My Little Project

[SpyDIRmaN]

My plan is to make a - console style - emu box, that doubles as a bit of a low end HTPC.

I want to leave it in the living room, connected to the TV, and set it up (via GameEX), so that even my dumbest flatmate can watch movies, play music, surf the net, and access the SLEW of games available, via wireless controllers, and a wireless keyboard (with built in mouseball)...

Not quite as cool as a dedicated Cab, but it's affordable

Anyway, I think I can work out how to configure most of this stuff (been hacking away at it for weeks now), but I think it would do me , and other fairly new people, a world of good to know what setup the pros are using???

There's a million threads about what's the best Emu for whatever system, but I'm more interested in the approach (loaders, launcers, batchfiles, scripts, grouped emulators, etc).

For example, one thing I'm dealing with now is: it seems there's a million different ways to go about launching PSX games. I can't decide if it's worth learning a scripting language (like AutoHotkeys) or to try the Deamon Script thing, or try to figure out how to get ePSXeCutor working in GameEX. Should I run multiple copies of ePSXe and group them in GameEx to account for certain games running better in older versions? etc, etc, etc. I can hunt down the answers, so long as I know I'm not wasting my time.

I -for one- don't mind combing forums, or reading FAQs/guides to work out the details, but it's always good to know you're on the right track, and I can't think of a better way than being able to see that "Well this is how Tom and Nologic do it, but HeadKaze, and Adultry do it this way" , etc. you get the idea

It gets a bit discouraging when you spend hours working on a way to fix your problem, only to find that that approach has become defunct and outdated.

Maybe it needs its own thread like the "Cabs running GameEx" one, I dunno. But it would be awesome, and downright inspiring, to know what basic setups you guys are using..

Cheers!

-SpyDIRmaN

[Brian Hoffman]

  SpyDIRmaN said:

My plan is to make a - console style - emu box, that doubles as a bit of a low end HTPC.

I want to sit it the living room, connected to the TV, and set it up (via GameEX), so that even my dumbest flatmate can watch movies, play music, surf the net, and access the SLEW of games available, via wireless controllers, and a wireless keyboard (with built in mouseball)...

Not quite as cool as a dedicated Cab, but it's affordable

Anyway, I think I can work out how to configure most of this stuff (been hacking away at it for weeks now), but I think it would do me , and other fairly new people, a world of good to know what setup the pros are using???

There's a million threads about what's the best Emu for whatever system, but I'm more interested in the approach.

For example, one thing I'm dealing with now is: it seems there's a million different ways to go about launching PSX games.

I -for one- don't mind combing forums, or reading FAQs/guides to work out the details, but it's always good to know you're on the right track, and I can't think of a better way than being able to see that "Well this is how Tom and Nologic do it, but HeadKaze, and Adultry do it this way" , etc, etc.

It gets a bit discouraging when you spend hours working on a way to fix your problem, only to find that that approach has become defunct and outdated.

Maybe it needs it's own thread like the "Cab photos running GameEx"one, but it would be awesome, and downright inspiring, to know what basic setups you guys are using..

Cheers!

-SpyDIRmaN

Well first off I think you'll agree there are a hundred ways to do one thing.. It ultimlatly depends on how pc savvy you are.

I build an arcadeinabox clone that connects to my tv via an nvidia geforce w/svideo out.. Its cheaper than an arcade vga and make my games look really well. When it come to the system do whatever you can afford.. PC processing power,RAM,Video card are very important when it come to emulating systems. Mame doesnt require a higend videocard but NullDc(dreamcast) and PS2 do. Id go dualcore 2.4ghz 2gig memory and geforce 7000 series. This should do most emulation fine.. Id expect to pay 700 dollars for this type of system..

Also note that your friends will find ways to mess things up you never dreamed possable.

For my cabs I use IPACS but since you are going the joypad route Id go with Xpadder.. Most but not all emus support joypad..But all emus support keystrokes.

I'd make one xpadderconfig and map all joystick inputs to keypresses. Then I'd set all emus to use keypresses.. This way you share one config and its easy to trouble shoot

Id make sure to disable all windows hotkeys,rapid keys,sticky keys,baloontips etc.... You will find in some button mashing games it triggers a windows event...

Also Id stay away from mapping any keys to CTRL,SHIFT,ALT,WINKEY,SPACE etc..... you will only come into problems... Also keep in mind the emulator itself has hotkeys.. Sometimes they are hardcoded.. Maybe button 1 is mapped to p1 start in one emu but in another it loads a save state from slot one.. This happens..When picking your emus see what keys it has and go from there. (this will take some time but usually there are more than enough keys to use that have no function at all.) For other circumstances you can use programs like auto hot key that can tell when an app is open and disable/remap keys based on the active window.. Maybe when gammex is up you dont want P2 do be able to pick from the menu so you will create a script that says when gamex is acticve remap these keys to blank. then when you launch an emu it not the active window anymore so the pad starts working again.

For any emulator that does not support a command line interface(CLI) you will need to use a loader/wrapper... End of story

For those that do support CLI you will find that Emuname.exe "[rompath]/[romfile]" works 96% of the time.

Personally I use batch files to load up my PSX games.. I only have 20 or so so its no big deal.. Using bat files give me the lattitude to be able to apply game specific switches.. Some would say batch files are dated..but they WORK and thats all that matters to me

For my dc and NES games the standard Emuname.exe "[rompath]/[romfile]" works great.

All I can say is standardize your configs put roms in a roms folder together with the emu. there is nothing worse than spending many hours getting somthing to work.. Then trying to go back months later to realize you had a scrpt here the roms there the installer somewhere else etc....

Once it is all setup shell gameex so there is no windows gui access. gives a nice clean look and keeps your hard work safe...

And I stress...Make backups

[Nologic]

Well I'm not sure if I'm a pro...and I certainly know I shouldn't give advice as I change my mind about the proper way to do things all the time.

I'll say this much don't use ePSXeCutor if anything use Delta...much nicer frontend for ePSXe. That said try not to go to many executables from GameEx...as it becomes messy and difficult to trouble shoot.

I won't bash the use of Batch scripts as they do their thing and do it well...you can do everything Batch scripts do in AutoIt and more...I'm not totally in the know about AutoHotKey, but I do know that its better at a few things than AutoIt is...and vice versa. I think AutoIt is a more simplistic lang and hence easier to learn for the novice...but if you got a coding background then AutoHotKey should be simple enough to pick up, there is also WSH scripting...but few, if any use it so I'd lean away from trying to use that one as you're not as likely to find quality aid for it.

Really in another year I should be a pro and be able to give some real advice...but right now not really.

[SpyDIRmaN]

Thanks for the replies and guidance fellas. I now have an idea where I want to head with this. it's just been a question of where to start researching, and where best to place my time/efforts, so that in the end I will have learned what I needed to learn in order to churn out a respectable end user device/experience

GameEx (and this forum) is definately the place to seek such information.

Kinda what I had in mind (for myself, and possibly for your own amusment and discussion) was maybe a dedicated thread for people (especially the more emu savy) to post their basic setups. Kind of like how people used to list their system specs at the bottom every post (wow was that annoying haha), but in a forum thread so people can see what everyone else is doing...

Then you could edit it, as you make changes, and discuss with eachother the interesting approaches used, and why... The relative noobs, like myself, may not have a clue (yet) what you're talking about, but at least we can get an idea of what can/should be done with GameEx. You could even add it to your profile. I dunno.

No worries if you guys don't want/care to do that sort of thing, it was just an idea...

I realize a whole lot of this forum is full of long discussion on small aspects of your own systems, but I thought it would be cool to see a nice clean list of "who's doing what".

Here's a short, and crappy, Example :

-------------------------------------------------------------

SpyDIRmaN's Arcade Box:

Systems Specs: Blah, blah

-

Controllers: GamePad, blah,

DISPLAY: 80cm TV (PAL) - S-video

---------------------

Running Game Ex (Media Center theme)

-Arcade sounds plugin

-Manual viewer

-CPviewer (headkaze beta)

MAME .118 (no "ok" screen version)

-Mame 1.06 (for killer instinct)

Zinc 1.0 (just for SFEX Plus)

-Batch Files

GEN, 32x, SCD, SMS - Kega Fusion

NES - Nestopia

SNES - ZSNES

N64 - Project 64 - 1.6 w/ Jabo 3D8 1.6 (most games)

-PJ64 1.7 - Jabo 3D8 1.7 - (C&C , pokemon stadium)

-EMU grouped in GameEx

PSX

-ePSXe 1.5.2 (default)

-ePSXe 1.6 (some games)

-pSX - (some games)

Grouped in Game ex and launced via batch files that: pick emu, load plugins, cheats, patches, mount, launch

DreamCast

-NullDC 1.0

-Null DC loader, etc, etc.

ETC, ETC, ETC...

You get the idea.

-----------------------------------------------------

[LB11]

Id like to answer your questions, but honestly Im trying to do the same thing as you, but I spend more time trying to make it perfect and add more things as I find out about them, then I do actually playing the damn thing! But I don't mind, I actually like fooling around with it. I haven't done much with PSX and Dreamcast emulators yet, so I cant tell you much about that. But I use a A64 3400+ with 2gig memory, and ATI on board video. Plays just about every emulated game out there pretty well. Including DC and PSX games. It also plays just about all the modern PC games on the SD TV (640x480) just fine.

[Nologic]

Hehe I think if I posted whats actually up and running on my system right now most would be underwhelmed.

I'll look into doing this, but it'll be a bit...one need to get the icon's and databases done first...then I need to scramble and get more stuff up and running so I have something respectable to show.

[Backlash]

  LB11 said:

Id like to answer your questions, but honestly Im trying to do the same thing as you, but I spend more time trying to make it perfect and add more things as I find out about them, then I do actually playing the damn thing!

lol so true. I think I have more fun setting up my htpc than I do using it. Think I'm in need of some serious help

[bkenobi]

It's so sad...I have spent so much time acquiring all of these complete sets for my favorite consoles and have yet to actually set up anything beyond NES and SNES