Future Pinball/Visual Pinball Simulators

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 10, 2007, 9:02 am

I'm dragging this out of Sylvus' nomination thread before he deletes them : )

Aslanna wrote:A lot of these tables mentioned have a Visual Pinball/VPinMAME version. So go get it and set it up!

I must respectfully disagree!

After screwing around with Visual Pinball for hours trying to get it to run right, I discovered Future Pinball:

***FREE***

http://www.futurepinball.com/

It's a pinball simulator and OMG is it easier to setup and the tables look fantastic.

I'm grabbing a few hundred tables off alt.binaries.emulators.pinball right now. The posts are 94-96 days old there so I had to grab them quick before they poofed! They're available on the net as well linked from the main page. using Newsleecher, set to 100 days and and search for "future pinball"

Future Pinball is a must get if you like to play. Lots of angles you can view/play the game in.

Just put the (.fpt) files in the "Tables" folder and you're set. Some of the tables come with sound files (.fpl) as well. Put those in the table folder as well.

FP has a nice help file (.chm) that's well illustrated. Good forum support as well.

Check out some of the tables:

http://www.futurepinball.com/tables.html

That's what they actually look like when playing them in Future Pinball.

Check out the cool database of tables available for it:

http://fprelease.free.fr/

A lot if the tables in the database have images you can hover over to see what they look like....actually there's also links to download them there as well...and links to the Future Pinball forum to discuss each table (need to register on the phpBB to access forums)

Try F keys 1-12. Everyone has a different view, various fixed, scrolling, manuel (lets you pan all the way around the room), etc.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 10, 2007, 12:15 pm

How do you play the damn game? I hit play table for the sci-fi one and it blinks GAME OVER. I can't figure it out. Help the dummy please!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » March 10, 2007, 2:53 pm

I have Future Pinball setup as well but there are a couple disadvantages:

- The tables consume a lot of resources. Not a problem if you have a current computer but for those a couple years old the frame rates on some of the tables are pretty low.

- No ROM support. So all the later generation pinballs with the Dot-Matrix Display probably wont see a true recreation in Future Pinball. This is probably the single largest drawback and what is keeping many table authors from abandoning Visual Pinball for Future Pinball.

On the plus side they look pretty nice. The Cyclone recreation is definitely great stuff and one everyone should get.

Visual Pinball is annoying to setup but once you got it going it's great and there are a lot of tables for it you wont find for Future Pinball. There are guides out there telling you what to do and there's even an easy installer that installs VP/PinMame. Just add Tables/ROMs and you're good to go!

So really.. You could choose one or the other but the best way to go is to get them both setup.

---

To play the tables you hit 5 to enter coins for credits then hit 1 to start the game. Use the Enter key to pull back the plunger to bonk the ball then use the shift keys on either side for the flippers. This is the same in both FP and VP.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 10, 2007, 8:14 pm

Aslanna wrote: Visual Pinball is annoying to setup but once you got it going it's great and there are a lot of tables for it you wont find for Future Pinball. There are guides out there telling you what to do and there's even an easy installer that installs VP/PinMame. Just add Tables/ROMs and you're good to go!

I eventually used the VP installer (Visual_Install_Pack_1.3.exe). I still had issues. It's not Vista as others have been ok with Vista as long as you run VP in admin mode.

I don't know what my problem was last night but it's working today after a fresh install of the Visual install Pack.

I just played a game of Eight Ball Deluxe. It's exactly as I remember it (the physics, sounds, everything) Best game ever. I used to pop games left and right with my friend at the bowling alley on base way back when!

Screenshot from Visual Pinball:

Playing in 1600X1200 mode is slightly pushing the res on the table graphics but it still looks good and you can see much more...what would be really cool is ic you could rotate the 24" screens into portrait and play 1920X1200 mode with the entire screen filled...I'd mode my Dell to have flippers on the side of it!

Future Pinball seems sleeker and better controls (and much better help files and directions) but this Eight Ball table is hella accurate. Need to read up on how to change angles with VP. With Future Pinball it's the function keys.

Aslanna's recommendation of having both install is a good one. I saw a post on the newsgroups of 440 tables for Visual Pinball while Future Pinball had around 200. There's probably a few more for both but those were the mega posts.

Here's the Cylone table Aslanna mentioned on Future Pinball:

I'm also amazed at the accuracy of the older tables (which I tend to like playing):

Future Pinball recreation:

This one cracked me up:

Still, nicely done!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 10, 2007, 11:18 pm

1,060,775, popped a game my first try on Thundercats! Beat that bitches! Got multi ball a couple times.

Nice table if you can handle the Thundercats song! The creator did an ecellent job on the audio as well as took the time to program in all the light sequences on the table when the game's not being played. Very nice.

I went through the 200 Future Pinball games and weeded out the sketchy ones looking at the jpegs and am now playing the good ones reverse alpha.

I don't like the tables that don't have the score on the main screen (have to Tab up to see back board) and wish I could turn off scroll mode on some of these but I've settled on F2 Full table mode as my favorite viewpoint.

After I'm done playing through them, I might zip together the best 100 and host them as a download to make things easy for peeps...you'd just unzip the file into the tables directory and be set.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » March 11, 2007, 12:07 am

Winnow, I do rotate my brand new 24" panel into portrait and play in 1200x1920 resolution with visual pinball. it's quite glorious.

I look forward to your future pinball set...

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » March 11, 2007, 12:19 am

F7 turns off scroll mode.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » March 11, 2007, 10:59 am

Sweet. Thanks for posting this.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 14, 2007, 8:29 pm

Fash wrote:Winnow, I do rotate my brand new 24" panel into portrait and play in 1200x1920 resolution with visual pinball. it's quite glorious.

I look forward to your future pinball set...

I'll have to try the 1200X1900 with Visual Pinball.

I'm about halfway through the Future Pinball tables. I got held up with the Vista reinstall. There's some fun ones for sure. Two or three of the player made tables are excellent.

I found that on some of the tables I had to increase the power of the flippers to make the game fun as they were a little too dead...some were almost impossible to get the ball up to the top of the table. All that stuff is easily modifiable which makes Future (and I'm sure Visual as well) Pinball all that much more fun as you can easily make little adjustments if you wish. I haven't done it often though and only the flipper power so far...although on some of the older tables from the 60's and 70's, I may lengthen the flippers or narrow the side gutters as the tables are fun but the ball drains too often!

Playing all of these tables only enforces my belief that Eight Ball Deluxe is the best Pinball Machine ever made. (available on VP only)

miir · Post by **miir** » March 19, 2007, 3:03 pm

Those look really good.

Gonna check it out if I get time this week.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 21, 2007, 3:38 am

I'm thinking about modifying this table into a Veeshan Vault Pinball Table.

So far, I've only modified the green text at the top and put some text on the table to test it out.

Future Pinball is easy to work with for sounds, textures, etc. Could be fun!

Need a theme song. I swapped out the country music for an EQ midi song but not sure that will stick. People might not play too long if the Rivervale song is playing!