Chadmando Posted May 12, 2018 Share Posted May 12, 2018 (edited) WARNING: This tutorial could be borderline difficult, and is specific to my own personal use. Feel free to experiment, change or customize to your own use. If there are other emulators that work through the lan, you may be able to play other console games this way as well. My knowledge of programming is extremely limited so if you feel you know a better way to accomplish this same goal, please share! You will need to set up your PCSX2 for lan play I used this tutorial for SOCOM II. I think this same tutorial can be used for other games as well- https://1upsdevelopment.com/pcsx2-socom-2-xlink/ Programs you will need for the XLink kai UI overhead for BigBox: Autohotkey - https://autohotkey.com/download/ XLink Kai - https://www.teamxlink.co.uk/ Nircmd (download link is at the bottom of the page)- http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html Internet Explorer that came with windows A controller hotkey program capable of launching other programs. I am using controller companion, it costs some money, but in my opinion is well worth the price. This tutorial I will be using controller companion, feel free to use whatever you want http://controllercompanion.com/ My main account is a non administrator account, the rest of the tutorial will assume the same. For those of you that don't know pcsx2 is capable of Lan play through the XLink Kai community (or at the very least Socom II US Navy Seals works I haven't tried other games yet). Xlink Kai is normally used to connect old consoles through LAN, so using this program you could potentially be playing other players that are actually playing on their consoles. That being said, for us bigbox users it can be kind of cumbersome because you have to open up the program separately and then choose your server; if you're using a non-admin account like me, you have to enter your password, log in, etc etc. If you're only using one monitor and would like to check the Xlink kai chat room you're pretty much SOL. Using this combination of programs and batch files I simply hold the SELECT button and press up on either a PS3 controller or an Xbox one controller to launch a semi-transparent Xlink Kai UI. Holding SELECT and Down closes the Xlink kai UI. Loading UI in bigbox: Launching Chat in the middle of game: STEP ONE Prepare X-link Kai for auto login You should have downloaded Xlink kai by now following the PCSX2 tutorial, if for whatever reason you haven't please download and install it, the rest of this tutorial I will assume you have gone through the SOCOM 2/PCSX2 Xlink tutorial, and that your PCSX2 is ready for Lan play through X link Kai. Start up the Kai engine. On the task bar right click the engine -> ConfigurationIn Engine settings use your username + Password Check mark on the "auto Login" and then save. Close the program and reopen the engine to see if everything loads OK. Right click on the engine in the task bar and click on "Launch UI to make sure it logs you in properly. STEP 2 Writing your scripts Download nircmd and unzip the folder to your Launchbox folder. eg: C:/program Files/Launchbox/nircmd-x64 Within that folder create another folder called "Commands" and within that folder make another inside of that one called "XLink Kai" We will start by making four scripts inside of this folder. Right click an empty space in that folder select -> New -> Text Document Make four text documents one called "UI Launch.txt", one called "UI Close.txt" one called "UI open.txt" and one called "Refocus Window.txt" Open up UI Launch.txt and enter this script: ----------------------------------------------------------- Timeout /nobreak 15 "<LOCATION OF nircmd.exe>" exec min "<LOCATION OF iexplore.exe (INTERNET EXPLORER)>" -k http://127.0.0.1:34522/ Timeout /nobreak 10 "<LOCATION OF nircmd.exe>" win hide ititle "http://127.0.0.1:34522/" "<LOCATION OF nircmd.exe>" win trans ititle "http://127.0.0.1:34522/" 215 ------------------------------------------------------------- Mine looks like this: If the port you are using for XLink Kai is different please change it from 34522 This script is the launcher for the XLink Kai UI that you will be using to start up with the computer. What it does is open up the Xlink UI minimized in internet explorer after 15 seconds from start up. The -k argument makes it a full screen page so you don't get all the browser toolbars and such. 10 seconds after loaded it hides the browser into a background process, and the last line of code gives it a semi-transparent look. Save this file and close notepad. Rename UI Launch.txt to UI Launch.bat Open up UI Open.txt Enter this script: --------------------------- "<LOCATION OF nircmd.exe>" win activate ititle "http://127.0.0.1:34522/" --------------------------- Save this as UI Open.bat this is the batch file that your hotkey program will use to display or "activate" the Xlink UI. Mine looks like: Open up Refocus Window.txt and enter this script: --------------------------- #Persistent SetTimer, ActivateWinUM, 100 return ActivateWinUM: MouseGetPos,,, WinUMID WinActivate, ahk_id %WinUMID% exitapp return --------------------------- Save this as Refocus Window.ahk this autohotkey script auto "refocuses" or "activates" PCSX2/Bigbox to wherever your mouse is positioned once the UI is closed. If you do not have this bigbox tends to hang and wait for you to manually click it with the mouse to bring it back into focus. Last but not least open up UI Close.txt and enter this script --------------------------- "<LOCATION OF nircmd.exe>" win hide ititle "http://127.0.0.1:34522/" "<LOCATION OF Refocus Window.ahk>" --------------------------- This script "closes" or hides the UI back into the background and then launches the refocus script to refocus bigbox/PCSX2 (whatever the previous windows was before). Mine looks like this: You should now have four scripts that look like this: STEP 3 Hiding the command prompt windows from displaying This scripts in their current form will do the job, but they will have irritating command prompt popups every time they are executed. Using nircmd we will create shortcuts to launch these scripts which will hide them. Navigate to your LaunchBox\NirCmd-x64 folder. Right click nircmd.exe -> Create shortcut Right click the newly created shortcut and go to properties: In the target location you'll see the "<location of nircmd.exe>" at the end of that location press space and enter : exec hide "<Location of UI Close.bat>" The target field should now look like "<location of nircmd.exe>" exec hide "<Location of UI Close.bat>" Mine looks like: --------------------------- "D:\LaunchBox\NirCmd-x64\nircmd.exe" exec hide "D:\LaunchBox\NirCmd-x64\Commands\XLink Kai\UI Close.bat" --------------------------- Rename this shortcut to XLink UI Close Move this shortcut into the Commands\XLink Kai\ Folder. Make two more shortcuts in this same folder in the same manner: "<location of nircmd.exe>" exec hide "<Location of UI Open.bat>" -> Renamed as XLink UI Open "<location of nircmd.exe>" exec hide "<Location of UI Launch.bat>" -> Renamed as XLink UI Launch Your commands folder should now look like this: STEP 4 Launching the Xlink Engine and UI at Windows startup As I said before my computer auto logs me in as a regular user, I use this to give my computer that little extra protection. The xlink kai server engine however requires you to log in as an administrator with an anoying UAC pop up. My solution to this is to have the program run with administrator privileges using task scheduler. On the bottom left of your toolbar click the search function and type task scheduler and click on it. On the right pane select "create a task" Name the Task XLink Kai Engine Under security options where it says use the following user account press the "Change User" button and start typing admin (or whatever your admin name is, click "Check names" and select your admin user account, click "OK". Select "Run whether user is logged in or not" Go to the Triggers tab, select new on the drop down menu where it says "Begin the task" select "at Log on" and click "OK". On the actions tab select new, the action you choose will be "Start a program" and in the program/script field you will browse to your kaiEngine.exe (wherever Xlink Kai was installed into) Mine looks like this: your conditions and settings tab should look like these: Click OK, you will be prompted with a login box, enter your admin password. Now we need to create a startup task for the UI Launcher Click on create task. Name this task "XLink Kai UI Launcher" the rest in the general tab can remain the same. Trigger will be "at log on of user" The action tab you will choose "Start a program" browse to nircmd.exe and in arguments type: exec hide "<LOCATION OF UI Launch.bat"> Mine looks like: exec hide "D:\LaunchBox\NirCmd-x64\Commands\XLink Kai\UI Launch.bat" Use these same condition and settings below: Click on OK, and you're ready for the next step! STEP 5 Use your hotkey program to open and close your UI All you have to do now is have a hotkey set to open your XLink UI Open.lnk (Shorcut file) to launch the UI in game and have another hotkey to close the UI by launching XLink UI Close.lnk Both these files should be located in your LaunchBox\NirCmd-x64\Commands\XLink Kai\ folder. As I said before I am using controller companion. I have the secondary select and up button configured to open the UI under PSCX2 and Bigbox, and under internet explorer program I have secondary select+ Down to close the UI. STEP 6 Restart your computer Restart the computer. The XLink Kai engine should start with the computer hidden in the background. About 15 seconds later an internet explorer window should pop up minimized into the taskbar (this is the XLink UI), and then after another 10 seconds should disappear into the background. When you launch bigbox or PCSX2 you should be able to hit your hotkey to open up the UI and the other hotkey you have assigned should close the UI. Edited May 12, 2018 by Chadmando Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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