Windows XP Embedded games.....ugh

So I was fiddling around with a game that runs on Windows XP Embedded. It had resolutions up to 1080p and I decided to try one that was below that. The problem is the game didn't like it and it white screened + gave me a directX error. No problem, I can just change the resolution back...right? No....every time the game started it white screened and I couldn't do shit, I couldn't enter the test menu to change it, I couldn't change anything...oh and btw when the game quit from the white screen the system would restart (a security measure? I dunno) The only way to stop it from restarting is taking out the security dongle that was inside the machine...no outside security dongle for me! (it wasn't just a USB key, but it was some other security thingie). Anyway I was looking around the machine for something to do. Oh hey, I found a hard drive with the game in it, maybe I could change the preferences manually? No...no preference files, none, zero. After looking around for 2 hours on the hard drive, I found a hidden drive that had a bunch of files with a bunch of numbers on it that made no sense. There was one that was modified today, so I tried deleting it...hey it worked.... it reset to the default resolution..wtf man...sorry needed to vent.

typex?

Nah, NeoStandard

What ever happened to the good old days where all you'd have to do to reset a board was flip a switch or disconnect a battery?

HeavyMachineGun said:

What ever happened to the good old days where all you'd have to do to reset a board was flip a switch or disconnect a battery?

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I think having a game with any type of operating system is stupid...bleh.

Can you run a WinXP embedded in a virtual system like with VMware to test out different things to get the games running?

Don't see why not. Clone the drive or image it with something like Acronis and restore into a VM. Now obviously I'd assume the system looks for certain specific hardware pieces that would could cause it to not boot, like Mobo, CPU, JVS I/O. So I doubt it works very well unless you're capable of hacking drivers etc. You should be able to attach the jvs i/o to the VM but I'm guessing you wouldn't even get that far without hacking drivers.

Pope Sazae the First said:

Can you run a WinXP embedded in a virtual system like with VMware to test out different things to get the games running?

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if you can get the hypevisor to present the correct hardware to the VM , maybe. I know the typex systems won't boot if they don't see the Elsa video bios ( can't just throw in any 6800gt without patching the vdieo bios first ). Then comes in having to deal with the missing JVS pcie controller...

Yeah, I doubt we'll be seeing new dedicated hardware in arcades other than controllers for steering wheels, guns , etc. Furthermore, as linux becomes more and more viable for gaming , and as windows XP becomes harder to obtain for OEMs, I'm guessing you'll start seeing linux embedded systems in arcades ( again ) .

codecrank said:

if you can get the hypevisor to present the correct hardware to the VM , maybe. I know the typex systems won't boot if they don't see the Elsa video bios ( can't just throw in any 6800gt without patching the vdieo bios first ). Then comes in having to deal with the missing JVS pcie controller...

Yeah, I doubt we'll be seeing new dedicated hardware in arcades other than controllers for steering wheels, guns , etc. Furthermore, as linux becomes more and more viable for gaming , and as windows XP becomes harder to obtain for OEMs, I'm guessing you'll start seeing linux embedded systems in arcades ( again ) .

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It would be interesting to see Linux based arcade games. They would be copied pretty quick though as its all open source.

It would be much easier to make a virtual Linux system that has everything you need, way to easy to hack whatever drivers might be needed. What exact hardware is in these WinXP based systems? I have rewritten many drivers in the past and would give it a shot to help run on a virtual system.

Just because its running Linux doesn't need it's going to be open source (think nVidia and amd video drivers that are closed source)

You don't always have to make it exact. These arcade games running on a system like this can be picky but they can be tricked through different means into working, would require work on both the game itself and the different drivers available but it should be able to be done. If the X and X2 could be worked out enough to let any PC run those games then I'm sure with a good bit of trying any others can be as well.

kidpanda said:

It would be interesting to see Linux based arcade games. They would be copied pretty quick though as its all open source.

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Lindbergh is Linux based and look how well copying that is going lol.

Pope Sazae the First said:

Can you run a WinXP embedded in a virtual system like with VMware to test out different things to get the games running?

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You don't even need XP Embedded. The only reason why companies use it is either because of price or because regular XP is end of life. There are very few advantages of XPe over the consumer or enterprise products, mostly the RAM overlay option is the only one I can think of.