Virtual Pin Starter Kit -SOLD-

[Chris K]

I made a run at moving my old PC to a Pi-based MAME setup a while back. The pain points were:

1. Wiring up the control panel to work with all the various apps you run through EmulationStation
2. You still need to shut down the Raspbian (Linux) computer to avoid filesystem corruption

If I had it to do over, I think I would just pick up Pandoras Box, a JAMMA control panel, and a VGA LCD. The performance of the Pandoras Box is poor with intensive stuff like Metal Slug X, but it's fine up to SF2-ish era games. SF2 is my red line for performance.

Right now I'm what I guess is the typical Chris thing... X-Arcade and some PC parts.

[DeaconBlooze]

X-Arcade is appealing to me because I'm lazy. It also has pinball buttons on at least one version, right? I was thinking of just turning my monitor to landscape and getting an x-arcade to play some virtual pinball from time to time instead of a dedicated cabinet.

[Chris K]

I’d start with a gamepad (Xbox, etc) for virtual pinball to see if you like it first. If you do, the Xarcade does have buttons on the side, but to me, it’s far enough removed from real pinball at that point that you’re not suspending disbelief by simply having buttons on the side of a 30”-ish wide “cabinet”. That only comes from a full vpin cabinet, IMHO.

But before you get into a vpin cabinet, be sure you are OK with working virtual pinball and all the work that goes with it.

[DeaconBlooze]

I've played around with virtual pinball before. It's a pain. I do enjoy fx3 and PBA, but I'm not quite sure how easy portrait mode is in those games.

I was really close to buying this from Tim, but while I'm pretty sure I'd like virtual pinball more than most, I also don't want it to have that kind of footprint. I have ambitions to build a mini pin, but the vertical pins that came out recently piqued my interest. I thought about just putting a tv on a swivel and building a pedestal. That way I could using it for a TV, a mame and a vpin. Maybe not quite as immersive as a full cabinet, but also offers a fair amount more utility given my space.

[Chris K]

When the Stern version of Pinball Arcade finally gains VR support, that’s also a great path. I’ve played the Zaccaria virtual pinball in VR and VR is excellent for pinball.