the ability to create some of the masterpieces that are in VP.

I want to play the EM's so bad. I cut my pinball teeth on Gottlieb machines from the 70's and playing them again is like a dream to me and a reality for Jeff and others.

I am so thankful for TPA. Tables that I love and easy to access.

You gotta get an iPad (and now they also support Android)frank!! Zaccaria (ask homework) has all tables from the 70's and 80's. They are in the middle of releasing strictly EM's. If you buy the 20.99 gold pack you get all released and future tables in the Zac collection. Check out the Zac threads for pictures of some of the tables. Best deal in town and they give TPA a serious run for their money. They use an incredible engine to run everything and you can customize almost everything to your hearts content!!! I'm in EM nirvana!!

 

[TNT]

Played a little Simpsons Pinball Party today. Fun table. Sure hope it comes to TPA at some point.