Building A Virtual Pinball Table Update 2019 and FX3 Setup

[@hagaming2609]

Great to see an update on this. How do you navigate the FX3 menu system ? How many buttons do you have to do so ?

[@Smugwood]

Currently I just load up as you would a Pc and navigate with the mouse. At some point I’m gonna look at some kind of track ball on the machine to make it easier and tidier.

[@Smugwood]

Navigation through FX3 once loaded is done through the buttons on the machine. But sometimes, because the mouse is by my side, I may use that also.

[@Seraphim190.]

haha i love how you put that damn music back in. hilarious

[@Smugwood]

Haha...had to be done. I’m making another cab shortly, a small version, so I may have to make a new song to accompany it 😂

[@Seraphim190.]

@@Smugwood cant wait! love your videos, ill be working on a cabinet soon so im watching all your videos to death. you know how it is, going crazy with all the VP's, vpx's, b2s's and all the UMDs, and dmd's, roms! and I'm like screw it! ill try FX3 on steam instead. lol

[@Smugwood]

Yeah that’s what I’ve done 😂 Just a lot easier running FX3 and now they do the Williams tables it’s a win win.

[@markmaisy4858]

Hi just built my shell and purchased FX3 on steam, just got to get it running now. Could you tell me where you got your vinyl printed and roughly how much? I'm in UK I would like to go with an FX3 theme for it, yours looks very well indeed!

[@Smugwood]

I just used a local vinyl graphic printers. I honestly can’t remember how much it was but a saving is to be made if you’re fitting it yourself as having someone fit it can be costly…although I had mine done as I wasn’t confident doing it myself.

[@EvilDrFish]

Great video, thanks! I've got my cab 'dry fit' in the garage and am deciding whether to de-case my playfield tv. What made you decide to keep it on vs removing it? Space is definitely not an issue for me.

[@Smugwood]

I can’t remember now if I’m honest. I think it’s because of the shape afterwards and I think it fitted better for me like this. Different TVs will be different though. I’m looking at building a half size version soon so it’ll be a whole new learning curve again 😂👍

[@hoganzeros3572]

ive got my 3 monitors hooked up but im lost in the fx3 options for seeing the dmd and backglass. The values for x position, y height etc. etc. have got me scratching my head. Can you share your numbers as hopefully they can be used as a starting point? Or better yet, give a clear explanation as to how to go about figuring out the numbers? Thanks!

[@Smugwood]

It al depends where your monitors are placed in relation to each other. Remember, they might not all be positive numbers. Try making the size of the images HUGE so they may show on more than one screen and adjust accordingly. So say it’s 1080…make it 10000 etc. And if nothing shows, try adding a minus sign to the number. It will help if you know how you’ve arranged your monitors within windows 👍

[@hoganzeros3572]

@@Smugwood thanks a lot, man! I'm not home now but I know my 3 monitors are all beside each other and touching each other in windows settings with the tops of them all at the exact same height.

[@Swanseaguy1979]

Beautiful cab, very impressed. Can I ask what size all three monitors were?

[@Smugwood]

I’ll have to check. Think the play field is 40 or 42. The other 2 I’m not sure without measuring.

[@CharlieEdward25]

Great follow up trying to put my wide body build together i am more software side if u ever need help

[@CharlieEdward25]

Need them vpx tables

[@Smugwood]

Thanks. More than likely it’ll just be FX3 tables to keep things simple. Windows updates so many times and everytime it does I have to alter settings. Seems to reset everything so at the minute it’s not too bad just running the one setup 👍

[@CharlieEdward25]

@@Smugwood trust me i keep updated with windows 10 and never affects me and gpu your missing out on the best bit of visual pinball cabinets and that visual pinball x check out a few of my vid and u will see how they perform

[@atari2600b]

A few things: 1: HEAD TRACKING w/ Kinect 2:. Please ffs calibrate the playfield screen at least. Turn the backlight to max & then turn brightness down until blacks become black. 48-49 usually does it on these older ones.

[@Smugwood]

Experimented a bit today with those settings. And I’ll admit...looks miles better. Doesn’t always give a true view from the camcorder but in person it looks a lot better now 👍

[@atari2600b]

Called it swoosh & other catchphrase sayings of the 90s

[@atari2600b]

It's like, 100% of the realism getting the playfield calibrated, knew it'd make a difference

[@Smugwood]

There’s still more room for improvement I think. I just need to suss out the other settings and see what affect contrast etc has. Gonna experiment a bit more later. Thanks 👍

[@atari2600b]

Oh, & set picture & sound to 'game' mode. This reduces latency to below 1/60th a second. Otherwise when a frame happens, nothing. Then, the LCD renders (with a million "smart" "smoothing" features enabled), THEN, the audio happens. It's a nightmare for gaming. Also of note, 'sharpness' means the opposite of what it means, set it to 0 or middle, set gamma to what is usually 'medium', & set aspect ratio/size/whatever to 'just' or 'full'. If this were an HDR half of this stuff would be automatic but with a budget build like this it's all about the tweaking.

[@الزاحف-خ7ض]

Hi can u tell me how did u connect the dmd to pinball fx3?? When i lunch pinball fx3 the dmd dosent connect to fx3 its say pindmd.com

[@Smugwood]

Hi. Its not a DMD ive got its a tv acting as the DMD so it was just a case of hooking it up as a third monitor.

[@clearstar8354]

@@Smugwood Hi - what monitor did you use? I don't see many that fit a standard DMD cutout. Did you just put the monitor behind the 'cutout' and position the FX3 DMD using the settings in cabinet mode until it showed through the "hole"?

[@Smugwood]

@@clearstar8354 Yeah I used an old tv my parents gave me years back. FX3 cabinet mode allowed me to resize and reposition until it fitted perfectly. I do actually have a pindmd but never tried it as the tv worked fine.

[@clearstar8354]

@@Smugwood Awesome. Thanks for the reply! Great looking cab

[@Smugwood]

@@clearstar8354 😊👍

[@ethanbrazee8145]

Jesus that is one overqualified computer for a pinball machine.

[@Smugwood]

Was more about future proofing when I got it. That was a few years back. Just hoping it’ll last another few years too 😂

[@michaelleiper]

It's not the highest spec I've seen. If you look at Spacies Arcade, he's got a 8th gen i5 (recent update as he was having crashing issues with some of the larger VPX tables), with a GTX1080 for the graphics.