I was actually looking for DD Arrrrrrr but Arrrr 21 works I suppose 

Tried replacing the missing songs yesterday, but my mouse/keyboard weren't working.  Will check my equipment tonight and try again next time I'm there.

Bill, any chance of getting X3?

http://www.bmigaming.com/dancedancerevolution.htm

I'm kind of curious if the cabinet will be different since X2 is discontinued.  Or if they are just refitting X3 into all the X2 cabinets.  If it is the old cabinet, then it probably isn't worth it.

I like Bill too much to have him invest in another POS from Konami/Betson. I suggest he wait and see what the reception is like after a few months.

X2 was fun, but man these new DDR machines really do suck compared to the old ones. They're all pretty and attractive, but they have no vitality or durability to'em.

I'm inclined to agree with Suko on this one - X2 was fine in terms of content, but every cabinet Betson's been involved with has been pretty poorly designed.  The best case so far is that their machines don't hold up as well as the older ones and take a decent amount of extra maintenance, but they also hold responsibility for the poor sync of the US version of SN and the laggy monitor on US X cabinets.

To be fair, our local experience with X and X2 is through Gameworks, and they aren't known for taking care of their machines, but those machines seem to go from good condition to nigh-unplayable much faster than old machines did (at Gameworks or other locations).

Also, I've tracked down the exact problem that has been keeping USB drives from working; basically, newer Ubuntu versions manage USB drives in a slightly funny way that the OITG USB code doesn't understand (as it should, since there's no real reason for the weird implementation).  When I get a chance (should be within a couple days), I'll tweak the code and test the revised logic.  Once it's confirmed to work on my home computer, I'll see if I can get it to work properly at Acme.

Sure, we are interested in X3.  But like everyone says, the cabinets are questionable.  I would like to get some initial impressions of the cabinet once we know more.  If something has been improved, we would love to go for it.  But the current stages are designed so crappy that we would drive ourselves nuts trying to keep them in the condition of playability that we have been accustomed to. 

Is there any way to hook up the stage from older systems onto an X2/X3 cabinet?

I think the US versions use a proprietary IO device.  You can't even import a Japanese pad and hook it up to a US machine.

I think what you all are trying to say is "Konami sold us actually good dance games players long ago to pander to the newbies and do nothing but make shitty mc shit products nowadays, so let's not bother with them anymore and just put the songs from X3 on the ITG machine for free"

It's not Konami's fault; it's lack of manufacturing competition fault.  They couldn't find anyone other than cut-corners Betson to mold poop into DDR machines.

Betson's competition is Konami itself.  Konami didn't contract out the JP cabinets and could easily have made the US cabinets if it wasn't cheaper to contract it out to a company in the US than to ship them across the Pacific.

I hate to admit it, but he does bring up a good point.

I'll be taking another shot at fixing the broken songs today.  Also, Mute 6 was released a couple weeks ago - the download link is broken at the moment, but I'll add that pack as soon as I can get it.

Before I forget, Overdrive from DDR Illini Tournament Pack is missing; it's definitely a different song than the other song by the same name that's on there.

Shades of Blue and Infernoplex are back.  I forgot to disable the FPS output yet again, will try to remember to do it next time I'm there; thankfully it doesn't seem to be bothering anyone.

Regarding Overdrive, I'll pull that from the old computer tonight.  It's worth noting that the DDR Illini pack is updated every so often (things are added and dropped) based on what gets picked at the tournaments they run, so it could be a weird naming collision (though the DDR Illini pack thread doesn't mention any Overdrive ever being removed, so that's kind of weird).  Whatever happened, it's easily corrected.

A haiku for these dark times:


     My dear USB
     We've been through so much, my friend
     Tony, please help us

I've been caught up in a lot of other stuff - I'll probably sit down tonight and make a quick hack to the OITG code and do some testing.  I want to make a cleaner version that I can actually submit back into the main OITG build (otherwise I have to re-hack every subsequent release), but that can wait until after I've made sure the new logic works in the first place.

Once it looks stable enough and I can get USB support working on my desktop, then I'll go ahead and install it.  This might mean tomorrow, but Monday or Tuesday is a lot more likely.

Speaking of USB - the new hub may be having issues.  Keyboards work fine when plugged directly into the computer, but not when plugged into the hub (it used to work).  I forgot to check if the OS could still recognize a drive through the hub, but my drive had been a little finicky the last few times I plugged it into the hub (before keyboards stopped working via the hub), and it also works perfectly when plugged into the computer.  Once I'm actually in a place to test a fixed OITG build, I'll have more information.

Bill, I had quite a few pad errors on the right side today, so I opened up the pads and took a look.  While I still have a couple Konami sensors, I did not have the right tools with me, so I couldn't patch them into the ITG connectors.  I did however move the bad sensors to outer positions.

The top sensor on the down arrow had been echoing pretty badly for the last week or so, and it gave me a couple misses today; I swapped it for the bottom sensor.  It was apparently one of the original sensors - the wires were still held down with a zip tie - and I'm impressed that an inner sensor lasted almost 6 years.  I don't know if it's critical to replace this one.

The bottom sensor on the up arrow had a cut wire.  I swapped it for the top sensor.  It went from not a problem to giving my a half dozen misses each song all of a sudden, so I'm assuming the wire was munched while I was playing.  Definitely needs to be replaced.

The sensors I swapped in seem to be working fine, though I only played one set after making the switch.

Tony, we also had a tech to look at the player 2 side, would have been late in the afternoon.  Please report back if he found those sensors that should be changed out.  I will check the status report when I get to the office this morning.

I called in already about the right side a few days ago but good that other people noticed. I meant to call in again yesterday but I forgot. I had definite errors on the left, up and right arrows yesterday when I played around 1 or so (I don't know if the tech had come at this point); the down seemed fine but I could definitely attribute errors to all three of the others (I played Mne Uzhe and I dropped rolls that I clearly hit on all three of those arrows, and on other songs as well had glaring errors). The down may very well be somewhat bad as well, but I tend to hit the down a little harder than the others since it's almost always with my heel.

Anyway I greatly appreciate your guys' taking a look and cleaning it out/replacing bad sensors or whatever. Thanks much!


On a random other note, I also think the Street Fighter joysticks are maybe getting worn down a bit. I actually play a game or two every time I go play ITG nowadays and it seems like though I'm getting better at the game it's getting a bit more unreliable to execute moves as of late. I also was having problems grabbing on the right side (so LP or LK is probably acting up). I'm by no means close an expert on this game so these are only speculations, but I hope maybe someone can take a look if other people are noticing the same thing.

Thanks!  

Our tech had been there.  he is back agian, probably right now.  Stages being rebuilt and serviced, full clean out, etc, etc.  Let us know how it plays after tonight. 
THX

It's been a busy week for me, so I keep putting off the USB work.  Finally took a closer look at the code and made what should be the necessary change.  I'll try to do some testing on my desktop tonight (otherwise it'll likely be tomorrow) - if things look good, I'll try to set things up next time I go to Acme.

Glad there's been good work done on the pad, thanks! Yesterday I failed a song due to the right arrow sticking, as I called in and said, so I was hoping someone could head down and take one more look at that arrow.

As always, much thanks!

A few months back I was at Acme and someone was playing a simplified version of Mne Uzhe Haiduc that they had made. It's a 10 on hard and it has the original chart as 11 on challenge.

I got a copy of it from whoever you were (sorry, but I just can't remember who it was). Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted that chart off my machine and for familiarity sake, I would really like to get a hold of that chart from whoever originally gave it to me.

If the person who made that edit reads this, would you please PM me or post a link so I can get that chart from you again? Thanks!

Mne Uzhe comes with a 10 and an 11 if you get it from the original pack.  It's Monster Energy Pack 3 - you can find it in the r21freak pack list.  I'm assuming that's the 10 you're talking about - I've never seen a different one - it's almost identical to the original, and just has the quad stomps taken out or something like that.  If that's not the one you're thinking of, then someone else hopefully knows.