well I don't ever update aim anymore since newer versions have only gone worse over time, the best version imo is 5.5.3572
so I don't know if it can share files or anything, but I've heard of other people having trouble with that on newer versions so I'd suggest getting the following:
http://oldapps.com/download.php?oldappsid=aim553572.exe
AIM has a feature that lets you share a defined folder or more of files. Although it can leave you vulnerable unless you make sure to set it so you have to answer a prompt to approve every connection, it works well between versions of AIM (at least, did for me). Your normal file transfer might still work so try that first... I had the same issues with newer versions of aim you do. Now that they got rid of AIM Triton, the newest version isn't so bad actually, but 5.5.x remains the best version imo, especially coupled with DeadAIM...
MMF is looking excellent so far, CF. I've seen your LR video several times now and it's still going to be that much more exciting to see the whole mushroom cup once it's finished.
For what it's worth I was playing around with Toad's Tool tonight (which sounds graphic) and have come to the conclusion that it is not the seam which allows getting inside the lobby pillar possible. The reason it works is that the _edge_ of the floor of the main lobby above is directly adjacent to the ceiling of the basement stairs. Mario reaches the condition where he's about to grab onto a ledge, and this is checked for while completely ignoring collision checks (other than the flat surface being climbed onto). virtually every diagonal is a seam at least as big as the one you go through, but the game normally won't let you pass through... tries to be good about preventing you from going out of bounds, since they made out of bounds lead to instant death. The ledge check occurs and Mario is allowed to be out of bounds breifly, completely invincible to all death checks, until he climbs up and is standing on the new surface.
Logically this would mean that the same can be done at any situation where Mario's head is near enough to the edge of floor that is possible to climb onto that the climb would trigger. Everyone does the one on the spiral stairs and it's the same thing. So, technically, both the lobby glitch and the spiral stair glitch are true out of bounds situations.
Sorry if that was obvious or known already. It should be possible to use Toad's tool to look at game courses and find places where an indiscrete floor extends enough through a wall that you can get close enough to the edge, from the other side of that wall, to trigger the grab and climb. Particularly in levels where seemingly useless BLJ spots exist, we can go through objects and traverse under or inside them anywhere so long as a floor is below us.
A different force than the collision check walls is at play inside the dark rooms behind loading doors. What I want to know is what makes it possible to BLJ inside certain ones... seems like it has to do with the shape of the invisible boundarys inside the black rooms (one behind the upstairs door in the main lobby is very easy to do... probably a sloped 'sticky area' that lets you get stuck). When you BLJ in the pillar it's actually the slanted ceiling polygon from the stairs below that you get stuck underneath. I read somewhere it's possible to BLJ inside the area in the main lobby behind the basement door too (although I know it can't be done in any of the basement dark rooms). The only problem with the type of surface that is sticky is that you press against it and stay in the pushing animation even if you turn away afterwards, which kills your speed.
I think that's one of the problems with trying to emulate such a system. Unless I'm completely off-track, I assume that the chip inside the NES which draws things on screen and launches NMIs for the CPU works independently, regardless of what the CPU does. In other words, the chip is most probably not synchronized in any way with the CPU clock. This means that an NMI launched by this chip may happen at any time, but the CPU can only handle it no sooner than at the next clock cycle.
What this means is that, given the right conditions, a lag frame may happen or not, depending on how the graphics chip happens to launch the NMI. This means that in the real NES the lag frame may happen or not even if the input was exactly the same. It all depends on when the graphics chip started drawing the screen, which may not be completely synchronized with the CPU clock (but most probably with the 50/60 Hz AC electric input of the system, while the CPU simply has its own clock chip which starts when the system boots).
In theory someone could create a hardware device and program interface that could read FCM (or other) files over a serial port and operate an accurate cycle to feed input into an NES controller port, thus effectively running a TAS on a console. In practice there are probably many more ways than all the ones mentioned so far in which such a setup could desync. Perhaps a bit irrelevant but I'm wondering if anyone else ever imagined that happening (ignoring for a moment all the complications that would arise).
Out of curiosity for that walljump launch thing, did you check to see if you stop moving upwards once you fire, or if different weapons send you moving at different speeds? If it doesn't immediately halt your upward velocity to shoot that would be a way to get much further than waiting till the peak of the jump.
Also just wanted to say I read most of this thread and found it interesting how you started out and gradually became quite good at memory watching. I have no experience at memory watching emulated games but I've dealt with it plenty on PC games and so I know it's not always easy to find what you're looking for. You almost always improve your abilities when you refuse to take no for an answer.
Not sure if it's necessary or not but a Game Techniques page specifically for this game would be a nice solution. Even if it only explained little things like the ability to long jump 2 frames after starting running, that could smoothly transition into a breif explaination of the glitches and thus encompass all the information from Raiscan's FAQ.
If you may recall I breifly mentioned in the channel and we talked about one theory at eliminating the second key... I did a little messing around with the theory of causing one door trigger passed by at hyperspeed to be used to trick the game into doing the door opening sequence at another door. There was some sort of acronym for the basic concept I forget. Anyway because of how all door entries and especially loading point doors work in this game it seems like it wouldn't work.
I did want to ask if there's an official list of all the BLJ locations in the basement because I'm still entertaining, in my mind anyway, the remote possibility that there is something easier than the sideways step stutter glitch, for bypassing the 30 star door on console. I saw a video earlier where mario fell through the roof into the area behind the moat door. Assuming the basement was entered and the moat drained, falling through the roof and entering this door from the other side would easily put Mario into the area behind that moat door in the basement. Although I doubt it I wanted to ask if you can BLJ in this location, having not personally been there yet myself. I am currently only aware of 2 BLJ locations in the basement, both using the sideways step glitch (the one used in all runs thus far and the similar one in the HMC room), but I've read that there are 5+ and am curious what the others are.
If a device or emulator is operating at more than 60.0fps but less than 60.1fps, at what point in the system's own output process are signifigant figures dropped to one, that allows us to accurately time a game based on frames / 60 = exact time?
This is purely theoretical and assuming you were trying to time a console or a device behaving like a console that was operating at the 60.0988 speed. The error would accumulate until it was significant enough to change the final time, no? And considering 60 has one significant figure, there isn't a time on this site expressed with less than 3 sig figs.
I'm probably missing something huge here, help me out.
If there's anywhere I'd like to see done using the forward-backwards fixed camera it's the Haunted Wasteland... although the prospect of navigating the maze while facing backwards and hopping sideways is not as impressive on a TAS as it would be on a console.
The sidehopping shows enough of where you're going as well as a different angle on the run than you're used to, seeing the action from 90 degrees off every OoT run ever made so far. That is enough to be entertaining without having to fix the camera, but you might as well do it to provide even more interesting angles in any situation you have to wait (not just during superslides... we could watch Link from the side as he sidehops around a room's obstacles).
