For a limited time only, new users can get $50 free credit on Vultr when they sign up.
Just use the following link
I’ve been using Vultr for over 3 years and highly recommend them. See why here in my review of Vultr and remember, this is for a limited time only!
Problem
I recently attempted to play GTA IV again on Windows 10, and the game would constantly crash on the disclaimer screen, but only while in full screen.
If I modified the launch options to start in windowed mode (type -windowed in the launch options in Steam, by right clicking on the game and clicking properties) the game would work OK.
Fix
The way to fix this, is by first navigating to the GTA IV installation folder (below)
Retail
C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto IV
Steam
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto IV
Once you find the folder, look for the GTAIV (or GTAIV.exe) file, right click and select properties.
In the properties menu, click the compatibility tab. Under settings you should see an option that says Disable full-screen optimisations
Tick this box, then click OK. The game should now work.
About
Note: I am not a lawyer, and this guide is only to show you HOW to reward bits with points. Whether you decide to do so or not is your own decision.
PhantomBot is a self hosted Twitch bot, with lots of features.
One of the features is a points system which allows users to earn points by doing certain things, like watching the stream, playing chat games and donating money.
However, there is no option to reward users with points for cheering using bits.
Why? Well, the reason is the Twitch terms of service, which has some very confusing terms, one of which includes the following:
“offer[ing] Bits in exchange for real or virtual currencies or any other consideration or items of value whether inside or outside of the Twitch Service.”
People have taken this to mean rewarding viewers for cheering is against the Terms of Service. However, this is most likely referring to people offering bits in exchange for real money, or crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin (i.e. I offer someone $50 to buy $100 worth of bits mined by watching ads).
I have asked Twitch for clarification on the matter, but their support is slow and useless. They most likely don’t care, as they’re still making money from it either way. Therefore I have written this guide as I believe PhantomBot uses should be given the choice to reward users who cheer with bits in the same way they do people who donate through other means.
Adding the option
To reward users with bits we need to modify one file.
The file we need to modify is called “bitsHandler.js” and is located in the following folder
<root phantombot folder>/scripts/handlers/
Open this file in your text editor, and you should see the following text on the 9th line
announceBits = false;
Modify this line to the following
announceBits = false, bitsReward = 1;
1 is the amount of points we want to reward the user with for each bit donated. If you leave this set to 1, it means that if the user donates 100 Bits ($1USD) they will receive 100 points.
After you have done this, find the following text in the same file
$.bind(‘bits’, function(event) {
var username = event.getUsername(),
bits = event.getBits(),
s = message;
Directly underneath the text, add the following
/*
reward user with points for giving bits
*/
$.inidb.incr(‘points’, username.toLowerCase(), (bits * bitsReward));
And that’s all there is to it! Your users should now be rewarded with points when cheering with Bits.
Tips/things to note
As I said at the start of the post, I am not a lawyer, and this guide is only to show you HOW to reward bits with points. Whether you decide to do so or not is your own decision.
Should Twitch ever actually bother replying to me, I will update this post.
Thanks for reading.
About
PhantomBot is an open-source Twitch bot which runs on your own computer (unlike web-based bots like Nightbot)
However, some people might like to keep the bot on a separate computer. This way it uses no resources on your gaming/streaming PC and can be left on 24/7 without keeping your PC on.
This guide will show you how to set up PhantomBot on a Linux (Debian-based) VPS
It should work on a VPS/dedicated server with most providers, but I recommend using Vultr as they are a solid provider, with ultra fast hardware and network, and have locations all over the World.
VPS/Requirements
The VPS I will be using is a 512MB RAM VPS from Vultr running Debian 9 (Stretch). Using the latest version of the OS is important as it includes the required version 8 of openjdk. However this guide should work on any OS based on Debian (i.e. Ubuntu)
Creating and connecting to the VPS
Note: you can skip this bit if you know how to connect to your server
Once you have signed up at Vultr, you will be able to create a VPS. Just go to Servers then click the plus sign (+) and choose your location by clicking on the flag (choose the country nearest to you, then click Debian and select 9 x64 then under Server Size choose the specs you want. You should be able to easily run Phantombot on the smallest 512MB RAM package, so choose this one for now. Once you click deploy, wait a few minutes for the server to be created.
Next, download PuTTY from this link. This is the program you will use to connect to your server and run commands. Open the file once it’s done downloading, and set it up like this
Host Name (or IP Address): the IP address given to you by Vultr on the “servers” page (or your VPS provider’s website/control panel)
Port: 22
Saved Sessions: in this box, type a name for your server like “PhantomBot”
After that, click Save, then click Open
Once you click that, a window should pop up and ask you for a password. This is the root password of your server, and will have been emailed to you by Vultr (or you can click on your server in the control panel, and click the eye next to Password.
Once you’ve logged in to your VPS you should see something similar to this
root@vultr:~#
If you see that, move onto the next step. If not, try again or post a comment below and I will try to help.
Setting up the VPS
Note: to paste something in PuTTY, just right click inside the window
Now we need to update our server and install some things. First, you may want to change the password.
To change your password type passwd and press enter. Then it will ask you to choose a password, and after pressing enter it will ask you to confirm it. Type it in again and press enter, it should say passwd: password updated successfully
Next, run the following command to update your server and install unzip (to unzip some files), nano (a commandline text editor which we will use later), openjdk-8 (version 8 of the open Java Development Kit, needed for PhantomBot to run), screen (used to run PhantomBot in the background when you disconnect from the server) and unattended-upgrades (to help keep your server secure)
apt-get update && apt-get -y dist-upgrade && apt-get -y install screen unattended-upgrades unzip openjdk-8-jdk-headless nano
If you used Vultr, it will most likely be updated and already have some of these installed, so shouldn’t take long.
Installing PhantomBot
Note: to paste something in PuTTY just right click inside the window
Visit the PhantomBot website and find the “Stable” release. Right click on “Download” and choose “copy link address” then type in the following command, replacing the link below with the link you got from the website
wget https://github.com/PhantomBot/PhantomBot/releases/download/v2.3.9/PhantomBot-2.3.9.zip --no-check-certificate
Next we need to extract the folder from the zip file. Type in the following
unzip PhantomBot*.zip && rm PhantomBot*.zip
Next we need to navigate to the PhantomBot folder, and then make some files executable so we can run them. Type (or copy/paste) the following command to change to the folder
cd PhantomBot*
Then type the following command to make the files executable
chmod u+x launch-service.sh launch.sh
Now we’re ready to start up a screen session and run PhantomBot. First type the following command to start up a screen session
screen -S bot
Now we can start PhantomBot, and it will keep running when we disconnect from the server! Type the following command to start PhantomBot
./launch.sh
Answer the questions asked by PhantomBot and press enter
Once you have set up the bot, do the following
Hold Ctrl + A, then press D while still holding them
You can now close, PuTTY down and disconnect from the server
To configure PhantomBot, open your web browser and visit the following address, where (YOURIP) is the IP address of your VPS (for example, it might be something like http://1.1.1.1:25000/panel)
http://YOURIP:25000/panel
The username and password is the username and password you specified during the set up of PhantomBot
Tips/things to note
For song requests, instead of /panel you would use /ytplayer and for the song request list it’s /playlist so you can link to this in your chat by making a command called !playlist (easily done in PhantomBot)
Any issues/problems
If you have any issues at all, please leave a comment below.
About
Recently I wrote an article about installing Windows 7 on a VPS as a custom ISO
Well, now Vultr has introduced 512MB VPSes (locations in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia) starting from $2.50 so let’s see how these perform as a Windows VPS!
You can sign up to Vultr here
VPS Specs
First of all let’s see if Windows installs. I am installing Windows 7 as a custom ISO with integrated VirtIO drivers (see my guide above for instructions)
The $2.50 VPS has 1 CPU, 512MB RAM, 20GB HDD and 500GB bandwidth.
Installing Windows
Windows 7 installed perfectly fine, and took about 20 minutes including downloading the custom ISO to the node and booting it.
Performance
After installing Windows 7, I left the paging file size at the Windows managed default (1GB) and disabled visual styles. Performance is great. The fast SSDs make it feel extremely snappy, even though it just has 512MB RAM.
To load speedtest.net I needed to install Adobe Flash. This took less than 30 seconds to download and install.
I then downloaded and installed Adobe Photoshop CS2 (as the free trial is available to download from Adobe without registering). It took about 10 seconds to extract the files and folders from the ~400MB zip file, and the Photoshop installation took about a minute. Photoshop opened almost instantly and was very much usaable, even with 512MB RAM.
I could even keep Photoshop open in the background and browse the ineternet, on Internet Explorer, over remote desktop!
Network Speeds
Here is a speedtest I did. When I created the VPS I selected London, UK as the location but for some reason the IP geo-locates to NJ where Vultr is based.
So here is a speedtest from the UK to the UK.
Overall thoughts
After playing with this VPS for a while, it’s certainly usable for a remote desktop! As it’s in multiple locations across 4 continents, you should have no trouble with latency. And how can we forget it’s only $2.50?
Sign up now and test it out for yourself here
Intro
MTA:SA (Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas) is a widely used multiplayer mod created for San Andreas. This guide will show you how to set up an MTA:SA server on a Linux box.
The first thing you will need is a Linux box with root access. Either a dedicated server or a VPS (Virtual Private Server will do).
I would suggest using Vultr (please use this link to help support me!) for this, as they offer fast and cheap KVM machines in multiple locations across the world, starting from $5/month.
This guide will focus on setting up a Vultr VPS using Debian 8, but should work with other hosts and other Linux distributions, although I can’t guarantee it.
Creating and connecting to the VPS
Note: you can skip this bit if you know how to connect to your server
Once you have signed up at Vultr, you will be able to create a VPS. Just go to Servers then click the plus sign (+) and choose your location by clicking on the flag (choose the country nearest to you, or nearest to where the majority of your players will be. London is a good choice for covering most of Europe as well as the east coast of USA) then click Debian and select 8 x64 then under Server Size choose the specs you want. You should be able to easily host up 50+ players on the smallest 768MB RAM package, so choose this one for now. Once you click deploy, wait a few minutes for the server to be created.
Next, download PuTTY from this link. This is the program you will use to connect to your server and run commands. Open the file once it’s done downloading, and set it up like this
Host Name (or IP Address): the IP address given to you by Vultr on the “servers” page
Port: 22
Saved Sessions: in this box, type a name for your server like “MTA”
After that, click Save, then click Open
Once you click that, a window should pop up and ask you for a password. This is the root password of your server, and will have been emailed to you by Vultr (or you can click on your server in the control panel, and click the eye next to Password.
Once you’ve logged in to your VPS you should see something similar to this
root@vultr:~#
If you see that, move onto the next step. If not, try again or post a comment below and I will try to help.
Setting up the VPS
Note: to paste something in PuTTY, just right click inside the window
Now we need to update our server and install some things. First, you may want to change the password.
To change your password type passwd and press enter. Then it will ask you to choose a password, and after pressing enter it will ask you to confirm it. Type it in again and press enter, it should say passwd: password updated successfully
Next, run the following command to update your server and install unzip (to unzip some files), nano (a commandline text editor which we will use later), screen (used to run MTA:SA in the background when you disconnect from the server) and unattended-upgrades (to help keep your server secure)
apt-get update && apt-get -y dist-upgrade && apt-get -y install unattended-upgrades unzip nano
If you used Vultr, it will most likely be updated and already have some of these installed.
Installing MTA
Note: to paste something in PuTTY just right click inside the window
Now is the bit you really care about. Download and extract the MTA:SA server files by copy and pasting the following command into PuTTY, then press enter.
wget http://linux.mtasa.com/dl/152/multitheftauto_linux_x64-1.5.2.tar.gz && tar -zxvf multitheftauto_linux_x64-1.5.2.tar.gz && rm multitheftauto_linux_x64-1.5.2.tar.gz
Next we want to do the same thing with some default config files. Copy and paste the following command and press enter
wget http://linux.mtasa.com/dl/152/baseconfig-1.5.2.tar.gz && tar -zxvf baseconfig-1.5.2.tar.gz && mv baseconfig/* multitheftauto_linux_x64-1.5.2/mods/deathmatch && rm -rf baseconfig && rm baseconfig-1.5.2.tar.gz
And finally we want all of the default resources, so we’ll create the folder, change to that folder, then download and extract them with the following command
mkdir multitheftauto_linux_x64-1.5.2/mods/deathmatch/resources && cd multitheftauto_linux_x64-1.5.2/mods/deathmatch/resources && wget https://mirror.mtasa.com/mtasa/resources/mtasa-resources-latest.zip && unzip mtasa-resources-latest.zip && rm mtasa-resources-latest.zip
Configuring MTA
Now let’s configure it!
Type in the following command and press enter to open the main server config file
cd ~/multitheftauto_linux_x64-1.5.2/ && nano mods/deathmatch/mtaserver.conf
Now the file is open with nano and we can edit it! Use the arrow keys to move around, and then use it like a normal text editor (backspace to delete, etc.)
The main thing you will want to change is <servername>Default MTA Server</servername>
The bit you want to change is inside the <servername> and </servername> tags, so change it to something like this
<servername>My own MTA:SA server!</servername>
You can also go through and change FPS limit, number of players, etc.
Once you’ve made all of your changes hold Ctrl and press X to save it. It will confirm you want to save it so type Y and press enter.
Now we can start the server
Starting your MTA server
We want to keep MTA running when we disconnect from the server, so we need to use screen. Enter the following command and press enter
screen -S mta
Now we’re inside a screen session. Type the following command and press enter to start MTA
./mta-server64
Wait a few seconds and MTA will now be running.
To leave it running in the background, hold Ctrl + A together, then Press D at the same time.
To then enter the screen session again, type the following command and press enter
screen -r mta
Next we’ll create an admin account
Creating an admin account
Now the server is running, and we can type commands in the MTA console (black screen with the green bar at the bottom) we’ll create an admin account. Enter the following (replacing yourusername and yourpassword) and press enter
addaccount yourusername yourpassword
The server should reply with the following (ACCOUNTS: Console added account ‘yourusername’ with password ‘yourpassword’)
Now, we need to give ourselves admin permissions, so enter the following command and press enter
shutdown
Then type the following command and press enter
nano mods/deathmatch/acl.xml
We’re in nano (the text editor) again. Using the arrow keys to navigate, find the section starting with <group name=”Admin”>
Once you’ve found this, within the section you should see <object name=”resource.admin”></object>
We need to create another object for our user, so in the same section (above or below the other <object> tags) add this, replacing yourusername with your actual username
<object name=”user.yourusername”></object>
Once you’ve added that, hold Ctrl and press X to save it. Type Y then press enter.
Now we can start the server back up. Enter the following command and press enter
./mta-server64
Now we want to leave it running in the background again, so do the following
Hold Ctrl + A, then press D
Aaccessing the admin panel in-game
Note: NEVER give your admin password to anyone. Only ever enter it in the command panel when logging in, make sure you don’t enter it in the chat at all
Now you can disconnect from the server and join your server in MTA! The server address will be the following (replace yourIP with your actual IP)
mtasa://yourIP:22003
Once you’re connected to your server in-game, open the console by pressing F8 and login with the following command (replacing yourusername and yourpassword)
login yourusername yourpassword
Now you’re logged in to your account with admin access, press P in-game to bring up the admin panel, where you can configure everything on the server easily 🙂
Thanks for reading this guide, and if you want to help me, as well as have a great experience on your own MTA server, considering using Vultr as the host and signing up with this link
If you have any issues at all, leave a comment below and I will try to get back to you!
Vultr are doing a new summer promotion which gives new members $20 credit for free!
Vultr are a great host and you can read my review here
Promo link
Update: this has now expired
To get $20 credit for free, simply click this link to register and start using your credit!
It seems in the last few weeks Twitch decided it was a good idea to add this useless feature to your followers page, but thanks to Dragor2 (from Reddit) there is a solution.
First of all you will need an Adblocker installed (I use Adblock Plus) and then you just need to simply add this filter
www.twitch.tv##DIV[class="videos-grid items-grid"]To do this with Adblock Plus, simply right click on the ABP icon, click options, click Add your own filters and then type in the code above and click Add filter.
Now you should get the usual “live channels” and “live hosts” only.
About Gmod and this guide
Gmod (or Garry’s Mod) is a sandbox physics game based on the Counter-Strike: Source engine. The game places you in an empty world with access to items from Source games, and you can do/build anything you want.
This guide will show you how to set up Gmod
What is required?
The only thing you need is a Linux VPS running Debian (or Ubuntu) with at least 512MB RAM (preferably 1GB), a good CPU core (especially a host that allows you to utilise it) and a good connection speed (at least 10mbps up). At least 10GB HDD space for extra maps, mods, etc.
Since many hosts ban gameservers and/or don’t allow you to use a lot of CPU, I would recommend using Vultr since I have used them before and I am very happy with the performance and price. You can also check this thread for any Vultr coupons/offers.
Configuring the VPS
First, we want a clean VPS, so run the following command and hit enter
apt-get remove --purge -y apache2* bind9* sendmail* vim vim-* samba*
Then we want to upgrade everything and also installed some required libraries so run the following command as well and hit enter
apt-get update && apt-get -y dist-upgrade && apt-get -y install lib32gcc1
Then we’ll create a Gmod user so it’s not running as root. Run the following command and hit enter
adduser gmod
Now choose a secure password, and fill in the rest of the info (you can just press enter and leave everything (except the password) blank if you want).
Now log out, and log back in with the gmod user.
Installing Gmod
Before installing Gmod, we need to install the Steam client, so run the following command and press enter
mkdir ~/bin && cd ~/bin && wget http://media.steampowered.com/client/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz && tar -zxvf steamcmd_linux.tar.gz && ./steamcmd.sh +login anonymous +quit
Once that’s installed, we can download and install Gmod. Run the following command which will change to the home directory, download a shell script (you can open this in any text editor to check what it does first) and then run that shell script, which will download Gmod to the gmod folder. Press enter after, and it will show you the progress of the dowload.
cd ~ && wget http://ehwtf.com/gmod/update_gmod.sh && chmod +x update_gmod.sh && ./update_gmod.sh
Starting Gmod
To start Gmod, and keep it running after we disconnect from the VPS, we need to start it in a screen session.
Run the following command and press enter
screen -S gmod
Then, once you’re in a screen session, run the following command and press enter to start the server.
~/gmod/srcds_run -game garrysmod +maxplayers 12 +map gm_flatgrass
Note: changing the number after +maxplayers will change the max player limit. Also, after +map you can choose specify the map. The default maps installed are gm_flatgrass (flat area) or gm_construct (small area with some buildings)
Once the server is running, hold down the Ctrl and A button, and then while doing that, press D on your keyboard. You can then log off your VPS
Stopping and restarting Gmod
To stop Gmod, you need to re-enter the screen session, so enter the following command and press enter
screen -r gmod
Now, to stop Gmod press Ctrl + C
Then type the following command and press enter
exit
To start the server again, follow Starting Gmod section above.
Any issues/errors
If you have any issues, please leave a comment below. I will do my best to reply.
What is a seedbox?
A seedbox is a private server used for uploading and downloading digital files. Since VPSes are cheap and usually connected with speeds of 100mpbs and above they make great budget seedboxes.
What software and configuration is required?
The software installed with this guide will be rTorrent (a command-line torrent client), ruTorrent (a web interface for rTorrent), lighttpd (a webserver used to access ruTorrent), PHP (required by ruTorrent) and Screen (required for running rTorrent in the background)
Removing default apps and upgrading
Since we’re going to be using this VPS for torrents and will install lighttpd, we can remove the pre-installed webserver, mailserver, etc.
To do this, enter the following command and press enter
apt-get update && apt-get remove --purge -y apache2* bind9* sendmail* samba* && apt-get -y autoremove && apt-get -y upgrade
Sometimes, sendmail doesn’t get fully removed, so once that has finished, press the up arrow on your keyboard (which repeats the previous command, without submitting it) and then press enter and let it run again.
Installing and setting up the required apps
To install the apps we need, enter the following command and press enter
apt-get install -y screen rtorrent lighttpd php5-cgi php5-cli curl ffmpeg mediainfo unrar nano && lighty-enable-mod fastcgi-php auth
Setting up the folders
We need a folder for current torrents (session), a folder for ruTorrent to watch (watch) for new torrents, a folder for ruTorrent (/var/www/t) and a folder for the downloads (/var/www/d) so run the following command to create these folders
cd ~ && mkdir rtorrent && mkdir rtorrent/watch rtorrent/session /var/www/t /var/www/d
Installing ruTorrent
Run the following command to install ruTorrent into the /var/www/t folder
cd /var/www && wget https://github.com/Novik/ruTorrent/archive/master.zip && unzip master.zip && rm master.zip && mv ruTorrent-master/ t && chmod 0777 t/share/settings t/share/torrents
Starting rTorrent
We need to run rTorrent in a screen session so it will continue to run when the connection to the VPS is closed. Run the following command
cd ~ && screen -S rt
Then, you’ll have be in a screen session so type the following
rtorrent
Then, hold Ctrl + A and press D which will disconnect the screen session and leave it running in the background
Securing your webserver
Of course, we don’t want everyone accessing ruTorrent and our downloads, so we need to password protect the folders
Run the following command
cd /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled && rm 05-auth.conf && wget ehwtf.com/seedbox/05-auth.conf && nano /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.user && /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart
It will then bring up a blank white window
Head to this site and generate a htpasswd file (delete everything in the left hand box and type in admin (space) yourPasswordHere then click Generate htpasswd content)
Copy everything from the box on the right hand side (example: admin:$apr1$sgwrguwr$egrrrhr) and then go back to PuTTY, press Ctrl + X then type Y and then press enter
Now we just need to make sure we can see a list of files when we access the torrents folder. Enter the following command
echo ‘dir-listing.activate = “enable”‘ >> /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf && /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart
Finished
To test it, access your webserver like this
http://YOURSERVERIP/t
It should ask you for a username and password. Use admin and the password you chose earlier. You should then be able to use ruTorrent. To see downloads, just go to the following address
http://YOURSERVERIP/d
If you find any problems, or it doesn’t ask for a username/password, please leave a comment and I will try to help.