21 replies to this topic

[Kristi]

Hi, I'm new to the boards and I totally realize I may be asking for the impossible, but has anyone has any success getting VP to run under WINE in Linux?

I have two WINE installs on my Linux system. One is fairly current, the other is whatever version the Future Pinball script for installing on Linux creates in a sub-folder named "/.fpwine"

I've tried installing VP 9 in both of them with slightly different results. What works in both of them is the editor - I can open table files and I can edit and save them. What I can't do in either of them is actually PLAY a table. Where and how they fail is a bit different.

Ok, for both of these I have turned off anything that typically might prevent something from running. So they are set to run without any sound, in a window instead of fullscreen, and all the checkboxes under the Video Preferences are unchecked.

Under my main WINE installation, after I hit the play button I get the window that loads the table with the progress bar. It stops and freezes when it's initializing the artwork. I have to Force Quit to get out of it.

Under the "Future Pinball" WINE installation it complains that it can't access DirectSound (not a big deal) and it WILL actually get to the point where it opens the "Play" window. Except it's empty (white) and that's where it freezes.

I'm not averse to trying various settings in the hopes of getting this working, but it would be helpful if I knew what other libraries (DLL files) VP relies on to work. I may need to change my over-rides in WINE.

I should probably mention that the "Future Pinball" script worked beautifully - everything works as it should from the .fpwine directory it creates. I tried to recreate it manually in my main WINE install and couldn't get it to work. Not sure how much (if any) VP and FP have in common code-wise, but I'm inclined to think I have a better shot of getting VP to run in the custom WINE install used by FP.

A quick look at the WINE AppDB shows that both versions 8 and 9 are noted as crashing when VP tries to open the 3D player window. My WINE installations run other hardware accelerated 3D programs, so whatever the issue is it isn't that. When I ran the "tutorial" table it crashes with an error saying it can't create some "ActiveX Object" around line 2000 of the script. Not sure what that means.

I'd be happy to just live with the FP install, except I've been reading some disturbing things on these forums about the questionable future of Future Pinball and an "expiration date" in the software (and, no, I can't just use the "date trick" to keep it working. The system it is on does other things that require the current date). So, if FP is going to become useless to me in about a year, I'm hoping I can just shift over to VP, except it doesn't seem anyone has been very interested in getting VP to run under Linux, which is a shame. I know of at least one pinball simulator/construction set program native to Linux (called "Emelia"), but it is nowhere near as mature as VP and doesn't appear to have ANY community developing tables for it.

Edited by Kristi, 17 February 2010 - 02:03 AM.

[Kristi]

Well, now that VP has gone open source it means getting to work under Linux in WINE will either be easier, or ultimately a moot point if it's ported to a native Linux version (let's hope!)

I've been occasionally playing around with various settings in WINE and got VP working a lot closer than it was, but still not playable. I had to add a bunch of Direct Rendering registry entries to WINE and set it to run VP with OpenGL. There's a page on the WineHQ site that lists the DirectRendering reg entries. Haven't tried tweaking DLL library over-ride files yet.

Take a look at my screenshots of before I tweaked anything and after.

Anyway, the table renders, as does the plunger, the score boxes, flippers, and ball. But the ball just flies off the table into infinity when you launch it and the animations of the plunger and flippers is very, very choppy but at least they react.

The table editor, though, works just fine. You just can test/play the table. Which is kind of a show stopper.

Edited by Kristi, 13 March 2010 - 06:59 PM.

[taunt]

Yep I'm on a Mac and tried using Winebottler. I got the same result. VP tries to launch, then dies. I can open it to edit a table, but not play, Is anyone working on a Mac or Linux port?

Well, now that VP has gone open source it means getting to work under Linux in WINE will either be easier, or ultimately a moot point if it's ported to a native Linux version (let's hope!)

I've been occasionally playing around with various settings in WINE and got VP working a lot closer than it was, but still not playable. I had to add a bunch of Direct Rendering registry entries to WINE and set it to run VP with OpenGL. There's a page on the WineHQ site that lists the DirectRendering reg entries. Haven't tried tweaking DLL library over-ride files yet.

Take a look at my screenshots of before I tweaked anything and after.

Anyway, the table renders, as does the plunger, the score boxes, flippers, and ball. But the ball just flies off the table into infinity when you launch it and the animations of the plunger and flippers is very, very choppy but at least they react.

The table editor, though, works just fine. You just can test/play the table. Which is kind of a show stopper.

[earbiter]

You might want to DL wine 1.2rc4 as the 1.2 rc's no longer CRASH as the earlier versions did. There are still issues with directdraw. I can get some of the non vpinmame tables to run but all the vpinmame tables I have tried come up with script errors even though all the vbs files are there.

Also something thrashes the cpu hard so there are still issues. But its getting closer to running

Yep I'm on a Mac and tried using Winebottler. I got the same result. VP tries to launch, then dies. I can open it to edit a table, but not play, Is anyone working on a Mac or Linux port?

Well, now that VP has gone open source it means getting to work under Linux in WINE will either be easier, or ultimately a moot point if it's ported to a native Linux version (let's hope!)

I've been occasionally playing around with various settings in WINE and got VP working a lot closer than it was, but still not playable. I had to add a bunch of Direct Rendering registry entries to WINE and set it to run VP with OpenGL. There's a page on the WineHQ site that lists the DirectRendering reg entries. Haven't tried tweaking DLL library over-ride files yet.

Take a look at my screenshots of before I tweaked anything and after.

Anyway, the table renders, as does the plunger, the score boxes, flippers, and ball. But the ball just flies off the table into infinity when you launch it and the animations of the plunger and flippers is very, very choppy but at least they react.

The table editor, though, works just fine. You just can test/play the table. Which is kind of a show stopper.

[The98]

Any news on this subject?

I'm one of the lucky non-windows users who would want to play VP on Linux natively

[Itchigo]

Nothing I've heard or read about, but I use windows.

[The98]

Oh, that's a real shame!

I hope they decide to take that big step.

[FGA]

Oh, that's a real shame!

I hope they decide to take that big step.

i liked to play vp/vpm in linux ubuntu 11.10. no news about it??

[Mitchell]

Be kind of like asking for a iVisual Pinball for iPad. I don't think it going to happen.

Visual Pinball will never be ported.

[parazythum]

Hi, I'd like a linux version too !

 

I just tried VP 9.15 : the program loads, the editor seems usable, the tables load. I can set the preferences, even the keys are defined correctly. But when I load a table and hit F5...

 

The tables are rendered, but the pinball machine is dead. No ligths. No keys functionning. Nothing. You can just hit ESC and quit.

Tables with a DMD don't launch the external window.

 

When I quit VP, CRASH !

 

I'm a lucky man not using Windows, but sometimes it can be a bit frustrating

[Joe]

Well, now that VP has gone open source it means getting to work under Linux in WINE will either be easier, or ultimately a moot point if it's ported to a native Linux version (let's hope!)

 

that may take a lot of work to remove all the windows only API's

[fuzzel]

correct. VP uses DirectX for a Linux port we had to switch everything to OpenGL...

[TedB]

correct. VP uses DirectX for a Linux port we had to switch everything to OpenGL...

 

Uhmm... but now you have to switch from DX7 to DX9. That is a lot of work too. Switching to OpenGL could make VP usable on a lot more (also portable) hardware. Android maybe..

 

Of course it all depends on the effort you have to put in something like that, but it would be nice. I have no idea what the amount of work is if you compare switching to DX9 or OpenGL. 

[PilzTom]

What should be the advantage of a linux version?

You currently can get a Win7 Pro for 19€, so cost for OS could not be an argument and VP is fast and stable. When buildung a cabinet I think even deep Linux fans should be able to live with WIN in it.

Before porting to OpenGL, what almost means starting at zero I think, I would prefer to concentrate on DX9.

 

BTW: I don't want to start discussion about Linux vs. Windows - this was just my opinion in case of VP

[TedB]

@PilzTom Linux can be used on tons of hardware and not only cabinets (e.g. tablets, mini-pc's, arm devices, Android) and it can also attract another category of developers and users. It is all up to the VP dev team though. If they think it is not worth it, so be it. 

[sleepy]

VP runs on DirectX. So, has anyone who is running Linux and Wine tried installing DirectX in Wine?

 

Please Note: The following link is not certain to be safe or accurate, so any links on the page to DirectX files may not be safe

Be aware.

http://www.dedoimedo...ne-directx.html

Edited by sleepy, 03 August 2013 - 08:33 AM.

[nitetrain]

i found that visual pinball works well with virtualbox , windows ep within linux base

 

 

[StevOz]

Yeah it's a shame with VP10 going down the same tied in propriety MS dependencies rather the embracing open standards.

[fuzzel]

Oh no that's not a shame, at least for is developers. Porting VP to opengl is much harder than porting it to dx9 and supporting two os's is much more work

[toxie]

Exactly.. It's all a matter of (spare) time..

 

I personally always liked GL more than DX, but porting VP -completely- to OS-independent APIs would be a huuuuuge task, as so much is tied to windows..