Mednafen configuration for Logitech Precision
As I’ve already stated partially, I got an HTPC at home running MythTV on ubuntu. One of the things I’ve wanted to do for a long time was to get some games running on it. Supertuxkart was simple and was installed in less than 3-4 minutes once I understood the basics of the MythGames plugin (typing with a on-screen keyboard and a remote control is slow).
Anyways, I did have some problems getting a NES emulator, or any emulator at all as a matter of fact, running on it, and I also had some problems getting input from the right devices to them properly. I finally decided on mednafen as it seemed the easiest to understand.
Let’s understand the structure. NES and other games are usually downloaded in some image file. Mednafen is installed as a binary. MythGames needs to know about the binary used to launch a NES image, and where the NES images are located. I downloaded mednafen using apt-get install mednafen. Secondly, MythGames needs to know where you will put the images, personally I put them in /var/games/nes/. This is entered into the mythtv configuration using the Setup -> Game Settings -> Game Players. Choose New Game Player and enter
Player name: mednafen (for example)
Type: Other
command: mednafen -nes.stretch 1 -fs 1 -vdriver 0 %s
Rom Path: /var/games/nes
Having a keyboard around when doing this is prefered, using the on-screen keyboard takes ages.
Once this is done, go to Setup -> Game Settings -> Scan for games. This will scan the /var/games/nes directory for all images and add them to the list. To start a game, go to Games. Then get into the “All Games” -> “mednafen” and you should find all the games from /var/games/nes there.
Click one, and the game should hopefully start. The first time mednafen is run, it creates a directory ~/.mednafen/ containing a basic configuration. The following is an example to get my Logitech Precision gamepad running with it:
nes.input.port1.gamepad.a joystick 42190af389429475 00000002
nes.input.port1.gamepad.rapid_a joystick 42190af389429475 00000003
nes.input.port1.gamepad.b joystick 42190af389429475 00000000
nes.input.port1.gamepad.rapid_b joystick 42190af389429475 00000001
nes.input.port1.gamepad.select joystick 42190af389429475 00000008
nes.input.port1.gamepad.start joystick 42190af389429475 00000009
nes.input.port1.gamepad.up joystick 42190af389429475 0000c001
nes.input.port1.gamepad.down joystick 42190af389429475 00008001
nes.input.port1.gamepad.left joystick 42190af389429475 0000c000
nes.input.port1.gamepad.right joystick 42190af389429475 00008000
nes.input.port2.gamepad.a joystick 42190af389429476 00000002
nes.input.port2.gamepad.rapid_a joystick 42190af389429476 00000003
nes.input.port2.gamepad.b joystick 42190af389429476 00000000
nes.input.port2.gamepad.rapid_b joystick 42190af389429476 00000001
nes.input.port2.gamepad.select joystick 42190af389429476 00000008
nes.input.port2.gamepad.start joystick 42190af389429476 00000009
nes.input.port2.gamepad.up joystick 42190af389429476 0000c001
nes.input.port2.gamepad.down joystick 42190af389429476 00008001
nes.input.port2.gamepad.left joystick 42190af389429476 0000c000
nes.input.port2.gamepad.right joystick 42190af389429476 00008000
command.exit joystick 42190af389429475 00000006&joystick 42190af389429475 00000007
command.exit joystick 42190af389429476 00000006&joystick 42190af389429476 00000007
Unfortunately, the above changes around a bit from device to device and atm i’m not even sure the i’d will survive from disconnect/connect of the gamepads.
The proper way of doing this is to:
1. Start a game.
2. Press Alt+Shift+1
3. Push the correct buttons asked for on screen to do specified command. (First time you push a button adds it to the command, second time you push the same button marks it “final” for the command sequence. Peculiar, I know. So, to make the game use button 2 and 3 in conjunction to be button A, you’d first press button 2 once, then button 3 twice.
4. hit esc on the keyboard to leave mednafen. The config should now be saved.
I haven’t found a way to create the “command.exit” commands yet. I’ll have to work some more on that.
Removing U3 from a SanDisk cruzer micro 1gb memory
Girlfriend has had a USB memory stick for a long long time now, and every time I plugged it into the computer, I’ve gotten completely raving mad at how retarded it is. The story is this, it has 2 separate partitions. 1 partition where you save files etc, and a “system” partition containing something called U3. U3 is closest described as a virus imho.
The system partition is read only and I found no way of easily making it read/write/formattable. Every time you plug in the USB stick, it will autorun a junk program called U3 launchpad with a lot of popups showing up to let you know about it, and it has a bad notion of trying to be a second “start” menu or something.
Anyways, I decided for the 3rd time to try and remove this crap from the USB stick, both times before I got about 10 minutes into the process, at which time the computer had locked up hard on me 2-3 times, and almost had me stomping on the memory stick out of sheer annoyance. Same thing happened this time. But, I had some more perseverance, and actually access to the internet this time, and started searching for others with the same kind of problem.
I found this: http://www.u3.com/uninstall/ . The sheer idiocy of this amazes me. Let’s assume that here I am buying a memory stick to help me “when I have no access to the internet”, and I get some junk with me on the usb drive. The only way of getting rid of the junk, is to download an application off of the “thing I will likely not have access to”.
So, I download the application, and run it. It asked me if I wanted to backup the data on the memory stick. I did, so I choose to backup data on it, and continued. It downloaded the data properly to the harddrive it looked like, and continued to reformat the drive. At this point, it crashed, trying to replug the USB drive didn’t work — apparently the driver for the drive was already installed. So, reboot the computer, and it finally recognizes the drive again. It’s empty, no more U3, but the application never got around to actually formatting the new drive and reinsert the backed up data. No worries I think, I format the drive, and manage to search down the backup to C:Documents and SettingsApplication DataU3tempU3BkUpDir. Guess what, the application only copied the directory structure, no data is actually in the directories.
And they have the audacity to _really really_ try to talk me into “nooo, you want to keep this application, it will save your life” more or less. It’s a freaking virus. It’s actually harder to get rid of than quite a lot of viruses, and caused more of a havoc imho. Anyways, check out the above link to get rid of U3. And be prepared to backup data on your own