Visual Pinball is a pinball simulator created in 2000 by Randy Davis. It is not a console emulator but a physics simulation engine: it reproduces the behaviour of the ball, the flippers, the bumpers and the ramps on a playfield described table by table. The project went open source, and its Standalone branch brings the engine outside Windows, notably to Linux, ARM and therefore Recalbox.
Games are called tables here: they are .vpx files created by the community, either meticulous recreations of real pinball machines — the Williams, Bally, Gottlieb and Stern of the 1970s to 2000s — or entirely original creations. A table recreates the playfield in 3D, along with its rules, its sounds and its display.
For the most faithful tables, the original machine logic is provided by PinMAME, which emulates the electronics and the ROM of the real machine: this is what reproduces the exact scoring, game modes and voice callouts of the real thing.
| Project | Visual Pinball (Standalone branch) |
| Original author | Randy Davis |
| First release | 2000 |
| Game type | Pinball simulation |
| License | GPL-3.0+ |
| Controller | Mandatory |
| Keyboard | Optional |
New in Recalbox 10.1: Visual Pinball has been updated, with a sound fix, and the gamepad button layout configuration has been improved.
Emulator availability per board:
| Emulator | RPI3/RPI02W | RPI4/400 | RPI5/500 | OGA/OGS/RG351 | PC | RG353 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VPinball | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
Virtual pinball is only available on RPi5/500 and PC. The engine is too demanding for the RPi3, RPi Zero 2, RPi4 and for the OGA/OGS/RG351 and RG353 handhelds. On a Raspberry Pi 5, a well-ventilated case is strongly recommended: tables keep the GPU busy continuously.
A single emulator is offered, standalone VPinball. Netplay is not available on this system and RetroAchievements are not supported. This system has no CRT support.
Recalbox configures the engine at launch: resolution, performance profile, ancillary windows (backglass and DMD display on multi-screen PCs), image rotation on an upright cabinet and full controller mapping.
See the VPinball guide, its Usage and settings page and its FAQ for the details of every setting.
Put your tables in:
/recalbox/share/roms/vpinball/
Supported extension: .vpx
A table is a single file dropped directly into the folder; its name is the one shown in the interface.
/recalbox/share/roms/vpinball/
├── Attack from Mars (Bally 1995).vpx
└── Medieval Madness (Williams 1997).vpx
A
.vpxtable is not always enough: the ones recreating a real machine additionally require the PinMAME ROM of the original pinball, and sometimes extra packages (alternative sounds, display colourisation, backglass). Installing those files is covered by the Usage and settings page.
Tables are community creations of widely varying quality and demand: a heavy table may run fine on PC and stutter on a Raspberry Pi 5. If you hit slowdowns, try the performance profile offered in the game options before giving up on the table.