beatmania IIDX 14 GOLD
Before reading
This game will require you to touch and edit files manually. This guide tries to make everything as clear as possible. Bemanitools & Bemanitools Supplement will be used in this guide.
Warning:
Please make sure your data is from an appropriate source and unmodified before proceeding, this guide is unable to troubleshoot any problems related to bad or poorly managed data.
If you encounter any issues or errors regarding this guide or come across issues that aren't listed, feel free to open up a GitHub Issue!
Getting Started
After downloading your data, the first thing to do is make sure your files aren't set to READ ONLY, make sure to uncheck it from the main folder in the Windows Properties tab if so. Then, locate iidx-14-to-17.zip inside the bemanitools-5.44.zip. Extract it inside the folder that contains the bm2dx.exe which should be located in \GLD\2007072301. Pictured below is what your folder should look like, we've removed any files not necessary for GOLD. Feel free to name your gamestart.bat file whatever you desire, for the sake of convenience we've kept it as it.
Next up, open the bemanitools-supplement-v1.6.zip or any version higher than that and navigate inside the misc.zip. Now navigate into misc\d3d8to9 and extract d3d8.dll into the same folder as we previously have done. This enables us to use the graphic options inside iidxhook-14.conf which we will take advantage of. It should look like this:
Lastly, we need to install a codec so that background videos will work and won't cause an error.
Inside the Bemanitools Supplement archive, navigate to \iidx.zip\iidx\misc\ where you'll find CLVSD.ax.
Extract CLVSD.ax inside a folder that you know won't be moved or renamed.
Open up the command prompt as administrator. Now type regsvr32 "<location of the file>\CLVSD.ax" into the command prompt.
As an example, it could look like this: regsvr32 "D:\BEMANI\IIDX\CLVSD.ax" A prompt should appear telling you that it has been installed successfully.
This applies for all styles that require this codec, not just DistorteD.
If an error occurs, you didn't run the command prompt as administrator or you messed up the location of the file.
You can not move or delete CLVSD.ax at all, otherwise it will revert the changes and you have to install it again.
Configuring Your Tools
To configure your keybinds, open up your config.bat file. You'll be greeted by this screen:
It works similarly to Spice but not entirely. Make sure to also bind Test and Service since we will need it later. Service will also be used to insert coins to start the game. When you're done setting up your keybinds and analogs, it should look something like this:
If you'd like to play offline, you can head straight to Setting up the games resolution
Configuring Bemanitools for an Online Network
After setting the keybinds and analogs, we can head over to the Network tab, which will look like this:
Now we will set up our PIN pad and card.
Click on Keyboard device, you may or may not have more than one option. This is normal. To figure out which one is your actual keyboard, select a device inside that list and press a button on the numpad.
If you don't have a numpad, make sure to tick Use top keyboard row for PIN pad input. This will also change the Card In button to Backspace.
If you have found your correct device, the Keyboard status will change (the number and location of the number does not matter, it only matters that it changed). It should look similiar to this:
Next, grab your card, create a .txt, name it however you like, in this example it's called card.txt and place the file in a location that is easily accessible and you won't forget. In this case it's in a seperate folder. It should look like this:
Configuring the game for an Online Network
Locate your iidxhook-14.conf and edit it in your desired text editor (we're using Notepad++). It may seem overwhelming at first but it's actually fairly simple. All we really care about are these lines:
# URL (e.g. http://my.eamuse.server:80/whatever) or IPV4 (e.g. 127.0.0.1:80) of the target eamuse server. The port is optional but defaults to 80.
eamuse.server=localhost:80
# PCBID
eamuse.pcbid=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
# EAMID
eamuse.eamid=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Replace the eamuse.server=localhost:80 with your desired network URL
Replace eamuse.pcbid=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and eamuse.eamid=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX with your PCBID of your network of choice.
Setting up the game's resolution, locking FPS and fixing stretched videos
Before we begin, we'd like to mention that you have two options when it comes to how the game renders. You can choose between Linear and Point.
Below is an example of how both look like.
Linear
Point
It comes down to your own prefrence what you decide on, Linear is less sharp but doesn't have pixel perfect edges. Point is sharp and is pixel perfect.
Next up, we'll setup borderless window, configure the proper resolution and fix stretched background videos. We're using a 1920x1080 monitor so we will use that.
Repeat the previous step and open your iidxhook-14.conf. We want to find these lines:
# Fix stretched BG videos on newer GPUs. Might appear on Red and newer
gfx.bgvideo_uv_fix=false
# Software limit the frame rate of the rendering loop in hz, e.g. 60 or 59.95 (0.0 = no software limit)
gfx.frame_rate_limit=0.0
# Run the game windowed
gfx.windowed=false
# Windowed width, 0 for default size
gfx.window_width=0
# Windowed height, 0 for default size
gfx.window_height=0
# Up-/downscale the back buffer's width. This does not change the game's rendering resolution but scales the final frame. Use this to target the native resolution of your monitor/TV, e.g. to avoid over-/underscan, bad image quality or latency caused by the monitors internal upscaler. 0 to disable this feature. Must be set in combination with the corresponding height parameter.
gfx.scale_back_buffer_width=0
# Up-/downscale the back buffer's height. This does not change the game's rendering resolution but scales the final frame. Use this to target the native resolution of your monitor/TV, e.g. to avoid over-/underscan, bad image quality or latency caused by the monitors internal upscaler. 0 to disable this feature. Must be set in combination with the corresponding width parameter.
gfx.scale_back_buffer_height=0
# Filter type to use for up-/downscaling the back buffer. Only used if scaling feature was enabled by setting the scaling width and height parameters. Available types: none, linear, point (refer to D3DTEXTUREFILTERTYPE for explanation).
gfx.scale_back_buffer_filter=none
If you can't seem to find them, simply press CTRL + F and search for each argument. It will highlight them for you.
Listed below are the values we want to change them to.
gfx.bgvideo_uv_fix=true
gfx.frame_rate_limit=59.95
gfx.windowed=true
gfx.window_width=1920
gfx.window_height=1080
gfx.scale_back_buffer_width=1920
gfx.scale_back_buffer_height=1080
gfx.scale_back_buffer_filter=linear
gfx.framed=false. Under normal circumstances there shouldn't be a need for you to fiddle with gfx.monitor_check=1.000000 so we are also going to ignore it.
Make sure to adjust for if you want either Linear or Point rendering.
When you're done, it should look like this:
Final Steps and Setting up the Game
We can now focus on starting the game and getting it running. Open gamestart.bat (if you kept the name as is)
You might come across an error that says:
USB I/O ERROR ERROR(FM TRNS-OUT) or USB I/O ERROR ERROR(FM-DL TIMEOUT) simply reboot the game and it should work regardless.
You will be greeted by the initialization screen and shortly after this screen:
Hit your Test button to confirm to get to this screen:
Hit your Test button again to confirm. The game will then perform a MONITOR CHECK.
Once the MONITOR CHECK is done, the game puts us into the games settings menu. From there, navigate to CLOCK SETUP. You can leave the date, no need to manually change it. Simply navigate to SAVE AND EXIT.
If you'd like to play offline, you can head straight to Final Notes
Setting Shop Name and Prefecture for Online Play
From the games settings menu, naviate to e-AMUSEMENT OPTIONS and select it. This will bring you to e-AMUSEMENT SETTINGS. Select it aswell.
It'll bring you to this next screen, if e-AMUSEMENT is OFF, select it so that e-AMUSEMENT switches to ON and it will look like this:
We now have to change our SHOP NAME SETTING and PREFECTURE otherwise the game will throw errors at us.
Start with the shop name, select it and change them to what ever you like. When you're done editing your shop name, navigate to EXIT and select it.
For the prefecture change it once or how many times you'd like, it doesn't matter as long as it's not the default one.
Once that is done, hit SAVE AND EXIT. The game will say NOW SAVING.
When it's done saving, you can exit out of the NETWORK OPTIONS.
Final Notes
You're all done! From the service menu select GAMEMODE and the game should load ready to be played! Make sure to insert two credits by pressing your SERVICE key! Have fun!
Have any other errors?
Check out the Common Problems/Tips section to resolve any issues not seen in this guide to greater depth.