PinMAME Questions

[SoulBlazer]

So I haven't used PinMAME since about....oh man, probably about 2008. At the time the PC I had just wasn't good enough to handle some of my favorite Pinball tables.

 

So today I decide to check it out, and feel totally lost. MAME seems like a piece of cake compared to this.

 

I found the newest version of PinMAME (2.3) from December 2010. Then I installed it. Then I went to IPDB and grabbed a few ROM's to test it out and put them into the ROM folder.

 

Then I ran the Setup file for PinMAME, installed it, and then hit the Test button and checked the ROM file out for a table to make sure I had everything. It checked out, so I hit Play -- I saw the table loading on another screen, but it finished it's 'start up' and I couldn't do anything with it.

 

There doesn't seem to be a main 'run' file for PinMAME, so not sure what I'm doing wrong.

 

In addition, I'm totally lost by all those ROM sets on IPDB. Which one do I want?

 

How do I get this up and running?

 

I'm using Win 7.

[Rex Dart]

It's crazy. It makes no sense. But there is a walkthrough out there, and if you follow it EXACTLY, it will work. Don't think you know what you're doing, don't try to take shortcuts, just follow the guide. You will install both Visual Pinball and PinMAME.

 

Tables are here.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Rex Dart

[SoulBlazer]

Thanks, I'll try that out later, Rex!

[SoulBlazer]

It's crazy. It makes no sense. But there is a walkthrough out there, and if you follow it EXACTLY, it will work. Don't think you know what you're doing, don't try to take shortcuts, just follow the guide. You will install both Visual Pinball and PinMAME.

 

Tables are here.

Wow, a hour later.....

 

I don't recall having to go through THAT process the last time I used this! That was enough to make my head spin, and I'd like to think I'm a pretty experienced Windows user.

 

It seems like it works, though. I was only able to download 5 tables before I got cut off for the day, but I grabbed the ROM's for them and the tables seem to work fine. I stuck with some simple older tables for testing -- Space Invaders, Star Trek (the original Bally one), and a couple others. Some experimenting to find which version they work better in, 8 or 9. But they seem to run just fine on my more modern PC. Go back Monday to get more tables.

 

Thanks again for the help!

[Rybags]

I've not used it in a while either - it's been far surpassed by Future Pinball which uses true 3D rendering techniques although the list of available machines is much smaller (no doubt they take way longer to develop).

 

There's the Visual Pinball component which takes care of the actual table physics and display and there's the PinMAME component which runs the actual ROM and receives input from the button and playfield sensors that VP generates.

 

Some tables, e.g. most "original" ones will work with VP only but all of them require VP.

 

Hopefully they've sorted out the annoyance with expiry of Visual Pinball - AFAIK further development has practically halted although tables come out once in a while. They had expiry date on VP in an effort to make people keep it up to date.

[scotty]

I love both PinMame and Future Pinball. I have a monitor that I can turn horizontal, so Playing both games horizontalty is AMAZING!! Almost forget it is a computer screen.

 

I have to say, it is commercial, but check out The Pinball Arcade!! Not the Microsoft game from years ago, but this thing is Amazing. It is available for the PC, Android, X-Box, PS3 and those two other platfroms from that fruity company I refuse to name.

 

This thing is inctedible!!