What you supply

vPinOps sits on top of a working Visual Pinball setup. Here is the whole list of what has to already exist.

1 · A computer

Windows, macOS or Linux. Any machine already running a cab is enough — vPinOps is a front end, and the heavy lifting is Visual Pinball’s.

On a Mac, an administrator password, once. vPinOps is not signed with an Apple developer certificate yet, so the first time you open it macOS makes you approve it in System Settings, and that approval asks for an administrator. Install on macOS walks through it.

Windows and macOS are the two we build for first, and Linux is in the works. The front end itself runs there — wheel, import, screens, launching and returning — and some of what is left is the current version of Visual Pinball’s rather than vPinOps’s. What to expect on Linux.

Not a phone and not a tablet. iOS and Android reach vPinOps through OpsLink in a browser, which is the better fit anyway: the phone’s job here is to be the remote, not to run the cabinet.

2 · Visual Pinball

Visual Pinball Standalone, the BGFX build, 10.8.1 or newer. You download it and copy it into place; vPinOps points at it and never installs it.

10.8.1 is a pre-release, and it is the one you need

Visual Pinball marks every 10.8.1 as a pre-release, and its newest stable release is still 10.8.0. vPinOps needs 10.8.1 anyway: it is the first build that lets a front end put your backglass and DMD on the right screens, which is the main thing vPinOps does. On 10.8.0, or on the older Windows-only VPinballX.exe, tables still launch and come back, but your screens cannot be placed.

The file you want, per platform, and where it goes:

	the build	where it lives
macOS	VPinballX_BGFX.app	~/vPinOpsData/visualpinball/app/
Windows	VPinballX_BGFX64.exe — not VPinballX.exe	C:\vPinOpsData\visualpinball\app\
Linux	VPinballX_BGFX	~/vPinOpsData/visualpinball/app/

Where to download it and how to point vPinOps at it is one page: Get Visual Pinball.

3 · Your tables

A table is a .vpx file — one file, one machine. Most downloads bring companions along with it, and they all belong in that table’s folder:

.directb2s	the backglass artwork, shown on your second screen
.vbs	a script some tables need to run outside Windows — see compatibility scripts
.ini	settings the table’s author shipped with it. Yours; we leave them alone

You can lay these out yourself as one folder per table, or hand the whole pile to the importer and let it build the folders for you.

vPinOps will show and launch a table from its .vpx alone — the backglass and the art are enrichment, not requirements. Whether it then plays is up to the table: one that emulates a real machine needs its ROM as well, which is next.

4 · Your ROMs

Tables that emulate a real machine need a ROM — a .zip under your PinMAME roms/ folder, still zipped. vPinOps names the ROM it could not start; it never downloads one. See ROMs, nvram and high scores.

5 · Frontend art, if you want it

Wheel logos, playfield videos, backglass and DMD art. Bring your own into medias/, or let the importer fetch defaults from vpinmediadb as a separate, re-runnable step that only fills empty slots.

Optional · Pinball FX and Pinball FX Midnight

If you own Zen’s Steam pinball games, they can sit on the wheel beside your tables. You need Steam, signed in, and the games installed through it — vPinOps never buys or installs them.

On macOS they run through a CrossOver bottle, because they are Windows builds — CrossOver only; GameHub and similar launchers are not supported yet. Windows and macOS work today; on Linux vPinOps does not find Steam yet. Full detail: Steam games.

What you do not need

• An installer. vPinOps is a folder you copy. There is no runtime to install first.
• A dedicated user account on Linux. Two recipes, neither needs one.
• To rebind anything. Visual Pinball’s keys work out of the gate, and they are the ones a cabinet is already wired for — see controls.