38 replies to this topic

[faralos]

" I will never forget the thrill I got when I first found VP nearing 10 years ago now. (THATS scary lol)"

VP's been here for TEN years? DAMN! And to think all that time I was farting around with online pinball, but never found vp till about two years ago. all that time wasted...

" Back then the tables being made were generally nothing on today. Lol my first efforts I hope NEVER surface again on line!"

Believe it or not, many older tables I have found to be very educational, for what was lacking in graphics back then the table authors made up for it with some rather elaborate coding, and neat things in certain tables I don't see anymore in the newer originals. there is a wealth of info in 'them thar oldies' imo anyways

[slam23]

i've been a fan of pinball all my life, at almost 33 years old i wasn't around for the golden age of pinball but i've spent a lot of time playing all the greats any chance i had. when friends and i would all make the annual trek to cedar point, they'd ride the rides, i'd spend the whole day at the back of the arcade playing pinball

Hi St1y Wan Kenobi,
I loved reading your post because it precisely mirrored my first experience with discovering VP, I couldn't get over the fact that all those great pins I played in college in the '90's where already there for me to play. It was like a whole forest of Christmas trees with presents under them, all waiting to be unwrapped and me not knowing where to start.... :-)
In any case welcome to the community and a whole lot of sleep deprivation...
Slam23

[GSGregg]

I've spent the better part of this morning texting youtube links to all my other pinball friendly friends.....techs who repair the old games aren't thrilled about this.....

As you now well know, there are a lot of old (and not-so-old) techs here with differing sentiments; while they may use keystrokes and brainpower more than nutdrivers and soldering irons, efforts like theirs are powering the resurgence in 'real' pinball as well as the Virtual.

Welcome aboard!

[St1y Wan Kenobi]

Welcome! grab a beer and lets play! glad you found this place. I will never forget the thrill I got when I first found VP nearing 10 years ago now. (THATS scary lol)

VP, FP, Cabinets, whatever comes next, its only going to help to grow this thing. So much talent, so much fun, so many wonderful tables to play - I personally enjoy them all, but the biggest thrill when I started was the realisation I could create. Back then the tables being made were generally nothing on today. Lol my first efforts I hope NEVER surface again on line! but nonetheless, this whole thing is magic, and it is wonderful that you found us.

hope you get plenty of credits.

after browsing the stuff that other users have created it makes me want to build a few things and mod a few existing games. i'm sure my first efforts won't be anything spectacular either but thats what makes it fun. we learn almost nothing from total success, but we learn a lot from early failures. i'm sure i'll fail a whole bunch before i put together something that looks and works great.

Hi St1y Wan Kenobi,
I loved reading your post because it precisely mirrored my first experience with discovering VP, I couldn't get over the fact that all those great pins I played in college in the '90's where already there for me to play. It was like a whole forest of Christmas trees with presents under them, all waiting to be unwrapped and me not knowing where to start.... :-)
In any case welcome to the community and a whole lot of sleep deprivation...
Slam23

lol, great analogy. last night it was sorta overwhelming looking at all the games available to play. i started with my all time favorite (pinball magic), got it working perfect, and played it till 5am. i was 15 minutes late to work today

As you now well know, there are a lot of old (and not-so-old) techs here with differing sentiments; while they may use keystrokes and brainpower more than nutdrivers and soldering irons, efforts like theirs are powering the resurgence in 'real' pinball as well as the Virtual.

Welcome aboard!

well the way i see it, there is a huge future here. the only reason pinball fans like my dad and people his age don't own every game they ever loved as a kid is because real cabinets are just impractical for most people. you drop thousands of dollars into a machine that breaks down on you once a week, then you either become a repair tech, or you need to hire one. and thats just one machine. to have all your favorites you need a lot of space dedicated to pinball and a lot of money to buy them and maintain them.

this is where the guys like my dad see a virtua pin for the first time and find out they can drop 5k on one machine that they can play black knight, fireball, and every other game they grew up on... thats what makes everyone's dream collection affordable and within reach.

that being said, these games are a long way from being like the real thing. nothing will ever replace the feeling of playing a well maintained machine in perfect working order with a newly finished playfield and new premium balls, and nothing can replace the guys who know the trade.

who better to build a virtual game than the guys who built the real thing or those who have rebuilt them.

[faralos]

just remember if you mod an existing table, that you get that table authors permission first, if you plan on posting it publicly!

[St1y Wan Kenobi]

just remember if you mod an existing table, that you get that table authors permission first, if you plan on posting it publicly!

yeah i'd never do that without asking. my thoughts were to read on how to make tables, play around with the editor, and use existing tables to add things to to see how they work.

more like tinkering with the editor than trying to improve someones table. i have no clue what i'm doing at this point so it would be arrogant for me to assume i'd do anything but screw it up

[Itchigo]

Faralos is right, if you want to upload it- get permission, if you do it for yourself only it's cool. One of the things I found helpfull is looking at/ taking apart an existing table to "look under the hood" and the script as well. Don't save any changes or you'll have to redownload or fix it. But it's a great way to learn- just like when we all took apart the toaster for the first time. Any questions pm me, I'd be willing to teach what I know.
No jokes about the blind leading the blind please, ok?

[St1y Wan Kenobi]

Faralos is right, if you want to upload it- get permission, if you do it for yourself only it's cool. One of the things I found helpfull is looking at/ taking apart an existing table to "look under the hood" and the script as well. Don't save any changes or you'll have to redownload or fix it. But it's a great way to learn- just like when we all took apart the toaster for the first time. Any questions pm me, I'd be willing to teach what I know.
No jokes about the blind leading the blind please, ok?

yeah that was my first thoughts on how to build a pin, to take a working one apart and see how it works...

thanks for the offer for help, i will probably take you up on that but i'll be getting my PC up to speed and playing the hell out of some pinball before i build my own. with fireworks season fast approaching i won't have much time to do much but work 100+ hours a week so i need to play all the pinball i can while i can...

i'll try my hand at building a table after july 4th

anyway i've got the hang of it i think, both emmulators are working fine as far as i can tell but i think i'm having a graphics issue. the ball is real jerky and the play is hard to follow during multiballs. it's also rendering several of the moving components as transparent on VP9. i just got done playing some medievil madness and the castle, trolls, and several other parts were see-through. here's a screen shot, notice the castle towers are transparent...



do i need a better graphics card or is this table always like this?

[Rawd]

Download VP 9.08

I think you are using 910? That version is a bit buggy yet.

What video card are you running?

Edited by Rawd, 09 February 2011 - 04:01 AM.

[Itchigo]

Yeah, use 9.08 and go into the editor under Preferences- Video options and uncheck "antialias ball" should help a little, you can also go to 16 bit color to help some depending or what your running or how old it is. I use 9.07 to play and edit and 9.09 only to copy and paste objects keeping their names (only available in 9.09). 9.09 is ok for playing but has a tendancy to crash when designing. 9.07 is great and much more stable. Don't know if 9.07 is still avilable or not.
As for the graphics card the transparencies are sometimes caused by running out of video memory. A 1g is preferable but as to which one is a debate.

Edited by Itchigo, 09 February 2011 - 04:27 AM.

[hgpinball]

Yeah, use 9.08 and go into the editor under Preferences- Video options and uncheck "antialias ball" should help a little, you can also go to 16 bit color to help some depending or what your running or how old it is. I use 9.07 to play and edit and 9.09 only to copy and paste objects keeping their names (only available in 9.09). 9.09 is ok for playing but has a tendancy to crash when designing. 9.07 is great and much more stable. Don't know if 9.07 is still avilable or not.
As for the graphics card the transparencies are sometimes caused by running out of video memory. A 1g is preferable but as to which one is a debate.

VP9.0.8 is the oldest version in the "VP Downloads" section: http://vpforums.org/...d...at&cat_id=5 . If you want VP9.0.7, here you go:
 vpinball_9.07.zip   609.52KB   1 downloads

[Itchigo]

Thanks HG, it's just personal preference but that's what I use. I heard about bugs in 9.08, 9.09 and 9.10 when they came out and decided if it aint broke....

[St1y Wan Kenobi]

Download VP 9.08

I think you are using 910? That version is a bit buggy yet.

What video card are you running?

yeah i'm using 910 and i'm using on board video card on a newer MB. it's an ATI. i'll get all the specs when i get home, at work now and can't remember.

Yeah, use 9.08 and go into the editor under Preferences- Video options and uncheck "antialias ball" should help a little, you can also go to 16 bit color to help some depending or what your running or how old it is. I use 9.07 to play and edit and 9.09 only to copy and paste objects keeping their names (only available in 9.09). 9.09 is ok for playing but has a tendancy to crash when designing. 9.07 is great and much more stable. Don't know if 9.07 is still avilable or not.
As for the graphics card the transparencies are sometimes caused by running out of video memory. A 1g is preferable but as to which one is a debate.

i tried this and it did help a little but still no castle. i keep having to reset the PC in order for V9 tables to run smooth. i can run V8 tables all day but as soon as i try to run a V9 again the ball moves very slow until i restart.

VP9.0.8 is the oldest version in the "VP Downloads" section: http://vpforums.org/...d...at&cat_id=5 . If you want VP9.0.7, here you go:
 vpinball_9.07.zip   609.52KB   1 downloads

thanks for the link, i'll try that as well but no matter what V9 i've used so far i still have the same problems, i think i need a new video card,

[faralos]

can't see it being your video card. i run with intel integrated graphics which means the graphic chipset is on the motherboard and it pulls it's processing power from it rather than having an external video card, and most vp9 tables run ok. but get an Nvidia gts 450 is you can afford it, it runs about 4-500$ bucks but is seems most of the guys here use it with no problem.

[Rawd]

can't see it being your video card. i run with intel integrated graphics which means the graphic chipset is on the motherboard and it pulls it's processing power from it rather than having an external video card, and most vp9 tables run ok. but get an Nvidia gts 450 is you can afford it, it runs about 4-500$ bucks but is seems most of the guys here use it with no problem.

GTS 450. $129.99

http://www.tigerdire...code=22-7991184

[oooPLAYER1ooo]

i got my 450 for $80 AUD new from an ebay store and it only took 10 minutes to find
with 1gb of vram it will run any table with no problems at all

[faralos]

I looked at my computer I don't think I even have the power to run the card! but those prices rock! all I found at best buy was one nvidia 450 priced at over 400$! but my gal is talking of getting me a brand new tower anyways with that card included, hope that happens soon, I hate not being able to play the newer pins or even to run fp at all...

[St1y Wan Kenobi]

looks like i've got most of my income tax spent

two more sticks of ram, a new video card, and a new SATA TB drive for all my movies.

that should take care of all my pinball needs.

last night i figured out that my monitor tilts back away from me and gives me a better view. i was playing fish tales till 5am. that damn captive ball is a drain magnet. if you hit that thing dead on you're boned, right down the middle.

[St1y Wan Kenobi]

sorry for the double post, but according to my spec's on my motherboard i have a ATI Radeon HD 4200 video card.

here's the MB:

http://www.newegg.co...ga-ma785gm-us2h

so should i be ok for VP9 or do i need a new video card?