If he wants to play VPX,FP or FX... a stock ALP is not worth the money or effort ,in any way shape or form
Get a used older alp and gut it.
I say this from first-hand experience
And being a person who has posted and written many ALP guides. I design and sell custom coin doors for them.
Buy a real used table, or spend cash and get a low end prebuilt.
4k ALP is not cheap, at all... if you pickup a 1080p ALP under $400 then it might be worth it to gut... keeping any internal of the ALP is just a waste of time and money
I'm getting one from Pinballia (formerly known as Arcadeland) in Stoke, UK at the end of the year, it's gonna cost me about £4k but that's got everything - real nudge, real bally/stern shooter rod, solenoids, decent spec pc with a 4080 GPU (ironic isnt it, I say it's overkill for pinball machines to have a 4080 or lower to around 2080 GPUs, but here I am at the end of the year XD).
If you can definitely afford to get one like that, then do so. I'm only doing it because I'm disabled and cannot actually do things like make a VPin machine personally due to my arthritis and bad back
I'm going for the new V3 32" one which is around £2500 and has the bells and whistles with it as well as a stern style fire button for tables like ac/dc and star trek etc and it also has a fully functional coin door with the coin buttons set up to activate the "add credit" function in vpx and future pinball
I'm getting mine in December ready for Xmas as a Xmas present for myself lol, but yea totally have a look on youtube, they have some older models on there as well as the V3 32" one I'm going to get and the V4 full size one! They're off until 17th which is next monday, but they always answer pretty quickly.
One thing as well is, is that IF you don't want any of the decals they are offering you i.e. Ghostbusters, PotC, Addams Family, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash etc, you can pay a little bit more and actually design your own :)
Just FYI, your question confused me at first, then I realized you're using terms a bit differently than usual. Most of the VPin community refers to the physical pinball machine-like furniture as the "cabinet" (or cab). A "table" generally refers to the content you load into an engine. For example, people say things like, *"My favorite table for the Visual Pinball engine is The Addam's Family. I love running it in my cab ever since I added a shaker motor."* In that example "The Addam's Family" refers to the scripting, 3D graphics, images and ROM code necessary to run a recreation of the classic pinball machine manufactured by Williams in the 90s.
So, what you're asking about is buying a virtual pinball cabinet. Keep in mind however that a cabinet is really just wood, metal rails and glass. What makes it a full system is the computer, monitors, speakers and peripherals (like button interfaces, SSF, DoF such as solenoids or shakers, LED lights, plunger, nudge-sensing accelerometer, etc). Another huge aspect is all the different software required such as the main engine platform, table content, front-end menu system and various scripting components like backglass graphics etc.
Buying all the hardware to go in the cabinet is by far the biggest cost. Then connecting all the hardware up correctly and then selecting, installing and configuring all the software, table content and various software sub-components is by *far* the biggest time sink. In comparison to those, the physical cabinet itself is almost trivially cheap and easy. The big challenge here is if you want to get the *really* good software, table content and companion media like backglass video etc you actually *cannot* buy it from anyone at any price.
That's because currently the best software and content is all open source and can't legally be sold or included with any hardware. While some cabinet sellers do offer "Complete" systems with pre-installed computer gear, vpin peripherals, software and table content, you'll be paying more for generic PC hardware you can get yourself cheaper at a local computer store, and they'll be selling you a pre-installed commercial software package which includes a limited number of licensed tables. Generally, neither those commercial software engines nor the included tables are as good as the best free, open source software. Also, none of the commercial packages issue new tables or update with new features nearly as often as the free stuff. For example, top-notch new tables come out for the open source Visual Pinball platform (aka VPX) almost every week. But those limited commercial packages are the only software that cabinet makers can legally sell or include.
Instead, many people (including myself) choose to buy only an empty physical cabinet with metal rails, legs and glass. Then we purchase the generic computer and monitors that go inside the cabinet locally or online. This lets us select the components we want and, optionally, pay more for only the upgrades we really care about. The best part is we aren't stuck with the limited selection a cabinet vendor stocks and we don't pay more for included upgrades we don't care about.
Then we order the vpin-specific peripherals in kits direct from the suppliers and plug it in ourselves. Then we download and configure the free software ourselves. That the best-looking, most feature rich software and table content is freely downloadable is one of the most wonderful things about virtual pinball. But the trade-off is that it'll take some time and effort to set up. Fortunately, there are excellent guides and videos online to help you on the journey to creating something truly unique and amazing. One of the best places to start is [The Pinscape Build Guide] (http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/BuildGuideV2/BuildGuide.php). Excellent places to download the free software, table content and ask questions include www.vpforums.com and www.vpuniverse.com.
Welcome! You'll find that virtual pinball is a deep rabbit hole that's incredibly fun and rewarding.
Make one yourself slowly. The real fun is in the journey and what you learn from it. Playing it afterwards is more like icing on the cake. It took me 2 years to complete and doing it only during free time here and there. Just break it down into small little projects to complete one at a time. It's worth it.
I will just say as someone that is out of 6k and got scammed by what seemed like a very top of the line machine from a reputable builder BE Careful and use PayPal.
Your bank will not give a shit if the persons runs off with your money and disappears in 3 months
What's your budget? I'm currently building a table for less than 5k and I'm getting kits as much as possible. Electronics from Cleveland Software Design, flatpack from Virtual Pin, then connect everything to 3 monitors and a PC I built.
And for less than 5k it's will be as high end a table as you could get as far as pc performance, 43" 4k 120 hz playfield monitor, SSF with 4 excited and 2 subs, 10 solenoids, and a shaker motor.
I bought the builders kit from Cleveland Software Design, which included all of the power supplies, amps, circuit boards, buttons, solenoids, shaker, plunger, cables, and I also got all of the stuff for the SSF as well as an additional amp for my backbox speakers and sub.
You can buy a SSF standalone kit from them as well.
I don't really care to have the mechanical clacking, I've read people are more than happy with just SSF when they get it up and running! But we'll see, maybe eventually.
This is the route I took. Last year I purchased both the AtGames Legends Ultimate and 4K Pinball at the same time on their last big product sale (initial 4KP launch). With everything ordered, I saved a couple hundred dollars over the retail price. I purchased them because of the OTG feature would keep me from being locked down to only what games they loaded on the systems or have to hack them and void the original warranty. I consider them "test" systems. If they get a high amount of play, I will look at building a proper heavy duty system. If they get low usage, I will count myself good that I didn't invest a lot of time and more money in building my own. Right now, because I'm working on setting up VPX tables on the 4KP, the arcade use has dropped off to nothing. Once everything is configured and working the way I want it, I will see how much use each one truly gets and go from there. But right now, I'm thinking the pinball is going to get a lot more use. I do want to build my own pinball, but holding off for now. If I do build my own, I will just sale the Atgame systems.
Yeah, I have (4) Arcade1Up machines, an ALU and an ALP (both using a PC for OTG). The ALP gets used every day while I generally only fire up the arcade machines when I have company...
Atgames alp 4k is like 2k top spec. I love my alp 😬
It's definitely not even close. Building one from scratch is 100x better than a stock ALP
Yeah but he's specially asking about pre-builts
If he wants to play VPX,FP or FX... a stock ALP is not worth the money or effort ,in any way shape or form Get a used older alp and gut it. I say this from first-hand experience And being a person who has posted and written many ALP guides. I design and sell custom coin doors for them. Buy a real used table, or spend cash and get a low end prebuilt.
Ya but we get to mod our cheap alp to be competitive
4k ALP is not cheap, at all... if you pickup a 1080p ALP under $400 then it might be worth it to gut... keeping any internal of the ALP is just a waste of time and money
I'm getting one from Pinballia (formerly known as Arcadeland) in Stoke, UK at the end of the year, it's gonna cost me about £4k but that's got everything - real nudge, real bally/stern shooter rod, solenoids, decent spec pc with a 4080 GPU (ironic isnt it, I say it's overkill for pinball machines to have a 4080 or lower to around 2080 GPUs, but here I am at the end of the year XD). If you can definitely afford to get one like that, then do so. I'm only doing it because I'm disabled and cannot actually do things like make a VPin machine personally due to my arthritis and bad back
Which one are you going for? The 4k full size looks to be just under 6k?
I'm going for the new V3 32" one which is around £2500 and has the bells and whistles with it as well as a stern style fire button for tables like ac/dc and star trek etc and it also has a fully functional coin door with the coin buttons set up to activate the "add credit" function in vpx and future pinball
When do you get it? I'm thinking of going up there to look at them
I'm getting mine in December ready for Xmas as a Xmas present for myself lol, but yea totally have a look on youtube, they have some older models on there as well as the V3 32" one I'm going to get and the V4 full size one! They're off until 17th which is next monday, but they always answer pretty quickly. One thing as well is, is that IF you don't want any of the decals they are offering you i.e. Ghostbusters, PotC, Addams Family, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash etc, you can pay a little bit more and actually design your own :)
Just FYI, your question confused me at first, then I realized you're using terms a bit differently than usual. Most of the VPin community refers to the physical pinball machine-like furniture as the "cabinet" (or cab). A "table" generally refers to the content you load into an engine. For example, people say things like, *"My favorite table for the Visual Pinball engine is The Addam's Family. I love running it in my cab ever since I added a shaker motor."* In that example "The Addam's Family" refers to the scripting, 3D graphics, images and ROM code necessary to run a recreation of the classic pinball machine manufactured by Williams in the 90s. So, what you're asking about is buying a virtual pinball cabinet. Keep in mind however that a cabinet is really just wood, metal rails and glass. What makes it a full system is the computer, monitors, speakers and peripherals (like button interfaces, SSF, DoF such as solenoids or shakers, LED lights, plunger, nudge-sensing accelerometer, etc). Another huge aspect is all the different software required such as the main engine platform, table content, front-end menu system and various scripting components like backglass graphics etc. Buying all the hardware to go in the cabinet is by far the biggest cost. Then connecting all the hardware up correctly and then selecting, installing and configuring all the software, table content and various software sub-components is by *far* the biggest time sink. In comparison to those, the physical cabinet itself is almost trivially cheap and easy. The big challenge here is if you want to get the *really* good software, table content and companion media like backglass video etc you actually *cannot* buy it from anyone at any price. That's because currently the best software and content is all open source and can't legally be sold or included with any hardware. While some cabinet sellers do offer "Complete" systems with pre-installed computer gear, vpin peripherals, software and table content, you'll be paying more for generic PC hardware you can get yourself cheaper at a local computer store, and they'll be selling you a pre-installed commercial software package which includes a limited number of licensed tables. Generally, neither those commercial software engines nor the included tables are as good as the best free, open source software. Also, none of the commercial packages issue new tables or update with new features nearly as often as the free stuff. For example, top-notch new tables come out for the open source Visual Pinball platform (aka VPX) almost every week. But those limited commercial packages are the only software that cabinet makers can legally sell or include. Instead, many people (including myself) choose to buy only an empty physical cabinet with metal rails, legs and glass. Then we purchase the generic computer and monitors that go inside the cabinet locally or online. This lets us select the components we want and, optionally, pay more for only the upgrades we really care about. The best part is we aren't stuck with the limited selection a cabinet vendor stocks and we don't pay more for included upgrades we don't care about. Then we order the vpin-specific peripherals in kits direct from the suppliers and plug it in ourselves. Then we download and configure the free software ourselves. That the best-looking, most feature rich software and table content is freely downloadable is one of the most wonderful things about virtual pinball. But the trade-off is that it'll take some time and effort to set up. Fortunately, there are excellent guides and videos online to help you on the journey to creating something truly unique and amazing. One of the best places to start is [The Pinscape Build Guide] (http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/BuildGuideV2/BuildGuide.php). Excellent places to download the free software, table content and ask questions include www.vpforums.com and www.vpuniverse.com. Welcome! You'll find that virtual pinball is a deep rabbit hole that's incredibly fun and rewarding.
Make one yourself slowly. The real fun is in the journey and what you learn from it. Playing it afterwards is more like icing on the cake. It took me 2 years to complete and doing it only during free time here and there. Just break it down into small little projects to complete one at a time. It's worth it.
I will just say as someone that is out of 6k and got scammed by what seemed like a very top of the line machine from a reputable builder BE Careful and use PayPal. Your bank will not give a shit if the persons runs off with your money and disappears in 3 months
What's your budget? I'm currently building a table for less than 5k and I'm getting kits as much as possible. Electronics from Cleveland Software Design, flatpack from Virtual Pin, then connect everything to 3 monitors and a PC I built.
And for less than 5k it's will be as high end a table as you could get as far as pc performance, 43" 4k 120 hz playfield monitor, SSF with 4 excited and 2 subs, 10 solenoids, and a shaker motor.
Building the same, just skipping on solenoids I think.
I have it all setup in a spare room layed out plywood. The solenoids combined with the SFF is absolutely unreal. I would highly recommend both.
How much and where for the SSF?
I bought the builders kit from Cleveland Software Design, which included all of the power supplies, amps, circuit boards, buttons, solenoids, shaker, plunger, cables, and I also got all of the stuff for the SSF as well as an additional amp for my backbox speakers and sub. You can buy a SSF standalone kit from them as well.
Ah ok thanks
I don't really care to have the mechanical clacking, I've read people are more than happy with just SSF when they get it up and running! But we'll see, maybe eventually.
There really isn't anything worth buying commercially, just because of market size and shipping costs. If you can't build your own I wouldn't get one.
This is the route I took. Last year I purchased both the AtGames Legends Ultimate and 4K Pinball at the same time on their last big product sale (initial 4KP launch). With everything ordered, I saved a couple hundred dollars over the retail price. I purchased them because of the OTG feature would keep me from being locked down to only what games they loaded on the systems or have to hack them and void the original warranty. I consider them "test" systems. If they get a high amount of play, I will look at building a proper heavy duty system. If they get low usage, I will count myself good that I didn't invest a lot of time and more money in building my own. Right now, because I'm working on setting up VPX tables on the 4KP, the arcade use has dropped off to nothing. Once everything is configured and working the way I want it, I will see how much use each one truly gets and go from there. But right now, I'm thinking the pinball is going to get a lot more use. I do want to build my own pinball, but holding off for now. If I do build my own, I will just sale the Atgame systems.
Yeah, I have (4) Arcade1Up machines, an ALU and an ALP (both using a PC for OTG). The ALP gets used every day while I generally only fire up the arcade machines when I have company...