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[HTPC] ExaDrive 2

Sliver X

By Sliver X
in Gamer Rigs

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Sliver X Super Member!

Sliver X

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Posted
ExaDrive 2
Case: Apex MI-008 (Mini ITX)
MB: ASUS P8H61-I Rev 2.0
CPU: Core i3 2120 @ 3.3GHz
RAM: 8GB Dual Channel DDR3-1333MHz
GPU: GeForce GT 1030
HDD: WD Blue 2TB 5400RPM/64MB Cache
SSD: WD Blue 500GB SATA III
Optical: Samsung 48X DVD+RW Slimline
802.3: Realtek Gb NIC
802.11: Rosewill 150-N USB WiFi
Bluetooth: Targus BT 4.1 USB
PSU: 230W ITX
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (Custom)
Interface: GameEX v13.10
Inputs: (2x) Sony Dualshock 3
 
Hardware.jpg

This is the continuation of a Linux based HTPC system I started last year (ExaDrive) and originally used Kodi and Mah!Cade for interfacing with games and media, even when switching to Windows 7 x64 as the primary OS. Recently I replaced that with GameEX.
 
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It emulates 33 systems in addition to running 80 DOS and Windows games currently. Games as recent as Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite, Doom 2016 and Wolfenstein - The New Order are all very playable at 720p on the budget level GeForce card it has.
 
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Also, despite the CPU being a budget level model that's over six years old as of this writing no MAME game I've tried runs less than 100% and PSP, PS2, Dreamcast and Saturn emulation is just as good.
 
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The OS is extremely ripped down and customized for speed. Using NTLite and dozens of manual tricks and optimizations I was able to patch the OS to current levels then rip its install size down to 6GB.
 
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It has no support for printing, international languages, entire classes of hardware the machine will never have, tons of core Windows features/components and many other things a typical PC would need. It also runs BBLean as its shell and has dozens of services disabled. POST to usability takes about 40 seconds. Used RAM on a cold boot is around 700MB.
 
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The Dualshock 3s are driven by SCP Toolkit, which presents them as XBox controllers to the OS. Rumble is fully supported, even for DirectInput games by using a passthrough driver for XInput rumble. Most things are controlled by them via a program called AntiMicro, which allows them to send keyboard and mouse inputs to the machine.
 
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Arcade, 8bit, 16bit, 32X, GBA and N64 games are 7zipped. ISOs and Nintendo DS games are NTFS compressed and Sega CD + Turbo CD games are in ISO+MP3 and ISO+OGG format, respectively, to further save space.
 
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Handling of decompression and running games is handled by a huge batch script I wrote that GameEX points to (It also supports Zip, RAR and NanoZip archives for ROMs).
 
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Web browsing and WiFi management are possible using gamepads in spite of the lack of both functions in GameEX via Antimicro and a few AutoIT scripts I wrote. It's kind of clunky, but it works!

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Emulated Systems
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PC Games
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  • Like 3
stigzler GameEx God (Top Rank)

stigzler

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Wow. Cool beans. Awesome build.. 

So one of my future projects will be building a small format factor PC for living room use. You seem to know your onions. I'd like to build one capable of running current gen emus, eg. Cemu, rpsc3 and the Xbox one... Would it be possible to cram the kinda specs into such a small format factor? 

Like the way you've integrated WiFi and Web and file manager. I take it they're separate applications but preserving the same theme? 

Sliver X Super Member!

Sliver X

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You can put really powerful CPUs into most ITX machines but GPUs are another matter. Most ITX cases only support single slot cards, which the GeForce 1030 is about the fastest one of those available currently. I'm not sure if that would be sufficient to run PS3/360 emulators. Another matter is having a PSU with enough power to feed a fast GPU. Most ITX power supplies aren't very strong on either wattage or +!2V amperage, and to get one that is would probably be fairly expensive since it's kind of a niche market for something like that and I'm sure not many are made.

To answer your other question, WiFi is handled via a batch script, an AutoIT program I wrote to invoke the Network Manager applet via a keystroke, Touch-It Virtual Keyboard and AntiMicro to emulate mouse movement with right analog and the shoulders/triggers for Left Click/Right Click. Select on the DS3 toggles the network list, Start toggles the keyboard and the PS button exits back to GameEX

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Web browsing is handled via a similar setup, using Palemoon Portable. The URL bar autohides, L/R triggers Page Up/Page Down, the Dpad is arrow keys, X is Enter and O is Backspace.

L.png
 
The filemanager is my previous Kodi install whittled down to bare minimum and hacked in several ugly ways to make it act only as a file manager. A bonus is that when browsing drives it can play movies and music itself for previewing purposes.
  • Like 1
stigzler GameEx God (Top Rank)

stigzler

Posted
Posted

Yep. Working here OK now too. Very nice setup. Good GameEx showcase build. You could screencap it with OBS Studio and post it here: 

btw - how did you remove the translucent background to the letters on the GameEx onscreen keyboard?

Sliver X Super Member!

Sliver X

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Thanks. I may do that soon or buy/borrow a decent camera so the BIOS and OS parts can be seen.

 

The OSK uses VolGrey.png as the background for letters. I simply made that image a 1x1 translucent file to make it invisible.

Since I don't use GameEX's volume indicator anymore the fact that doing this also affects it was a moot point for me.

  • Like 1
  • 5 months later...
LiveSorcerer Member

LiveSorcerer

Posted
Posted

Hi, how many watts is your power source?
And does this VGA support PCI Express 2.0 x16?

My Gamer Rigs: X-RetroNAS (Xbox Classic) AMD A8-5545 1.7GHz@2.7GHz + Radeon™ HD8510G+16GB DDR3+500GB

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