Why is there no proper emulator for BEMANI AC games?

Hi. I want to talk about one thing.

You will know MAME. That emulator capable of emulating arcade machine games and reliving those times when we played on those little machines spending our credits until we ran out of money. As well as playing games that were hard to find rarities and most were exclusive to Arcade.

But everything has its pros and cons. Well, MAME is not capable of emulating various games 100%, either because they have graphical errors, it has many slowdowns or problems that make the game unplayable.

And unfortunately this happens to the BEMANI games. Some work perfectly well, others are playable but with some bugs and most are unplayable.

Because of that, I will ask you the question ... Why isn't there a proper emulator for BEMANI AC games?

They will see. There are tons of emulators dedicated to different arcade boards. Like Final Burn, he decides to emulate games from the CPS1, CPS2, CPS3 and Neo Geo boards. Zinc, which is dedicated to emulating arcade board games based on PS1 hardware such as ZN-1, ZN-2 and Namco System 11. Finally there was Demul, who is dedicated to emulating boards whose hardware is based on or similar to Dreamcast like NAOMI, NAOMI 2, Atomiswave and Hikaru.

I wish there is an emulator, and that this emulator is dedicated solely and exclusively to emulating BEMANI games. Make it open source because I want it to be a community project and to borrow parts of the MAME source code to make its development a little easier. Even it has built-in tools to rip songs and all kinds of assests.

This would be the arcade boards with respective specifications and their respective games that I want to be emulated that I will put on this list.

BEMANI DJ-MAIN
Specs:
CPU ; MC68EC020FG25 @ 25MHz
Custom Chips ; 058143, 056832, 055555, 056766, 058141, and KS10101
Sound ; Custom Konami Sound Chips for Multiple Sound Channels
Res ; 24kHz 512x384
Drives ; Pop'N Music use 3.5inch IDE-HDD, all other games use 2.5inch.
Roms ; Program and graphics on EEPROM.
Notes ; Hardware is basically Konami GX with a hard-drive.

Games:
-beatmania
-beatmania 2ndMIX
-beatmania 3rdMIX
-beatmania completeMIX
-beatmania 4thMIX -the beat goes on-
-beatmania 5thMIX -Time to get down-
-beatmania completeMIX 2
-beatmania ClubMIX
-beatmnaia featuring DREAMS COME TRUE
-beatmania CORE REMIX
-beatmania 6thMIX -THE UK UNDERGROUND MUSIC-
-beatmania 7thMIX -keepin' evolution-
-beatmania THE FINAL
-pop'n music
-pop'n music 2
-pop'n music 3
-pop'n stage
-pop'n stage ex

BEMANI SYSTEM 573 ANALOG
Specs:
System ; Based on the PSX based System 573.
I/O Board ; Digital I/O board GX894-PWB (B)A
Analog board gets audio directly from the audio output on the CD-Rom drive.
Sound is also routed differently through the PCB compared to Digital board.
Main CPU : R3000A 32 bit RISC processor, Clock - 33.8688MHz, Operating performance - 30 MIPS, Instruction Cache - 4KB
BUS ; 132 MB/sec.
OS ROM ; 512 Kilobytes
Additional Sound Chips ; Playstation SPU, 24 Channels, 44.1KHz sample rate, PCM audio source, Digital effects include: Envelope, Looping, Digital Reverb, Load up to 512K of sampled waveforms, Supports MIDI Instruments.
Main RAM; 2 Megabytes
Video RAM; 2 Megabyte
Sound RAM ; 512 Kilobytes
Graphical Processor ; 360,000 polygons/sec, Sprite/BG drawing, Adjustable frame buffer, No line restriction, 4,000 8x8 pixel sprites with individual scaling and rotation, Simultaneous backgrounds (Parallax scrolling)
Sprite Effects ; Rotation, Scaling up/down, Warping, Transparency, Fading, Priority, Vertical and horizontal line scroll
Resolution ; 256x224 - 740x480
Colours ; 16.7 million colors, Unlimited CLUTs (Color Look-Up Tables)
Other Features ; custom geometry engine, custom polygon engine, MJPEG decoder
This hardware is based on Sony PlayStation

Games:
-DanceDanceRevolution
-DanceDanceRevolution Internet Ranking Version
-DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX
-DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX with beatmania IIDX CLUB VERSiON
-DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX LINK VERSION
-DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX AND beatmania IIDX substream CLUB VERSiON 2
-DanceDanceRevolution KIDS
-Dancing Stage
-Dancing Stage featuring TRUE KiSS DESTiNATiON
-GUITARFREAKS
-GUITARFREAKS 2ndMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 2ndMIX Link version

BEMANI TWINKLE
Specs:
Hardware Notes ; Playstation based but not system 573.
Main CPU ; R3000A 32 bit RISC processor, Clock - 33.8688MHz, Operating performance - 30 MIPS, Instruction Cache - 4KB
BUS ; 132 MB/sec.
OS ROM ; 512 Kilobytes
Sound CPU ; 68000
Sound Chip ; RF5c400
Additional Sound Chips ; Playstation SPU, 24 Channels, 44.1KHz sample rate, PCM audio source, Digital effects include; Envelope, Looping, Digital Reverb, Load up to 512K of sampled waveforms, Supports MIDI Instruments.
Main RAM; 2 Megabytes
Video RAM; 2 Megabyte
Sound RAM ; 512 Kilobytes
Graphical Processor ; 360,000 polygons/sec, Sprite/BG drawing, Adjustable frame buffer, No line restriction, 4,000 8x8 pixel sprites with individual scaling and rotation, Simultaneous backgrounds (Parallax scrolling)
Sprite Effects ; Rotation, Scaling up/down, Warping, Transparency, Fading, Priority, Vertical and horizontal line scroll
Colours ; 16.7 million colors, Unlimited CLUTs (Color Look-Up Tables)
Display notes ; Display is composite TV so can use unlimited colors, but system uses CLUT due to overlay graphics only use 16k colors for background animation and 256 colours for flames and demo.
Other Features ; custom geometry engine, custom polygon engine, MJPEG decoder
Storage Media ; Combination of CD's, DVD's, Roms and Harddrive with a small ROM cartridge for protection.
JVC DVD player ; DVD background movies.
Toshiba PD chip ; Security chip.
SCSI CD-Rom drive ; Program core and ingame graphics.
IDE Hard Drive ; Audio.
Conversion Notes ; All games can be converted to latest versions.
Upgrade kits consist of 2 CD's, Security Chip, DVD, Hard-Drive, Manual and all associated stickers.
PCB : Case - Main - SPU - Sub 2
This hardware is based on Sony PlayStation

Games:
-beatmania IIDX
-beatmania IIDX CLUB VERSiON
-beatmania IIDX substream
-beatmania IIDX substream CLUB VERSiON 2
-beatmania IIDX 2nd style
-beatmania IIDX 3rd style
-beatmania IIDX 4th style
-beatmania IIDX 5th style
-beatmania IIDX 6th style
-beatmania IIDX 7th style
-beatmania IIDX 8th style

BEMANI SYSTEM 573 DIGITAL
Specs:
System ; Based on the PSX based System 573.
I/O Board ; Digital I/O board GX894-PWB (B)A
Digital board gets sound in digital format from the CD-Rom through the the IDE lead.
Sound is also routed differently through the PCB compared to Analog board.
Main CPU ; R3000A 32 bit RISC processor, Clock - 33.8688MHz, Operating performance - 30 MIPS, Instruction Cache - 4KB
BUS ; 132 MB/sec.
OS ROM ; 512 Kilobytes
Additional Sound Chips ; Playstation SPU, 24 Channels, 44.1KHz sample rate, PCM audio source, Digital effects include; Envelope, Looping, Digital Reverb, Load up to 512K of sampled waveforms, Supports MIDI Instruments.
Main RAM; 2 Megabytes
Video RAM; 2 Megabyte
Sound RAM ; 512 Kilobytes
Graphical Processor ; 360,000 polygons/sec, Sprite/BG drawing, Adjustable frame buffer, No line restriction, 4,000 8x8 pixel sprites with individual scaling and rotation, Simultaneous backgrounds (Parallax scrolling)
Sprite Effects ; Rotation, Scaling up/down, Warping, Transparency, Fading, Priority, Vertical and horizontal line scroll
Resolution ; 256x224 - 740x480
Colours ; 16.7 million colors, Unlimited CLUTs (Color Look-Up Tables)
Other Features ; custom geometry engine, custom polygon engine, MJPEG decoder
Flash Card Notes ; All games used a 32meg flash card for the games program, the exception for this is the "Disney's Rave" machine, which for some reason uses a 16meg flash card, so if you want to upgrade you need to get your hands on a 32 meg card.
Notes ; Drummania and Guitar Freaks can actually be linked together for "Jam" sessions.
Conversion Notes ; The newer versions require some of the roms to be flashed on the mainboard when upgrading the machines. DDR5th Mix was possibly the first to do this. Upgrade kits for 5th Mix come with the System Disc and a security cartridge. To upgrade, Normally, for DDR, the system will boot to the CD, check the security cart, if the cart's empty, it'll overwrite the security cart and prompt a reboot. After the reboot, it'll check the security cart as normal and now as it's been written to will boot up normally.
This was, among other things, to change the game system code so the game would run at 60 fps as opposed to 30 fps.
3rd Mix Notes (thanks to Ross) : How to tell what version of 3rd Mix you have...
If the default song is 'Shock' then you have a 3rd Mix Korea Ver.2. Thist has 16 Korean songs on it, the drawback is that it's missing a few songs from both 3rd and 2nd Mix.
If your default song is Bakkwo then you have a 3rd Korea. If you have ever played on a 3rd Mix Plus, 4th, or 4th Plus you will notice that these are the same seven songs on the other mixes.
Lastly if you default song is Upside Down then it's an asian 3rd Mix. Not only are there songs missing from the real Japanese version but there are 0 Korean songs as well.
This hardware is based on Sony PlayStation

Games:
-drummania
-drummania 2ndMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 3rdMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 4thMIX & drummania 3rdMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 5thMIX & drummania 4thMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 6thMIX & drummania 5thMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 7thMIX & drummania 6thMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 8thMIX & drummania 7thMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 8thMIX & drummania 7thMIX power-up ver.
-GUITARFREAKS 9thMIX & drummania 8thMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 10thMIX & drummania 9thMIX
-GUITARFREAKS 11thMIX & drummania 10thMIX
-DanceDanceRevolution Solo BASS MIX
-DanceDanceRevolution 3rdMIX
-DanceDanceRevolution Solo 2000
-DanceDanceRevolution 3rdMIX VER.KOREA
-DanceDanceRevolution 3rdMIX Ver.KOREA2
-DanceDanceRevolution 3rdMIX PLUS
-DanceDanceRevolution 4thMIX
-DanceDanceRevolution 4thMIX PLUS
-DanceDanceRevolution 5thMIX
-DDRMAX -DanceDanceRevolution 6thMIX-
-DDRMAX2 -DanceDanceRevolution 7thMIX-
-DanceDanceRevolution EXTREME
-Dancing Stage featuring DREAMS COME TRUE
-Dancing Stage EuroMIX
-Dancing Stage featuring Disney's RAVE
-Dancing Stage EuroMIX2
-Dance Maniax
-Dance Maniax 2ndMIX
-Dance Maniax 2ndMIX APPEND J☆PARADISE
-MAMBO A GO GO
-Martial Beat

BEMANI KARAOKE
Specs:
System Notes ; A combination of a karaoke studio and a Bemani System 573 Digital Hardware DDR machine hooked up together. Apparently has in excess of 3000 songs on it.
I/O Board ; Digital I/O board GX894-PWB (B)A
Digital board gets sound in digital format from a CD-Rom (or possibly a hard drive?) through the the IDE lead.
Main CPU ; R3000A 32 bit RISC processor, Clock - 33.8688MHz, Operating performance - 30 MIPS, Instruction Cache - 4KB
BUS ; 132 MB/sec.
OS ROM ; 512 Kilobytes
Additional Sound Chips ; Playstation SPU, 24 Channels, 44.1KHz sample rate, PCM audio source, Digital effects include; Envelope, Looping, Digital Reverb, Load up to 512K of sampled waveforms, Supports MIDI Instruments.
Main RAM; 2 Megabytes
Video RAM; 2 Megabyte
Sound RAM ; 512 Kilobytes
Graphical Processor ; 360,000 polygons/sec, Sprite/BG drawing, Adjustable frame buffer, No line restriction, 4,000 8x8 pixel sprites with individual scaling and rotation, Simultaneous backgrounds (Parallax scrolling)
Sprite Effects ; Rotation, Scaling up/down, Warping, Transparency, Fading, Priority, Vertical and horizontal line scroll
Resolution ; 256x224 - 740x480
Colours ; 16.7 million colors, Unlimited CLUTs (Color Look-Up Tables)
Other Features ; custom geometry engine, custom polygon engine, MJPEG decoder
This hardware is based on Sony PlayStation

Games:
-DanceDanceRevolution KaraokemiX
-DanceDanceRevolution KaraokemiX 2nd

BEMANI FIREBEAT
Specs:
CPU ; IBM Power PC 403GCX
Graphics System ; Konami custom (sprite style chip)
Sound ; YMZ280B
Software ; DVD Drive, CD-ROM drive & Dongle
Graphics Notes ; Can draw arbitrary sized images from VRAM, which is laid out like a 2D texture sheet, also all the images are packed 16-bit pixels so there's no palette.
Storage Media
Beatmania III series ; CD-ROM (Program & Data) & 3.5inch IDE-HDD(Audio)
Keyboardmania series ; CD-ROM (Program) & CD-ROM (CD-DA Audio)
Pop'n music series ; CD-ROM (Program) & DVD-ROM (Audio)
Para Para Paradise 1&1stPlus ; CD-ROM (Program) & CD-ROM (CD-DA Audio)
Notes : Mem cards are compact flash and are packed to death, it holds everthing, and is fully transportable across boards through flash cards.
Notes : Some cabinets can actually be linked together for "Jam" sessions.
PCB: Front of Crate - Main PCB - Main PCB Back - Extend PCB - Midi/Amp board - Backplane - Backplane Alt - Side - Discs

Games:
-KEYBOARDMANIA
-KEYBOARDMANIA 2ndMIX
-KEYBOARDMANIA 3rdMIX
-Keyboard Heaven
-pop'n music Animelo
-pop'n music 4
-pop'n music MICKEY TUNES
-pop'n music Animelo 2
-pop'n music 5
-pop'n music 6
-pop'n music 7
-pop'n music 8
-ee'MALL
-ee'MALL 2nd avenue
-beatmania III
-beatmania III APPEND CORE REMIX
-beatmania III APPEND 6thMIX
-beatmania III APPEND 7thMIX
-beatmania III THE FINAL
-ParaParaParadise
-ParaParaParadise V1.1
-ParaParaParadise 1st MIX Plus
-ParaParaParadise DX
-ParaParaDancing

BEMANI VIPER
Specs:
CPU ; Motorola Power PC XPC8240 @ 200-250MHz
Graphics System ; 3DFX 355-0024-020 (Equivalent to 3dfx Voodoo3/Avenger)
Sound ; YMZ280B
ROMS ; Flash Card based, some secured, and all controlled by an RTC Ram.
Notes ; Mem cards are compact flash and are packed to death, it holds everthing, and is fully transportable across boards, through flash cards. The only one not transportable so far are Police 24/7 2, and Sogeki.
PCB Pictures ; Large PCB

Games:
-ParaParaParadise 2nd MIX
-pop'n music 9

BEMANI PYTHON
Specs:
CPU ; 128 Bit "Emotion Engine"
- System Clock; 300 MHz
- System Memory; 32 MB Direct Rambus
- Memory Bus Bandwidth; 3.2 GB per second
- Co-Processor; FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 1, Floating Point Divider x 1)
- Vector Units; VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 9, Floating Point Divider x 1)
- Floating Point Performance; 6.2 GFLOPS
- 3D CG Geometric Transformation; 66 million Polygons Per Second
- Compressed Image Decoder; MPEG2
Graphics ; "Graphics Synthesizer"
- Clock Frequency; 150MHz
- DRAM Bus bandwidth; 48 GB Per Second
- DRAM Bus width; 2560 bits
- Pixel Configuration; RGB:Alpha;Z Buffer (24:8:32)
- Maximum Polygon Rate; 75 Million Polygons Per Second
Sound ; "SPU2+CPU"
- Number of voices; ADPCM: 48 channel on SPU2 plus definable by software
- Sampling Frequency; 44.1 KHz or 48 KHz (selectable)
I/O Processor
- CPU Core; Current PlayStation CPU
- Clock Frequency; 33.8 MHz or 37.5 MHz (selectable)
- Sub Bus; 32 Bit
Connection Format ; JVS
Hardware Notes ; Hardware is made up of a Konami main board (a bit like Viper) containing a couple of Konami chips, a flashROM, a couple of CPLDs and a heat sinked Toshiba TMPR3927.
On top of that on another metal platform is a standard PS2 main board (the original PS2, old type square board) with the standard PS2 video cable plugged into it and into the main board, plus a power cable coming from the main Konami board into it and a small cable coming from the PS2 front connection board in a tiny connector joining to a connector on the main board. The front controller/memory card ports are present and in one of them is a Sony Magic Gate card which no doubt has a 16M flashROM and a secured PIC. Main game is stored on a 128M CF card which plugs into the Konami main board
This hardware is based on Sony PlayStation 2

Games:
-Dancing Stage Fusion

BEMANI PYTHON 2
Specs:
CPU ; 128 Bit "Emotion Engine"
- System Clock; 300 MHz
- System Memory; 32 MB Direct Rambus
- Memory Bus Bandwidth; 3.2 GB per second
- Co-Processor; FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 1, Floating Point Divider x 1)
- Vector Units; VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 9, Floating Point Divider x 1)
- Floating Point Performance; 6.2 GFLOPS
- 3D CG Geometric Transformation; 66 million Polygons Per Second
- Compressed Image Decoder: MPEG2
Graphics ; "Graphics Synthesizer"
- Clock Frequency; 150MHz
- DRAM Bus bandwidth; 48 GB Per Second
- DRAM Bus width; 2560 bits
- Pixel Configuration; RGB:Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8:32)
- Maximum Polygon Rate; 75 Million Polygons Per Second
Sound ; "SPU2+CPU"
- Number of voices; ADPCM: 48 channel on SPU2 plus definable by software
- Sampling Frequency; 44.1 KHz or 48 KHz (selectable)
I/O Processor
- CPU Core; Current PlayStation CPU
- Clock Frequency; 33.8 MHz or 37.5 MHz (selectable)
- Sub Bus; 32 Bit
Software ; Stored on a hard drive plugged into the PS2's hard drive adaptor port.
Notes ; It's a Playstation 2 (Model SCPH-50000 (MB/NH) - Japanese NTSC), with a hard drive and an adaptor board.
This hardware is based on Sony PlayStation 2

Games:
-pop'n music 10
-pop'n music 11
-pop'n music 12 Iroha
-pop'n music 13 Carnival
-pop'n music 14 FEVER!
-GuitarFreaks V & DrumMania V
-GuitarFreaks V2 & DrumMania V2
-GuitarFreaks V3 & DrumMania V3
-Toy'sMarch
-Toy'sMarch2
-DANCE 86.4 FUNKY RADIO STATION
-DanceDanceRevolution SuperNOVA
-DanceDanceRevolution SuperNOVA2
-Dancing Stage SuperNOVA

I got the information in the following link:
http://www.system16.com/museum.php?id=5

What do you think? I want that emulator that I want to come true

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This is VERY close to pira---
oh its the guy that wants every single IIDX song ported over to some iidx software and think it will be free.
Nevermind. lmao.

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This might be piracy.

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You kinda answered your own question: It's different hardware types. >>

There's no reason to make an "emulator" for the Python games because they're technically PS2 games (so you'd be better off hoping PCSX2 would add support a la Dolphin adding Triforce arcade support), and Firebeat's notoriously hard to replicate without using copyrighted code.

And you can already play the early Beatmania/DDR/Pop'N games with MAME, and we just now have support for IIDX 1-8.

tl;dr, there's no way there's going to be an "emulator" for all these AC Bemani games under one roof; there's already much easier, and much less legally ambiguous ways of playing DDR/IIDX/etc. And even if that wasn't into consideration, it's not like making an emulator for Sega's Model 2 arcade board because there's a wide variety of games that use it; there's only a very small library that plays a very niche genre of games.

I'm just gonna say there IS an emulator besides MAME.

Beyond that, this topic is useless and needs to be trashed. He answered his own question, MAME is the only reliable thing out there unless you know your sources.

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Get a campaign going and I will support it if we get Pop 'n Stage emulation.

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Friends. They should know that there are games that do not deserve to be forgotten and must be known and tested by many people through emulation.

I would like to play beatmania III. Since it is the beatmania classic (5-key) but with better graphics, in addition to having exclusive songs that do not appear in the beatmania THE FINAL that uses the BEMANI DJ-MAIN arcade board.

Watch this gameplay and you will realize:


But that kind of game cannot be emulated in MAME, so I want that emulator that I want so much to be able to play that game.

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No such emulator exists and probably will ever exist.

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Why?
1. there's really no demand
2. it's not easy to make an emulator for this stuff

You probably should get people that actually understand how to make Emulators instead of asking people here to make one. Creating Emulators isn't an easy task to begin with so you can't go "Hey make an emulator for this niche Hardware because there's a game I'd like to play" and expect people to comply easily. You also need to realize these games have different hardwares so technically they need different emulation as well and not everyone want to spend their time emulating each hardware for only a few games to play.

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emulation is for pussies, buy arcade cabs or go home

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This. Making an emulator is not a drag-and-drop-and-that's-it process. It's insanely hard work and usually takes years.

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But I don't have money to buy arcade cabinets. Besides that they can be very expensive

And I can't leave home because of the situation we have, you know why.

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buy the entire arcade
right now

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Stop annoy me

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lol we know these games exist why do you keep making threads about how we can't forget about these games

and no sorry no one is gonna want to put focus on a new emulator that can only play like a handful of old japanese rhythm games over continuing to develop the most versatile arcade emulator on the market which just recently started to happen to support some bemani games

venezuela

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Newer versions only uses Bemani PC, and req. hacking, put is piracy risky!!!

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Game preservation is important yada yada yada but you’re just being unreasonable amigo. Just accept that fact that you need to buy the cabinet or the pcb for the game with a controller hooked up which will cost you mucho dinero. What you want ultimately is freebies handed out to you like a welfare recipient.

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It is not bad advice. Asking to make an emulator for thoses games is piracy.

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