VPinball.com closes

[1st2MprovFIRE!]

Actually,I got into MAME about 2018 & have found few issues w/ using MAME 0.190 & the more-recent 0.195 update. Other,than trying to play any of the games from the NAOMI board-on(the DreamCast system,that is). Which,as the MAME Team will point-out,they recognize as being something that ppl have been complaining about,ever since the dumping of the ROMs began...

That is,they've been trying to explain that MAME will /never/ work properly w/ the NAOMI board & have even been trying to direct ppl toward the best emulator for the DC/NAOMI system,"Dolphin". This,may be related to why they have trouble w/ emulating SEGA systems in general. Because,as long as MAME has ever failed to /completely/ emulate early SEGA systems,whatever it is,that wasn't,will only cause an accumulating effect. Given,that's how arcade systems/boards are designed(continually carrying-over some part of the original architecture)...

The MAME team must not have focused-on/had-enough-access-to SEGA emulation in the early years of emulation & no one could probably figure-out how to rectify the situation later. So,they likely focused on what was shared amongst the architectures universally. Which,is why it seems /most/ everything works correctly(in my experience,anyway)...

Related to this,MAME has trouble w/ the Model 2 Saturn games,as well. Especially,those from the later period,just before the NAOMI comes into existence. In fact,there's no working emulation AT ALL for some of the last games on the Saturn(L.A. Guns,for example)...

Personally tho,I don't see many probs. w/ the series' of SEGA hardware /before/ the SATURN,when using the aforementioned MAME 0.190 version(haven't played enough SEGA games on 0.195,yet)...

In any case,a TRUE Saturn Emulator is better than MAME for anything running on the Model 2 board & maybe even before(I only know for SURE about the Model 2) Since,the Saturn console games were practically,if not,identical to the arcade game versions...

I also would recommend keeping several MAME vers. on-hand. Since,some games work better w/ particular releases,rather than equally across them. In fact,I specifically found a Japanese-only "Final Fight"-type of game seems to ONLY work w/ the 0.180 or so range of releases /before/ the aforementioned 0.190. And,the "Punisher" arcade game seems to work better w/ that range,as well. So,I wouldn't recommend you EVER upgrade-&-replace,when it comes to MAME. Just in case,there's other games out-there that behave this way(I haven't tried more than a handful of games,thus far)...

BTW-There's no 1 specific arcade Racing game I played the most(it was a variety). But,I enjoyed the N64 version of "San Francisco Rush" a LOT & would've spent a small fortune. If,it hadn't been for that N64 version(still 1 of my Fav race games,from the "old" days)...

In 2nd place,the "XtremeG" series was mind-blowing to me,at the time & I would say 3rd,is "Burnout 3". Which,I loved for the "slow-mo" button/effect. Just,to share in some Racing game discussion,since you mentioned them... :)

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

(thanks, PN, for keeping this up)

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

@1st2MprovFIRE!

WTF...?

 

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

That is,they've been trying to explain that MAME will /never/ work properly w/ the NAOMI board & have even been trying to direct ppl toward the best emulator for the DC/NAOMI system,"Dolphin". This,may be related to why they have trouble w/ emulating SEGA systems in general. Because,as long as MAME has ever failed to /completely/ emulate early SEGA systems,whatever it is,that wasn't,will only cause an accumulating effect. Given,that's how arcade systems/boards are designed(continually carrying-over some part of the original architecture)...

I usually play MAME on my IBM X61t laptop (1.6GHz Core2Duo, no 3D accelerator) which is on the slower side. I feel annoyed when suddenly certain games (e.g. Outrun) became too slow to be fun. The Sega 8-bit games have likely nothing common with NAOMI (but I would love to see one day the Sega Driving Simulator that is based on NAOMI 2); the semi-analogue sound hardware is a different issue. One problem is that MAME has archeological attitude of simulating inner working as close as currently possible, so e.g. they don't simply circumvent components those are unneeded to run a game visually correct (e.g. the microcontroller inside a gamepad interface or protection circuits) but insist to model the complete circuit correctly. However sometimes this appears to be a false excuse, because some parts of MAME get very well optimized for efficiency, while other parts seem to be silently ignored because the currently working programmer team simply doesn't care (or lacks knowledge to fix them?).

BTW-There's no 1 specific arcade Racing game I played the most(it was a variety). But,I enjoyed the N64 version of "San Francisco Rush" a LOT & would've spent a small fortune. If,it hadn't been for that N64 version(still 1 of my Fav race games,from the "old" days)...

In 2nd place,the "XtremeG" series was mind-blowing to me,at the time & I would say 3rd,is "Burnout 3". Which,I loved for the "slow-mo" button/effect. Just,to share in some Racing game discussion,since you mentioned them... :)

My favourite racing games are "Hard Driving"/"Race Driving"; the latter runs on MAME a little jerky on my X61t, but once I learnt to play this game on Amiga 500 at something like 2 to 5fps, which was even tremendously slower. "Ridge Racer" runs almost perfect, the successor "Rave Racer" a bit jerky (badly noticible on mountain track). The 8-Bit games "Pole Position" (I & II) and "Speed Freak" (real 3D modelled vector graphics, very impressive for 1978) run well. Bad is that Outrun and some similar Sega games started to jerk a lot. Important is that Sega System16A versions of games (e.g. "Time Scanner" pinball) run smoother than System 16B, likely because 16B sound emulation contains a poorly implemented netlist part that barely improves tone quality but became a bad CPU hog.

 

[1st2MprovFIRE!]

Actually,I got into MAME about 2018 & have found few issues w/ using MAME 0.190 & the more-recent 0.195 update. Other,than trying to play any of the games from the NAOMI board-on(the DreamCast system,that is). Which,as the MAME Team will point-out,they recognize as being something that ppl have been complaining about,ever since the dumping of the ROMs began...

That is,they've been trying to explain that MAME will /never/ work properly w/ the NAOMI board & have even been trying to direct ppl toward the best emulator for the DC/NAOMI system,"Dolphin". This,may be related to why they have trouble w/ emulating SEGA systems in general. Because,as long as MAME has ever failed to /completely/ emulate early SEGA systems,whatever it is,that wasn't,will only cause an accumulating effect. Given,that's how arcade systems/boards are designed(continually carrying-over some part of the original architecture)...

The MAME team must not have focused-on/had-enough-access-to SEGA emulation in the early years of emulation & no one could probably figure-out how to rectify the situation later. So,they likely focused on what was shared amongst the architectures universally. Which,is why it seems /most/ everything works correctly(in my experience,anyway)...

Related to this,MAME has trouble w/ the Model 2 Saturn games,as well. Especially,those from the later period,just before the NAOMI comes into existence. In fact,there's no working emulation AT ALL for some of the last games on the Saturn(L.A. Guns,for example)...

Personally tho,I don't see many probs. w/ the series' of SEGA hardware /before/ the SATURN,when using the aforementioned MAME 0.190 version(haven't played enough SEGA games on 0.195,yet)...

In any case,a TRUE Saturn Emulator is better than MAME for anything running on the Model 2 board & maybe even before(I only know for SURE about the Model 2) Since,the Saturn console games were practically,if not,identical to the arcade game versions...

I also would recommend keeping several MAME vers. on-hand. Since,some games work better w/ particular releases,rather than equally across them. In fact,I specifically found a Japanese-only "Final Fight"-type of game seems to ONLY work w/ the 0.180 or so range of releases /before/ the aforementioned 0.190. And,the "Punisher" arcade game seems to work better w/ that range,as well. So,I wouldn't recommend you EVER upgrade-&-replace,when it comes to MAME. Just in case,there's other games out-there that behave this way(I haven't tried more than a handful of games,thus far)...

BTW-There's no 1 specific arcade Racing game I played the most(it was a variety). But,I enjoyed the N64 version of "San Francisco Rush" a LOT & would've spent a small fortune. If,it hadn't been for that N64 version(still 1 of my Fav race games,from the "old" days)...

In 2nd place,the "XtremeG" series was mind-blowing to me,at the time & I would say 3rd,is "Burnout 3". Which,I loved for the "slow-mo" button/effect. Just,to share in some Racing game discussion,considering you mentioned it... :)

I usually play MAME on my IBM X61t laptop (1.6GHz Core2Duo, no 3D accelerator) which is on the slower side. I feel annoyed when suddenly certain games (e.g. Outrun) became too slow to be fun. The Sega 8-bit games have likely nothing common with NAOMI (but I would love to see one day the Sega Driving Simulator that is based on NAOMI 2); the semi-analogue sound hardware is a different issue. One problem is that MAME has archeological attitude of simulating inner working as close as currently possible, so e.g. they don't simply circumvent components those are unneeded to run a game visually correct (e.g. the microcontroller inside a gamepad interface or protection circuits) but insist to model the complete circuit correctly. However sometimes this appears to be a false excuse, because some parts of MAME get very well optimized for efficiency, while other parts seem to be silently ignored because the currently working programmer team simply doesn't care (or lacks knowledge to fix them?).


My favourite racing games are "Hard Driving"/"Race Driving"; the latter runs on MAME a little jerky on my X61t, but once I learnt to play this game on Amiga 500 at something like 2 to 5fps, which was even tremendously slower. "Ridge Racer" runs almost perfect, the successor "Rave Racer" a bit jerky (badly noticible on mountain track). The 8-Bit games "Pole Position" (I & II) and "Speed Freak" (real 3D modelled vector graphics, very impressive for 1978) run well. Bad is that Outrun and some similar Sega games started to jerk a lot. Important is that Sega System16A versions of games (e.g. "Time Scanner" pinball) run smoother than System 16B, likely because 16B sound emulation contains a poorly implemented netlist part that barely improves tone quality but became a bad CPU hog.

I've never tried MAME w/o using a graphics card. I'm sure your lack of acceleration is going to cause trouble. As,MAME is resource-heavy & your CPU is running the whole thing. So,my situation is completely different. In fact,just by having /any/ graphics card,you would see a difference of /some/ kind. Maybe,upgrade your Sound card to a more-recent 1,as well(if it can be done,w/ that particular laptop)...

BTW-What I'm running it on,is a PC from 2012-2013 w/ Win7 & a Dual-core 3.1 Ghz AMD Athlon XP. Along w/ a 4GB Nvidia Graphics Card. So,graphically,our results are certainly not going to match. But,my sound card is a basic SoundBlasterPro from 2012(nothing fancy,there) & I rarely experience any audio-related probs. Except,w/ the games from the Saturn...

But,the fact that I have /any/ issues w/ something /that/ much more powerful than yours,should explain why you're having the troubles you are. I mean,even w/ no other programs running except the Win-required stuff(no internet either,since it's unsafe w/ service ended),I still have probs. w/ the later-age Saturn games...

However,I have graphics-related issues more-often,than sound-issues. Either that,or both happen equally & this applies,again,only w/ late-Saturn-&-on games on SEGA-related hardware(not w/ other companies). But,I prefer to run my Saturn-emu /much/ more,than MAME,for actual Saturn games. So,I can't be sure what the performance is on MAME per-game. However,the game "Gunblade NY"(which is a FAV of mine)performs quite poorly on either,MAME 0.190 or 0.195(I forgot which version it was,since it's been awhile)...

Tho,there's 1 game in particular that nearly is un-playable on both 0.190 & 0.195. But,does at least have /somewhat/ better results on 0.195. It's a "House of the dead"-type of game from about 2008-2010 (it's a Japanese-only urban-setting clone of the series,it seems). This game,is THE most-recent I've been able to get to work on MAME ever. And,is the reason I upgraded past 0.190. The audio is /specifically/ ruined. It only plays correctly 15%-25% during the WHOLE game & ONLY on 0.195. On 0.190 it's more like 5%(it stutters the WHOLE time after a few secs. in). This game is likely running on something NAOMI-related. But,I'm not certain whichtype,or anything. And,there are TONS of graphical glitches on 0.190. But, NOT on 0.195. Which,it plays nearly-perfect on,except in regards to the audio...

Anyway,I agree about the MAME team either giving-up support or not knowing,in the way you describe. But,there's a forum/community at their official-site & I would spend time reading-up on the issues they have/are facing,to really know about what's causing the SEGA emulation to be so flawed...

I will say tho,that they initially focused on Neo-Geo & CAPCOM hardware,from what I read about MAME's earliest days. And,SEGA seems to be the system that they had the least-focus on,among the main game-companies back-then(it's explained thoroughly somewhere on their site,I forget where tho)...

1 last thing,try running Michael Jackson's "Moonwalker" w/ MAME to test the GENESIS-age games,1st. I ran that /flawlessly/ & if you're having trouble w/ that even,there's probably nothing you can effectively play from that age...

 

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

My modern PC mainboard (Colani bigtower modified as dual-pc case) has a Ryzen 2400G APU, which should be faster but I haven't dared to try MAME on it. AFAIK Megadrive things run on the X61t. But I am mostly into 8-bit and various racing games. Neogeo is playable on it, but had no driving games (except a really ugly motorcycle(?) thing) and had only few games I like (Neo Mr.Do etc.); like SNES games from its era they were rather overloaded with visual effects (e.g. kawaii kitsch) those can distract from gameplay. Unfortunately PC-Engine (which had some pinball stuff) runs rather choppy.

Very much like a huge national bureau, MAME has turned into a bureaucratic institution that mostly fights with defining internal standards for administrating itself rather than implementing new efficient concepts. Thus many parts of it seem poorly maintained or overlooked, and anybody who tries hard to send many bug reports rather gets expelled as a troublemaker or foe instead of leading to improvements.

 

[digitalarts]

@1st2MprovFIRE! @CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler
ok, but what have this all to do with the closing of vpinball.com ??

 

[1st2MprovFIRE!]

@1st2MprovFIRE! @CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler
ok, but what have this all to do with the closing of vpinball.com ??

Sorry,yes,I know. We started a chat-thread that became completely off-topic. If there's anyway to move what we've discussed into a new thread of some-sort,you're free to do so...

I mean,I would hope that we could continue our discussion elsewhere & not be continuing here. Where,the discussion has nothing really to do w/ what was intended for this location. But,as I have no clue how to do so,I will need someone to assist w/ that...

-Peace

 

[1st2MprovFIRE!]

My modern PC mainboard (Colani bigtower modified as dual-pc case) has a Ryzen 2400G APU, which should be faster but I haven't dared to try MAME on it. AFAIK Megadrive things run on the X61t. But I am mostly into 8-bit and various racing games. Neogeo is playable on it, but had no driving games (except a really ugly motorcycle(?) thing) and had only few games I like (Neo Mr.Do etc.); like SNES games from its era they were rather overloaded with visual effects (e.g. kawaii kitsch) those can distract from gameplay. Unfortunately PC-Engine (which had some pinball stuff) runs rather choppy.

Very much like a huge national bureau, MAME has turned into a bureaucratic institution that mostly fights with defining internal standards for administrating itself rather than implementing new efficient concepts. Thus many parts of it seem poorly maintained or overlooked, and anybody who tries hard to send many bug reports rather gets expelled as a troublemaker or foe instead of leading to improvements.

It seems our conversation is becoming too off-topic,for it to continue here. So,I will just say that I agree w/ you about the MAME team's behavior & say that you should at least /try/ 1 of the more recent versions of MAME w/ your high-end PC. So that,you will see the difference. As,I'm quite certain you will at least have /less/ problems w/ the games you don't like the performance of...


BTW-To say something that /is/ on topic. I agree w/ others that NO virtual or even REAL pinball site should /ever/ close. Unless,it's a scammer site or seeks to profit off those just wanting info or required-files for Pinball,Bagatelle,etc. machines...

I mean,if a file is needed for it to even run AT ALL in a virtual program,the file should be readily-available AND free. Either that,or the table designer should be expected(maybe even required)to provide an alternate version that /doesn't/ require such files just to work(they seem oblivious to the difficulty of always ensuring access to these files)...

It does seem that more ROM files are easier to find,than when I began VP in 2012. I mean,it was difficult to find them in a legit way sometimes,back-then. As,the rights-owners were more restrictive of their files & you had to go beyond legit sites like this to find them. However,there were more sites you could try back-then & most were just amateur sites that /looked/ unsafe. Not /actually/ unsafe,like the malicious/scammer sites that we have now...

It's a bit unfortunate that not /all/ files are available yet. But,it's a big improvement over when I last was looking for them,around 2018...

So far,only the "Charlie's Angels" & "Close Encounters" ROMs are still difficult to find without risking it,at a scam-friendly site like "wowROMs" or such(btw-I have the CloseEnc file,if any1 needs it)...

Anyway,I hope this was more on-topic,like everyone was wanting. Tho,I know I mostly just ranted about how; while file-availability has increased,the unsafe&scammer sites have,as well(not sure if things are really better,therefore)...

-Peace :)

 

[MotherEarth]

Vpinball website is back up online with downloads

 

[Carny_Priest]

If you remember your account username and password then you can access downloads, but the actual file is an empty file named broken-download.txt. So, yeah, still no access to files but you can at least view forum posts.

 

[pinhead1]

the scam thefts has me a little ticked off because with all the problems goin' on how will we get the install
components for all the VP programs online and the new stuff, updates and do a new install if needed?
now you are telling me there are no DLs just forum discussions.
is PN and VPF goin' to be ok?

 

[GeorgeH]

If you guys are looking for a table that is missing, you might try the torrents that are available here:

FP and VP Torrents and Archive Collections

anon#49 i don't mind the scoring reels and DMD in corner of the apron on 1 screen LG48 1080. i used the DTexec to scale everything down and change the size of the fonts to fit proper in the apron. not interested in a BG and DMD when game on when i play real PB or VP.

pinballnirvana.com

There is a way to download a single table but I don't remember how to do it.