auto boot games / programs on startup

XBOX, but not XBMC4XBOX related discussion
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sixties keith
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auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by sixties keith »

hi ive been working on a few xbox's and wanted abit of advice.

i want one to boot straight to a game (house of the dead 3 to be exact) if there a way to boot this straight to the game without xbmc ( and without the actual game in the drive) the reason is i am wanting to make a arcade machine for just this game

also could this be done with emulators - the likes of visionary or stand alone emulators such as mameox?

thanks for the help guys

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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by Geeba »

I guess you could copy the game to the HDD and then use a shortcut maker to point straight to it... I know it works with emulators and I guess the game .xbe is no different...
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by spicemuseum »

Yep, as Geeba says, the Team XBMC Shortcut mechanism can be (ab)used in precisely this way.
Follow this: http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/wiki/Instal ... mmended.29
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sixties keith
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by sixties keith »

thanks guys, i have the shortcut program on my computer so i'll give it a try.
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by xman »

There is an app called DirectX that will allow you to one-
Identify all the .xbe on the HDD and two-
Have it boot that .xbe on startup.
You load it in your C drive and it will boot prior to anything else once the bios splash screen has booted. It can be changed if you wish to boot just a default .xbe or you can have it boot different paths identified by what button on the controller you hold on startup meaning you could have up to nine .xbe paths set this way that could be 8 different games and XBMC should you wish. I have used this excellent app many times and just using the "find .xbe" mode, it is amazing just what you will find and you can test it in this mode as well. You will find it easy to use and you can get it at Eurasia. If you just want booting to one game as you suggested, just set that game as the default and don't touch any buttons on the controller and it will boot that game every time. However should you wish to boot something else, you just hold a button and it will boot that .xbe instead. I've used this app for booting different versions of XBMC when the one machine has a couple of versions on the same machine or if the one machine has one version of XBMC setup solely to play .avi files and I wanted it to be lean on RAM use and a copy of the same version of XBMC setup for more RAM intensive folders and have both versions using the same movie folder on the HDD as there source.
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by spicemuseum »

xman wrote:There is an app called DirectX that will allow you to one-
Identify all the .xbe on the HDD and two-
Have it boot that .xbe on startup.
You load it in your C drive and it will boot prior to anything else once the bios splash screen has booted...
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I 've got a feeling that DirectX only works with hard modded machines...which may be fine for the OP, but worth checking !
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Dom DXecutioner
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by Dom DXecutioner »

spicemuseum wrote:Yep, as Geeba says, the Team XBMC Shortcut mechanism can be (ab)used in precisely this way.
Follow this: http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/wiki/Instal ... mmended.29
As previously stated, the above referenced should accomplish what you're trying to do; give it a try and then let us know.
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by RunsilenT »

Sixties Keith, Its possible to run Coinops from boot. If your going the arcade machine route I`d have to
recommend Hyperspin on a custom mini pc. Don`t get me wrong, I love the old black beast as much
as everyone but if your gonna go arcade machine, dont go wedgie, go Atomic wedgie!
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by Dan Dar3 »

All great suggestions, but if you still want to use XBMC4Xbox as the startup application because say you want to pop a controller in and jump into Recovery Mode (White + Y) and gain FTP access to transfer a new game or switch games or whatever...

Rip the game with DVD2Xbox into say F:\Games\House Of Dead 3

Hack XBMC4Xbox to provide a seamless game start:
  • Replace boot splash (Q:\media\splash.png) with a game related one
  • Craft a Q:\scrips\autoexec.py to start your game first thing:

    Code: Select all

    import xbmc
    xbmc.executebuiltin( "XBMC.RunXBE(%s)" % ("F:\\Games\\House Of Dead 3\\default.xbe") )
If it still shows XBMC4Xbox backgrounds and such before it runs your game, you could copy whichever skin or simply hack existing one as per below:
  • Rename Q:\skin\CHOSEN SKIN\media\ to something like media.removed (might need to do this while it's not running as the file is in use or switch temporarily to another skin so you can work on it) - to give it a black, no images look
  • Rename Q:\skin\CHOSEN SKIN\backgrounds to backgrounds.removed - black, no backgrounds look, or alternatively replace Q:\skin\CHOSEN SKIN\backgrounds\skindefault\skindefault.jpg with a game related image (this is for after the splash)
  • Change Q:\skin\CHOSEN SKIN\colors\default.xml to set all colors to FF000000 (black)
I'm sure if you want to go down this path and feel the whole skin thing might be a bit too much, I'm sure someone might offer to craft a "blank" skin for you to use ;-) at Dom DXecutioner
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by NOTTHESAME »

Its maybe possible to edit start up to run the game then replace.the xbmc spalsh with your game or emulator splash image for the game
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by NOTTHESAME »

heres something else you can try which i think is just a simple way and not having to do much, just a idea/another way.
so i tired this out and you can get a skin, opened up start.xml i tired this on mosaic and replaced the script favourites code with this code for my sega genesis emulator

Code: Select all

<onfocus>RunXBE(E:\Emulators\Genesis\default.xbe)</onfocus>
it launched right up, all you would need to do is replace the image you want with the xbmc splash.png like dan dar was saying,

so it depends on what skin your using like confluence lite start up.xml open

Code: Select all

<control type="button" id="10">
			<description>trigger</description>
			<onfocus>ReplaceWindow(Home)</onfocus>
			<texturenofocus>-</texturenofocus>
			<texturefocus>-</texturefocus>
			<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(Use_Startup_Playlist)</visible>
		</control>
replace this

Code: Select all

<onfocus>ReplaceWindow(Home)</onfocus>
with

Code: Select all

<onfocus>RunXBE(E:\Emulators\Genesis\default.xbe)</onfocus>
but just insert your location for your game or emulator you want to launch.

again dan dar had a good idea now you can hold down the white and Y buttons to ftp and replace your game.
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sixties keith
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by sixties keith »

Thanks for all your helps guys, really didnt know there were so many options for this. really wana try that program out, having it boot different games via different buttons pressed on the controller seems a real bonus, however i wouldnt mind trying that code either

again thanks for all the help guys, once i start my project ill report back just waiting on a fella emailing me about the arcade joystick controller for the xbox :D
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by Gedeon »

If it's TSOPed, flash the bios to start the game executable from the 2nd or 3rd place. If anything goes wrong, delete the game file or boot up with a recovery disk and make the necessary changes. This way your BIOS will always boot up the game if it's executable exists in the "boot sequence".
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by slt2010 »

Dan Dar3 wrote:All great suggestions, but if you still want to use XBMC4Xbox as the startup application because say you want to pop a controller in and jump into Recovery Mode (White + Y) and gain FTP access to transfer a new game or switch games or whatever...

Rip the game with DVD2Xbox into say F:\Games\House Of Dead 3

Hack XBMC4Xbox to provide a seamless game start:
  • Replace boot splash (Q:\media\splash.png) with a game related one
  • Craft a Q:\scrips\autoexec.py to start your game first thing:

    Code: Select all

    import xbmc
    xbmc.executebuiltin( "XBMC.RunXBE(%s)" % ("F:\\Games\\House Of Dead 3\\default.xbe") )
If it still shows XBMC4Xbox backgrounds and such before it runs your game, you could copy whichever skin or simply hack existing one as per below:
  • Rename Q:\skin\CHOSEN SKIN\media\ to something like media.removed (might need to do this while it's not running as the file is in use or switch temporarily to another skin so you can work on it) - to give it a black, no images look
  • Rename Q:\skin\CHOSEN SKIN\backgrounds to backgrounds.removed - black, no backgrounds look, or alternatively replace Q:\skin\CHOSEN SKIN\backgrounds\skindefault\skindefault.jpg with a game related image (this is for after the splash)
  • Change Q:\skin\CHOSEN SKIN\colors\default.xml to set all colors to FF000000 (black)
I'm sure if you want to go down this path and feel the whole skin thing might be a bit too much, I'm sure someone might offer to craft a "blank" skin for you to use ;-) at Dom DXecutioner

how can you make it so it runs only once per boot/reboot? in my case it just cycles endlessly?
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by Dan Dar3 »

@slt2010
Xbox only runs one program at a time so when you run XBMC4Xbox the second time coming back from the game it has no idea whether that is the first time or the second time. I guess you can have the script write into a file "hey, I ran this game today at whatever time, so when it comes back to me if it ran once today I won't run the game again and just continue as normal dashboard", but it gets complicated.

The easiest way I can think of is just ask and let the user choose I guess - to add a little spice would have been nice for Dialog.yesno() to have autoclose but that parameter doesn't seem to be implemented in XBMC4Xbox.

Code: Select all

import xbmc
import xbmcgui

dialog  = xbmcgui.Dialog();
answer  = dialog.yesno("Autoexec.py", "Do you want to launch the game?", "House of Dead 3")
if (answer) :
  xbmc.executebuiltin( "XBMC.RunXBE(%s)" % ("F:\\Games\\House Of Dead 3\\default.xbe") )   
or could use Dialog.ok() for a slightly more assertive approach, where you can easily press OK to continue and play the game or Back / B (red) to cancel the dialog and move on to the dashboard.

Code: Select all

import xbmc
import xbmcgui

answer = xbmcgui.Dialog().ok("Autoexec.py", "Launch the game:", "House of Dead 3")
if (answer) :
  xbmc.executebuiltin( "XBMC.RunXBE(%s)" % ("F:\\Games\\House Of Dead 3\\default.xbe") )   
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by slt2010 »

thanks it works! im using this script to load the Iso loader on my tsop'd xbox
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by Rocky5 »

@Dan Dar3 is it not "autoclosetime" in stead of "autoclose".

Code: Select all

import xbmc
import xbmcgui

dialog  = xbmcgui.Dialog();
answer  = dialog.yesno("Autoexec.py", "Do you want to launch the game?", "House of Dead 3", autoclosetime=5000)
if (answer) :
  xbmc.executebuiltin( "XBMC.RunXBE(%s)" % ("F:\\Games\\House Of Dead 3\\default.xbe") )   
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by slt2010 »

"autoclosetime" or "autoclose" dont work for me me i get script error im on XBMC4Xbox 3.5.3
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by Rocky5 »

slt2010 wrote:"autoclosetime" or "autoclose" dont work for me me i get script error im on XBMC4Xbox 3.5.3
It's in the source code, try "autoCloseTime" I put it all lowercase but it may be case sensitive.
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Re: auto boot games / programs on startup

Post by Dan Dar3 »

Rocky, I thought at first was a parameter name problem, then tried positional populating all the parameters and it complained about it (too many parameters).

The rule of thumb in the past was that enhancements are brought over into XBMC4Xbox as-is, getting creative with the naming would just confuse things for everyone (core developers, script and skin developers).

I think you found the `autoclose` functionality in the core dialog (`/xbmc4xbox/xbmc/dialogs/GUIDialogYesNo.cpp`), but it doesn't seem to be used from the Python implementation (`/xbmc4xbox/xbmc/lib/libPython/xbmcmodule/dialog.cpp`, Dialog_YesNo()).

If we want it we could look into creating a ticket and following it through implementation - I'll have a quick look at it in the next few days, if you want to do the same we can compare notes (whoever creates the ticket first please bring the link in this thread, thanks).
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