Playing the PC port of Virtual-On: Operation Moongate

[Kita]

You kids with your X-Stations and your Wiibox 1080s. Back in MY day we used to play games on the computer!
We didn't have no fancy-shmancy twinsticks (unless we were Japanese) or matchmaking!

Right, enough of that, here's how to play the PC port of OMG, as well as several tricks to get it to work properly. ROLLING STAAAAAAAAAART~!


You will need:

• Virtual-On for PC (MSBS 3.3w)
  A 32-bit Windows install, Win95 or better. Windows 98 is recommended. This is REQUIRED. Virtual-On will not operate on a 64-bit version of Windows.
  OPTIONAL: Virtualization software such as Virtual PC can run the game on a 64-bit system.
  A USB or Gameport gamepad. An Xbox 360 controller installed with XBCD360 works great.
  The latest version of Joy2Key.

Okay, now here comes the fun:

First, install the game. Put the disc in, mount the .iso, whatever. Select FULL install, and install DirectX 3.0 if required.

Now, once the game is installed, unless you're running it on a Pentium MMX (or Virtual Machine that emulates it), you need to do some editing. Find and open VON.INI in the game's installation folder (C:\SEGA\VON by default)

Now, see these little bastards?

Code: Select all

[Processor]
ProcessorCheck=on
PentiumCheck=on
MMXCheck=on
IntelCheck=on

TURN 'EM ALL THE HELL OFF

Now, if you want to play the game as it came out of the box, you can go ahead and save VON.INI, and run the game. You should be greeted by that good old "PRESENTED BY SEGA".
However, there's still more in that .ini file to screw around with!

Add the following the bottom of [OPTION]

Code: Select all

MenuMode=Debug
DebugDisp=On

Save VON.INI, and run the game. If you hit ALT, you should see a new menu labelled DEBUG.



And oh, what a fun menu this is.

An explanation of features is in order:

• DispFloor: Allows you to disable the display of various objects in the stages. Pretty self-explanatory.
  Motion: Here's the big one. This allows you to restore Virtual-On's original framerate. Select 1/1 for Model 2-accurate 60 FPS.
  Kill: Allows you to kill either yourself or your opponent. Even works in the Attract mode and tutorial screens.
  SE and CD: allows you to disable sound effects or music.
  No Shot: Disables your opponent's ability to fire weapons. When combined with the Deathmatch setting, makes for a good training mode.
  Screen: Basically a quick way to change graphics options.
  Texture: More stuff available in the normal graphics menu. You can disable textures on either VR and weapon effects for that Model 1 look.

Now you have access to the entirety of MSBS 3.3w's features.

At this point, you can configure your controller. V-On is very picky about controllers, and no matter how many buttons your controller reports it has, V-ON will only see two of them for some intensely stupid reason, unless you have one of the controllers in the list. So, you need to use Joy2Key to assign the rest of the buttons on your controller to keyboard keys, then configure your controls as such. This is relatively straightforward so I won't waste time talking about it.

The next thing you should do is exit the game, and go here: http://jaguarandi.xxxxxxxx.jp. Download VO_PATCH.zip. If you are running Win2000, XP, Vista, or 7, download VO_SPEED.zip as well.

Unzip the programs and place them in your Virtual-On install folder. Run VO_PATCH.

VO_Patch is a program that restores some game functionality. Chiefly, it boosts audio output quality, enables the debug menu, removes the "NOW LOADING" screen, restores the sound of an enemy Fei-Yen going hypermode, and restores voice clips of "YOU WIN", "YOU LOSE", "DRAW" and "TIME UP". The only issue is that the program is in Japanese and so displays as complete gibberish on a computer not set up to display Japanese. All you need to know is to hit every checkbox and then click the left button.

VO_Speed is a program that fixes an issue on 2000/XP/Vista/7 systems where the game runs in slow-motion all the time. This is because the slow-mo effect meant to feature in the killcam replay gets stuck on due to an internal timing issue. To use it, simply place VO_Speed in the same folder as the game .EXE, and run it instead. It will run the game at full-tilt, the only side-effect being that the replay no longer slows down to show you wrecking somebody.

UNSOLVED ISSUES:

• This game is notoriously picky. It's entirely possible it will not run at all on your PC. There isn't much to be done about this, so I guess just wait another few weeks for the 360 version.
  
  On Windows 2000 or better, if you die in battle while piloting Temjin, Viper II, Apharmd, or Raiden, the game will crash.
  There are three solutions:
  1. Use Fei-Yen, Dorkas, Belgdor, or Bal instead.
  2. Run the game on a Windows 98 system.
  3. Become so good you never lose.

The issue seems to be caused by the way the game stores the data for the continue screen being incompatible with the way Windows NT "compartmentalizes" programs in memory to prevent system crashes. Only half of the continue screens are where Virtual-On thinks they are. I've also heard of cases where ALL VRs cause this problem, the problem occurs with all VRs except Fei-Yen (presumably because her continue screen is different), and that the problem doesn't occur at all. Unfortunately, despite being a relatively easy problem to fix, Sega stopped supporting the game in '99 for obvious reasons.


CONGRATULATION~! You are now playing Virtual-On on your PC! You can adjust gamemode settings and graphics to your preference.

[Porcupine]

Wow! I never knew that there was a way to enable back 60 fps through a hidden debug menu. I wish I knew that back when me and some friends played Virtual-On on PC. Then again it wouldn't have mattered back then, as when the game released it ran too slow on even the most powerful PCs of the time.

[MentholMoose]

Thanks for the guide! I wonder how the performance and difficulty of setup compares to running an OMG ROM in the Model 2 Emulator.

[Kita]

The Model 2 emulator is easier to set up, and the graphical fidelity is far superior. The MSBS 3.3w runs natively in 800x600 resolution (don't quote me on that, could be 640x480), while the Model 2 Emu can be cranked up to full HD and higher, with the capability to display in Widescreen (which V-On looks absolutely beautiful in). However, in my experience, the Model 2 emulator does not properly map Twinsticks. Instead of treating each Twinstick direction as a button, it wrongly assumes they are analog axes. This would be fine, except it maps both twinsticks to the SAME axes. The effect of this is that it's impossible to do any movements that require twinstick movement along the same axis, such as jumping, guarding, turning quickly, or even moving in a straight line. This is, of course, with the default setup. I'm not sure if this problem is correctable via LUA, the forum is permanently down, and the creator appears to have vanished (rumors say Sega actually hired him). What's particularly sad is that there are numerous videos online of people attempting to play with this horribly gimped setup just to show off the emulator, not realizing it's broken.

This is, of course, with the latest version of Model 2 Emulator. 0.9 works, though there are several graphical glitches and it doesn't support widescreen like 1.0. There's also the fact that the arcade emulated versions don't have any utility for pad-style controls, though I figure that's a moot point for most of you. You could, theoretically, use Joy2Key to make macros for stick movements and map them to gamepad buttons but the 360 version'd be out by the time you were done.

[MentholMoose]

I saw that the emulator hadn't be updated lately, but didn't know the reason. Thanks for the info.

[GXPT2000]

damn, love the 1/1 motion option under the debug menu...
amazing! simply a requirement for me to play this game now. So good I cant let go!

BTW, they mention in the site, that VO_PATCH already features the fixes that VO_SPEED does. so only have to do it once.

[darwinshah]

hi kita! awesome info about Virtual on PC set up! any idea about getting it work on windows 7? and also I have the original sega virtual on PC twinstick with the old port, and I have the old port to usb converter.. any idea how to get it connected to my windows 7 alienware laptop? thanks a lot for the info you posted.. you are a real genius!