Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:51 pm
Hey, some of you may know me. My name is Chris Platzer (a.k.a. LANman247), and I'm the one who has hacked/fixed/upgraded/etc the DDR Extreme and ITG2 machines at Putt-Putt Golf and Games. I've been told a few times that I should post here, so I figured I would post any information here that you guys might want to know, or that I think you should know about the machines. Even though I've been away at school, and it seems the machine dance scene has been dying down a bit, I do what I can to keep the machines up-to-date and able to present new content for us players that still love to play. I also want to give credit to Kyle, who works at Putt-Putt and physically maintains the machines, replacing sensors, buttons, monitors, etc. More arcades need guys like him, he's helped us stay alive by allowing me to do to the machines what I need to, and by listening to our complaints and requests. Anyway, now to the business...
Last year, the DDR Extreme machine had been broken for several months so I offered to convert it into a Stepmania cabinet. Putt-Putt liked the idea, so I had Kyle use a J-PAC to interface the cabinet and a PC, which was actually an old Boxor from when the machine was an ITG2 upgrade. We also used an ArcadeVGA card to interface the monitor properly. I set the machine up with Katze's Extreme theme, and gave Putt-Putt my collection of DDR-mix ONLY songs from the Purdue Music Gaming Club (which I've been running at Purdue, if you're down there and interested). I wanted to make the machine feel like an Extreme machine, since that's what it was prior to it breaking down, and chose to restrict the mixes to DDR only (the ITG machine is for the miscellaneous songs).
Side note: Both machines have been synced as accurately as possible, compensating for lag from the different hardware present in each one. For the DDR machine, I have synced it using the Audio Calibration feature from the ITG PC Demo. For the ITG2 machine, I have synced it using the SyncMachine feature of StepMania along with the sync audio+stepfile I ripped from the ITG PC Demo. SyncMachine isn't as good of a method as Audio Calibration, but I've synced the machine as accurate as possible with it.
Because I'm only in Fort Wayne a few months out of the year, I've converted the ITG2 machine to an OpenITG machine. This makes it easy for Kyle to add songs and make changes to the machine. We're still using the PIU-IO circuitry for pad and light control. I've been keeping the machine up-to-date with the latest builds as they are released, and I've made it capable of properly signing your profiles on your flash drives so that they're compatible with Groovestats. As of right now we're running the pre-beta build of OpenITG, and I've changed the theme to ITG3OG pre-release. I believe that the theme is really well done, and is the next step for all ITG2 machines, but I will leave that up to you. If the majority of you don't like it, tell me and I will revert my changes. I have increased the menu timer to 120 seconds, and have added plenty of speed mods to make everyone happy. The reason the timer isn't turned off is because people will walk up to the machine, play one song and walk away, leaving the machine stuck on the song wheel. This annoys the hell out of the staff, who must tend to the machine to end the round.
Kyle and I are working on a drop-in replacement for the sensors in, at least, the ITG2 machine. We've designed the replacement pack using pressure sensors with a series of op-amps, instead of the simple "floor sensors" that are in virtually every machine dance game. We're doing this in hopes that we can have more accurate, longer-lasting, trigger threshold-adjustable sensors for the dance games. I'll post back here to let you know what our results are.
If you have any questions about the machines, or requests (although I can't ever make promises), please post here or contact me in person. I'll be in Fort Wayne until the end of February, but I will be living in Germany from then until August, so any major changes should be taken care of now.
Oh yes, and I've been told Putt-Putt is planning on purchasing one of the new Guitar Hero machines when they come out.
________________________________________
Update: 01/08/2009 - Stepmania cabinet judgment timing adjusted to DDR Extreme judgment timing
Last year, the DDR Extreme machine had been broken for several months so I offered to convert it into a Stepmania cabinet. Putt-Putt liked the idea, so I had Kyle use a J-PAC to interface the cabinet and a PC, which was actually an old Boxor from when the machine was an ITG2 upgrade. We also used an ArcadeVGA card to interface the monitor properly. I set the machine up with Katze's Extreme theme, and gave Putt-Putt my collection of DDR-mix ONLY songs from the Purdue Music Gaming Club (which I've been running at Purdue, if you're down there and interested). I wanted to make the machine feel like an Extreme machine, since that's what it was prior to it breaking down, and chose to restrict the mixes to DDR only (the ITG machine is for the miscellaneous songs).
Side note: Both machines have been synced as accurately as possible, compensating for lag from the different hardware present in each one. For the DDR machine, I have synced it using the Audio Calibration feature from the ITG PC Demo. For the ITG2 machine, I have synced it using the SyncMachine feature of StepMania along with the sync audio+stepfile I ripped from the ITG PC Demo. SyncMachine isn't as good of a method as Audio Calibration, but I've synced the machine as accurate as possible with it.
Because I'm only in Fort Wayne a few months out of the year, I've converted the ITG2 machine to an OpenITG machine. This makes it easy for Kyle to add songs and make changes to the machine. We're still using the PIU-IO circuitry for pad and light control. I've been keeping the machine up-to-date with the latest builds as they are released, and I've made it capable of properly signing your profiles on your flash drives so that they're compatible with Groovestats. As of right now we're running the pre-beta build of OpenITG, and I've changed the theme to ITG3OG pre-release. I believe that the theme is really well done, and is the next step for all ITG2 machines, but I will leave that up to you. If the majority of you don't like it, tell me and I will revert my changes. I have increased the menu timer to 120 seconds, and have added plenty of speed mods to make everyone happy. The reason the timer isn't turned off is because people will walk up to the machine, play one song and walk away, leaving the machine stuck on the song wheel. This annoys the hell out of the staff, who must tend to the machine to end the round.
Kyle and I are working on a drop-in replacement for the sensors in, at least, the ITG2 machine. We've designed the replacement pack using pressure sensors with a series of op-amps, instead of the simple "floor sensors" that are in virtually every machine dance game. We're doing this in hopes that we can have more accurate, longer-lasting, trigger threshold-adjustable sensors for the dance games. I'll post back here to let you know what our results are.
If you have any questions about the machines, or requests (although I can't ever make promises), please post here or contact me in person. I'll be in Fort Wayne until the end of February, but I will be living in Germany from then until August, so any major changes should be taken care of now.
Oh yes, and I've been told Putt-Putt is planning on purchasing one of the new Guitar Hero machines when they come out.
________________________________________
Update: 01/08/2009 - Stepmania cabinet judgment timing adjusted to DDR Extreme judgment timing