** Solved ** Vpinball for Batocera (Linux) The Simpsons 1990 VR not loading - Possibly Wrong ROM?

[Pinballguy2025]

Hi, I'm new to the forums and have recently installed many virtual pinball x tables on my batocera device. I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this question.

There doesn't seem to be much information for this specific scenario, I have used the vpinball batocera wiki to learn most of what I know to get most of the tables to work on this. Basically its an X64 mini Pc running Batocera (Linux) for vpinball. It is vpinball 10.8 version.

I am having trouble getting the simpsons 1990 1570865338_VRRoom-TheSimpsons(DataEast1990)v1.5.1.zip to run. It loads but sits there where if you have the wrong rom it will do nothing.

I have Simp_a27 rom though it doesn't work. I notice when I open the .vpx file with notepad under cgame it says simp is the rom. This rom as far as I can see doesn't exist and is supposed to be the simp_a27 rom. I saw someone mention this in the comments section. I have also tried changing the text in cgame to say simp_a27 but that made the table not even load and just jump right back out.

I have also tried the other simpsons tables by Drakkon and Bigus though they wont load at all. This is the only table that will actually load into the table without backing out of the game.

I tried downloading the rom again several times from internet database as well as vpin forums but it just has the same effect.

Simpsons pinball party and treehouse of horror work just fine for me.

I am new to this so maybe I'm not doing something properly. I also tried renaming the rom file to simp and that didn't work either.

I did not find any type of .VBS file either that goes with this game. I also tried downloading the bigus vbs file and changing the name to the VR room name though that didn't work either.

I understand this is pretty niche as most use vpinball on their cabinets or windows pc.

Sadly not a single table made by Bigus or VPW will work on batocera vpinball for me for some reason, not sure why, I wish they would as they seem to be some of the best looking tables.

One other question I have is I also have 2 games, Monster Bash and Whodunnit, both of these tables load and play fine though they both have half of the DMD blacked out for some reason.

It's like a 45 degree angle cut right down the middle, one side I can see the DMD and the other side is black.

I also tried other versions of these 2 tables but these are the only 2 that will work as I'm guessing batocera vpinball is very picky about what will work with it.

Is there any fix for the DMD issue, I have seen other people have the issue from what I've researched but didn't get any real answer on how to fix it

I have tried using the real time editor but I really don't understand it and there are many layers and such that I'm pretty sure I would just screw something up worse.

Thank you very much to anyone who can help me with any one of these issues.

 

Edited November 29, 2025 by Pinballguy2025
solved the issue

[Thalamus]

Have not tried VP on linux since the very start. I don't know how stable 10.8 is, the devs is working hard on 10.8.x - not that I would recommend you trying it. Just saying, that there might still be a way to go before you can expect all tables to be working. jsm has a repository of scripts that you might need to replace for the original table. https://github.com/jsm174/vpx-standalone-scripts

Good luck.

[EarBiteR]

I tried "Simpsons Pinball Party, The (Stern)(2003)(Coindropper, 32assassin)(1.01)" on vpx standalone 10.8 and after moving the almost full screen dmd out of the way it played fine.  If you are having issues with roms then you need to audit your sets.  I use clrmame pro under wine.  

 

Still under dev is 10.8.1 which asides from the GL version is moving to a BGFX release which is supposed to be better in working with your display (vulcan?/wayland?) . Not too clear yet on that but they are moving to a plugin system with pinmame and other things setup(dmd?) through that.  Im testing both gl/bgfx and its working well.  

 

I would stick with 10.8 standalone on linux for now.  And as Thalamus mentioned you may need to see if there are table patches available for specific table you want to play that wont run.

 

P.S. I did try again with Simpsons, The (Data East)(1990)(32assassin)(0.91)[VPX05] and it came up fine, no rom errors but would not start the game 😞

[Pinballguy2025]

Thank you very much for the replies. Yeah I think it must be possibly an issue with the version. I didn't specifically pick this version 10.8, it is just the one that came with the Batocera 41 package when it installs. I believe it uses pinmame and wine to run on Linux batocera version so there may be some api issue or who knows what.

I am playing on a single screen, hooked up to my mini pc not that I think it matters with these tables.

I don't actually get a chance to pick Vulkan or GL for the display I noticed so not sure which one it is using by default. Both are supported as they are options on other emulators in the Batocera 41 package.

I am very lucky that I actually got over 200 tables to work ok with Batocera Linux 41, except the 2 with the DMD issues, both simpsons pinball party and treehouse of horror work fine for me.

I did check /jsm174/vpx-standalone-scripts but there was only a patch for the bigus table.

Always of course there is the 1 table you would like to work but doesn't.

There are several other tables I would like to work but don't, A-team, a real american hero etc. they just don't work.

I am going to stick with 10.8 for now and maybe there will be a future update that runs better and possibly then some of the VPW or Bigus tables may work for me which

would be nice.

I think it's still somewhat a work in progress with batocera Linux.

It does also include Future pinball but I haven't delved into that yet and Vpinball seems to have way more tables and support.

I guessed that everyone was using Vpinball 10.8, which version is the standard one that most people are using at this time?

Thank You again for your replies and help

Edited October 28, 2025 by Pinballguy2025

[Thalamus]

Yes. You should stick to 10.8. 10.8.x is very much - experimental, but, it also has like Earbiter says, a shit load of new changes. So many that there are quite a lot of tables that doesn't run yet. But, of course. As it is upstream, it also can do new stuff. The idea now seems to be that one download should be able to run everything on its own from one single folder. So, unzip it to somewhere else, all on its own while making a backup of VPinballX.ini is hopefully a safe way to go. I tend to run the very latest this way on my desktop machine upstairs and keep my cab on 10.8 as default with this strategy, making regular backups of the most important files. Pinmame, Dmddevice, B2S etc. Very recently I had to roll back my DMD because latest freezy was lagging and behind where it should be. I'm talking windows now, but, I expect that the same applies to whatever you run it on. Take extra care if you have something running well, and don't really expect anything beyond 10.8 to work perfectly yet. Of course. If you are on anything else than windows. There is a higher chance that something is NOT working 100% yet, as it is quite recently it worked at all for those platforms. Good luck.

[EarBiteR]

The standalone version runs natively on linux and doesnt require wine.  Extract it to a folder and run it passing the path the table you want to play and it might just work!

 

example in a shell.  Assuming its marked executable (if not then chmod +X VPinballX_GL . Sorry unclear on how linux savy you are 🙂

 

./VPinballX_GL -play gamename

[Pinballguy2025]

Thank you again for the suggestions, I will give it shot at running the file through a shell.

[Pinballguy2025]

*** Solved ***

 

I figured out how to get this VR simpsons table to run. I had to extract the vpx file in Linux terminal (usr/bin/vpinball/VPinballX_GL -extractvbs media/SHARE/roms/vpinball/1570865338_VRRoom-TheSimpsons(DataEast1990)v1.5.1/1570865338_VRRoom-TheSimpsons(DataEast1990)v1.5.1.vpx), then in the vbs file that was created I renamed the rom where it says cgame"simp" to cgame"simp_a27" and saved it.

I tested the game and it finally started up and I can play.

For anyone who is having this very specific issue which I'm sure is not many, that is what fixed it for me.

 

Thank you again to all who replied and helped