PinBall FX VR 2025 Vs VPX (kinda)

[Spacegoogie]

I broke down and grabbed FX VR, tho not a big fan of the series ( I like my VPX , I'm more of a realistic type of guy)

 

I must say I am impressed with this one.

The MR is awesome  having tables and collected things in my front room is so cool.

 

It also runs well and looks pretty damn good running on a mobile processor, never any lag or slowdown.

I guess my question is how come VPX can't be more like this?

 

Guess what I'm trying to ask is, VPX looks amazing,  and Pinball FX VR looks good as well and runs natively on Q3 so why can't VPX? Or why doesnt VPX use something more along the lines of what Pinball FX VR is doing to get their stuff to run so good on a much weaker cpu?

Thought it was harder to develop on Apple then Android? 

I also thought Android users would see a portable ver of VPX before IOS users did.

Does anyone know the technical details to any of this? I'm just interested.  

 

Cheers.

Edited May 28, 2025 by Spacegoogie
re-worded

[WCC]

My wife has only played 1 game of Addams Family in Pinball FX VR and has already said "Oh, that doesn't work the same as the real cab."  I also noticed that one of the table specifically said it only had 4 balls in multiball for performance reasons.

I think the difference is that VPX aims to be really close to reality within the constraints it has, and Pinball FX aims to be a fun, performant game on really low-end hardware.

 

If VPX hadn't gone for realism, someone else would invent their own alternative that did.  

 

I'm a web/mobile developer, and I don't think it's any harder to make apps on Android or IOS.  They're pretty comparable.  That said, I haven't tried to make a game on either of them without a game engine like Unity or Godot.  Porting VPX to them could involve issues on one or the other that I don't understand at the moment.

[Spacegoogie]

I did do a little project with A.I. and yah VPX would have to be completely rewritten from the ground up, that would take 10+ years.

PBFX definitely the "arcade" pinball game. I play it every once in a while.

 

 Cheers!

[digitalarts]

Fyi - in vpinball github actions there is a separate quest3 "exe"

https://github.com/vpinball/vpinball/actions/runs/20006427271/artifacts/4790619244

No more Infos about it

[Spacegoogie]

Never noticed that, Well I guess I'll have to play around with that! Thanks!

[foofoorabbit]

On 12/9/2025 at 11:52 AM, Spacegoogie said:

I did do a little project with A.I. and yah VPX would have to be completely rewritten from the ground up, that would take 10+ years.

PBFX definitely the "arcade" pinball game. I play it every once in a while.

 

 Cheers!

I think @freezy's Virtual Pinball Engine aims to be that modern engine that does desktop, cabinet, and potentially VR using Unity. But I also think @freezy is going for even more realism than VPX with ray/path tracing so that lighting is as realistic as possible... so if VR did work, it would require a beefy GPU. Also, hopefully, VPE isn't 10 years away from release. I was hoping for a Christmas miracle but it didn't happen. Maybe we'll see VPE this year? Though, I don't think much has been done in the last 4-5 months unless @freezy is secretly toiling away.

Edited January 1 by foofoorabbit

[PeteyZorz]

it's because its built on an engine that was designed to cater to doing that. just be happy knowing that it will work like butter several gens from now. the hardware needs to catch up is the problem. im confident that we will see full on sideloadable vpxvr working flawlessly directly off quest 5 or a similar stand alone device 5 years from now. it will be figured out by someone. and i know that's like a long time away, but just know as time goes on this stuff will be super easy to get going on future potatoes