Bemanitools: http://tools.bemaniso.ws/bemanitools-latest.zip
Replacement libacio .dll for SDVX: http://bin.jvnv.net/f/uRS3v/libacio.dll

Current data: December 12, 2016 - final data before SDVX4 release

Brought to you by:

DJHACKERS: Data decryption and analysis, I/O emulation
Arcana: Network services, Release QA

Useful hex edits (soundvoltex.dll):
Difficulty limit unlock: 13AF9B - E8 F0 E2 01 -> B8 0B 00 00
All songs "Safe": 1554F7 - 32 C0 -> B0 01
Prevent Windows system volume change on boot: 1F555E - 75 -> EB
Boot game in Event Mode: 170092 - 00 -> 01

If you don't like moonrunes: forums.php?action=viewthread&threadid=49208

IMPORTANT NOTES TO READ FIRST:

EDIT #0: YOU MUST USE THE NEW "ARCANA" SERVER. NOT "PROGRAMMED SUN." YOUR <SERVICE> URL HAS CHANGED. DO NOT USE THE "PROGRAMMED SUN" <SERVICE> ADDRESS. USE THE NEW (READ: DIFFERENT) "ARCANA" <SERVICE> ADDRESS.

EDIT #00: WHEN CORRECTLY SET UP FOR THE FIRST TIME ON ARCANA, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO MIGRATE YOUR ACCOUNT WITH A YES/NO QUESTION (CHOOSE YES), THEN TO ENTER YOUR PLAYER NAME AGAIN. THIS IS NORMAL BEHAVIOR. YOUR ACCOUNT HAS NOT BEEN "LOST" UNLESS IT ASKS YOU FOR YOUR PIN TWICE IN A ROW ON THE SAME SCREEN.

EDIT #000: YOUR SCORES HAVE TRANSFERRED BUT YOUR SKILL ANALYZER LEVEL DID NOT. THIS IS NORMAL BEHAVIOR. YOU WILL HAVE TO PLAY SKILL ANALYZER AGAIN.

1. ALL SONGS ARE FULLY UNLOCKED BUT ARE STILL IN THE SHOP. YOU DO NOT NEED TO PURCHASE THEM BUT YOU CAN IF YOU LIKE, NOTHING WILL CHANGE. THIS MAY CHANGE IN THE FUTURE.
EDIT: If you do not use Arcana, you may not be able to see all songs and/or difficulties, whether or not you use the hex edits above. In this case, you can try editing data\others\music_db.xml to change all the <limited> values to 3 instead of 1 or 2. No guarantees though.

2. DO NOT USE THE ENTIRE EA3-CONFIG.XML COPIED FROM EARLIER DATA. PUT YOUR PCBID AND SERVICES URL IN THE EA3-CONFIG.XML INCLUDED IN THIS RELEASE.

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The DJHACKERS and Arcana teams are proud to announce the final Season 2 data of Sound Voltex III -Gravity Wars- ! Network services are implemented on Arcana, courtesy of darknao. Most of the testing and bugfixing was done by phantomlan, cmcm, and helvetica.

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ALL OF THESE STEPS ARE REQUIRED FOR THE GAME TO START CORRECTLY:

1. Copy the data from your torrents folder to some other place, preferably D:\KFC. DO NOT RUN THIS DATA FROM THE SAME PLACE IT IS BEING TORRENTED. THIS WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS.

2. Edit prop\ea3-config.xml and enter the Network Services URL listed above in between the <services></services> tags. The game will refuse to start if it cannot connect to a network server, so make sure you are connected to the internet. Also make sure to enter your Arcana PCBID.

3. Download the latest version of Bemanitools and extract the file "sdvx.zip" inside of it into your D:\KFC\contents folder. If it asks to overwrite any files, do so. You must also download a fixed version of libacio.dll from the link above, as the one included in Bemanitools "sdvx.zip" is broken. This will be fixed in a future release but probably not.

4. Run "config.bat" to configure your inputs. You MUST bind analog controls to VOL-L and VOL-R for the game to be playable. If you do not have a custom controller and wish to play with your keyboard, you can use a mouse or two.

If you are running this on Windows XP, skip step 5a and move to step 5b:

5a. Right click on "launcher.exe" and go to the Compatibility tab. Check the box labeled "Run this program as an Administrator" and click OK.

5b. Double-click "gamestart.bat" to launch the game in windowed mode. If you have set everything up correctly, all checks will say "OK" and the game will run a brief online update check before the title screen appears.

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Sound Voltex has had a mandatory network connection requirement since day one, you must connect to Arcana (or another compatible e-Amusement server) for this game to start up successfully.

Known Issues

Windows XP is highly recommended for correct timing and other compatibility issues, as reported by most users. Some users claim Windows 7/8/10 has better timing. Running in Windowed mode is also thought to have better timing by some users. ATI is also the graphics card of choice - the arcade uses a Radeon e4690 so use something at least as powerful as that. If you have graphical glitches (some of them cause the game to hang or crash), then try an earlier version of the graphics driver for your card.

Frequently Anticipated Questions

Q: Why are my clear lamps wrong? I KNOW I full comboed that!
A: You may have noticed that clear lamps in the database had some...issues :X If you cleared the song in any fashion, you should see a regular clear lamp. If you PUC'ed, then you should see a PUC lamp. If you UC'ed, or cleared on Excessive Rate...you will see a regular clear lamp To fix, clear the song again with Excessive/UC/PUC and you'll get your correct lamp again. It was either this, or losing all clear lamps. We figured this was the better option.

Q: Why can't I play any songs higher than (insert difficulty here) on my first/second songs?
A: Konami implemented eAmuse-specific functions in the Japanese release of SDVX3 which require you to "earn" your difficulty levels, similar to playing Standard mode on IIDX. You earn them by clearing Skill Analyzer courses, similar to how clearing Dan courses in IIDX allow you to select harder songs from the get-go. See the following link for details: http://bemaniwiki.com/index.php?SOUND%20VOLTEX%20III%20GRAVITY%20WARS%2FSKILL%20ANALYZER#ha9ff77d
If you don't like this, use the hex edit above.

Q: Can I run this in public?
A: No. Do not play this in public, stream it, post screenshots, etc.

Q: How do I use the multiplayer mode?
A: You must either be on a local subnet as other players, or you must use a VPN service to make this happen. Scripted Connection is one set up by our very own zyp. See here: forums.php?action=viewthread&threadid=40999.

Every time you select a song, you will enter a lobby. If you are set up correctly, then anybody who picks that song while you're still in the lobby will appear in your lobby. If not, you will not be able to see each other in the lobby when they pick your song. There may be some sort of indicator of when players are in lobbies, there may not. Best to do a live chat with someone else if you are trying to play together to make sure you are both in the same lobby at the same time.

Alternatively, if you have no interest in this, press FX-L and FX-R simultaneously to exit the lobby and proceed straight to your chosen song.

Q: How do I select options like Excessive Rate, line colors, and Early/Late indicator position?
A: During the song select, press FX-L + FX-R simultaneously to bring up the sorting mode. Press FX-L or FX-R to move to other options. Press the white buttons indicated on-screen to change the options.

Q: How do I set my "green number" and visual offset?
A: To change speed, during the matching screen hold start and spin either knob. Double-tap start and hold to change your green number directly. Tap "6" on the number pad to program your green number to your profile. To change visual offset, tap "9" and "3" on the number pad to increase/decrease the offset. This will cause notes to scroll earlier or later.

Q: Why can't I change headphone volume like on the arcade machine?
A: There is a special headphone output built into the arcade PCB that communicates with the game directly. You do not have this. Turn up your Windows system volume. If you cannot do this, purchase an inexpensive headphone amplifier from Amazon.

Q: Why isn't there a digital input option for the VOL-L and VOL-R knobs?
A: Because Sound Voltex's gameplay requires "analog" input. You need to be able to turn the knobs at different speeds at various points in the chart.

Q: How do I run this fullscreen? Do I need to run it with a sideways monitor?
A: Your screen must support the resolution 720x1280 (1280x720 rotated). Turn your monitor sideways (and rotate the display output in Windows or your graphics driver options to match your monitor's new orientation 90 degrees left or right, if you wish; the game will do this automatically). Edit "gamestart.bat" and remove "-w" from the command line.

The game will SILENTLY fail to start if your display resolution cannot be switched to 720x1280. The game's aspect ratio is 9:16.

You do not HAVE to run fullscreen if you have a 1080p or higher monitor. If you have a horizontally-mounted monitor running at 1080p or above then you will be able to see all of the important UI elements except speed mod/visual offset.

Q: I'm using a mouse for analog input, or something that acts like one. My mouse cursor is wandering around the desktop and popping up things that are interfering with gameplay. Can you do something about this?
A: Yes, edit gamestart.bat and add " -c" to the command line. Clicking the game window will then hide the mouse cursor and confine it within the Sound Voltex gameplay window (note: this does not work on all systems). To release the mouse, press ALT-TAB. This behavior has the potential to confuse and aggravate people who do not read instructions, so it is off by default. Alternatively, on Windows 7/8/10, you can switch off Aero Peek in the Taskbar properties to disable that thing where all of your window contents disappear whenever the mouse hits the bottom right corner of the screen (which happens fairly often when playing SDVX with a mouse). On Windows 8 you may want to see if there's a way to disable the charms bar as well.

Q: Do I need a custom controller to play this game?
A: No, but it is recommended. It is possible to play this game using a setup such as FGHJ for the white buttons, mouse X and Y axes bound to the VOL-L and VOL-R knobs, and FX-L and FX-R bound to the mouse's left and right buttons. The game is surprisingly playable in this configuration, but you're not really playing Sound Voltex at that point.

Q: Where can I get a arcade-style controller?
A: As of this writing, DJ Dao and Virgoo are manufacturing and shipping SDVX ASCs.

Bemanitools will support input and lighting for any USB HID compliant device.





ARCANA

How to use

DO NOT ADD A url_slash LINE TO YOUR EA3-CONFIG.XML

The services URL for games launched by Launcher is http://xrpc.arcana.nu/core . Configure Launcher-launched games by editing prop/ea3-config.xml with a text editor and entering your PCBID into the <pcbid> node and the services URL into the <services> node.

The services URL for old EXE games is just xrpc.arcana.nu . Exact usage instructions depend on the game in question; consult the relevant thread for more details.

Once you have registered a card, go to https://arcana.nu/ and register a web account. This will give you access to extra functionality such as UI customization and rival management.

Other stuff

Most (but not all) copula functionality should work. The things that don't currently work are mostly things that depend on the existence of a web ui.

If you don't have a psun PCBID then we're probably going to be manually handing them out in limited quantities for a while. More info on this soon.

Once the web ui goes live then all PCBIDs on Arcana will be deleted and you will need to make your own. Right now I've just shoved everybody into one big shop owned by me. This is just a stopgap solution to get us out of the gate.

Kind of in a massive hurry right now so that's all for now! More info to come later.