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CoolKirby wrote:
That blue palette (<) looks good; bright and easy to look at. I can't think of a better palette for those games at the moment. Dark blue (A+<) as tested in BizHawk just looked dreary.
Alyosha wrote:
I got GB Rockman World 3 resynced and console verified.
Are these ready to add to movie descriptions? By the way, how much "resyncing" is acceptable for it to still be considered a verification of the original run? For example, GBC SpongeBob had ~3 seconds added to allow for the BIOS and LCD on/off, though there might have been one where more was changed. Possibly Sonic Advance?
Or if every verification is valid in regards to timing, etc., could I go ahead and add ViGadeomes' Asterix verification to its movie description?
Personally, I don't add the verified flag if I have to change the movie file in any non-trivial way (and the only things I consider trivial are adjusting for a small number of lag frames or start up time.) I'm not sure there is any standardization to it though.
I had to do significant RNG manipulation in the Rockman World games, so I didn't add the flag to them.
I'm not sure about Asterix, I think it would be better to have a video without that pulsating white light, but that's just me.
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MarioAtWork wrote:
https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/637914247853512136
Thanks for pointing those out, no idea how I passed over them (though I only managed to save a single frame on level 8). I think I also saved a few more frames in other stages since lag frames changed and entire levels needed to be redone so the total timesave is 32 frames
But you didn't get the left most coin first in level 8.
https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/637914350042523770
Here is a file that does so, as well as improves the last level with a different route. It also has other miscellaneous improvements.
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Really neat homebrew, a bit short but looks really polished.
Run is a bit unoptimized though. Level 2 has an obvious wasted jump, and level 8 is faster by getting the left most coin first.
I still vote yes though, looking forward to seeing some more homebrew TASes.
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https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/637911057476180327
Here is a file with improvements in level 2 and 5. In particular level 5 is improved by jumping off ledges to fall faster, which is a pretty common technique to be aware of.
(I don't want to be added as co-author.)
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On the 'Movies by Genre' tab of 'https://tasvideos.org/Movies' the 'Unofficial game' genre does not work (it links to '-uofficialgame' but needs to be '-Unofficial game' for it to work (but judging by the other genres maybe '-unofficalgame' is actually what's intended.))
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Link to video
Finally got Rockman World 4 resynced. I think every Mega Man run on GB/C has a console verified version now (not counting the bootleg one) so that's kind of neat.
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Battletoads 2 player warps: cool glitches and RNG manip (especially wind enemies on the last level.)
Prince of Persia: not the most exciting but really cool work went into it, good for discussion.
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Link to video
I used the blue palette for Rockman 5 (Rockman 4 is giving me some issues) and I think it looks pretty good, there are a lot of sky scenes in this one so blue one makes sense even though mega man is red.
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Link to video
I got GB Rockman World 3 resynced and console verified. However it turns out that I can also change the palette without breaking sync.
So for cases where palette changes don't otherwise effect the run, does anyone have an opinion on which palette they think looks best?
Personally I like the contrast in the default palette, but admittedly sometimes the green backgrounds don't look very good. Grey scale looks ok but its not as easy to follow everything that's happening sometimes. Maybe some other palette can work?
I plan on working on Rockman World 4 and 5 as well, so I'm open to suggestions.
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ViGadeomes wrote:
Here we go with my first console verification and maybe also the first PAL TAS ! The quality isn't the best but I wasn't able to do better without having to put an epilepsy warning....
https://tasvideos.org/1701M : https://youtu.be/RQocCif2IVM
Woah cool new verifications and PAL TASes, good luck! Unfortunately I had to stop watching your encode after a few seconds as the pulsating flashes made it very uncomfortable, but still a good start.
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Well I guess those movies would sync on your (or TIKevin83's) consoles then. Maybe I'll get a better flash cart so I can read out the state of my console and compare.
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Game: GBC Pocket Bomberman (Jump mini game)
Emulator: BizHawk: 2.8 (GBHawk or Gambatte)
Console Verification Device: Gameboy Player with GBI
Movie:https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/637893651321154009 (GBHawk)
https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/637893650773641622 (Gambatte)
Description of Desync: Desyncs randomly in stage 2 at the first boss enemy.
Research: The game is effected by uninitialized WRAM. The GBA start up state used in the movies does not produce working results on console. Both floor and ceiling settings were used for dumping inputs in both movies without improvement. It seems start up state is inconsistent.
Possible Next Steps: A movie with initial WRAM set to 0 and using a RAM clearing cart syncs right away. Previous research seemed to verify that initial WRAM had a consistent start up state but this does not appear to be the case. Could it be something to do with GBI?
Status: Open
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I have console verified the most recent Super Robin Hood WIP (as well as the other existing Quattro Adevnture TASes.) not sure what's left to do for a new TAS, but it should be verifiable whenever it gets done.
Link to video
Note that Quattro runs use a reset in order to skip the opening code masters screen. In the verifications this is done manually, as it is not too timing sensitive, but it does require an extra poll added to the input file as the bot detects it as a poll.
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I resynced (and console verified) the current 2P NTSC run in the latest BizHawk version: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/637883069676489831
After doing so, I realized the first bonus stage could be done quicker by moving Mario to the right once he reaches the top floor instead of to the left. this saves about 40 frames. It can also be used to end input a little earlier on the last bonus stage. I'm not sure about the 2 in between due to ice physics.
I didn't feel like resyncing everything again so I'm leaving this here as a known improvement for anyone interested.
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feos wrote:
I mean DriarNROM(UE).nes used in the previous submission is newer judging by file metadata, it's mentioned in fm2 metadata, linked from the submission, and didn't require adding delay.
I'd be fine with using the version from the nesdev thread, but it seems like that version is not the author's original work. I guess it's recompiled with different settings? Should the author's version should be preferred?
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-removed superceded by movie below-
If anyone is interested here is a run that implements the above route Morrison mentioned. It doesn't actually beat Kraid, but it at least gets there.
Here is a link to the lua file as well to see what's happening: https://www.speedrun.com/resourceasset/p57a4
Anyone can feel free to use this file, I don't really plan to work through the rest of the resyncing.
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I tested two more Super Mario All Stars runs, both desync:
Lost Levels Luigi: Luigi gets hit by a fish in 3-2, seemingly deterministically (3/3 trials.)
Mario 3: Mario gets hit by the second goomba in 1-1, seemingly deterministically (3/3 trials.)
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ViGadeomes wrote:
This movie didn't console verified so I'll probably ask for a delay to change the inputs if needed whenever the problem is fixed. Thanks !
Always interesting to see which seemingly benign games end up desyncing. It looks like in TIKevin83's attempt it desynced at around 1:30, the girl moves differently on console then emulator.
I'll look into it if it doesn't get resolved, but my guess would be that input timing just needs to be fiddled with.
I'm not sure exactly, there were a couple spots with extra lag, and 2 stages desynced as I was progressing through the game, but I wasn't really keeping an exact log, 5 is just an approximate number.
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I'm glad at least a couple major glitches survived into the final run, cool stuff.
Really looking forward to seeing what your bot can do with other games as well.
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Morilli was able to make a test build where I can change the clock speed of co-processor chips so I could test the impact on some of the desyncing runs.
The behaviour of MMX3 definitely changes with different CX4 speed, so that's something, but I have no way of measuring what the clock rate of my cart is, so I can't really do too much else except note that it's an important variable.
For SMK Star Cup run, I didn't see any change in behaviour. The default clock rate is 7.6 MHz, and I ran the run at both 7 and 8 MHz with no difference. I'm not sure what the variability of a ceramic oscillator is, but 5% seems like a lot, so I would think if it was the clock rate I would have seen some difference, but it's just a guess, maybe I'll try a wider range. EDIT: the run syncs in a range from 7-8.2 MHz. It desyncs at 7.95 and 8.3 MHz due to bad item RNG on the first level, so seems pretty unlikely this is a clock issue.
