Thinking of converting DDR Extreme to Stepmania, need input

[TooManyGames]

Seems a lot of our customers are willing to drive hours to an arcade with Stepmania/ITG, so we're tossing around the idea of converting our Extreme cab to Stepmania and having that and SuperNOVA.

Talk to me like I'm an idiot, what do I need to know to make this conversion as smooth as possible and so I get as few complaints as possible from my customers after the conversion's done? 8*)

So far it looks like the JPac and ArcadeVGA boards from Ultimarc are the way we're going for interfaces (unless there's a better way). What build is the best for actual arcade operation? Is there an easy way to hook the lights up?

Is there a way that players can load their own songs and stepcharts from their USB drives, or do we have to do that through back office means? I'm not completely familiar with the intricacies of Stepmania and ITG, I have Stepmania at home as just a home user setup.

Anywho, any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

edit: Sorry if anyone thinks this is in the wrong forum, but I wasn't sure which build of SM was the best for actual arcade operation and ease of use by my customers, which is why I figured I'd post here.

[IIDX Clock]

Use OpenITG, it's a SM 3.95 (ITG2) build which emulates some of ITG2's features (like machine updates, r21, etc)

[TooManyGames]

What is r21?

I've never played on an dedicated ITG2 machine, what features would this build offer over the standard SM build?

[shakesoda]

You will need to use a build which supports input debouncing, which would be SM3.9Plus, 3.9AC builds, OpenITG, and SM4 (aka, pretty much any build but 3.9 final).

All of those would work fine for an arcade, however I'd go with 3.9Plus for this (completed DDR themes exist for it, it's the most stable, etc).

[IIDX Clock]

What is r21?

r21 is the common name for that ITG2 patch which added custom song support

[MdX MaxX]

Use 3.9+. It has USB Custom song and Profile support, Input Debounce for AC, and you can use any 3.9 theme you want on it (Including DDR Extreme Theme, if you want to keep it looking like that). And you can add all the songs you want.

[TooManyGames]

So, OpenITG and SM 3.9+ have USB custom song support, what exactly is this? Can players load songs off their USB sticks into our machine, or is it a deal where it only will make the songs accessible when the USB stick is in the USB port?

Like I said, I'm not completely familiar with ITG, so I'm trying to learn this stuff for my customers so I know what's going on when they have questions to ask. 8*)

[freem]

It's the latter (only allowing access to songs when the USB stick is plugged in).

[MdX MaxX]

When the user plugs in his/her USB stick, he/she can play the songs on his/her USB stick as long as it is plugged in. And he/she can keep his/her stats and scores on his/her USB stick as well.

SM 3.9+ can take any simfile from USB. In OpenITG, however, the song file has to be in Ogg vorbis format.

[vyhd]

Some things that need to be noted:

-Not all songs are playable - only what's loaded during the short timeout (as set in StepMania.ini). If some songs aren't showing up, that would be why. The timeout applies to each card, not both, so a 5-second timeout for 2 players will take 10 seconds to load songs.

-It's important to note that songs are flushed from memory after a round and loaded at the beginning of a round, so the songs don't remain constant and don't remain on the machine.

-OpenITG supports MP3/OGG/WAV songs, same as 3.9+; however, DWI files aren't loaded as custom songs. It's also important to note that input debouncing doesn't work yet - it should in alpha 6.