Some explanations needed...

[Clark Kent]

I'm relatively new to Visual Pinball/PinMAME and I do not fully understand how the tables thing works.

OK, I downloaded the PinMAME 2.5 ROMs. About 1.700 files or so.

But which tables belong to the PinMAME 2.5 ROMs? I found so many different tables. Like "Original Tables", "Original Flipperless Tables", "Recreated Flipperless Tables", "FullScreen Tables V9.X", etc.

I do not fully understand which tables are the correct ones for the ROMs? I do not need other ones that are not for the ROMs, I only want to have the correct collection to be able to use every ROM with the correct table.

I need some insight in this topic. Can somebody explain with simple and understandable words why there are so many different collections and which one I really need?

Thanx!

 

[Shockman]

You need more than the roms. You also need the Visual pinball program, the Visual PinMAME program, the .vbs files, fonts, and the .vpt files.

You also need to set up Visual PinMAME and it's directories.

 

[Clark Kent]

You need more than the roms. You also need the Visual pinball program, the Visual PinMAME program, the .vbs files, fonts, and the .vpt files.

You also need to set up Visual PinMAME and it's directories.

Thank you for your reply but I think you did not correctly read my request: I only want to know why there are so many different tables versions (like "Original", "Recreated", "Flipperless", etc.). Which ones are necessary for the ROMs (PinMAME 2.5) only???

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Most of the tables that require ROMs are the relatively newer tables... ones made after 1980 or so, in which most pinball machines were made with a computer chipset. For example, a table like Medieval Madness requires a ROM to run it. "Original" tables are those designed specifically for VP and are not based on real-life tables. Because of the complexity of designing a ROM set, most of these don't require one. Flipperless tables are usually based on tables from the dawn of the pinball era as well as associated toys and pinball-like devices and also do not require ROMs.
To sum up, most of the tables listed as VPinMAME tables require ROMS... VPinMAME recreations, mods, etc. Pretty much any recreated table that was originally made in the last 30 years requires a ROM.
A good way to find out if the table you're interested in requires a ROM would be to look it up at the Internet Pinball Machine Database... www.ipdb.org
If the table information shows a PinMAME Rom set, chances are it needs a ROM to run it in VP.

 

[sleepy]

It confuses a lot of people, but hang in there and don't be afraid to ask questions. We've all been there.

The picture that I posted is from this download page:

http://www.pinballnirvana.com/UpDownload.html

This is a Visual Pinball program website. The Visual Pinball program
allows you to play pinball games, and the Table files which recreate the visual game itself are .VPT files.

EDIT: I originally wrote a lot of BLA-BLA and I just got rid of it.

Download this:

http://www.pinballnirvana.com/UpDownload-req-getit-lid-1672.html

Then run it to install the programs. *I think* after installation you will find it by clicking the Windows START button (in the lower left-hand corner of the screen) > click My Computer > click Drive C: two times to open the drive.

Then look for the folder named Pinball. Open it. Visual Pinball should be there.
You will find (one) VPinball8.1.exe and one other VPinballxxx.exe.

If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, then
Click on each one of these VPinball.exe files with the Right-Side Mouse button and choose Run as Administrator.

Then download and unzip this Visual Pinball (VPinball9.12.exe Minimal) file to the same Pinball folder.

http://www.pinballnirvana.com/UpDownload-req-getit-lid-2142.html

Open this .zip and Copy the .exe file to the Pinball folder, then, if you use Vista or Win 7, Right-Click on this .exe and choose Run as Administrator.


Then, download a Visual Pinball Table from the download page. Unzip the .vpt file to the Pinball\Tables folder. Open Visual Pinball using one of the VPinball.exe files and at the top click File > Open and choose any Table that you've put in the Tables folder.

Click the Play button on the left side of the screen and enjoy.

For VPinMame, download a Table(.vpt) from the VPinMame Tables page and Unzip it to the Tables folder.

The ROM for a VPinMame Table is a second separate download file. If the ROM.zip is found on the VPinMame Tables download page, then download it to the Roms folder found inside the Pinball folder and Keep the ROM.zip ZIPPED. VPinMame will not work with Unzipped PinMame ROM files.
VPinMame only uses the .ZIp file version of the ROM.

You can also find the ROM at www.ipdb.org by the name of the machine.


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

There are often many versions of Table.vpt files by different authors and there are also often many versions of the computer code ROM file because the companies offered different versions or fixed bugs that were found in the previous release ROM code.

There are several versions of Visual Pinball because older Tables were designed on the older VPinball8.1, while the newest tables were created using the newest VPinball912.exe, and they are often not compatible/playable with each other's version due to differences in the .exes.

Usually, if the Table file .zip says nothing about VP912 or VP9xx, then it is an older VPinball8.1 version. Then use VPinball8.1.exe from the Pinball folder to run that table game.

If the Table.zip file says VP912 or VP9xx, then run it with the VPinball912.exe.

 

[Clark Kent]

Ok, now I know a little bit more about that. Thank you for the good explanation!

Nevertheless I still do not know if there is a collection of tables where there is a table for every ROM?

Is it necessary to unzip the tables or can they be used in ZIP format? Is it necessary to copy all different collections (like "originales", "flipperless", etc.) to one single directory?

It's a little bit confusing.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Well, usually most people download the singular table and then the ROM that goes with it. Not sure where you got this big file of ROMs from, but, as far as I know, there's nowhere to get a whole bunch of tables at once, unless you find some sort of Bit Torrent thread. Check the download section here. Unlike other VP sites, there's no daily download limit on the tables available at Pinball Nirvana.
The tables do need to be unzipped to be used. The ROMs need to stay zipped to be used. I guess you could set up the unzipped tables in their own folders (one for originals, one for flipperless, ect.) if you want to, but it will be sort of a hassle to flip through all those folders to load the table. I keep my VP8 tables separate from VP9 tables since, as Sleepy said, they're not compatible. But, other than that, I just dump all my tables into a single folder.

 

[Clark Kent]

Thank you for the explanation!

So if I sum this up there is not really a special order or a full collection of all tables for all the ROMs.

The PinMAME 2.5 ROMs are available as a full collection via Usenet. I found tables collections over at ROMShepered (http://romshepherd.com/smf/index.php) for download via Usenet, too. But after all these explanations to that matter I do not think that there could be a complete collection...

I think Future Pinball is a simpler thing - there is a full collection available...

 

[sleepy]

And there you go.
The torrent downloads are Huge and too much for most of us.

I download tables one at a time based on being a machine that I remember from my past, or a release from an author that interests me, and then maybe several of those and then play the heck out of them. :)

But to get back to your question, no. The ROM.zip files are the computer code files from the actual machines as provided by the manufacturers, but the table.VPT files are the Visual Pinball table that we see on the screen and play and to get the Visual Pinball table that we play requires that somebody recreates the game by hand using the Visual Pinball editor functions, whether the table is for Visual Pinball or for Visual Pinball + VPinMame + ROM.zip.

The other games, originals, bagatelle and old school EM Reel machines (old school non-computer Electro-Mechanical machines) don't use ROM files as they use no computers to control the game in the real-world machines which they are based on or else they are VP original tables not found in the real world. Those .vpt files can be played directly in Visual Pinball without using a second ROM or the need to install the VPinMame plugin.

So if you have a ROM there may not be a .vpt table file created by one of the members, either here or over at www.vpforums.org since somebody has to take an interest in the machine and recreate it using the Visual Pinball editor.

Usually, if there is a PinMame ROM available, it is because there is a .vpt recreation available somewhere for it, though not always.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Thank you for the explanation!

The PinMAME 2.5 ROMs are available as a full collection via Usenet. I found tables collections over at ROMShepered (http://romshepherd.com/smf/index.php) for download via Usenet, too.

While looking at the link you provided, I found a post for Visual PinMAME tables and downloaded the nzb. It's quite a large collection and I'll bet several match the ROMs that you already have. But just looking at the some of the file sizes, I can almost guarantee that you'll be getting some rather out-of-date offerings.

 

[faralos]

Originals don't need roms

When you see what is called an original table this means just that.
Someone thought up something and built it. Whether it is a copy of a commercial pin or a brand new layout neither one would need a rom.
We code them ourselves as in these two pics you see here, both these pins were my designs and all that is needed is the base vp9 program.
Rom pins means that it uses the commercial rom chip to activate the objects in the vp pin, and the coding calls out for the rom in numerous areas.
FYI...Flash2 is a finished pin Dogtown is still being worked on

 

[Clark Kent]

OK, the last explanation is interesting.

So "original tables" are fantasy tables, created by the idea of a user.

But how are the commercial tables called? The ones with the ROMs (only older ones won't have ROMs). In which category could they be found?

I just do not know why there are catelgories like "FullScreen", "Original Flipperless", "Recreated", "Recreated Flipperless", "Various Original & Recreated", "Miscellaneous", etc.? As every table of these categories must be copied to one single directory in Visual PinMAME how does this make sense?

And, as asked above, how can the commercial flippers be found? I only want the commercial ones...

 

[Shockman]

http://www.vpforums.org/

 

[faralos]

roms are the computer chips made specifically for that pin and have been uploaded
to numerous sites for us to use FREE
go to the download area, look for pins named vpm or files with that name
you must look one by one though or know the pin name to find commercial ones
as they get lumped together into whatever category they fit into
like flipperless means the older bingo and bagatelles but many of these were commercially made same goes for
EM which means the older electromechanical pins
and MOST of them are commercial remakes then we have
SS which means Solid State and while most of these also use roms some were made to be romless
originals are ROMLESS
(IPDB is the one of the best sites for roms) as is http://www.vpforums.org/
FS means fullscreen and are meant for the cab users
WS is widescreen meant for the widescreen vertical monitors

 

[Clark Kent]

OK, this was a relatively good explanation!

I only noticed that it is not fully guaranteed that all commercial flippers are in the Visual PinMAME section as some older ROM-less flippers are sorted into another category.

Moreover I also noticed that only VP9 flippers (mostly the ones that have the "VP9" in their name) are the only ones that fully support all features of the original machine. There are a lot of flippers in the VPM category which are not fully compatible with or do not fully support all VP9 features.

So it is relatively hard to get a good collection as most collections available (and posted over at Usenet) are outdated or simply mixed together from various sources. I personally think it does not make any sense to keep e.g. version 1, 1.1, 1.5 and 2.0 at the same ZIP file if the latest version is the best with all features (I also not not keep MAME ROMs from older versions, why should I?).

I noticed that thing with the versions with "Q*bert's Quest". In all versions I tried the ball got caught in the right middle pocket because of a bug. The thing got only solved until I found version 2.2.2 (the latest one) where the bug was removed and it was fully playable then.

By the way: I would be very interested in building a Pinball cabinet some day. I saw the HyperPin GUI lately and I wonder it there is a collection available somewhere. At the HyperPin website there is not all available, and if, only all separate. I full collection of all available themes where I have to copy only the ROMs and the tables into would be a very very nice thing...

 

[faralos]

check over here for pins too as this site has many not found here

http://www.vpforums.org/
and due to the copyright legalities of the roms they cannot be lumped together
nor put in with the table links so they must be kept separate

 

[Itchigo]

VP- Visual Pinball, either old re-creations or originals, no roms needed.
VPM-V Pinmame, recreations, have roms.

Also, what are your computer specs? Depending on what you have you may only be able to run old tables. If you go to the site in my signature I have originals for download (except Ice Fever). None take roms either (except Ice Fever). All should run, even on a weak pc.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

I think one thing that should be made clear is that the largest part of the VP community does not support, condone or like people mass-posting their work. Admittedly, the people who posted the tables on the newsgroups aren't selling the work (which really upsets those in the VP community), but they don't like the tables being taken out of their control and posted without their permission. Therefore, no one involved in Hyperpin is gonna post all their tables on Usenet. You'll have to wait until someone with a huge collection decides to stick it out there. Maybe you could request it at that Romshepherd site, but you won't get any help from anyone directly involved in the VP community. If you really want the latest and greatest table versions, you'll just have to download them separately like most of us poor slobs do. The tables are already free and usually, when they're updated, the older version is discarded. That way, you could have downloaded the latest version of Q*Bert without having to waste time playing five different versions to get the one that works right. Plus, there's no way you'll be able to play hundreds of different tables in one day, anyway. Well, I guess you could, but that would be a little freaky.
As far as "VPM tables don't have the real features that VP9 tables do", I'm really not sure what you're talking about. Let's try this on for size. Tables that have VP9 in them can only be played using the VP9 program. Any table that is not VP9 can be played using VP8. And, as far as I know, they all have the same features that the real-life tables do.

 

[Clark Kent]

I think one thing that should be made clear is that the largest part of the VP community does not support, condone or like people mass-posting their work. Admittedly, the people who posted the tables on the newsgroups aren't selling the work (which really upsets those in the VP community), but they don't like the tables being taken out of their control and posted without their permission. Therefore, no one involved in Hyperpin is gonna post all their tables on Usenet. You'll have to wait until someone with a huge collection decides to stick it out there. Maybe you could request it at that Romshepherd site, but you won't get any help from anyone directly involved in the VP community.

You are totally right. I understand that from that point of view. It's not my intention to make something that the authors do not want - I am just interested in how to get all tables that have ROMs in the VPM ROMs folder. So only the commercial reproductions are interesting for me.

Is there a way to get a list of all tables that need ROMs and/or all tables that are supported by VPM?

 

[sleepy]

The slow way is to find the VPinMame Setup.exe on your system, open it, click the Test button. A menu appears.
Then go through the menu list and try try each one in this test mode.
If you have the ROM.zip and select it in the list, and then click the VPinMame Start button, VPinMame will open the DMD (the digital scoreboard) for it.
The table that goes with the ROM is usually listed by its commercial name.

Without downloading each specific ROM.zip one-at-a-time, I don't know any other way to be sure of what you have.

You could open the folder that contains your ROM.zip files and press the Print Screen key.
Then open the Windows Paint program and at the top click Edit, then Paste.
If all goes well the screen image of the open folder with the ROM.zip files will appear as a picture file.

Then click File > Save As and save the picture.

Then post it here and we can make a game of I.D.ing the individual ROM.zip files.
But I'll tell you, hundreds of ROM.zip files may take a while to sort out. Not much fun with that.

 

[sleepy]

Does the torrent download by chance include a list of roms in a .txt file or in a README (.txt) file?

 

[faralos]

as far as I know there is no one complete list for all the vp tables
since they are all different it would be fruitless anyways
there are Em's, SS's, originals, some need roms some do not
and some vp pins go back to before 2000 (vp6)
so some of them may not even work in the newer vp programs (vp9.1.2)
then there are the vp8 pins some work in vp9 some do not
and since there are so many versions of vp
some older pins may not work or even load up in the newer versions
I use vp6, vp8, vp9.07 and vp9.1.2 depending on the vp pins age
because of all this no one ever thought to try to put all pins in one grouping
and truthfully it would have to be a HUGE file to have over 2 thousand pins

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Does the torrent download by chance include a list of roms in a .txt file or in a README (.txt) file?

'

It's actually not a torrent. Someone's posted all these ROMs and tables in the newsgroups on Usenet. And no, there's no Info file posted with it.

@Clark: That's a pretty huge set of ROMs that were uploaded. I'm pretty sure you can download any table you want and you're gonna have the ROM for it. On the rare chance that the ROM you want is not included, you can track it down at vpforums.org or on the Internet Pinball Database. I posted the link in one of the posts above, and faralos reposted it, because I guess he doesn't actually read the posts. But I'd say that, with the ROMs you already have, you're pretty well set to go.
VPForums.org has about the most complete set of VPM tables that are available (legitimately) on the internet. Depending on what you're using, VP8 or VP9, check their downloads under VPM Recreations, and you'll have about as complete a list as you could hope for.

 

[Clark Kent]

Thanx for all the interesting infos!

It would be interesting why old tables do not work on new version of Visual Pinball. It's almost like the disease most Microsoft programs suffer from - new versions do not like old documents the same program of the same company created. I understand that newer documents (or tables in this case) do not work on older versions of the program as there are new features and so on. But vice versa? Very very strange.

Lately I noticed that alpha ramps have severe display troubles as I learned a graphics card with 1 GB RAM is necessary for them. 1 GB for simply showing a static picture? Nevertheless another member posted the info that Visual Pinball still uses DirectX 7 and the graphic engine was never updated, dirty hacks are used to make alpha ramps possible. Wouldn't it be better to update the main program for the latest DirectX? Can somebody tell something about history of Visual Pinball?

Sorry for all the questions but I do not understand some of very strange behavior.

 

[Shockman]

When you look at VP, even the latest version, you are looking at history.

There is absolutely nothing in VP to get excited about in this day and age, other than the lack of alternatives. The development has stopped, and I don't know of any continuation of it other that the UCVP version that never had any intention of running on a desktop PC, and obviously has no intention of ever.

It won't be long I truly think, that a general development package for games will be able to make pinball games that are better as far as graphics and physics than VP.