Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Did you already take a look for fixing the artifacts that appear in the Crystal save glitch TAS, right after clearing the memory save, at the bottom of the screen? Post #495406 from some reports, it seems that this behavior doesn't happen on real console.
Oh, my bad I must have missed that. Fixed in master now. It's actually an interesting case of changing window Y value to a value that's less then the current scanline value.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
Here is a re-sync of the MIB the series run in current dev build Gambatte:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/64345543143172904
Here is also a GBHawk version, it is not entirely the same in terms of inputs, but it is the same number of frames. The original run uses equal length frames mode, not sure if this has anything to do with it:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/64372467340189285
This is a sufficiently short run that it might be worth testing with.
Also this an example of a game that does not turn the screen off while changing to double speed mode, but it does so shortly after and the cycles line up the same in this case.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/64320753696980848
Here is the other pokemon trading card game run resynced. A very tedious exorcise but necessary to try.
Double speed mode timing has some quirks that I don't quite understand yet. Most of the available tests enter double speed mode with the screen still on. GBHawk fails these tests. However, most games enter double speed mode with the screen off, and when turning it back on afterwards, things line up as I would expect (as in these TCG runs.) I think maybe something extra is happening when the screen is left on, maybe it is stopped for a few cycles while the system determines if the STOP command is a speed change stop or a normal stop. So far I haven't been able to reconcile everything though. Gambatte on the other hand passes the double speed timing tests but fails the single speed versions of the same tests. So, something unresolved is happening there. It will probably take some more detailed tests to sort it out.
I think for now I can maybe start to branch out from Pokemon games and start to test other games.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/64261017438734931
After many hours of head scratching, I've finally gotten double speed mode timing to the point where I can sync an actual TAS. This is the current submission of pokemon trading card game resynced to dev build of GBHawk.
This has been a very challenging process and I'm only on the first step, but the timing needed for this TAS to work is very tight and it nails down some hard points that I can build off of for future work.
Also, GBHawk and Gambatte are starting to diverge in terms of which tests they pass and which they fail. Its amazing to me that so many TASes that require very careful timing are console verified while disagreeing on some pretty important tests. And these aren't just random un-used edge cases either, they could realistically show up in games, they just haven't yet.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
So anything (within the rules) goes in submission notes but movie discussion only in the submission thread? I don't agree with that. At the very least, if an author is putting not-movie-related statements in their notes then other posters should be allowed to respond to it in the thread. I personally don't really care what it may be, doesn't even have to be political. If an author's entire submission notes consists of: 'What's your favorite color and why?' then responses answering that question should be allowed.
As for politics specifically, I think most people would agree that 'politics' involves discussions of when and how to use force / violence. Submission notes are a pretty outward facing part of the site, it's at least worth considering what you want displayed there under the banner 'submission notes.' You can easily end up with monologues about assassination, revolution, invasion, without even mentioning the TAS at all.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
The jitter is always positive though, and generally averages out to about 4 cycles (but can occasionally be greater) so it accumulates over time.
Also I'm not sure how input is processed in gambatte in equal frame mode, if I remember right there was a pokemon run that had an issue with one input falling in between controller reads and causing an issue,
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
You can select and run SubNESHawk in 2.3.2 and this run works without issue (I just tested.)
It will not work in later builds because of an MMC3 IRQ timing bug that I fixed.
The run is console verified, so the reason it doesn't work after a bug fix is that there are other factors that make NES runs verify on console. In this case, I can change the initial offset to 0 from 2 and the run will work again without changing any inputs.
2 is used because that is what a console verified Battletoads run uses which has been the standard for timing regression testing for that past few years, if I change it to zero, this run will break. This is a pretty annoying fact of life when working with NES, not everything will work out the same every time you turn it on.
I could change it to 0 to favor a published run, but I'm not sure what other runs it would break.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
Gambatte's 'equal length' frames option doesn't actually make every frame equal length. So, unfortunately there isn't a way to get a one-to-one comparison with GBHawk just by looking at frames, some adjustments have to be made.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
Thanks to lobsterzelda for finishing Battletoads, now only 6 runs remain (all SNES now.)
It's also interesting to note that only 90 of the first 1000 publications are still active, although i would suspect that of these there might actually be some that aren't improvable (Umihara Kawase and monopoly)
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
I didn't mean to imply that I was actually going to do it, that's too tedious for me, just that it would be a necessary step. Feel free to give it a try, no need for me to be a co-author or anything.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
CasualPokePlayer wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
I'd also like to try if changing GBC color multiple times can allow more RNG possibilities, or delaying the GBC BIOS sequence by changing color later.
Yes and no, mostly has no effect, and when you actually get an effect, it's more because the bios is being delayed by some amount of frames (which eventually eats into the delays).
I didn't want to listen to that, so I've tried anyway. :) And, guess what? My bot was able to find one faster route: 364 CPU cycles saved over the current submission. Byte D35A is still 0xC2.
Alyosha, do you agree to replace the submission file and add me to the author list for this submission?
If we are going to go by cycle count then this is trivially sub-optimal since you can use SubGBHawk to reset exactly when needed. There are many, many ways to get the correct delay and I certainly didn't check cycle count for them, so I'd rather just cancel this for now.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
DJ Incendration wrote:
What do you mean by 0,0,5,5? Also, I can't seem to manipulate 0X64D0 or EA or anything like that in Yellow. I have tried many different frame delays, but I could only do the delays in Pokeguy's any% world record, with the soft resets.
I don't know how to do yellow.
There are 4 places to delay input in order to effect trainer ID. The 0,0,5,5 is just my shorthand for how many frames is delayed at each point. So no delay for the first two inputs, then 5 frame delay at third input and 5 frame delay at fourth input. Changing the palette is not included in this shorthand.
I'm not concerned by having an invalid save file, the game was completed successfully, which is the goal.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
I just noticed that the current movie manipulated the Trainer ID to be 0x64BD, while instead you got 0x64C3. Does the second byte make no difference, or did you have to adjust the ACE accordingly?
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player
(3560)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2744
Location: US
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Nice job, but did you take in consideration the fact that there is a faster SRAM glitch for the Japanese version? User movie #35593301208919904
Though I'm not sure if that movie should be considered for comparison, since it fails to trigger the final routine after showing "THE END" screen at the end of the credits roll, as pressing A doesn't send you back to the intro and it doesn't save the progress to the save data. More explanations in this post.
I'd also like to try if changing GBC color multiple times can allow more RNG possibilities, or delaying the GBC BIOS sequence by changing color later.
I did do some limited testing with delaying BIOS end, not that extensive since I just ended up with 10 total again (2 BIOS delay + 8 regular delay.)
Here is the script I used to test stuff:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/63900696766348833
You can fiddle with the palette however you want, let the game run to frame 500, make a state in slot 1, then run the script. It will brute force check the remaining 4 delay points from there. (If you are going to delay the BIOS you need to add that into the script though.) Even with Gambatte this takes a long time to run.
I'm not going to look too deeply into a movie that doesn't properly call the ending.
