The open-source pinball simulator a whole community builds its tables in.
That One Thing
It is a full table editor as well as a player: the same program that runs a table opens it up, so you can move a bumper, rewrite a rule in its VBScript and play the result seconds later.
Visual Pinball X, almost always just VPX, is the open-source simulator that most of the virtual pinball world runs on. Randy Davis created Visual Pinball and released its source in 2010; a volunteer team has carried it forward since, through the VPX line that began in 2015 and the 10.8 releases that finally made it a native program on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.
What it simulates is physics, not animation. The ball has mass and spin, rubbers and slingshots have elasticity, flippers have strength and return speed, and you can nudge the cabinet to rescue a ball heading for the outlane, with a tilt bob waiting if you overdo it. Tables are built as real playfields in 3D, with their rules written in VBScript, so a well-made table behaves the way its designer intended rather than the way a canned animation dictates.
It is also an editor. The same program that plays a table opens it for editing: move a post, change a ramp, adjust a rule, and play the change straight away. That is why VPX has the community it does. Hundreds of authors have built tables in it, from careful recreations of real machines to entirely original designs with their own art, music and wizard modes.
It scales from a laptop to a full cabinet. On a desktop you play from a fixed camera with keyboard or gamepad. Cabinet builders run it across multiple screens with a backglass and a dot-matrix display, wire up dedicated pinball controllers and force feedback, and VR headset owners can stand in front of the machine. Up to four players can share a game by taking turns, as on a real machine.
PlayBound installs the simulator in one click on Windows, macOS and Linux, and Play starts the example table that ships with it, so you have something to play straight away.
The honest catches. One click gets you the simulator and its example table, not a library: other tables come from their authors, mostly through VPUniverse and VPinball.com, which require a free account to download. Many popular tables recreate real commercial machines and need ROM files that are copyrighted and that PlayBound does not supply; original tables need none. Tables vary wildly in quality and size, some over a gigabyte with extra media packs. The developers publish no hardware requirements, and the 10.8.1 builds on GitHub are pre-releases marked not for general use, so PlayBound installs the stable 10.8.0.
For PlayBound it is the foundation of pinball on the site: a free, open engine that will run tables for as long as people make them, and the place we will add tables whose authors let us carry them.
We picked Visual Pinball X because PlayBound wants pinball that belongs to its players. VPX is free, open source and maintained by volunteers, runs natively on every desktop platform, and turns a whole community's work into something you can play. Starting from the simulator lets us add original tables one at a time, with their authors' permission, instead of renting tables from a storefront.
Great if you want
Look elsewhere if
Checking…
Minimum
Not published by the developers. From the stable 10.8.0 builds: Windows 64-bit or 32-bit (OpenGL build); macOS on Apple Silicon or Intel; Linux x64 (also Raspberry Pi and RK3588 ARM builds). A GPU with current OpenGL drivers. CPU, RAM and VRAM figures are not published. Disk: about 60 MB for the simulator on Windows (37 MB download); tables are extra, from a few MB to over 1 GB each.
Recommended
Not published by the developers for any platform. Heavily detailed modern tables and VR need a dedicated GPU; the team publishes no figures.
Yes. It is free and open source, mostly under GPLv3+, with the rest of the code under an older MAME-style non-commercial licence.
One playable example table ships with the simulator, plus a blank table and calibration tables. Other tables come from their authors; PlayBound will add original tables whose authors give permission.
Only for tables that recreate real commercial machines through PinMAME. Those ROMs are copyrighted and PlayBound does not supply them. Original tables need no ROM.
The stable 10.8.0. The 10.8.1 builds on GitHub are pre-releases the developers mark as not for general use.
Yes. VPX supports gamepads and dedicated pinball controllers, as well as keyboard. Map them in the settings with F12.
Yes, natively since 10.8: Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, and Linux x64 plus Raspberry Pi and RK3588 ARM builds. On iOS there is a free App Store app.
Local only: up to four players take turns on one machine. For friends elsewhere, use a PlayBound couch session.
Yes. Visual Pinball X supports up to 4 players. You can play together on one PC with phones or extra gamepads as controllers. PlayBound Connect handles the setup: start a party with your friends, pick how you want to play, and everyone launches into the same game from the PlayBound launcher. It also supports hotseat play. There is no subscription and no paid multiplayer tier.
Community
Official Discord
No verified official Discord has been submitted.
Developers can contact PlayBound to verify an official community link.
PlayBound Discord
Chat with PlayBound players in #visual-pinball-x.
Join #visual-pinball-x ↗
Solved this in Discord? Post the fix here so the next player can find it.
Nothing scheduled yet. Bring your friends together for a game night.
Create eventSign in to publish a community event, or start a party and play now.
Start a party →Activity
0
playing now
Top Players
Updated every 15 minutes
