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itgmania212121/stepmania/README-FIRST.TXT
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Chris Danford 62f3f01a05 no message
2002-05-19 01:33:32 +00:00

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(c)2001-2002, StepMania team
http://www.stepmania.com
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Readme Table of Contents
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1. About StepMania
2. Minimum Requirements
3. DirectX
4. Installation
5. Connecting Dance Pads
6. Compatibility Issues
7. FAQ / Troubleshooting
8. StepMania Packages - .smzip
9. Questions, Bugs, and Suggestions
10. How StepMania Loads Songs
11. Song and Notes File Formats
12. Game and Style File Formats
13. Building StepMania from Source Code
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1. About StepMania
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StepMania is a music/rhythm game. The goal of the game is to play the notes on the screen in time with the music.
StepMania game system is capable of playing games similar to the popular arcade dance and music games, such as Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up, BeatMania, Guitar Freaks, Drum Manaia, Para Para Paradise, EZ 2 Dancer, and more.
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2. Minimum Requirements
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* Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP.
* Required: Pentium II, Pentium III, Celeron, Athlon, or compatible processor, 266MHz minimum (400 MHz highly recommended). MMX technology required.
* 64 MB of RAM.
* 75 MB of hard drive space.
* 16-bit video card (24-bit or higher recommended).
* Video card that supports High Color (16-bit color).
* DirectX 8.1 compatible video card with drivers.
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card with drivers.
* DivX 5 video codec (Free or Pro).
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3. DirectX
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DirectX 8.1 is required before installing StepMania. If DirectX 8.1 is not installed on your computer, the installer will display a warning and abort the installation.
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4. Installation
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To install StepMania, download the file stepmania3xx.exe to a known location on your hard drive, then double-click the file icon to begin the installation. The installer will force the removal of an older version of the program if one is present. The default installation directory is 'C:\Program Files\StepMania'.
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5. Connecting Dance Pads
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* Not recommended: PlayStation->USB converter
Using a PlayStation->USB converter is not recommended to play dancing games on the PC. All known USB converters are not capable of registering simultaneous presses of Left+Right, and Up+Down. This restriction will cause the player to miss many notes that they would have hit otherwise.
* Recommended: PlayStation->Parallel adaptor
PlayStation->Parallel converters do not have the simultaneous button problem that USB converters do. The disadvantage is that the drivers required to use these devices are finicky compared to the plug-and-play installation of a USB adaptor.
You can obtain a PlayStation->Parallel converter from just about any popular game importer:
http://www3.goldenshop.com.hk/AI-trad/pc/pc_pcdirpad.htm
http://www.lik-sang.com/catalog/product_info.php?category=55&products_id=236&
For Windows 98 and Windows Me users, the recommended driver is “DirectPad Pro 5.0 for Win9x”.
For Windows 2000 and Windows XP, the recommended drivers are NTPad XP 1.x.
Both drivers can be downloaded from Aldos web site: http://www.aldostools.com/dpad.html
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6. Compatibility Issues
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Some video card/driver combinations have visual errors when running StepMania. It you experience any visual errors, please visit your video card manufacturer's web site and download the latest Direct3D 8.1 drivers. Below is a list of known issues that are thought to be video card driver bugs:
* S3 Savage family cards (e.g. Diamond Stealth)
Symptom: The right edge of some graphics appears "cut off".
Explanation: Drivers do not properly handle textures > 512x512, resulting in cropped textures. Please use the Minimum detail profile to force the maximum texture size <= 512x512.
* SiS cards
Symptom: Garbled fonts.
Explanation: Drivers have errors in handling texture coordinates. Only known solution is to upgrade drivers.
* Any card older than two years
Symptom: Various graphical glitches.
Explanation: These problems are most often video card driver bugs. Please upgrade to the latest drivers, which will hopefully fix the errors.
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7. FAQ / Troubleshooting
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> Problem: The error "Cannot find Dinput8.dll" appears when launching the game.
You need to download DirectX 8.1.
> How do you tell if it's basic/trick/maniac?
It's kind of complicated actually. It looks at a string I call the "steps description".
- For BMS files, the steps description is parsed out of the song title. For example, in "B4U -Maniac-", "Maniac" would be parsed out.
- For DWI files, the steps description is proceeds the step data and can be only one of "BASIC", "ANOTHER", or "MANIAC".
The steps description determines which "bouncy icon" to use next the meter that shows the number of feet for a steps pattern. This is why steps with the description "Another" can have a different icon from steps with description "Trick".
From the steps description, the steps are categorized into one of 4 classes: easy, medium, hard, or other. This classification determines the ordering on the Select Music screen. For example, both "Maniac" and "SSR" steps would be categorized as hard.
> Music rates of over 100% do not work on my computer. Why?
Some sound cards do not support this function. For example, my Sound Blaster 64 works fine, but my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz can't change the playback rate.
> StepMania reports no 3D device is available even though I have Direc3D 8 drivers
In some cases, DirectX 8 will report that no 3D acceleration is available even if you have the latest drivers and a capable graphics card. To see if your computer is exhibiting this problem, click Start Menu->Run, type dxdiag, and press Enter. Select Display tab, then click on "Test Direct3D". You should get a "Direct3D test results: All tests were successful." message). If Direct3D does not work, there is something wrong in your system configuration.
In many cases, this problem can be fixed by completely removing DirectX from your system, and then re-installing DirectX. To remove DirectX, use the DirectX Buster utility available from this site. After running DirectX Buster, start at Step 1 above and re-install DirectX 8.1.
> Why will a PSX->USB convertor not work for StepMania?
I have tried many PSX->USB converters, and they all have the same problem when used with dance mats. I have not tried a Brightech adaptor myself, but I am told by a reseller that it has this same problem.
When using a dance mat, the player must be able to hit 2 directions at the same time. For example, the player must press the Left + Right buttons at the same time. Also, the player must be able to press the Up + Down buttons at the same time.
All USB converters I have seen convert the 4 Playstation directional buttons (L,R,U,D) into two axes (X and Y axes) before reporting this data to the PC. This is a major problem for the dance mat. For example, if the player presses Up and Down at the same time, the PC application sees only a single number along the Y axis and cannot detect that two buttons were pressed. This means one of the player's two presses cannot be detected by the application, and the player will miss the step.
This problem could be fixed if the Playstation directional buttons (L,R,U,D) were reported to the PC as 4 individual buttons instead of two axes. For example, this would allow the PC application to read the Up and Down buttons individually and fix the problem I mentioned above.
Some PSX->USB converters report the directional pad to the PC as 4 buttons when using a Dual Shock controller in "ANALOG" mode. This solution is almost perfect, expect that dance pads do not have the ANALOG button to turn on this mode. So, dance mats are forced to use non-analog mode, where the directional buttons are reported as 2 axes. A simple fix would be to have a physical switch on the PSX->USB adaptor that would force ANALOG mode to be on. This would enable PSX controllers that do not have an ANALOG button to have their directional pad reported to the PC as 4 buttons.
> How can I improve performance
Improving performance
You should check that you have the latest drivers installed for your motherboard and especially for the AGP bus. These drivers make sure that all communication between the graphics adapter, CPU and memory are done using the most efficient way, for example by enabling full AGP support. If your system is based on an AMD Processor, updating the drivers is of utmost importance, since most Microsoft Windows versions have limited out-of-the-box support for motherboard chipsets commonly used with AMD processors. These are known as AGP Miniport drivers.
Here's a short list of sites where you can find suitable drivers for most common system configurations:
AMD Athlon/Duron systems with an AMD 760 or 750 chipset (AGP-Driver / Miniport) http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/bin/
AMD Athlon/Duron systems with a VIA chipset (VIA 4-in-1 Driver) http://www.viatech.com/jsp/en/dr/driver.jsp
Intel Pentium II, III, 4 or Celeron-based systems with Intel chipsets (440BX, 810, 815, 820, 850) (Intel Chipset Software) http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/driver.htm
Also, please check that you have "AGP Texture Acceleration Enabled" in DirectX. Here's how to check if it's enabled:
Click on your windows "Start"
Choose "Run..."
Type: dxdiag
Press "OK"
Then when dxdiag has loaded, select the "Display" tab
Make sure that the "AGP Texture Acceleration" is ENABLED. If it's not, please enable it.
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8. StepMania Packages - .smzip
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The StepMania package format was created to make the distribution of songs and other add-ons very easy. StepMania package files have the extension '.smzip' and can be installed by double-clicking on the .smzip file. When the StepMania installer runs, it will associate will associate the .smzip file type with the program 'smpackage.exe' in the StepMania installation directory.
The file format for an .smzip file is actually the PK-Zip standard. This means you can rename any .smzip file to have the extension '.zip', then open the file in another compression package (e.g. WinZip).
The StepMania Package Manager (smpackage.exe) has two functions:
* It launches and installs a package when a .smzip file is double-clicked.
* It can create smzip packages from songs installed in your Songs folder.
To launch the Package Manager in order to export packages of Songs, Click Start Menu->Programs->StepMania->Package Manager.
A StepMania package is 'installed' by extracting all files in the package to the StepMania program directory. This allows songs, themes, new game types, and visualizations to all be installed by the Package Manager. For example, if you wanted to install a new song from a package, you would set the relative path of files for that song to "Songs\Group Name\Song Name", so that the files will be extracted to the appropriate sub folders when installed by the Package Manager. Note that the Package Manager will automatically set the correct paths when you create new packages from within the Package Manager.
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9. Questions, Bugs, and Suggestions
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If you have a question or problem about StepMania, please try asking your question to the StepMania message board at http://ddrpccentral.teamgwailo.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.pl?board=stepmania
If you have found a bug, please file a bug report into the SourceForge bug tracking system. This will allow the developers to track and fix bugs much more efficiently. http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=37892&atid=421366
* In a bug report, please specify your video card brand and model, and your OS version.
* PLEASE, PLEASE enter your e-mail address on the bug reports. In many cases, we need more information from the bug reporter.
* If your problem is related to a timing issue with a song, please zip up the song and attach it to the bug report using the form above. Also, please make sure the timing issue is specific to StepMania (e.g. the song works correctly in Delight^2 or DWI, but is off in StepMania).
Likewise, please use SourceForge's feature request system to enter new feature requests.
Feel free to discuss the bugs or feature requests on the message board though.  
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=421369&group_id=37892&func=browse
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10. How StepMania Loads Songs
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StepMania supports two completely independent directory structures for organizing your songs:
The StepMania directory structure, which resides in the folder called "Songs"
The DWI's directory structure, which resides in the folder called "DWI support".
The organization method you use is up to you. The StepMania directory structure gains many advantages from the fact that all files needed to play a song reside in a single directory.
Sharing a song is as easy as zipping up the directory.
Remove a song by delete the song directory.
Change the group of a song just by moving the whole directory.
The advantage of the DWI directory structure is that it's compatible with the very popular and very good simulator called Dance With Intensity. The disadvantage of this structure is that the files needed to play a song are spread over 3 different directories, making songs difficult to manage.
STEPMANIA DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
example:
StepMania
Songs
3rd Mix
Dam Dariram
Turn Me On
4th Mix
B4U
One Two
Inside the "Songs" folder you must create group folders for organizing your songs. StepMania initially comes with one group folder called "Default". Inside the group folders are your song folders. Each song folder contains all of the files needed to play a song:
Background (optional) - Can be in PNG, JPG, GIF, or BMP format. No restrictions on dimensions, but looks best with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Be aware that the file will be stretched to the entire screen while dancing.
Banner (optional) - Can be in PNG, JPG, GIF, or BMP format. No restrictions on dimensions, but the most common size is 192x55.
Music (required) - Can be in MP3, WAV, or OGG format.
Steps file(s) (required) - For any given song, you can use either multiple BMS files or a single DWI file.
DWI DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
DWI directory support means gives StepMania 100% compatibly with the simulator Dance With Intensity.
If you want to copy all of your songs from DWI into StepMania, go to your DWI program folder and copy "Backgrounds", "Banners", "Music", and "DWIs" into the StepMania folder called "DWI support".
If you want to copy your songs back into DWI, take all of the folders inside StepMania's folder called "DWI support" and copy them back into your DWI program folder.
If you some zipped DWI song files that you would like to use with StepMania, just unzip them into the StepMania folder "DWI support".
Inside the "DWI support" folder, there are 4 directories:
Backgrounds (optional) - For StepMania, these files can be in PNG, JPG, GIF, or BMP format. To be compatible with DWI though, they must be PNG and have dimensions 320x240.
Banners (optional) - For StepMania, these files can be in PNG, JPG, GIF, or BMP format. To be compatible with DWI though, they must be PNG, be rotated 45 degrees counter-clockwise and have dimensions 175x175. (Note that StepMania will automatically detect and correct the rotation of any DWI-formatted banners.
Music (required) - For StepMania, these files can be in PNG, JPG, GIF, or BMP format. To be compatible with DWI though, they must be PNG, be rotated 45 degrees counter-clockwise and have dimensions 175x175. (Note that StepMania will automatically detect and correct the rotation of any DWI-formatted banners.
DWI file (required) - See the Dance With Intensity readme for more information on the DWI file format.
Goals of a new file format:
 support multiple game types
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11. Song and Notes File Formats
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very strict syntax
trivial to parse
human readable notes
Analysis of BMS:
+ support for an arbitrary number of note types through “tracks”
+ can define couple and double patterns without having two blocks of notes
+/- note format is pretty human readable (better than DWI anyway)
+ supports more than 2 simultaneous notes (required for some game types)
- redefines song attributes in every file
- not a strict file format
- has confusing definitions for “offset”
- doesn’t support freezes
- terrible way of defining hold notes (run of 32nd notes)
Analysis of DWI:
+ more strict file format than BMS
+ defines song attributes only once
+ great way of defining BPM changes and freezes
- notes are not human readable (especially with escape sequences like “04{300500}54”
- bad way of defining hold notes (especially for overlapping holds like Exotic Ethnic double Maniac)
- no support for an arbitrary number of note types (doesn’t even handle 6 panel DDR well)
- requires two blocks of notes for styles like couple and double (related to “no support for an arbitrary number of note types”)
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12. Game and Style File Formats
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Separating the game from the code
To come...
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13. Building StepMania from Source Code
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* Step 1: Install and configure Visual C++
The StepMania source can currently be built only on Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. Installing Visual C++ or Visual Studio with all the default options is sufficient. Also, this is a good time to grab the latest Service Pack from Microsoft.
* Step 2: Install the Direct X 8.1 SDK
The DirectX 8.1 SDK is a free download from Microsoft available here. Using the default installation path ("C:\DXSDK") works well.
* Step 3: Build the DirectShow baseclasses and configure MSVC paths
StepMania's movie texture support depends on a DirectShow wrapper library included with the DirectX SDK. You must build this library and add it to your MSVC paths before compiling StepMania.
Open the project "C:\DXSDK\samples\Multimedia\DirectShow\BaseClasses" and build in both Debug and Release modes.
- Click Tools->Options.
- Click the Directories tab.
- In the Show directories for: dropdown, choose Include files.
- Click the New toolbar button and add a new entry for C:\DXSDK\samples\Multimedia\DirectShow\BaseClasses.
- In the Show directories for: dropdown, choose Library files.
- Click the New toolbar button and add a new entry for C:\DXSDK\samples\Multimedia\DirectShow\BaseClasses\Debug.
- Click the New toolbar button and add a new entry for C:\DXSDK\samples\Multimedia\DirectShow\BaseClasses\Release.
- IMPORTANT: Using the mouse, drag the last two library paths you just added to the top of the list. If you don't do this, you'll get linking errors that look like this: unresolved external symbol class CFactoryTemplate * g_Templates
* Step 3: Install WinCVS
CVS is required to "checkout" the latest versions from the SourceForge-hosted code repository. Download the latest stable version of WinCVS from here, and choose the default installation options.
IMPORTANT: Now, open and close WinCVS once. This will let CVS refresh its registry entries, which is required for the next step...
* Step 4: Use SourceForge Setup to install SSH and configure CVS
IMPORTANT: If you are using Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you must unhide the file c:\autoexec.bat. If you don't unhide this file, SourceForge Setup won't be able to add environment variables for you.
A small utility called SourceForge Setup will greatly simplify the steps needed to configure WinCVS and SSH. Download the program from here, choose the default installation options, and answer the questions as follows:
- Unpack SSH directory: c:\ssh
- SSH install direcotory: c:\ssh
- Your home directory: c:\ssh
- Your SourceForge user name: -yourusername-
- Name of the project: stepmania
- The directory where you will be keeping checked out project sources: c:\stepmania
IMPORTANT: You must restart after running SourceForge Setup so that the new environment variables take effect.
If you need more help, a HOWTO is available here.
* DONE! Enjoy staying on the bleeding edge of StepMania releases!
If you're interested in helping in any capacity, please join the StepMania developers mailing list.
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End of document
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