10.8.1 and beyond

[foofoorabbit]

A bit of context, I only realized virtual pinball recreation was a thing about 6 years ago when I heard Farsight was losing the rights to the Bally/Williams IP. I stupidly bought the flash sale bundles (stupidly because it was expensive even at 50% off or whatever the deal was), but I still had a fun few months of fun playing tables from my childhood... then I was told about VPX!

 

VPX seemed much better in terms of visuals and physics accuracy because the community (this community) that recreates the tables actually gives a damn about pinball preservation and less about financial gains. So I gave VPX a try and it was great! I also didn't know back then that VPX was the premier choice for cabinets (didn't know virtual pinball cabinets were a thing either until I heard of VPX). So my mind was brewing back then on building my own cabinet.

 

The thing though was that VPX was so daunting back then. Even the most basic installation (just to play VPX in desktop mode on the PC) was complicated. And when I learned that for cabinets, you'd need to install all sorts of peripherals and extra software to display an emulated DMD and a backglass (and toppers and PUPs and launchers), I abandoned the idea. It was also a time where I stopped using my PC and went back to using a Mac for most things.

 

5 years later (just a month ago), I saw Virtual Pinball on the App Store. At first I thought this was some scam but then I realized it was an official VPX build for iOS. SO then I got excited because that meant there was a possibility that VPX was also being built for macOS. Not long later, I discovered that VPX indeed had some macOS builds (standalone, and 10.8.1). 

 

So now, I'm seeing a concerted effort to support multiple platforms (Linux, Android, iOS, macOS) techs like BGFX to target DirectX, OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal. I'm seeing consolidation of the different software/libraries that used to be installed separately (pinmame, serverb2s). To my surprise, I was easily (at least more easily than 7 years ago) able to get a table, a backglass, and a DMD up and running on my Mac with a single app (VPinballX_BGFX).

 

Right now, on macOS at least, things are rudimentary (no editor, can't customize backglass and DMD placement through UI only through vpinballx.ini file, can't rotate the backglass or DMD at the moment)... BUT it's just a single app, and you can move the table, the backglass, the DMD anywhere on screen, and onto other displays. For giggles, I unhooked my display from its stand, I laid it flat and used an iPad as a second display for the backglass and DMD and had a miniature pincab.

 

So, it got me thinking, is there a need for serverb2s at all in the future? Why can't the backglass be part of the VPX table file and rendered by a single app in a separate window? I realize a decade and more ago, Windows had (if I'm not mistaken) limitations on window management for an app (such as not being able to fullscreen and have other windows from the same app on other displays... is this correct?) and to go around these limitations, separate apps had to be made to handle the backglass and another for the DMD, and then communication had to happen between all these apps to sync everything up. I don't know if 10.8.1 handles the backglass and DMD the same way in Windows but if it does, it seems now that the case for b2s is getting weaker. It could also be cool if VPX had it's own rudimentary launcher (not to replace the existing ones) a bit like the mobile version has where you can visually see the table (or an icon) in a grid or in a wheel like interface like existing launchers.

 

I'm very much enjoying where VPX is going. And I also hope VPE isn't completely dead. And the quality of the VPW team's recreations and originals is astounding (back 6 years ago, I was following people like Flupper, g5k, bord, 3rdaxis, Sliderpoint because they were pushing realism to the limit.)