MfaktX Controller (Windows)

Mini-Geek · 2013-04-13, 20:36

This is an app inspired by the MFAKTx speed menu batch file. It is a .Net 4.5 app that lets you choose the speed of mfaktx (slow/medium/fast) and start/stop it through a UI. Like the batch file, it requires you to set up slow/medium/fast .ini files, and it copies that into the real .ini file location. When you start it, it automatically begins at the Fast speed. A text area shows the output from mfaktx. It optionally detects when you're not using your PC by watching for the screen saver. A short time (checks every 15 seconds) after the screen saver comes on, it switches to Fast, and a short time after it goes away, it switches to Medium.

It's only been tested on my computer with mfaktc. I don't know enough about mfakto to tell you it will or won't work, but judging by the simplicity of the mfaktx speed menu batch file, I'm hopeful that it will. I'd expect everything except the idle detection to work on other platforms using Mono: the idle detection uses Windows APIs to check on the screensaver.

I'd recommend that you set the CheckpointDelay in your .ini's to 0 (immediate updates), since the controller will immediately close mfaktx instead of trying to close it nicely (I tried to do that, but it added a lot of complexity and didn't work well; Windows is surprisingly bad at the seemingly-simple task of programmatically nicely killing another process, and knowing when that's done). The speed gains you can get by having mfaktx run at its fastest speed when possible can easily outweigh the small losses of this partial work being lost.

Source and binaries are available at https://github.com/Mini-Geek/mfaktx-controller

Mini-Geek · 2013-04-13, 21:11

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swl551 · 2013-04-13, 22:02

You can use and redistribute my SendCtrlCode.exe to handle the CTRL-C signalling to execute a graceful shutdown. Grab it from inside the lastest misfit release.

Run it from the command line to see expected parameter list.

swl551 · 2013-04-13, 22:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

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Nice job by the way. Xyzzy will go CRAZY with joy!

Mini-Geek · 2013-04-14, 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by swl551

You can use and redistribute my SendCtrlCode.exe to handle the CTRL-C signalling to execute a graceful shutdown. Grab it from inside the lastest misfit release.

Run it from the command line to see expected parameter list.

Thanks. I had looked at that (and a similar program) earlier on, but I was on the wrong track and spun my wheels for a while - I don't need to keep track of when SendCtrlCode.exe closes, but when mfaktc.exe closes.

I've made use of that now, and added some other minor features. My recommendation of putting CheckpointDelay at 0 no longer stands. I've put the client build out on github:
https://github.com/Mini-Geek/mfaktx-...roller-win.zip
Since I'm past the time that I can edit my post, if any mods are reading this, I'd like if the zip I attached in the first post could be removed and the last line changed to: "Source and binaries are available at https://github.com/Mini-Geek/mfaktx-controller"

Quote:

Originally Posted by swl551

Nice job by the way. Xyzzy will go CRAZY with joy!

Thanks. I hope more than myself will find a use for it. It seems like it's taken way more work than it's worth.

swl551 · 2013-04-14, 11:40

Code:

 
privatebool processStop()
{
//call must wrap this call in try/catch
bool SentStopSignalOK = false;
int counter = 0;
foreach (string pname in globals.cfg.settingStopProcessList) //list of process names found in your INI file
{
Process[] processList = Process.GetProcessesByName(pname);
if (processList.Length > 0)
{
foreach (Process P in processList)
{
ProcessStartInfo Pinfo = newProcessStartInfo(Globals.APP_CTRLC_SIGNAL, P.Id.ToString() + " 0");
Pinfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Minimized;
Process.Start(Pinfo);
counter++;
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(20);
}
}

}
if (counter > 0)
SentStopSignalOK = true;
else
SentStopSignalOK = false;
return SentStopSignalOK;
}

Xyzzy · 2013-04-14, 16:19

A very awesome program!

We did not notice any documentation but editing the XML file seems to explain everything.

We had to download the .Net 4.5 stuff but it prompted us to do this automatically.

By default it starts on the fast setting. Having a choice which speed to start with would be very cool.

We do not understand how to use the scroll buffer. If we scroll up the next update scrolls it back down. (How many lines can we reasonably buffer? 10,000? 100,000?)

We are unable to (using two separate directories) run two instances for two different video cards. Are we missing something?

Thanks a bunch!

Xyzzy · 2013-04-14, 16:39

Quote:

We are unable to (using two separate directories) run two instances for two different video cards. Are we missing something?

We renamed the mfaktc binary to different names and now both run!

(We are tempted to try to get everything to run from one directory but it works right now, and we are lazy. Perhaps some rainy day we will revisit that.)

swl551 · 2013-04-14, 18:12

Quote: