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Alyosha
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I fixed Silviana. The FDS core was not setting $4032 bit 1 (disk ready status) correctly. I am pretty sure my fix is correct, but if anyone interested in FDS games can try some out and make sure there are no regressions I would appreciate it. So far I don't see any though.
Alyosha
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phoenix1291 wrote:
Moon Patrol (Moon Patrol (1983)(Atari).crt SHA1: B5F5F296D4E50BF514096508A8ECF5ADF4DFFCEB) directions and jump work well, but the P1 and P2 buttons do nothing.
Fixed moon patrol.
Alyosha
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I do agree that this run is trivial in the sense that it does not stand out from unassisted play, but I'm glad for the opportunity to have more clarification on what aspects go into deciding that. In partiuclar, does performing glitches that don't save time (supposing they are very difficult to perform real time) make the run 'stand out' in the sense we are interested in here? This seems to be a large part of the disagreement here, from what I can see.
Alyosha
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WST wrote:
No mood to create a new topic for this, but I think it’s still important enough. https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.ru/2018/01/reading-privileged-memory-with-side.html https://meltdownattack.com/
This is fascinating. I don't know anything about CPU architecture or computer/information security, but I found those remarkably simple to understand (or if not understand, at least get the gist of), it's pretty surprising such inherent flaws went un-detected for so long, and also a little scary.
Alyosha
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phoenix1291 wrote:
Thanks Alyosha, I will test the latest release in the next days! EDIT: I've test some games (more or less the list I made in my previous post), it seems to be ok. (not related with C64 stuff, but will Tower Topler on A7800 be fixed one day or another? I saw that you have implemented a NTSC and Pal filter for Tower Topler and Jinks) Thanks for all your work Alyosha!
I have code in there as a stub, it doesn't actually do anything. I didn't research what was needed since I wasn't that interested and wanted to move on to other things. So, if someone handed me what I needed to do to get those games to look right, I would implement it, but otherwise no.
Alyosha
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Sonia wrote:
Thanks for the fix, Alyosha. You might want to take a look at this FDS game as well: Silviana - Ai Ippai no Little Angel (Japan) (b) SHA1:3FB093609AA37052F991DFB905609B0F51932209 MD5:C75858DD4AE3A747264A4073269FA6E2 NESHawk only gives it a black screen and no audio. Yes, it's a bad dump, but it works on Mesen and Nestopia.
Ok I'll take a look.
Sour wrote:
FYI, there's a list of games that have bugs where they rely on the state of uninitialized RAM here: http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Game_bugs#Reliance_on_RAM_values I just added Silva Saga to it.
That's a handy list. Here are a couple of other games you can add to it that I have hard-coded into NESHawk:
Language: C++

if (cart.DB_GameInfo.Hash == "60FC5FA5B5ACCAF3AEFEBA73FC8BFFD3C4DAE558" // Camerica Golden 5 || cart.DB_GameInfo.Hash == "BAD382331C30B22A908DA4BFF2759C25113CC26A" // Camerica Golden 5 || cart.DB_GameInfo.Hash == "40409FEC8249EFDB772E6FFB2DCD41860C6CCA23" // Camerica Pegasus 4-in-1 ) { ram[0x701] = 0xFF; } if (cart.DB_GameInfo.Hash == "68ABE1E49C9E9CCEA978A48232432C252E5912C0") // Dancing Blocks { ram[0xEC] = 0; ram[0xED] = 0; }
The Camerica titles can't have 0x701 be 0, otherwise they won't boot (or will boot incorrectly.) For dancing block, those 2 addresses cannot both be 0xFF, but I forget exactly why. The game Cybernoid also relies on un-initialized RAM for several things, the most obvious one being whether or not music is playing at the start, as well as what difficulty is initially selected.
Alyosha
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Woah I didn't even know that option existed. 0_0
Alyosha
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Man that gadget was so cool!! I wonder what they'll do with it now? I hope it finds some use outside of this one case.
Alyosha
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Hmm, ok I'll take a look.
Alyosha
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You'll want to use a Lua script for that. You'll find the Lua interface in the menues under Tools -> Lua Console. If you are a beginner in Lua, there are many sample scripts included in BizHawk to help get you started. You'll find them in the Lua folder.
Alyosha
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feos wrote:
SMS movie should store the hash of firmware used when it was recorded.
It is stored in the movie header, or do you mean something else? I just added suport for korean BIOS. I'll try to make region choice a little more clear cut as well going forward.
Alyosha
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hejops wrote:
To be completely honest, TAStudio would crash every time upon loading the .tasproj if I used the GBC core. That's the only reason. But I suppose ThunderAxe posted a good enough reason too...
I bare the blame here for GB not being very TASable in the most recent release. I do believe the current dev build has returned to being very stable though: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/zeromus/bizhawk-udexo/build/artifacts If you need help with anything feel free to pm me.
Alyosha
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Thanks to some speedy work by judges and publishers, we can now cross off 3 more runs from here! This is further then I expected to have gotten by this time, maybe 2018 can see this wrapped up!
Alyosha
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Awesome! Looking forward to this becoming TAS capable!
Alyosha
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I fixed a couple bugs in C64, including the exceptions above. I would encourage anyone interested in C64 to download the dev build and test things out and make sure there are no regressions.
Alyosha
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That's interesting. Based on the comments in those threads, it probably expects un-initialized data to be in a certain form, and BizHawk is probably not doing what it expects. I'll look through and see if this is the case, and set things up properly if needed. EDIT: the game thinks WRAM initialized with 0 is some kind of valid data. initializing instead to 0xFF does not have any files when the game loads, so this seems to be the solution here. I jus commited a Hash based check to make this the case for this game.
Alyosha
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DrD2k9 wrote:
This entire topic then begs the question: Does the term 'educational' actually aid in determining a degree of triviality for a more concrete rule? It seems to have created more confusion than anything. Would the rule benefit from dropping the word 'educational' all together and just stick with 'non-serious' (Assuming that can be defined)?
I don't think the rule (as written) is intended to seperate out games based on triviality. No argument against 'Math Blaster' has been about how trivial the game is or even whether it's a game at all. I would say the the one word that sums up the current rule and judgement is 'style.' I think the intent of the rule , and certainly the the way it is used in this judgement, would be more clearly stated as: 'Games in the style of educational games or board games are not accepted in the vault.' Then, at least it's clear that we aren't differentiating games from non-games here, nor trying to define some notion of 'serious game', nor judging the game based strictly on it's content. The style alone is what is at issue. Then you could even use 'math blaster' as an example. I still wouldn't think this is a good or necessary rule (I think it can be safely scrapped altogether), and 'style' would probably still be contentious, but at least it's clear about what's being judged. On the notion of triviality, I think that aspect should be re-inforced even more then it is. The current 'Porky's' run for example can be almost exactly reproduced real time with a little practice and only 1/4 chance luck.
Alyosha
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hegyak wrote:
Gambatte's sprite rendering is incorrect for GB Games. Is this expected to happen?
(I replied to this on GitHub but it seemed worth it to put a similar reply here.) It's actually the background that isn't rendering here, but that's besides the point. It's not expected, and actually I totally forgot that even happened. Being able to load GB games in GBC mode in gambatte was a derivative of having BIOS support. Originally Gambatte did not have this capability (I had to load up 1.13.1 to even realize this was the case.) So, I reverted it so that GB games will not load into GBC mode in Gambatte, they will only load into GB mode. In the event that a GBCHawk core ever comes into existence, the ability to play GB games in GBC mode will be once again added.
Alyosha
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The8bitbeast wrote:
I can do sonic chaos and zillion if they're still free
Cool! In that case I'll commit to doing Psychic world, now we have everything accounted for!
Alyosha
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Thanks for the temp ThunderAxe31!
Alyosha
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Interesting. I looked over things quickly, and I don't think there is much room for manipulation here. SGB deosn't change the relative time between CPU and timer, so I don't think that will help. As mentioned by Dwedit, double speed mode requires the game to turn it on. I looked at where this is happening. It takes exactly 2304 (256 * 9) cycles between the time FF04 is read between those two addresses, and interrupts are not enabled at that time. So there really doesn't seem to be anything that would allow difference to be something other then 9. Too bad, that would have been cool.
Alyosha
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Mothrayas wrote:
Nope, started out as "arithmetic assignments, in the same vein of those done as school assignments". At no point was any reference to what Math Blaster does referred to as arithmetic for non-educational purposes, until you simplified my statement to "arithmetic". Nice try, though.
Yeah I know, starting it off 'arithmetic assignments' is what I'm saying was wrong. It's not inherently assignments, it's just everyday arithmetic.
Alyosha
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It's actually the other way around, you turned 'arithmetic' into 'arithmetic (school) assignment', there is nothing inherently 'school assignment' about the 'arithmetic' in Math Blatster, or even the form of it. The same arithmetic can be used as a school assignment, but it's also just an everyday life skill.
Alyosha
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Mothrayas wrote:
No part of YHTBTR includes school assignments. Reading on its own is not a school assignment. It only contains text in relation to gameplay, which is also not a school assignment. Therefore, it is not an educational game. Math Blaster contains arithmetic assignments, in the same vein of those done as school assignments, as a primary gameplay element. Therefore, it is an educational game. I honestly cannot make it any more obvious than this.
Arithmetic isn't just an assignment, heck I know people who haven't gone to school a day in their lives who do arithmetic of that exact form every day. But it seems all this is un-necessary...
Nach wrote:
If your argument is you don't like the rule, you're wasting your time. The senior staff very much likes the rule and will be keeping it.
I wish you just said this 2 pages ago.
Alyosha
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That's not an answer. I'm asking what you see as those specific elements that exist in stage 2 of 'math blaster' that don't exist in 'you have to burn the rope' that transform it into a 'serious' game.