FAQ
Is it out yet?
Section titled “Is it out yet?”Yes. v1.0 is out — Releases has the downloads for Windows, macOS and Linux, and Getting started takes you from the download to a table on the wheel. Found something wrong? tell us what breaks.
What does it run on?
Section titled “What does it run on?”Windows and macOS, with Linux in the works. Any computer already running a cab is enough.
On Linux it is used on a dedicated cabinet under KDE Plasma and under Hyprland on Arch Linux (Omarchy), and those are the two desktops it is known on. Steam games are not found there yet, and some of what is left belongs to the current version of Visual Pinball rather than to vPinOps — see Install on Linux. Smaller platform differences are called out where they matter, on the page, rather than left as a dead control.
Not iOS and not Android. Your phone’s part is OpsLink, in a browser.
Why does macOS say it cannot verify vPinOps?
Section titled “Why does macOS say it cannot verify vPinOps?”Because it is not signed with an Apple developer certificate yet. macOS blocks any app like that the first time you open it, and right-clicking and choosing Open no longer gets past it. You approve it once in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway, with an administrator password, and from then on it opens normally. The steps.
Do not press Enter on that dialog. The highlighted button is Move to Trash.
Does it install Visual Pinball, ROMs or DOF for me?
Section titled “Does it install Visual Pinball, ROMs or DOF for me?”No. vPinOps is a front end, not a rig installer — it installs nothing and takes nothing over. You bring Visual Pinball, your tables and your ROMs, and vPinOps is the layer over the top.
But do not read that as “point it at your existing cabinet and it works.” vPinOps needs Visual Pinball Standalone (BGFX), 10.8.1 or newer — see what you supply. On that build, DOF, PinMAME and the backglass are plugins inside Visual Pinball, not separate programs you point us at, so an older rig is not a matter of pointing at what you have.
Does it move or rename my files?
Section titled “Does it move or rename my files?”Import copies your files into the correct folder structure, and renames the things that have to
be renamed to work: media, into the medias/ convention, and the backglass, onto a name
Visual Pinball will find. Your originals stay where they are. Move is opt-in, and is
copy → verify → delete, never a bare rename.
The .vpx keeps its own filename, and nothing you placed yourself is overwritten. When an
import would have to create a table folder on top of one that already exists, it refuses rather
than merging two tables into one — adding to a table you already have is what its Files section is for,
and it does that all day.
Will it download tables for me?
Section titled “Will it download tables for me?”No — and it will not download ROMs or backglasses either. Those are the playable pieces, and scraping them is what lets people sell cabinets pre-loaded with the community’s free work, authors uncredited.
Frontend art is different. Wheel logos, playfield videos and DMD art are cosmetic dressing, and fetching those from vpinmediadb is in scope and optional.
Where does the table information come from?
Section titled “Where does the table information come from?”VPSdb for identity — title, manufacturer, year, VPSId. vpinmediadb for media.
Does it only do Visual Pinball?
Section titled “Does it only do Visual Pinball?”No. Pinball FX and Pinball FX Midnight appear on the same wheel as ordinary entries, launch through Steam, and return you to the wheel when you quit. You own them on Steam; vPinOps finds and launches them. Windows and macOS today, Linux untested — the detail.
Do I need a cabinet?
Section titled “Do I need a cabinet?”No. Desktop mode is first-class, not a stripped-down afterthought: one screen, keyboard or gamepad. The same vPinOps serves both, and you do not install a different thing for each.
Do I have to reorganise my library first?
Section titled “Do I have to reorganise my library first?”If it is already one folder per table, no. That is the layout vPinOps reads, so point Tables at it and it is your library. The folder layout says what that looks like.
If it is a pile of files from another front end, the honest answer is one table at a time:
import takes a .vpx or a packaged .vpxz, and you add the rest of each
table’s files into the slot you choose. There are community tools that turn an old library into
.vpxz packages, and a package imports exactly as it was packed, so for a big old library that is
the route we can stand behind. A whole-folder import that guesses at everything at once is not on
the page today, on purpose.
Can I keep using my existing front end?
Section titled “Can I keep using my existing front end?”Yes. vPinOps reads the standard Visual Pinball layout and writes Visual Pinball’s own settings. It does not convert your library into a format only it understands, and nothing stops another front end reading the same folders.
Does it need internet?
Section titled “Does it need internet?”Only for optional media fetching. The app itself, OpsLink and playing are entirely local — there is no account and nothing is uploaded anywhere.
Is OpsLink reachable from outside my house?
Section titled “Is OpsLink reachable from outside my house?”No, by design. It is a local service on your own network.
What happens to my high scores?
Section titled “What happens to my high scores?”They live in nvram, next to whichever ROM folder Visual Pinball used — and that is the whole answer, because it decides whether they travel.
- Shared PinMAME folder — the scores sit on that machine, not in the table folder. Every version of the table shares them, and they do not come with you if you copy the table somewhere else.
- Per-table
pinmame/— the scores are inside the table’s own folder, so they move when it does. Each version of a machine then keeps its own, which is why your grand champion does not follow you to a newer build.
Neither is wrong; they answer different questions. Details: ROMs, nvram and high scores.
How much will it cost?
Section titled “How much will it cost?”Nothing. It is free, and it always will be.
vPinOps is made by a virtual pinball enthusiast, for the pinball community. There is no paid tier, no licence and nothing held back — that is not what this is for.
Where do I get it?
Section titled “Where do I get it?”Releases. It is a folder you copy — no installer, no runtime to install first — and your platform’s install page says where to put it: macOS · Windows · Linux.
How do I send feedback?
Section titled “How do I send feedback?”Use it, and say what broke or what you expected it to do. Two things make a report answerable:
- About vPinOps… from the tray or menu bar icon, then Copy details. That is the build, the platform, where the files are and the OpsLink address, in one paste.
- The run log,
last-run.log, next to your config — where that is. It names what was written to Visual Pinball before a launch and why a table was held.
Post those with what you did and what you saw, as an issue on GitHub — there is a template that asks for exactly these. Feature ideas are as welcome as bugs, and the roadmap says what is already on the list.