Visual Pinball X + Bigbox ... a starters guide (2024)

I have been messing around with Visual Pinball X on Bigbox for a few years now. Being an overlooked emulator on Bigbox, I had to create all my videos and download all the individual clear logos, rule cards and flyers from other websites. It was a pain in the ass, but well worth the effort. As you can see in the below video, I have an arcade/console/pinball setup. You may notice as I pause the game, a pause window pops up showing the layout of my arcade style controls. I have flipper and nudge buttons on the side of my controller - a must in my opinion. My monitor is in the desktop view, which is best for my other platforms (consoles and arcade-MAME); so, I have opted for this general layout for my pinball tables too. It just goes to show you how immersive pinball can be even in this viewpoint. Since I know a lot of people that have MAME and Retroarch builds, and view their games in desktop/landscape view, I hope this can be an inspiration for people out there maybe wanting to add pinball to their builds. It is a bit of a learning curve due to all the different parts and settings, but well worth it in the end.

- As with all emulators, first get Visual Pinball X running outside of Bigbox. Download the latest 10.6.2 build here ...
https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=11572
The devs are in the final stages of squashing bugs for the 10.7 release, but ignore that for now. Most tables are still being released as 10.6 tables. But be aware there are a few starting to require 10.7. Stay away from those until you learn how this all works.

- Once you get VPX installed, you will need a few more pieces, Tables and Roms. Both can be found at a couple websites; I tend to stick with these two sites ...
(note that some Roms are becoming harder to find, so you may need to try other sources if you run into Tables using Roms that you can not find on these sites)
VPfuroms: https://www.vpforums.org
VPuniverse: https://vpuniverse.com
Roms are the code stripped from the chips of the original pinball tables. They go here ... \Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\roms. This Rom will work in coordination with the Table - Tables go here ... \Visual Pinball\Tables. A bunch of coders/artists/wizards work together to meticulously recreate the pinball Table in the VPX editor. The Table will be scripted in a way to tell the Table to look for a certain Rom, so that is important. To figure out which Rom the Table is using, open the Table, then go into the script of VPX and search for "Gamename". That will show the name of the Rom that the Table is trying to use. Download that Rom in order to get the Table that you are interested in to play.

- The above steps will be a good start. Try them and see if you can get one Table that uses a Rom to run (note that some original Tables that the community have created don't require a Rom, just in case you run across that situation). I have not detailed a lot of the other steps and settings, but I am not here to show a step by step process. I will leave it up to you to dig in a bit more and troubleshoot yourself the best you can. If you have done that with other stand alone emulators, I am pretty sure you will be able to stumble your way through this too. I will answer questions as I can, but please try your best alone first. Also, stay away from any tables that require Pup Packs. That is a whole other chapter that you dive into one day after you learn how the basics work. I personally stay away from them, as I find all the videos and stuff distracting during gameplay. I would also stay away from any pre-built downloads that have the entire build already done for you. These generally cause more problems and questions than it is worth. Learning how all the pieces work together will ensure you know how to troubleshoot your build later on. Also, for now, stay away from any Tables that require UltraDMD or FlexDMD - you first want to learn how to run the tables that use the basic built in DMD (scores window).

If you get the table/rom running, come back in here and I can give you more tips. Getting the DMD setup can be confusing for some people, as also can getting the Table's view set to how you want. I am sure I left out a bunch, but hopefully this will get some of the brave people out there pointed in the right direction. Even though it was a big learning curve for me to get this all set up in my arcade build, it was well worth it. VPX/pinball is now my most played emulator in my Bigbox build.\