who can clarify pinmame for me!!!

[bitterrootter]

Where do the tables go? where do the roms go? I get audio but the tables are nowhere to be found. Help I am totally lost

[Queen Of The Felines]

PinMAME's a little complicated. You also have to download Visual Pinball and some other files, all found at the link below, along with installation instructions.

http://www.vpforums.com/modules.php?s=&name=FAQ&myfaq=yes&id_cat=2#5

Once installed, use that same site to download tables. Tables and ROMs are downloaded separately. Tables go in the Tables folder in Visual Pinball, and ROMs go in the ROMS folder in Visual PinMAME.

The link above explains it all better. Have fun, it's a blast. :D

Kristine

[Lady Jaye]

I can't wait for the Mac version of PinMAME to come out! according to the official PinMAME website, the Mac version is coming out soon.

[kainemaxwell]

thanks for the help!

[davidbrit2]

I can't wait for the Mac version of PinMAME to come out! according to the official PinMAME website, the Mac version is coming out soon.

Hmm, that would be pretty cool to tinker with, though we'd still be without the actual pinball table simulation.

You need one hell of a powerful machine to run Visual Pinball alongside PinMAME simultaneously. Heh. My ~400 MHz PII could hardly even handle my old Baby Pac Man table. Some older Williams tables were almost playable, though. Space Shuttle wasn't TOO bad.

[AB Positive]

I can't wait for the Mac version of PinMAME to come out! according to the official PinMAME website, the Mac version is coming out soon.

Hmm, that would be pretty cool to tinker with, though we'd still be without the actual pinball table simulation.

You need one hell of a powerful machine to run Visual Pinball alongside PinMAME simultaneously. Heh. My ~400 MHz PII could hardly even handle my old Baby Pac Man table. Some older Williams tables were almost playable, though. Space Shuttle wasn't TOO bad.

I hope my celeron 1.4Ghz rig will be able to handle it, because I've never played the Dr. Who pin and I've been jonesing to for quite some time. Hopefull this can rectify that error ;)

-AG

[ddockery]

Umm, I don't think it takes THAT powerful of a machine to handle it. A 400Mhz PII is ancient these days. My old rig was a 1.4Ghz AMD and I don't remember it having much trouble at all.

[kainemaxwell]

Then my 3 gHz should work fine with it.

[kirin jensen]

I can't wait for the Mac version of PinMAME to come out! according to the official PinMAME website, the Mac version is coming out soon.

Hmm, that would be pretty cool to tinker with, though we'd still be without the actual pinball table simulation.

You need one hell of a powerful machine to run Visual Pinball alongside PinMAME simultaneously. Heh. My ~400 MHz PII could hardly even handle my old Baby Pac Man table. Some older Williams tables were almost playable, though. Space Shuttle wasn't TOO bad.

I hope my celeron 1.4Ghz rig will be able to handle it, because I've never played the Dr. Who pin and I've been jonesing to for quite some time. Hopefull this can rectify that error ;)
-AG

You. Must. Play. This. Pin. It rocks. :rocker: [/u]

[TheRedEye]

I really ought to look into this. I've been itching for some Cirqus Voltaire and Fun House.

[kainemaxwell]

So you have to use PINMame with Visual Pinball?

The Doctor Who table is gonna be one the first I get. ^^

[scooterb23]

I never understood how I got it all to work, I just started downloading and installing stuff until it all sort of worked one day.

Sadly I lost it all in the crash of '04 and really haven't had the desire to try it again yet. Maybe soon though.

[kainemaxwell]

Ok, installed it all right, I think, but I keep getting a crash error after I load a table. :hmm:

EDIT: Finally got it working right! Though sometimes crashes after closing.

[Jibbajaba]

It is my understanding that pinmame runs the scoreboard/digital screen, while VP runs the table itself. So you need both for the full experience. Ive seen pinmame run by itself, but i dont know if VP runs without pinmame.

Chris

[davidbrit2]

It is my understanding that pinmame runs the scoreboard/digital screen, while VP runs the table itself. So you need both for the full experience. Ive seen pinmame run by itself, but i dont know if VP runs without pinmame.

Chris

That is correct. They are fully independent programs. Visual PinMAME is a version of PinMAME that's an ActiveX control, I think. Thus Visual Pinball embeds the ActiveX emulator object, and communicates with it via VBScript programming. That's how they pass switch, lamp, button, and other states between each other. VP goes about its business with the physics simulation, telling the PinMAME object about changes in switch states, etc. and PinMAME handles the game hardware, backglass displays, and audio, and also lamp/coil control which it relays back to VP.

Hopefully that made sense. ;-)

[InsaneDavid]

Bah, everyone always has to do everything the hard way. :D

Go here - http://www.pinballsim.com/ and download the Pinball Pack. It contains everything you need to run Visual Pinball and VPin MAME. It also contains the VBS scripts. However what it has that makes everything a million times easier is Visual Pinball Launcher, which is basically a front end for Visual Pinball and VPinMAME that brings the two programs together and takes all the technical crap out of using them.

Additionally Pinballsim.com has a ton of tables that will auto install for you into the proper directories. They don't have EVERY table but they have many excellent tables including many of the popular ones. (You'll have to get The Who's Tommy elsewhere, sorry pinball wizards)

-----------------------------

If you download a Visual Pinball / VPinMAME table (outside of PinballSim.com) it should contain the following...

* .vpt file (this is the table's physical graphics for Visual Pinball)
* zipped file that contains VPinMAME roms (tables that don't use electronics won't have them)
* a graphic file (optional, many have a screen shot already included for use with VPL, additionally you can make your own screen shots as long as you place them in the \Tables directory inside Visual Pinball)
* required fonts (optional, nearly every table will have a font used to replicate table graphics, you install these as you would any Windows font by putting them in your fonts folder in the Windows directory)

-----------------------------

The directories that each part of a table go to are as follows...

.vpt file (Visual Pinball graphics) goes in...
pinballpack\Visual Pinball\Tables

Screen shot goes in... (not all tables have these)
pinballpack\Visual Pinball\Tables

Zipped VPinMAME rom goes in...
pinballpack\roms

-----------------------------

If you are experiencing slow game play, chopiness, and other graphics lag you can lower the resolution and color quality of the simulator. Here's how:

1.) Load Visual Pinball ( \pinballpack\Visual Pinball\VPinball.exe )
2.) From the menu select "Preferences" then "Video Options"
3.) Choose a reliable resolution setting for your computer and video card

Changing these resolutions can not harm your computer so do not be afraid to try different settings and test it out to see how it looks and runs. Most people will probably want to set resolution at 1024 x 768 since it's what many of the VPinMAME displays were designed to fit against.

-----------------------------

It was a pain to figure out how to use these programs until I found Pinballsim.com and began using Visual Pinball Launcher (VPL), makes these run great in a MAME cabinet as well! Also it made figuring out how both programs work and interact a lot easier.

I run these tables on a Athlon 900MHz system and they all work fine although some of the more elaborate tables studder here or there during the first play.

Hope this helps. :)

[I Am Humanoid]

Bah, everyone always has to do everything the hard way. :D ....

....Hope this helps. :)

Well put!

I used a ton of Pinball samples in the new CD.

Mostly from the early 80's Williams pins.

[poloplayr]

Thanks a bunch, InsaneDavid!!! Great post! I'm DLing that pack now. I DLed PinMame and VP and what not ages ago, never got the thing to work and gave up but your post made me want to try it again. Thanks!!!

[ddockery]

There are actually hndreds of tables that run on just visual pinball and do not use pinmame at all, but there are mostly just original creations for visual pinball. Anything that originally had roms to run a scoreboard or whatever in the arcades will need pinmame as well.

[InsaneDavid]

There are actually hndreds of tables that run on just visual pinball and do not use pinmame at all, but there are mostly just original creations for visual pinball. Anything that originally had roms to run a scoreboard or whatever in the arcades will need pinmame as well.

That's why the pinballpack and VPL from Pinballsim.com rock, they take all the guess work out of everything - they just give you a front end and say "play." If a table needs VPinMAME roms, VPL will interrogate the roms directory and get them for you, loading VPinMAME as well. If a table is 100% in Visual Pinball only, it'll load it up no problem. It takes all the work out of using Visual Pinball and VPinMAME. :)