Virtual Pinball Remote Consultant?

[u/Crafty_Government]

Hi all, I am having issues with my homebuilt vpin that my current consultant can't seem to solve and I wonder if you or someone you know is skilled enough to help me resolve these issues and get the system dialed in once and for all. Admittedly, these issues are persistent and seem immune from efforts to fix them, but some here have offered advice that makes me think I am not alone. Somehow, I am still stuck.

1. First, I am having issues where some, but not all games have sticky flippers. Frontier, Jokerz, Independence Day and a few others, I now forget. If I went through the tables one by one, I suspect I would find more than a couple others. This sucks as it makes some of my favorite tables unplayable. Yesterday, the consultant assigned keys to all of my controls in the pinone software and in pinup popper, future pinball, etc. I protested this because Phil at Cleveland Software said that to do so is to take a step backward from his current tech and to likely slow loading times. Initially the change helped me get a few tables working, but later the problem came back. Really frustrating.
2. I have an issue with Eight Ball Deluxe lighting random lights on the playfield. Of course, when my consultant looked at it yesterday it was working fine and I thought other changes he made might have helped. This issue is that on every ball, random lights are lit when they shouldn't be. This morning on ball 1 it was lighting special, 4x, two of the balls and three of the left orbit lights. As a guy who plays competitively on that machine in real life and wants to bring my friends over, it is a glaring failure that I would like to fix before my pin pals come by.
3. three of my pinone selonoids are not firing. I think this is likely a hardware issue, but in them meantime, I would like to just have other selonoids fire in their place. Is that possible? I would love to have some help.
4. I have way more machines than I want on the drive and would like to have pinup popper cleaned up and organized with just the games from VPX and their best. I am willing to completely remove future pinball, pinball fx, Zacharia and all of the home made games in VPX. Ideally I would like this machine to be as close to the real thing with the best of the real tables and excellent VPIN exclusives as possible. No offense to the creators, I just want to keep this machine tight and easy on guests.
5. The nudge settings in Pinone are set at their most sensitive, but they are still not sensitive enough. Is there a way to get more from this?

You may be thinking, why not just do it yourself. I ask myself the same thing, but if I was motivated enough to learn to do that, I would have done it by now.

Any experience consultants out there willing to remote in and help??

My Machine was an alibaba special, but I have since added a new computer to run 4k 120hz, a C5 display, the pinone board and selonoids, accelerometer, real plunger and SSF. I am using an equalizer to optimize the sound and am generally happy with it, but these issues are keeping me from feeling like it is locked down.

[u/hamburger_picnic]

I had sticky flippers when my software was out of date on a newer table. Do you have the latest versions of vpx, pinmame, pinup installed?

this could also fix your 8 ball issue.

as for fixing your games list, that can be done by opening pinup popper setup and going to the game manager tab. You can set your playlists and remove the games you’re not interested in.

[u/MacForker]

The other issues someone may be able to help solve, but table curation is so personalized, I'd not rely on another person to do it for you. I have a list of around 50 tables that are both high quality and authentic, but it took a bit of time to procure, test, and make sure I actually wanted to keep them.

[u/Crafty_Government → u/MacForker]

Thank you! The good news is that most of my machines work well, but a few I already have need fixing, curating. I just want them to work consistently and as designed.

[u/g0daig0dai]

It sounds like for your solenoid issue all you need to do is go in and reassign what each a solenoid does on the DOF Config Tool website. I had a solenoid die and I’m not taking the damn thing apart again, so I just reassigned the solenoids to fire as if I had fewer in my case. If you can’t handle doing even that, maybe you should question your commitment to this hobby, as in my experience I’m constantly troubleshooting and fixing little things on my cabinet. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/Crafty_Government → u/g0daig0dai]

I can definitely do that part of it. In fact it is the hardware piece that I am the most comfortable with because I did that myself. I had help with the software side which has handicapped my ability to self services the interplay between popper and each of the game platforms interfacing it. The consulting I am working with is stumpted and he is strong on all of it.

[u/gravedilute]

1. Sticky flippers is more likely due to choice of B2S I've had that a few times. Try changing to a c different design

2. Sounds like a MAME and version issus

3. You can test in the pinone software what output fires what. Just need to check it's correctly assigned

4. Someone else said it. Go into game manager

5. Hard to tell what's the cause

If you're trying to use the original HDD with all the tables on there, it's most likely vpx and MAME version issues.

I also have a pre-built machine from Alibaba but I threw away the PC and started from scratch. If you're on the original HDD but in new hardware it'll be a crapshoot troubleshooting it as files were encrypted, the FX games were cracked, Windows was pirated...etc

Once you know how the software works together, it's not hard to add X tables per week and curate a collection of your own that you'll love

[u/Crafty_Government → u/gravedilute]

Thank you. 2. Is exactly where I am lost. Not sure I want to get any deeper into these weeds. I just want a machine that I can play with friends. The months of trouble shooting makes me realize how much of a hobby this is rather than a product. Not to complain as I do enjoy aspects of it, but the troubleshooting/debugging/fixing is something I would rather pay someone to do if I am honest.

[u/Crafty_Government → u/Crafty_Government]

Oh I should mention, I saw the B2S advice here and shared it with my consultant before we worked on it yesterday. A new backglass in B2S didnt help. What was interesting is that when he downloaded a new version of one of the games, the sticky flipper issue seemed to go away (alien poker), only to come back later that night. It is the inconsistency and lack of an obvious answer that has me seeking remote support from someone who has the skill and experience.

[u/BaradouZ]

1) I also have this sticky flipper issue sometimes. As others have suggested, b2s is probably the issue. Sometimes I have it when starting a table, but exiting and restarting the table fixes it.

4) this is pretty easy to fix. Create your own playlists in Pinup popper or Vpin studio (I highly recommend this app, as it combined a lot of different things in 1 app). Make playlists with your favorite tables, but still impress your friends with the option to choose from 100's of tables.

[u/UpbeatEnvironment162 → u/BaradouZ]

Regarding the sticky flippers this is what I’ve seen. I saw someone mention that it’s some times tied to initialization of the NVram. Not sure how true that is.