Lesson 7) Getting Ready for Stern!

Stern is making some of the best pinball machines ever made. Chances are, if you play at a local arcade you're playing a Stern machine, most of the time. So, you probably really want to learn the rules and practice on your computer. But alas, Stern is hard to get going in visual pinball. I'm going to walk you through it. Firstly, the prep...

The Stern Problem

Information seem to be rather sparse regarding the special requirements of Stern Pinball tables. When you search the vpforum site, most of the discussion seems to come from some past era when there were no Stern tables. So finding information is difficult.

I found a friend in Pincade on YouTube. He has about 21 videos and seems to be trying to do the same thing I am; help people get up and running with digital pinball. I tried but couldn't find any help getting Stern working on my visual pinball setup until I watched his video, "Visual Pinball Stern SAM table Tutorial". You can watch it if you like, and I suggest it, but I'm going to try to briefly outline what Pincade said.

Now as far as I know, SAM is a chipset used by Stern, and apparently it was a bear to implement on visual pinball. Someone did it finally though, and because of that we can now get Stern SAM tables on our computer. Here's how...

DOWNLOADS

Remember that sign-up I had you do at vpuniverse.com in Lesson 1? Well, it's going to be needed now. Go to this link (http://vpuniverse.com/forums/files/file/2480-vpinmame-sam-for-desktop-cab-pindmd1-pindmd2-pin2dmd/), and make sure you're signed in.

Okay, the choices kind of a crapshoot here, because they refer to pindmd, which I haven't heard of. Is my system pindmd, or non-pindmd? Dunno. But since I didn't intentionally install any pindmd, I'm going to start with "non". Things have changed somewhat since Pincade made his video, so we're a little on our own. At 16:30-ish he encounters a problem of his own, so we know that it's an important distinction.

Download by clicking "Download" and select download for the VPinmame Sam for non-pindmd versions.

INSTALLATION

Okay, extract the file. It's a ".rar" file instead of a ".zip". Doesn't matter. 7-Zip will extract it fine. Right-click on the ".rar" file you just downloaded. Select 7-Zip and then "Extract files...". Click OK and you're done.

Navigate to this new folder and open it. Inside are "bass.dll", "sam.vbs", and "VPinMAME.dll". So, where do they go?

The "sam.vbs" file goes in the "Tables" folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\Visual Pinball\Tables) inside the "Visual Pinball" folder. The two ".dll" files go inside the "VPinMame" folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\Visual Pinball\VPinMame) inside the "Visual Pinball" folder. I don't remember, there might be overwriting needed, especially for the "VPinMAME.dll". Don't worry if there is, approve it, because everything is gonna be all right! Better even!

Okay, so now we're all set up, ready for Stern. SO EXCITING! What game should we get first? May I make a suggestion?

Lesson 8) Installing our first Stern table, Spider-Man!

Under Construction...PLEASE let me know if you find errors or get confused somewhere!