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Virtual Pinball Poss Purchase + Thoughts

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Fiery Phoenix

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Jul 24, 2023
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Bury, Lancs, UK
I am still looking for a virtual pinball machine.

What are your thoughts on this? I am a bit of a noob but the shape looks big.... Don't pinball machines usually slope downwards and start off bigger at the end and go smaller near the front?

Or are some cabs like this?

It's running an i5-2400 3.1 ghz system

Worth a purchase?
 

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Odd proportions will be due to it being a custom built cab around the size of the screen. For a normal pinball size cabinet you can just fit a 40" monitor width wise but the length of the screen is a lot shorter than what a playfield would be, a wide body would fit a 43" I think and fill the space a little bit better, although there appears to be a large bezel around the monitor as well.

Bit hard to tell much from that one picture, but it looks like they have made the backbox shorter to match a widescreen display but then fitted a much smaller square screen in there.

I would also ask what graphics card it has in it and what software is setup on it.

Also doesnt have a plunger.
 
They do slope and an i5 2400 is a very old CPU.

Mine is currently running a 8500K, and a GTX1070 - which is perfect for 1080p.

A 2400 your milage may vary, but if the GPU is the same era (10+ years old) then it's going to be miserable.

Not a fan of the proportions of that one - doesn't really look like a Pin in my eyes.....
 
Ok thanks. Was reasonably priced at £600 which made me tempted

But it does look like an ugly table, it maybe does slope a bit with higher legs, just the body of the main canlb looks huge
 
Buttons on the side look a bit low as well, might not be that comfortable to use as I normally rest my palms on the lock rail/side rails and can reach the buttons ok, doesnt look like that would be possible on that one.

Looks like it may only be running Pinball FX2 or FX3 from the picture, it has a South Park table on it but its not the original pin version. Also if its a hacked version not sure if it supports cabinet mode as you need a code from Zen.
 
Okay, it's bigger than the one I got for more than £600 and it seems to be running Family Guy with no visible hang-ups, so I'd personally go for it if you're confident about the seller. Ideally, do a video call with him playing it - to ensure he's still got it and such-like.
 
Yes they are raked (see pic), and they look weird if they aren't

The FG being played isn't VPX, and VPX ones are the ones you want to worry about - the are the ones that need the grunt.

What is your budget? £600 isn't going to realistically get you a huge amount - even used, a 1070 era card and 8th gen CPU+board are going to be £250 alone.
Thats before you start looking at other components - screens, psus, a cabinet, encoders and all the rest of it....

Decent VPins aren't cheap - and you get what you pay for.....


I built this from scratch - (don't worry no HS2's were harmed, although a scrapped DW did loose it's head )
The eagle eyed may see the decals and think they're off centre, they aren't - the cab body is about 6cm shorter than a full BW cab, I built it to fit the screen exactly and got very lucky with a member on here who had some misprinted HS2 decals which were about 3cm short on the cab body for a normal sized cab (but perfect size on the front and backbox) but was a result for me! 1.5cm trimmed of each end and and what would have been binned ended up doing the job for this build perfectly.


I reckon I did it for under a grand, but only just....
 

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That's a nice setup there. They have been some decent pins on eBay and Facebook but always at the other end of the country and usually £700-800 which is my budget
 
I should be getting a virtual pinball delivered on Monday, never seen one never mind played one,it's part of a trade ive done so thought why not it will give me a chance to play some pins I've never played or put much time into and as I'm on the lookout to buy a new pin I thought this would help me decide what to look out for.
 
One available in Liverpool for £1,500, 32 inch with an i7 and 1060 card. Setup includes colour DMD, PinUpPopper, etc. Looks good, just over my budget

Or is that a reasonable price for those specs?

I could get a brand new AtGames one for £900 or those Arcade Land ones for £1,000
 
Fiery Phoenix said:
One available in Liverpool for £1,500, 32 inch with an i7 and 1060 card. Setup includes colour DMD, PinUpPopper, etc. Looks good, just over my budget

Or is that a reasonable price for those specs?
Click to expand...

Colour DMD will just be an LCD panel like mine I suspect - the colourisation is done in PinMAME, but a 3 screen setup is the way.
Not a fan of PinUpPopper myself, I prefer PinballX as a frontend and I don't want to add random film clips to games that didn't have them, but some people love it (and I do use it for the couple of tables I have that need it such as IMdn)
It's only software and that's easily changeable so no hassles there

On paper an i7 (depending on which one) and a 1060 will be pretty decent, 32inch is smaller than a fullsize cab - but that can look OK if they've done a nice job scaling the backbox to fit the reduced size.

Money sounds reasonable for the spec if it's a nicely built unit, if it's a load of decent hardware in a badly made mdf coffin that's a different matter!
 
I do have a build nearly finished (40 inch main screen - 4K) the customer asked me if I could see if I could find a buyer instead of him. Has a colour dmd (pin2dmd) and a 28inch backglass.
Analog plunger - sh1t hot PC.

If you are interested let me know.

On the subject of your post - keep your money in your pocket.
 
That original pin from 1st post is now back up for sale. Different seller but same cab, so obvs a worry that is being resold so soon after purchase

Seller pretty honest, says too big and some play good, some not so. I found out its an i5 processor so pretty old, but if I can pick this up for a half decent price, an updated PC that is better than an i5 could be purchased for a couple of hundred from FB Marketplace.

Reckon worth it?

Vid examples below look ok as it is

Would be within budget too
 

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Fiery Phoenix said:
That original pin from 1st post is now back up for sale. Different seller but same cab, so obvs a worry that is being resold so soon after purchase

Seller pretty honest, says too big and some play good, some not so. I found out its an i5 processor so pretty old, but if I can pick this up for a half decent price, an updated PC that is better than an i5 could be purchased for a couple of hundred from FB Marketplace.

Reckon worth it?

Vid examples below look ok as it is

Would be within budget too
Click to expand...

What is it £600? Parts alone surely it is or was close to that anyway + a built cabinet.

You can see how "bad" a CPU is on benchmark sites but there's many I5s you would have to find the chip model. https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-M-560-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-7600X/m623vs4130
 
Those videos have awful lag on the flippers.

Visual pinballs dont need heavy processing power. Its all in graphic card

I used to run i3 3.4ghz. VP was only single core.
8/16gb and that used to do 1080

You need at least a 1050ti 4gb for 1080

4k machines double/triple the spec

This one is okay for £600 but spent another £600 on it

Pinball fx2/3 do not need so much processing power.

If I was you wait until 2024 and buy the 4k legends pinball.

Once u see 4k you wont go back!
 
Yes did see the 4k AtGames one. I heard, may be false, there was going to be a switch on the back glass so you didn't need to use a converter board when hooked up to a PC....

Was going to see if would accept £500.... If can pick it up for that price and get an ok graphics card / better PC specs, could possibly looking at an ok-ish one for £700+

Maybe worth the gamble
 
The ATGAMES 4K does not need the converter board.

But running pinballfx games (including the Williams) - why bother connecting a PC?

Anyway - I see the sale has been reduced to £540 on ebay. He seems to be desperate to shift it on, after a month - he says he bought another table and now wants to offload this.

It does not say if it has a kl25z board in it/pinscape to do the nudging.

Family guy on here is the pinballfx game which does not need so much processing.

You will notice lag on a rubbish graphic card. With bad graphic cards I have seen up to 1 second. Watching the videos of hearing the sound and seeing the flipper go it is a big lag.

Buy that for £500 - you will have to spend on it. You will moan that you shouldnt of purchased it. Then want to sell it on.

'You can't polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter'.

It is a bit like saying - I want a nice car that drives and never breaks down, but all you can afford is a 30 year old car that breaks down on each journey - and needs money spending on it all the time. You will say 'I wish I never bought that car'. Then you will try and sell that car - and get a better one.

If you can not make a cabinet yourself - then buy this and be prepared to rip everything out and near enough start again. This will cost more money than your other options.
 
True. The big alarm bells is selling it on so soon after being purchased

My thinking was worth it for £500 if only need to spend to update the graphics card, looking at a cab then around £700

Maybe ok if not interested in plungers, haptics, etc and just want a cab that sort of reflects VPin on a PC. Wasn't after the bells and whistles.... just something similar I have on my desktop PC, PupPacks runnings, Coloured DMD, but within budget

AtGames brand new is £900, some Arcade Land ones are about £1,300 and a lot of other self built ones are more than that.

Not going to get a lot for my budget (£700-900) I know. It's either buy this or wait and save
 
Any noticeable lag will put you off playing it and will ruin the experience. Virtual pinball can be great when it has good graphics and feels responsive. You may struggle to get that on your budget.
 
I agree, but.... if I got this for £500 and upgraded graphics card or updated GPU for like £200 (maybe less) would it be worth it?

PC or graphics card defo need an update on this can without a doubt. Prob could get a PC rig with better card or just card alone for a couple of hundred.

Just trying to think of pros and cons...
 
Genuinely, as someone who owns pins from the 80s to 2020s, has played pins of various eras on location, and who also owned a vPin, I think you would be better with an EM (Electromagnetic pinball machine) than a mediocre vPin.

If you look through the postings on here, they can be within your budget (eBay is more expensive because people need to pay fees) and the collectors on here tend to keep them in good shape.

We sold our vPin because, after the novelty wore off, we played our (at the time) two real pins in preference. I thought it was maybe because we only had a small vPin, but I played a full-sized vPin at someone’s house and had the same experience. I had been playing virtual pinball a lot on iPad, Switch, etc. and the big version didn’t improve on it - it just made it more of an ‘event’ (i.e. rather than change application, you had to walk up to it and switch it on).

Example EM: https://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/bally-rocket-iii-1967-em.56300/

A bit more than your budget, but this is an early solid-state (https://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/bally-gold-ball-the-future-of-pinball-has-just-arrived-9-9-reduced-£999.56365/).
 
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Fiery Phoenix said:
I agree, but.... if I got this for £500 and upgraded graphics card or updated GPU for like £200 (maybe less) would it be worth it?

PC or graphics card defo need an update on this can without a doubt. Prob could get a PC rig with better card or just card alone for a couple of hundred.

Just trying to think of pros and cons...
Click to expand...

If you go that route you don't need to spend £200. You could get away with just upgrading that to start with and then then CPU / mobo if you really need to after testing.

You can really good ones 2nd hand or can get some which are lower range like the AMD 570/80/90, those would do VP and PinballFX (Unreal version), I have tested the unreal with a 570. I suspect they are even better value 2nd hand.

If you got something half decent lower mid range like a 3060 then you really will be bottlenecked by CPU then not worth it if you don't upgrade that as well.

I don't have a cabinet or ever wanted one but I know a 1060 was standard at one point, they were expensive at the time and that still probably eats most you throw at it. https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1060-6GB-vs-AMD-RX-570/3639vs3924
 
Alright peeps. I purchased that VPin. Got it for £400 which I am happy with.

Most probably will need updated PC and / or graphics card. But with money saved on this purchase happy to splash out.

Will have to look at some YouTube clips, whether a fresh install is best or not? Put the tables on I want rather than a mass bulk of 754.

Baller Installer or not?

Hopefully should be fun finding out
 
Hi mate,

Owner of a full size home built vpin (2019) and gateway drug to Wonka and Godzilla now 😁

Congrats on starting down this rabbit hole.
Agree with pretty much all of this thread, very balanced 😊

If you are starting from scratch, baller is the way to go these days. Very simple to get going - not like 3 years ago, although there are recent updates to 64 bit, and a couple .ore advancements.

Sensible re tables too. Temptation is 'gotta catch em all'. 20-50 good ones are miles better than 100s of mediocre.

It is a bit like tinkering with a car - you have to ensure you play sometimes, not just upgrade.

If you have the attitude that you have bought a chassis, and incremental improvements as you can afford them - then it is probably the right decision.

PM me if you'd like signposting to some key resources - I also moderate on VPNation on Facebook. Happy to see you there too.

Enjoy!

Steve
 
Cheers fella - will take you up on the PM offer lol

Opened it up and it is an is integrated graphics card (GTX 730) which is most probably why it is not running that well. Old i5 2400 processor too (12% benchmark rating)

Good thing is everything is on a external SSD whcih I should be easily able to swap over to a new desktop. Just hoping it can all be a bit of re-plug in and go for the encoders / buttons, etc. Current setup is handy as button underneath to turn it off and on and have the flippers and 3 others buttons to start a game / insert coin and exit to menu (using flippers to cycle) guessing wont be too difficult - maybe it is setup via joy2key for keyboard controls, bflippers mapped to Left / Right Alt I guess?

when I opened it up , query with the amp, I presumed speakers would just be plugged into amp and and then power socket into wall (I set one up this way with my modded Arcade 1Up cab) however this one has the yellow and black wires from amp power cable going straight to the PC Power Supply? Closer look appears taken the black and yellow wires from the SSD card cable have been cut (which lead from the PSU) and connected to the cable wires direct from the amplifier.

SSD card was still plugged in and read ok even though missing those 2 wires.

Maybe normal this with vpins? Not sure. Also only 1 plus that feeds into the back of the machine, wjhen opened up there is a multi socket adapter for the PC, main discplay screen and 2nd monitor. Looks like converted to be fed into one socket - presume normal / all ok?
 
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Sounds like they have just pulled the 12v from the PC power supply for the audio amp, don't think SSDs need the 12v was more for CDroms and platter discs for the motors.

Not sure if I would ever do that depending how beefy the PSU is and how powefull the amp is as it could stress the PSU if trying to pull too many amps.

From what I've done with VPX it seems most of the work is in setting it up for the first table with the screens/dmd/controls etc.
 
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