Table Loads up but wont start.

[Goffman]

Newbie here forgive me. So I managed to get a table to load up the lights on the table are flashing I hit the 3 key to put in a quarter and i hear the Fx of the quarter going in to the machine but i can't seemed to get the game to start. I have tried pushing 1 and every other key on the keyboard and no dice. Plunger and nudge seem to be working but just cant't get any balls into play. Im sure i am missing something... Any ideas?

[Tikimaster]

Please let us know a bit more. Are you on Desktop? What version numbers of software did you install, what table are you loading.. etc..

Edited November 26, 2024 by Tikimaster

[Goffman]

Sorry. I am on a desktop using windows 11. Visual Pinball X 10.7.3  I have had the same result on several different tables. Elvira's house of horror. Party monsters

[Tomasrg73]

Same error on 10.8 using baller installer. I can add creadits, but some tables don´t start and flippers don´t works.

I solved sometimes changing or unzipping the rom, but don´´t understand the problems. Some tables continue blocked

My questions are

There are any diference having the rom zipped or on a folder ??

How to know if a table need or not a rom ??

Why sometables needs nvram  ??

 

Thanks a lot

[SixOfTwelve]

To answer your three questions:

 

1. The ROM files should never be unzipped. The zip files should all go into [your visual pinball directory]\vpinmame\roms .

 

2. As a general guideline: a Visual Pinball table will need a ROM if it's based on an original table that was produced from around the late 1970s to the early 2000s. Before that, you had EM (electromechanical) tables (the ones with score reels) - those don't need ROMS. As for the tables that came out after the early 2000s, the ROMs generally aren't emulated by VPinMAME (yet) and people will have recreated the table based on elaborate scripts (such is the case for Game of Thrones and Guardians of the Galaxy, for example). Then you've got tables that never existed in the real world. Mostly they're script-based (no ROM), but a few use pre-existing ROMs and are effectively more or less elaborate reskins/remodels of existing tables. However, for these you will almost always find information in the table description about which ROM you'll need.

If you don't know the name of the required ROM, check the table script for the phrase "cgamename =" - whatever comes after is the ROM name. You can also see the ROM name (provided you already have it) if you run a table and press F1 for the ROM settings. It'll be listed in the top bar of the window that will pop up.

 

3. nvram is essentially the "save game" file of the ROM. Think of the ROM as something that cannot be changed. (That's literally what the name means - Read Only Memory) Whatever changes you make to the ROM settings - a new high score, coins per game, balls per game, volume etc. - is stored in the nvram file. Therefore, if you delete a nvram file, you will essentially reset the table to its factory settings.

If there is no nvram file present, it will be created the first time you run a ROM - that's why you usually get an error message the first time you run a ROM-based table.

(For tables without ROMs, it's different. Generally the changes are saved in the "User" folder of Visual Pinball, but that's probably more than you need to know at this stage)