[Guide] Add Songs to an ITG Machine.

[Case]

Table of Contents

• Flash Stick Setup for ITG and Custom Songs
• Adding songs permanently to an ITG Machine.
• Adding Speed Mods to an ITG Machine.
• Disabling BIOS password on an ITG machine.
• Resetting CMOS password.

As this site is titled r21 freak you all know that you can simply play custom songs by having them on a flash stick. If you're here looking for how to do this. Make two folders called exactly this, with the all the punctuation intact.

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/In The Groove 2/Songs/

Inside the songs folder place the song packs you would like to play. In most cases the songs must be less then 2:00:03. 2 Minutes and 3 milliseconds. You can only have 50 songs on a USB. The machine on the title screen will say "Custom Songs Enabled" and it must be either version r21 or r23.


How to Add Songs to the Machine Permanently.

Existing Tutorials: http://boxorroxors.net/tutorials.php?mode=view&t=195
This Tutorial is helpful, but grossly outdated. It also leaves off key steps.

If you have access to the machine you can add songs to it permanently. This guide will cover information not easily found on the internet.

Working with R23
- It WILL ALWAYS have a bios password. This password changes EVERYTIME the machine turns on. You need to get into the machine and either change it to another version to hack it, or manually turn it on without the rest of the cabinet being on.
- There are hacked versions of r23. I will include links to them and to an editor that allows you to make your own. It is called infamouspat's itgr23editor.

MUCH more including photos to come.

Incompletely Guide

You need to create a zip folder to easily put all the files into place.

Creating a Zip File

The zip file you create must be under 2gbs. Linux can not unzip a file larger then that.

Create a folder called "custom" inside that folder make 4 more folders called "Songs", "Cache", "Themes", "Courses".

All the songs you want MUST be ogg. You can convert mp3 files but you must also change the reference in the dwi or sm file.

With all the songs you want, run openITG. openITG is going to create all the cache files you need.

Inside the openITG folder go into Cache, take everything from Cache and place it into your custom/Cache folder. Then take everything in the Songs folder and move them into your custom/Songs folder.

Adding other Speed Mods to ITG

With this mod you are removing C300 and adding 3.5 and 4.5. You can change them to whatever you'd like and I am sure your smart enough to figure out how to add others. Just make sure you change it to both files.

Create 2 files in notepad the first called "metrics.ini" when you save the file in notepad change it from .txt to all files, and type in the full name, this will allow you to save it as an ini instead of a txt.

Replace "<YOUR MOD NAME>" with whatever you want to call your mod in all places.

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[Global]
FallbackTheme=arcade

[Preferences-arcade]
Theme=<YOUR MOD NAME>

[ScreenOptionsMaster]
Speed=11
SpeedDefault=mod,1x
Speed,1=mod,1x;name,1x
Speed,2=mod,1.5x;name,1.5x
Speed,3=mod,2x;name,2x
Speed,4=mod,2.5x;name,2.5x
Speed,5=mod,3x;name,3x
Speed,6=mod,3.5x;name,3.5x
Speed,7=mod,4x;name,4x
Speed,8=mod,4.5x;name,4.5x
Speed,9=mod,5x;name,5x
Speed,10=mod,6x;name,6x
Speed,11=mod,C450;name,C450

The second file you will need to create the same way. It needs to be called "english.ini"

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[OptionNames]
1x=1
1.5x=1.5
2x=2
2.5x=2.5
3x=3
3.5x=3.5
4x=4
4.5x=4.5
5x=5
6x=6
C450=c450

inside your "Themes" folder create a folder called <YOURMODNAME> inside that folder make a folder called "Languages".

Inside your mod folder place metrics.ini, and inside the "Languages" folder place english.ini. So the path to english.ini should look like /custom/Themes/<YOURMODNAME>/Languages/.

Finally you will need to add this to your Static.ini, if you are following this guide entirely this is also listed below where you will create this file in Linux.

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[Preferences-arcade]
Theme=<YOURMODNAME>

Booting into Linux

If you can plug the USB into the computer of the ITG machine, and NOT the front of the cabinet. (Front transfers at less then 1mb per second, computer transfers at 15.5mbs per second)
Plug the USB Keyboard into a player slot on the cabinet.
Turn off the ITG2 dedicab.
On the logo screen Press F11 and keep pressing it. A screen should come up asking you to select the device you would like to boot from. If it asked for a password see below on how to reset the CMOS.
Select your USB device from the list of devices. You should see your USB flash Stick. If it is not there, go back and select Hard Drive Some larger flash sticks will only show up under Hard Drive.
Slax will load up and select the Text Version.
When Slax is finished loading, enter username "root" and password "toor".

Linux Commands
Prepare the directory to mount the USB flash stick to.

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mkdir /mnt/flash

Mount the USB flash stick.

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mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/flash

Start the Midnight Commander.

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mc

Arrow up to "..." and press return, you should now be in the root folder, if "..." is still at the top press return on it again. You should see a folder called "mnt". Go to "mnt" then to "flash". Select custom.zip then type in. This will extract the custom.zip file into the necessary directory, from your flash stick.

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unzip custom.zip -d /mnt/hda5/

Make Static.ini
In Midnight Commander, go to "hda3". If there is a file called "Static.ini" in this folder simply edit it by pressing F4. If not you need to create the file.

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touch Static.ini

Then go to the file, and press F4 to edit the file you just created. In this file type in.

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[Options]
AdditionalFolders=/itgdata/custom/

**If you used the speed mod above you will need to add.**



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[Preferences-arcade]
Theme=<YOURMODNAME>

Then press ctrl+x and tell it yes you would like to save the file.

After this, sync the drives

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sync

Resetting CMOS

If you have r23 on your machine you will may to do this before you can go into Linux. Everytime you start the machine with r23 it will randomly set a BIOS password. You may need to do this everytime.

• Open the ITG Machine.
• Open up the computer inside the machine. The screws for the cse are on the back.
• There will be an Orange PCI Express slot, beside it will be a battery. You will need to remove the battery for 30 seconds.
• You do not have to put the battery back in ever. If there is no battery it can not save BIOS settings.
• In r23 the password is only added back when the game is allowed to load, after you do it, you do not need to do it again if the game has not loaded since.

Removing BIOS Password Permanently.
Prerequisites

• Must have access to the computer inside the machine.
• Philips Head Screw Driver.
• Bootable Flash Stick (see above for how).
• Access to buttons inside the front of the machine.

Download this onto your desktop or laptop computer. (mirror)

Download ITG 2 r23.itg from Boxorroxor.com. (It can not be directly linked, this it to the patches folder though.)

Install r23 onto the machine. You press either Test or Service, to bring up the menu, select Update Machine. (Fix Later)

After it has been updated turn off the machine.

Boot Into Linux, Mount your Flash Stick and go into Midnight Commander. (Exact Directions Above if you need the commands.)

Go to /mnt/hda3/

inside this folder you will see a file called "itg". select it and press F5 to copy "itg" to where ever you mounted your flash stick.

Turn off the ITG machine then take your flashstick back to your computer.

Extract itgr23hax.zip onto your computer. Run the file jar file. In the input file put file from your ITG machine. In the output put the file called itg that is in the extracted folder. This is going to create a file using your machines specifications. Use this program to pick the settings you want. Disable BIOS password and you can change the song lengths allowed on Flash Sticks.

The output file is new backup the file on your flash stick to your computer, and copy the new file to your flashstick.

Go back to the ITG machine and boot into Linux. mount your flash stick, and copy the "itg" file you just created to /mnt/hda3/.

Now you are able to boot into linux and the BIOS password will never return.

Booting into Linux on ITG Machine.

Remove the CMOS battery, wait 30 seconds and then turn on the machine. At the Roxor Logo page press F11 (repeatedly) to boot into a flash stick.

[Case]

Post Saved.

[Wastum]

Nice.

Also, you want to post this kind of shit here: viewforum.php?f=38
Some random mod will probably move it over there when they see this.

[Case]

I could see that, but its also about ITG, and I am by no means the god of ITG so I am hoping that the community will help me though the follies I make when trying to construct it.

[Case]

After 2 days of work I finally got my machine to where I want it to be.

I definitely want to highlight how I did somethings so that people can do it for themselves. I am going to test a few methods to see if their are any shortcuts I can help you all take. So that you do not go though the struggles I did.


Also, is anyone interested in a guide in how to turn a DDR machine into an openITG machine?

[sudzi781]

Also, is anyone interested in a guide in how to turn a DDR machine into an openITG machine?

I would be, on the off-chance I ever manage to get one.

[Case]

I paid 5000 for my ITG after shipping.

I bought my Japanese Extreme for 900. You can pretty easily find one for about 1200.

[Wastum]

Plug the USB flash stick into the Player 1 memory card slot on the cabinet.
Plug the USB flash stick into the Player 2 memory card slot on the cabinet.

Don't you mean USB keyboard in the second line?

Also, is anyone interested in a guide in how to turn a DDR machine into an openITG machine?

I would highly appreciate that

[Case]

Thank you for pointing it out. I am going to re-write it. If you want to put songs on it, you really need to put the USB into the computer itself.

The Hub will only transfer at less then 1mb a second.

Plugging it directly into the computer, it will transfer at 15.5 mbs per second.

I have a lot of my notes, I am working off of. I hope to have this done sometime this week.

[Case]

I added the speed mods to the guide, I still am working on setting up a flash stick. I am trying to put the simplest way possible. I will try to get that bit done tomorrow.

[Kytsune]

- It WILL ALWAYS have a bios password. This password changes EVERYTIME the machine turns on. You need to get into the machine and either change it to another version to hack it, or manually turn it on without the rest of the cabinet being on.

I'm curious about this. I've never encountered a BIOS password on the machines I've hacked, and definitely not one that changed. I don't even know what to ask about, but could you elaborate on this?

[mute]

Okay, a couple of things:

• Some machines (like mine) don't have that "Roxor" screen at which you can press F11 to get into the boot menu. In that case, you need to hit the Delete key at the BIOS booting screen (the one with the Energy Star logo). From there, you can change the BIOS settings so that the machine's first boot priority is "USB-HDD" instead of "Hard Drive." Reboot and the machine will boot from your SLAX drive.

• One extremely easy way to circumvent the BIOS password is to simply remove the security dongle for 15-30 seconds prior to turning the machine on. Put the dongle back in, flip the power switch, and you'll have no password prompt when hitting F11 at the Roxor screen.

• Your method of using <2 GB .zip files and the old command-line text SLAX is extremely outdated. The newer versions of SLAX (current version is 6.1.2, iirc) have a much more user-friendly GUI. From there, it's a simple copy/paste process of one's "custom" folder from an external drive. This also eliminates the problem of having any one file over 2 GB in size, which would severely limit the amount of custom content you could add. (The HDA5 partition is 10 GB, so you can fit way more than 2 GB worth of extra stuff on it.) For this method, I highly recommend using 2 separate drives for the hacking process: one for SLAX in the front USB slot, and a second drive containing all the custom content plugged into the back USB slot (which is USB 2.0 and thus way faster for transferring your custom content.)

[SM MaxX]

Quick question: how long exactly would the entire process take (or at least how long would it take for a newbie like me)?

[mute]

Quick question: how long exactly would the entire process take (or at least how long would it take for a newbie like me)?

Depends greatly on how much custom content you're adding. Realistically, I could take a completely un-hacked machine and throw on a custom theme and ~1000 custom songs in about 20 minutes, and that's including the time it takes SLAX to boot and to transfer all the custom content. To be perfectly honest, this guide is extremely convoluted and some of it is even outdated. I've been considering making a video tutorial. I already have a text-based tutorial typed up that I just never bothered to post.

[SM MaxX]

Quick question: how long exactly would the entire process take (or at least how long would it take for a newbie like me)?

Depends greatly on how much custom content you're adding. Realistically, I could take a completely un-hacked machine and throw on a custom theme and ~1000 custom songs in about 20 minutes, and that's including the time it takes SLAX to boot and to transfer all the custom content.

Well I already have tons of songs on it (it's been hacked before), though I'm still probably gonna add a lot of better song packs, the ITG3 theme, and a lot of marathons.
How many songs can a dedi usually hold? Like around 2500?

To be perfectly honest, this guide is extremely convoluted and some of it is even outdated. I've been considering making a video tutorial. I already have a text-based tutorial typed up that I just never bothered to post.

Ooh I'd love to see your method if it's more up to date.