HyperSpin

What is HyperSpin? Well put simply its a front-end for all our your video games. Check out the video below for a quick idea of what its all about.

Currently version 2.0 is under production. This new version will add tons of exciting new features including my favorite widescreen support! I think a lot of people will use this on their Home Theater PCs which are all 16x9.

Currently the problem I am running into is a lack of good system themes. There is a pretty big following with this and I think this will be resolved soon.

You are able to utilize multiple images with your themes. I thought I would show off the best versions of the various media I could find below. They are truly amazing!

Below is my project status:

Nintendo Entertainment system:

Box Art: 2D, 3D

Cart Art: 3D

Wheel Art: Minted Complete

Videos: FLV 480p, MP4 480p

Super Nintendo:

Box Art: 2D, 3D

Cart Art: 2D

Wheel Art: Minted Complete

Videos: FLV 480p, MP4 480p

SEGA CD

Box Art: 2D, 3D

Disc Art: 2D

Wheel Art: Minted Complete

Videos: FLV 480p, MP4 480p

Sega Genesis:

Box Art: 2D, 3D

Cart Art: 3D (quality could be better)

Wheel Art: Complete

Videos: FLV 480p, MP4 480p

Nintendo 64:

Box Art: 2D, 3D

Cart Art: 3D

Wheel Art: Minted Complete

Videos: FLV 480p, MP4 480p

Atari 2600:

Box Art: 2D, 3D

Cart Art: 3D

Wheel Art: Complete

Videos: FLV 480p, MP4 480p

PlayStation 1:

Box Art: 2D, 3D

Cart Art: 

Wheel Art: 

Videos:

Atari 7800:

Box Art: 2D, 3D

Cart Art: 

Wheel Art: 

Videos:

Atari 2600:

Box Art: 2D, 3D

Cart Art: 

Wheel Art: 

Videos:

Nintendo Entertainment System PC

Back in the summer of 2010 I created a "NES PC". This is basically a micro-itx motherboard with a dual core Intel Atom CPU and Nvidia GPU. This machine also has 2GB of ram and a 1.5TB 7200rpm hard drive tucked away inside. I know you are thinking "why in the hell did you cram a PC in an old NES?". Well that is a good question, I did for a few reasons. The first being because its flipping cool, second chicks dig it (just kidding) and three I think it makes a cool looking computer case.

Below is a picture of a mini-itx motherboard with 2 sticks of ram to the left. (Note each square is 1/2 inch)

What do I use this epic PC for you ask? Well it is hooked to my 42" LG LCD HDTV in my bed room via HDMI and has XMBC running. XBMC is a home theatre frontend software. I use it to watch all of my movies and TV shows. Their are plugins for Netflix and Hulu allowing for viewing from with in this application. However the interface for these two plugins are not near as clean and efficient as those within Xbox 360 and other consoles.

 It can be controlled with an awesome smart phone application shown to the left. This is way better than the crappy line of site infrared remotes of the past.

Below are some pictures of the actual completed build. Yes those are USB ports where the controller ports normally would be. There is also a small exhaust fan just under the heat vents on the top of the NES on the right side.

You can see the motherboard and other electronics inside in the picture below.

The back has your standard ports with an external "brick" power supply and a small intake fan on the back right side. Please excuse the dust ;-)

Besides XBMC I also have a few emulators on this machine, however being a low power (35watt) CPU it is not able to handle anything new than PSX games. I do have a HDMI cable going from my i7 and Nvidia 460 OC Edition videocard box that I use for more games requiring more horse power.

One good example of how emulators are better than the original is the Nintendo Wii, an under powered machine. The first two  pic is of the game as show in the actual Wii.

Now some screenshots from the Dolphin emulator first in 720p then in 1080p...

Diablo 3 Review

Diablo 3 had an open beta this weekend and I was able to spend some time playing it. My first thought was how different the graphics were. The whole game seems like an oil painting. Which I don't mind however it is a huge change from the other two Diablo games. Below is a screenshot of Diablo 3.

There has been lots of public criticism of this new style, it was even talked about a Blizzcon and several magazines. Below is one of the more famous pictures relating to this.

Someone has even gone so far as to create a filter pack for the Diablo 3 beta. http://darkd3.com/ Basically this is an addon that adds sharpness and a change in color palette.

Who am I to judge Blizzard, one of the greatest game companies on Earth. However I wanted to show some examples of some other RPG's graphic styles. The first game I wanted to show is the hugely successfully Skyrim. The below pic is obviously the PC version of the game with the official high resolution texture pack. Obviously this is an extremely realistic style all be it a 3rd person view.

The next game is Path of Exile, currently in beta. This is a "free" micro-transaction game. Below are some screenshots of the game. I would classify it as a more high resolution texture version of Diablo 2.

Thrine II is another game that is an absolute feast for the eyes. I sorta of thing of it as the Avatar style, amazing lighting effects and art style.

Graphics are not everything, but they are important. Once the final version of Diablo 3 comes out I plan on speaking more to the gameplay and other aspects of the game.

Moving to the Cloud

Recently I have started my move to the cloud. I have started with moving my music collection to Google Music, this service allows you to store up to 20,000 songs. It has an awesome client that allows automatic syncing of music on your PC in the background. It has options to allow for the monitoring of folders and choose bandwidth throttling options.

I have tried a few different photo services and I like Google+ the best. The UI is brilliant and it integrates flawlessly with Picasa. I am not sure really how many photos you can store but I have pretty many on there. The UI shows all of your pics on the same screen as you scroll zooming on the one that you mouse over.

For my document storage I chose to use Box. Box is a free service that gives you 50GB. It allows for awesome storage of documents with version history, collaboration with others and commenting on files. There is an awesome API with this app that integrates with many other apps.

For PC games I use Steam, this isn't really a game storage system however games that your purchased are storage with them along with your saved games.

Video storage is obvious with YouTube however Google+ is able to upload small videos such as those from older cell phones.