The Anarchy Arcade Legacy Mega FAQ

Anarchy Arcade has gone through several iterations of itself. It's actually rather daunting for new players to get into Anarchy Arcade, as the interface is very nonlinear. This guide is an attempt to solve many of the problems new players face so this guide will hopefully show up for them when they Shift+Tab and hopefully they don't ask the same question in the forums that's been asked like 5 billion times.

Intro

Note: This guide was created when what is currently known as "Anarchy Arcade Legacy" was the current stable version. It has not been updated with information on AA Redux, so keep that in mind when reading this information if you notice any discrepancies.

tl;dr statements are in bold.

"AA Won't start!"

One of the most common complaints about AA is that it crashes on startup, or pressing the buttons on the main menu doesn't do anything. There really is no trick to getting AA to start up. Just keep at it over and over until it does.

EDIT 3/22/2016: This is primarily for Avast! users, but try adding an exception for Anarchy Arcade to your antivirus's exceptions. Avast! seems to consider the UI/Browser process of Anarchy Arcade an illegal hook.

"I get a gradient screen that just says 'Steam Workshop Content'!"

Make sure you're connected to the internet, and then just wait a while. If you have no subscribed workshop content, it should disappear after a while. Otherwise it should start filling up with all your workshop files as they download. If it just doesn't go away, try restarting AA. In a worst-case scenario, you can force a map to start by opening the console (press the ~/` key on your keyboard) and typing "map sm_apartment".

"There's no multiplayer!"

Anarchy Arcade is meant to be a 3D Desktop, so not a lot of people host online servers. The developer hosts infrequently, IIRC. Usually whenever he streams. Multiplayer isn't broken though.

"I can't host multiplayer!"

Some more guides just for you:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=309701495

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=408308573

"AA says I don't have Flash Player, but I totally do! I installed it!"

Okay I'm gonna walk you through this one.

1. Open your web browser. Your real web browser, not AA. Chrome, IE, Edge, what have you.
   
2. Go to https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/.
   
3. Hit the dropdown and choose the version of Windows you use.
   
4. In the other dropdown, press "FP XX for Firefox (NPAPI)" where XX is the version number.
   
5. Uncheck the McAfee trial (unless you want it).
   
6. Download and run the program.

While that's downloading, here's a little writeup I did on why you need to do this:

Source

Originally posted by Orangestar:

Originally posted by reygar:

so i would have to install firefox to fix this?

Not at all.

NPAPI stands for "Netscape Plugin API". It's an API for browser plugins designed for the Netscape browser. When Netscape became Firefox, the plugin API came with it, and other browsers started adopting that plugin style.

As plugins started becoming more worldwide, the W3 (basically the higher-ups who decide on web standards) designed a new plugin API called the "Pepper Plugin API", or PPAPI. All browsers started adapting it except for Firefox, which still uses the semi-outdated NPAPI.

Awesomium, the browser that Anarchy Arcade uses, still requires this old NPAPI version of Flash since it doesn't have any way to utilize PPAPI plugins. (At least, I don't think. I haven't developed in Awesomium.)

tl;dr No, it's just called that because Firefox is cranky.

"The browser looks all weird/pixelly/low-resolution!"

It should! Anarchy Arcade's browser runs at 1280 pixels in width by 720 pixels in height, which you might recognize as 720p. This is, again, due to Awesomium (AA's browser) being weirdly unoptimized and attempting to lower its memory footprint. There is a command to change the internal browser's size, but I wouldn't recommend it, since every time I used those commands AA went into a crash loop. And this was back before crash loops just happened!

Even the dev says it doesn't work quite right.

Source

Originally posted by SM Sith Lord:

Originally posted by Orangestar:

Is there an option (or, could there be an option) to set a prefered browser resolution? It'd be a nice way to let people decide whether to save preformance on their older systems or have a clearer view on newer systems.

There is a console command to change resolutions, however, it has side effects (other than just the performance lag.) If you want to try it out to see how your computer would perform if the other side effects were fixed, here are the commands to set it from 720p to 1080p:
hdview_width 1920; hdview_height 1080;

Note that one of the side effects is that AArcade will still request 720p versions of videos from YouTube, not 1080p. So to stream true 1080p from YouTube, you will have to click the little cog on the video and change it to 1080p each time.

Again, there are other issues besides just the performance, so you'll probably want to set it back to 1280 x 720 after you're done checking it out.

"My games don't show up!"

First, try opening the console (the ~ key on your keyboard) and typing in this:

getmysteamgames 1

This will query your Steam profile for all your games. It should do this automatically every so often, but you can force it like that.

Other games you have to add manually using the Browse button. You can also add specific steam games by typing in their app IDs into the green box. (I.E. to add AA you would type "266430", since the URL for AA's Steam Community is http://steamcommunity.com/app/266430.)

"The Delete button in my library doesn't work!"

Hold shift while you click "Delete". It's a rather obtuse method of preventing you from accidentally deleting something.

"I can't select any more cabinets!"

Go to the menu and hit "Tickets".

As you can see, I have a lot.

This way you can unlock cabinets that you want now and save the ones that you don't care for until later. Tickets are earned through various methods: putting items in your library, launching games through cabinets, discovering new maps, and all that, and all that.

This section was edited on 9/12/2015 at 12:55 AM, since the old unlocks system was entirely dummied out.

"I can't find any props I unlock!"

Make sure to change the object type filter to "props" first.

"I can't visit any custom maps!"

Hit "Custom Game". It's kind of obtuse.

"I want to wipe my arcades or wipe my library. How do I do that?"

Right click Anarchy Arcade in your Steam Library.
Click "Properties".
Click "Browse Local Files".
Visit "aarcade" and then visit "maps"
Find the files with the extension ".set" and delete them. Those maps will be reset.
Go back one folder and visit "library"
Select every folder besides "props" and delete them. That will remove all items from your library.

"I can't use more than one screen!"

Anarchy Arcade purposefully limits the amount of browser windows you can have open to reduce its memory footprint. There are ways to get around it though:

How to use Pockets

Hold R over the item you want to constantly run. This item is now in your pockets, and you can tap the R key to view the item. You can select other screens while this item is running. To empty your pockets, don't look at any cabinets and hold R.

Notice, the DOOM cabinet's still playing even though Kanye's selected.

How to use Slave Screens

Create a cabinet that you want to use as your "Slave". This cabinet will display the video of any other cabinets you select.

For the purposes of this tutorial, the CD Case is our "master" and our Big Screen TV is our "slave".

Select the slave (the cabinet you want to project to), select the filing cabinet icon from the toolbar on the left, and click "Filters".


Here, select "Screen ONLY" (or Marquee ONLY, or Screen and Marquee, whichever is available.)

You can also randomize the item, which helps for slaves that normally have no default cabinet planned to be set.

And you're all set!

You'll notice an item at the bottom labeled "Slave channel". As long as both the master and a slave are on the same channel, they will connect, and the master item will display on the slave. You can change this channel if you only want specific cabinets to project to your slave.


Since I didn't change the slave channel from 0, any cabinet I select will project, and not just my intended master.

Remember, Anarchy Arcade is meant to be a replacement for your DESKTOP. It's not meant to replace your media player, browser, or what have you, so you should still be alt+tabbing to your browser to do the heavy lifting.

"I can't position things well!"

Sadly, the best answer I can give is "Deal with it." If you want, you can press O on your keyboard to make the currently-selected cabinet suddenly have physics. You can then use the V key to position it like you would with a Gravity Gun in HL2. (You can also use X to blast it away!)

Other nifty, semi-undocumented things you can do to cabinets:

• You can rotate an object by holding E and moving the mouse left and right. Your viewpoint will still move though.
  
• You can hold Shift and then move the mousewheel to scale something. To bring it back to normal, just right click to cancel it.

"Sometimes I get knocked around by invisible stuff!"

Check out this handy post by forum user oke_doke:

Originally posted by oke_doke:

"Invisible clutter" is apparently the collision meshes of shortcuts placed in nodes which are left behind as a bug in the process of shortcuts loading when you enter the map. This only affects the area immediately surrounding a maps point of origin. ("0,0,0") So its only a problem in maps where its origin happens to be in an accessible area. The developer is aware of the issue.

"I can't pass the tutorial!"

If you are unable to get past the tutorial due to being unable to select a picture, make sure the picture you are using ends in the extension .jpg or .png.

Honestly, the tutorial is pretty bad. If you want to, you can just use noclip to skip it if you really can't get it to work.

"I can't publish things!

Publishing a whole arcade save to the workshop is easy. Just pause, hit "Publish to Workshop" and follow the instructions.

Ok so publishing individual items is kinda broken in AA right now. Here's a nice little guide to make it as painless as possible.

STEP 1: VISIT AN EMPTY MAP.

I mean it. Go somewhere you never have before (in AA) so you get a nice, clean map.

STEP 2: PLACE YOUR ITEM.

Just set it down anywhere it'll look appealing in a screenshot.

STEP 3: PRETEND LIKE YOU'RE UPLOADING A SAVE.

Pause, "Publish To Workshop", and then do the obvious.

STEP 4: UNCHECK THE SAVE.

At the top of the "Package Files" list, there'll be an entry starting with "(SAVE)". Uncheck that.

STEP 5: TAKE A SCREENSHOT.

When you take the screenshot, it'll re-check your checked package files and update the package accordingly, so that will get rid of that save in your files.

The rest should be pretty obvious.

"I don't hear sound when previewing a local video file!"

Originally posted by SM Sith Lord:

If you go into aarcade/bin and copy the libertro_sound_enabled/client.dll into the bin folder (replacing the duplicate) then libretro sound can be enabled from the in-game options menu. You'll want to turn libretro's frame delay to 0 in there too.

Source

So why is it disabled by default? Here's a long answer.
Source

Originally posted by Orangestar:

I should probably actually explain what's going on there rather than being all ambiguous and snarky.

First off, Libretro is a library which handles output and input methods for media applications, so those applications can focus on what their application was meant to do rather than getting hung up on all the little things like proper controller handling and audio sample rate. AA implements Libretro (thus allowing you to use its "cores" to run as previews) and ships with the ffmpeg core to play videos.

Libretro implements what is called "Dynamic Rate Control" that fluidly changes the audio and video sample rate to make sure the both of them are properly synced up. This is similar to how VSync works (but actually different enough.) Nowadays we have things like variable refresh rates (under names like G-Sync and FreeSync), but this is not supported by libretro and doesn't look like it will for some time, as it can be achieved hackily.[github.com]

Moving onwardly, running these video previews inside AA means there's a lot of overhead, what with it being played inside the Source engine and all. On lower end machines, this causes crazy stuttering of the audio and sometimes either dropped or prolonged frames in the video.

So basically yeah, it's just a preview.

Honestly I'm surprised at the demand for local video previews. Here I was thinking everyone streamed their videos through Google Play, Amazon, or Netflix nowadays. *cough or shady streaming sites cough*

How do I add custom maps or mount other games?

Here's a big guide I wrote that answers both of those questions!

"I added too much stuff to a map! Now when I load it, I get crashes about 'edicts', 'memory', and 'overflows!'"

If you've added too many cabinets to a map, you might exceed the amount of memory your computer lets the Source engine use. If you don't want to just start over fresh, here is how you can remove the last few items you added to a map.

1. Open your file explorer here:
   

   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Anarchy Arcade\aarcade\maps\

2. You should see several files with the extension ".set". These tell AA what cabinets to load for each map. The set files have the same name as the maps they go to. Find the set for the map you're having trouble opening. (So, if you couldn't open the Party Cabin, you'd look for sm_acreage.set)
   
3. Open the set file in a text editor. Make sure the text editor you're using supports "LF" line endings. Windows Notepad will only support "CRLF" line endings, so everything will be all on one line. I recommend Notepad++[notepad-plus-plus.org].
   
4. Here's a diagram about the structure of the file:
   

   "arrangement"
   {
       "map"  "sm_acreage" //This is the name of the map
       "objects"  //This stores all the cabs and props you've made.
       {
           "prop_hotlink" //This is the definition for one prop
           {
               "origin"    "-85.0312500000 303.1562500000 136.5695648193"
               "angles"    "0.0000000000 180.0000000000 0.0000000000"
               "itemfile"    "library\pc\3b479e64.itm"
               "model"    "models/cabinets/brainiac.mdl"
           }
       }
   }
   

   There will be several "prop_hotlink" items. All you have to do is delete some of the last ones in the list. (The props are added as they are made, so the last ones in the list will be the last ones you've made.) To delete them, you just delete "prop_hotlink" plus everything inside the curly braces ({}) surrounding the prop properties, plus the braces themselves. So if I wanted to manually remove the cabinet in our example diagram, It would end up looking like this:
   

   "arrangement"
   {
       "map"  "sm_acreage" //This is the name of the map
       "objects"  //This stores all the cabs and props you've made.
       {
       }
   }
   

   So just delete a few props and cabs until you think you've freed up enough memory.
   
5. Save the file, and reopen the map. The last cabinets you added should be gone now, but hey, you can load the game!

"The game always crashes when I launch a specific map! Something screwed up!"

Since I already answered this in a forum thread I'll just copy it.

Originally posted by Orangestar:

This actually isn't a new bug, but I can't seem to find it by searching anymore (weird!) so here's your benefit of the doubt.

Basically if you had recently unsubscribed from the item (or you're offline when you tried to spawn it, or the uploader uploaded it wrong, or any number of other things) then AA will crash due to not being able to find the item.

Anyway, you can remove the prop by modifying the .set files. These files are located in your AA directory, under the folder "maps". Just open the .set file for the map you can't launch, and delete the entry that's giving you trouble. (It's probably the last entry, since I believe it adds them chronologically.)

If the .set files are opening in a way that you can't see any of the line breaks, then you'll need a text editor that can read "Unix-style", or "LF" line endings. Windows Notepad can only read "Windows-style", or "CRLF" line endings. I recommend Notepad++ or Atom.

Now I'm gonna go add this to my guide.

"Isn't this piracy?"

No. No files are transferred between you and any other people. AA resources are commonly delivered through the web. Players must point AA cabinets to their own local copies of files.

"I can't play the games in the cabinets!"

I feel like this is the most grating of the common questions.

The cabinets you see in AA are meant to be viewed the same way you'd see shortcuts on a desktop: they're there to launch the game and nothing else. Normal games can't run inside the cabinets, but you can run some emulated games inside the cabinets with limited success. I'll walk you through doing that.

AA incorporates what is called Libretro[www.libretro.com], which is a library that basically handles things like input, display, and other such things. It's kind of trying to be a middle man between emulators, and you using those emulators.

Anyway, AA comes with a few "Libretro cores" so it can play videos and such. You can see these cores in the "cores" folder. (<Where you have Steam installed>\steamapps\common\Anarchy Arcade\aarcade\cores) These cores are DLL files that contain all the information on the emulator, video player, etc. Libretro reads this info and then interfaces with it, by handling all the input, display, sound, etc.

Libretro provides cores for many popular emulators on their site. All you have to do is download them from this link[buildbot.libretro.com] and put them in the "cores" folder. Now your previews should be nice and Libretroy.

For further customization, there's a file labeled "libretroCorePriorities.txt". You can edit this file, and reorder or add cores based on your needs. It should be pretty easy to add a new one.

"No, I mean I don't know how to launch the shortcuts!"

Oh. Well, then there's two ways to do that.

1. When you open a cabinet fullscreen (that is, click it and click it again) you should see a green toolbar on the left. Simply click the play button on that toolbar.

2. Go to the options and bind a key to "Quick Launch". Now, whenever you press that key, AA will launch the game you currently have selected.

"You lied! This isn't everything! I have more questions!"

Oh, sorry about that. You might want to take a look at the official Bugs and Fixes thread or leave a comment below (or forum post!) and we'll be glad to take another crack at your question.

[wtsfno]

@F'UUS_THE_SLAYER
.set files are located in:

~\steam files\steamapps\common\Anarchy Arcade\aarcade\maps
You will need to match up the .set file to the map and workshop file, but this is my only suggestion for clearing the map (delete the .set and it should just wipe the map clean of every thing, open it with a notepad and you can edit it, but that takes guess work).

~\steam files\steamapps\common\Anarchy Arcade\aarcade\workshop
has something related to the workshop. The folder number should match the subscription, but I don't know 100% how to interact with all of that.

All modifications are at your own risk, I reccomend doing a backup (just copy the file somewhere) before editing them.

[Orangestar]

I personally haven't tried Redux yet, unfortunately. This guide is for Legacy only. (I'll update the guide title to represent this in a moment.)

@F'UUS_THE_SLAYER: Unfortunately the only fix there is to unsubscribe from the save, and pray to Jesus the library updates automatically. Those specific library items are saved in the Workshop download folder and I have no clue where that is.

[☆Nebula-Belt☆]

I cant find the .set exenstion, I only wanna remove the pictures though cause A custom map had a save filled with them and they make game laggy when I go to the pictures tab thing?

[Orangestar]

Actually that sounds like an awesome suggestion you should make to Sith himself. I'd totally use a function like that.

[Lazerwolf]

Is there a way to auto-focus on a cabinet just by looking at it? I want the cabinet trailer to auto-play when you walk up to it, instead of having to select it manually first. Thanks

[Yami_Industries]

how do I create a good map for AA?? I'm not the kind of guy who can fix every last micro detail in a map and I just want to make a cool house for me and my distant friends

[osaker]

How do I get other models or player skins like what the kool kidz have?

[✨Big~Aires~Crybaby✨]

NVVMVMVMVVGNVVN MVMVVM

[✨Big~Aires~Crybaby✨]

how to spawn stuff?

[MOUSE]

ok thanks m8 ill fill you in if it works or not