Looks like a possibility that V hardware could land tonight. 

Bobby Conover is do a big thanks from the community.  Send him ass, cash, or grass to show your appreciation.

I'll stick to the cash. Anyway, that is really cool!!!

I played on the machine at about 4:30 today. The hihat and cymbal definitely felt in much better shape, but the hihat is still pretty dead on the right side. I'm really not sure what the problem is, but it's certainly not normal. Anyway, the snare also seems much better...was that tightened up or something?

Really looking forward to V3...too bad I won't get to play it until next week. I'll see if I can stop by tomorrow for a little to check it out, though.

I am definitely stopping by, probly around 3ish if anyone would like to join me. I'll probly be there for awhile lol.

Hey guys, awesome news.. I upgraded the GF/DM machines to V3 tonight and finished just as Acme was closing, so they should be ready to play tomorrow. I reset the hit charts to make sure they reflect our tastes accurately.

This has been a LONG time coming, a lot of annoying work behind the scenes, and for a long time there I didn't think it was going to happen. I didn't want to say anything until it looked like a sure thing. I actually first bought the 2 PCBs specifically with Bill's machines in mind, as well as two more for my personal games, in the late summer of 2007. They arrived in "working" order, but were missing the hardware security keys that actually make them boot. Little did I know at the time that Konami required ops to pull the plugs from V3 and re-use them in V4, thus rendering all V3 PCBs unusable. UGH! Ever since then I have been trying to track these keys down both for my own boards and for the others, still with hopes of working something out with Bill and upgrading his games. Obviously I finally tracked some keys down and they arrived this week, so I'm happy to say there are now two sets of GF/DM V3s in WA. The second set is in my garage! Old-school detail freaks might be interested in knowing that mine were once the DM 3rd and GF 4th machines that Illusionz had before upgrading to the 5th/6th machines that Bill now has at Acme. So all 4 GF/DMs from Illusionz are alive and well!

Anyway, enjoy the games, hopefully they will work well for a long time to come. I wasn't sure exactly how you guys like the volume tweaked, so it might need a little work with the balancing, but for all intents it's all working and session mode should work fine. Also, I'm not exactly sure what the deal is with the song unlocks and whether we can ever play those songs in the US, but I know a few V3 tracks like Axis aren't playable -- I'm pretty sure you have to unlock them with the e-amuse system, which sucks since we can't access that. If you guys ever figure out any unlock codes or any other way to enable those extra songs please let me know!

Oh, and a little tip.. If you hold down the bass pedal and hit the high tom twice, you will switch the songs to organizing by name (letter) or by mix, which is really helpful in navigating the massive (I think 550 or so?) song list.

Thanks for the upgrades - been looking forward to playing DM/GF again!

I'm not a huge DM player but thanks for making Acme even better

V3 IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I was there tonight and I loved it!
massive song list!
OMG it was fun, AND ALSO ITS LOUD!!!!!!
perfect!

The only thing though, i that hi-hat.
All the other pads worked fine for me, but that hi-hat the entire  time I was playing was acting up. I seriously think it just needs a replacement completely. It just sucks when pass Fairy Tales and then failed Dedication O_o I was like umm......what?
I'm just lettin you guys know.

Other than that, I love the machine.
I officially have no reason to ever return to gameworks ever. Thankyou. All my main games are at Acme now! woot!

Had a chance to try out the new V3 hardware as well and had a good time trying out the new stuff.  Thanks again for the upgrades.    A few issues though could use addressing:

DrumMania:

As above poster mentioned, Hi-Hat is still pretty unresponsive.  Have to give it a good whack just to change the difficulty on songs sometimes.  Pretty much have to use Auto-HiHat at this point to pass anything remotely challenging.   Also, the screen on DM needs an adjustment as the picture is too far to the right and about an inch of the left side of the screen is cut off.   Other than these issues though, DM was good - nice picture and good sound/volume.


Guitar Freaks:

Only issue here is that the volume on GF seems a bit soft and could be turned up a bit.  Was hard to hear the songs on GF as the volume is noticeably lower than the DM machine.   

We will be back there tweaking some more Monday.  Have been looking in to a complete hi hat replacement, but no luck thus far.  But still chipping away at it.

right arrow on the 1p side is fucked up and 2p side feels just a little shaky on itg2

Bill will acme be getting Initial D 5 anytime soon? i cant wait for it.

Didn't play 1p side today because I lost $2 last time I tried playing doubles (the 1p right button didn't work at all), but the 2p side was rock solid.

Bill, I don't know how much interest you have in this, but the Tokyo Game Action auction is happening June 6th...

http://tokyogameaction.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3064

Might be some stuff of interest there. I wonder if the owner had any spare hardware or anything like that.

ITG2 and DM are being looked at right now.  Please report back on how things turned out. 
ID5, well, I am not real hopeful.  You see, ID4 has not done all that well, and Sega is not going to be selling the updates at a reasonable price.  But we will see what happens and if they are going to sell updates for under 10K. 

Tokyo auction that should be interesting.  Sad that place had to go.  Too many niche games without enough players, the sad state of arcades today. 

Updates,

I think ITG is cured for now.

The bad, I'm afraid DM V3 is a mess.  We have lost some I/O inputs.  The hardware system may have to be sent out for repairs.  But GF will remain.  We will probably be removing the DM cabinet for now, as it may be down awhile.  Sorry, people!  :-/

Bill,
Do what you gotta do man, no probs.
As long as that GF is working fine; tomorrow afternoon (Wed) my friend Pete and I will head down for some guitar sessioning in support of the new cabs.
Thanks again man,
Chris

Awesome.  Played last night, both sides working great!  Sorry to hear about DM, but really appreciate the ITG love.  Just curious, do you know what was broken?

ITG had two intermittently shorting sensors. 

Update on DM/GF.  GF is now down with DM being up and running.  DM also had more drum work today.  DM is up and running after confirming a bad I/O board by swapping with GF.  Decided to leave GF down instead as more people seem to like DM.  Sorry, Chris, hope you did not go for GF and enjoyed beating drums instead.

Hey Bill,
Actually I was wondering if it was some cruel April Fools' Joke.
Anyhow, just got to Acme, and while a working drummania is good (though I do not know how responsive the sensors are yet) my friend Pete will be highlys disappointed when he gets here.... =P
Well what can you do?  Hope you fix it soon, man.
Chri

ALright, just got back from Acme.
I sunk about $15 in there Bill, and I would have sunk more in, but ran out of time.  Bonus stages/long tracks only count as 1 normal song??? What are you thinking man?  That is an excellent deal but still; maybe make them count as 2 normal songs or something...
Err, maybe I shouldn't have said that.
Anyhow really loved getting to play all the songs, V3 is indeed a great mix.

DM performed admirably.  The other reason I played so long was because I wanted to enjoy the fleeting moment of a fully functioning DM at Acme ! =P Heh, I kid, I know you guys try hard, Bill, and it is tough.

Anyhow, sad about the GF, but you'll get it up soon.

In the meantime, I have to admit: I just came back from a 12 day trip to Japan, and tonight I got a BETTER experience of DM than when I was in Japan.  Seriously.  Volume was great, monitor was great, sticks (my own) were great, sensors were great.  In Japan I ran into a problem with one or more of these issues.

So Bill, congrats on having a better DM than Japan!  (Though I have played on great DMs in Japan on previous trips, I was just unlucky this time it seemed).

Maybe everyone was lazy on the DM maintenance, with the build up to GFDM V6 BLAZIN!!! ?

Bill if you can keep the Acme DM at this caliber, I will visit multiple times a week!

For the songs in DM,  the setting I've seen in other places and seems to make a lot of sense  is setting the bonus songs to 3 songs  and giving the player 4 total songs per play.    Since the game is set to $1.00 at the moment, this seems like the fair and logical setting.   Player can play 4 regular short songs,  or 1  bonus + 1 short song with this setting.

Wow, not many people seem to be commenting on the V3...
Well Bill, just another show of support from me!  Hope to go by there tonight and play some more rounds.
Best,
Chris Cummins

Chris,
Thanks for your support, we appreciate it.  maybe the April fools joke on this site slowed down the comments a bit, hahaha.  Nice one.

Well, I just got back from a week on the East Coast tonight and holy shit, I am absolutely pumped to stop by Acme tomorrow and play some V3!!!

Was at acme earlier today.
P2 side up arrow of ITG2 was giving me some trouble, but nothin to bad.

Lovin the V3 so much. Thank you for fixing the hi-hat. I had such a blast playing that today.