17 replies to this topic

[PinballFan82]

There's that old saying:  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

As I've dealt with other topics and issues with my used 3 monitor VPCabs I got probably 6 years or so ago, I'm at the point where I would like to play pinball games in VPX format.  Currently, PinballX does a great job with Visual Pinball version 9.5 (or something) and the machine works JUST FINE with approximately 700 machines that I'm able to play...

 

Still...the couple VPX machines I've played (before I've run into issues) look AMAZING and I'd love to be able to use PinballX frontend to play both the VP9 games and the VPX games.

 

Here's my current configuration:

 

Windows 7 Home Premium

Processor:  Intel Core i3-4360 CPU @ 3.70 Ghz

RAM:  8 GB

System:  64-Bit

 

Display adapters:

 

NVIDIA GeForce 210

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660

 

The question:  Is it worth it to try and upgrade to Windows 10 or just keep the machine as is and enjoy playing VP9 games.  I don't want to necessarily "break" my set-up and VPCabs warns you up the ass to not do updates, etc. etc. etc.

 

Luckily I have a computer savvy brother-in-law who might have parts to help me upgrade but...before I do something stupid, thought I'd ask you all.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Matt in Seattle

[wiesshund]

You could upgrade to windows 10, there are no parts required for the OS upgrade, but as this is a dedicated cab, i dont see what the pressing need would be?

Just install VPX if it is not already on the cab.

 

The hardware specs are not the greatest it does not appear, but you should still be able to adjust vpx vid prefs to run decently on a good number of tables.

 

You may want to steer clear of PUP tables, they will probably need more CPU than you have there.

Now if you decided to go do a massive hardware upgrade, you will probably be forced to switch to window 10 at least, as i do not think the windows 7 activation servers are up anymore, and upgrading hardware will trigger win 7 to require reactivation

[Carny_Priest]

My VPCabs had comparable hardware. It should be able to be updated to Windows 10. I did years ago.

 

You can get better performance if you get rid of your GT 610 and connect all three screens to the GTX 660. There is no benefit to running two graphic cards.

 

Windows 7 reached its end of life in January 2023. If you don't get on the Internet with it then it should still be capable of running current releases of VPX, VPinMAME, and B2S Server. I guess you will have to update your NVidia drivers manually. You may have to use lower settings in VPX to achieve acceptable performance. I have updated my graphic card to GTX 1070 TI and added 8 Gb of RAM for a total of 16 Gb. Current software runs... OK. I have some tuning to do for more demanding tables.

 

I still have a development laptop that uses Windows 7, but I have to make extraordinary measures to apply any useable security patches at this point. I do think it would be better to update to Windows 10 if you are comfortable with the process. Make a backup! 

 

Even Windows 10 will have its end of life in 2025. The hardware is not compatible with Windows 11. At some point, we will be looking at a full replacement. Nothing good lasts forever.

[PinballFan82]

Just install VPX if it is not already on the cab.

 

The hardware specs are not the greatest it does not appear, but you should still be able to adjust vpx vid prefs to run decently on a good number of tables.

 

 

 

I've installed VPX and have gotten it to run with varying degrees of WTF!?

One VPX game I really wanted to play "Escape from the Lost World" played great one day, worked perfectly, next day it crashed and rebooted the cabinet.

 

Another game I played, looked AMAZING ("Big Guns") got through all three balls, no problem, then gave me the "white screen of death" and I had to hard-boot.

 

I've been encouraged to update the drivers for the NVIDIAs and I've downloaded them (haven't installed them) but I'm having problems with consistent failures.  If it was just hanging at x, or if it was just rebooting at y - I feel I could properly approach the issue.  Because it's so hit-or-miss, I'm wondering if just a complete upgrade (?) to Windows 10 would solve those inconsistent issues.

 

Thank you for your feedback.  Really appreciate it.

You can get better performance if you get rid of your GT 610 and connect all three screens to the GTX 660. There is no benefit to running two graphic cards.

 

Windows 7 reached its end of life in January 2023. If you don't get on the Internet with it then it should still be capable of running current releases of VPX, VPinMAME, and B2S Server. I guess you will have to update your NVidia drivers manually. You may have to use lower settings in VPX to achieve acceptable performance. I have updated my graphic card to GTX 1070 TI and added 8 Gb of RAM for a total of 16 Gb. Current software runs... OK. I have some tuning to do for more demanding tables.

 

 

Like I said, the Cab runs fine using PinballX front-end and VP9 and I don't want to completely f*ck it up so I may just stay pat until Windows 11 or something.

 

I tried to lower the settings for VPX and that didn't work - again with crashes and rebooting and white screens of death.  Maybe I'll start with just updating the drivers.  Hopefully that won't screw everything up. 

 

Thanks for the feedback.  Appreciate it.

[GlueSniffinEd]

I'm not sure if you're more of the tinkering type like myself, or you just want it to work.

 

I bought a bare bones three screen used cab a few years ago with an i5 2400 and GTX1050 video card, then fully upgraded it after a few months.

 

Replaced the PC with a free i5 4790 system from my work, upgraded to a GTX-1060 3GB, added LED matrix and side strips and re-did almost all of the wiring to use connectors; the previous owner just pushed the wiring through the holes on the button terminals and twisted them on.

 

Long story short, I learned a lot by doing a full installation from scratch, manually adding and adjusting POV for every table, updating the software and configuring DOF/DOFLinx for my toys, etc.

 

I would suggest doing a clean Windows 10 installation and maybe upgrade the PC a bit in the process.  I know not everyone has money to spare, but a great upgrade on the cheap is an off-lease 2 or 3 year old i7 office PC and a used GTX 10 series card, or even a new GTX 1660/1650 Super class card if it is affordable.  You could even setup the new PC outside of your cab before doing the transplant.

 

As far as the VPX related stuff, search for the 'Baller Installer'.  Nailbuster, the creator of Pinup Popper and Pinup Player, has done a great job at making the full VPX cabinet setup about as easy as installing any standard Windows program.

[PinballFan82]

Tinkering type?  I know just about enough to shoot myself in the foot and bleed out.

 

What you're talking about is beyond my scope of intellect but...it's not beyond my brother-in-law's and so I'm willing to pick his brain but at least feel I should come with SOME knowledge from people who have come before me.

 

I really just want VPX to work because there are games that are in VPX version that I don't have in VP9 version that I want to play.

 

Plus I'd like my third screen (DMD) to actually show up where it's supposed to show up and not in my backglass.

[GlueSniffinEd]

Well, if you're going to go to upgrade, I would still suggest a clean install of Windows 10 if you are going that route.

 

If your brother-in-law is going to help, I would definitely take a look at the following video first.  It really makes setup very easy and you should end up with a fully functional Visual Pinball and Future Pinball installation with all of the 'trimmings'.

 

Edited by GlueSniffinEd, 11 August 2023 - 08:03 PM.

[PinballFan82]

Excellent.  Will definitely take a look at the video.

 

If I go this route of moving from Windows 7 to Windows 10, I'll keep y'all in the loop.

[Carny_Priest]

Get a couple of new SSD drives. They should be larger capacity drives then what you have now. Mine was shipped with a 125Gb drive and VPX tables take substantially more space than VP9 tables. The new drives are very affordable now. Get two or more even. Clone your currently working drive to a new drive prior to attempting an upgrade to Win 10. Then at least you can always reattach the old drive if something goes sideways. A working cab always beats a not working cab. Use a second drive for subsequent cloning/backups. You can clone a smaller capacity drive to a larger drive. Vise-versa, no, that will not work. If all goes well with your upgrade then you will want to secure it by cloning and backing up to another drive.

[GlueSniffinEd]

If you need software to clone your drive, I can highly recommend Clonezilla live on USB: https://clonezilla.org/liveusb.php

 

It's 100% open source and free, as in beer.  I do a monthly image dump of my cab to my NAS over the network and an out of band dump before any major changes.  I also synchronize my Vpinball and DOF folders after table additions and minor software updates and keep a third copy it on another NAS.  I may be a bit paranoid there, heh, but it sure came in handy a couple of weeks ago when my cab SSD died.

[Carny_Priest]

Yes, I use Clonezilla as well for cloning.

[Mike DA Spike]

If you need software to clone your drive, I can highly recommend Clonezilla live on USB: https://clonezilla.org/liveusb.php
 
It's 100% open source and free, as in beer.  I do a monthly image dump of my cab to my NAS over the network and an out of band dump before any major changes.  I also synchronize my Vpinball and DOF folders after table additions and minor software updates and keep a third copy it on another NAS.  I may be a bit paranoid there, heh, but it sure came in handy a couple of weeks ago when my cab SSD died.

You are not paranoid. I use the backup utility of my nas (synology).
It creates incremental backups, and restoring kan be done easily as well.
I created a 'small' system partition and rest a Pinball partition. I can restore individual files (30 days of retention), or complete system or data partition.

[PinballFan82]

Get a couple of new SSD drives. They should be larger capacity drives then what you have now. Mine was shipped with a 125Gb drive and VPX tables take substantially more space than VP9 tables. The new drives are very affordable now. Get two or more even. Clone your currently working drive to a new drive prior to attempting an upgrade to Win 10. Then at least you can always reattach the old drive if something goes sideways. A working cab always beats a not working cab. Use a second drive for subsequent cloning/backups. You can clone a smaller capacity drive to a larger drive. Vise-versa, no, that will not work. If all goes well with your upgrade then you will want to secure it by cloning and backing up to another drive.

 

Recently just updated to a 1T SSD drive.  I now have TWO older SSD drives.  The one that came with it and one that I had upgraded to, later (240 gigs).  Good advice, though.  Was thinking about that myself.

 

Thanks!

If you need software to clone your drive, I can highly recommend Clonezilla live on USB: https://clonezilla.org/liveusb.php

 

It's 100% open source and free, as in beer.  I do a monthly image dump of my cab to my NAS over the network and an out of band dump before any major changes.  I also synchronize my Vpinball and DOF folders after table additions and minor software updates and keep a third copy it on another NAS.  I may be a bit paranoid there, heh, but it sure came in handy a couple of weeks ago when my cab SSD died.

 

Good to know.

 

I have a cloning device that I've already used a few times so I'm, at least, familiar with it.  

 

Thanks!

 

Matt

[Johngreve]

Love your name gluesniffinEd….made my day….lol.

I'm not sure if you're more of the tinkering type like myself, or you just want it to work.

 

I bought a bare bones three screen used cab a few years ago with an i5 2400 and GTX1050 video card, then fully upgraded it after a few months.

 

Replaced the PC with a free i5 4790 system from my work, upgraded to a GTX-1060 3GB, added LED matrix and side strips and re-did almost all of the wiring to use connectors; the previous owner just pushed the wiring through the holes on the button terminals and twisted them on.

 

Long story short, I learned a lot by doing a full installation from scratch, manually adding and adjusting POV for every table, updating the software and configuring DOF/DOFLinx for my toys, etc.

 

I would suggest doing a clean Windows 10 installation and maybe upgrade the PC a bit in the process.  I know not everyone has money to spare, but a great upgrade on the cheap is an off-lease 2 or 3 year old i7 office PC and a used GTX 10 series card, or even a new GTX 1660/1650 Super class card if it is affordable.  You could even setup the new PC outside of your cab before doing the transplant.

 

As far as the VPX related stuff, search for the 'Baller Installer'.  Nailbuster, the creator of Pinup Popper and Pinup Player, has done a great job at making the full VPX cabinet setup about as easy as installing any standard Windows program.

[tom9933]

Just curious how this worked out...  I also have an older VPCabs machine that I purchased before they went on shark tank.  I remember when I bought it they said to never upgrade it so I never did...  I'm now wondering about going to a more recent version of windows which at this point would be 11.  Is it worth the trouble or should I just keep it as it is and instead of a upgrade think about a different machine?  It sounds like the PC was rather meager but what about the rest of the hardware they used?

 

I assume they sold a lot so just trying to no reinvent the wheel.  Surprising that this and one other thread besides the for sale thread are all that came up...

[Itchigo]

 

Windows 7 reached its end of life in January 2023.

 

Nothing good lasts forever.

I run 7 on my cab with VPX and no issues. It also connects to the internet, though I don't actively search on it. I mainly transfer files to my desktop for backup (also running 7).

 

My cab is officially 10 years old.

 

Change is overrated....

 

[digitalarts]

Hi Tim, still snow in Chicago?😉

[Itchigo]

Hi Tim, still snow in Chicago?

We don't have much on the ground, maybe an inch or 2. It's been really cold lately, and that keeps us from having big storms.