ITG fully-functional custom song hack?

Does anyone know if there is some way to hack an ITG2 machine into making custom songs fully functional (with sample, banner, backgrounds, etc) without loading them into the machine? As in, some way to make the machine recognize full functions for songs on USBs.

I believe the best thing to do would be to look in to OpenITG. I don't know much anything about that though, so someone else would have to answer any other questions.

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Just use OpenITG instead of the ITG2 software.

Why is that always a universal solution for every ITG machine? OpenITG has a pretty broken timing window you realize that right? Apparently its fixed on beta 3, but its still not out yet.

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Because the alternative answer is "no" :{

Does OITG support full function for USB-loaded songs, or are you suggesting that I just copy them into the machine directly?

OpenITG beta 3 is out, if you're willing to do some work. OpenITG on a machine already running ITG is dead simple. Even simpler, use the arcade patch that puts much of the OITG functionality into a standard ITG installation. This would allow for the features you were requesting and quite a bit more. The arcade patch for OpenITG has also been out for a while now.

The alternatives to OITG is far less appealing (StepMania, root hacking, etc.). If you want the most out of an ITG machine and the owner is willing to allow you to modify hard drive data, then that's the only reasonable solution.

We're using beta 3 on our machine, it's definitely out if you're willing to work with it. It needs building and configuring, but it's there.

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vyhd has stated it countless times. It's not OpenITG's fault, but of the themes.
There's a line in the original default theme that's called "JudgeWindowAdd". That line was removed in later official versions with the update patches, but themers didn't know that, so they didn't comment it.

Broken? In what way? I have an OpenITG cabinet near where I live and I'm curious to know of this.

Also, running OpenITG doesn't mean it'll load banners, backgrounds or the music sample from USB songs. Well at least the one that I played on anyway. The only way I think you can get the machine to do that is to actually add it to the song folder on the HDD.

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Apparently some people play with the assumption that something is off-sync and they prove themselves correct (I've done it before, it happens under good intentions but when you look closely at the song you realize it's synched then next time you play it you do just fine).

Here's a quote from VYHD on oITG timing windows, they are exactly the same as official ITG R16+ timing windows.

"It's kind of cute how people immediately blame our binary if they experience problems. I've been told that ITGIO is too early, ITGIO is too late, ITGIO is "unstable" (in a thread where half the talk is about how horrible the sensors are), PIUIO is too early, PIUIO is too late, oITG loosens the timing windows, oITG tightens the timing windows, oITG is worlds offsync...you get the idea. This doesn't even cover some of the nuttier statements (being modded to only accept ITG recolor themes, etc.)

As you hopefully know, the timing windows are set by the theme data, and our input drivers are completely reverse-engineered from Revision 23. The engine also timestamps all inputs, and how they're handled wouldn't change that, so there should be no difference in how it performs on that end. (Has your theme been changed? A lot of recolors use Revision 2 metrics, which have a distinctly widened timing window for PIUIO. We've had a few complaints about tightened windows that turned out to be that problem.)

I've personally tested beta 1.1 on ITGIO and PIUIO; both perform identically to ITG in terms of sync and consistency. JJSz, who's quad-starred several songs on our 'local' ITG upgrade cabinet since beta 1.1, can attest to this. In addition, check out this video relating to PIUIO. I've tried both and normal timing windows/offsets are fine, but I figure you'll better trust people otherwise unaffiliated with the project.

Long story short: a lot of anecdotal evidence from the development team and a lot of people unrelated to it suggests that these problems are psychological. Reports of it being offsync are relatively common, but that's more the phenomenon where people blame OpenITG before they even consider themes or settings, let alone pad condition, off days, or that their assumption the new binary is offsync will make them play offsync.

I've actually been caught up in that last one before: darkchao, lightning, and I were testing an experimental build and we were convinced ITGIO was early because we were doing so badly, but when we stopped worrying and played to the music, our scores noticeably improved.

A friend who recently upgraded to OpenITG told me about how he had a group of players come up and say it was offsync; he agreed to adjust the sync until it was onsync, and about 7 or 8 boots later, they all agreed that it was correct. Meanwhile, he didn't change a single thing about it, but he hasn't gotten any complaints since.

I could go on, but I think you've gotten the point already. There's no basis for it in the code, there's no basis for it anecdotally, there are plenty of things that would affect timing before the binary itself would, and there are plenty of people that assume it's offsync and prove themselves right by playing as though it were offsync."

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I see. So the timing windows are actually in the theme itself rather than a central configuration file. I also see what he's getting at too with the psychological effect. When I sync songs in Stepmania and I feel like it's off sync, I think too much about the synchronization and it ends up affecting my own timing.

From my experience on the OpenITG cabinet I played on, I don't remember it being too bad. Timing felt about the same when I played on it when it was an ITG2 cabinet. The only thing that really bothered me was the amount of songs they crammed into the song folder, but that's an unrelated complaint

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If loose timing is a problem for anyone, you can just go into the metrics and change it. You can even copy the timing window information from StepMania of you want. Then after that, it's on you to actually have all your sims synced correctly.

I wish I could change the timing window on my local OpenITG machine. The timing seems too generous to me. Although I know I wouldn't be allowed to because some hunch tells me a lot of ITG fans use that machine.

Also, quick question actually. If we were to compare ITG's timing window vs. Stepmania's timing window when set to 4, how would they compare? From what I can tell, ITG's Fantastic/Marvelous window seems wider than SM's.
Then for further comparison, if we compared Stepmania's timing window and compared it to a CS version of DDR, how would they compare for overall timing difficulty?

I've always been curious about the specifics on this. I know generally one is harder than another, but I don't quite know down to the comparison of each level of judgment.

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There's a long thread on DDR Freak that compares lots of timing windows for different games.

http://www.ddrfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=95076

In conjungtion with the timing windows, you should set these two attributes, to more effectively duplicate a real arcade pad (credits to Crono).

PadStickSeconds=0.050000
JudgeWindowAdd=0.001500

Default:

JudgeWindowScale=0.660000
JudgeWindowSecondsAttack=0.135000
JudgeWindowSecondsBoo=0.180000
JudgeWindowSecondsGood=0.135000
JudgeWindowSecondsGreat=0.090000
JudgeWindowSecondsMarvelous=0.022500
JudgeWindowSecondsMine=0.090000
JudgeWindowSecondsOK=0.250000
JudgeWindowSecondsPerfect=0.045000

8th Mix Arcade:

JudgeWindowScale=1.000000
JudgeWindowSecondsAttack=0.120000
JudgeWindowSecondsBoo=0.150000
JudgeWindowSecondsGood=0.120000
JudgeWindowSecondsGreat=0.090000
JudgeWindowSecondsMarvelous=0.015000
JudgeWindowSecondsMine=0.120000
JudgeWindowSecondsOK=0.250000
JudgeWindowSecondsPerfect=0.030000

Note: Those of you that use the above option make sure to update the current WindowScale setting change.

8th Mix Arcade (Frame-rate based):

JudgeWindowScale=1.000000
JudgeWindowSecondsAttack=0.135000
JudgeWindowSecondsBoo=0.191666
JudgeWindowSecondsGood=0.158333
JudgeWindowSecondsGreat=0.108333
JudgeWindowSecondsMarvelous=0.016666
JudgeWindowSecondsMine=0.108333
JudgeWindowSecondsOK=0.250000
JudgeWindowSecondsPerfect=0.033333

Note: Those of you that use the above option make sure to update the current WindowMarvelous setting change.

In The Groove:

JudgeWindowScale=1.000000
JudgeWindowSecondsAttack=0.135000
JudgeWindowSecondsBoo=0.180000
JudgeWindowSecondsGood=0.135000
JudgeWindowSecondsGreat=0.102000
JudgeWindowSecondsMarvelous=0.021500
JudgeWindowSecondsMine=0.070000
JudgeWindowSecondsOK=0.320000
JudgeWindowSecondsPerfect=0.043000

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I insist: With OpenITG you should set JudgeWindowAdd to ZERO.

I insist with all StepMania timing windows you should set JudgeWindowAdd to ZERO.

That number adds a buffer to all timing windows in order to account for pad lag, use it sparingly.

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Hmm, yeah, but the discussion originated about the arcade machines, not home stuff.