Lunatic rave is considered to be the closest Emulator for IIDX gameplay currently available. There will be no more updates to this emulator as as we understand, the author lost the source code.
Lunatic Rave 2 version 081005 (39.6Mb) | (SD: Standard Definition) Lunatic Rave 2 version 081204 (43.8Mb) | (SD: Standard Definition) Lunatic Rave 2 version 100201 (51.6Mb) | (SD: Standard Definition)
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(*Screenshot shows LR2 Beta3 using the Tricoro Theme)
Lunatic Rave 2 – Guide
The Ultimate Lunatic Rave 2 Guide
Also available in Indonesian, translated by Ryu Sei
Guide including GLAssist by auric here
Lunatic Rave 2 is one of the most used BMS simulators. The gameplay is the same as the beatmania IIDX series.
Contents:
- 1. Where Do I Download LR2?
- 2. Setting Up LR2
- 3. Getting BMS Files
- 4. Importing BMS Files
- 5. How To Play/In-Game Settings
- Play Option
- System Option
- Score Status
- Tag Editor
- Effects
- Player Status
- Key Config
- Skin/Sound
- How to play
- 6. The Text is not Working!
- How to fix in-game text
- How to fix web page text
- 7. How and Where to get Skins
- 8. Lunatic Rave 2 HD Mod
- 9. The End / Contact
Do Ctrl+F and type in the part you want to go to!
- Where do I Download LR2?
Download Lunatic Rave 2 from it’s home page here: https://www.lr2.sakura.ne.jp/index2.html
on western computers, the site may be garbled. You want to click the link named beta2 100201フルセット the top one. Check Chapter 6 if site is garbled.
Note: There IS a Guide HTML file included in the download, but it is all in Japanese. Use it if you know Japanese.
Site seems to be back online, here is a mirror in case it goes down again:
https://www.mediafire.com/download/96m0wbp0aw343pu/LR2_100201.zip
Thanks to Myon for uploading it.
- Setting up LR2
After downloading Lunatic Rave 2, launch LR2.exe.
When you launch this executable, you open the LR2 Setup. You will be prompted with this window:
If your text is not working, check Chapter 6!
Here you type in your desired ID (username) and Password.
If for some reasons you’ve lost / can’t remember your password, you can always find it back by opening the file “LR2files\Config\config.xml”. Look for a section called <player>, and you should find the last used id, and password.
Don’t worry about any captcha’s or email verifications; there are none. Leave the LR2IR box unticked. Press OK.
After registering, you may want to set your language to English, which can be done here:
note that it is not completely translated!
Now you want to enable Internet Ranking (IR). You do so by ticking these boxes on the MAIN Tab:
First and second boxes is rival loading.
To make video files work (since some BMS uses it), Follow this image guide created by Sunseille: https://1mage.fr/images/lr2videov2.png
On the JUKEBOX2 Tab, there are some boxes you can tick off, here is what they do:
RANDOM SELECT: Allows Specified Random Select.
FAVOURITE FOLDER: Keep track of your favourite BMS!
IGNORE FOLDER: Ignored BMS will ONLY show up here. Not elsewhere.
PLAYCOUNT TOP 10 FOLDER: Ordered list of your most played.
LEVEL FOLDER: Sort by level
CLEAR FOLDER: Sort BMS by clear method.
PLAYRANK FOLDER: Sort BMS by rank achieved.
発狂BMS FOLDER: Insane BMS charts. When Internet Ranking is checked, LR2 will auto-sort insane level songs into these folders.
OPTION Tab:
Select these from your desire.
HI-SPEED settings: Set the lowest and highest possible highspeed, and set what margin it changes by when you adjust it in-game. You can also adjust what is the base speed (x1 speed modifier)
You can change how much the lane cover adjusts by when adjusting it in-game.
Miss BGA: Set how long the miss bga is visible during gameplay.
Music list: adjust how long it’ll take for the game to scroll to the next song on the list during song select. (When holding up/down or using scratch)
User font: choose your own font for the game! Usually just makes it crash.
PM Controller: Lets you set menu navigation to be like pop’n music. This means you scroll up/down by pressing the blue buttons, select a song/folder with the red button. Go back with left side green. Right side green button enters song/folder Yellow switches between difficulties. Left side white button enters the song/folder, right side white button opens play options tab.
Note that this also enables the 9key play skin for any chart you play. Have fun playing 7key on a pop’n controller!
Assign 1/3 to scroll: Key 1 and Key 3 (on key binds) will scroll.
Output system log: Generates a text document that shows errors or actions the game does internally.
Disable parallel loading: Makes the game unable to load more than one song at once(?)
Disable right click exit: Game won’t close and you won’t leave the song when you right click.
Folder lamp: Activates the clear lamp for each folder based on clear types of songs within each folder.
Disable system keys: Stop that windows key from ruining your scores.
Disable skin preview: During skin/soundset selection.
Assign up/down key to hs change: ???
SELECT Tab
Various self-explanatory settings.
Maximum level sets the highest level for the bars in-game to display difficulty. If it’s above highest it will flash.
Now you are set up, but before you are able to launch the game, you need BMS files (songs, maps, simfiles).
SYSTEM Tab
16bit color: choose to have bad colors in case you’re running the game on a toaster!
Wait for vsync: Self explanatory. This will add more latency.
First line: Choose which display to use. (Main/Sub1/Sub2)
In case you have more than 1 monitor, you can select which one the game should appear on (when playing fullscreen)
Second line: Software Rendering: Only use it if you run into problems otherwise.
OUTPUT TYPE: Choose what sound driver the game should use. DirectSound is closer to arcade timing. ASIO/WASAPI will reduce sound latency as much as possible. Be aware that WASAPI will hoard your sound card and will only output the game’s audio but nothing else.
PLAYBACK DRIVER: Choose what output the sound should go to. If your sound card has several outputs then this is useful.
Buffer size: Set the buffer size in samples.
Disable FMOD Ex soundsystem: Alternate sound system. This could fix various audio cuts on certain BMS but also make the game crash loading others.
Use high performance timer: Don’t touch. Guaranteed game will crash before launching correctly..
- Getting BMS Files
You might be confused to which BMS you want from this massive site.
The list is ordered by events, and the most popular by far is the BMS OF FIGHTERS events. Take a look. There are plenty of BMS’ to get.
You can either download the events as full torrents, or pick out your favourite songs.
The easiest way is to download this. It includes all of the difficulty tables songs and charts.
!! extract it under korean locale !!
Don’t make it more of a headache than it already is when you don’t follow this and your song tags are messed up, which leads to GLAssist not recognizing the songs or LR2 not loading them. Remember to switch to Japanese locale after you’re finished extracting.
The torrent is named Insane BMS but the torrent contents includes charts for all skill ranges.
Single song quick download links
If you’re quickly looking to just download one song to add to your collection and the song link on the LR2IR page is down, you can look here.
https://blog.naver.com/pc2245/196699196
https://kenin.iptime.org/BMS_Library/
https://mega.co.nz/#F!k812kTrb!O2rb6FYz8EWClFMD6Hq0kw This is my personal upload on a free mega account. Please do not bulk download from here, it has a 50gb bandwidth limit. Only Insane songs are found here.
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=A9875A9A2CB76D0C&id=A9875A9A2CB76D0C!106 ★1~12 Insane pack – credit goes to Aqo
Starter pack for Beginners
Recommended for beginners
https://nekokan.dyndns.info/~lobsak/genoside/
Any many more packs available here.
- Importing BMS Files
Once you have downloaded a zipped package of your desired BMS, you want to extract it to *folder name* Like done here:
I use WinRAR to extract zip/rar packages.
When you are done extracting, go back into your LR2 Setup Window, and go to the JUKEBOX1 Tab.
You will have a large white empty box, this is where you drag and drop the folder you extracted.
After you have dragged it in, you will be prompted with a window, which asks if you want to import this, click Yes.
Note; There is a bug in LR2 that makes you unable to start a choose a song if you only have a single song in your Song/Mother Folder. To fix this, make sure to at least have 2 songs in the same folder.
After clicking Yes, the folder should show up in the box:
The “BMS” folder is something where I keep my own collection of BMS. You don’t need to have it this way.
Once you have imported the folder, you are ready to click Play!
- How to Play/In-Game Settings
When you hit the Play button, you will be prompted with a command window. This is the usual behaviour so don’t worry.
Just wait until it says “PRESS ANY KEY TO START”
Welcome to the game! The game send you straight to the Music Select!
Let me explain what each element is:
1: Sorts BMS in the order of what specified.
2: Filters BMS of what playstyle specified.
3: Filters BMS of what difficulty specified.
4: Explains stuff what I am explaining right now. In Japanese.
5: Plays your currently saved replay of the selected BMS!
6: Plays an automated replay of the selected BMS.
7: Reads the .txt included (if any) with the BMS. Most are in Japanese.
8: Title of the current selection. (More descriptive later)
9: Click and type here to search for a specific BMS!
10: Shows your current stats for the selected BMS.
11: Shows if score will save, what clear type you will get and if IR is on.
Play Option:
This is where you adjust your gameplay settings!
Random: Alters the note pattern of the BMS.
Mirror: Flips the note placement from left to right
Random: Randomizes the order of the columns of notes. Hold keys 1+2 at the result screen to replay a random.
S-Random: Completely randomizes each note
Scatter: Same as S-Random, but prevents two notes in the same column in a row. (IIDX H-Ran)
Converge: All possible notes to the Scratch column.
Gauge:
Groove: Default. You can’t fail mid-song. Need 80% or higher gauge to clear.
Survival: Gauge is more strict. You start the song at 100%, but can fail once the gauge reaches 0. You can clear a song below 80%.
Death: Need full combo to clear.
Easy: Same as groove but more forgiving.
P-Attack: Perfect-Attack. Great and below will gauge.
G-Attack: Good-Attack. Anything besides Good will greatly deplete gauge.
Assist: Enable or Disable AutoScratch. This counts as an assist/easy clear.
Effect: Enable modifications to make notes pop in or disappear.
Playstyle: Same as the other Playstyle Filter.
Battle: Enable Battle Mode. Various Types.
Hi-Speed: Change the note speed.
Target: Set your own goal! Shows on the Score Graph
DP Flip: Enable or Disable DoublePlay Flip between playsides.
HS-Fix: Fix High Speed at BPM changes.
System Option:
Here you can the game’s system settings!
Ghost Position: Choose position of target exscore during gameplay.
Score Graph: Enable or disable the Score Graph.
Default Target: Compare Current exscore with “My Best” during gameplay
BGA: Enable or Disable ALL Background Art of all BMS. (picture/video)
BGA Size: Adjust the BGA size to scale or not scale.
Judge Timing: Set your offset hit judge. (In case of slow keyboards)
Judge Auto Adjust: Make the Judge Timing automatically adjust.
Lane Cover: Enable or Disable coverage of the top of the note lane.
Screen Mode: Enable or Disable Full Screen.
Replay: Adjust Replay Saving Criteria.
Score Status:
This shows your history and current score of the selected BMS.
Tag Editor:
Edit the tags of the selected BMS. Don’t change these or else the IR will think it’s a different BMS.
Change these if the BMS or Course is made by you.
Effects:
Change the audio settings for the game, including a very in-depth equalizer and effects modifier.
Player Status:
Shows your total and current stats!
The “Trial” is the game’s mission system. It shows you what level you’re at and the criteria for getting to the next level. As you can see below, the criteria for clearing lv1 is get over 100 combo with Death Gauge.
The function keys let’s you use hidden mods and options. F2 lets you see a list of options that work like ojamas from pop’n music.
During gameplay, the top row number keys let you move the judge line and other things. The 5 key allows you to set DARK 1 or 2.
DARK 1 removes all graphics besides BGA, judge, graphs, notes, judgeline, bombs, button lights, gauge and lane lights.
DARK 2 takes away everything but notes, judgeline, judge, bombs and gauge.
Key Config:
Adjust your key settings!
You can set different keys for different playstyles!
1: Change playstyle
2: Player 1 Side Keys/Buttons. You can click these.
3: Player 2 Side Keys/Buttons. You can click these too!
4: Select Key/Button. Alternate way of choosing keys/buttons.
5: Attached Keys to selected Key/Button.
DEL: Remove the attached key you have selected.
ESC: Go back to Music Select.
F1: Reset current Playstyle to Default.
F2: Clear ALL attached keys on current Playstyle.
Skin/Sound:
This is where you adjust your skin settings.
You can also choose between different soundsets (If you have more!) Feel free to tweak the skin/sound settings as much as you like!
This game is very skin friendly!
I will provide some links to skins in Chapter 7.
You can also click the Gameplay Preview to switch between skins installed.
- The text is not working!
How to Fix Game Text:
If the text in the window and game consists of constant question marks and eventually some letters, then fear not, it can be fixed!
First way to fix this is to set your computer locale to Japanese. You can do this via the control panel. Keep in mind you don’t want to change your language, only the locale!
If you don’t want to change the PC locale, you can download and install HF pApplocale. This software will let you specifically run a program of choice in Japanese locale.
When you have finished downloading it, just run the executable and install the software. It should be simple.
After it has been installed, you will be able to run softwares in
Japanese Locale by Right-Clicking your desired software use any of these:
How to Fix Web Page Text:
If the text on the site is garbled, it is because your web browser is using the wrong encoding! This is how you fix it:
Firefox:
Go to the Options menu, open the “Contents” tab, and then click on “Choose” under “Languages”. Then find Japanese on the dropdown list, and add it.
Safari:
View – Text Encoding – Default or Japanese(Shift-JIS)
Internet Explorer:
Press Alt and View – Encoding – Auto detect or More – Japanese(Shift-JIS)
Google Chrome:
Click the Tools Icon:
Go over to Tools, and then to Encoding, and enable Auto-Detect.
If you know how to fix this on different browsers, please contact me!
- How and Where to get Skins
I recommend installing this theme before installing any other theme. So a clean LR2 install is recommended.
https://www.geocities.jp/red_without_right_stick/rb.html
It includes optimized widescreen play, result and song select screens.
Other themes worth noting – AC/CS Style:
tricoro RED: https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=E92E2372413C5A12!177&authkey=!AMua7oCoS557O4s
Excellent blog post about skins (with video previews):
https://kasakon555.main.jp/skinlist/
EndlessCirculation – SelfEvolution (for LR2HD)
https://aoishoko.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-14.html
- Lunatic Rave 2 HD Mod
Very recently there has been a mod floating around the web for LR2HD that allows the game to play in 1280×720 resolution. This requires better hardware for running the game as well as a skin that is for HD resolution.
The client can be found and downloaded here: https://edgestorm.tistory.com/280 and https://www.beatmania.co.nz/emulators/lunatic-rave-2-hd-mod/
If you need a skin that allows HD play; you can get EndlessCirculation – SelfEvolution here: https://aoishoko.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-14.html or Here https://www.beatmania.co.nz/lr2hd720themes/
The blog post recommends this hardware for running the game:
Minimum – Barely Playable
CPU: 2.0GHz or higher
RAM: 4GB or more
VGA: Any
HDD: SATA 3 or better
Recommended (1) – Occasional frame drops
CPU: 2.0GHz or higher
RAM: 8GB or more
VGA: Any
HDD: SSD (Required)
Recommended (2) – Plays perfectly
CPU: 2.4GHz or higher
RAM: 8GB or more (Required)
VGA: Any
HDD: Any
The blog post also recommends mounting 1GB RAM using SoftPerfect RAM Disk and running a 4GB patch software on LR2_HD.exe and LRHbody.exe.
- The End / Contact
Thank you for reading the tutorial! This is ALL based on my own knowledge.
I hope you found this helpful!
Any feedback on this is appreciated!
Contributors: Inorizushi, Auric, Sunseille
Lunatic Rave 2 is Copyright (C) 2007-2008 lavalse, cyclia, SHiNKA, Kamiyu, and mur.