Heath's Blog

Voice chat echo in XCOM Enemy Unknown

2021-02-14T07:33:00.000-08:00

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 "bHasVoiceEnabled=true" to "bHasVoiceEnabled=false"

That should do it, your echo in Steam Voice Chat should be gone.

Display Priority with older Monitors

2019-12-28T06:09:00.003-08:00

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 in display order priority. I was using a DVI to VGA adpater to connect my monitor, so I thought perhaps a Display Port to VGA adapter would change the display order priority without having to change my monitor type.

A few days later, this cable arrived, and I immediately saw all my issues go away. Windows now allows me to assign my VGA display as Display 1 (I don't think it even knows it's an old CRT anymore, it thinks of it as an eqivilent display now to the Projector). The CRT is now the default in all boot scenarios and still is the primary after sleep resumes. I know this is an edge case that most people won't have to deal with, but I didn't see any information like this in my google searches so hopefully this helps someone else.

Enabling MAME's cheat system in MAMEoX

2018-02-07T06:36:00.004-08:00

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!

Eugene Jarvis and News Radio

2011-06-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

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!