Games and the official controller (wasn't Google supposed to screen this!?) - Nexus Player Themes and Apps

As was recently reported on by numerous Android blogs, Google is supposedly screening apps to ensure proper remote/gamepad support before listing on the Google Play Store on Android TV. I can now confirm...that's not very extensive testing. I've got three games loaded on my system right now, and I'm using the official Nexus Player gamepad by Asus. It's obvious right off the bat in all three games that there's an issue. Here's the games, the issue(s) for each, and how long you'd have to test to notice.
Beach Buggy Racing: Minor issue, but in the tutorial, the game tells you to hit the "B" (red) button to use your character's special move (not to be confused with a power up, which is "A" (green)). The proper button on the controller is "Y"(yellow) and is reflected as such in the game's controller configuration screen. This is a minor error but would be caught 60-90 seconds into the game's opening tutorial. In the controller configuration, the home button is listed as pause. This is incorrect, as home takes you back to the leanback launcher, and "back" functions as pause.
Final Fantasy 3: Game has rudimentary support for the gamepad, in the sense that each action in game does correspond to a button. The "touch" menu button is still prevalent in the game. In the opening cave, which serves as a tutorial, the first on-screen command that tells you which controls to use tells you to "pinch the screen to zoom in." I had to push all the buttons to find out the the left bumper sort of fills this need, but not properly. This game is still 100% touch based with poorly adapted controls that are only saved by the fact that this is an RPG and doesn't require precise control. This is a moderate issue and would be caught 15-60 seconds into the tutorial cave depending on random battles.
Soul Calibur: I tested the touchscreen controls on my Moto X, and the Nexus Player Gamepad on both the Moto X and the Nexus Player. The results were interesting. On the NP, there's no effective start button (back sometimes works, sometimes doesn't). When you lose and have the option to continue, no button will function as the start button, and you cannot continue. There's no ABK combo button to soul charge. There's no controller configuration at all. YOu get movement, and 4 re-arranged face buttons. That's it. On the Moto X, the Nexus Player's gamepad functions like the Dreamcast controller in relation to the face buttons (a huge improvement), but still no ABK or start/continue functionality. Lastly, the phone's touch screen controls give you full customization, all buttons to include ABK, and full start/pause functionality with the option to continue if you lose. How quickly would this be obvious? Well, to someone testing only the Nexus Player, it would appear that the face buttons worked, and they wouldn't be aware of the lack of ABK functionality. They would have had to lose a fight to notice the continue issues.
Overall, I'm disappointed in the quality control so far relative to what Google has claimed. Beach Buggy Racing is excellent with minor issues that are to be expected in any software. FF3's port was lazy, and Soul Calibur's was haphazard.

I emailed the help/developer link for Soul Calibur and Beach Buggy Racing. The developers behind BBR were receptive and promised to fix their minor error in an upcoming update.
The Soul Calibur rep stated that the Nexus Player gamepad is not officially supported for this game. Hoo boy...

my neus
my nexus is down .. so what i do

From my experience they seem to only check the first version. Maybe the developer made a mistake in an update. Updates show up immediately, probably not checked again. Contacting the developer is the best bet in such situation I think. We usually try to fix things up as fast as we can.

Magnesus said:
Contacting the developer is the best bet in such situation I think. We usually try to fix things up as fast as we can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See post #2.

I have an issue with lag with the controller. Man a couple of milliseconds really kills controls in games..
Anyways to fix that from anyone experience?

solidd_swa said:
I have an issue with lag with the controller. Man a couple of milliseconds really kills controls in games..
Anyways to fix that from anyone experience?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No issue with lag for me. Are you experiencing this lag using any other controller with your Nexus Player? Otherwise, may be an HDTV input setting. See if your HDTV has a game mode setting or equivalent.

Related

[Q] How can we solve the right click remote desktop problem?

Moved from general:
So I got my dock today and I've begun sampling remote desktop solutions including several RDP clients, VNC clients and Splashtop HD.
So far Splashtop seems to be the clear winner in terms of video performance, which is important to me as I'd like to at least be able to do simple things in games with high video demands (check the auction house in MMOs for example). The problem is that when I plug in a USB mouse or use the touchpad with Splashtop HD, there is no right click support- right click seems to be bound at some level to back in Android. I have not pulled the trigger yet on Remote RDP (paid) because I already own splashtop, so any comparison between the video on the two would be great, also.
So, questions:
How might it be possible to change the way android sees a right click from the mouse? If it were possible to make android see a right click as a random rarely used character like ` (tilde), there are ways to tell your desktop to interpret such a key as a right click (mousefighter comes to mind).
If the above proves impossible or unwieldy, is anything comparable in terms of video to splashtop?
Long press left mouse button=right click in Splashtop. While that's not perfect it doesn't seem to be a particular problem, or at least in my use it doesn't.
I use this, and right-click seems to work just fine. Free and real RDP (not another program that needs to be installed on the desktop) makes it perfect for me.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.tux.client
Don't know how well video works, though. I've never expected video to work over RDP.
digimuzik said:
Don't know how well video works, though. I've never expected video to work over RDP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might want to check our Shplashtop then. You can game through it.

autofire for hardware buttons ?

hi all,
ive been trawling around for ages for an app that just assigns autofire (turbofire) to a hardware key (i have archos gamepad), simple as that.
but i can find nothing.
ive tried gamekeyboard (very complex, poor docs, and does not do what i want, it seems)
all i wanna do is use autofire on a single button in mame4droid reloaded (why on earth was the autofire option taken out of this mame build ?, its pretty vital really in a shooter, constantly stabbing a button is noisy, makes the device shake, and is uncomfortable, and its even worse furiously stabbing away on a touchscreen virtual button)
how i wish the mame4droid developer would put autofire back in the mame gui (it was in mame4all, but thats a very old mame build)
if anyone could point me to a simple app fore autofire/turbofire, i would be over the moon !
cheers
I just added my own app to the store to do this, if you search the store for ninjatjj and look at the keyboard mapper app you might find it does what you need.
It is compatible with mame4droid (at least it is for Street Fighter)
mattemat said:
hi all,
ive been trawling around for ages for an app that just assigns autofire (turbofire) to a hardware key (i have archos gamepad), simple as that.
but i can find nothing.
ive tried gamekeyboard (very complex, poor docs, and does not do what i want, it seems)
all i wanna do is use autofire on a single button in mame4droid reloaded (why on earth was the autofire option taken out of this mame build ?, its pretty vital really in a shooter, constantly stabbing a button is noisy, makes the device shake, and is uncomfortable, and its even worse furiously stabbing away on a touchscreen virtual button)
how i wish the mame4droid developer would put autofire back in the mame gui (it was in mame4all, but thats a very old mame build)
if anyone could point me to a simple app fore autofire/turbofire, i would be over the moon !
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

[Q] Enable Mouse/keyboard and Trackpad support in games?

Hi how can I play games on the Matricom Midnight MX2 with a wireless usb keyboard and mouse/touch pad, or any device with no touch screen?
I have a Microsoft All-in-One Media Keyboard with USB Integrated Multi Touch Track Pad :Amazon URL deleted, as system doesn't seem to like external links.
And a Logitech K400 Wireless Touch Keyboard: Amazon URL deleted, as system doesn't seem to like external links.
Of the two the Microsoft Keyboard is probably the most useful, as the trackpad supports full multi-point touch functionality, whereas the Logitech keyboard only has two finger, up, down, left right and single finger 'tap to click' functionality.
The problem is of course hardly no Android games at all were made for keyboard and trackpad functionality.
I have tried USB/BT joystick centre and Tincore Keynapper. However, both of these seem to require some extent of touch interaction with them to set them up. I don't think there is an assumption that someone will try to set them up on a non-touch enabled device.
Besides which they both seem freakishly complex and may require several hours to try to set up, if that is you can get them working, which as I said might not be straightforward in a non-touchscreen device. To be frank I would rather not have to spend hours configuring keyboard/mouse and track-pad support. I just want to plug and play if possible.
I wonder if the guys at Android X-86 have resolved this? If they have, couldn't the Matricom folks do something? This seems like something that should be enabled by default.
To be clear Keyboard and mouse support do work in Android itself, but just not in any games I have tried. One of the biggest attractions about Android is of course fun games!
Hi has anyone got an answer for this?

nVidia Shield Android TV - Post your home screen

We seem to be missing the required "Post your home screen" thread - so let me start it off !
Here's mine. I'm using HALauncher so that I can customize the home screen to my needs. I'm a big fan of HALauncher as it allows:
1 - Control over grouping and ordering. On the Shield default launcher, most-used apps go to the front of the line, so the order is always changing.
2 - Add sideloaded apps
3 - Add web page bookmarks
4 - Add wallpaper
5 - Add custom images for apps on launchers
Full Android V1.8 and I'm loving it. Takes the place of my main computer.
..
kdb424 said:
Full Android V1.8 and I'm loving it. Takes the place of my main computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dat gocchumon wa usagi desuka wallpaper tho :laugh:
I figured I'd get in on this. This is my SATV home screen. I am using Next 3D launcher and Go Weather EX for the weather widget as the SATV doesn't have the ability to use system widgets, but Next launcher can use widgets specifically built for it like task manager, music, weather, switch, and a few others.
do you need to be rooted to use a launcher, or it just that you click on the luancher icon and then it opens the new menu interface and thats it?
up
do yo uguys mouse and keyboard to navigate? isnt that annoying and takes away from using the remote etc
WHEN you use a luancher is it default... how do you set it to be default
My home screen is just stock. But I too would like to know how you got these launchers to work? And do you have to use keyboard mouse or no?
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
Can you seriously do evverything with this Shield thing? And what is it?
I think it's wonderful...
RemyB__ said:
Can you seriously do evverything with this Shield thing? And what is it?
I think it's wonderful...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Start by looking up a few reviews on YouTube and you will see the potential, pretty much play games, watch movie, TV, play music, really just about anything with the proper setup
kdb424 said:
Full Android V1.8 and I'm loving it. Takes the place of my main computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do you benefit from a full android experience?
I am using the sideloader and it seems to work well.
Launchers maybe?
Happy Shield TV Setup
Very happy with my Shield TV setup now.
I gave the stock experience a go for a good week before getting fed up of the limitations of Android TV, despite loving the well polished user interface.
Now running full Android 5.1 (v2.2 of zulu99's build), rooted with TWRP recovery and Xposed framework installed.
With a variety of Android TV apps sideloaded from apkmirror.com, I'm now pretty close to having everything which I had before on stock:
Slick, remote-friendly launcher: HALauncher (with lovely background / wallpaper images)
SHIELD Remote as primary input / control device, 90% functional (physical buttons, volume control, audio output when heaphones connected all work, microphone doesn't work yet)
Remote-friendly TV versions of Netflix, YouTube, BBC iPlayer, Emma for Spotify and SHIELD Hub / GeForce Now
Casting entire screen (or specific cast-enabled apps such as Netflix) from Android works and performs well enough to cast an entire movie
With all the numerous advantages of having full android, such as:
Multiple user accounts / profiles (my wife's Spotify plays no longer feed into my last.fm profile, thank god!)
Fully automated video downloading setup, thanks to Pushbullet, Advanced Download Manager and Tasker
Chrome web browser, for web browsing on your TV (finally!)
Casting screen from wife's Macbook Air and/or iPhone now works too, thanks to app "AirPlay Mirroring Receiver"
Thanks to all here who have helped get me to this stage! - primarily zulu99 for his full Android build, but everyone else who has helped by sharing tips/tricks to improve various bits of the experience.
The only thing left to get working as far as I'm concerned is the SHIELD Remote microphone.
This is a really frustrating one, as it's such a nice to have feature and really makes it feel like a futuristic device when you never need to type anything again - Google's voice recognition is outstanding.
I'm also at a bit of a loss as to what to investigate next with it; I've attempted to debug the remote from my PC but could only get it to create a single uni-directional A2DP channel for audio playback.
I guess I should start trying to dig through the kernel modules included in the stock system image.
Anyway, here's the top bit of my home screen:
and a few other screenshots showing the rest of the home screen, settings and the microphone issue.
How do you change the home launcher without changing away from stock.
Almost a real Android now!
@zulu99 Full Android 5.1 (v2.2 build), rooted with Nova Launcher. Still need to install Xposed framework and a few other bits, but getting close to having a real Android now!
Loving some of the setups you guys have! I'll have to get to work on setting mine up.
andrewthecoder said:
Very happy with my Shield TV setup now.
[...]
[*]SHIELD Remote as primary input / control device, 90% functional (physical buttons, volume control, audio output when heaphones connected all work, microphone doesn't work yet)
[...]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey,
how did you manage it to have the volume buttons of the Shield TV remote working?
I am also running zulus' Full Android and paired the remote with bluetooth but the volume buttons are not working...
Did you do anything special?
A working microphone would make it just perfect
Thanks!
justkidding2009 said:
how did you manage it to have the volume buttons of the Shield TV remote working?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm actually not entirely sure, the volume slider on the remote wasn't working for me initially either.
I had written it off as something that wasn't going to work, but then noticed it was working accidentally later on after I'd set up more apps.
I believe all I did between the time where it wasn't working and started working was:
Install a few apps made for Android TV (e.g. Netflix, BBC iPlayer, HALauncher, Emma for Spotify)
Disconnect and reconnect the controller a few times
Restart the Shield TV (NSTV) a few times
If you give the above a try and the volume controls on your remote are still not working, post in my other thread about the remote and I'll try and narrow down what's making it work for me!
andrewthecoder said:
I'm actually not entirely sure, the volume slider on the remote wasn't working for me initially either.
I had written it off as something that wasn't going to work, but then noticed it was working accidentally later on after I'd set up more apps.
I believe all I did between the time where it wasn't working and started working was:
Install a few apps made for Android TV (e.g. Netflix, BBC iPlayer, HALauncher, Emma for Spotify)
Disconnect and reconnect the controller a few times
Restart the Shield TV (NSTV) a few times
If you give the above a try and the volume controls on your remote are still not working, post in my other thread about the remote and I'll try and narrow down what's making it work for me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your support.
I will test that during the weekend
Are the volume buttons for you only working inside HAlLauncher or also in the "normal" Android Launcher?

Android as Smart Panel

Hey guys,
I'm not really sure if this is the right place to post this question but as I don't really know where else in the web I could find help on this I'll give it a try
TL;DR:​Do you know any (and I really mean any - including writing an app or other hands on approaches) method to have a permanent (tabbed) navigation at the bottom of the screen to switch between apps or websites/PWAs?
The background of this question:​
I'm coming down a long road trying to hack together a DIY - privacy focused - smart speaker - mainly to switch lights and play some music. I started off back in 2018/19 and found snips.ai one of the most promising FOSS smart speaker projects for my plans and so I got me a Raspberry Pi 3b+ and a Matrix Voice board as foundation. Then half a year I later, when I found the time to put those together, I had to find out, that Sonos just bought snips.ai and their services were to be shut down...
Since then I had a long pause on this but always followed the development of FOSS voice projects including Mycroft (to expensive HW, to bloated, to tied to their web services IMHO), Sepia (to complicated to setup) as well as attempts on hacking OTS speakers like Alexa, Google Home, Sonos et al or combinations with web controllable wifi speakers like Teufel 3sixty (which is really a gold speaker but as tons of other radios has a frontier chip set with its awkward web interface) or even the awesome Squeezelite-ESP32 project. Lately I stumbled upon Rhasspy and got myself together to give my project a new try and was even kind of successful (got a self hosted voice assistant doing what I want - even if I had to learn and write some python here and there). But I figured out that 1) a smart speaker without a display is not really what I want and 2) I'm not really that kind of maker guy to 3d-print cases, plan and build circuitry and what not - or it's just missing me the time to do and especially experimenting on this
So I ended up with the idea of the software that I need (Rhasspy server side + a satellite app, Home Assistant, Logitech Media Server, Spotify/Tidal and maybe some others) and was then looking for some hackable device to serve as interface to that (display, speakers, microphone, wifi + maybe bluetooth). The Sonoff NSPanel Pro was a candidate but I didn't trust the quality of its speakers and read some reviews that were claiming a weak performance. Then I found the Lenovo ThinkSmart View that has all this and this XDA thread and immediately got me a new one for 60 bucks. Now I have a quality device better then I could ever make it with a blank(though not rooted) android, a Rhasspy Voice Assistant running on a local server ready to receive and send audio streams, a promising app to act as a Rhasspy satellite and some quality speakers to play music on. The last opponent I'm facing now is a nice UI on android that can bring all the bits together.
What I'm looking for now is a free (and ideally OSS) panel/kiosk solution with that I can seamlessly switch between Home Assistant (web UI), Spotify (web UI or their app) and some others like a self hosted Web music player. In my imagination I could switch between them with a permanent tab bar at the screen bottom but am open to other ideas. I'm not an Android developer but I consider myself a stable Java dev open to write an own app for this - I'd just need a starting point (read of Webviews, Custom Tabs, Trusted Web Activities but found them not really a solution to what I need - maybe is there some browser which's contents I can just include in an app?). Also I can write (progressive) web apps and do stuff with them but then AFAIK the only method to embed remote sites would be iframes which likely won't work with at least spotify).
I really do not want to bloat this forum with all that stuff - I'm just writing this in the hope that 1) someone is interested in this and maybe is on the same journey and 2) to give some context on my actual question above
Thank you very much in advance!
Just came across your post. I’ve been looking for something very similar and have also been considering the NsPanel pro. I don’t have as much concern for audio quality as I’m less likely to use it for playing music, just responses or notifications from Rhasspy. I have just ordered a Lenovo device as I’m sure I’ll have fun with it.
To answer your question above, I just found this in the HA companion app that might work for you: https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/integrations/android-webview/#links It’s not perfect but could be used with a button or voice command to launch the app on the device. I’ve also seen other posts about using a key mapping app for using the volume buttons to do other tasks.
I’d be very keen to see what you’ve done for dashboards and how you’re using the Rhasspy app on your device. Has it been as responsive and accurate as you hoped?

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