I have a question regarding Big Box.

[Zombeaver]

As far as RA+Launchbox integration, here would be your best bet. There are a lot of RA users here. I love RA, personally. As far as shaders, we were just discussing that the other day here. I've got links in that post to a couple of other sites that have info on CRT shaders, specifically. Filthypants (blog) and Shmups (forums) have some really good info on them. CRT-Easymode is my preferred shader. CRT-Royale can be a bit of a mixed bag, in my opinion. It can look really amazing or really crappy depending on what you're using it on. There are plenty of CRT shaders to experiment with in RA though, just try them out! Another thing to consider is how good they will look over streaming - unless you've got a really high bitrate going (25mbps+) Royale can make the image turn to mush because of the additional complexity it's adding to the image. Easymode looks quite good over streaming, even at less extreme bitrates. Here's something you can use to test - load up F-Zero and start moving forward and pay attention to the road, especially the part between the solid gray area and the shaded section that's further in the distance. If you're getting compression artifacting, it will be very obvious there. By the same token, once you tweak things and it looks good in that case, it should look good pretty much anywhere else :)

[cejpe]

Thanks, I'll check out those links you mentioned. Looks like I'll have to change the input settings on my controller and force 16:9. Two questions regarding Steam Link: Is your connection wireless? I think my setup will have to be wireless for the time being and it's my biggest concern. It seemed to work quite well when streaming to my laptop, but I thought I would ask anyway. Have you setup the Steam Link to run anything other than emulators? I'm interested in streaming newer PC games, and I would like to keep using Big Box for this since I really like the interface, although it's sort of redundant.

[Zombeaver]

cejpe said I'll have to change the input settings on my controller

If you're talking about in RA, it does need to be set to Xinput, yes. In Steam's "Big Picture", you may or may not have to mess with any controller settings. I have mine set to "Captain Keeb's" preset which works fine.

cejpe said ...and force 16:9.

You lost me here. Force to 16:9 in what, and for what reason?

cejpe said Is your connection wireless?

I'm wired from host to router and wireless from router to Link. I haven't tried 100% wireless, myself, but I've heard some pretty mixed things about it. There are a lot of factors though, so your mileage may vary. Wired from host to router and wireless from router to Link work great for me, and I'm just using a cheapo wireless N router.

cejpe said Have you setup the Steam Link to run anything other than emulators?

Emulators have been my primary focus with the Link, but I have tested it with other things and haven't had any problems. I was playing around in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor on it and it looked and played great. So long as whatever you're attempting to play has Xinput support, you should be golden. If it doesn't, you may have to look into using VirtualHere.

[cejpe]

Zombeaver said

cejpe said ...and force 16:9.

You lost me here. Force to 16:9 in what, and for what reason?

In the link you provided, someone said that forcing 16:9 aspect ratio & --fullscreen and --nogui solved the issue of the 'B' button exiting out of PCSX2 while streaming it.

Zombeaver said I'm wired from host to router and wireless from router to Link. I haven't tried 100% wireless, myself, but I've heard some pretty mixed things about it. There are a lot of factors though, so your mileage may vary. Wired from host to router and wireless from router to Link work great for me, and I'm just using a cheapo wireless N router.

Good to hear, my desktop PC is hardwired into the router as well, so it won't be wireless to wireless. Thanks again for all of your assistance!

[Zombeaver]

cejpe said In the link you provided, someone said that forcing 16:9 aspect ratio & --fullscreen and --nogui solved the issue of the 'B' button exiting out of PCSX2 while streaming it

They're separate issues. --fullscreen and --nogui are necessary for it to launch properly through Launchbox. The B button issue is caused by the console window in PCSX2 stealing focus - disabling it will fix that specific issue. I don't think the aspect ratio is necessary for anything to function, but I do have a resolution specified + 16:9 checked to maintain the proper (4:3) aspect ratio on a 16:9 display. Some PS2 games actually support 16:9 ratio though, like FFXII. PCSX2 is a bit of an odd duck - you pretty much have to create individual configs on a game by game basis to use it properly. There isn't a one-size-fits-all setup for PCSX2.

[cejpe]

@Zombeaver: I picked up a Steam Link after work, been messing with it a bit and having lots of fun so far. I've been looking for some solutions to get Big Box to work correctly and I don't have a spare keyboard/mouse. I came up with a solution that works for the time being, and I'm able to retain control of Big Box through Steam Link. I added Big Box as a non-Steam game then changed the path to instead execute a batch file. Inside the batch file I have the following:

taskkill /f /im launchbox.exe start LaunchBox.exe timeout 5 CTRLB.ahk pause

Pretty self-explanatory, it will first close launchbox if it's open, because we want it to be in focus for when we use the AutoHotKey script. Then wait 5 seconds for Launch Box to open (I had it at 3 but it was hit and miss on if it captured it or not). All the AutoHotKeyScript has in it is the following:

Send {Ctrl Down}b{Ctrl Up}

Since Steam is technically 'playing' the command prompt I placed the batch file and the ahk script in the Launch Box installation folder. It's not a permanent solution, but it works for now. P.S. So as I was typing all of this up, I decided to test what would happen if I launched a batch file from Steam that contained only the following:

BigBox.exe

It works perfectly. Sigh.. All the work and then it just works with a single argument. Oh well can't complain, I can use it with my controller without issue!

[Zombeaver]

cejpe said P.S. So as I was typing all of this up, I decided to test what would happen if I launched a batch file from Steam that contained only the following:

BigBox.exe

It works perfectly. Sigh.. All the work and then it just works with a single argument. Oh well can't complain, I can use it with my controller without issue!

Wait...what? Am I missing something? Why would that be different from simply adding BigBox.exe as a non-steam app? Because that doesn't work for me (for controlling it I mean). And how are you launching a batch from steam? You can only add .exe's to your non-steam-apps. EDIT: I just figured out how to add them - I just replaced the target line in my existing shortcut to BigBox in Steam from the .exe to the .bat I created. I will have to test this...

[cejpe]

Well, to be quite honest I don't really know. The only reason I tried all of that in the first place is because while streaming my desktop to the Steam Link, I had Launch Box open and accidentally clicked on the "Launch Big Box" option within Launch Box, and it launched perfectly. As to getting a batch file to launch within Steam. I just add Big Box as a non-steam app, then if you right-click on it after you've added it and select "Properties" you can just change the target to C:\dir\BigBox.exe to C:\dir\BigBoxLauncher.bat and it will launch the .bat instead. Maybe you can assist me though.. getting a controller to work with any emulators is proving to be a huge pain. It looks like any controller I use only uses the desktop profile for the controller, which is not ideal at all.. I want it to emulate an Xbox360 controller instead. I'm banging my head trying to figure out why I can't change it..

[Zombeaver]

The batch thing didn't work for me at all. It still launches Big Box properly, but it's still not controllable via the controller for me. Not only that, but it's causing me to have no video via RA only audio. Switching the shortcut back to the normal exe fixed that. As far as the controller configuration, you'll want to go into Big Picture and go to settings -> controller / configurations -> desktop configuration -> browse (X button) -> community -> "The Captain Keeb's Bindings (should be near the top). This basically configures it to act as a 360 controller at all times. EDIT: Another thing that occurred to me that may be leading to confusion here - if you launch BB on the Link by minimizing to desktop and launching BB there (which would likely be functionally identical to launching BB from Launchbox) the controller *does* work to control BB through the Link. The problem there is that it's going to throw the stream into the awful desktop encoder which has a detrimental impact on performance.

[cejpe]

Weird, I have no idea why it worked for me at all, I guess I can't really complain though. I tried setting up the controller setting with Captain Keebe's bindings and it doesn't work.. Is this page supposed to update? That's what it looks like after I select Keebe's bindings. Edit: When using the desktop encoder, does it use that until the end of the session or until Big Box fully launches? If so then I guess I'm not doing myself any favors by doing it with a batch file. Edit #2: I figured it out. Since I'm using a batch file it's using desktop controls. So that means even though Big Box works with the batch file emulators can't be controlled properly. So.. I guess I'll go to navigating Big Box menus on my PC, shame :/

[Zombeaver]

It will still show "Desktop Configuration" no matter what you're using. Once you actually go into that menu though, it should look like this once you've chosen the right preset: As long as it looks like that, you've got it setup correctly. Regarding the desktop encoder, it will keep the same encoder while you're in Big Box itself, though it will likely change to something else once you launch an emulator. Big Box browsing might be choppy as result. You can enable the performance overlay in Big Box to see what encoder it's using, what your framerate is, what your bitrate is, what your latency is, etc. As far as the controls - have you tried the VirtualHere option? Are you using a wired or wireless 360 controller? If it's wired, you should have no problem using VirtualHere. If it's wireless, you may have audio issues as that's what I tracked it down to tonight. It's something worth trying though.

[cejpe]

Pardon the ignorance, but I was messing around with VH last night with a wired 360 controller and a wireless PS4 controller. My experience with both of them didn't change my experience in any way at all; maybe I was using it wrong? I plugged my device into the Steam Link, and in VH 'used' that device. I guess the only difference now that I think of it is I was able to control my mouse with the PS4 controller. Other than that though, there were no differences. Am I supposed to have the device I want to use plugged into the computer and not the Link?

[Zombeaver]

A couple things: 1) Are you opted into the latest beta firmware on the Link? The VH integration is only in the beta firmware. I believe the opt in option is in the system menu on the Link. 2) If you're opted into the latest firmware, have you actually enabled VH on the Link? I believe it's also in the system menu. It'll say something along the lines of "Experimental VirtualHere support" that you have to enable. 3) When you turn on VirtualHere on your PC, and you start your stream on the Link with VH enabled, you should get a prompt on the PC that says something like "Steam VirtualHere trial" or some such - hit okay. Now you should be able to expand the section that says "USB Hub" in VirtualHere on the PC. You should see "360 controller" listed there. You have to double-click that. You should then hear the PC make the "dun-dun" sound indicating a USB device has been connected and it'll now have something in parenthesis next to the "360 controller" in VirtualHere like "connected". Navigating Big Box should work normally at that point. The way the Link normally handles inputs is to send them to a specific window that's initially launched for any given "non-steam" application. This is why you can run into focus conflicts that interfere with your input detection. VirtualHere, on the other hand, makes your computer think that the device you have connected to your Link is actually plugged directly into your PC, so it should be functionally identical. So if you're able to navigate Big Box by directly plugging your controller into your PC (which should be the case) it should work when connected to the Link and using VirtualHere.

[cejpe]

Huh, strange. I did all of that stuff last night and was able to connect them to my PC but I still wasn't able to control Big Box. I can however confirm that there was some crackling audio when playing with VH enabled.

[Zombeaver]

But it does work when you directly plug the controller into the PC? There shouldn't be any difference... Do you have "enable all controllers" or whatever it's called turned on in Big Box? It's in the options somewhere. I've had that turned on since the beginning, so maybe that has something to do with it. It's not enabled by default. There are a couple cool things about VirtualHere - it allows Xpadder to be used through the Link (not previously possible), it enables you to use the Link with emulators that are Dinput-only like 4DO (ordinarily you're restricted to ones with Xinput support), and it can resolve focus conflict issues for input detection (like Big Box). Evidently it can be a bit CPU taxing for the Link though, especially if you're doing it with a wireless controller, which can cause sound problems. Slouken passed my test feedback on to the VH engineers. Hopefully they'll be able to do something about the CPU load.