Wow, if TSA is right, you are almost 4 minutes faster than all the speed runs ...
Btw. the Tower Of Hera is the best dungeon so far. (While the lanmolas certainly are the best bosses so far.)
I always hated this tower and you made it look so perfect. I especially liked how you "played" with the floating tiles. I found it also absolutely astonishing how you floated over the pits. After beating moldorm it reminded me to "moon-walking" ...
And how you used the boomerang and the mirror in perfect combination. Absolutely great!
Keep up the good work!
cu
Fabian
I'm exactly 6 seconds ahead of Teri @ first set of missiles. I'm currently working on something so insane that many of you might explode. I haven't been able to pull it off yet and it may not be possible but I'm going to work on it a few more hours. I'm damn close and won't give up just yet.
6 seconds? ....
Woah, that is much more than anyone did think possible so far ...
Could you give us a guess on what you are working? ;-)
Btw. why can you post to this forums and not upload a file of keystrokes over the same connection?
cu
Fabian
Cool, glad to hear it. The .989c format used for the movies in question have the raw 21 byte controller structure for each frame, with a header byte and 5 ints for each controller data (the actual data stored for each controller appears to be raw ZSNES controller variables (with the 0x8000 flag and raw snes controller bits in the high word)).
I take it by that you mean the "r5" hosted on your site? I tried that, fixed another bug, and now it works slightly better, though I think that may have more to do with the bugfix. Testing with some different segments of Saturn's Chrono Trigger movies, I get varying results.. some play for a few thousand frames before desyncing and others desync in much shorter time periods. Those are likely the result of emulation differences, but I want to do some more debugging before coming to any conclusions.
Well, but if they play for some thousand frames, it might be possible to hex-fix those. Please upload some sources from your conversion tool. I would really like to give some old runs of Saturn a try with the new zsnes code ...
cu
Fabian
Oh, right I forgot to comment on this newest update here. It's looking great, I can't think of any improvements to suggest either, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how you manage the next part of the game (not to mention the rest of it).
I enjoyed the game alos, but:
Slightly OT:
I assume you are using Fake Mute Workaround as the video was recorded with it on.
At least in linux if Saturn picks up a item (like some oil or ashes) I have the feeling the sound is "longer" then it should be ...
Overall sound quality "feels" quite bad under linux, but I have not checked if it would be much better without Fake Mute Workaround...
Or is ist just, because I'm using v1 of the Fake-Mute Patch? ...
cu
Fabian
WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF!!!!! I spent so many hours today trying to repeat the same escape I did in my previous run on the new run I'm doing. I just can't get it to work. However, through my anguish I've figured out the most revolutionary trick/exploit/timesaving manuever in this game. This is absolutely crazy and I have no idea what it will mean for this game. I'm thinking 5+ minutes can now be saved for any kind of run. No joke guys!
Well we are very interested in seeing what crazy things you did come up now with.
I mean we all thought that Teri's run was already perfect, but you show us that there is more perfect than perfect :-). (but please also make it entertaining in pause phases)
cu
Fabian
Yeah, wow, all sandworms dead in less than 5 seconds, with regular arrows. I wonder what other enemies that tactic works that well on... you'll probably need to manipulate a bunch of arrow drops at some point, since you're down to only 5 now.
Yeah, I really thought that nintsujas sandworms battle was already the fastest one, but this sandworms battle is just astounding ...
Well, you won't need arrows until the dark world - as far as I remember, but I remembered another thing:
I think you could also use the bow in the Tower of Hera against Moldorm, but I don't remember if it really was the case or just a humble attempt, because we never got it to work on the console ...
It might be worth trying out ... (But before you collect alls the arrows, please try out with moldorm - as I said I'm not sure about that one ...)
cu
Fabian
I can get 56.01 and 56.03 but this damn emulator won't give me 56.02! It was so easy to do in zsnes but I've spent hours and can't get 56.02. Damn damn damn! This one stupid thing is holding me back.
edit:
I'm just about to give up on this and it's really upsetting me. I had no idea I'd find such a big difference between these two emulators in just the first few seconds of the escape. At a certain door I can get every time from 55.95 to 56.03 except the one that I need - 56.02. I want to at least equal my last escape time if I'm doing this run over again. If I can't get this exact time the randomness of the explosions in the neighboring room set me back .2 seconds. I've encorporated walking, jumping, ducking, and everything else I can think of but the emulator hates this specific time. I've tried starting the entire run over several times in hopes that something will change but I'm still stuck. You guys may not get to see the escape I pulled off in zsnes :O(
What about giving us the smv with 56.03 you are working on, perhaps someone finds the frame, which needs manipulation to get 56.02 ... ;-)
cu
Fabian
I currently have 281 zmv's and I'm roughly 1/3 of the way done with the run. We're talking ~1000 zmv's that would have to be stitched together. It would be faster for me to start over... Also, I accidentally erased one zmv after having luckily converted it to avi. It's only a short little segment but it's such that I couldn't record it again exactly as it was done before.
Well, I was just talking about the very first part of the game, which should not be more than 20 zmvs ...
cu
Fabian
Why do you need to change the savestate format to just display the number of played frames since reset?
_I_ would just add another counter for that ...
That would work until you load a save state, then how are you supposed to know how much to decrease the frame counter by unless the number of elapsed frames is stored in the save state?
Oh, sure thats a problem. But unless someone is making a movie (where you have an exact frame counter anyway) you could just set it to 0 to measure frames since loaded savestate.
cu
Fabian
Anyway, how can I post a WIP? If you'll remember I'm working with several zmvs, not one smv that has been recorded over and over.
How many zmv's do you have from Start to Escape of the Station?
Perhaps we could start looking at conversion muplitple zmv -> one zmv/smv there ...
So could you please upload just the zmvs until you escape Space station?
cu
Fabian
Making frame counter work when not in a movie would require changing the save state format, so I haven't done it yet.
Huh?
Are you sure?
Why do you need to change the savestate format to just display the number of played frames since reset?
_I_ would just add another counter for that ...
cu
Fabian
Hi,
this is the first game, which needs some time to warm up before you can play a movie, which I found on linux.
So perhaps I can now spot the bug, but I'm more into watching at the moment.
Perhaps later ...
cu
Fabian
Ok. But for the lazy one though? Could someone implant a function that deactivates the turbo and pauses the emulator at a desired frame? Would be very handy when it comes to very long runs such as FF6 and Chrono Trigger.
I have that patch in my unix own tree (see my patchset), so it should not be too difficult to add.
Come on nintsuja, give this guy his wish ;-)
cu
Fabian
Thanks nitsuja, I recorded on exactly the settings you recommend (without left/right, up/down) and finaly realized why it still gets out of sync:
Everytime I enter a new screen the enemies are on different places (no matter what settings)
This reminds me strongly of the Zelda bug.
It might be that there are other variables as well, which are used by this game, which are not stored in the savestates, yet.
nintsuja: What do you think?
cu
Fabian
PS: I plan to port some of your things to unix this weekend, so I can also watch this Evermore movie ;-).
Better late than never, a *few* comments were added to the submission text, which hopefully should answer all questions (for example in regards to flying)
Thanks a lot to everybody for voting and posting positive comments, I'm kinda overwhelmed by this enthusiasm :)
A *few*: lol
Now please make at least a 11-level run to show a new world record in time attack and make it as entertaining as possible. (Most SMW movies are not as entertaining as a single level of your run)
cu
Fabian
Really absolute great run!
Even if I could not contribute any speed tipps (and my idea about flying under the pipe was wrong ;-) ), this run got me hooked on the snes9x code to improve the unix version a lot. (Some of those improvements seem to be now also in nintsuja's improved version).
So, thank you very much not only for this absolute great run, but also for the nice time that we all had in seeing the progress of it.
cu
Fabian
Hi,
I watched it too.
Impressive were the bosses. Fast clean and (mostly) very good.
Though the whole run did look more to me like a "normal" speedrun instead of a "perfect" one.
- Weapons could be used in a much more efficient and funny way sometimes
For example at Helmasaur: Instead of hammering his mask, you can also place some bombs. I think i combination with hammer this will be faster.
For me a perfect run, needs to surprise me by doing almost impossible moves and yes with Zelda even being a "slow" game, I think you could do some spectacular use of weapons, while not being slower.
For this you have the frame advance option to time things at exact frames.
One example: You can hit the sandworms (in 2nd palace, lightworld) with the bow and with the sword. (which should be faster than just with the sword)
- Sometimes (as far as I remember) you did switch switches unnecessarily. This looks "human", while imho a time attack should seize for perfection.
And there are some more of this "human" things.
- Hm, and now I forgot the rest I wanted to write, but its too late in the night to re-watch the movie now; sorry.
So in conclusion:
Its a good evaluation movie, which can help other runs, but its not a "real" time attack in bisqwit's definition, because I think there are too many small "mistakes".
Hope to see an update from you soon.
cu
Fabian
edit: And I can't believe I missed this, but when Zelda says "Sanctuary is just beyond that door. Pull that switch over there" right near the end... that's totally unnecessary, you can walk a bit to the right first and that dialog box won't be triggered at all.
Is this now done in the new video?
I still can see the Messagebox. Did you miss this idea, Omni?
cu
Fabian
Note to Fabianx:
I added the following lines before the other 2 added by your patch:
{OFFSET (OAMWriteRegister), 2, INT_V},
{OFFSET (BGnxOFSbyte), 1, INT_V},
because a comment indicated that the developers thought these belong in the snapshot as much as OpenBus1/2, and I think I saw it still desync sometimes until I added these.
Yes, thank you very much! I'm glad finally someone made a windows version. Those seem to also have been necessary though I could not get a desync with them missing, but perhaps I have not tried hard enough.
cu
Fabian