Let’s pretend that Visual Pinball and VPinMame are completely installed and you have downloaded all of the ROMS and Visual Pinball Tables needed to play the game you want. The first step is to test VPinMAME. For the purposes of this post I have installed Visual Pinball in C:\Program Files\Visual Pinball and VPinMAME in C:\Program Files\Visual Pinball as well. Navigate to the installation directory and double click on SETUP.EXE (Or just Setup if your computer is configured to hide file extensions).
Navigate to C:\Program Files\Visual Pinball and Double Click SETUP.EXE
You will now see a window titled “VPinMAME Installation program (Version 1.42)”
VPinMAME Installation program (Version 1.42)
Click on “Test”. You will now see this screen:
Game Selection Screen
I have selected Attack from Mars (I have already downloaded the table and ROMS for Attack from Mars). Click on the “Start” button to start the test. If this is the first time you have booted up a game then you will be prompted to confirm that you are legally allowed to play this game. Click “Yes” and click OK. Next a VPinMAME splash screen comes up and then you will see the game boot up:
Attack from Mars is Booted and Running
If you see the game boot up and function your VPinMAME installation is working. Now open Visual Pinball.
Visual Pinball Main Screen
Click on File, then Open and choose the game you want to play. I chose Attack from Mars. The next screen you will see a wireform representation of the pinball table you chose to play.
Attack from Mars is opened
You will now see the DMD. You might or might not see the pinball table. If you don’t that’s OK. Assuming all other windows are closed you will have two programs open on your start bar. Click the window titled “Visual Pinball Player”. You will notice if you click on the window titled “<Game Name Here – Version Number>” you will no longer see the flashing lights on the pinball table. That’s because the active window has to be the Visual Pinball player otherwise you will just see the DMD animations and nothing else. Coin up the game and play!
