VISUAL PINBALL

Hello all, I'm Subzero (also known on the pinball emulation scene as subzero1970) And I'm here to guide you through pinball emulation.

Installation and Setup

First off, lets start with the programs you willl need for the emulation of pinball.

VISUAL PINBALL – Available from http://www.visualpinball.com

VISUAL PINMAME – Available from http://www.pinmame.com

Those are the two most important programs, visual pinball is the program where the emulated table is created, some knowledge of visual basic programming is required to make a successful table emulation. Visual PinMame emulates the actual dot matrix screen that you find on a pinball table, these 2 combined make for excellent emulation of arcade pinball tables.

Now as pinball table creation is a tricky business, I’ll leave that out for the moment, but if the need arises to make a tutorial (i.e. if plenty of people ask for one) then I will try to do one, but for now, this is basically a setup guide!!!

Step 1: Install Visual Pinball

Easy enough, install it to your main drive, default setting C:\Program Files\Visual Pinball. Please make sure that you download the VBS scripts - these are VERY important and MUST be unzipped into the tables folder, NONE of the VPM tables will work without these files.

Step 2: Install and Configure Visual PinMame

PinMame is best unzipped to C:\pinmame, so unzip it to that directory (create a new directory if you have to).Next you need to run setup.exe which is in the same dir. After running you will see about 7 buttons, click the install button and follow the simple instructions on the screen:

Next Click Setup paths, and set the directories to the ones on the screen below. Quite simple really. If the folder does not exist just create it.

That’s your emulators setup, now you need some tables and roms.

Pinball Tables and Roms

No elements of pinball emulation will EVER be posted on this site, so please don’t ask, but here are all the links you’ll ever need for getting tables.

The very BEST site for tables and roms is AJ’s vpinmame table downloads. OH I almost forget, you’ll also need to download the vbs zip file which is also available at the aforementioned AJ’s site – these need to be unzipped into the following directory c:\program files\visual pinball\tables

Ok, back to AJ’s, the url is http://www.vpforums.com/vptables/   BUT before you can download anything you need to register, So click on the forum link at the top of the page and register……all registered???? Good!!!               

Go back to the main page, and click the TABLES link.

At the top of the screen, the first two downloads are fonts collection and vbs script files, I have explained about the vbs files being required, so download them and place them where they should go. Also download the fonts collection, these need to be installed wherever your fonts folder is.

Now I’ll pick one of my tables to set you up with but you can choose any one really.

Click B and find the table called Batman(Subzero), you will need to download the table file and the rom file(btmn_101).

Once downloaded, the contents of the table zip go into the tables folder of visual pinball, the rom file remains zipped and goes into the roms folder in the pinmame directory.

NOW ITS TIME TO TRY IT OUT!!!!

Load visual pinball, when loaded you will see a blank grey screen, cool huh??!! No?? ok…lets load the batman table then shall we??

Click File, Open, and find the batman2.0.vpt file, and load it by double clicking on it – Now you will see this:

Do you see a big button that says PLAY??? PRESS IT!!! The table will now render itself…next you will see a disclaimer – just say YES, now, next you might see the image below…

The only thing this image does not show is that there will be a small section the emulated table at the bottom of the screen. Click in there and what you will see is this…..

Controls for it are as follows:

5 – inserts a coin

1 – starts the game

Enter – plunger

Left Shift – Left Flipper

Right Shift – Right Flipper

If you have an x-arcade or similar, it’s a good time to start using those side buttons!!!

Well, there you go!!! Pretty straight forward im sure you’ll agree!!! Now all that’s left for me to do is to recommend some of the BEST tables around (which are all available from AJ’s vpinmame, and before I forget, there are also lots of EXCELLENT homemade tables available too!!!

Examples

Medieval Madness:

The Addams Family:

Circus Voltaire By Scapino:

Thats just three, but I could post images all day!!! Heres some more worth trying:

Star Wars, Robocop, Playboy, Monopoly, Hook, Lethal Weapon, No Fear the list goes on and on.

Links

And Finally, before I go, here are some more links you should check out:

Well that’s it!!! Enjoy Pinball!!!!!

If you have any questions please contact me at the pinball nirvana forums

Subzero   

Copyright subzero 2006