I went to Acme yesterday (1-1-09) and the ITG machine was having trouble. It worked fine, but the screen was REALLY laggy. It looked like it was getting 15 FPS the entire time. It was making my eyes bug out and I just couldn't put up with it. It happened for a while. The maintenance guy even cleared out the dust covering the back and after the machine was reset it actually was worse! o_0

So, just FYI, I'd get that checked soon.

Looks like it's time to reformat and install OpenITG with the ITG3 content. Hmm.

ITG3, well, we do have a marquee that showed up a few weeks ago.  But a marquee, and that is it!  No hard drive here as of yet.  But looks to be happening.

Checked ITG today, seemed fine.  Please post your findings when visiting Acme this weekend.

Is that Blazblue fighting game getting played most of the time when you guys are there, or does it sit idle a lot of the time?  Thx

itg3, sounds good! Great start off for a new year! As for BlazBlue, when i went on wednesday i think, i always saw it occupied so i think its doing fine

Hey Bill, I was wondering, I ran into either you or one of your techs at Acme on the 31st, at about 12:30. Whoever it was, they asked me whether the coinmech in ITG was working okay and I said I hadn't played it yet. Was that you?

On the same day (31st) I saw one person playing Blazblue just as I was leaving, but most of the time I was there was during a lull. I was the only one in the arcade for quite a while.

Thank you for Tetris and for trying to get the ITG mod working!

That would have been our service manager, Mark that you ran in to.  His is trying to resolve the ITG coin eating issues.  You will know it when you run in to me, a real ugly old fart that hates games and young people.  Usually shouting obscenities and kicking everyone out of the arcade.  Hehehe

Seriously, glad you are enjoying Acme.  I should be there myself this coming Wednesday around noon.

OMG Bill, the Sanwa sticks on TGM3 are absolutely amazing. The difference is night and day from the old Happ ones. Thanks so much for improving small details like this! In the time I was there today, I left a brand new North American (and even international except for Japan) Shirase (World Rule) record. I think that would have been impossible with the old sticks.

Man...this talk of upgrading ITG reminds me of the fact that we still have DM10. V+! V+! It's a shame the upgrade kits haven't really come down in price as far as I know. Would be great to see if that was possible.

Do you have to "buy" ITG3? I was sure it was a fan project, but it sounds like they/it comes with a dedicated HDD? This is more than I ever knew about. Can someone give me some details about changing a game from ITG2 to ITG3?

Btw, BlazBlue has had at least 2 people playing it every single time I've been at the arcade.

Yes, you have to buy the hard drive and marquee.  Not even sure of the price.  I enquired about it back east, and a week later a box with only the marquee arrived.  I had not even offially ordered it.  So not sure if a hard drive is going to show up, but I think it will.  I guess they are giving us the option of trying it out before making the actual purchase I suppose. 

Who'd should I contact regarding this? I might be interested in installing ITG3 onto my ITG2 cabinet.

I will get more information on cost, and we will see if this thing works properly.  Ours is not coming from a normal distributor, but from an operator freind on the east coast.  So they would not entertain selling you one.  But we could order one for you, but like I say, let's find out about the cost and if it works.

Sounds good. Thanks for looking into it for me.

Btw, I went to ACME last night (Mon) and the ITG machine is suffering major FPS problems. It is probably as low as 15-20 FPS during gameplay. I noticed that it works OK until the first arrow is hit on the screen. After that, the FPS will drop to around 15 or so for the duration of the song. I suggest that you investigate cleaning off excess dust on or around the machine's CPU.

The blurriness isn't bad (about the same as always), but the FPS is terrible. It has to be below 20 FPS, compared to the 60-ish FPS it normally runs at. There were some other players there on Monday and they also noticed how bad the FPS was. It's not affecting the timing window or anything. As long as you step to the beat, you'll get fantastics. But the low FPS makes it REALLY hard to play any difficult songs with a dense section of notes.

Just for reference, the 7th mix machine is actually running smoother than ITG2...that should be enough indication that something is amiss.

Ohh, well I was playing on it about 2 weeks ago, didn't see anything wrong. Maybe i should go check again
oh yeah thanks bluess for updating

No problem. Thanks for that reminder a little while back.

I was thinking of heading down there with a can of compressed air. I think that's all it needs, I have a computer at home that experienced similar symptoms that immediately went away when I just blew some dust (and cat hair) off the heatsink.

Dude, just buy some fans for your case. If you have to use compressed air to stop your framerate from dropping, you're doing it wrong.

We have checked over the ITG2.  Dust free, and all fans are running.  All we noticed are several capacitors that are starting to bulge.  The tech noted which ones are needed and will attempt replacement next week.  Will see how that goes.

Please report if the FPS is still farked on ITG2.  The tech worked on it more today, and did not think it was lagging when he left.  Thx

ITG seemed perfect to me today! No lag whatsoever. The pads were really really nice, too...

When the new ball tops for the sticks and buttons arrive Bill, when do you want to meet to pick them up? I can either get to a location of your choice or just meet at Acme or something if you're sending out a tech that way anyway. These should be really nice, they are the OEM buttons used on most Japanese cabinets but with a screw-in design so as to fit American thicker control panels. The ball tops are also shiny and probably better coordinated with the buttons than the stock ones that come with the sticks.

Kevin,
Cool!  Let us know when it all arrives, and we will reimburse you.  You can meet up with the techs when it's ready to go down.
Glad ITG is running well now.  Hopefully it will hold up.

...I assume that screw ins are what the TGM cabinet uses, right? I could have bought a set of snap ins instead but I think the panel on the TGM cabinet is too thick for those to work.

Haha, no, the compressed air wasn't for cooling as the can was used. I used it to blow off the thick blanket of dust that had accumulated on the CPU's heatsink. The CPU temp dropped by about 50 degrees F (literally, 210->160) when I cleaned the dust off, and the temperature stayed low(er).

When Stan and I opened up the ITG machine last week, it was absolutely caked with dust everywhere--far worse than my home PC. We blew the dust we could reach (with my lungs), but I think there was still some more in the actual enclosure inside the cabinet.

I played friday night, and the framerate issue was entirely resolved, thanks mvco!

On a side note, one of the panels on the 1P side is showing early signs of failure. I think it's the up arrow, but I'm not quite sure, it just tends to miss one step in 500 or so for me. I think it's the up arrow, but I'm not quite sure. I'll see if I can nail it down next time I go.

Kevin, I'm not sure what style Sanwa's are in there?  George at our shop would know as he installed them.

Hey Tom, was awesome meeting you, Stu, and Pam on Friday.  Thanks for the heads up on a bemani board, will be checking the site out.  I'm heading down to Acme here in a bit if anyone's up for some (9~easier 11) fun.

-Brian