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Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:51 pm
by LANman247
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

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 8:17 pm
by Fluffyumpkins
...
welcome to IndyDDR?

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:28 pm
by danc1005
Hey, Chris. Glad you finally decided to post =]
Also, thank you for FINALLY changing the SM cab's timing to Extreme judgment; it was really annoying to play something like FaXX and get all either Marvelous or Miss.
Thanks for all the work you've done over the years to keep Putt-Putt at the forefront of the music game scene =]

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 12:14 am
by LikeableRodent
Hey Chris.

It certainly looks like a lot has changed since I used to play in the Fort.

Heck it seems a lot has changed with the Purdue DDR scene too.

Even though I don't get to reap the benefits of your work, thanks anyway.

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 9:11 am
by chocobojoe
New note on Putt Putt's machines, they converted the PIU: Pro machine into an exact clone of the ITG2 machine. They literally made an exact copy as it has all the same songs and scores from the other machine. And they didn't even bother changing the marquee. And yes they changed the pads to 4-panel.

All I gotta say is...what?

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:50 pm
by Merk
lol

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 3:45 pm
by Amp Divorax
Why am I not surprised that the techs would pull such stupid crap? Hell, between this and them letting IIDX end up in a horrid condition (Ho had to work his butt off to restore it) I'm convinced that they are bigger assholes than I am.

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:33 pm
by WhiteDragon
Image

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 12:14 am
by Glarthob
I'm not even a pump player and I would agree that the conversion was a really dumb idea.

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:24 am
by zomg its joorz
Glarthob wrote:I'm not even a pump player and I would agree that the conversion was a really dumb idea.
this.

lol. I was actually looking forward to dicking around on piu when I was heading there. Just 'cuz it's something to do. Boy was I surprised. And the pads are in horrible horrible condition too. lol.

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 3:16 pm
by DAVE101
... I liked it.

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 5:07 pm
by Glarthob
please gtfo.

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 1:30 pm
by chocobojoe
Somebody screwed up the DDR (stepmania) cab somehow, it's laggy beyond the point of playing now.

And somebody else played a "Jizz in my Pants" stepfile on the ITG machine, which in turn made the management at the arcade disable the USB because of people playing "inappropriate songs"

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 7:24 pm
by Merk
Sighhhhhhhhhhhh. That's a shame, I kinda liked the Extreme Stepmania cabinet they had, the timing was wide enough to make me feel like I was good at DDR again.

Funny that it took this long for someone to play an inappropriate chart, get caught, and have the USBs disabled. I figured someone would've played some gangsta beats at Putt-Putt as soon as r21 came out.

Re: Putt-Putt's Machines (Fort Wayne)

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 1:29 am
by SoDeepPolaris
Merk wrote:Sighhhhhhhhhhhh. That's a shame, I kinda liked the Extreme Stepmania cabinet they had, the timing was wide enough to make me feel like I was good at DDR again.

Funny that it took this long for someone to play an inappropriate chart, get caught, and have the USBs disabled. I figured someone would've played some gangsta beats at Putt-Putt as soon as r21 came out.
I play LIl Wayne - A Milli ONLY after I get the cabinet keys from the management here to turn the woofer up to 100%.

BRURRUIROURM BRBURMRMRURM BRBRUBRUBRUBRUMRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM