Your Virtual Pinball controller, diagnosed

A VirtuaTilt extension for Claude that reads your setup — your profiles, your DOF, your DOFLinx, etc. — and tells you what is wrong with your controller.

The problem it solves

A controller that has stopped behaving is the worst kind of fault. Maybe the solenoids went quiet. Maybe a game stopped seeing the cabinet at all, or the Bluetooth pairing shows the wrong name, or the flippers work and the plunger does not, or everything works except the one table you actually wanted to play. Nothing is broken visibly, half a dozen pieces of software are involved, and every one of them looks fine on its own. So you start guessing.

What it actually reports

Real output, from a working cabinet PC. Nothing here is a mock-up.

Look at the second line. DOF declares its controller in the cabinet config, not in directoutputconfig<id>.ini where everybody goes looking — so searching the obvious file for “Pinscape” finds nothing even on a perfectly working setup. That single misunderstanding has sent countless owners off rebuilding a configuration that was never broken. The extension knows where to look.

What it checks

• Your VirtuaTilt profiles — which are present, which one the controller is running, and whether it matches the game you are trying to play.
• DOF, and the right DOF — that it is installed, and that both builds are present if you need both. DOF ships a 32-bit and a 64-bit edition in x86\ and x64\ subfolders, and its own documentation says most people want both, because the 32-bit one is required by 32-bit simulators and the 64-bit one by 64-bit simulators. The architecture is read from the file header rather than the folder name, because those folders get renamed and copied around.
• Whether DOF knows about your controller — DOF declares output controllers in the cabinet configuration, while the directoutputconfig / ledcontrol files hold table-to-output mappings. Different files, different questions. The check looks in both the DOF folder and its config\ subfolder, which is where the documentation puts the cabinet file.
• DOFLinx — whether it is installed, and where its configuration file is. The usual suspect when Pinball FX runs but stays silent.
• Future Pinball — whether it is installed, and how it is wired up if you drive it through DOFLinx.
• Whether your firmware matches your download — the setup guide asks you to compare the Pico and wireless-module Build IDs against the redist by eye. This reads both and does the comparison for you. If it cannot read the cabinet, it says so and shows you the numbers to check by hand, rather than pretending everything matched.
• Where you unpacked the download — so you never have to go hunting for a folder called VirtuaTilt-Redist-20260619-v8.0.6-….

Every finding comes back with what it means and what to do next, not just a red cross — and it tells you plainly when the PC side looks fine and the next thing to test is the controller itself.

It watches while the fault happens

Everything above reads your settings. The faults people actually have are events: the plunger that sometimes does not register, the flipper that occasionally misses one, the cabinet that vanishes halfway through a game. None of those show up in a configuration file, because none of them is a configuration fault.

So it can record. Start it, play, reproduce the fault, and it reports what happened while you were playing: the cabinet dropping off USB with the second it happened, the firmware stalling for long enough to lose a flip, and anything the firmware itself logged. If nothing went wrong during the recording it says exactly that, and says plainly that a fault you did not reproduce has not been ruled out.

It follows the whole chain, from the game to the solenoid

When a game gives no feedback, the cause can be anywhere along a chain that crosses three pieces of software:

the game runs → DOFLinx recognises it → the trigger DLL sends table events → DOFLinx reads that game's effect file → the effect file names a DOF ROM → DOF looks that ROM up in your table → the cabinet fires

Every link of that is on your disk, so it can be walked. Give it the name of the game - the name on the box, not the ROM name - and it says which link is broken. That matters because the two are rarely alike: Adventure Land is fx3_amusement to DOF, and nobody should have to know that to get their shaker working.

The most common break is the last one: DOFLinx asks DOF for a table that your DOF configuration does not have, DOF does nothing, and nothing anywhere records it. That is what "one game is silent and everything else is fine" usually is.

It reads what DOF and DOFLinx actually did

Configuration files say what was meant to happen. DOF and DOFLinx both keep logs that say what did. Those disagree more often than you would think - a cabinet file can sit on disk, perfectly correct, while DOF never loads it at all and quietly guesses your hardware instead. Everything you set in that file is then doing nothing, and nothing tells you.

So both are read, and where they disagree the log wins, because the log describes the cabinet you are actually playing on.

On the DOFLinx side it checks the things that are documented but easy to get wrong: whether the file each game needs is beside that game's executable, whether the settings that must come first actually do, whether the output addresses name ports your cabinet has, and whether DOFLinx is set to run as administrator - which stops Pinball FX talking to it entirely, while every other check still passes.

What it will not tell you

It will not say your cabinet is healthy on the strength of a check it could not run. If it could not read something, it says so instead of assuming. If it finds nothing, it lists what it cannot see - the 12V side, anything mechanical, the Bluetooth pairing, what the game did with a perfectly good input - rather than letting silence read as a clean bill of health.

A diagnostic that always names a culprit is a horoscope. This one would rather tell you it does not know.

It can remap a button, too

Every button on your VirtuaTilt sends something to the PC — a keystroke on the Visual Pinball and Future Pinball profiles, a gamepad button on most of the others. If a game wants something different from what your button sends, the extension can change it.

You do not need to know anything technical. Ask it to list your buttons and it shows every one with what it sends today. Then say what to change, in your own words:

• “make the button that sends 5 send 3 instead”
• “the one that types esc — I want it on q”
• “swap the button that sends B over to Y”

It tells you which button that is and exactly what would change, and waits. Nothing is written until you agree.

Why we built it

Configuration tools show you readings: a plunger graph, a button test, a live trace from the accelerometer. All of that is useful, and all of it only helps once you know what you are looking for.

When your cabinet goes quiet, one thing is wrong somewhere between the firmware, the profile, Windows, the game and DOF. Nothing on your screen tells you which of those five to open first. That is the part you cannot do for yourself, because if you could narrow it down you would have fixed it already.

This extension reads your cabinet and tells you the cause.

What you can ask it

What is wrong. One question, in your own words, in your own language. It checks the firmware, the profile, your PC software, the game and the wiring, then gives you the most likely cause first. If it finds nothing, it says so and tells you what it could not check. It does not invent an answer.

What my cabinet does. Every button and what it sends. Every output, and whether the controller drives it by itself or it is waiting for DOF on the PC. That difference matters: get it wrong and you either install software you never needed, or wait for feedback that was never coming.

Will this game work tonight. Name the game. It checks what your cabinet is running, what the game needs, what is on your PC, and what the game will ask of you. Some VR titles ignore a cabinet until you make a gesture first. One needs a setting re-selected every time it starts. You find out before you play, not after twenty minutes of blaming your cabinet.

Is my cabinet healthy. The firmware keeps a log of its own startup. It holds the real list of which boot button loads which profile on your cabinet, and it is the only place safe mode shows up. Safe mode is where the controller retreats after a crash: most things are switched off, while the configuration on disk still looks perfect.

Should I install this newer download. It compares the two and tells you what actually changed, including whether the firmware is really different. If it is identical, it says there is nothing to flash, instead of sending you through a firmware update for a renamed folder.

What it will not do

It will not change anything without asking. Every change is described first and waits for you to agree. It takes a backup before it writes, then reads your cabinet back afterwards to confirm the change really happened. Backups are listed by date and by which profile they hold, and you can put any of them back.

It will not pretend to know things. It cannot tell a finished release from a beta download. It cannot see whether DOF is set up for the exact game you are playing. It cannot see a stale Bluetooth pairing on your headset. When it cannot check something, it tells you, instead of leaving it out and letting the answer look complete.

It will not tell you to rewire a cabinet that works. It can see that a cabinet is on a USB 3.0 port behind a hub, which the manual suggests avoiding. It stays quiet about that unless you are actually losing the connection. A warning that fires on a healthy machine is a warning people learn to ignore.

Get it

It needs a VirtuaTilt you already own — it is a diagnostic tool for your controller, not a demo.

Installing it

The extension runs inside Claude Desktop — the app you install on your PC, not Claude in a browser tab. It cannot work in a browser, because the whole point is reading files on your own machine.

1. In Claude Desktop open Settings → Extensions. You can drop the .mcpb file straight onto this screen — it says so at the bottom. That is the quickest route, and it only works here: dropping the file on a chat window does nothing. Otherwise click Advanced settings and carry on.
2. Scroll to Extension Developer and click Install Extension…. Claude warns that these are developer tools — that is expected for any extension not from its own directory.
3. Pick the .mcpb file you downloaded, then click Preview.
4. Claude shows you what the extension is and what it may do. Read it, then click Install.
5. Confirm.

Pointing it at your VirtuaTilt download

The PC-side checks work straight away. To let it read the controller itself, give it the folder you unpacked the VirtuaTilt download into.

1. On the extension's page, click Configure.
2. The settings panel opens — check behind the main window if you do not see it. Click Browse.
3. Navigate to your unpacked VirtuaTilt download and pick the folder. Either the VirtuaTilt-Redist-… folder itself or the ConfigTool folder inside it will do — the extension works out the rest. Not sure where you unpacked it? Ask Claude — “find my VirtuaTilt download” — and it will show you the full paths it can see, most recent first. You still choose which one.
4. Click Save. This is easy to miss: without it the path is not kept.
5. Restart Claude Desktop. This is required, not a troubleshooting step. The app hands your folder to the extension at the moment it starts it, so a path saved while the app is running does not reach the extension until the next start. Until you restart, it will keep telling you no folder is configured — while your settings screen plainly shows the one you just picked.

Using it

There is no window to open and no scan button to press. The extension gives Claude a set of tools, and Claude reaches for them when what you ask calls for one. So you just say what is wrong, the way you would to a person:

• “check my VirtuaTilt setup” — the full sweep of this PC, with a verdict at the end
• “my solenoids stopped working, what does my setup look like?”
• “which profile is my controller running?”
• “I want to play Pinball FX — am I set up for it?”
• “list my buttons”
• “is my firmware up to date?”

Claude asks your permission before each tool runs, and the first sweep touches several. Allow once runs it this one time; Always allow stops it asking for that tool again. That prompt is Claude's own safety check, not ours — nothing is read until you answer it.

Also: ask Claude anything about VirtuaTilt

Separately from the extension, you can connect Claude to our documentation. Answers come from our wiki and our profile catalogue, so they name the actual file you need instead of describing one that sounds right — and every answer links to the page it came from.

Connecting it

Works on every Claude plan: Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise. In Claude, open Customize → Connectors → Add custom connector and paste:

Add to Claude →