A little over a year since I have posted anything.... I have been slacking. Here is a brief synopsis. Lately I have been working with Steam and emulation (always tweaking and improving), Steam In Home Streaming, Minecraft, ChromeOS/Linux, and a slew of home automation and security fun. I am going to "try" and get some posts up on all these subjects "soon". I am also considering adding some videos where appropriate. Keep an eye out.
-Josh
Friday, June 6, 2014
Sunday, June 2, 2013
PC meets Console.
I am sure I was not the first person who lifted an eyebrow the first time I saw Steam Big Picture Mode. But I also saw one thing I felt I was missing to be the ultimate console in my living room, Emulators! So I had a few chats with my like minded friends and co-workers. We discussed how we would all like to see it work, what would make it seem like ultimate gaming console.
So I started up a little project with the following in mind.
-99% of all controls, must be through the gamepad.
-the remaing 1% is for limitations in Steam, popup windows login, some purchasing pieces etc.
-The following emulators were necessary.
Dolphin (Wii, and Gamecube)
Project64 (N64)
Snes9x (SNES)
JNes (NES)
Fusion (Sega Genesis)
PSX (Playstation 1)
PCSX2 (Playstation 2)
Other Software
Steam
Xpadder (For Maximize and Close buttons on 360 controller)
Hardware Laptop or HTPC
XBox 360 Controller
If you have seen the video I put up here you can see what I was able to come up with.
So it took a bit of trial and error to get the different emulators working below I have detailed how I got each working.
I used two methods to add the games to Steam.
1. Batch Files (Thanks to dardack on Youtube for the tip on this).
2. File Association (Associating the ROM file types in windows with the emulator exe). Read more about associating file types here.
Creating Steam Links
1. Launch Steam.
2. Choose Games from the file menu.
3. Then Choose add non-steam game.
4. Choose browse.
5. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
6. Click, Add selected program.
7. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .bat.
8. Rename the actual batch file back to .bat.
Dolphin - Wii and Game Cube
Steam shortcut method: Batch Files
1. Create a batch file using the template.
2. Change the batch file extension to .exe
3. Launch Steam.
4. Choose Games from the file menu.
5. Then Choose add non-steam game.
6. Choose browse.
7. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
8. Name the game.
9. Click, Add selected program.
10. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .bat.
11. Rename the actual batch file back to .bat. Dolphin Batch Template:
Project 64 - Nintendo 64
Steam shortcut method: File Association.
NOTE: I needed to use version 1.7 in order to use this method.
Associate the .n64 extension to Project 64.
1. Change the ROM file extension to .exe
2. Launch Steam.
3. Choose Games from the file menu.
4. Then Choose add non-steam game.
5. Choose browse.
6. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
7. Name the game.
8. Click, Add selected program.
9. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .n64.
Snes9x - Super Nintendo
Steam shortcut method: File Association.
Associate the .smc extension to Snes9x.
1. Change the ROM file extension to .exe
2. Launch Steam.
3. Choose Games from the file menu.
4. Then Choose add non-steam game.
5. Choose browse.
6. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
7. Name the game.
8. Click, Add selected program.
9. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .smc.
JNes - Nintendo Entertainment System
Steam shortcut method: File Association.
Associate the .nes extension to JNes.
1. Change the ROM file extension to .exe
2. Launch Steam.
3. Choose Games from the file menu.
4. Then Choose add non-steam game.
5. Choose browse.
6. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
7. Name the game.
8. Click, Add selected program.
9. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .nes.
Fusion
Steam shortcut method: File Association.
Associate the .bin extension to Fusion.
1. Change the ROM file extension to .exe
2. Launch Steam.
3. Choose Games from the file menu.
4. Then Choose add non-steam game.
5. Choose browse.
6. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
7. Name the game.
8. Click, Add selected program.
9. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to bin.
PSX - Playstation
Steam shortcut method: Batch Files
1. Create a batch file using the template.
2. Change the batch file extension to .exe
3. Launch Steam.
4. Choose Games from the file menu.
5. Then Choose add non-steam game.
6. Choose browse.
7. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
8. Name the game.
9. Click, Add selected program.
10. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .bat.
11. Rename the actual batch file back to .bat.
PSX Batch Template:
PCSX2 - Playstation 2
Steam shortcut method: Batch Files
1. Create a batch file using the template.
2. Change the batch file extension to .exe
3. Launch Steam.
4. Choose Games from the file menu.
5. Then Choose add non-steam game.
6. Choose browse.
7. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
8. Name the game.
9. Click, Add selected program.
10. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .bat.
11. Rename the actual batch file back to .bat.
PCSX2 Batch Template:
Xpadder
I used Xpadder to take care of maximizing for a couple emulators and for closing some others.
Addition tips and Tricks
You can change images for the games by switching to grid view in Steam, then right clicking the game and choosing "set custom image".
For easier grouping of games try naming them with the platform in the name. i.e. "Sega Sonic the Hedgehog 3" or "SNES Super Mario World".
You can create a shortcut in the startup folder with "X:\Steam\Steam.exe -bigpicture" to open steam when the computer launches directly in Big Picture Mode.
**Update 08/10/13** You can also use a PS3 controller, in tandem or in place of the Xbox 360 controller. I had tried this back when I first worked out this project but there were issues with getting the controller to re-sync on boot. Thanks to Marcus for trying out the new MotionJoy and confirming this!
Well that's it for now, good luck, have fun, and happy gaming!
So I started up a little project with the following in mind.
-99% of all controls, must be through the gamepad.
-the remaing 1% is for limitations in Steam, popup windows login, some purchasing pieces etc.
-The following emulators were necessary.
Dolphin (Wii, and Gamecube)
Project64 (N64)
Snes9x (SNES)
JNes (NES)
Fusion (Sega Genesis)
PSX (Playstation 1)
PCSX2 (Playstation 2)
Other Software
Steam
Xpadder (For Maximize and Close buttons on 360 controller)
Hardware Laptop or HTPC
XBox 360 Controller
So it took a bit of trial and error to get the different emulators working below I have detailed how I got each working.
I used two methods to add the games to Steam.
1. Batch Files (Thanks to dardack on Youtube for the tip on this).
2. File Association (Associating the ROM file types in windows with the emulator exe). Read more about associating file types here.
Creating Steam Links
1. Launch Steam.
2. Choose Games from the file menu.
3. Then Choose add non-steam game.
4. Choose browse.
5. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
6. Click, Add selected program.
7. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .bat.
8. Rename the actual batch file back to .bat.
Dolphin - Wii and Game Cube
Steam shortcut method: Batch Files
1. Create a batch file using the template.
2. Change the batch file extension to .exe
3. Launch Steam.
4. Choose Games from the file menu.
5. Then Choose add non-steam game.
6. Choose browse.
7. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
8. Name the game.
9. Click, Add selected program.
10. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .bat.
11. Rename the actual batch file back to .bat. Dolphin Batch Template:
CD "E:\Emulators\Dolphin" "E:\Emulators\Dolphin\Dolphin.exe" /e "E:\Emulators\Dolphin\The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword [Wii][NTSC][Srubbed]-TLS.iso" /b
Project 64 - Nintendo 64
Steam shortcut method: File Association.
NOTE: I needed to use version 1.7 in order to use this method.
Associate the .n64 extension to Project 64.
1. Change the ROM file extension to .exe
2. Launch Steam.
3. Choose Games from the file menu.
4. Then Choose add non-steam game.
5. Choose browse.
6. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
7. Name the game.
8. Click, Add selected program.
9. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .n64.
Snes9x - Super Nintendo
Steam shortcut method: File Association.
Associate the .smc extension to Snes9x.
1. Change the ROM file extension to .exe
2. Launch Steam.
3. Choose Games from the file menu.
4. Then Choose add non-steam game.
5. Choose browse.
6. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
7. Name the game.
8. Click, Add selected program.
9. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .smc.
JNes - Nintendo Entertainment System
Steam shortcut method: File Association.
Associate the .nes extension to JNes.
1. Change the ROM file extension to .exe
2. Launch Steam.
3. Choose Games from the file menu.
4. Then Choose add non-steam game.
5. Choose browse.
6. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
7. Name the game.
8. Click, Add selected program.
9. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .nes.
Fusion
Steam shortcut method: File Association.
Associate the .bin extension to Fusion.
1. Change the ROM file extension to .exe
2. Launch Steam.
3. Choose Games from the file menu.
4. Then Choose add non-steam game.
5. Choose browse.
6. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
7. Name the game.
8. Click, Add selected program.
9. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to bin.
PSX - Playstation
Steam shortcut method: Batch Files
1. Create a batch file using the template.
2. Change the batch file extension to .exe
3. Launch Steam.
4. Choose Games from the file menu.
5. Then Choose add non-steam game.
6. Choose browse.
7. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
8. Name the game.
9. Click, Add selected program.
10. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .bat.
11. Rename the actual batch file back to .bat.
PSX Batch Template:
CD "E:\Emulators\PSX"
"E:\Emulators\PSX\psxfin.exe" -f "E:\Emulators\PSX\cdimages\FINAL FANTASY TACTICS.img"
PCSX2 - Playstation 2
Steam shortcut method: Batch Files
1. Create a batch file using the template.
2. Change the batch file extension to .exe
3. Launch Steam.
4. Choose Games from the file menu.
5. Then Choose add non-steam game.
6. Choose browse.
7. Select the renamed file (This is detailed in each emulator section below).
8. Name the game.
9. Click, Add selected program.
10. Right click the game you just added in the library, choose properties. Rename the file in the target line to .bat.
11. Rename the actual batch file back to .bat.
PCSX2 Batch Template:
CD "E:\Emulators\PcSx2"
"E:\Emulators\PcSx2\pcsx2-r5350.exe" "E:\Emulators\PcSx2\FINAL_FANTASY_X.ISO"
Xpadder
I used Xpadder to take care of maximizing for a couple emulators and for closing some others.
Addition tips and Tricks
You can change images for the games by switching to grid view in Steam, then right clicking the game and choosing "set custom image".
For easier grouping of games try naming them with the platform in the name. i.e. "Sega Sonic the Hedgehog 3" or "SNES Super Mario World".
You can create a shortcut in the startup folder with "X:\Steam\Steam.exe -bigpicture" to open steam when the computer launches directly in Big Picture Mode.
**Update 08/10/13** You can also use a PS3 controller, in tandem or in place of the Xbox 360 controller. I had tried this back when I first worked out this project but there were issues with getting the controller to re-sync on boot. Thanks to Marcus for trying out the new MotionJoy and confirming this!
Well that's it for now, good luck, have fun, and happy gaming!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Other Hobbies.
While I love Tech, and still tinker with everything, in the last 4-5 months I have found a new hobby, gardening. I have Changed the photo scroll on the side with pictures of my families garden. I still plan to do "Tech" things a lot, and I still game, however I spend a lot of time with my kids doing the gardening, so I may mention it it here from time to time, or I may even just start a gardening blog!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Freeing yourself of TV, Cable, and Satellite Part 2
As I said I tried multiple different ways to accomplish the look/feel of a Hulu or Netflix type interface. There was a lot of trial and error here to get exactly what I wanted. Couple things I should mention up front here. First my existing media center install consisted of Windows Vista Ultimate (Using the Vista Media Center) with some hacks and tweaks. I use this box as my home server as well, so it hosts a variety of different apps. It functions as File Server, VM Server, VPN Server, RDP Gateway, Bit Torrent Server, FTP Server, Media Center, and about a dozen other functions I don't recall at the moment. Second I had a very specific vision in mind here. All of the Media Centers I tried were nice in their own right, I ruled each out due to either a technical or aesthetic deficiency for my particular goal.
My first try was with XBMC (Xbox Media Center). http://xbmc.org/ XBMC is an extremely polished, feature rich media center solution. It was my first choice because of the look (and possible looks via skinning). It also had the bonus of being the same project that I have installed on my old school xboxs. And honestly it was an almost perfect solution for my needs. It was able to collect the meta data on it's own, it had the right look and feel, and seamlessly integrated into all my xboxs, and even functioned pretty well with the xbox 360s. Where it fell short was how it worked with PlayOn (you may recall this from the last article). Essentially the UPnP client built into XBMC would crash within about 30 seconds of launching the connection. Now it's important I note here, I only had this issue on my Vista box, and XBMC worked just fine on the xboxs and my windows XP and Windows 7 boxes. I have no doubt that this issue was specific to my individual windows install. However due to my recent change over to streaming based TV it kept me from using this as my media center solution.
My second try was with Boxee. Boxee offers a ton of features in a very clean nice package. I won't go to in depth you can check out their page for more info. There were a few things I did not like about this one. Boxee has a mandatory sign up, and you are required to sign in each time you launch the media center. It also has a static theme and look to it. Also Hulu was a no go without some serious tweaking. All in all the cons far outweighed the pros, so I moved on.
Third I looked into just tweaking out Vista media center. and honestly it is far more "tweakable" then I imagined. There are a lot of really nice mod projects out there for it. And a few of them I discovered wound up going into my final result. There were really no cons with his set up (excluding cost), however during my research I found out some interesting info that led me to my final product.......
Windows 7 Ultimate Media Center. Ok out of the box it is just as boring as it's predecessors, however with a little tweaking it is gorgeous. It also has the added bonus of providing on the fly transcoding for Xbox 360s running as extenders. Basically anything you W7MC can play so can your 360 extenders. With the right tweaks it is theme-able, customizable, and just as rich a media center as any of it's competitors.
In the next article I will go over the tweaks and finished product of my total home media solution.
My first try was with XBMC (Xbox Media Center). http://xbmc.org/ XBMC is an extremely polished, feature rich media center solution. It was my first choice because of the look (and possible looks via skinning). It also had the bonus of being the same project that I have installed on my old school xboxs. And honestly it was an almost perfect solution for my needs. It was able to collect the meta data on it's own, it had the right look and feel, and seamlessly integrated into all my xboxs, and even functioned pretty well with the xbox 360s. Where it fell short was how it worked with PlayOn (you may recall this from the last article). Essentially the UPnP client built into XBMC would crash within about 30 seconds of launching the connection. Now it's important I note here, I only had this issue on my Vista box, and XBMC worked just fine on the xboxs and my windows XP and Windows 7 boxes. I have no doubt that this issue was specific to my individual windows install. However due to my recent change over to streaming based TV it kept me from using this as my media center solution.
My second try was with Boxee. Boxee offers a ton of features in a very clean nice package. I won't go to in depth you can check out their page for more info. There were a few things I did not like about this one. Boxee has a mandatory sign up, and you are required to sign in each time you launch the media center. It also has a static theme and look to it. Also Hulu was a no go without some serious tweaking. All in all the cons far outweighed the pros, so I moved on.
Third I looked into just tweaking out Vista media center. and honestly it is far more "tweakable" then I imagined. There are a lot of really nice mod projects out there for it. And a few of them I discovered wound up going into my final result. There were really no cons with his set up (excluding cost), however during my research I found out some interesting info that led me to my final product.......
Windows 7 Ultimate Media Center. Ok out of the box it is just as boring as it's predecessors, however with a little tweaking it is gorgeous. It also has the added bonus of providing on the fly transcoding for Xbox 360s running as extenders. Basically anything you W7MC can play so can your 360 extenders. With the right tweaks it is theme-able, customizable, and just as rich a media center as any of it's competitors.
In the next article I will go over the tweaks and finished product of my total home media solution.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Teaching your bit torrent about the birds and the bees....
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am no Angel. I have downloaded things through Bit Torrent on a try before you buy basis. I hate being ripped off, and thats all the movie industry, music industry, and gaming industry seem to be interested in anymore.
However instead of adjusting their business models to adapt to the changing times, they have instead decided to lash out at their potential customers. They have been and are doing this with varying methods. But mostly they are just suing people for exorbitant amounts of money that come no where near the actual damages incurred. However that is a different rant for a different day.
This post is about protecting yourself while using bit torrent. There are several ways to do this with varying degrees of success. The best way of course is to just not download anything that will get you in a bad spot. But since when did any of us do the "best" thing?
The first thing is Peer Guardian. This is essentially a blacklist of known spy peers. Basically the bad guys on bit torrent trying to catch you doing bad. You can get it here. Peer Guardian keeps your bit torrent client from connecting to known spy peers. The lists are updated quite frequently and this is a very good tool to use. The only problem here is that it can never be 100%.
Next are Bit Torrent Proxies. These are services that charge you (usually via monthly fee) to direct all your bit torrent traffic through their servers. This basically makes it so anyone on the other side trying to find out who you are, only sees the BT proxies information. The down side here is usually a loss in speed. I have tried BTguard and can say that if I did see a speed hit, it's minimal, and well worth the added protection. It was also very easy to setup in my preferred Bit Torrent Client, uTorrent.
Another option is to stay with strictly private trackers. I am not going to name names here, however some trackers require registration and are slightly less likely to have spies.
There are several other ways to protect yourself however they are not typically as easy or effective as the ones above. Basically when it boils down to it, use common sense and caution when you download.
However instead of adjusting their business models to adapt to the changing times, they have instead decided to lash out at their potential customers. They have been and are doing this with varying methods. But mostly they are just suing people for exorbitant amounts of money that come no where near the actual damages incurred. However that is a different rant for a different day.
This post is about protecting yourself while using bit torrent. There are several ways to do this with varying degrees of success. The best way of course is to just not download anything that will get you in a bad spot. But since when did any of us do the "best" thing?
The first thing is Peer Guardian. This is essentially a blacklist of known spy peers. Basically the bad guys on bit torrent trying to catch you doing bad. You can get it here. Peer Guardian keeps your bit torrent client from connecting to known spy peers. The lists are updated quite frequently and this is a very good tool to use. The only problem here is that it can never be 100%.
Next are Bit Torrent Proxies. These are services that charge you (usually via monthly fee) to direct all your bit torrent traffic through their servers. This basically makes it so anyone on the other side trying to find out who you are, only sees the BT proxies information. The down side here is usually a loss in speed. I have tried BTguard and can say that if I did see a speed hit, it's minimal, and well worth the added protection. It was also very easy to setup in my preferred Bit Torrent Client, uTorrent.
Another option is to stay with strictly private trackers. I am not going to name names here, however some trackers require registration and are slightly less likely to have spies.
There are several other ways to protect yourself however they are not typically as easy or effective as the ones above. Basically when it boils down to it, use common sense and caution when you download.
Freeing yourself of TV, Cable, and Satellite Part 1
I got a bright idea about a month ago. I decided I was tired of paying Direct TV $80+ a month to watch 4 TV shows and throw some stuff on for the kids every once in a while. So I canned their service. Now since I have Xboxs with XBMC and Xbox 360s running as media centers around the house I figured there had to be a way to still get my favorite programs (and some of my kids favorite ones) still pumped out through out the house.
Turns out, there is a way, quite a few ways actually. The best way I found was a pay product called PlayOn. Play on offers a UPnP media streaming program that can stream, Hulu, Netflix, MLB.com, CNN.com, etc. My solution was simple I ditched my $80+ Satellite bill in exchange for a 1 time fee of $40 (PlayOn) and a monthly fee of $8.95 (Netflix). Then I threw in free Hulu just for fun. So now I can watch Netflix instant streaming movies and TV series, and anything Hulu has to offer anywhere in the house via my Xboxs and Xbox 360s.
I would love to say that the journey stopped here, but I have long been know for what my friends describe as "Zeal". After a few days of use I really came to like the interfaces of Hulu and Netflix, and wanted all my downloaded TV shows and ripped movies to have the same kind of look. I tried several different ways to reproduce a similar look and feel. I will go over these and the rest of my overhaul of my media center in a couple articles. Keep an eye out for part 2 if you are interested.
Turns out, there is a way, quite a few ways actually. The best way I found was a pay product called PlayOn. Play on offers a UPnP media streaming program that can stream, Hulu, Netflix, MLB.com, CNN.com, etc. My solution was simple I ditched my $80+ Satellite bill in exchange for a 1 time fee of $40 (PlayOn) and a monthly fee of $8.95 (Netflix). Then I threw in free Hulu just for fun. So now I can watch Netflix instant streaming movies and TV series, and anything Hulu has to offer anywhere in the house via my Xboxs and Xbox 360s.
I would love to say that the journey stopped here, but I have long been know for what my friends describe as "Zeal". After a few days of use I really came to like the interfaces of Hulu and Netflix, and wanted all my downloaded TV shows and ripped movies to have the same kind of look. I tried several different ways to reproduce a similar look and feel. I will go over these and the rest of my overhaul of my media center in a couple articles. Keep an eye out for part 2 if you are interested.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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