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ancsik
May 16, 2011, 01:25:23 PM - ORIGINAL POST -

It's probably about time to break this topic out from the main Acme thread, since there's been a lot of information about the machine posted to the main thread and the details are being obscured by meetup content at the same time that it makes it hard to notice the meetup / service update posts.

This thread will be here just to notify people of the work I do on the machine.  Song/pack requests should still go through the requests thread, physical maintenance still goes through the main thread.  In general, this thread is for reporting bugs to me (theme doing weird stuff, songs broken, etc) and for me to notify everyone of the changes I make.

ANNOUNCEMENT (5/31/11):

I'm beginning a daunting project - polishing the custom content so the machine remains suited to public use.  There are two main issues with much of the new content which will make the game awkward for new players and potentially existing players: Expert only and automatically generated display BPM.  

Full sets of charts for every song in every pack is a lofty and very impractical goal given how long it will take to write that many charts, but a lot of the new content ranks in at very high difficulties, and it's going to be a problem if a lot of players don't want to play with one another because the single difficulty available for a chart isn't amenable to both players - making a 9+ Hard chart to match the 12+ Expert charts of non-long songs would be a good start toward balancing things out so that players won't feel a strong need to play one at a time.  I know this is a potential issue as there were whispers of "I don't want to play a set with X because I want to play significantly harder/easier charts than X" yesterday, and having alternate, but still expert level, charts will help mitigate this damage as well as mitigate how scary a fully-loaded machine will be to newer players.  Volunteers to help out with writing charts would be greatly appreciated - the new songs are all from widely available packs, so if anyone wants to write an alternate chart, go find the right pack, write it (and test it, please), then send the new .sm file to me.

Fixing display BPMs is a much simpler task.  Almost everyone has, at some point, gotten screwed by seeing a 140 BPM song listed as 140-280 because of some stuttered notes and picking the wrong speed mod as a result.  Any time you find such a chart, let me know what the real BPM or BPM range (I know of a song that is 50-100, but displays as 50-200 due to stuttering - I'm sure there are others) is and I will update the file with the corrected display BPM value(s).

« Last Edit: May 31, 2011, 01:05:46 PM by ancsik »
 
Suko
Read May 16, 2011, 01:42:10 PM #1

Personally, I would just have Laura rename the title of this thread to "Acme ITG2 custom content thread" and use it, since it's already there and stickied.

http://www.pnwbemani.net/western-wa/acme-bowl-itg-custom-song-request-thread/
 
ancsik
Read May 16, 2011, 10:12:48 PM #2

I wanted to separate the requests thread from updates regarding work going into the machine, since there's a whole lot encompassed general machine updates and a potential for a lot of very specifically focused posting in the requests thread.
 
Gerrak
Read May 18, 2011, 10:35:18 AM #3

I wanted to mention I got a new USB and it does seem to have cleared up most of my issues I've had, so I apologize for any false alarms on problems; I think at present there's actually NOTHING WRONG WITH THE ACME MACHINE. FINALLY (except the coin slot's a little screwy I guess).


Good work Tony Smiley
 
ancsik
Read May 18, 2011, 02:13:18 PM #4

Hopefully the machine will still be in good working order next week; I'm currently planning on stopping by on Sunday morning (probably not right when they open at 9am, but still fairly early in the day) to finally open up the machine and check out the RAM / Hard Drive situation.

If I have the ability to do so on the spot, I will get the new drive properly formatted and do whatever is needed to properly mount it.  If I can't, I may try to extend the current ITG partition, since only ~8 GB of the (supposedly) 40 GB drive is currently formatted and extending the partition is claimed to be an almost painless process if you have the right programs handy.

If I can't set up the new drive on the spot for some reason, I'll figure out what I need to set up to do it on my desktop.  I would need to remove the current drive from the machine, take it home, set everything up, and then go back to Acme to get the machine back online if I did it this way - if it comes to this, I will schedule it for a weekend morning again to minimize impact.
 
ancsik
Read May 21, 2011, 03:19:27 PM #5

Physically installed the new drive and checked the RAM today.  Will format the drive another day (likely tomorrow morning, per my last post), since that could take awhile and people are here playing.

The new drive is confirmed to be recognized in the BIOS output.

Our RAM setup is just one Kingston KVR400/1GR, which is a 1GB PC3200 DDR stick.  Per Suko's experience, 1GB is probably enough total memory, so I'd assume the lag is being caused by the bottleneck that using a single stick will cause.
 
ancsik
Read May 23, 2011, 10:30:48 AM #6

Never made it to Acme yesterday, formatting will happen when I get a chance.  Might take a shot at it tonight, if I get to Acme at a conducive time.

As for RAM, I'll swing by Fry's on the way to Acme next time I go and pick up a second GB stick.  The second stick should fix the lag issues* either because our current 1GB isn't enough (per Suko: doubtful, but possible) or because our current single stick arrangement doesn't offer enough bandwidth.

*Lag while browsing USB songs may or may not be a function of the slow USB drivers, so RAM won't necessarily fix USB lag - I don't know the necessary details, so we'll see what happens.

If extra RAM doesn't fix it, then the issue is related to the way UserPacks works; ITG 3/Rebirth, Customs 1, and Keby's pack are all handled via UserPacks at the moment.  UserPacks has everything packaged in .zips which OpenITG decompresses at some point (I honestly don't know the internals); given the lack of space on the machine, I can only assume some of the data is being decompressed on the fly as you browse the song list, which would cause lag whenever you hit a block of songs not currently in memory.  I'll be moving our custom content (ITG 3/Rebirth) onto the new drive once it's formatted and handling it without the UserPacks manager (that is, I'll be storing the songs without archiving them), so the lag should go away in a hurry.
 
Suko
Read May 23, 2011, 03:44:08 PM #7

If extra RAM doesn't fix it, then the issue is related to the way UserPacks works; ITG 3/Rebirth, Customs 1, and Keby's pack are all handled via UserPacks at the moment.  UserPacks has everything packaged in .zips which OpenITG decompresses at some point (I honestly don't know the internals); given the lack of space on the machine, I can only assume some of the data is being decompressed on the fly as you browse the song list, which would cause lag whenever you hit a block of songs not currently in memory.  I'll be moving our custom content (ITG 3/Rebirth) onto the new drive once it's formatted and handling it without the UserPacks manager (that is, I'll be storing the songs without archiving them), so the lag should go away in a hurry.
This coincides with my experiences.
 
ancsik
Read May 30, 2011, 08:58:03 PM #8

New drive is formatted as a 200 GB data partition and a 50 GB partition which may eventually house the original drive's image (at which point, that drive can be retired as a backup drive in case of failures).

There's some file tree cleanup to be done (which should cause no visible changes) and the Customs 2 pack will be removed, since Keby had built it from the packs now installed on the new drive.

Unfortunately, the USB drives are currently non-functional.  My drive doesn't even light up when plugged in (and my drive is confirmed to work on other computers); it could be a software configuration issue, but I think it would still power a drive if that were the case.  I'll be stopping by in the next day or two to get into the back of the machine and see if I can make a drive mount correctly on the computer's ports under the current setup so that I can isolate the issue and figure out if I need to fix the configuration or if the hub has died again.
 
Gerrak
Read May 31, 2011, 10:21:06 AM #9

Aaaaaaahhh please fix the USBs ASAP!


Although the new packs should mostly take care of my custom songs anyway Wink

Good work Tony! Thanks!
 
ancsik
Read May 31, 2011, 10:30:21 AM #10

Trying to figure out the USB issues as quickly as possiblel getting USB ports to work correctly is apparently a common issue on Boxorroxors, but everyone who posts about it is asked if they tried a few things (that I've tried) and then they never respond.

It doesn't help that the posts are generally about installing a new Linux distro along with a new drive, so all of the posts use slightly different configurations (and different naming conventions) and are liable to have slightly different solutions as a result.

And, of course, there's a good chance that the current configuration is perfect, but the hub died again.
 
Keby
Read May 31, 2011, 12:08:49 PM #11

In terms of updates to custom songs.
There is like somewhere around 400-500 new songs on there.

YES there are repeats in there, but some charts are different than others. We can get these taken care of pretty fast though.

HAVE FUN GUYS!
 
ancsik
Read May 31, 2011, 12:58:49 PM #12

There are a few repeats, there are a few songs with inappropriate lyrics in some packs (as always, we need to tread carefully lest Acme request removal of the machine); I'll remove stuff as I become aware of it - if anyone sees a song they think is a duplicate or inappropriate, let me know (PM, in person, whatever) and I will take a look at it as soon as I get a chance.

ANNOUNCEMENT: See first post for details
 
mvco
Read May 31, 2011, 04:44:49 PM #13

Yes, protect the community and please let Tony know what has offensive lyrics. 
Have fun!
 
xenonscreams
Read May 31, 2011, 11:02:08 PM #14

My Ke$ha song's real BPM is the lower one of the BPMs listed (don't remember what it is exactly). I like easy stuff, so I'd be willing to make some lower difficulty charts for already existing songs.
 
Suko
Read June 01, 2011, 09:37:52 AM #15

I like easy stuff, so I'd be willing to make some lower difficulty charts for already existing songs.
I thought this was supposed to be a requirement, so noobs don't accidentally choose a song which only has 10+ difficulty without knowing it. And it seems like the more custom songs you put onto a machine, the more likely this is to happen.
 
Laura
Read June 01, 2011, 10:07:09 AM #16

I'm not great at writing charts (hence all the joke submissions to S.P.E.R.G.I.N.), but I'd gladly write some Basic charts for the total n00bs.  All I have to do is leave some quarter notes in there, right? Grin
 
ancsik
Read June 01, 2011, 01:42:19 PM #17

I thought this was supposed to be a requirement, so noobs don't accidentally choose a song which only has 10+ difficulty without knowing it. And it seems like the more custom songs you put onto a machine, the more likely this is to happen.

It was supposed to be a requirement, but very few people write full sets of charts, especially not people who throw together ITG packs.  Around half the total content on the Acme machine has full difficulty sets and Amore is the default song, so the risk is greatly mitigated, but it's definitely still there.

I really didn't want to push Expert-only packs onto the machine, but given the recently increased interest at Acme and difficulty of finding full sets, the best solution seems to be pushing packs on and fixing them on the fly.
 
ancsik
Read June 02, 2011, 11:24:26 AM #18

USB was working when I got there last night, and it seems to have been for a while per other players' claims, but after about an hour and a half it crapped out the same way as on Monday.  I'm inclined to say the software configuration is fine and that we're looking at a hardware problem - the hub's clearly not dead, but some fitting may be a little loose in a way that lets it settle back in place some of the time.
 
Gerrak
Read June 02, 2011, 11:45:49 AM #19

Quote
I thought this was supposed to be a requirement, so noobs don't accidentally choose a song which only has 10+ difficulty without knowing it. And it seems like the more custom songs you put onto a machine, the more likely this is to happen

The default is set to Amore again. This shouldnt be an issue no matter how many extra packs you add; people noob enough to not know what difficulty is never stray outside the default pack anyway...
 
ancsik
Read June 02, 2011, 04:59:17 PM #20

I've seen plenty of people get into all kinds of weird situations when they don't quite know what's going on (one or two players winding up on double, players ending up in battle or marathon, players ending up on difficulties other than novice, and players ending up in other packs).  Most don't leave the default pack, but with Amore being at the top of ITG2, it's not hard for them to accidentally scroll up into the packs instead of down into the songs, and if the majority of packs are Expert only, then it's more likely they'll end up in one than not at that point.
 
tadAAA
Read June 02, 2011, 08:46:59 PM #21

I was going to suggest a beginner/enjoy style mode (I even forget if there is one) that restricts play to only ITG1/2 songs, but apparently people would probably be too dumb to even select that.
 
Happy Redneck
Read June 03, 2011, 06:37:05 AM #22

put a sign saying "stay on novice you fuckin noobs"
 
ancsik
Read June 20, 2011, 10:11:21 AM #23

I'm no longer planning to throw in more RAM.

Instead,  I've been conspiring with Bill via PM and am happy to announce that I just placed an order for a a full set of new parts and will be building out a new computer to swap into the machine.  It's going to take a little while to test thoroughly enough that I'd feel confident swapping it in, but I'm tentatively hoping to have everything ready to go by tournament day.   If so, I would then swap out the computer after the tournament ends.

For those who care, the new machine will by no means be a top-of-the-line gaming rig, but will run circles around the 6 year old computer inside the machine right now (which was made with pretty crappy parts even then, since they were trying to cut costs).
- 3.1 GHz i3 dual core CPU (vs. a ~2GHz P4, IIRC)
- 3 GB DDR3 PC8500 RAM (vs. 1 GB DDR PC 2700)
- 8 GB SSD drive for the OS, OpenITG and other core files (vs. an 8GB partition on a 40GB drive)
- 250GB SATA 2.0 drive for other data [most song packs] (vs. a 250GB IDE drive sharing an IDE cable with the other drive)
- USB 2.0 ports (vs. USB 1.1 ports) - I think the hub uses 2.0 ports, so USB should get a lot better.
- Cheap GeForce 512 MB DDR3 video card (vs. whatever's in there - probably a 32 or 64 MB card with a third the clock speed of the new card).

I'll be prepping the new machine with all of the packs and themes currently on the machine and then some.  I will do my best to copy the current stats.xml file onto the new machine so that we don't lose scores, but I don't know how finicky OpenITG will be about me doing so, so I can't promise that we won't lose the current records - let's put it this way: if it's possible, it will be done.
 
CheeToS
Read June 20, 2011, 01:32:43 PM #24

- 3.1 GHz i3 dual core CPU (vs. a ~2GHz P4, IIRC)

Looks like it's a Celeron from what I've seen, actually (ugh).
 
 
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