[bostonpete]

Ball spin would be trivial to simulate. The only way I could see the physics getting at all expensive is if they went overboard with fluid dynamics

[amarant]

Simulating airdrag and turbulence the compute-intensive way: simulating all of the air inside the pinball machine! You've got a few tens of liters of gaseous molecules to keep track of, should be enough to slow down most computers I would guess!

But I would be very surprised if any pinball software actually does that!

[tombert]

No one does it yet! Someone should import OpenFOAM into Unreal and make this happen. I want my pinball experience to require a dedicated server to help it.