Jump to content

All my products and services are free. All my costs are met by donations I receive from my users. If you enjoy using any of my products, please donate to support me. Thank you for your support. Tom Speirs

Patreon

[PINCAB] My Virtual Pinball Cabinet build


Mike_da_Spike

Recommended Posts

I received all parts within a week, but because of health issues, I was only able to spend just 1 hour a day to build and configure it.
1.thumb.jpg.d9680e421b24e052125f8d2d29f94d69.jpg

I made 2 mistakes. When ordered the parts the 980 pro was on sale at amazon and only 30 euro extra than the 970 evo plus.
But at the time I realized, the sale was over. But 3300mbps isn't bad for a SSD drive as well.
2nd one was the case. 
Because it is in my cabinet, I ordered a cheap case.
According to the specs, the GPU should fit in it.
But was a hell of a job to get the GPU in it. Also the connectors for the leds etc. are all just behind a bracket, that cannot be removed from the case. 
So I needed to wire all when MB was not in the case and hope that all was fine.

Here you see a pic that the back of the GPU is a bit under the case and also the power connector of the card is a bit under the case
image.thumb.jpeg.7fd178e750aae603faf02cbf500a61a2.jpeg

But spending some time, all fits in the case 

3.thumb.jpg.3b4e9d2fa90b741fb6e221c69926a324.jpg

Next step is replacement of the PC (and monitor)

I bought a new W11 pro license (as my W7 and W10 keys didn't work during install) and installed Windows 11 directly on the SSD.
Added TeamViewer host and configured that only local could access it.
I removed via powershell some bloatware that is directly installed, installed latest drivers for chipset and GPU. 
And swapped the PC
image.thumb.jpeg.86fc0b6275b0dd06365bee0108c8a220.jpeg

Ok .. my cabinet is on the inside not as nice as some others have, but all is working.
I'm glad when I build the PC, that all my components (even external fans) has an external connector so I could easily disconnect everything and connect it again for the new PC.

This MB has around 12 external USB ports, so no need for an USB anymore.

In the meantime, I also bought a monitor to replace my TV.
I bought the LC-Power 39"
It is a QHD curved monitor with a refresh rate of 165Hz.
I was a bit afraid that a 4K tv would look better than a QHD monitor, but this was the best choice I made. (I should have this done much earlier)
The monitor support AMD's freesync. Enabling on TV and in the Nvidia GeForce settings, showed that the tv is also G-Sync compatible :

 image.thumb.jpeg.8b0452689d32e11e4d9b9d7eea53ff8b.jpeg

As the back case of the monitor was 'leaning' on my left flipper buttons, it didn't fit well, so I removed the back panel case of the monitor.
5.thumb.jpg.6cfe48a6cc15340829bafa3c82b0b221.jpg

(Sorry for the blurry pic)

6.thumb.jpg.7b7ff52abd0bc8f41f751604a2a9b331.jpg

I forgot to detach 1 led strip of the back, so that connector is broken now :D 

After removing this, the panel is pretty thin and could mount it just above the flippers

image.thumb.jpeg.a0915ccd2fa7b6d36b8380519ecb28a7.jpeg

This gives a better look and feel experience as the flippers on screen are almost on the same place as an physical table
As one if the exciters is next to my flipper buttons, it really feels if yo uplay on a real cab

Setting up VPX again and re-configured that it should use V-sync, runs almost all the tables at 165FPS

image.thumb.jpeg.a82a6df9be771f0966421c787231a018.jpeg

I thought that the curve would screw up the playfield, but that's not true. 
It looks a bit strange as most tables has ramps there, but if you get used to it, it looks pretty awesome.
And a huge difference between a TV and a monitor.

The viewing angle is much better. Colors are more real and the speed of the ball .. AMAZING !

My old cab had a I7 (7700) in it with a RTX 2070. All the Tables runs on 60HZ, but got a lot of times that I loose the ball out of sight, because it went so fast. I don't have this issue anymore.
I'm still in progress to setup everything, but I can play all my VPX tables, DOF is working, SSF is working (noticed that one excitor had a loose cable and fix that too) , PBX setup (setup all new start scripts), Pinemhi is working, Zen FX3 with doflinx is working and Zaccaria pinball is mostly working.

image.thumb.jpeg.d224fd9da3752cb0769028eea2f57430.jpeg

The only issue I have now, that one of my cats 'claimed' the glass to close the cab again ....

image.thumb.jpeg.48546aaea1ff61d2d1275e2f98df9dfa.jpeg


 My plan is to make a separate thread to show how I setup my cabinet with all my scripts and running PinballX as a front end

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finally got the cab closed again.

Because I was not able to remove the front frame of the monitor, I put some black tape on it to mask the white colored frame.

Intention was to brush it black, but this was a cheap and easy fix as well.

Time to play again 

20220528_145431.thumb.jpg.afcb2862a46b447af5a8991936afbcca.jpg

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

A colleague of my bought a Oculus Quest 2 a couple of months ago and I was curious how that would look like for Virtual Pinball.
When he visit me one time, he brought the device with him, but without any pinball software, and just as standalone device.

I tried it for a couple of minutes and played a game of ping pong.
I wasn't really under the impression and because of my health issues , it gave me a lot of headaches.

But after long doubts, and reading a lot of articles and checking youtube video's I decided to buy VR glasses.
I read good things about the Meta (oculus) Quest 2 that is on the market for a couple of years now and decided to buy that device.

Although my health issues aren't solved yet, I tried the device and attached it to my cabinet with a special USB3 cable.
For testing I used a package called '10.8 VR-GL v603 opencomposite.32bit'
this is VPX 10.8 build with GL. This has a special section for VR.

The package uses opencomposite that can be used with the PC link version of the Quest software.

To get all setup correctly, you need some tweaks. But with help of people on VPforum and with my own VP knowledge, I came to a point that I really have the 'WOW' factor.

Setting the glasses the 90HZ, resolution to 3712x1872.

This really give me the experience that I'm standing behind a real pinball cabinet. As I use my own plunger, and flipper keys (and start button), it is more realistic as well.

I turned off the sound of the VR glasses and uses the 7.1 SSF sounds from my cabinet. This makes it more realistic as it sounds that the ball , flippers, bumpers are really at the position as they are.

As a video that can be created doesn't look like how I experience the VR, I only keep it with text.
A video looks  stretched and not nice, but putting on the glasses, let you get into a room with the table of choice and plays if you are actually stands in front of a real cabinet.

It maybe helps that I upgraded my system this year as well and that the GPU can render the VR output.

if anyone wants to try to glasses, feel free to reach out to me

 

EDIT : To use VR or cabinet, I use a batch file to switch registry keys and the DMD device.ini

  • Visual Pinball requires different setting (for example, disable Directb2s in VR and no 'Force Exclusive full screen'
    So I created 2 registry files , that I can switch easily for cabinet use (all in my PinballX startup script) and VR use
  • As I have a real DMD, the need for real DMD isn't needed in VR.
    In fact, most tables must have a virtual DMD to show in VR (even in full color with Freezy's DMDdevice.dll)
    I created 2 DMDdevice.ini's : 1 for cabinet and 1 for VR and switch them with the same start scripts
    The VR one has the real DMD disabled and set Virtual DMD enabled
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK. A small video of fish tales.

This is just what I see with one eye. Not exactly, as it looks a bit zoomed on the glasses.
Video was captures with 60FPS and the glasses where 90 FPS.
I really like the VR rooms.
TOTAN even looks more impressive.

You won't see it in this preview screen, but on VR you even have the DMD reflects on the playfield glass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

Impressive! 

On screen it looks differrent than on vr. Vr looks really awesome.

I did some measurements to check what the load was on my system. As a reference table I used the Metallica table.

I also tried to use the vr wireless as well, and that works like a charm.

During gameplay i had the following on average::

Cpu 25 %

Gpu 75%

Network 70 MBPS

So for vr you need a pretty good video card (i have an rtx 3080).

Now i need a good frontend, as I need to manually switch tables and take the glasses off when using desktop.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...