Hey everyone,

Many of you might come to this thread looking for a no video PS3 solution and perhaps 80% of your issues/solutions are written in this blog post. However, this post is about a unique problem with the Playstation 3. It could happen for one reason or the other but here’s what happens in the end:

You can hear audio from your PS3, but no matter what you do, you can’t get video. You’ve tried all the tricks on the net but you never get video and you’re sure that your GPU is fine and hasn’t YLOD’ed.

Well, the solution is to get an HDMI-> DVI cable (Dual Link) and hook it up to a monitor that is completely HDCP compatible and can display 480p or 720p and 1080p. That is absolutely necessary and if a monitor is not fully HDCP compatible, this won’t work.

Once you hook it up, reset your PS3′s display settings, which I guess you know how to. Once you’re done with that, you should see you PS3 display on your monitor screen, Voila?

Why does this happen?:

Well, I dunno specifically why this happens but it happened to me because of a power surge while connecting my PS3 to the wall power socket. I heard a small blow and then there was no display.

What’s the logic? How come the PS3 shows display now?

Hmm, that’s a tricky one but I figured that the PS3 has an onboard chip which does all the video scaling called the Super Companion Chip or SCC. This chip is probably the reason why the display has gone bad and you don’t see a display. The PS3 can display quite a lot of different analog and digital video outputs and perhaps in one of these output modes (digital, I presume), the PS3 skips this chip and you get a display. It’s because of HDCP encryption or colorspace, I can’t say. But here’s a clue that supports my theory:

Image Courtesy: (http://www.edepot.com/playstation3.html#PS3_Video)

I have yet to figure out how to force the PS3 HDMI port to display in RGB mode without using an HDMI-DVI cable. If there were a way to check which mode the HDMI port display is in i.e. YCbCr or RGB, perhaps that could solve it.

For Audio, you can use the regular PS3 Composite cable and hook the audio out somewhere. You may also use the PS3 Optical Out to get audio.

Anyhow, if this post helped you, please let me know. I have spent a lot of time researching this and I would like to fix this in a better way.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long time. I’m an old gamer since the days of the Arcade and Atari. I’ve seen games become into what they are today. There used to be a time when I was never concerned about what the game says or if the game carries any political, religious or educational value. But that has changed. I can tell you that games have the least to do with politics, so we can leave that aside. The games used to be educational and that number has decreased to such an extent that I have to put down 6 out of every 10 games that come out in a season. The FPS genre is mostly a waste but I am not going to start a rant about that here.

This brings me to my point. Games should have the least to do with religion. I’m not advocating the use of Cultures or anything else. Russians, Africans, Americans, Italians, Afghanis, Israelis and cultures and phenomena from all over the world have been taken into the gaming worlds. The use of history and facts is good. But I stand against the use of religions in gaming. Not many game developers dare to mess around with religious cults. That is mostly because they are either going to destroy their market or get bad reviews for it. It was once that Microsoft Game Studios did something similar when Koranic verses could be heard in a Fighter game called Kakuto Chojin for the Xbox. Sony recalled LittleBigPlanet from the shelves when a song that had Koranic Verses in it was highly criticized. Now, Capcom has been meddling with this sensitive subject for a long time.

When Resident Evil 5 first debuted, people and organizations criticized Capcom for depicting the poverty and killing of Black people or specifically African people. I wasn’t against it mostly because games have used other cultures equally to depict their stories and the stories are fictional or either based on historical facts, which people or cultures do not have issues with being used in games. So, let’s come to the point. Capcom rolled out Zack and Wiki a long time ago for the Wii. The game had a debut trailer in which a group of characters used the Islamic phrase “Allah o Akbar” and performed a ritualistic dance. The trailer was not taken lightly and Capcom was bombarded with criticism from Islamic faith and organizations. There was also a court filing against Capcom from Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The filed case asked Capcom to remove the Islamic phrase from the game. Capcom quickly recognized the severity of the issue and removed the phrase from the release version of the game and issued a press release with their response. If you haven’t seen the video, you can watch it below:

So, that’s a case of Capcom messing around that people are aware of. I searched around the internet for a long time and could not find a single result where people noticed that Capcom has been depicting Islamic artifacts in its “Devil May Cry” Series. What’s more infuriating is the fact that the artifacts used are of grave importance and respect in the Muslim faith. First, it’s Devil may Cry 3. Linked below is a video from Devil may Cry 3, where Virgil, Dante’s brother, enters the Demon’s domain through a door. Hint: At the end of the video. 2:17-2:19.

Vergil entering the Demon Gate

The texture used to make that door is taken from the Entrance of the Holy Kabah. Also called the Baba’ e Kabah. The use of the texture is completely outrageous. The concept of the game revolves around Demons and Evil Powers. The depiction of demons or evil people entering it justifies the fact that someone at Capcom is messing around. I wouldn’t call them names but it is obvious that the use is taken into account with knowledge of the importance of that artifact.

Here’s another evidence why I call it “someone” acting fishy at Capcom. The next image is from “Devil May Cry 4“, which was recently released to every major platform in the market. The concept of the game revolves around demons like I said earlier and this time they have a so called “prophet” or “holiness” in the game. Linked below is an image taken from the game where “his holiness” is lying on a bed and awakens as a “Demon” or an evil power. The video was large, so I did not link it. However, once can view the video in Mission 5 named “Return of the King”. Click the image to get a larger version.

Notice the texture on the bed. That seems like Arabic writing. I agree that it’s been blurred a bit to lower the chances of it being noticed but if you look closely enough, you’ll notice the glyphs easily.

Now, being a Muslim myself, I condemn Capcom’s act and protest against the use of Islamic artifacts in such defamed manners. Capcom is a very old Game development company and I am a fan but this is not acceptable at all. I do not hold the whole company responsible for the act but some individuals who are actively passing these ideas into their Video Games. I’d appreciate it if the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) take notice of these acts and caution Capcom with the use of these artifacts in their games and in the future.

Hi Everyone,

The title says it all. This is for people who use their monitor with the Playstation3 and especially for those, who develop using the PS3. Now, I have a single monitor where I have both my PS3 and my computer attached through a Tuner and a VGA connection respectively. Starting development with the PS3 and not having my LAN and computer around would have created so many problems for me. Furthermore, I already have a jungle of wires behind my PC cabinet and I did not want to add a KVM switch and two more hardware peripherals for the PS3. I needed a software solution to this and Remote Desktop/VNC would not do it for me, since my PS3 is already connected physically to my monitor. This is where this amazing app called “Synergy” comes into play.

What is Synergy?
Synergy is a software KVM switch. If you do not know what a KVM switch is, you can read this article. A typical KVM switch allows you to use a single set of hardware devices to work with two or more machines, which can be on different Operating Systems. You can learn more about Synergy on its homepage here. I don’t want to explain all that here, since they can explain it way better than I can.

Requirements:

You will need to have the following things in order for this setup to work:

- PS3 connected to a network/internet.
- PC connected to the same network or the internet.
- Synergy installer for Windows/OSX/Linux/PS3 YDL 6.

Downloading the installers depends entirely on your selection. I was unable to find a later release for Synergy 1.3.1 for YDL 6. However, I might compile one on my own and upload it here (I am not making any promises ).

From here on, you can follow the official Synergy guide:

Step 1 – Choose a server
The first step is to pick which keyboard and mouse you want to share. The computer with that keyboard and mouse is called the “primary screen” and it runs the synergy server. All of the other computers are “secondary screens” and run the synergy client.

Step 2 – Install the software
Second, you install the software. Choose the appropriate package and install it. For example, on Windows you would run SynergyInstaller. You must install the software on all the computers that will share the mouse and keyboard (clients and server). On OS X you’ll just have a folder with some documentation and two programs. You can put this folder anywhere.

Step 3 – Configure and start the server
Next you configure the server. You’ll tell synergy the name of the primary and secondary screens, which screens are next to which, and choose desired options. On Windows there’s a dialog box for setting the configuration. On other systems you’ll create a simple text file.

Note that when you tell synergy that screen A is to the left of screen B this does not imply that B is to the right of A. You must explicitly indicate both relations. If you don’t do both then when you’re running synergy you’ll find you’re unable to leave one of the screens.

Windows
On Windows run synergy by double clicking on the synergy file. This brings up a dialog. Configure the server:

* Click the Share this computer's keyboard and mouse (server) radio button
* Click the Screens & Links Configure... button
* Click the + button to add the server to the Screens list
o Enter the name of server (the computer's name is the recommended name)
o Optionally enter other names the server is known by
o Click OK
* Use the + button to add your other computers
o Using a computer's name as its screen name is recommended
o Choose desired screen options on the Add Screen dialog
* Use the controls under Links to link screens together
o Click (once) on the server's name in the Screens list
o Choose the screen to the left of the server; use --- if there is no screen
to the left of the server
o Choose the screens to the right, above and below the server
o Repeat the above steps for all the other screens
* Click OK to close the Screens & Links dialog
* Use Options... to set desired options
* If the server's screen name is not the server's computer name:
o Click Advanced...
o Enter the server's screen name next to Screen Name
o Click OK

Now click Test. The server will start and you’ll see a console window with log messages telling you about synergy’s progress. If an error occurs you’ll get one or more dialog boxes telling you what the errors are; read the errors to determine the problem then correct them and try Test again. See Step 5 for typical errors.

Unix or Mac OS X
Create a text file named synergy.conf with the following:

section: screens
screen1:
screen2:
end
section: links
screen1:
right = screen2
screen2:
left = screen1
end

Replace each occurrence of screen1 with the host name of the primary screen computer (as reported by the hostname program) and screen2 with the host name of a secondary screen computer. In the above example, screen2 is to the right of screen1 and screen1 is to the left of screen2. If necessary you should replace right and left with left, right, up, or down. If you have more than two computers you can add those too: add each computer’s host name in the screens section and add the appropriate links. See the configuration guide for more configuration possibilities.

Now start the server. Normally synergy wants to run “in the background.” It detaches from the terminal and doesn’t have a visible window, effectively disappearing from view. Until you’re sure your configuration works, you should start synergy “in the foreground” using the -f command line option.

On unix type the command below in a shell. If synergys is not in your PATH then use the full pathname.

synergys -f --config synergy.conf

On OS X open Terminal in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder. Drag the synergys program from the synergy folder onto the Terminal window. The path to the synergys program will appear. Add the following to the same line, type a space at the end of the line but don’t press enter:

-f --config

Now drag the synergy.conf file onto the Terminal window and press enter. Check the reported messages for errors. Use ctrl+c to stop synergy if it didn’t stop automatically, correct any problems, and start it again.

The Client

Ok, I am not going to go over configuring different clients in this post, since we are only concerned with Yellow Dog Linux. However, if you still want to do that, you can read about it on their homepage. This is where the tricky part starts. Configuring the PS3 for Synergy turned out to be way more difficult than I imagined. This was not because of Synergy itself but because the PS3′s network configuration kept breaking all the time. I am going to make a seperate post about that, so let’s move on to configuring it.

First install the Synergy RPM that you downloaded from link in the earlier part of this post. You need to make sure that you are connected to the internet for the RPM to install correctly. Once you install it, you can test if synergy can connect to your server by typing:

synergy -f

For example, I did:

synergy -f 192.168.1.2

AutoStarting Synergy with YellowDog Linux

All of this won’t be of any use until this setup always runs automatically whenever we start YDL on the PS3. So firstly, you need to configure your Server to AutoStart Synergy everytime it boots. To configure that, you can follow their official guide on this page.

Synergy requires an X server. That means a server must be running and synergy must be authorized to connect to that server. It’s best to have the display manager start synergy. You’ll need the necessary (probably root) permission to modify the display manager configuration files. If you don’t have that permission you can start synergy after logging in via the .xsession file.

Typically, you need to edit three script files. The first file will start synergy before a user logs in, the second will kill that copy of synergy, and the third will start it again after the user logs in.

The files we need to edit are:

gdm/Init/Default
gdm/PostLogin/Default
gdm/PreSession/Default
gdm/PostSession/Default

You need to be logged in as root to perform the steps below. Open up a terminal and type:

su -

Enter the root password when it asks you to. Now navigate to the following directory:

cd /etc/gdm

Then Type

gedit Init/Default

you need to write the following lines into the file. You should write them somewhere on the top of this file:

/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1
/usr/bin/synergyc

Save it and then open the next file using gedit and enter the following lines into it. Note that this file may be called, Default.sample and you will need to rename it to make it work. It might be empty as well.

gedit /PostLogin/Default

and enter the following lines

/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1

You need to enter the following lines in the next two files at gdm/PreSession/Default and gdm/PostSession/Default.

/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1
/usr/bin/synergyc

Save all the files and verify the changes. Logout and restart the client and once you get past booting screen, you will notice that you can now switch between the server and client screens. The server should also display that the client is connected now. This setup will work for all users but you always need to make sure that your server is running.

So, there you have it.

Regards,
M.H.A.Q.S.