Tables & ROMs

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biggeorge

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As a newcomer to pinball emulation (playing, not building!) over the last week, I'm loving it. But in seeking out tables and roms, a lot of the links (not just to the late VP Forums) are dead ends and/or just plain shut down.

I found the obvious: IPDB, Arcade at Home, and one or two others. Does anyone have a list of WORKING sites they could post here for folks like me? Or just reply to this post with some you know, and I'll put together some type of updated list to pass on to anyone interested.

And one other question: what about the games on the torrent sites? This is an area that's new to me, and I'm not sure if those sites are OK, worth supporting, or have a high probability of malware?

Thanks!

Also
 
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IPDB is the best source that I know of for ROMs, except for Gottlieb ROMs for legal reasons. VPF was the other best source IMO as they had mostly all makers ROMs available. Yet another reason that the loss of VPF would be a bad thing, but only time will tell on that front.

I can't speak to the torrent sites as I haven't tried them myself, but I've never heard stories of anyone picking up a pinball torrent and getting malware from it... Mostly they complain about getting old or non-working tables.
 
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WOW--you guys are great! Thanks much for the info!

Now, before another question or two, let me tell you a short story...

Before VPforums crashed a couple of weeks ago, I posted a note which basically said that I was a newbie, and was having a little trouble getting the self-installing Visual Pinball program running. I also said that I wanted to put together what could be called a "newbie manual" for long-time fans of real-world pinball who learned through a friend, as I did, about the existence of video/visual pinball.

To my surprise, I was beaten up pretty good in a number of reply posts which essentially said "Tough luck if you're a newbie, we think you should stumble around in the forums until you figure it all our for yourself." Phoenixx was a little put out at my saying that the installation instructions in the readme file did not match the reality of what actually appears on the computer screen. (And they DO NOT. I will make a future post on that, but I consider this a bit of a nit-picking point and only pursue it to make it 100% accurate and easier to use for folks like me. His contribution is a major one.)

To get back to today: I'd like to know more about the sounds for the tables. Some of the audio is first-class. Others are really bad (lots of room ambience, it sounds like) or low volume. What is the relationship between the sound and the rest of the pieces that make the game go? Are there other--interchangeable-- files people have made or improved upon for certain games that I can download and "plug in" to have better sound? And what are the sound rom files I'm seeing?

I have a feeling I'm not the only one who has these questions lurking in the back of their mind while enjoying the games.

Thanks again to all--you've brought back a greatly entertaining part of my life I thought I'd only find by accident now and then in a wayward tavern or not-quite-expired diner on an old main highway while doing a cross-country road trip!

BG
 
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personally I haveonly been on here for about 2 months andNEVER got the brush-off that you say you had. If anything these poor people here have been ever so patient with my MANY questions from "where the hell is the rom?" to coding qestions. I can't understand why anyone would give you the cold shoulder like that! We NEED as many loyal pin freaks as we can get! but anyhow, I've also noticed that some instructions are vague OR written as if you should know something of programming VPF.com was the most famous for that, but this site is more helpful with explaining things as is the ORG(VPF.org) amd JPGpins.forumotion.com try again people here WILL help you if you are patient, and don't post obvious inquiries that could be found if you did a simple search, for it here. the ORG is on its way to posting a number of tutorials, start reading the posts there, and you'll see. but they are brand-spanking new so give it a little time.
 
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Biggeorge,
I'm not sure I can answer all your questions, but I'll give it a try. As for low volume, on some games you may need to turn the volume up. You need to "virtually" open the coin door on the front of the game and use the buttons inside to adjust it. For some games (Sega & Stern) you use the 9 key on the keyboard to turn the volume down and the 8 key to turn it up. Games from other manufactures you might need to hit the "end" key on the keyboard to open up the coin door to make the adjustments. I think others might be the 7 key first then you'd need to navigate to the sound adjustment menu. I'm not sure what you mean by ambience sound. Some of the sounds you hear in the game are imported .wav sound files that the author used when creating the table (flipper sounds, slings, bumpers). Sometimes these can be at a different volume than the game sounds that come from the ROM. The only way to fix these would be to import your own sound files (that are at a different volume) to replace the existing ones. If you go to the Table menu and then the Sound Manager from withing the VP editor, you will see what sound files have been imported for that particular table. The other thing you can do is be specific about which table (version/author) you are noticing something weird with and then that may help someone to identify what you might do to change things.
 
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biggeorge said:
Before VPforums crashed a couple of weeks ago, I posted a note which basically said that I was a newbie, and was having a little trouble getting the self-installing Visual Pinball program running. I also said that I wanted to put together what could be called a "newbie manual" for long-time fans of real-world pinball who learned through a friend, as I did, about the existence of video/visual pinball.

To my surprise, I was beaten up pretty good in a number of reply posts which essentially said "Tough luck if you're a newbie, we think you should stumble around in the forums until you figure it all our for yourself." Phoenixx was a little put out at my saying that the installation instructions in the readme file did not match the reality of what actually appears on the computer screen. (And they DO NOT. I will make a future post on that, but I consider this a bit of a nit-picking point and only pursue it to make it 100% accurate and easier to use for folks like me. His contribution is a major one.)
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I'm not sure I recall the posts in question, but I'd guess it all comes down to how things were worded. If you're new in a community and the first thing you do is come out stating "this is wrong, you should do better, it's confusing", it's not likely to be well received. I'm not sure if that's what happened there, but I've seen that happen before. In any case, most folks here (and formerly at VPF) are generally helpful. This is a quirky group sometimes, but the intentions are always good.
 
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Continuing the conversation....

I don't think I commented in such a way that it was rude in any way, but I was surprised at the response. Obviously, the replies here to my posts have been well received--on BOTH ends, and I'm pleased to see so many people willing to help.

WTiger's reply is a great example of how anyone can get confused--so many different possible solutions or tweaks for the same thing. Lists like his are what a newbie needs.

By the way, "ambience" is, for the most part, "room noise." The best example I can give is this: imagine listening to your favorite song directly from a CD on a stereo system or computer. Now imagine that the only copy of the song you could get was a copy that someone made in their home by sticking a microphone in front of a speaker! The result will sound bad by comparison, as the sound bounces off the walls, glass, etc, and you get layers of "room noise" added to the recording. That's what it sounds like I'm hearing on some games I've downloaded. I'm not saying someone did a lousy job of recording, because let's face it, some of those sounds may HAVE to be recorded with a mic in front of a speaker because of the age of the things. If there are better quality ones available, forums like this should be the place where they're likely to be found, or leads given to track 'em down.
 
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biggeorge said:
By the way, "ambience" is, for the most part, "room noise." The best example I can give is this: imagine listening to your favorite song directly from a CD on a stereo system or computer. Now imagine that the only copy of the song you could get was a copy that someone made in their home by sticking a microphone in front of a speaker! The result will sound bad by comparison, as the sound bounces off the walls, glass, etc, and you get layers of "room noise" added to the recording. That's what it sounds like I'm hearing on some games I've downloaded. I'm not saying someone did a lousy job of recording, because let's face it, some of those sounds may HAVE to be recorded with a mic in front of a speaker because of the age of the things. If there are better quality ones available, forums like this should be the place where they're likely to be found, or leads given to track 'em down.
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I believe that some of the poor sound is that the emulation hasn't been perfected yet. For instance, it was just recently that Data East / Sega / Stern tables were able to be heard without CRANKING the volume.

That, and to be honest, many machines just had lousy sound to begin with.
 
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I agree with you BigGeorge. I'm new here too and a pretty rough time getting the program to work and knowing my way around, and I consider myself a pretty quick guy and know how to usually get up and running without too much sweat on my brow. Alot of people wouldn't have the patience, get frustrated, and not bother with it after awhile, just like I almost ended up doing.

A simple set of instructions on the main page for main points of interest:

1. Install Visual_Install_Pack

-Visual Pinball needs the .vpt (pinball table) files and the sound ROMS in order to work!

2. Download zipped tables, open them and place .vpt files in the "tables" folder in the default location C:\Program Files\Pinball

3. Download zipped sound ROMS, but DO NOT open them! Simply place them in the "ROMS" folder in the default location C:\Program Files\Pinball

Tables can be found here... "" "" "" "" and "" "" and sound ROMS can be found here.. "" "" and "" ""

WARNING: 1. If you are running Vista, right-click pinball.exe and "run as administrator."
2. Certain table have to be reset with the "F3" key before they will work.
3. Some tables can have the volume turned up by pressing "end" and then "8" and "9" to change volume levels.

If all those points were on the main page in bold and underlined, you'd have a lot less confusion and alot more people sticking around and playing. This is just my opinion.
 
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wangho said:
I agree with you BigGeorge. I'm new here too and a pretty rough time getting the program to work and knowing my way around, and I consider myself a pretty quick guy and know how to usually get up and running without too much sweat on my brow. Alot of people wouldn't have the patience, get frustrated, and not bother with it after awhile, just like I almost ended up doing.

A simple set of instructions on the main page for main points of interest:

1. Install Visual_Install_Pack

-Visual Pinball needs the .vpt (pinball table) files and the sound ROMS in order to work!

2. Download zipped tables, open them and place .vpt files in the "tables" folder in the default location C:\Program Files\Pinball

3. Download zipped sound ROMS, but DO NOT open them! Simply place them in the "ROMS" folder in the default location C:\Program Files\Pinball

Tables can be found here... "" "" "" "" and "" "" and sound ROMS can be found here.. "" "" and "" ""

WARNING: 1. If you are running Vista, right-click pinball.exe and "run as administrator."
2. Certain table have to be reset with the "F3" key before they will work.
3. Some tables can have the volume turned up by pressing "end" and then "8" and "9" to change volume levels.

If all those points were on the main page in bold and underlined, you'd have a lot less confusion and alot more people sticking around and playing. This is just my opinion.
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Excellent. We need this kind of stuff written and you look like the perfect person to do it. Seriously, if we all spent our time writing tutorials and how to do its, then there would be no time left for making tables. We all need to contribute in some ways to help the community. Suggestions are always welcome, but few suggesters are doers, so the suggestions become just that......

Fill in those blanks and create a thread and then we can at least point to it every time a person asks. All of this stuff was previously done on VPF, but it went down and still is down. Hopefully it'll come back, but it's more doubtful with each day that it is down.

Great post and work on it as it is still fresh in your mind, as compared to me, who already has all of this stuff working and may not remember how I did it.
 
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:welcome1:
wangho said:
I agree with you BigGeorge. I'm new here too and a pretty rough time getting the program to work and knowing my way around, and I consider myself a pretty quick guy and know how to usually get up and running without too much sweat on my brow. Alot of people wouldn't have the patience, get frustrated, and not bother with it after awhile, just like I almost ended up doing.

A simple set of instructions on the main page for main points of interest:

1. Install Visual_Install_Pack

-Visual Pinball needs the .vpt (pinball table) files and the sound ROMS in order to work!

2. Download zipped tables, open them and place .vpt files in the "tables" folder in the default location C:\Program Files\Pinball

3. Download zipped sound ROMS, but DO NOT open them! Simply place them in the "ROMS" folder in the default location C:\Program Files\Pinball

Tables can be found here... "" "" "" "" and "" "" and sound ROMS can be found here.. "" "" and "" ""

WARNING: 1. If you are running Vista, right-click pinball.exe and "run as administrator."
2. Certain table have to be reset with the "F3" key before they will work.
3. Some tables can have the volume turned up by pressing "end" and then "8" and "9" to change volume levels.

If all those points were on the main page in bold and underlined, you'd have a lot less confusion and alot more people sticking around and playing. This is just my opinion.
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:p\'n\'l:As an ex-newbee, I totally agree with you...& with BoB as well;):iagree:

Great post:special:, hopefully will grow & become sticky!:thumright:
 
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