The blog
Xfire: Broadcast Options
2009-11-20 3:50 PM PST
And now we got to the last tab of Xfire Options. You might have noticed that I skipped some of the options. The reason for that is simply that they have already been examined earlier. But since those might be difficult to find, I think I will post next week a summary blog post that collects all the different pieces of information in a compact form of links to the individual posts.
But now we shall take a look at what kind of options you have available for Broadcast (BETA).
The options here are divided into two sections: video and audio. The first section, Broadcast Video Options has the settings related to broadcasting video data. And since the video data takes priority over audio data (you cannot broadcast only sound, there must always be video with it) this section also contains some options to do with the Broadcast feature in general.
The first option here is Enable Broadcast. This must be checked in order to use the live broadcast feature and to change the rest of the settings. Note that if you have Flashback capture enabled on the Video options, you cannot enable Broadcast feature. You need to disable Flashback first.
The second option is for controlling the access to your broadcast. If you enable Only allow your friends to see broadcast then your live video feed will not appear in the Live Video master list and it cannot be viewed by members that are not on your friends list.
As with all other Xfire In-Game features, you can also customize the Broadcast Key Binding which starts and stops the broadcast. Pressing this hotkey while playing a supported game will start the broadcast, and pressing it again will stop the broadcast.
Next you can choose the Broadcast Quality based on your internet connection limits and hardware capabilities. Selecting quality too high for your connection will cause the stream to lag or even not work at all for the viewers. If your friends complain that your broadcast lags badly or doesn't work, you might want to try to lower the quality and see if it helps....
But now we shall take a look at what kind of options you have available for Broadcast (BETA).
The options here are divided into two sections: video and audio. The first section, Broadcast Video Options has the settings related to broadcasting video data. And since the video data takes priority over audio data (you cannot broadcast only sound, there must always be video with it) this section also contains some options to do with the Broadcast feature in general.
The first option here is Enable Broadcast. This must be checked in order to use the live broadcast feature and to change the rest of the settings. Note that if you have Flashback capture enabled on the Video options, you cannot enable Broadcast feature. You need to disable Flashback first.
The second option is for controlling the access to your broadcast. If you enable Only allow your friends to see broadcast then your live video feed will not appear in the Live Video master list and it cannot be viewed by members that are not on your friends list.
As with all other Xfire In-Game features, you can also customize the Broadcast Key Binding which starts and stops the broadcast. Pressing this hotkey while playing a supported game will start the broadcast, and pressing it again will stop the broadcast.
Next you can choose the Broadcast Quality based on your internet connection limits and hardware capabilities. Selecting quality too high for your connection will cause the stream to lag or even not work at all for the viewers. If your friends complain that your broadcast lags badly or doesn't work, you might want to try to lower the quality and see if it helps....
GODJonez's Workshop - Xfire: Video Optio...
2009-11-13 11:24 AM PST
Time to move on with the workshop. Today I'll show you the Video capture options and reveal some technical information regarding the settings.
As always, you get to the options from Tools menu. The video options look like this:
The options here are divided into three sections, the actual video recording, flashback recording and audio recording.
The first section, Video Capture Options has the most important settings related to recording game videos with Xfire.
First make sure that Enable Video Capture is selected. Otherwise you are not able to capture video and all the other options are inaccessible.
Under this checkbox you have Video Capture Folder. This is the location on your computer where the captured videos are saved to. Since Xfire records the videos with very high quality, they take initially lots of disk space, so make sure you select here a location that has lots of free space available (we are talking about several gigabytes here at least). You can use the Browse button to select the place.
As with all other Xfire in-game features, video capture can also be initiated and stopped with a key combination you can select in Video Capture Key Binding. In the screenshot above I have set a custom hotkey Right Ctrl + F10 for video capture since my keyboard does not have a Scroll Lock key. (don't mind Windows saying that the key is OIKEA CTRL...)
Next up you can select some video quality options. The Frames per second box can be used to select how many frames of gameplay is saved per second to the video file. The available options are 25, 30, 60 and 100. Note that usually even 30 fps is enough to give a smooth looking video but it takes half the resources than for example 60 fps that needs to save twice the data.
This selection should never be higher than the FPS rate you can get in the game itself. The Xfire codec is pretty good at handling missing frames in the video file, but it never does any good to have broken video data caused by not getting the frames from game fast...
As always, you get to the options from Tools menu. The video options look like this:
The options here are divided into three sections, the actual video recording, flashback recording and audio recording.
The first section, Video Capture Options has the most important settings related to recording game videos with Xfire.
First make sure that Enable Video Capture is selected. Otherwise you are not able to capture video and all the other options are inaccessible.
Under this checkbox you have Video Capture Folder. This is the location on your computer where the captured videos are saved to. Since Xfire records the videos with very high quality, they take initially lots of disk space, so make sure you select here a location that has lots of free space available (we are talking about several gigabytes here at least). You can use the Browse button to select the place.
As with all other Xfire in-game features, video capture can also be initiated and stopped with a key combination you can select in Video Capture Key Binding. In the screenshot above I have set a custom hotkey Right Ctrl + F10 for video capture since my keyboard does not have a Scroll Lock key. (don't mind Windows saying that the key is OIKEA CTRL...)
Next up you can select some video quality options. The Frames per second box can be used to select how many frames of gameplay is saved per second to the video file. The available options are 25, 30, 60 and 100. Note that usually even 30 fps is enough to give a smooth looking video but it takes half the resources than for example 60 fps that needs to save twice the data.
This selection should never be higher than the FPS rate you can get in the game itself. The Xfire codec is pretty good at handling missing frames in the video file, but it never does any good to have broken video data caused by not getting the frames from game fast...
Xfire Release 1.117
2009-11-10 3:54 PM PST
In case you missed the release notes of Xfire's 117th client version, here's the recap on it!
Xfire client, release number 117, build number 40120, takes a new step in "broadcast yourself" phenomenon. The Live Broadcast (BETA) got several improvements such as smoothing the upload bandwidth consumption and making the live streams more reliable. Some crashes with the video encoder (xfencoder.exe) caused by audio buffer overrun were fixed as well.
A completely new feature, however, is the inclusion of web camera support. This currently does not mean that you could have a webcam chat. Instead, you can only see the image from your web cam yourself while you play. A common question at this point is "what's the point?"
The point is... that this brings a whole new way to express yourself when you take a screenshot, record a video, or use the improved live broadcast. If you have the webcam overlay visible in the game, it will also get captured on screenshots and videos as well, so when you upload a picture of the fantastic moment you had when doing a 10 headshot kill streak, everyone can see your priceless facial expression of pure pwnage.
See the Xfire Beta release 1.117 post for details on how to enable web cam support in Xfire.
But is this all that Xfire will do with web cam support? You will see in future... and this blog is the place where you will get the news first!
Now if you want to see the full changelog yourself, here it is: Release notes for Xfire 1.117
Joonas
Xfire client, release number 117, build number 40120, takes a new step in "broadcast yourself" phenomenon. The Live Broadcast (BETA) got several improvements such as smoothing the upload bandwidth consumption and making the live streams more reliable. Some crashes with the video encoder (xfencoder.exe) caused by audio buffer overrun were fixed as well.
A completely new feature, however, is the inclusion of web camera support. This currently does not mean that you could have a webcam chat. Instead, you can only see the image from your web cam yourself while you play. A common question at this point is "what's the point?"
The point is... that this brings a whole new way to express yourself when you take a screenshot, record a video, or use the improved live broadcast. If you have the webcam overlay visible in the game, it will also get captured on screenshots and videos as well, so when you upload a picture of the fantastic moment you had when doing a 10 headshot kill streak, everyone can see your priceless facial expression of pure pwnage.
See the Xfire Beta release 1.117 post for details on how to enable web cam support in Xfire.
But is this all that Xfire will do with web cam support? You will see in future... and this blog is the place where you will get the news first!
Now if you want to see the full changelog yourself, here it is: Release notes for Xfire 1.117
Joonas
Xfire Beta release 1.117
2009-11-04 1:16 PM PST
What can you see in the above image? You can see Xfire supporting Web Cameras!
This is the new big thing in Xfire 1.117, the ability to see your web cam in game and also broadcast your web cam live with the live video so that people looking at your live video broadcast can also see your funny facial expressions when you get owned in the games...
Note that since the live video broadcasts are watched in the Xfire website, you cannot really test this in its entirety yet, since the website has yet to be updated to support it. But if you want to test if Xfire can work with your camera, go ahead and give the beta a try and post your feedback in Xfire 1.117 Beta Client Forum.
In a nutshell, this is what you are to do:
- Download and install the new beta version from Xfire Beta Testing Team news post
- Go to Tools -> Options -> Broadcast (BETA)
- Select your Web Cam there
- Launch a game where full Xfire In-Game features are supported
- Go to Edit Mode (Scroll Lock + E by default) and enable Web Cam overlay
And now you wonder why you would want to look at your own face while playing.
See the full beta release notes at xfbt forums.
Joonas
GODJonez's Workshop - Xfire: Files Optio...
2009-10-30 8:22 AM PDT
Continuing the Xfire Options series, today the subject is options related to file transfers. This seems to be a recurring problem area, so I hope that this post will clarify the options that are available for users and how they work,
These options start with File Transfer Rates. Here you can control how much bandwidth Xfire is allowed to use for the file transfer system in different situations. You are able to select the Download rate for three different situations and the upload rate is adjusted automatically depending on your selection for the download rate.
The first situation is Playing a game. This is the effective setting whenever Xfire sees you playing a supported game. If you play online, it is generally advisable to have this one Disabled so that Xfire will not use any bandwidth for file transfers, minimizing the lag it would cause to the game.
The second situation is At my computer. This is the effective setting when you are not playing any games but you are using your computer otherwise. Personally I would recommend having some value other than Disabled here so that you will be able to get files when you use your computer. But it always depends on your Internet connection and personal preference what this should be set to.
The third situation is Idle/AFK. This is the effective setting when no game is running and you have not touched either keyboard or mouse for a while. The Idle detection shares the AFK status timer from "Privacy" tab. For example if the AFK timer is set to 3 minutes, Xfire will start using the rates set here if you do not do anything on your computer for three minutes. Of course, once you press any key or move the mouse, Xfire will fall back to "At my computer" setting.
The most common problems that people have with the file transfer rates are:
These options start with File Transfer Rates. Here you can control how much bandwidth Xfire is allowed to use for the file transfer system in different situations. You are able to select the Download rate for three different situations and the upload rate is adjusted automatically depending on your selection for the download rate.
The first situation is Playing a game. This is the effective setting whenever Xfire sees you playing a supported game. If you play online, it is generally advisable to have this one Disabled so that Xfire will not use any bandwidth for file transfers, minimizing the lag it would cause to the game.
The second situation is At my computer. This is the effective setting when you are not playing any games but you are using your computer otherwise. Personally I would recommend having some value other than Disabled here so that you will be able to get files when you use your computer. But it always depends on your Internet connection and personal preference what this should be set to.
The third situation is Idle/AFK. This is the effective setting when no game is running and you have not touched either keyboard or mouse for a while. The Idle detection shares the AFK status timer from "Privacy" tab. For example if the AFK timer is set to 3 minutes, Xfire will start using the rates set here if you do not do anything on your computer for three minutes. Of course, once you press any key or move the mouse, Xfire will fall back to "At my computer" setting.
The most common problems that people have with the file transfer rates are:
- Games lagging because "Playing a game" setting does not have Disabled value and the network connection is limited.
- Files to be downloaded show Disabled by user settings. This happens if you...
AVA Pro Night and DFO Play 2 Win
2009-10-27 3:46 PM PDT
Event Update! Two new events are going on and we want to make sure you all know about them.
First off, Pro Nights are Back! We're kicking this first one off with A.V.A., the FPS game from Ijji.com and Team Pandemic!
www.xfire.com/cms/xf_ava
Head to the page to find out how you can chat, play and win with the pros. It's going to be an awesome night!
Here's the full schedule:
All Times PDT (GMT-8 ):
3:00pm to 4:00pm - Live chat with pros + AVA
4:00pm to 5:00pm - Deathmatch with pros
5:00pm to 6:00pm - Deathmatch with pros + Live Broadcast
6:00pm to 7:00pm - Escort Missions
Did I mention that you could win gaming gear that expensive headsets, flat screen monitors, peripherals, and in game cash?
Also going on now is a Play 2 Win with the arcade style MMO from Nexon, Dungeon Fighter! You know you miss the days of pumping quarter after quarter into a machine just to get another "man" and keep going...*endearing sigh* well now you can keep doing that without wasting the money.
AAAANNNNNDdd.... One lucky user that i'm totally jealous of is going to win an Alienware Aurora Desktop PC
First off, Pro Nights are Back! We're kicking this first one off with A.V.A., the FPS game from Ijji.com and Team Pandemic!
www.xfire.com/cms/xf_ava
Head to the page to find out how you can chat, play and win with the pros. It's going to be an awesome night!
Here's the full schedule:
All Times PDT (GMT-8 ):
3:00pm to 4:00pm - Live chat with pros + AVA
4:00pm to 5:00pm - Deathmatch with pros
5:00pm to 6:00pm - Deathmatch with pros + Live Broadcast
6:00pm to 7:00pm - Escort Missions
Did I mention that you could win gaming gear that expensive headsets, flat screen monitors, peripherals, and in game cash?
Also going on now is a Play 2 Win with the arcade style MMO from Nexon, Dungeon Fighter! You know you miss the days of pumping quarter after quarter into a machine just to get another "man" and keep going...*endearing sigh* well now you can keep doing that without wasting the money.
AAAANNNNNDdd.... One lucky user that i'm totally jealous of is going to win an Alienware Aurora Desktop PC
Xfire website update... new forums
2009-10-23 1:40 PM PDT
Yesterday the Xfire website was updated. Since the forums are quite likely the part of the site where people spend most of their time, this change could be considered one of the most influential Xfire website updates to the date.
The new forums are now accessible with this URL: http://www.xfire.com/forums/
(previously the forum index was behind such cryptic an address as http://www.xfire.com/xf/modules.php?name=Forums&file=index)
It has long been in plans to update the forums from the phpBB 2 system that's been in use since the beginning. As the forums grew and more people posted there, various issues started appearing caused by the limitations and bugs of the forum software (SQL errors anyone?).
Initially the new forums were implemented to Xfire Clans & Guilds (now Xfire Communities) and they were being tested and developed there. As is the Xfire trend, the new features are first brought up in small scale, out of direct publicity, to let people play with them and to make the features work better before pushing them out in large scale. This has been true for the Xfire Communities, blogs, advanced Xfire In-Game, video recording, Live Video broadcasting, web game detection, other instant messenger protocol support, and so on.
This same method was also true for the forum software. After the majority of the big bugs were fixed and the forum software built from ground up was feature complete enough, it was now brought up from just the limited test of communities to be the main forum system of the whole Xfire website.
The new forums built from scratch are still not completely free of problems, but now that all the population will use them, the rest of the bugs will be found very quickly and with great probability will also be the focus of web development for a while. At least one important feature that didn't correctly work in the old forums now works very well. This, my friends, is the feature overlooked by many people. It's called SEARCH.
Aside from the forums, another easily...
The new forums are now accessible with this URL: http://www.xfire.com/forums/
(previously the forum index was behind such cryptic an address as http://www.xfire.com/xf/modules.php?name=Forums&file=index)
It has long been in plans to update the forums from the phpBB 2 system that's been in use since the beginning. As the forums grew and more people posted there, various issues started appearing caused by the limitations and bugs of the forum software (SQL errors anyone?).
Initially the new forums were implemented to Xfire Clans & Guilds (now Xfire Communities) and they were being tested and developed there. As is the Xfire trend, the new features are first brought up in small scale, out of direct publicity, to let people play with them and to make the features work better before pushing them out in large scale. This has been true for the Xfire Communities, blogs, advanced Xfire In-Game, video recording, Live Video broadcasting, web game detection, other instant messenger protocol support, and so on.
This same method was also true for the forum software. After the majority of the big bugs were fixed and the forum software built from ground up was feature complete enough, it was now brought up from just the limited test of communities to be the main forum system of the whole Xfire website.
The new forums built from scratch are still not completely free of problems, but now that all the population will use them, the rest of the bugs will be found very quickly and with great probability will also be the focus of web development for a while. At least one important feature that didn't correctly work in the old forums now works very well. This, my friends, is the feature overlooked by many people. It's called SEARCH.
Aside from the forums, another easily...
Xfire Release 1.116
2009-10-20 4:36 PM PDT
With the Xfire events keeping the marketing dept. busy, so does the new Xfire update keep the engineering dept. busy too. And looking at the change log for Xfire 1.116 it looks like the developers have been busy in the past few weeks.
As you could guess from the beta release, the Live Video feature has been improved again, this time the changes are aimed mostly towards performance. Although according to forum reports there are still remaining issues with this beta feature for some people.
Xfire has been supporting some web browser based games through it's Xfire XO toolbar. Now the toolbar can be installed with the main application as well instead of needing a separate download. This is not automatically distributed with the Xfire updater, though, but is part of the full installer available from http://www.xfire.com/download/
As always, there are some bug fixes (there are no truly bug free programs, are there?). According to the release notes, these bug fixes include things such as fixing older games hanging, icons not displaying correctly under Windows Vista and voice chat bugs.
See the full change log to find out all the data published of this new version.
Joonas
As you could guess from the beta release, the Live Video feature has been improved again, this time the changes are aimed mostly towards performance. Although according to forum reports there are still remaining issues with this beta feature for some people.
Xfire has been supporting some web browser based games through it's Xfire XO toolbar. Now the toolbar can be installed with the main application as well instead of needing a separate download. This is not automatically distributed with the Xfire updater, though, but is part of the full installer available from http://www.xfire.com/download/
As always, there are some bug fixes (there are no truly bug free programs, are there?). According to the release notes, these bug fixes include things such as fixing older games hanging, icons not displaying correctly under Windows Vista and voice chat bugs.
See the full change log to find out all the data published of this new version.
Joonas
Dragon Days at Xfire!
2009-10-19 11:27 AM PDT
From Video Capture Contests to Play 2 Win events, this is a busy week at Xfire!
Today marks the launch of the Dungeons and Dragons: Online Play 2 Win event and on Tuesday, the Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Video Capture Contest draws to an end.
The DDO campaign runs now through November 2nd with plenty of prizes at stake: Intel Core i7 gaming rigs, Radeon graphics cards, Samsung widescreen monitors, DDO Store points and more! To win all you have to do is play DDO as much as possible!
For more information check out the Event Page!
On the Dragon Rising front, it’s not too late to vote and win prizes! With over 250 entries thus far, we’ve had quite an outpouring of video submissions. To reward the OFP community, we’ve decided offer more prizes, inviting you to upload any Operation Flashpoint video for a chance to win. For all videos tagged, “ofplastchance” between October 16th and October 20th, you’ll be eligible to win one of two Arctosa Keyboards with Deathadder mice. Please note that entry in this category is separate from the three existing categories, but entry in one does not exclude you from the others.
For more information about the video capture contest visit the Event Page!
Today marks the launch of the Dungeons and Dragons: Online Play 2 Win event and on Tuesday, the Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Video Capture Contest draws to an end.
The DDO campaign runs now through November 2nd with plenty of prizes at stake: Intel Core i7 gaming rigs, Radeon graphics cards, Samsung widescreen monitors, DDO Store points and more! To win all you have to do is play DDO as much as possible!
For more information check out the Event Page!
On the Dragon Rising front, it’s not too late to vote and win prizes! With over 250 entries thus far, we’ve had quite an outpouring of video submissions. To reward the OFP community, we’ve decided offer more prizes, inviting you to upload any Operation Flashpoint video for a chance to win. For all videos tagged, “ofplastchance” between October 16th and October 20th, you’ll be eligible to win one of two Arctosa Keyboards with Deathadder mice. Please note that entry in this category is separate from the three existing categories, but entry in one does not exclude you from the others.
For more information about the video capture contest visit the Event Page!
GODJonez's Workshop - Xfire: Sound Optio...
2009-10-16 12:24 PM PDT
To continue the "Xfire Options" series, this week you will have an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the Sound options of Xfire. In this context the Sound options mean options for event sounds such as receiving messages and knowing when friends log on. Options for voice chat and video recording will be later.
The first option is Send or receive a message. When this is enabled, you will hear a sound whenever someone sends you an instant message or when you send a message to someone. This option is for out-of-game situations.
The second option Receive a message while gaming controls whether you hear a sound for incoming messages while playing games. This sound is also different to that of the out-of-game message indicator.
The third option is Friend logs on or off. As you might guess from the label, enabling this option will make Xfire play a sound whenever any of your friends log on or go offline.
Next up is Someone joins or leaves a chat room. Enabling this option makes Xfire play a sound effect whenever someone joins or leaves a chat room (obviously). In large chat rooms this option along with the "Send or receive a message" will create quite the orchestral performance of sound effects so you might want to turn them off if you take part of such chat rooms.
Next up you will find the option Send or receive voice chat requests. Enabling this makes Xfire play a dialing tune or ringing sound (or whatever sound effects the selected sound pack has) when you try to call your friend or when you receive a voice chat call.
The last toggleable option is Take a screenshot while gaming. Enabling this makes Xfire play some kind of camera shutter sound when you take screenshots so you know that the screenshot was taken.
All of the above options are saved in your Xfire user profile, so they are retained across systems as long as you log in with the same Xfire username. They are all enabled when you create the Xfire account but can then be disabled and enabled by will from...
The first option is Send or receive a message. When this is enabled, you will hear a sound whenever someone sends you an instant message or when you send a message to someone. This option is for out-of-game situations.
The second option Receive a message while gaming controls whether you hear a sound for incoming messages while playing games. This sound is also different to that of the out-of-game message indicator.
The third option is Friend logs on or off. As you might guess from the label, enabling this option will make Xfire play a sound whenever any of your friends log on or go offline.
Next up is Someone joins or leaves a chat room. Enabling this option makes Xfire play a sound effect whenever someone joins or leaves a chat room (obviously). In large chat rooms this option along with the "Send or receive a message" will create quite the orchestral performance of sound effects so you might want to turn them off if you take part of such chat rooms.
Next up you will find the option Send or receive voice chat requests. Enabling this makes Xfire play a dialing tune or ringing sound (or whatever sound effects the selected sound pack has) when you try to call your friend or when you receive a voice chat call.
The last toggleable option is Take a screenshot while gaming. Enabling this makes Xfire play some kind of camera shutter sound when you take screenshots so you know that the screenshot was taken.
All of the above options are saved in your Xfire user profile, so they are retained across systems as long as you log in with the same Xfire username. They are all enabled when you create the Xfire account but can then be disabled and enabled by will from...
