VPVR vs VP cabinet

[Pinball_Phreak]

I've been searching for this discussion and can't find one like it anywhere. I know this is subjective but, I would like to hear input from people who have experience with both. 

I played Pinball FX games on console in the past. They're cool and satisfied a pinball itch for me when I couldn't find real pinball machines near me. I always found them entertaining but, never on the level of real pin. A month ago, I fixed my old Xbox One S and booted it up. I found my old Pinball FX and tables on there. It was cool to play some of them again. Then I started wondering about playing those same tables on Steam with my much stronger PC. I started chasing realism and visually fidelity. I ended up hearing about Visual Pinball and here I am lol. 

I've tried Pinball FX on PC, Quest 2 standalone, Quest PC VR (Quest link cable) and via Steam with a VR hack of sorts. 

Next, I tried VPX flat and most recently, VPXVR. 

 

Who has tried BOTH VPX VR and VPX in a cab and has a very strong preference?

I'd like to hear your opinions. 

 

If I could demo a suped up VPin cab with all the SFF and DOF toys, I would but, I've never seen one in IRL. I've seen 1 video pinball cab IRL, maybe ~10 years ago and that one was a major letdown. No FFB at all. Just  an emulated pin in a cab. It pissed me off because, I thought the place had real machines. The photo shows multiple machines but, when I visited, there was 1 real machine and 1 totally boring Vpin cab. 

 

How does a flat screen in a Vin cab, with all the bells and whistles compare to VR? You can move your head around in VR, get closer to the ramps and peer behind things just like in real life. Also- the ball looks REAL!!! lol.

 

Move your head all you want with a Vpin cab, the perspective on the screen doesn't change and, I feel like that might always bother me. 

 

Also in VR though- VR is very fatiguing to the eyes and senses. Also the weight of the headset is annoying. I hate how finnicky things are in VR as well. It crashes a lot. You have to leave VPX every time to launch a new table etc etc. I'm gonna try VPX launcher to see if it helps with this kind of stuff but, yeah.... Drop those insights, please.

Edited July 13 by Pinball_Phreak

[studly_do_right]

Hey there Pinball_Phreak, 

I had been using my cab for Virtual Pinball for a couple years before I discovered VPVR. In my cab I had upgraded from no SSF to having 4 exciters and a bass shaker (plus the backbox speakers) and that in itself was a game changer, it was/is fantastic. Then I added VR and holy crap, it really was shocking. The tables I had been playing for so long now stood in front of me and looked beautiful. Playing in VR with the cab as a controller "with SSF" is far more engaging and as realistic as it can get if you have a good enough card so that everything is in focus. IMHO a good enough card is the 3080, although because of VR Pinball I had moved on to a 4090, but others are getting along just fine with lesser cards.
BaSti's VPX Launcher is the icing on the cake, awesome front end for VR Pinball, I don't need to take the headset off to go from table to table and the buttons on my cab do everything required. Also, I don't find anything "finicky", fatiguing or get any crashes in VR, the table loads, looks friggin real, sounds friggin real and plays real  it really is like having hundreds of actual pinball tables in your house. Add in all of these amazing Mega VR Rooms and you really have a showpiece for family and friends. 

[Pinball_Phreak]

4 hours ago, studly_do_right said:

Hey there Pinball_Phreak, 

I had been using my cab for Virtual Pinball for a couple years before I discovered VPVR. In my cab I had upgraded from no SSF to having 4 exciters and a bass shaker (plus the backbox speakers) and that in itself was a game changer, it was/is fantastic. Then I added VR and holy crap, it really was shocking. The tables I had been playing for so long now stood in front of me and looked beautiful. Playing in VR with the cab as a controller "with SSF" is far more engaging and as realistic as it can get if you have a good enough card so that everything is in focus. IMHO a good enough card is the 3080, although because of VR Pinball I had moved on to a 4090, but others are getting along just fine with lesser cards.
BaSti's VPX Launcher is the icing on the cake, awesome front end for VR Pinball, I don't need to take the headset off to go from table to table and the buttons on my cab do everything required. Also, I don't find anything "finicky", fatiguing or get any crashes in VR, the table loads, looks friggin real, sounds friggin real and plays real  it really is like having hundreds of actual pinball tables in your house. Add in all of these amazing Mega VR Rooms and you really have a showpiece for family and friends. 

This is amazing feedback! This is what I hoped I'd find by posting this. I imagine you have your vpin cab and just have your headset plugged into it's PC and just use the flippers as usual? 

We clearly agree on VR looking and feeling hella realistic. Did the flat image ever bother you on you cab prior to VR? Does it bother you now? 

[studly_do_right]

21 hours ago, Pinball_Phreak said:

This is amazing feedback! This is what I hoped I'd find by posting this. I imagine you have your vpin cab and just have your headset plugged into it's PC and just use the flippers as usual? 

We clearly agree on VR looking and feeling hella realistic. Did the flat image ever bother you on you cab prior to VR? Does it bother you now? 

Yep, headset is plugged into the Cab's PC and I use the flipper, magnasaves and all other buttons as I would for pancake pinball in the cab. As for the flat issue, when I first discovered Virtual Pinball I was amazed and immediately bought a used cab from a guy moving out of the country. Seeing all of these tables (some that I grew up playing...and owed) and being able to switch between them with Popper was awesome. Then the new POV system came out with 10.8 and this gave the tables a nicer 3D effect...so I spent 16 hours redoing all of my POVs. Cab play does not bother me in the least, before and now after VR Pinball and is a great way to play with friends but it does not compare to playing in a VR headset with the cab as a controller. 

[Pinball_Phreak]

2 hours ago, studly_do_right said:

Yep, headset is plugged into the Cab's PC and I use the flipper, magnasaves and all other buttons as I would for pancake pinball in the cab. As for the flat issue, when I first discovered Virtual Pinball I was amazed and immediately bought a used cab from a guy moving out of the country. Seeing all of these tables (some that I grew up playing...and owed) and being able to switch between them with Popper was awesome. Then the new POV system came out with 10.8 and this gave the tables a nicer 3D effect...so I spent 16 hours redoing all of my POVs. Cab play does not bother me in the least, before and now after VR Pinball and is a great way to play with friends but it does not compare to playing in a VR headset with the cab as a controller. 

Thanks for all the insight! It's cool to hear your journey too! I'll probably end up doing both just as you did. I don't see one completely replacing the other yet.

Edited July 14 by Pinball_Phreak

[DBrown67]

I built a mini cab a few years ago (about 3/4 size of a Williams widebody). I recently upgraded to all 64 bit system and sorted all that out first. Got the cab running smooth with a capital "Smoooooth" at 120fps.
Got plenty of DoF toys going like solenoids for flippers/slings, beacons, lightbar, shaker and fan etc. 

Then took the plunge into VR (which was the intention all along). Now getting the headset integrated into VR I found very frustrating. But with the help of these forums and ChatGPT I got there eventually. I am a total noob at VR though.
I upgraded the cab to a 5800X3D and RTX5070 specially for VR and bought a cheap dedicated 5Ghz router so it wasn't going through my house one. Not sure that was necessary though.
After a week of playing about with settings trying to get an optimum 120fps in VR, I think I have finally achieved it.

The thing I found was I had to lower graphics to Medium in order to get the decoding figure in Virtual Desktop down to a stable 6/7ms with 100 bitrate. (Running Panasony version of 10.8.0, so by-passing SteamVR)
At first I was like "I haven't bought a 5070 to just have medium graphics!".  But by using medium I had headroom on the PC side to crank up some MSAA and have the image in VR look quite acceptable.
Anything higher than medium and the headset became the bottle neck as it couldn't decode fast enough for 120fps, even lowering the bitrate.
I find I have both Game (PC side) and Decode (Quest 3 side) around the 6/7 mark and that's seems the sweet spot for me.

I still don't know if I'm doing it right as I am so new to this. Codec is HEVC as all the others raised decoding too much.

Once the headset was sorted I found that by having the cabinet already configured I didn't need to re-assign any new buttons. I might add an F12 button somewhere though, so I can access that menu without a keyboard.

I love VR and deffo it is worth the effort. Having the cabinet play all the sounds (no sounds in headset) and the DOF toys is great.
I have my VR directory separate from my Cabinet one. That way I have a 2x tables folders and have them configured differently for whatever mode I'm in.
I was amazed that Batman '66 with it's brilliant VR room and Pup pack just worked right out of the box. No messing having to set stuff up again. Get the cabinet configured first and VR kinda just locks on.

Of course there is the option to go with 90fps and then crank the settings up a bit. But I just want the 120 as it is in cabinet mode.

Edited August 18 by DBrown67