How to Play Wii and GameCube Games on your PC with Dolphin

Dolphin is an open source Wii and GameCube emulator that supports the majority of games for both consoles. Dolphin will run your collection of Wii and GameCube games very well at 1080p on most new PC’s, and even older systems still can crank out playable speeds at 480p, the native GameCube resolution. Installing Dolphin is easy, although if you want to put your collection on your computer, you will need a Wii and be willing to homebrew it.

Why Dolphin is Better than a Wii

• If you have good hardware, you can crank up the graphics settings on older games. In fact, even games for the GameCube, which had a maximum of 480p and were stuck at a 3:4 aspect ratio, upscale very well to full widescreen HD or even 4K. There are hacks that let games run at 60 frames per second. There are also many community made texture and shader packs which improve the look of the game substantially.
• If you don’t have good hardware, you can still run Dolphin. Some games may emulate poorly, but most can be run on systems with old hardware, and even in laptops with integrated graphics.
• All your games are in one place and load extremely fast. This can also be done by installing USB Loader GX on the Wii, which is actually required anyway to legally get your game disks to play on Dolphin, but it is still an advantage over a regular Wii.
• You can use Wii Remotes with Dolphin, along with any other gamepad, including Xbox 360 and One Controllers. You could also use a GameCube Controller, but you will have to buy a USB adapter.
• It’s compatible with nearly every computer; Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Dolphin is not without its problems; there are still games that do not emulate properly and have bugs or glitches, but there is excellent community support in their forums, and new releases come out every few weeks which include bug fixes.

Downloading Dolphin

Dolphin is open source and is available at their download page. The latest official version is 4.0, though a release candidate for version 5.0 is already available. All versions support a large percentage of Wii and GameCube games, though newer versions fix a lot of bugs in older versions and run better on current hardware. The Mac version is stand-alone, the Windows version requires an installer.

Getting Wii and Gamecube Games to Play

First, homebrew your Wii, and install USB Loader GX. These can both be long processes, and may differ depending on what system version you have. After this, you can use USB Loader GX to rip your game disks to an external hard drive. Each game can take up to an hour to rip, and can be anywhere from 1GB to 5GB, though double-layer disks like Super Smash Bros: Brawl can be 8GB in size. Even still, a 1TB external drive can store over 300 games.Unlike most Nintendo emulators, which have a problem getting ROMs to play, Dolphin allows you to play legally, provided you own a copy of the game and a Wii. The process is a little complicated, and involves installing the Homebrew channel on your Wii, which is a useful thing to do anyway as it lets you turn your old console into a DVD player, run emulators, and install games to a hard drive. We will be homebrewing in order to install games to a hard drive, which can be then be connected to a computer to be used with Dolphin.

It is worth pointing out that some DVD drives can actually rip Wii and GameCube games without the need for a Wii, though this method is not recommended as it only applies to a few drives.

Getting the Most Performance out of Dolphin

While higher-end gaming PC’s can likely run Dolphin in 4K at 60 FPS, most computers are not going to get that much performance.

Dolphin is very CPU heavy, but is locked at running on only two cores. This means if you have a quad core processor, Dolphin will only utilize half your CPU power. This is fine on most Intel chips, but most AMD chips focus more on multi-core performance, making Dolphin run poorly on AMD-based PC’s, especially in multiplayer, multi-controller games.

The optimal graphics settings for your PC depend nearly completely on your GPU. If you have a laptop with integrated graphics, you will get great performance at 480p, but if you try to run in 1080p, you may run into some problems. Likewise, if you have a great graphics card and a poor CPU, the graphics setting won’t matter if the CPU can’t keep up.

Post processing effects, like Anti-Aliasing, can go a long way toward making games look better, but it is always easier on the GPU to increase the resolution of the game rather than try to make it look better at a lower resolution.

Dolphin will get better performance on Windows because of DirectX. Mac users are currently stuck with OpenGL, which works fine, but is noticeably slower than DirectX.

Connecting a Controller

Open Dolphin’s ‘Controllers’ panel. You can see here which controllers are connected. If you’d like to connect a real Wii controller, choose ‘Real Wiimote’, hold down 1 and 2 on your controller, and click ‘Refresh’ under ‘Real Wiimotes’ until you see your controller. You can connect up to 4 Wii remotes to Dolphin.One of the benefits of Dolphin is that you can play with any controller you like, including controllers from other consoles and third-party gamepads. If you don’t have a controller, you can use the keyboard and mouse, which is fine for GameCube games but isn’t that great for Wii games. If you have a Wii controller, you can connect it over Bluetooth. GameCube controllers require a USB adapter.

You can also edit the controls very easily. Click on one of the buttons in the menu and press the button on the controller that you want to use.

Gadget

How to Play Wii and GameCube Games on your PC with Dolphin

Unknown Tuesday, 22 December 2015

How to Play Multiplayer Party Games on Your Chromecast

Google’s Chromecast offers a way to play games on your TV, too. You won’t find the same ecosystem of games you will for the Apple TV or Amazon’s Fire TV, but you will find some fun party games people can gather around the TV and play, using their smartphones as controllers.

You could also cast your Android device’s screen to play a mobile game on your TV, or cast your computer desktop to play a PC game on the TV. But these methods allow you to play designed-for-Chromecast games.

Finding Games

To find games on your smartphone or tablet, open up the new Chromecast app — install the Chromecast app for iPhone or Android if you don’t already have it installed — and tap the “Get Apps” header.You’ll first need to install some games that are designed for the Chromecast. Like typical apps that stream to your Chromecast, these are available as mobile apps for either Android or iPhone.

You’ll see a few popular games recommended. You can also scroll down to the bottom, select “Browse All Apps,” and then select the “Games” category.

You could also visit the Chromecast Apps website on the web and select “Games” to view available games for the Chromecast. Mouse over an app and you’ll see the platforms it’s available for — Android, iPhone, and Chrome on computers.

Playing Games

To play a game, just cast it like you would any other app. For example, we’d like to play the Google-created “Big Web Quiz” app as an example here. From the Chromecast website, we can mouse over it and see what platforms it’s available on. The “Chrome” icon is a bit misleading here, as that link takes us to a website that tells us to download the app on Android or iOS.

To play it, we’ll have to install the app on a smartphone, launch it, and tap the button to connect to a nearby Chromecast. This works just like you’d cast videos or music from any other app to your Chromecast.

The game will launch on your TV, and the device you’re casting it from — whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, or the Chrome browser on your computer — will function as your game controller.

This particular game supports up to six players playing it on your TV. Multiple players can install the app on their phones and connect to the same Chromecast to participate.

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The actual selection of games on offer is pretty slim at the moment, but there are some big-name games that could be fun. Aside from Google’s own trivia game, you’ll find a variety of party games like Scrabble, Monopoly, Wheel of Fortune, Yahtzee, and Just Dance.

Hardware

How to Play Multiplayer Party Games on Your Chromecast

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How to Add Your Music Library to Steam and Use the Steam Music Player

Steam’s Music Player allows you to add a MP3 file stored on your computer to a local music library and play it back — inside or outside a game, with a controller or keyboard and mouse. This would be particularly useful on a Steam Machine or living-room gaming PC in Big Picture Mode.

This works in Steam on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Steam OS. You can add music and play it back either from the desktop interface, or through Big Picture Mode.

Add Your Music Library From the Desktop

Click the “Add” button and add one or more directories on your PC that contain music files. By default, Steam automatically scans its own directory for soundtracks and your user account’s “Music” directory. Click “Scan Now” to have Steam detect the music when you’re done.To get started, click the “Steam” menu in Steam and select “Settings”. Click over to the “Music” tab in the Settings window.

If you regularly add new music files to your library, click the “Scan at Startup” checkbox and Steam will automatically scan your library for new music when you load it. You’ll have to either relaunch Steam with those option enabled or visit this window and click “Scan Now” to find new music.

You can adjust other options from this window, too. For example, you can have Steam automatically pause music when you start an application, and control whether it’s automatically paused while you’re voice chatting within Steam. You can also choose whether you want to see a notification when the track changes.

Play Music From the Desktop

To view your music library, you can visit the “Library” tab in Steam, click the label at the right side of your search box, and select “Music” to view your music library instead of your game library. You can also just click View > Music details to view your music library.

If you have some games that include soundtracks installed, you might see some music here even if you haven’t provided any of your own music yet.

Start playing music back from your library and the music player will appear. You can also select View > Music player to open it.

Of course, this feature is particularly useful because you can control music playback from within games without Alt+Tabbing. After all, Alt+Tab can cause problems with many games.

To do this, open the Steam overlay within a game. The default shortcut for this is Shift+Tab. You can customize the shortcut from within Steam by clicking Steam > Settings, selecting “In-Game” in the Settings window, and providing a new shortcut here.

At the bottom of the screen, you’ll see a “Music” link. This will open the music player in the overlay and allow you to control playback. Just press the overlay shortcut again — Shift+Tab by default — to quickly close the overlay and get back to the game.

Add Your Music Library From Big Picture Mode

You can do this same thing from within Big Picture Mode. These settings are shared, so if you’ve already set this up on the desktop, you won’t have to set it up separately in Big Picture Mode.

However, if you have a Steam Machine or just a living-room PC running Steam, Big Picture Mode will allow you to set this feature up and control playback with just a controller.

In Big Picture Mode — launch it by clicking the controller icon at the top-right corner of the desktop if you’re in desktop mode — use your controller or mouse to select the gear-shaped settings icon at the top-right corner of the screen.

Select “Music” under Audio on the Settings screen.

This screen provides the same options for configuring your music library. To add new folders containing music, select “Setup music library” and add the folders in the dialog that appears.

If you have a Steam Machine and you don’t want to mess with the file system, you should just be able to put some music on a USB flash drive or external hard drive and plug it into your Steam Machine. Then, select the drive from this window. This would work on any computer to enable access to music stored on a removable drive, of course.

Play Music From Big Picture Mode

The Music Player works similarly in Big Picture Mode. To access it, visit the “Library” section and select the “Local Music” category on the left.

You’ll see a thumbnail-style list of all the albums available on your PC. Select an album and you’ll be able to play the entire album or a single song from it.

When you do, the Steam Music Player will appear. While you’re playing music, there will be a music note button at the top-right corner of the main screen that allows you to quickly pull up the music player.

While in a game, you can pull up the Steam Overlay — using the keyboard shortcut, by pressing the Steam button on a Steam Controller, or by pressing the Xbox button in the center of an Xbox Controller. You’ll see a “Now Playing” box with the music that’s currently playing. Select it to open the music player.

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This feature is a bit basic, but Valve may improve it in the future. Possibilities include integration with Spotify, Pandora, and other music-streaming services. Valve will hopefully add support for more than just MP3s in the future, too.

Linux

How to Add Your Music Library to Steam and Use the Steam Music Player

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How to Maximize Battery Life on Your Apple Watch

Your Apple Watch battery provides sufficient power to last for most of a typical day under normal usage. Apple estimates most people will get an average of 18 hours of battery life from one full charge, depending on use.

That’s a pretty decent battery life for a watch that does as much as the Apple Watch does. However, if you need to get even more juice out of your watch, we have some tips that will help extend the life of your Apple Watch battery.

Use a Minimal Watch Face

You can also add a very minimal watch face by customizing a watch face, such as “Modular”, and turning off all the complications so only the time displays.The Apple Watch has an OLED display, on which black pixels use the least amount of power. So, to save battery life on your watch, you should choose a minimal watch face, such as the “Simple” watch face, and avoid more colorful and animated watch faces like “Mickey Mouse” or “Motion”.

Lower the Screen Brightness

To lower the screen brightness directly on your watch, press the digital crown to access the Home screen and then tap the “Settings” icon.The OLED display on your Apple Watch already draws minimal power. However, you can squeeze even more juice out your watch’s battery by lowering the brightness of the screen. This can be done directly on your watch, which we’ll show you here, or in the Watch app on your phone.

On the “Settings” screen, tap “Brightness & Text Size”.

To lower the brightness, tap the smaller “sun” button under “Brightness”. Each time you tap the button, a green bar is removed from the level indicator between the two buttons.

NOTE: You can also make the text size bigger (or smaller) and make the text bold on this screen if you’re having trouble reading text on the small watch screen.

Reduce the Strength of the Vibration, or Haptic Feedback

The haptic feedback (tapping) from your Apple Watch is a subtle way for the watch to alert you of notifications. However, if you receive a lot of notifications, the constant firing of the haptic engine can use up precious battery life. You can easily adjust the intensity of the haptic feedback, lowering it to save battery, or increasing it if you’re having trouble noticing the taps.
The haptic feedback (tapping) from your Apple Watch is a subtle way for the watch to alert you of notifications. However, if you receive a lot of notifications, the constant firing of the haptic engine can use up precious battery life. You can easily adjust the intensity of the haptic feedback, lowering it to save battery, or increasing it if you’re having trouble noticing the taps.

Limit Notifications

Again, if you receive a lot of notifications throughout the day, the battery on your Apple Watch will drain faster than usual. In addition to adjusting the haptic feedback received for notifications, you can also configure your notifications to only get the most important ones.

Turn off Wake Screen on Wrist Raise

By default, the screen on your Apple Watch turns on when you raise your wrist and turns off when you lower it. However, during everyday activities you might find your watch’s screen inadvertently activating as you move your arms about. These accidental activations can reduce the battery life on your watch. If you’re going to be active, you might want to disable the feature that automatically turns on the watch screen when you raise your wrist. The “Wake Screen on Wrist Raise” feature is located on the same settings screen as the option for making the Apple Watch screen stay on longer.
By default, the screen on your Apple Watch turns on when you raise your wrist and turns off when you lower it. However, during everyday activities you might find your watch’s screen inadvertently activating as you move your arms about. These accidental activations can reduce the battery life on your watch. If you’re going to be active, you might want to disable the feature that automatically turns on the watch screen when you raise your wrist. The “Wake Screen on Wrist Raise” feature is located on the same settings screen as the option for making the Apple Watch screen stay on longer.

Reduce the Amount of Time the Watch Screen Stays on

On the same setting screen as the “Wake Screen on Wrist Raise” option, you’ll find two options allowing you to specify how many seconds to keep the screen on when you tap on it to view it. Selecting the “Wake for 15 Seconds” can save some battery life by reducing the amount of time the watch’s display is active.

Work Out in Power Saving Mode

If you work out for an extended period of time, the fitness tracking can use up battery life on your watch because of the heart rate sensor. You can save some battery life by turning on “Power Saving Mode” for your workouts. This minimizes the impact of the fitness tracking on the battery.

NOTE: Turning off the heart rate sensor may reduce the accuracy of the calorie burn estimate. Even if the heart rate sensor is off, your watch will still track your steps and receive other workout information from third-party apps.

To enable “Power Saving Mode”, open the Watch app on your iPhone and open the “My Watch” screen. Then, tap “Workout”.

On the “Workout” screen, tap the “Power Saving Mode” slider button. The button will turn green.

Turn off Heart Rate and Fitness Tracking

If you’re not using your Apple Watch as a fitness tracker, you can turn off the heart rate sensor and fitness tracker completely to conserve battery life. To disable these features, open the Watch app on your iPhone and open the “My Watch” screen. Then, tap “Privacy”.Your Apple Watch is useful for many things including tracking your workouts. The heart rate sensor records your pulse every 10 minutes throughout the day and the fitness tracker uses all available sensors to monitor your vitals and calculate information such as distance traveled and calories burned. According to Apple, the fitness tracker and heart rate sensor can reduce your watch’s battery life by about two-thirds during a lengthy workout.

On the “Motion & Fitness” screen, tap the “Heart Rate” slider button and the “Fitness Tracking” slider button to turn off these features. The slider buttons turn black.

Remove Watch Face Complications that Track Location or Frequently Pull Down Data

Many of the watch faces available on your Apple Watch are customizable and have multiple “complications” you can enable that provide additional information directly on the main watch screen. That can be handy, but some complications, including some third-party complications, have more of an impact on the watch’s battery life than others. For example, the Weather, Moon Phase, and Sunrise/Sunset complications use location information and pull down data through your phone to provide current, relevant information. Therefore, these complications may deplete your battery faster than static complications such as the date or calendar.

Remove Apps and Glances You Don’t Need

Apps are what make the Apple Watch especially useful. Without them, it’s just a fancy timepiece. However, some apps have more impact on your watch’s battery life than others. Apps that connect to the Internet on a regular basis to pull down data, track your location, or stream music can drain the battery faster. Glances can also deplete your battery. You can easily remove apps and glances from the watch to conserve battery life. That doesn’t mean you have to remove them from your phone. If you find you need any of the removed apps later, you can always install them back onto the watch, as long as they are on your phone.
Apps are what make the Apple Watch especially useful. Without them, it’s just a fancy timepiece. However, some apps have more impact on your watch’s battery life than others. Apps that connect to the Internet on a regular basis to pull down data, track your location, or stream music can drain the battery faster. Glances can also deplete your battery. You can easily remove apps and glances from the watch to conserve battery life. That doesn’t mean you have to remove them from your phone. If you find you need any of the removed apps later, you can always install them back onto the watch, as long as they are on your phone.

Disable Animations

Your Apple Watch includes animations similar to the ones on the iPhone and iPad. Animations on Apple Watch include automatic resizing of the app icons on the Home screen as you move them around. There are also animations that occur when you open apps or press the digital crown to return to the Home screen. These animations can look cool, but can also use up precious battery life. Turning on the “Reduce Motion” setting on your watch disables these animations. A side benefit of this option is making all the icons on the Home screen the same size.

Limit Your Playtime on the Watch

It’s cool to be able to play a game directly on your wrist if you have a bit of time to kill. However, we all know how easy it is to play for longer than we planned on, and before we know it, we’ve used up a good chunk of battery life on our watch. Games also use the Watch processor and the display, which also drain the battery.

Turn on Airplane Mode or Do Not Disturb

Another option for reducing the drain on your Apple Watch battery is to turn on Airplane Mode or Do Not Disturb. Turning on Airplane Mode disconnects the watch from your phone by disabling the all the watch’s radios. The Do Not Disturb feature allows you to fully disable visual, audio, and haptic distractions, but still allow your devices to track your notifications for reviewing later when you turn off Do Not Disturb. Because these two features disable the connectivity between your watch and your phone, this can save some battery life on your watch.
Another option for reducing the drain on your Apple Watch battery is to turn on Airplane Mode or Do Not Disturb. Turning on Airplane Mode disconnects the watch from your phone by disabling the all the watch’s radios. The Do Not Disturb feature allows you to fully disable visual, audio, and haptic distractions, but still allow your devices to track your notifications for reviewing later when you turn off Do Not Disturb. Because these two features disable the connectivity between your watch and your phone, this can save some battery life on your watch.

Monitor your Battery Performance

In addition to the battery saving tips we listed here, you can also monitor battery usage in the Watch app on your phone. The same screen that allows you to view which apps are using up storage on your watch also allows you to view your charging habits and usage times for your watch. When added together, the “Usage” and “Standby” values provide the elapsed time since the last full charge of your watch battery. You can also view the “Power Reserve” value, which we will discuss in the next section.

Use Power Reserve in an Emergency

If you’ve reached a critically low battery level on your watch, you’ll be prompted to enter “Power Reserve” mode. This mode disables all watch functions except the clock, using as little battery power as possible, while still allowing the watch to keep and display the time, which can only be displayed for six seconds at a time by pressing the side button.
If you’ve reached a critically low battery level on your watch, you’ll be prompted to enter “Power Reserve” mode. This mode disables all watch functions except the clock, using as little battery power as possible, while still allowing the watch to keep and display the time, which can only be displayed for six seconds at a time by pressing the side button.

We also have tips on how to maximize the battery life on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.These power saving tips will help you squeeze the most life out of your Apple Watch battery and to help you in an emergency when your battery level is really low and you can’t charge your watch anytime soon. Note that the usage of these tips may cause you to sacrifice some features of watch. However, if you must preserve battery life, you can probably make do without those features temporarily.

Mobile

How to Maximize Battery Life on Your Apple Watch

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How to Troubleshoot Printer Problems on a Windows PC

The paperless office isn’t yet here for many of us, and printers are still a fact of life. If your printer isn’t working quite right on a Windows PC, here are some simple troubleshooting tips that can fix it.

Obviously, the first steps are the most obvious. Verify your printer is plugged in, powered on, and connected to your computer (or the Wi-Fi network, if it’s a Wi-Fi printer). These may seem obvious, but sometimes we forget to check the simple things before checking the more complex ones.

Check the Paper

First, ensure your printer is in proper working state. Verify that the printer has paper loaded if it isn’t printing. Even if you’ve loaded paper, you may need to properly align the paper so the printer can use it. Check the inside of the printer to ensure there isn’t a paper jam preventing the printer from working. If there is, you may need to manually remove the jammed paper and clear things up.

Check the Ink or Toner

Of course, you’ll need enough ink (if it’s an inkjet printer) or toner (if it’s a laser printer) before you can print. Even if you’re just printing in black-and-white, some inkjet printers may refuse to print at all until you refill their color ink.

To check your printer’s ink levels on Windows, open the Devices and Printers window in Windows. You can do so by opening the Control Panel and clicking “View devices and printers” under Hardware and Sound. You may be able to select a printer by clicking it and view this information at the bottom of the window, or right-click a printer, select “Properties”, and look for the ink or toner levels.

Many printers report that sort of information here, although not all do — it depends on the printer and its drivers. You may also be able to see this information on the printer itself, if it has a built-in status display.

Check the Print Queue Dialog

Problems with printing could also be caused by issues with Windows. To ensure nothing is going wrong, open the print queue dialog in Windows. You can open a printer’s queue by right-clicking that printer in the Devices & Printers window and selecting “See what’s printing”. If you see an older document that can’t print with an error, right-click the document here and remove it. If a printer job is paused, you can resume it from here.

You should also click the “Printer” menu here and verify that “Use printer offline” isn’t enabled. If this option is checked, remove the checkmark to disable it.

Install, Update, or Reinstall Your Printer Drivers

You may need to install, update, or reinstall the printer drivers if it isn’t working properly. Printers should ideally “just work” and have their drivers automatically installed by Windows, but this doesn’t always work. To do this, visit your printer manufacturer’s website, download their driver package, and run the driver installer. It’ll walk you through installing the printer drivers and detecting your printer.

Use the Printer’s Diagnostics

You might need to use a diagnostic function that will clean the printer’s heads or nozzles, or realign them. This option will be in a slightly different place in each printer, depending on the printer’s software. On Windows, open the Devices and Printers window, right-click a printer, select “Properties”, and examine the options here to see what options are available for your particular printer. These options are provided by your printer drivers, and you may find them somewhere else — for example, in a printer configuration utility located in your Start menu.

This can help fix problems with poor print quality, too.

Set Your Default Printer

Windows 10’s “November update” changed the way default printers work on Windows. By default, every time you print to a printer, Windows will automatically make it your default printer. This would be inconvenient if you wanted to leave one particular printer as your default one and occasionally print to another one.

To disable this, open the Settings app from the Start menu or Start screen, select “Devices”, select “Printers & scanners”, and disable the “Let Windows manage my default printer” option.

You can then select a default printer by clicking or tapping it in this window and clicking “Set as default”. You can also right-click a printer in the Devices and Printers window and select “Set as Default Printer”.

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If your printer has a physical control panel with buttons on it, you may need to press the “OK” button one or more times if it’s displaying a status message. Some printers may just not print until you press “OK” and verify you’ve seen a displayed status message. This control panel may also display more detailed error message that will point you in the right direction and give you something to search for if it isn’t working properly.

Lots of things can go wrong with a printer, and some printers — especially older ones — may display confusing error messages. If your printer shows a particular error message and you’re not sure what it means, you should try searching the web for that particular error message.

Windows

How to Troubleshoot Printer Problems on a Windows PC

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