Thank you for your answer, that did the trick!
The top bar can be removed during encoding, but I've added a recommendation to use the --no-gui argument in the future.
Hi Automanager,
Unfortunately I am getting a desync as soon as the game loads.
I am using:
- LibTAS v1.4.4
- ruffle-nightly-2023_12_01
- Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS
- md5sum red-remover-4202.swf e4f77b90d5ced81e54a71483c92306ed
I tried many times (to account for the undeterministic ad) and also tried disconnecting from the internet to avoid the ad load. Nothing worked.
Could you please tell me your exact settings in libTAS? Any other clue as to what could be causing the desync?
----------------
Update: I removed the ad and still desyncs in the same place.
Thanks for clarifying. Yes, this movie is clearly faster than the single race RTA speedrun in speedrun.com and the IL times cannot be used for comparison in this case.
With regards to the difficulty, I still don't see how the CPU boosting would affect you, since you are driving perfectly. It being a problem for TAS would mean that it is impossible for a human to beat the game in harder difficulties. Regarding RNG, I also don't see why this would be an issue for a TAS, but since I am not an expert I am not going to take this as a blocking issue.
The comments on optimality remain as a big issue, however. Especially with regards to Spikestuff's observations. I cannot accept this movie until you at least match Spike's times and possibly do the same to all other races.
Hi TheBlazingmo,
Thanks for your answer, but I am still not convinced that character selection is enough to account for the difference in lap times.
First, Spikestuff showed that your movie can be significantly improved without much effort, and brought the solution much closer to the RTA one, even with the difference in character speed.
Second, as pointed out above, your time for 'Studio Amigo' is 22 seconds slower against RTA in this 90 seconds-long race. This is ~25% of the total running time, which implies that Shadow is 25% slower than Big overall. I'm not savvy on this game to tell whether this actually true, but I think some hard evidence towards this should be presented to justify the difference in time. Furthermore, this being a TAS, one would expect that some of the 'character' disadvantage can be offset by the ability to polish every turn much better than an RTA player can.
I also still have concerns about the difficulty selection. I don't think a strong enough point has been made to justify the choice of 'easy' mode against 'hard'. Does rubberbanding slow you down or boosts the CPU players? If the latter, then why is it a problem still?
Bottom line is, although this submission is vastly superior to the previous one, it still falls short to the expectations of a relatively well-polished TAS. I would suggest you to do another optimization pass, and provide a time table showing your times for all races.
Watching the movie and reading the posts above makes it clear to me that the '100%' does not apply, as least given the jurisprudence in the site. One might expect in such category that all (possible) lemmings are saved, which is clearly not this case.
I believe that the category "all levels", or similarly "no skips" apply much better here, since it is clearly the goal stated and accomplished by the authors.
Awesome movie, btw. I vote yes.
Hi TheBlazingmo
I am taking a look at the speedrun.com's individual level record page:
https://www.speedrun.com/ssasr_ds/levels?h=Glitched&x=9d8g537k
It seems that many of these records are faster than the ones in your submission. Looking for example at 'Studio Amigo' (@2:45 in your encode), their time is 1:31.566, while in your movie this is 1:52.41.
Am I missing something here? Am I looking at the wrong speedrun.com page?
Hi Technickle,
Seems like you missed an optimization at the end. If you don't press any buttons, the credits will roll on their own. This means you can finish the last movie much earlier by releasing the gas before the end. Remember in tasvideos.org, we consider the last input as movie end (although exceptions might be considered).
Here is the .bk2 file I produced to show this. I'm pretty sure you can improve it further.
https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638455090636489203
I will not claim co-authorship for this improvement.
We have tried to sync this movie unsuccessfully, even after trying different configurations.
SJ, when possible, please provide a .zip file with the contents of your 'User' folder in Dolphin. We need this to make sure we have the exact same settings as you had when you encoded the movie.
I think the game choice is good but have some questions.
1) Where is the hard difficulty option in the menu? Could not find it in game or videos for a Hard mode.
2) Why are the axis inverted and auto Leveling settings changed?
3) Is there significance to have 89% sensitivity instead of 100%?
4) Looks like a lot was played with a controller. How much of the game uses tas inputs?
Noticed that part with the van in the first level, how you go up pretty close to the enemies to shoot them, then slowly back up towards the door while shooting them. I tested sniping headshots all the way near the door that opens after you kill all of them and that works. I would expect activating the trigger that causes the van, then running towards the door, quickly getting the headshots from right next to it would be best. Already being where you need to be for the next trigger can help a lot.
A lot of movement also seems to be not quite taking the shortest path from point to point, but instead using curving arcs. What might help is to immediately after taking a turn is to then find the right angle immediately towards the next goal and use that. Try not to adjust the angle on the way.
Hi Lars_Hendrick, could you please address the points made by CoolHandMike here?
Hi SJ,
I was enjoying the movie when suddenly it started desyncing. It happened around input ~680000 at one of the roller skate challenges. The situation at input 756008 looks like this:
I am using Dolphin 5.0-16793 and this ROM whose hash coincides with that of the movie. Any hints of what could be going on? Did I miss any configuration?
Edit: adding portable.txt in Dolphin's folder and disabling Dual Core emulation didnt help. The desync happens in the same place nevertheless
I made a mistake, frame 5 is when it should appear, sometimes it takes 4 frames for me though. I'm not sure why. If it's still desyncing and you have the right version then I'm not sure what's going on.
We need to delve deeper into what's happening. Can you please tell me the following?
- Executable MD5 hash
+ For this please run the 'md5sum Mobility' command in the same folder where the game is
- The contents of the 'assets' folder. Let's make sure we got the same config
- Operating System version
+ For this please run the 'uname -a' command in the command line
- Are you using a virtual machine (e.g., VMWare)?
- Screen resolution
No need to do all this anymore, feos was able to sync your movie.
I made a mistake, frame 5 is when it should appear, sometimes it takes 4 frames for me though. I'm not sure why. If it's still desyncing and you have the right version then I'm not sure what's going on.
We need to delve deeper into what's happening. Can you please tell me the following?
- Executable MD5 hash
+ For this please run the 'md5sum Mobility' command in the same folder where the game is
- The contents of the 'assets' folder. Let's make sure we got the same config
- Operating System version
+ For this please run the 'uname -a' command in the command line
- Are you using a virtual machine (e.g., VMWare)?
- Screen resolution
When I was making the TAS, I noticed that sometimes the game would take 2 frames to start up instead of 3 frames, and that the TAS would always desync if it took 2 frames to start. Try making sure that the main menu screen appears on the third frame of the movie, and then see if it syncs.
I keep trying and the movie desyncs every time. Perhaps it's taking more frames to load on my side. For me, the first time the main menu screen is visible is frame 5, exactly where you press 'space' for the first time (see picture). Is it the same for you?
Hi Merl_
I am afraid I'm having problems syncing the movie. First and foremost, I'd like to see whether we have the same version of the game. Can you please get me the MD5 hash of the executable on your side? Mine is:
Hi SFan,
Seems like CoolHandMike found some improvements that could perhaps be resync'ed to the end with further effort sync to the end. Would you like to keep trying to improve it further or shall his file be the new submission file? In the latter case, he should be credited as co-author.
Hi Merl_
I am puzzled by your choice of game. You chose to TAS Cyclo 8 version 0.5 (an early beta) whereas a later (release, apparently) version not only exists but also a movie of it ([5728] PICO8 Cyclo 8 by Merl_, rythin & hiii in 01:35.87) by you and others has been published
TASVideos.org rules state that release version submissions obsolete that of earlier versions. Given the only track in this version is highly similar to that of track 2 in the released version, there is also not enough differences between the two versions to consider them different games altogether.
Is there anything I am missing here?
Done, I made a movie of the Hard route. Like I say in the description, I'm using a hack that fixes the dpad controls to be in line with Solstice/Snake Rattle n Roll/other isometric games, I just literally can't play it with default controls, it breaks my brain. Just shoot me a DM if you want the patch for the hack.
Hey, many thanks! I believe the patch will be needed to reproduce the movie. Could you please upload it somewhere or where it is linked?