libretro/emulators/future-pinball.yml

emulator: future-pinball
type: standalone
core_classification: game_engine
source: "https://futurepinball.com/"
upstream: closed-source
profiled_date: "2026-08-11"
core_version: "1.9.1.20101231"
display_name: "Future Pinball"
cores:
  - fpinball
  - future-pinball
systems:
  - fpinball
mode: standalone

notes: |
  Closed-source Windows pinball simulator and table editor written by Chris
  Leathley for BSP Software Design Solutions. Development stopped with
  v1.9.1.20101231, still served from futurepinball.com. Rendering is OpenGL
  (88 imports from opengl32 and 4 from glu32); ddraw is loaded by name only to
  call DirectDrawCreateEx while enumerating display modes. Physics come from
  Newton Game Dynamics, audio from FMOD 3, image decoding from DevIL and the
  script editor from Scintilla. The binary registers its own type library at
  startup through LoadTypeLib and RegisterTypeLib on its own path, which is the
  registration RetroBat checks under TypeLib\{FB22A459-4AD0-4CB3-B959-15158F7139F5}
  before deciding to relaunch elevated.
  ref: Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 import directory, .text:0x0042c7a2-0x0042c82e

  The release is named 1.9.1.20101231 but the executable inside it carries
  FileVersion 1.9.2008.1225 in its version resource and prints
  "Version 1.9.1.20091231" in its own banner.
  ref: Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .rsrc version, .text:0x0043d288-0x0043d298

  Every relative path below hangs off one root. At startup GetModuleFileNameA
  fills a buffer, the code scans back to the last backslash and terminates the
  string just after it, and that install directory with its trailing separator
  is kept for the life of the process.
  ref: Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x00432af0-0x00432b49

  A table is an OLE compound document with the .fpt extension and it carries
  its own media. Every FMOD load passes FSOUND_LOADMEMORY (mode 0x8130 for
  samples, 0x4000a130 for streams) and images go through ilLoadL, the memory
  lump entry point, never ilLoadImage. So sounds, music and textures are read
  out of the table file and no external media is opened while a table plays.
  ref: Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x00457ede,0x00457f6f,0x00457fe6,0x0045805b,0x004417f6

  What a table can pull from outside itself is a resource library. Libraries
  are .fpl files, also OLE compound documents, holding models, textures, sounds,
  DMD fonts and scripts under one storage per item. The Texture, Sound, Model
  and DMD Font managers each offer Import, which copies the item into the table,
  and Link, which records the library name and the item name instead; the manual
  recommends always linking to the shipped model library. A linked library is
  opened by StgOpenStorage on the name as written, which resolves against the
  table's own folder, and on failure against the install directory plus
  "Libraries\". Both failing raises "Unabled to Open Library - '<name>'" followed
  by "There will be some functions missing from the game." as a warning box, and
  the program carries on.
  ref: Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004e6cf0-0x004e6ebf, .rsrc string 149-150,
  Future Pinball Manual.chm LibraryResourceManager.html, ModelManager.html, TextureManager.html,
  SoundManager.html, FontManager.html

  A table script reaches outside itself through LoadExternalScript, whose result
  is handed to VBScript's ExecuteGlobal. When the reference ends in .fpl the
  script is pulled from that library, otherwise the name is tried as given
  against the working directory, then under the install directory with the
  "Scripts\" prefix, then with "Tables\", and a miss reports
  "Unable to load external script". No Scripts directory ships, so what it holds
  is whatever a given table asks for.
  ref: Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004797c0-0x00479905, 0x00478be0-0x00478c66,
  0x00478d20, Future Pinball Manual.chm GlobalScript.html

  Settings live in the registry under HKCU\Software\Future Pinball, split into
  GamePlayer, GamePlayer\Joypads and Editor keys; there is no ini file.
  RetroBat writes resolution, aspect ratio, camera, render preset and the whole
  joypad map there before launching. Per table state is written to
  fpRAM\<table>.fpRAM beside the program. Nothing in the program verifies a size
  or a hash on any file it opens, so the figures recorded below are those of the
  1.9.1.20101231 release and are informative.
  ref: Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x0043aa80,0x00475602,0x00475892,
  retrobat emulatorLauncher/Generators/Fpinball.Generator.cs:326-491

  Front ends drive it with the documented switches /Open "<table>", /Play, /Exit
  and /ArcadeRender. ES-DE declares it for Windows only, as FUTURE-PINBALL
  finding "Future Pinball.exe" and as FUTURE-PINBALL-FPLOADER finding
  "BAM\FPLoader.exe", both invoked with /Exit /Play /Open; the fpinball system
  is a placeholder on its six other platforms. RetroBat maps the emulator keys
  fpinball and bam to one generator, one install folder and the same
  "Future Pinball.exe" presence check, swapping only the launched binary, and
  optionally starts dmdext against DmdDevice.ini to mirror the DMD. Batocera ran
  it in a wine bottle on x86_64 and dropped it for Visual Pinball. BAM is
  ravarcade's loader: FPLoader.exe starts the same executable with BAM.dll
  injected, and it names none of its own files from inside Future Pinball.
  ref: es-de resources/systems/windows/es_find_rules.xml:438-461,
  es-de resources/systems/windows/es_systems.xml, Future Pinball Manual.chm CommandLine.html,
  retrobat emulatorLauncher/Generators/Fpinball.Generator.cs:109-181,
  batocera-linux batocera-Changelog.md:214

files:

  # -- Bound in the import directory, so the loader resolves them before any
  #    Future Pinball code runs. A cold start opens these six and SciLexer,
  #    nothing else, in the program directory.

  - name: Newton.dll
    system: fpinball
    required: true
    bundled: true
    size: 446464
    description: "Newton Game Dynamics, the rigid body solver under the ball physics"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 import directory"
    note: >-
      83 functions are bound from it, the largest third party surface in the
      binary. The process does not start without it.

  - name: fmod.dll
    system: fpinball
    required: true
    bundled: true
    size: 162816
    description: "FMOD 3 audio engine"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 import directory"
    note: >-
      22 functions bound, FSOUND_Init through the sample and stream calls. Every
      one of those calls passes FSOUND_LOADMEMORY, so it decodes the table's own
      buffers rather than reading files.

  - name: devil.dll
    system: fpinball
    aliases:
      - DevIL.dll
    required: true
    bundled: true
    size: 269312
    description: "DevIL image decoder"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 import directory"
    note: >-
      8 functions bound, ilInit through ilLoadL. Spelled DevIL.dll in the import
      descriptors and shipped lowercase, which the case insensitive loader treats
      as one name.

  - name: ilu.dll
    system: fpinball
    aliases:
      - ILU.dll
    required: true
    bundled: true
    size: 27648
    description: "DevIL image utility library, scaling and canvas resize"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 import directory"
    note: >-
      4 functions bound: iluInit, iluScale, iluEnlargeCanvas and
      iluImageParameter, used to fit imported artwork to texture dimensions.

  - name: ilut.dll
    system: fpinball
    aliases:
      - ILUT.dll
    required: true
    bundled: true
    size: 16384
    description: "DevIL toolkit layer, image to Windows bitmap conversion"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 import directory"
    note: >-
      3 functions bound: ilutRenderer, ilutConvertToHBitmap and ilutGetBmpInfo,
      which produce the preview bitmaps the editor's manager windows draw.

  - name: libcurl.dll
    system: fpinball
    required: true
    bundled: true
    size: 626688
    description: "HTTP client for the table feed"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 import directory, .text:0x0043dc70"
    note: >-
      Only four functions are bound, curl_easy_init, setopt, perform and cleanup,
      and the single use is fetching the table list from
      http://www.pinsimdb.org/fpreleases/backend_xml.php under the user agent
      FuturePinball-agent/1.0. The binding is static all the same, so the process
      still refuses to start without the file.

  - name: SciLexer.dll
    system: fpinball
    required: false
    bundled: true
    size: 407552
    description: "Scintilla, the editing control behind the table script editor"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x0042c501-0x0042c528"
    note: >-
      The one library taken with LoadLibraryA rather than the import directory.
      A null return puts up "The Scintilla DLL could not be loaded.", stores a
      null handle and falls through to the rest of startup, so the program runs
      and only the script editor is lost.

  # -- Resource libraries, resolved against the table's folder then against
  #    <install>\Libraries. Shipped names all start with fp and the manual asks
  #    designers not to modify them, because a release replaces them.

  - name: fpModels.fpl
    system: fpinball
    path: "Libraries/fpModels.fpl"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    category: game_data
    size: 5166080
    description: "260 pinball part models, the library the manual tells tables to link"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004e6cf0-0x004e6ebf, Future Pinball Manual.chm ModelManager.html"
    note: >-
      Models cannot be authored outside the development team, so a table that
      wants a bumper cap or a flipper bat either embeds a copy or links here, and
      the Model Manager documents linking as the recommended choice. Absent, the
      table still loads and every model it linked is missing.

  - name: fpTextures.fpl
    system: fpinball
    path: "Libraries/fpTextures.fpl"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    category: game_data
    size: 3495424
    description: "90 textures for the standard table objects"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004e6cf0-0x004e6ebf, Future Pinball Manual.chm TextureManager.html"
    note: >-
      Carries the surface art the built in parts expect, bulbs, triggers,
      plungers and the rest. Resolved the same way as every other library.

  - name: fpRamps.fpl
    system: fpinball
    path: "Libraries/fpRamps.fpl"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    category: game_data
    size: 2813440
    description: "82 ramp models, keyed by profile, width and height"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004e6cf0-0x004e6ebf"
    note: >-
      Storage names encode the shape and the dimensions, ramp-pool-t1_w30_h20
      and so on, with a left and a right variant of each.

  - name: fpSounds.fpl
    system: fpinball
    path: "Libraries/fpSounds.fpl"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    category: game_data
    size: 170496
    description: "20 machine sounds, ball release, bumpers, coin in and the rest"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004e6cf0-0x004e6ebf, Future Pinball Manual.chm SoundManager.html"

  - name: fpSphereMaps.fpl
    system: fpinball
    path: "Libraries/fpSphereMaps.fpl"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    category: game_data
    size: 223744
    description: "11 sphere maps giving metal and plastic parts their reflections"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004e6cf0-0x004e6ebf"
    note: >-
      Storage names are bracketed, [chrome-silver], [chrome-gold] and similar,
      which is how a material references one.

  - name: fpDmdFonts.fpl
    system: fpinball
    path: "Libraries/fpDmdFonts.fpl"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    category: game_data
    size: 58880
    description: "6 dot matrix fonts, named for their cell size"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004e6cf0-0x004e6ebf, Future Pinball Manual.chm FontManager.html"
    note: >-
      dmd05x05p through dmd08x13p. A DMD display element with no font draws
      nothing.

  - name: fpPlayfields.fpl
    system: fpinball
    path: "Libraries/fpPlayfields.fpl"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    category: game_data
    size: 364032
    description: "3 playfield images, including the plunger cutout template"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004e6cf0-0x004e6ebf"

  - name: fpScripts.fpl
    system: fpinball
    path: "Libraries/fpScripts.fpl"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    category: game_data
    size: 4096
    description: "Script library, holding the one sample script the manual quotes"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x00478d20, Future Pinball Manual.chm GlobalScript.html"
    note: >-
      The manual's worked example is
      ExecuteGlobal LoadExternalScript("fpScripts.fpl\myscript"), which is the
      branch taken when a reference carries the .fpl extension. What ships is a
      single storage named testscript.

  # -- Named individually elsewhere in the binary --

  - name: NewTable.fpt
    system: fpinball
    required: false
    bundled: true
    category: game_data
    size: 226816
    description: "Template opened by File then New"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x00448ea9-0x00448edb"
    note: >-
      The install directory is copied into the default table path buffer and this
      name appended, then the result goes through the ordinary table open. It is
      a full table with a playfield and a plunger, not an empty document.

  - name: Future Pinball Manual.chm
    system: fpinball
    path: "Help/Future Pinball Manual.chm"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    size: 8992653
    description: "Development guide, 79 topics"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x00478477-0x004784c4"
    note: >-
      Opened with ShellExecuteA on the install directory plus this path when the
      help command carries id 0x8043. It is the only description of the library
      link mechanism and of LoadExternalScript.

  - name: Script56.chm
    system: fpinball
    path: "Help/Script56.chm"
    required: false
    description: "Microsoft Windows Script 5.6 documentation, the VBScript reference"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004784a3-0x004784c4"
    note: >-
      The script editor's help falls to this path for every command id other
      than 0x8043, again through ShellExecuteA against the install directory. No
      Future Pinball release ships it: table scripts are VBScript and this is
      Microsoft's own reference for the language, expected to be dropped into
      Help beside the manual.

  - name: fpLatestTables.xml
    system: fpinball
    path: "Feeds/fpLatestTables.xml"
    required: false
    bundled: true
    size: 752639
    description: "Cached table list from pinsimdb.org"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x0043dc70-0x0043dc99, 0x0043e776-0x0043e79c"
    note: >-
      libcurl writes it, CreateFileA with OPEN_EXISTING reads it back and
      DeleteFileA drops it when the panel refreshes. The code builds the path as
      feeds\ against a directory the installer creates as Feeds. A snapshot ships
      with the release, so the panel has something to show before any fetch.

  # -- Outside the program directory --

  - name: NPClient.dll
    system: fpinball
    required: false
    description: "NaturalPoint TrackIR client library, head tracking"
    source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x0045f1b8-0x0045f1f8"
    note: >-
      The directory is read from HKCU\Software\NaturalPoint\NATURALPOINT\NPClient
      Location, this name appended and the result given to LoadLibraryA;
      NP_GetSignature and the rest are then bound with GetProcAddress. A null
      handle jumps past all tracking setup. It comes from a TrackIR install, not
      from any Future Pinball distribution, which is why no path is given here.

analysis:
  shipped_with_the_binary:
    note: >-
      Present in the release and read by the program, but named at runtime rather
      than by a literal in the code, so there is no fixed filename to record.
    entries:
      - what: "Tables\\, four demonstration tables"
        source_ref: "FuturePinballSetup_v1.9.1.20101231.exe app/Tables"
        note: >-
          DmdDisplayDemo.fpt, LightSequencerDemo.fpt, Ramp-VUK-Demo.fpt and
          SegmentDisplayDemo.fpt. The directory itself is the default table path
          and the last prefix the external script resolver tries.
      - what: "Feeds\\, 385 table screenshots"
        source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x0043d60f"
        note: >-
          Named st_<id>_<n>_<n>.jpg from the entries of fpLatestTables.xml and
          fetched with the same libcurl path, so the set changes with the feed.

  user_supplied_paths:
    note: "Named by a table or written by the program, with no fixed filename"
    entries:
      - what: "external table scripts, tried bare then under Scripts\\ then Tables\\"
        source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004797c0-0x00479905, 0x00478be0"
        note: >-
          LoadExternalScript takes whatever name the table's script passes. The
          bare attempt resolves against the working directory, which is the
          table's own folder. No Scripts directory ships.
      - what: "fpRAM\\<table>.fpRAM, per table persistent state"
        source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x0043aa80, 0x00475602, 0x00475892"
        note: >-
          Built as the prefix, the table name and the .fpRAM extension. Written
          from play, so it is save data rather than something to obtain. The
          installer creates the directory empty.
      - what: "DmdFonts\\ and Models\\, editor working directories"
        source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x00443595, 0x00443efc, 0x00516ba8, 0x00516d31, 0x00441fc8, 0x004429bb, 0x004317fa"
        note: >-
          Each site only fills the initial directory of a GetOpenFileName or
          GetSaveFileName call in the DMD font and model import and export
          dialogs, so nothing is read until the user picks a file. DmdFonts ships
          empty and Models is not created at all. Fonts carry .dmdf and models
          .fpm, both authored rather than distributed.

  named_but_not_read:
    note: "String literals that survive a path scan without ever reaching a file"
    entries:
      - what: "skin\\toolbar.bmp"
        source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x00438ff5, 0x00448ba0, 0x00432240-0x00432290"
        note: >-
          Passed to the toolbar builder, which calls CreateToolbarEx with
          hBMInst zero and a bitmap handle held in a global as wBMID. The module
          has no resource under that name and neither syscall trace shows an open
          for it, although both traces reach the main window.
      - what: "tables\\ in lower case"
        source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x00439e40-0x00439e79"
        note: >-
          Searched for inside a feed URL and skipped past to recover the table
          name, with the literal opps as the fallback. Not a path being built.
      - what: ".jlb"
        source_ref: "Future Pinball.exe 1.9.1.20101231 .text:0x004414d0"
        note: >-
          A second extension accepted beside .fpl in the library dialogs. No file
          with it ships and nothing opens one by name.