jwt27 wrote:

Are you sure it's inversed? Try catching the ball with a flipper and nudging the table left and right. It does seem to go the right way for me, same as with Epic Pinball.

However I did lose the ball a few times because it went the wrong way after a nudge. But then the nudge action in MS Pinball is pretty weak anyway. On BOS the inversion was much more noticable.

It's rather screwy. I've noticed the same physics as you did:

Catch the ball with either flipper, or watch a played ball down at the bottom of the "catch trough" (I don't know what that's really called) at the bottom of the older tables, and then nudge. In this situation it does indeed appear to work the correct way.

But, try nudging while the ball is in play, and the ball is not touching or hitting anything (ESPECIALLY on the Knock Out table)... you'll see what I'm refering to. It's completely bass-ackwards 🤣!

BTW, here's the video that I was refering to -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3c9QPFiDA . Watch carefully which way the screen shakes compared to which way the ball moves <grin>.

rfnagel wrote:

But, try nudging while the ball is in play, and the ball is not touching or hitting anything (ESPECIALLY on the Knock Out table)... you'll see what I'm refering to. It's completely bass-ackwards 🤣!

Hmmm... maybe the weird effect is simply more pronounced on the Knock Out table:

Because of the ball's extremely large size (compared to other pinball tables), the table's fairly low angle, and maybe (?) the support legs on those (real-world) boxes were considerably more wobbly than more modern machines <grin>.

I suppose that I could understand/grasp the concept that in real-life physics, that if you had a really large ball, low table angle, and wobbly support legs on the cabinet, that the ball would behave like I described (nudging the table FROM the left TO the right would possibly "slide" the table UNDER the ball, causing the ball's movement to go LEFT).

Hehe, maybe that explains it 🤣!

That would make sense, yes. MS Pinball was designed to emulate the real tables as closely as possible, so that would include the physics.

But I still don't understand why they capped the framerate to only 25FPS 😐

jwt27 wrote:

But I still don't understand why they capped the framerate to only 25FPS 😐

You know, I was wondering of there was a framerate cap. I've ran the game on several PCs of varying specs, and have always noticed this little wee tiny bit of "stutter" when the ball is moving along the table.

Note that my own PC is not a screaming-demon, but I'm used to a solid 100FPS in all of the Valve GoldSource games. I've been playing them regularly for so long now (about 2 1/2 years), that MSPA looked weird to me, and NOW I know why 😀

Hmmm... wonder if there's a hex-edit hiding there somewhere within the game's DLLs and/or EXEs to remove that cap? 😀

Folks,

I recently stumbled upon this ( http://www.hugi.scene.org/online/hugise03/hug … with%20gore.htm ) refering to the old demoscene group "Future Crew":

Nevertheless they produced some games for fun, among them a pinball game and a side-scrolling shoot'em'up. When the vice president of marketing from Epic visited Finland, he saw the games and was so fascinated that he asked Future Crew to sell him their games. Once again, the sceners were reluctant, but they allowed Epic to use the concept of their pinball game. Thus, Epic Pinball was created. It was pretty much the same as Future Crew's original game, but it had different code.

Epic also managed to hire Pixel. Pixel went to the USA, where worked on the graphics for Epic Pinball. The "very nice payment" finally encouraged the remaining FC members to work for money.

So... does anyone know of a site to download the above-said "Future Crew Pinball"?

Anyone else having problems surfing over to the CyberScore web site ( http://www.cyberscore.me.uk )? Seems that the site has been offline/dissapeared for the past several days 🙁

Just a heads-up: It appears that http://www.cyberscore.me.uk is back online again (although the forums are still down) 😀

P.S. Just the other day I managed to attain 19,010,000 points on Microsoft Pinball Arcade's "Knock Out" pinball table... moving me up to a landslide of a victory of first place for the table over at CyberScore -> http://www.cyberscore.me.uk/chart/98074 😀

lolo799 wrote:

...the max hi-score possible is 4,294,967,295 or FF FF FF FF...

...which would be displayed as -1.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/epic-pinbal … iewerId,168784/

This may be a stupid question, but I didn't find an answer here or on Cyberscore. So, those of you playing Silverball, are you playing 3 ball or 5 ball games?

Really too bad I don't have my old high scores anywhere... would be nice to find out how they compare (no, I can't remember even a ballpark figure). I've played Silverball on the PC, Pinball Dreams on my Amiga CD32 and whatever the name of the pinball that came with Windows ME was called (the space table). I'm pretty sure I had decent scores in each. Oh well, got to try to repeat some of those, I suppose 😎

Another question: does anyone know what to do when some of the tables in Silverball freeze Dosbox? It's strange, the sound keeps playing but it won't accept keyboard input any more. This happens in Fantasy and Blood, but not in Odyssey. Haven't tried the other tables. Would be nice to fix it, just don't know where to look.

appas wrote:

This may be a stupid question, but I didn't find an answer here or on Cyberscore. So, those of you playing Silverball, are you playing 3 ball or 5 ball games?

Most folks (or rather, all) are playing with the maximum amount of balls (depending on game... some PB games can go higher than 5).

appas wrote:

Another question: does anyone know what to do when some of the tables in Silverball freeze Dosbox? It's strange, the sound keeps playing but it won't accept keyboard input any more. This happens in Fantasy and Blood, but not in Odyssey. Haven't tried the other tables. Would be nice to fix it, just don't know where to look.

Maybe someone can jump in here with an answer... the work fine on my PCs. Note that here is my custom DOSBox.conf for Silverball, maybe it will help:

1# This is the configurationfile for DOSBox 0.74. (Please use the latest version of DOSBox)
2# Lines starting with a # are commentlines and are ignored by DOSBox.
3# They are used to (briefly) document the effect of each option.
4
5[sdl]
6#       fullscreen: Start dosbox directly in fullscreen. (Press ALT-Enter to go back)
7#       fulldouble: Use double buffering in fullscreen. It can reduce screen flickering, but it can also result in a slow DOSBox.
8#   fullresolution: What resolution to use for fullscreen: original or fixed size (e.g. 1024x768).
9#                     Using your monitor's native resolution with aspect=true might give the best results.
10#                     If you end up with small window on a large screen, try an output different from surface.
11# windowresolution: Scale the window to this size IF the output device supports hardware scaling.
12#                     (output=surface does not!)
13#           output: What video system to use for output.
14#                   Possible values: surface, overlay, opengl, openglnb, ddraw.
15#         autolock: Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen. (Press CTRL-F10 to unlock)
16#      sensitivity: Mouse sensitivity.
17#      waitonerror: Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.
18#         priority: Priority levels for dosbox. Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.
19#                     pause is only valid for the second entry.
20#                   Possible values: lowest, lower, normal, higher, highest, pause.
21#       mapperfile: File used to load/save the key/event mappings from. Resetmapper only works with the defaul value.
22#     usescancodes: Avoid usage of symkeys, might not work on all operating systems.
23
24fullscreen=true
25fulldouble=false
26fullresolution=original
27windowresolution=640x480
28output=overlay
29autolock=true
30sensitivity=250
31waitonerror=true
32priority=normal,normal
33mapperfile=Mapper.txt
34usescancodes=true
35
36[dosbox]
37# language: Select another language file.
38#  machine: The type of machine tries to emulate.
39#           Possible values: hercules, cga, tandy, pcjr, ega, vgaonly, svga_s3, svga_et3000, svga_et4000, svga_paradise, vesa_nolfb, vesa_oldvbe.
40# captures: Directory where things like wave, midi, screenshot get captured.
41#  memsize: Amount of memory DOSBox has in megabytes.
42#             This value is best left at its default to avoid problems with some games,
43#             though few games might require a higher value.
44#             There is generally no speed advantage when raising this value.
45
46language=DOSBox.lang
47machine=svga_s3
48captures=Capture
49memsize=16
50
51[render]
52# frameskip: How many frames DOSBox skips before drawing one.
53#    aspect: Do aspect correction, if your output method doesn't support scaling this can slow things down!.
54#    scaler: Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes.
55#              If 'forced' is appended, then the scaler will be used even if the result might not be desired.
56#            Possible values: none, normal2x, normal3x, advmame2x, advmame3x, advinterp2x, advinterp3x, hq2x, hq3x, 2xsai, super2xsai, supereagle, tv2x, tv3x, rgb2x, rgb3x, scan2x, scan3x.
57
58frameskip=0
59aspect=false
60scaler=normal2x

61
62[cpu]
63#      core: CPU Core used in emulation. auto will switch to dynamic if available and appropriate.
64#            Possible values: auto, dynamic, normal, simple.
65#   cputype: CPU Type used in emulation. auto is the fastest choice.
66#            Possible values: auto, 386, 386_slow, 486_slow, pentium_slow, 386_prefetch.
67#    cycles: Amount of instructions DOSBox tries to emulate each millisecond.
68#            Setting this value too high results in sound dropouts and lags.
69#            Cycles can be set in 3 ways:
70#              'auto'          tries to guess what a game needs.
71#                              It usually works, but can fail for certain games.
72#              'fixed #number' will set a fixed amount of cycles. This is what you usually need if 'auto' fails.
73#                              (Example: fixed 4000).
74#              'max'           will allocate as much cycles as your computer is able to handle.
75#            
76#            Possible values: auto, fixed, max.
77#   cycleup: Amount of cycles to decrease/increase with keycombo.(CTRL-F11/CTRL-F12)
78# cycledown: Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.
79
80core=auto
81cputype=auto
82cycles=max
83cycleup=10
84cycledown=20
85
86[mixer]
87#   nosound: Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.
88#      rate: Mixer sample rate, setting any device's rate higher than this will probably lower their sound quality.
89#            Possible values: 44100, 48000, 32000, 22050, 16000, 11025, 8000, 49716.
90# blocksize: Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering but sound will also be more lagged.
91#            Possible values: 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 512, 256.
92# prebuffer: How many milliseconds of data to keep on top of the blocksize.
93
94nosound=false
95rate=44100
96blocksize=1024
97prebuffer=20
98
99[midi]
100#     mpu401: Type of MPU-401 to emulate.
101#             Possible values: intelligent, uart, none.
102# mididevice: Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.
103#             Possible values: default, win32, alsa, oss, coreaudio, coremidi, none.
104# midiconfig: Special configuration options for the device driver. This is usually the id of the device you want to use.
105#               See the README/Manual for more details.
106
107mpu401=none
108mididevice=none
109midiconfig=
110
111[sblaster]
112#  sbtype: Type of Soundblaster to emulate. gb is Gameblaster.
113#          Possible values: sb1, sb2, sbpro1, sbpro2, sb16, gb, none.
114#  sbbase: The IO address of the soundblaster.
115#          Possible values: 220, 240, 260, 280, 2a0, 2c0, 2e0, 300.
116#     irq: The IRQ number of the soundblaster.
117#          Possible values: 7, 5, 3, 9, 10, 11, 12.
118#     dma: The DMA number of the soundblaster.
119#          Possible values: 1, 5, 0, 3, 6, 7.
120#    hdma: The High DMA number of the soundblaster.
121#          Possible values: 1, 5, 0, 3, 6, 7.
122# sbmixer: Allow the soundblaster mixer to modify the DOSBox mixer.
123# oplmode: Type of OPL emulation. On 'auto' the mode is determined by sblaster type. All OPL modes are Adlib-compatible, except for 'cms'.
124#          Possible values: auto, cms, opl2, dualopl2, opl3, none.
125#  oplemu: Provider for the OPL emulation. compat might provide better quality (see oplrate as well).
126#          Possible values: default, compat, fast.
127# oplrate: Sample rate of OPL music emulation. Use 49716 for highest quality (set the mixer rate accordingly).
128#          Possible values: 44100, 49716, 48000, 32000, 22050, 16000, 11025, 8000.
129
130sbtype=sb16
131sbbase=220
132irq=5
133dma=1
134hdma=5
135sbmixer=true
136oplmode=none
137oplemu=default
138oplrate=44100
139
140[gus]
141#      gus: Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.
142#  gusrate: Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.
143#           Possible values: 44100, 48000, 32000, 22050, 16000, 11025, 8000, 49716.
144#  gusbase: The IO base address of the Gravis Ultrasound.
145#           Possible values: 240, 220, 260, 280, 2a0, 2c0, 2e0, 300.
146#   gusirq: The IRQ number of the Gravis Ultrasound.
147#           Possible values: 5, 3, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12.
148#   gusdma: The DMA channel of the Gravis Ultrasound.
149#           Possible values: 3, 0, 1, 5, 6, 7.
150# ultradir: Path to Ultrasound directory. In this directory
151#           there should be a MIDI directory that contains
152#           the patch files for GUS playback. Patch sets used
153#           with Timidity should work fine.
154
155gus=true
156gusrate=44100
157gusbase=240
158gusirq=7
159gusdma=3
160ultradir=C:\ULTRASND
161
162[speaker]
163# pcspeaker: Enable PC-Speaker emulation.
164#    pcrate: Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.
165#            Possible values: 44100, 48000, 32000, 22050, 16000, 11025, 8000, 49716.
166#     tandy: Enable Tandy Sound System emulation. For 'auto', emulation is present only if machine is set to 'tandy'.
167#            Possible values: auto, on, off.
168# tandyrate: Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.
169#            Possible values: 44100, 48000, 32000, 22050, 16000, 11025, 8000, 49716.
170#    disney: Enable Disney Sound Source emulation. (Covox Voice Master and Speech Thing compatible).
171
172pcspeaker=true
173pcrate=44100
174tandy=off
175tandyrate=44100
176disney=false
177
178[joystick]
179# joysticktype: Type of joystick to emulate: auto (default), none,
180#               2axis (supports two joysticks),
181#               4axis (supports one joystick, first joystick used),
182#               4axis_2 (supports one joystick, second joystick used),
183#               fcs (Thrustmaster), ch (CH Flightstick).
184#               none disables joystick emulation.
185#               auto chooses emulation depending on real joystick(s).
186#               (Remember to reset dosbox's mapperfile if you saved it earlier)
187#               Possible values: auto, 2axis, 4axis, 4axis_2, fcs, ch, none.
188#        timed: enable timed intervals for axis. Experiment with this option, if your joystick drifts (away).
189#     autofire: continuously fires as long as you keep the button pressed.
190#       swap34: swap the 3rd and the 4th axis. can be useful for certain joysticks.
191#   buttonwrap: enable button wrapping at the number of emulated buttons.
192
193joysticktype=ch
194timed=true
195autofire=false
196swap34=true
197buttonwrap=false
198
199[serial]
200# serial1: set type of device connected to com port.
201#          Can be disabled, dummy, modem, nullmodem, directserial.
202#          Additional parameters must be in the same line in the form of
203#          parameter:value. Parameter for all types is irq (optional).
204#          for directserial: realport (required), rxdelay (optional).
205#                           (realport:COM1 realport:ttyS0).
206#          for modem: listenport (optional).
207#          for nullmodem: server, rxdelay, txdelay, telnet, usedtr,
208#                         transparent, port, inhsocket (all optional).
209#          Example: serial1=modem listenport:5000
210#          Possible values: dummy, disabled, modem, nullmodem, directserial.
211# serial2: see serial1
212#          Possible values: dummy, disabled, modem, nullmodem, directserial.
213# serial3: see serial1
214#          Possible values: dummy, disabled, modem, nullmodem, directserial.
215# serial4: see serial1
216#          Possible values: dummy, disabled, modem, nullmodem, directserial.
217
218serial1=disabled
219serial2=disabled
220serial3=disabled
221serial4=disabled
222
223[dos]
224#            xms: Enable XMS support.
225#            ems: Enable EMS support.
226#            umb: Enable UMB support.
227# keyboardlayout: Language code of the keyboard layout (or none).
228
229xms=false
230ems=false
231umb=false
232keyboardlayout=auto
233
234[ipx]
235# ipx: Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation.
236
237ipx=false
238
239[autoexec]
240# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
241# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
242@ECHO OFF
243MOUNT C C:\GAMES -FREESIZE 1000
244VER SET 7 10
245SET PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\FED;GM_RESET;C:\NC;C:\NE;C:\NU;C:\PATH;C:\PKZIP;C:\TEMP;Z:\
246SET TEMP=C:\TEMP
247SET TMP=C:\TEMP
248C:
249CD EMGPBALL
250CALL EMGPBALL.BAT
251EXIT

rfnagel wrote:

Most folks (or rather, all) are playing with the maximum amount of balls (depending on game... some PB games can go higher than 5).

Huh... I've played with 3, because it's the default setting (plus I think many actual pinball machines have 3). Of course, 5 evens out some of the random elements involved. Well I was able to break the record for the Odyssey table with 3.

Do you use SB or GUS for sound?
edit: nevermind, I tried with GUS and it still freezes up.

appas wrote:

Well I was able to break the record for the Odyssey table with 3.

WOW! GOOD ONE! 😀 Hehe, much better than my measly score using 5 balls 😀

appas wrote:

Do you use SB or GUS for sound? edit: nevermind, I tried with GUS and it still freezes up.

Yeah, I have SB configured for GUS in DOSBox. That one, as well as the original shareware release of the Epic Pinball "Android" table, as they sound quite a bit better when using the GUS for audio output verses the SB.

All of the other Epic Pinball packs and tables (as well as Extreme Pinball), I use SB.

P.S. Check your PMs here at VOGONS 😀

Thanks for the advice, but it seems like the cause of my problems is some weird combined effect of my machine and software that goes beyond dosbox and its config, because Blood still stalls intermittently and Fantasy will freeze the emulator completely.

I think I'll install an Amiga emulator and Pinball Fantasies, next... 😉

Oh, is there any way to add a comment to a Cyberscore record after it's been submitted? Thought I'd add a mention of the ball count to my Odyssey one, but didn't find a way to do it. I noticed that the Pinball Fantasies records are divided into two categories, 3 balls and 5 balls. I think this would be the best for Silverball, as well...

appas wrote:

Thanks for the advice, but it seems like the cause of my problems is some weird combined effect of my machine and software that goes beyond dosbox and its config, because Blood still stalls intermittently and Fantasy will freeze the emulator completely.

That is quite strange indeed. I'm wondering if it's possibly some sort of conflict/incompatability with DOSBox and your actual PC (verses a problem with SilverBall).

I myself run all of the Epic Megagames pinbla games under DOSBox on 4 different PCs of varying specs with no problems. The lowest being this old archaic laptop (1.6GHz Intel Mobile CPU/1GB RAM), and the fastest being a 3GHz Intel dual core CPU/4GB RAM.

Note though that ALL of the PCs on the property are all running Windows XP Pro w/SP3.

appas wrote:

Oh, is there any way to add a comment to a Cyberscore record after it's been submitted? Thought I'd add a mention of the ball count to my Odyssey one, but didn't find a way to do it.

No, there's no way to to do that, you have to add a comment when submitting a score. You could always simply resubmit your score though.

appas wrote:

I noticed that the Pinball Fantasies records are divided into two categories, 3 balls and 5 balls. I think this would be the best for Silverball, as well...

That sounds like a good idea. You might want to post a message in the forums asking for that addition.

P.S. I added you to my friends list over at Cyberscore 😀

rfnagel wrote:

That is quite strange indeed. I'm wondering if it's possibly some sort of conflict/incompatability with DOSBox and your actual PC (verses a problem with SilverBall).
[...]
Note though that ALL of the PCs on the property are all running Windows XP Pro w/SP3.

Yeah, could be an issue with the Linux version of Dosbox. I have a Samsung N145 Plus netbook, running Crunchbang, a Debian-based distro.
I tried Pinball Fantasies on it. The Amiga emulation (FS-UAE) is seemingly too difficult for this machine to run smoothly, and the DOS version under DOSBox has some glitches that make it unplayable (left paddle button will sometimes activate the right paddle, for instance). I was also unable to remap keys using the key mapper. They'd change in Mapper.txt, but wouldn't affect the game. I wanted to make them the same as Silverball.
Too bad I don't have pictures of my old records... I remember beating the built-in 100M hiscores on at least Speed Devils and Partyland. Then again, I have a friend who's got better scores on both, and over 150M on Stones'n'Bones.

rfnagel wrote:

appas wrote:

I noticed that the Pinball Fantasies records are divided into two categories, 3 balls and 5 balls. I think this would be the best for Silverball, as well...

That sounds like a good idea. You might want to post a message in the forums asking for that addition.

Well I posted about it on the forums. Too bad two of the existing high scores don't have comments about the ball count.

rfnagel wrote:

P.S. I added you to my friends list over at Cyberscore 😀

Funny, I couldn't find any notification about this on the site - but I added you as well!

A diversion:

At one time, I played this intensely. Can't remember numbers, but I had a pretty good score. Kinda surprised there's no Cyberscore entry 😐

appas wrote:

A diversion: http://i.imgur.com/6fZD1jg.jpg […]
Show full quote

A diversion:

Hehe, funny 🤣! 😀 A scary thing though, how many critical day-to-day machines are ALL running SOME FORM of WinDoZe (BUGGY) OS 🤣! I couldn't count how many times I've been in our local Home Depot store, and seen at least one of their self-checkout machines stuck/hung up at a WinDoZe desktop.

appas wrote:

At one time, I played this intensely. Can't remember numbers, but I had a pretty good score. Kinda surprised there's no Cyberscore entry 😐

I seem to remember reading a topic over in the CS forums about why they didn't/wouldn't add Space Cadet to the CS roster, but I can't remember the details of the messages by the moderators.