PXP, nifty PC gaming tool, anyone used it yet?
I just saw this article "The end of Alt-Tab" from gameradar. And this PLAYXPERT tool really looks to have great potential.
Edit: BAHHHH! The client d/l link is gone, they are getting ready to put up a new build, darn it! I wanted to try it tonight! 
It’s as if it weren’t bad enough being abandoned in World of Warcraft by a guild member tending to pedestrian concerns like using the bathroom or a baby. Now, thanks to a new game overlay called PlayXpert, you’ll be competing for attention with Facebook, AOL Instant Messenger, iTunes, and potentially any other PC application, all accessible without ever leaving the game.But it doesn’t stop with World of Warcraft. PXP’s overlay works at the kernel level, meaning that it can appear in practically any game, allowing users access to nearly any program they might want or need without exiting the game or setting off any hack detections.
A variety of widgets have already been created for the program (set to release over the summer), including a chat client that can interface with MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and Xfire (among others); a music widget that gives access to iTunes and Winamp; and a web browsing widget. But PXP will also allow user-made widgets, bringing your dream of simultaneously playing Portal and balancing your checkbook (or writing Weighted Companion Cube fan fiction) tantalizingly within reach.
WOWHEAD
PARTNER: Wowhead
STATUS: Widget is available with PlayXpert download as a “default”
DESCRIPTION: The Wowhead widget provides access to the service without having to leave World of Warcraft. Players can research quests, items, characters, and use the Wowhead talent calculator all within the game.VIVOX
PARTNER: Vivox
STATUS: Widget is available with PlayXpert download as a “default”
DESCRIPTION: The Vivox widget brings free voice chat to any game. It supports voice communication in channels and rooms, allows for custom rooms to be created for clans/guilds, and allows players to call each other whether or not they’re in the same game.GOOGLE GADGET
PARTNER: Google
STATUS: Widget is available in the PlayXpert Widget Gallery
DESCRIPTION: The Google Gadget widget allows any Google Gadget to be automatically transformed into a widget that works in-game through PlayXpert. This widget makes over 43,000 Google Gadgets available for in-game use.
So anyone have tried it yet? (I am sure there is some sort of beta going on, spill the beans please! 
) I am surprised that a topic about this tool haven't come up already (maybe it did, and I just missed it?)
Decisions are just decisions, there are neither "good" or "bad"
LobsterMobster wrote:
*In response to being rewarded with a in-game shack for NOT nuking FO3 city Megaton*
Yeah, but if you set off the bomb in Megaton you are rewarded with a parking lot!
Interesting. I don't mind alt-tab, but some games have big problems with it. BF2142 will 90% of the time not recover from alt-tab for me. I have to kill the process manually because it will not restore. TF2 is horrendously slow to recover, though it eventually does so reliably.
Certis wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Registered for this 'steam on crack'.
I hope it works on games you run in window mode.
Your friendly neighbourhood hair splitting singularity.
Aperture scientist is my alter ego.
(I hate badies)
I registered. Once the download link is up I'll be trying it out.
"Faggodouchehole." - Rickyyo
Actually, TF2 has a tendency to turn people invisible after an alt-tab. supposedly they become visible again when they respawn, but being killed by a rocket out of the ether is no fun at all.
01011001 01101111 01110101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110010 01100100 00101110
The download link is now up.
"Faggodouchehole." - Rickyyo
Why do things always happen when I am working!?
Here's the link to d/l
Decisions are just decisions, there are neither "good" or "bad"
LobsterMobster wrote:
That's an awesome idea. A lot of games these days crash when you try to alt tab back in. I will definitely be giving this a shot.
NSMike wrote:
-Steam: Tempest Blayze
Ah yeah, good point. I'd forgotten about that little bug.
Certis wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
New version is up!
STEAM | Live | AoC
I know the plural of anecdote isn't data, but here's my take on it.
I really wanted to like this, but it's not going to work for me until either it gets refined and patched, or I get a better machine. The web browser was very choppy and delayed when scrolling, and from the way it renders pages I'm guessing it's a reskinned Internet Explorer, which makes me cringe. Also couldn't see any support for bookmarks. A web browser without bookmarks? No thanks.
Tried the iTunes music player component as well. The music player window appeared, then froze up, then crashed the whole PXP app. When I quit out of WoW to the desktop there was an instance of iTunes loaded that wasn't there before. So it had loaded iTunes in the background as well. If the app is going to be fully loaded in the background as it is, I might as well just carry on as I am: queuing up a playlst and alt+tab.
I've uninstalled it.
Xbox Live | Backloggery | Twitter
It is a little rough right now and uses up the same memory as STEAM, but not as fluid. Keeping it installed to help test here and there. This still has promise, hopefully they can get all the bugs worked out...
STEAM | Live | AoC
ARISE!
I've been using this for the past... well, awhile now, and it is, indeed, awesome. And it has 3 very important things most other systems don't as of now: Win7 support in both 32 and 64-bit mode, 64-bit in Vista, and Dx10 support. Also: Open API, and anyone who knows C# can make a widget for it. (I'm hacking on a rcon widget in my spare time, for example).
It's had the vast majority of the bugs kicked out, and it's incredibly solid. It's well worth giving another spin. Seriously, go, now.
Parallax Abstraction wrote:
I'm sorry, this runs at the KERNEL level? Wow, they're asking you to trust them an awful lot. Just so anyone knows, if you run something at the kernel level, you're essentially giving it carte blanche access to your PC. If that program (or any individual third party developed widget for it) ever gets compromised, it will have the access needed to hose your PC. To each their own of course but yeah, this isn't going near my machine.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca
Don't lots of things run at a kernel level? Videocard drivers etc??
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
I think Parallax has the right idea there. Ring-0 access plus C# plugins written by inexperienced programmers.... no thank you.
That keeps changing. In NT 3.5, video drivers ran in user space, but that was too slow for good graphic speed back then. They pulled them into kernel space in Windows 2000, which is what allowed bitmap games to run at a decent speed. That's why you could game well on Win2K, but couldn't on 3.51. In Windows 7, they're back into user space again. I assume this is for one of three reasons:
1. CPUs may be faster at context-switching than they were ten years ago;
2. With multicore systems, one core can just stay in the graphics code while the others run the game;
3. Everyone has gone to 3D graphics, instead of 2D bitmaps. 3D is drawn in large swaths of geometry instead of a pixel at a time, so perhaps the context-switch overhead is no longer significant.
Of course, all of those could be partially true, it's not either-or. Or it could be something else entirely. These are suppositions sans evidence.
But note that in all cases, you're dealing with professional programmers who are running their drivers through Microsoft's WHQL program. This utility has total control over anything on the system, and presumably, any plugin could either exploit it or itself be exploited. And there's no quality program I'm aware of to make sure the plugins are well-written.
Staats wrote:
Its not paranoia if everyone is actually out to get you.
True fact.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
It's not paranoia, Guru, it's knowing that C# programmers may not be the sharpest tools in the shed.
Staats wrote:
This isn't a Microsoft certified, digitally signed video driver from a large, public company like AMD/ATI, NVIDIA or Intel, it's a gaming utility written by people I've never heard of that allows third party plug-ins from people I've never heard of and which from what I can tell, has little to no screening process or security policy. Everyone has their own levels of trust of course but I'm just saying that there are a myriad of reasons for me not to hand over the master keys of my system to them.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca
lol I'm sure your right.. I'm smart enough to keep my finances and important stuff on a laptop that I never use for anything else.. my gaming machine is just for gaming so other than keyloggers etc.. (which no doubt this would be at risk at) I'm fairly nonchalant about what I install on it.
But yeah.. I got my WoW account hacked last month with a bogus addon that sneaked into one of the more well known addon websites.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
While I love the sound of the functionality of this little tool, I'm siding with Parallax and Malor on this one. I like my pc, and I don't like giving full system access to someone (or multiple someones) I don't know.
If you can't be a good example, at least be a horrible warning.