XPMCE: Launching games from MCE

[amos_82]

Fantastic!

Youv'e cracked it Nick, this is enough to make Billy Gates smile



I even got Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast working with your launcher. Plus MCE launches in full screen, perfect for those using mce in the living room.

Thanks again

[nickoz]

Lol, thanks for your help amos - its much appreciated.

Nick.

[adamdaviddoy]

Has anyone tried this with a Console Emulator like JNes for Nintendo?

[amos_82]

I had a look at Jnes today,
The roms dont work with the Gamelauncher which means MCE is running in the background & doesnt restore itself. I wouldn't bother with it to be honest. But if your desperate to try; here's how to set it up:

1. JNES SETTINGS:
TICK the following:
- Sleep while emulator is in background
- Associate .NES files with JNES (Important)
- Go to the Video Configuration & tick 'Go full screen when rom is opened'
DO NOT tick 'Rom Browser'

2. Create a shortcut to a rom
3. Link the shortcut to the .mcl file.

Thats it.

Note: Its possible to setup Gens (sega genesis) using a batch file, but the same problems are there. Your probably be better off with GameEx if you want to run emulators.

[nickoz]

You might want to try using this in the batch file or shortcut:

C:\Windows\GameLoader.exe "C:\Program Files\Jnes 0.6\Jnes.exe" "C:\Program Files\Jnes 0.6\Roms\Mario Bros. (JU) [!].nes"

Nick.

[amos_82]

Ive tried it unfortunately.

The GameLoader works fine with the 'Jnes.exe', but wont launch a format like .nes

No worries, just trying it for Adam, im happy with the PC games

[hartsteins]

This is a great app. Thanks for all the input.

Is there a way to open one shortcut when media center closes and another when media center re-opens?

I need to make screen changes when I switch to games and have it restore when I return to MCE. I have an ATI video card that allows me to save different monitor "profiles" as shortcuts. I use MCE in my living room and the TV cuts off any game controls along the edges of the screen unless I turn off overscan (normally on for TV viewing).

Additionlly, is there a way to mount a disk image (with the game files) and ummount on quit?


Thanks again for all your help.

Greg

[TiggerK]

Hi nickoz,

this looks like an excellent addition to the essential MCE add-ons list. Well done and thanks for all your input and help with ongoing support for it. Have some rep points too!!

Cheers
TiggerK

[seejay]

Thanks nickoz, I've revived the psx emu and it works great! Now just looking for a way to add a "My Games" type start menu as mentioned earlier.

[nickoz]

Greg,

Originally Posted by hartsteins

Is there a way to open one shortcut when media center closes and another when media center re-opens?

Additionlly, is there a way to mount a disk image (with the game files) and ummount on quit?

Well the first thing I'd try is setting up a batch file to do this which your game shortcut would call instead of the actually game executable (which we'll call 'mygame.exe'). Something like this may work;

@echo off
start profile1.lnk
GameLoader -k "\path\mygame.exe"
start profile2.lnk

The thing about this is the timing. The first 'start' call will of course execute before media center is shutdown, which may or may not be what you're after. The second 'start' call, again, will execute after ehshell.exe has been started.
One point to make about reinstating ehshell though, the GameLoader uses an asynchronous call to 'ShellExecute' to do this. For the non-coders, this means as soon as the call has been made into the operating system to start the process, it will return, before it has actually completed loading. So, depending on your system the batch file may actually get to 'start profile2.lnk' before ehshell.exe has finished starting up which may give the wrong results.

I suppose the best solution here would be to add some new params to GameLoader, where you could do something like:

GameLoader.exe -k -d -start "\path\pregame_load.bat" -end "\path\premce_restore.bat" "\path\mygame.exe"

Let me know how the batch file method goes before i start adding extra params to the GameLoader though. Thanks for all the comments guys

Cheers,
Nick

[amos_82]

Hi guys;

I forgot to add this info to the thread. If you want to show thumbnail pictures for your games you need to add an extra two lines to the game's mcl file after the 'run' line. Heres an example:

run = "C:\MCE Games\Call Of Duty 2.lnk"
startimage="C:\MCE Games\Call Of Duty 2.png"
thumbnailimage="C:\MCE Games\Call Of Duty 2.png"

The art needs to be saved as a png file, so either rename the file from .jpg to .png or open the image in paint and save it as a png.

Suprisingly MCE actually resizes the images perfectly,you can see the whole image; kinda looks like 'my movies'. Only wish we could figure out how to do the same for video/dvd art

[Naser]

Hi amos,
my first post =)
Okay so i did exactly what u said but i still cant get the thumbnails image to show.

I have created a folder "C: MCE-GAMEZ" & made like 7 sub folders, one for each game & i put the shortcut of each game & the thumbnails in png format in each corrosponding folder.Also i have to put a shortcut of the game under Acc/Media Center/Media center Programs or the link wont show at all in MCE.just like prince of persia link.

but i still cant get the image to show.Any Ideas ??

last question, is there any way to add a string like my movies & call it say my games & put all this stuff instead of showing in the " More Programs" ???

Thanx a lot for ur help.

Heres how my mcl looks like
name = "Winning Eleven"
SharedViewport = ""
NowPlayingDirective = ""
run = "C:\MCE-GAMES\Winning Eleven 9\Winning Eleven 9.lnk"
startimage="C:\MCE-GAMES\Winning Eleven 9\Winning_Eleven_9_Dvd.png"
thumbnailimage="C:\MCE-GAMES\Winning Eleven 9\Winning_Eleven_9_Dvd.png"
>
directx="True"
audio="False"
video="False"
intensiverendering="True"
console="False"
cdburning="False" />

Originally Posted by amos_82

Hi guys;

I forgot to add this info to the thread. If you want to show thumbnail pictures for your games you need to add an extra two lines to the game's mcl file after the 'run' line. Heres an example:

run = "C:\MCE Games\Call Of Duty 2.lnk"
startimage="C:\MCE Games\Call Of Duty 2.png"
thumbnailimage="C:\MCE Games\Call Of Duty 2.png"

The art needs to be saved as a png file, so either rename the file from .jpg to .png or open the image in paint and save it as a png.

Suprisingly MCE actually resizes the images perfectly,you can see the whole image; kinda looks like 'my movies'. Only wish we could figure out how to do the same for video/dvd art