Emulator Resources / Making AVI / Famtasia / Linux

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This page explains how to create AVI files from Famtasia movies when you have a GNU/Linux operating system (any flavor will do).

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Program requirements

You need Famtasia.
See EmulatorHomepages.
And of course, you need Wine to run Famtasia. Installing Wine is not in the scope of this document.
You need MEncoder.
You can find it at: http://mplayerhq.hu/ or install from a package usually called "mplayer".
Standard MPlayer versions (non-CVS) always include libavcodec. If you want to use xvid, you need to install it separately and ensure MPlayer will support it.
You need LAME.
You can download it at: http://lame.sourceforge.net/ or install from a package usually called "lame".
You need xgetimage-xpatch.
You can download it from: http://bisqwit.iki.fi/source/xgetimagexpatch.html

The Famtasia version you need MUST have these patches:

  • 60 FPS
  • Audio logger

It must NOT have these patches:

  • Windows fix
  • AVI recording

All the other settings, including "240 scanlines", are up to you to decide.

Configuring Famtasia

These settings are vital for Famtasia recording to work correctly: 

  [Speed]
  DrawFrame=1
  ExecSpeed=100
  Occupation=1
  AutoFrame=0

  [Sound]
  SamplingRate=44100
  NoReverb=1
You can set them via the GUI or by editing the configuration file directly.

Ensure that the window is not scaled. Stop the emulation and select "x1" from the Display submenu under the Config menu.

Configuring xgetimage-xpatch

The xgetimage.cfg file I use when recording from Famtasia looks like this: 

  # XGETIMAGE CONFIGURATION FILE
  #

  [rate]
  BITRATE   = 240000
  FPS       = 60
  DELAY     = 80%
  LAVCOPTS  = "vcodec=mpeg4:dia=-3:predia=-3:preme=2:v4mv:vb_strategy=1:keyint=900:vqscale=1"

  [source]
  WINDOW=""
  XOFFSET=0
  YOFFSET=0

  [target]
  # Where to place the result
  OUTPUTFILE = "test0.avi"

  [dummy]
  dummy=1
Use it as-is or edit it to suit your needs / preferences.
Besides mpeg4, you can try other codecs such as ffv1 or huffyuv.
Read the MPlayer manual for details.

Creating the script to run it all

For running Famtasia, I use this kind of shell script:

RUNFAM

  #!/bin/sh

  # P = the directory where xpatch.so can be found in
  P="`pwd`/xgetimage"

  # Where is your Famtasia executable?

  #EXE=fam/FAMBLIP.EXE
  #EXE=fam/FAM60.EXE
  #EXE=fam/famdump.exe
  EXE=fam/famdump_60.exe

  # Where is your Wine?

  #WINE=/usr/lib/wine/bin/wine-pthread
  WINE=wine

  # Which file do you want to place your audio in.
  AUDIO_RESULT=audiolog.mp3

  # Do some preparing for running Wine.
  rm -rf /tmp/.wine-*
  export __MSVCRT_HEAP_SELECT=__GLOBAL_HEAP_SELECTED,2
  #export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/wine/lib
  #export WINEDLLPATH="$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"

  export LD_PRELOAD="$P/xpatch.so"

  # Initialize the pipe where audio will come from
  rm -f  s.log
  mkfifo s.log
  mkfifo s2.log
  bufferprog < s.log | resample mb m > s2.log &
   lame -rx -m m -b 128 -q 2 s2.log "$AUDIO_RESULT" &

  $WINE $EXE $*

  rm -f s.log s2.log

  # Fix the ownership of the files - doesn't matter if it fails.
  chown bisqwit test0.avi "$AUDIO_RESULT"
I call the script RUNFAM.

Again, you can edit it to suit your setup and needs.

Running Famtasia

To run Famtasia, start your newly created shell script. Example: 
  ./RUNFAM rockman.nes
I prefer to do this as root, but I can not recommend it to others due to security reasons.

When Famtasia starts up, immediately open the Edit menu and select Play movie and load the movie you want to play.
(Immediately because the video recording starts as soon as the emulator window appears.)

When Famtasia is done playing the movie, exit Famtasia by normal means.

Now you should have test0.avi and audiolog.mp3 on your disk. Names may vary if you have changed the script/config files.

Note that the patched Famtasia is lag-tolerant.
It doesn't matter if you watch anime while recording the movie.
The sound may chop and Famtasia may complain something about wave headers, but it does not affect the recording.

The encoding environment

The rest of this documentation is at the Linux AVI scripts page, because it's common in all the different emulators.

Author

Written by Bisqwit

Get Firefox!EmulatorResources/MakingAVI/Famtasia/Linux last edited by Bisqwit on 2008-02-20 13:37:47
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