Quest Beta 0.16

Visual Pinball X standalone for Meta Quest 3 (OpenXR, Vulkan), based on vpinball/vpinball 10.8.1.

What's new in Beta 0.16

• Mixed Reality (passthrough): new "Mixed Reality: On/Off" entry at the top of the menu. With MR on, you see your real room around the table (Quest cameras), the table and its cabinet stay solid. Switches instantly while playing, the choice is kept for all tables. The cameras are paused while MR is off (no performance cost).
  Tables with a large VR room still show it: pick their "Ultra Minimal" room (hold ☰, or the "VR Room" menu entry).

Beta 0.4 - 0.15

• Backglass for tables not built for VR: a backglass is rebuilt from the table's desktop backdrop and shown above the table, including working EM score reels (e.g. Close Encounters, BMX, Star Trek Mirror Universe, Attack from Mars). Split, overlapping or duplicated desktop backdrops are merged automatically. Can be turned off per table in the VR settings ("Backglass from Desktop Backdrop").
• Backglass art relocation: tables that place their backglass art behind the playfield for cabinet mode (e.g. Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back) get it moved to the backglass position.
• VR room switch: hold the ☰ menu button, or use the new "VR Room" entry at the top of the menu, to cycle the rooms of tables that offer a VR Room option (e.g. Medieval Madness, Lord of the Rings, Terminator 2).
• View mode on Y: left stick moves the table left/right and up/down, right stick changes its horizontal and vertical angle. Hold Y to reset the view. The angles are also in the VR settings.
• Size & distance mode moved to the left stick click.
• No more accidental players: short Start (A) presses are ignored while a ball is moving. Hold A for 1 second to confirm (e.g. in game questions). Setting: "Block Start During Play".
• The menu pauses the game (the sticks navigating the menu also nudge and plunge).
• Orange DMD: the standard VR DMD was grey/white, it now uses the DMD profile colour (orange by default).
• Standard DMD as fallback when a table hides its own DMD (e.g. VR tables with their VR room disabled), and placed above tall playfield back panels (e.g. Shrek).

Updating from an earlier beta: install over it, settings and tables are kept (same signing key).

Install

1. Sideload VPinball-QuestVR-Beta-0.16.apk (e.g. adb install -r VPinball-QuestVR-Beta-0.16.apk).
2. Put each table in its own folder, with its ROMs next to it:

   VPinball/tables/<Table name>/<table>.vpx
   VPinball/tables/<Table name>/pinmame/roms/<rom>.zip
   

3. Start VPinball (Library → Unknown Sources) and select the VPinball/tables folder in the settings.

Williams / Bally / Data East tables show "Factory settings restored" on their very first start: quit once through the menu and start again.

VR tables with the VR room disabled in their script

Some VR tables ship with Const VRRoom = 0 in their script (e.g. several VPW tables), which hides their cabinet and backglass. Put a copy of the table script next to the table as <table name>.vbs with VRRoom set to a room (usually "Ultra Minimal" is the lightest), VPX loads it instead of the built-in script.

Menu shortcuts

The first menu entries are quick switches: Mixed Reality: On/Off and VR Room: (tables with a VR Room option).

Controls

Button	During play	In the menu
Triggers	Flippers
Grips	Magna save
☰ (left menu)	Open menu (hold: next VR room)	Back / close
A	Start game (hold 1 s while a ball is moving)	Select
B	Insert coin	Back
X (hold)	Move away from the table
Y	View mode: left stick = left/right & up/down, right stick = horizontal & vertical angle (press again to save). Hold: reset view
Left stick click	Size & distance mode: left stick = distance, right stick = size (click again to save)
Right stick click	Launch ball	Reset page to defaults
Right stick up/down	Plunger
Left stick	Nudge	Navigate

Quit a table through the menu (☰ → Quit).

Changes compared to upstream VPX

• Fix: black screen on table start in VR (0x0 swapchain, upstream regression)
• Fix: audio error spam when a table's sound ROMs are missing
• No gamepad layout prompt for the Quest controllers
• Quest controller layout above, A/B act as select/back in the menu
• Persistent Vulkan pipeline cache (less stutter on later starts)
• Performance defaults: 2048x2048 per eye, no ambient occlusion, ball-only reflections, Fast FXAA
• Standard VR DMD (profile tinted) and score displays for tables not built for VR, also as a fallback when a table hides its own display
• Backglass rebuilt from the desktop backdrop (image and EM reels), backglass art relocation
• ScoreView: generated layout when no provided layout matches the machine's segment displays
• VR view modes (size/distance, position/angles), view reset, VR room cycling
• In game UI always pauses the game in VR, accidental Start protection
• Mixed reality (Quest passthrough) switchable from the menu while playing

Performance

Light tables reach 72 FPS. Large VR tables (e.g. VPW) run around 40 FPS on the Quest 3, use their "Minimal" / "Ultra Minimal" rooms for more performance.

Known issues

• Desktop backdrops that are room scenes instead of backglass art (e.g. Super Mario Brothers, Wayne's World) give an odd backglass: turn off "Backglass from Desktop Backdrop" for these tables.
• Backglass lamps of rebuilt backglasses (EM tables) are not lit.

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