Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
FractalFusion: You have several good points, I'll leave it as moon for now.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
If that is the case, then I accept the validity of your movie.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
adelikat wrote:
5 bit chr bank (can be anything and achieve these results, irrelevant, as char usually is, worst case you get a garbled but playable game
So if I preset the value here to any other possibility and play back your movie, will it sync?
adelikat wrote:
1 bit mirror register (irrelevant here, either value has no effect on start up behavior)
Same question with this.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Your evidence is pretty good. My question left is the state, you keep talking about the state of the PRG register. I previously thought there was no more state, but your post above now clarifies that you previously only spoke to a single register, as opposed to the register state as a whole.
When we speak of state of registers, we don't mean a single register in isolation. If you're using a state, the combined state of all registers needs to be valid. So what's the story with them? Does the game initialize them?
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
feos wrote:
Are you deliberately ignoring the point about the order a new movie is currently starred by? There are things that help the starman know it needs a star. Having ~100 votes was mentioned by adelikat in IRC many times, and it does work. Needing SOME requests from users to star it also is the necessary reason to star something.
You seem to be deliberately combining newcomer corner and star tier.
feos wrote:
And the guidelines you're now quotting are a year old, they were written before tier system was introduced.
My quotes from above are not from the Starman page (which I wrote), but from the Star Tier page. Are you saying the tier system is now also out of date, and we have a new system? I did not accept this for newcomer corner (which was the former concept of a star), I accepted it for the star tier (the new concept).
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
I see you just added that new section today. I take issue with you using your brand new section to enforce your opinion. I also take issue that you decided to blur the line between recommended for newcomers and the star tier in that paragraph. The rest of the page speaks about the old idea of a star, which is now the newcomer corner. You new paragraph is the only one to mention a tier.
Rereading your paragraph there, it ties extremely poorly into the rest of the page. You're shoehorning a whole new concept into the old one and misapplying it. I recommend deleting the paragraph, or rewriting it to fit the older terminology, or rewriting the entire page to fit the new terminology.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
feos wrote:
Did I try to base my objection on the starman guidelines that existed earlier?
You linked to the page for it, so it certainly seems that way.
And in any case, this run hits practically every applicable point in "Qualities of starred movies" on that page.
Let me also stress this quote from the page there: "The starred movies should consist of many different genres, not just platform games. Ensure that there's some puzzles and RPGs on the list as well."
Based on that, I weighed less negativity regarding the genre, or how the game isn't as flashy as modern games.
feos wrote:
I based it on the order the new movies are starred now. If you think the order is untrue, discuss it.
I have no idea what this means.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
feos wrote:
I documented how the starring process works for submissions currently.
http://tasvideos.org/StarmanGuidelines.html#Submissions
I don't see any of those checked for this submission. Which means it was accepted for stars by personal taste alone.
Unfortunately, you're confusing stars with the Wiki: NewcomerCorner. What was once stars is now recommended for newcomers. Wiki: Stars is now a tier.
If you want to go over some key rule points:
The aim of this tier is to be approximately 5-10% of size of the Moon tier.
As ridiculous as the point is, to achieve it, we need to ensure 5-10% of each platform has enough stars. This game is in an under represented platform.
Aims to fulfill the site's goal of exposing as many people as possible to Tool-assisted Speedrun/Superplay movies as an art form.
In order to accomplish that, we need to ensure that genres are well represented too. Different people have different tastes in genres, and most of our stars are typical platformers. Other games need stars too to mix things up a bit.
Audience engagement is the largest factor (large number of voters, viewers, comments).
I agree that in this thread, there hasn't been too many responses yet. However the game's thread is the largest in the DOS forum, and there's only been this submission. Which shows a lot of comments. There's been a ton of talk on IRC too. Surprisingly enough, many people in that thread or who showed interest in IRC never even commented here. They probably figured they said all they needed to say.
Also requires approval of one or more admin dedicated to maintaining the Star list (starman role).
It has that.
Shining example of entertaining the audience, being impressive, showing a mastery of TAS techniques, using unexpected/seemingly impossible ideas, expertise of the game.
Most of the audience was entertained. It shows mastery of some of our top techniques which I already detailed in the acceptance. Fuel Shortage, Donkey Pack, It's not raining rain, and several other levels are all unexpected, seemingly impossible, and show real mastery of the game.
Game choice is a very large factor. The game must be one that engages the audience easily, and does not depend on prior knowledge of Tool-assisted literature; easily grabs attention. (A natural consequence is that game popularity will play a role here, since familiarity of the game increases audience engagement).
Some of those who never played the game and commented said they were well enganged. Those who did play DOS games (Why the heck are there so few DOS gamers on this site???) mentioned how much they loved it. At the very least, I'd say DOS gamers have showed tremendous support for the game, and it was popular in the 90s.
Game choice must be one that allows for a variety of TAS techniques, strategies, and ideas. In other words, it must be difficult to make an optimized TAS.
It is extremely difficult to optimize to this level. Just see how much data was collected, and how much route planned went into this.
Goal choice must be one that is easily understood and clear to the audience.
Goal choices must not be too esoteric. It must cater to the average user rather than the TAS experts of the given game.
Normal goal choice, and average players of this game loved it.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
There's other features/glitches exploited consistently and constantly as well which an unassisted speederunner wouldn’t. Such as at the right moment using the phaser to force Jetman into the next square in the level grid (faster movement), or exploiting collision detection (going where no man has gone before).
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
AnS wrote:
Nach wrote:
There's nothing hasty about how I feel here. I've been complaining for nearly a decade now about the lack of documentation of initial states.
Is there a thread discussing this? One that would collect pros and cons of documenting the initial state in TASes. It's not a problem to implement (specifying the state was available long ago, see my savestate-anchored movie), but it's a matter of deciding which direction the site should take and which audience to consider.
This is not TASVideos related. I've worked on developing several emulators, with many other developers, and we've had long discussions on the topic. The single biggest issue is that some games depend on an initial state, which the board enforces, or the SRAM is preset from the factory, and our emulators do not handle it properly. I believe that emulators need to emulate things here properly, and currently it's all up in the air.
AnS wrote:
Nach wrote:
If there's only one initial state allowed for something, the emulator should enforce it. If there's multiple, the emulator should allow the user to set the possibilities, or use rand().
That's it, between these two alternatives you would choose forcing the user to set values, while I would choose rand().
No, I wouldn't enforce the former. I'd default rand() between the different states, and allow the user of the emulator to choose one of the possible states if they choose to.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
CJ wrote:
So why is it that these days, using a Japanese Rom to make text go faster is considered the norm?
It isn't. Nor is doing so considered an improvement.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
AnS wrote:
Nach wrote:
Once something is valid, why should I reject it?
Valid means that it is permitted by rules, but there's no written rule on the matter yet. And I hope you're not going to hastily add it without a proper consideration.
There's nothing hasty about how I feel here. I've been complaining for nearly a decade now about the lack of documentation of initial states. If there's only one initial state allowed for something, the emulator should enforce it. If there's multiple, the emulator should allow the user to set the possibilities, or use rand().
AnS wrote:
Hm. I thought the superhuman is not supposed to bend the reality around the game, because it would be the same (or even more far-reaching) as modifying the console.
To be honest, I couldn't care less about the console. What I care about is the intended platform (design-wise), the software, and the consequences thereof. I find hardware nothing more than a vehicle for the software.
Emulators should provide a compatible platform for the software, with more or less the same expectations of running them as any given console that is supposed to implement the platform.
AnS wrote:
So, can he also affect how the light reaches the audience eyes, and therefore add some effects and other inexistent content to the game's output? Does he even need to play the game when he can just manipulate the audience to believe it was played?
This is outside the platform and the software, so no, it does not count.
AnS wrote:
I think your definition is much wider than the traditional image of TASing. It gives TASer an inadequate amount of power which is then used inconsistently and inefficiently.
My views of emulation are different than the norm. My views have rules that can be applied consistently.
AnS wrote:
But it doesn't answer my question. OK, so he can control the electricity and the sun, and he already used it to write the needed data into RAM at poweron. Why doesn't he use the same fine-tuned electricity outburst to write another value to RAM while playing?
An electrical outburst modifying data once it's on would fall outside of standard operational characteristics. Software is designed to work within normal operation parameters. True these things do happen, but this is not something we should be expecting programmers for normal systems to handle.
If the game was designed with hamming codes at every level, extreme regulation on all aspects and so on, giving the sense it was defensively programmed against such issues, implying they are part of normal operating conditions, then that would be an entirely different story.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
AnS wrote:
But anyway, can you tell me, why would you accept a movie which requires an uncommon initial state (proved to be possible under specific conditions)?
Once something is valid, why should I reject it?
I see no reason why a movie must start with one specific state over any other which is a valid starting possibility.
True in even competition, everyone should receive the exact same conditions (which is pretty much never the case). And part of the beauty of TASing is that everyone works within the same black box. So I can appreciate that the starting state should be a constant. But we need to realize that part of the same beauty is that every aspect of the starting condition and activity is fully documented. Anyone else is free to copy the exact same starting condition for their run too. Therefore, I don't see it as cheating, as long as it's known to be a valid way to start.
AnS wrote:
Don't you think that creating these conditions is a part of replaying such a movie? As in, the superhuman has to either manipulate the hardware or spend real time waiting for those conditions to happen (thus making watchers wait for eons)?
The idea behind TASing is that you have full knowledge of everything, and act optimally. You know the hardware and how it works down to the minutest detail. You know the software running to the same extent. You therefore play perfectly.
With the same token, the ultimate player will set the temperature in the room to just the right percent of a degree. They'll have the sun hit the console at just the right angle. They'll have the electricity to power the system primed to just the right frequency. They'll use just the right television. Presto, they turn on the machine, and the audience sees the exact starting state the perfect player wanted them to.
In TASing, our perfect player sees nothing as random. Every outcome is the product of a perfect mathematical formula, with every input perfectly planned and executed.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
AnS wrote:
MESHUGGAH wrote:
"Goofy" values and "bizarre" words means (for me) that nobody knows exactly which but "some possibilities should work".
So, does all combinations could be possible for initial RAM state or there are values that doesn't ever happen to be?
This is not a question of electronics, it's a question of physics, so you'll never get a definite answer, because all models are crude.
Here's a layman's explanation of what "goofy values" mean.
In general, state of a trigger circuit (the basic component of RAM) at poweron is undefined, so the value can be either 1 or 0. But because of certain patterns in schematics, the initial value always gravitates towards 0 in one case and towards 1 in another. So it's not like the value of e.g. the byte #1 can be anything from 0 to 255 with even distribution of probabilities. No, the value will be 00000000 in 98% of cases and maybe 00000100 in 1% of cases, other cases take the rest.
So, chances of getting a "00000000FFFFFFFF" pattern are very high, the probability of getting "00010000FFFFFFFF" is still high (you might get it after a dozen of tries), but the probability of getting "0123456789ABCDEF" is vanishingly small and maybe even zero - you'd have to switch power on and off for billions of years to check it.
There's an important point in all this you're missing. Yes, the individual state of some circuit may randomly be 0 or 1, and perhaps have some likelihood to either one, the memory as a whole will generally not be like that. Some electronic components will receive their value from other electronic components, and initial values in some circuits will propagate values to multiple other circuits. Therefore memory as a whole will not be able to initialize with just any random values, some cases are electronically impossible (barring extreme operating conditions and flaws). In most memory circuits, you'll come across initial states that are filled with some kind of pattern based off of initial states from a much smaller set of circuitry.
Therefore, MESHUGGAH is right in his suspicion that not all combinations are possible. Of course this differs from design to design. There can be designs where every single bit can initialize completely randomly, but generally, there is some method involved which disallows anything but certain combinations.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
hegyak wrote:
I didn't expect to get a special thanks.
We also mentioned you a lot on IRC, namely when remarking about all the people who contributed a lot towards the run.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Many of the enemy packed later levels portray a mastery which surpasses even Gradius. On so many levels, this is one of the best TASs ever made.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
adelikat wrote:
Till you can prove power on, I find it far from adequate.
Messuggah posted this
he says he is fiddling with the power button. I'm sure you will come back with the fact that you can't SEE him do that, maybe he is really using reset and lying!
I wouldn't say he's lying per say, I'd say it's possible he's not being precise with his wording. We don't know if he really means on and off, or if he means he's resetting, which in his mind is equivalent to on and off. He also says: "This was recorded from a hacked rom file provided by CommieCatGirl" which is disturbing. What is hacked about it? If he's using his own custom ROM image, what board is he actually playing it on? This video and the comments with it does not contain anything which I'd consider meeting its burden of proof that the run you crafted can actually work.
adelikat wrote:
But the fact is, both are possible because it is the same problem in both cases. The game when starting up assumes the prg register to be 0.
Be that as it may, it doesn't tell us what states are possible at start up, and at reset, and if they're the same or not.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
adelikat wrote:
Board documentation
This document I keep linking isn't gibberish, it lays out exactly the issues people seem to think are unconfirmed.
Here's a significant one: "Apparently the games expect $00 to be written to $8000 on powerup/reset."
This is absolutely true about the game, unfortunately 00 will not be written to $8000 reliably. As stated by Zeromus, it is known that registers can start up in goofy values.
Is it known that registers can start up with the "goofy values" that can be exploited as you did here? The only evidence I saw is that it can be reset to "goofy values" that exhibit what you're exploiting here.
adelikat wrote:
So Nach suggests maybe values can be random but how do we know THIS particular value can occur? Because it is the only combination that yields a playable game starting at level 5. And we have video evidence of this phenomena occuring on a real NES + Cart, exactly as demonstrated in this TAS. I'm not sure why this evidence isn't enough.
You mentioned this already a page back, I accept it. That still doesn't tell us if the state you're using is possible on power on or not.
adelikat wrote:
which I think is more than adequate
Till you can prove power on, I find it far from adequate.
adelikat wrote:
I don't know how to acquire them, any suggestions? Do I need to pony up $1000 for a cart and video it myself?
I gave some suggestions prior. I don't care if you buy this exact cart, or hack up the Action 52 cart which is known to use the same board, or build your own board with parts from radio shack which our electronic engineers can feel confident would be a proper reproduction of the board in question.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Nach wrote:
As it stands, I'm not willing to have this video accepted, unless there's conclusive proof that this game can be powered on in an NES with this state used here.
If instead of the criteria of "this game," would it instead be sufficient to simply prove that the PGR can take a value of 11 at the same time as a value of 1 for the mode from power on?
If so, crafting a ROM image that simply displays the value of the two memory locations at startup and flashing it to an NES cart would potentially more accessible than finding a copy of this specific and very rare game.
In order to conclusively prove that this game can be powered on like this, you certainly don't need to use this game to do it. Any cart which is known to electronically exhibit the same semantics, and can be done with it would be fine too. Replacing the ROM image with something which displays register information on the screen is good also. But what needs to be proven remains the same, that from power on, the electronic state this run is presetting is in fact a valid scenario that can occur at power on.
Personally, I'd also be willing to accept running the ROM image for this game on any official Nintendo board that is able to run it without modification of it or the ROM image. But I don't know how others would feel about "swapping to another compatible board", and if when doing so, this state would even be possible. In any case, on this last point, many games on various consoles have different batches created with different boards which are compatible for the game. Therefore I'm willing to accept any board (which is official) known to be compatible, whether we know the game was indeed shipped at some point on that board, or not.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Okay, Aktan and I looked over stuff, and looks like I found a good card (GeForce GT 640 r2). I shouldn't be needing further assistance.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
As it stands, I'm not willing to have this video accepted, unless there's conclusive proof that this game can be powered on in an NES with this state used here.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
My main machine features a GeForce 7600 GS which I'm looking to upgrade. My reasons for upgrade is that Nvidia is dropping driver support for it, part of it looks like it's a bit burnt, and I would like to use some of the new technology I'm missing out on like VDPAU and CUDA.
I want a modern Nvidia card which is more powerful than the one I have, with all the new tech. Something which I can depend on for many years to come, but isn't a major power drain. I don't need a wide card, power hungry card, or any of that.
I don't play games with 3D environments, and my heavy video card usage is large video playback, Command & Conquer series, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Project 64, Dolphin, ZiNc, ePSXe.
Which video card should I be getting? Bearing in mine one which should accomplish what I need, and save on my long term electric bill. I'm thinking it should probably be a GeForce GT 610 - 640, but I'm not entirely sure what to pick. Any advice?
Edit: I'd like one which has 2 DVI ports, which my current card also has.
Edit2: The rest of my hardware is modern and top of the line, so no need to worry about other hardware requirements.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
got4n wrote:
What should I do?
I recommend you optimize it further. From a quick glance, it looks like this run can be easily shortened by 20 seconds. With some hard work, you probably can double that.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
