Posts

Voice chat echo in XCOM Enemy Unknown

 My son and I were struggling with this one for a while, so I thought I would write an article to make this information searchable in case anyone else was facing a similar issue.   In the game XCOM Enemy Unknown for Windows, we were getting a constant echo during multiplayer LAN games when using Voice Chat via the Steam Client.   It was especially frustrating because it would only occur during the actual match.   When we were discussing the game prior to launch, it sounded great. It turns out that XCOM was using it's own VoIP functions on top of Steam's, which is why there was an echo.   Our data was getting transfered twice, once by the Steam Client and once by XCOM itself.   To fix this, you have to disable Voice Chat in XCOM.   This is done by editing a configuruation file. Navigate to: C:\Users\<Your User Name>\Documents\My Games\XCOM - Enemy Unknown\XComGame\Config Open up "XComEngine.ini" in Notepad Change "bHa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Display Priority with older Monitors

I have a MAME cabinet with a traditional CRT monitor inside it.   I like this because it fits my bezel perfectly, and gives the old school feel of traditional coin op arcade machines when using it with MAME.  I've resisted upgrading to an LCD, even though I'm limited to 4x3 aspect and a VGA connection.  In my mind a new display would be a downgrade. However recently I've noticed a problem.  When connecting my MAME PC to my Home Theater projector via the HDMI port on my video card, Windows 10 would always default to the Projector as the default display when resuming from sleep, or if the Projector was on during boot. What I wanted was for the VGA display to be the default ALWAYS (Display 1 in Windows) and for the Projector to only be enabled when I chose to do so.  A non active HDMI switch worked (physically severing the connection to the projector when not in use) but this was not ideal. After some research I found that video card bios have a locked i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Enabling MAME's cheat system in MAMEoX

Image
I recently figured this out and thought I would post it in case others are struggling with this. MAMEoX is a build of MAME which runs on the Original Xbox Console. I use it to play classic games on my TV, and for years I thought it did not support Cheats for infinite lives, etc. Turns out this is not correct. In order to enable Cheats you should do the following: Get the latest cheat.dat file. Make sure it is in cheat.dat format, the last version supporting this format was MAME 1.26. Now FTP this file to your MAMEoX directory, in the /general/ subdirectory. Now, after launching a game in MAMEoX, press BACK + WHITE on your Xbox Controller to open MAMEoX's in game menu, and select the Cheat submenu.  And then Enable the relevent cheats for the game you are playing: Enjoy infinite lives on your favorite classic aracde games!
Post a Comment
Read more

Eugene Jarvis and News Radio

Image
Here's a bit of trivia you may not know.  Eugene Jarvis, inventor of some of the most landmark classic arcade games in history (e.g. Defender, Stargate, and my personal favorite, Robotron: 2084), appeared on a sitcom in the late 90's. The sitcom was News Radio , and in Season 3, Episode 4, the show revolved around the replacement of a sandwich machine with "Stargate Defender", an obvious homage to Stargate .  Eugene's cameo is a non-speaking role, but you can see him as one of the vending machine company's movers, as he pushes out the sandwich machine to reveal a modified Stargate cabinet.  You can find most of this information on Eugene's wikipage , but what you might not know is that you can stream this episode to see it for yourself instantly if you are a Netflix subscriber.  Enjoy!
Post a Comment
Read more