[artisanoo]

i tried posting this in the mediaportal thread but got zero responses (maybe the readers of that thread dont play games) - so i apologize for this seemingly redundant post in advance.


a few questions

1) basically, i tried getting the "my emulators" plugin to work, and it sort of does - but the skins dont look right and for some reason when the program starts (the emulator), mediaportal seems to exit, so when the game is over i just end up back at windows.


2) i started looking for a gamepad to use, ideally affordable because id like to get 2 eventually. any recommendations? the issue is that most of the ones i see look like playstation controllers,with 4 buttons (and the shoulders etc) but some arcade type games use 6 buttons. i have seen joystick setups like that but i would prefer a hand held control instead of a whole big arcade pad thing.


as an aside, does anyone have a nice streamlined setup that incorporates games like this into the whole htpc experience?

 

[mslide]



Quote:
Originally Posted by artisanoo /forum/post/15508321


2) i started looking for a gamepad to use, ideally affordable because id like to get 2 eventually. any recommendations? the issue is that most of the ones i see look like playstation controllers,with 4 buttons (and the shoulders etc) but some arcade type games use 6 buttons. i have seen joystick setups like that but i would prefer a hand held control instead of a whole big arcade pad thing.


as an aside, does anyone have a nice streamlined setup that incorporates games like this into the whole htpc experience?

I use xlobby to do this. I usually only use my htpc for serving up movies, but I do have a way to select what game I want to play. xlobby is setup to call other programs based on what the file extension is. So the movies page looks just like the emulator pages, except they call the appropriate emulator instead.


I don't really use this much anymore, but I did used to use a regular Playstation 2 controller along with a USB to PS2 converter that I got at radio shack. My second choice would probably be the windows version of the xbox controller. I also have my original super nintendo gamepads. I had planned on getting USB-to-SNES adapters, but never did.


I don't usually play MAME games (that would require 6 buttons). If I did, I would look into those arcade style joysticks, or build one myself.


I know my choice of gamepads/joysticks don't match what you're looking for, but it's what I found work best. I tend to play old NES and SNES games most and the PS2 controller was the first modern gamepad I found that closely mimicked what I remember using as a kid.

 

[deltronik]

1) this is a statement. and I launch emulators from the Desktop so I can't help you there.

2) I like the x360 wireless controller, works great for most systems, except the Genesis 6 button games like Mortal Kombat and Arcade fighters eg Street Fighter, etc. (I hate using shoulder buttons in old school fighting games, for those I use my old MS Sidewinder that has 6 face buttons) And works GREAT for any new game you would want to play.

 

[artisanoo]



Quote:
Originally Posted by deltronik /forum/post/15508880


1) this is a statement. and I launch emulators from the Desktop so I can't help you there.

technically, yes - but i thought the problem i was stating was enough to get some help - i wasnt aware that question marks were required for stating issues

but in any case, thats what i am doing at the moment as well - just would be nice to have it all in one place. thanks anyway though

Quote:
Originally Posted by deltronik /forum/post/15508880


2) I like the x360 wireless controller, works great for most systems, except the Genesis 6 button games like Mortal Kombat and Arcade fighters eg Street Fighter, etc. (I hate using shoulder buttons in old school fighting games, for those I use my old MS Sidewinder that has 6 face buttons) And works GREAT for any new game you would want to play.

i have wireless xbox controllers (for my xbox, not made for pc, but i though they were the same?) i dont have the wireless receiver for PC but i have the play&charge kit. do you know if that would allow me to connect the xbox controller to the pc? i thought it might work since it works for the xbox, but windows didnt seem to recognize it. i tried a few drivers i found on the web (from microsoft, and others) and no luck. if you could help me get that working that would be a good solution as well

 

[DeadmanInc]

No, you need to pick up the wireless receiver to use your controllers with the PC. I think they only cost $20-30, so it's not that expensive.

 

[artisanoo]

ill consider that, since a decent controller costs that much anyway - and i alreayd have 2 xbox ones.

ill need to decide if i want/need the extra buttons and go from there



so back to bigger question i have, anyone have a nice all in one htpc front end that includes emulator support, that they can share details on?


i would like media portal but ill consider other things as well.

 

[artisanoo]

i think i decided to start with the xbox+receiver option, since its fairly cheap and i already have 2 controllers. the 6 buttons issue for the few games where it is important (the fighters etc) are not that big a deal i guess (and other games that are not as fast paced can settle for shoulder buttons

)


does the out-of-the-box setup for this option (bear with me, i have zero experience with controllers on the pc) work with emulators like kega (for genesis, master system) and some nes/snes programs (forget the name right now)? or will i have to jump through a few hoops to get the older programs to work right


also, does anyone know anything about my other question, using media portal for emulators? i know there is a plugin for it but it didnt work so well for me so i dont know if its just not mature or if i did something wrong in setting it up.


thanks for the help

 

[Humpy]

Resurrecting this.. What emulators are you guys using? I don't care where I have to launch it from, but a single emulator that will do all the old consoles + MAME would be schweaty ballzzzz... Can I be directed to these, please?

 

[artisanoo]

is there one that plays everything? i have different ones for sega/sms, nes, snes, etc.


so does *no one* do this using mediaportal?

 

[dlthorpe]



Quote:
Originally Posted by artisanoo /forum/post/15508321


2) i started looking for a gamepad to use, ideally affordable because id like to get 2 eventually. any recommendations? the issue is that most of the ones i see look like playstation controllers,with 4 buttons (and the shoulders etc) but some arcade type games use 6 buttons. i have seen joystick setups like that but i would prefer a hand held control instead of a whole big arcade pad thing.


as an aside, does anyone have a nice streamlined setup that incorporates games like this into the whole htpc experience?

I use my xbox 360 controller and a program called Pinnacle Game Profiler.


Pinnacle allows my PC to assign any buttons and commands to all of the 360 controls. The best part is other users have already created profiles for Pinnacle designed to run on Emaulator programs. I also use the 360 remote for general windows use and Media Portal.


Its clever enough to detect you have launched a program and then launch the approproiate profile. For example i boot windows and the WinProfile starts. I launch Media Portal and select My Emulators then choose MAME. The Mame profile then starts and i play some games. I quit mame and WinProfile starts again. Same story goes for N64, PC-E, Game Boy, etc etc etc.


You do need to sometimes create specific game profiles of the current one is not 100% suitable. I am by no means complete with my Emulator project on the HTPC but its sure coming along nicely.

 

[artisanoo]

sounds like you are trying to do what i want - do you have a thread with details about your htpc? id love to see how its progressing

 

[10k]

I'm working on setting up emulators in media portal as well. I couldn't get my emulators to work at all with the StreamedMP skin so I switched to pilehave's mediastream skin ( http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mediastream-305/ ), which solved some issues I had with tv series and also appears to work with my emulators.


I'm still at the stage where I don't even have system thumbnails showing up correctly however.


My setup includes 2 usb->psx adapters, and I am controlling media portal with a Logitech Harmony 720 which is talking to my Hauppauge HVR 1250.


Ideally I would like to be able to save state, load state, and quit the emulator with the remote.


As far as emulators go I am using:

SNES -> zsnes

Genesis -> gens

Gameboy Advance -> VisualboyAdvance

NES -> fceu-win

Playstation -> epsxe

Playstation 2 -> PCSX2


If you weren't already aware, ngemu.com is a great resource for emulation.

 

[mslide]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Humpy /forum/post/15644366


Resurrecting this.. What emulators are you guys using? I don't care where I have to launch it from, but a single emulator that will do all the old consoles + MAME would be schweaty ballzzzz... Can I be directed to these, please?

NES : Nestopia

SNES: zsnes


That's all I use, in addition to MAME every once in a while. For NES stuff, those emulators are so mature now that there are a number of them out there that are pretty much perfect. I'm probably going to switch to using xbox 360 controllers, since I have one (used to use USB-to-PSX adapters). I'm not aware of a single emulator that will do everything well. Besides, using different emulators shouldn't matter since you're using a frontend. I have xlobby setup to fire the appropriate emulator based on the rom's file extension. I'd imagine that one could do something similar with any decent front end.

 

[bob13bob]

360 controller is recognized as best controller. If you already have em it's a no brainer. all those other 3rd party controllers are just substandard in my experience.

 

[warwon]

I use an application called "Maxiums arcade"


That takes care of all my emulators and games at once