Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
It is possible to get money from the 2nd crow, but most crows only drop a few hundred ptas aside from 3 or 4; the 2nd crow at the beginning (before the 1st Ganado) and one in the castle drop a spinel. There is one on disc 2 that drops 5000 Gold. And of course the one with the grenade. There is also one that drops a flash grenade in the 1st gigante area.
I am currently redoing the village area cause I can do it a few seconds faster. This requires one of the first two enemies in the village drops a grenade. It is hard to manipulate enemies to drop those. Once I have an extra grenade, you are right; I could arc it to the left side of the fire pit and kill the back group. With the 3rd grenade I can chunk it over the roof to the last set of enemies.
I have seen several 3,300 drops since I began TASing this game, but only 1 9,900 drop. 19,800 drops are also apparently possible, but I have never seen one in the 6 years of playing this game. The only problem with the above village strategy is it leaves little chance to collect enemy pickups (aka, no money). I need at least 30,000 for a Rocket Launcher before the merchant trip on the way to the church. I can sell the first aid spray for 5,000, I want to collect at least 5,000 from enemies, and then I can collect the brass watch(end of ch1-2) and the headdress (by the merchant). Ideally, it would be best to get two 18,900 drops in the village and a grenade from the first enemy, but I don't see that happening unless the RNG is figured out.
Having only 9,900 or 18,900 ptas drops basically allows me to have a grenade equipped for all of ch 1, since I won't have to equip pistol to collect the brass watch and headdress(this will save at most 15 seconds). I have figured out that grenade running is ~4.6% faster than with handgun, so the fewer weapon switches the better. This also assumes I get an extra grenade in the village to blow up the trip wire and bookshelf in the last house, so I won't have to equip handgun to blow up the wire (the lock can be cut with knife). And Tseralith, no, the left house is not faster; even if it was less distance there is a trip wire there.
EDIT: I'm considering giving this TAS project up. The differences between how console and Dolphin run are too different (obvious point). Each load screen is about 1.5 seconds faster on emulator than console, in addition to inventory unpausing being another 1/2 second or so faster. I said I was about 30 seconds ahead of the SDA record for Ch1-1 but minus the pause and load times I'd say that is reduced to about 23-25 seconds. The cutscenes at the beginning of ch1-2 start about 2-3 seconds faster than on console. Shaving off 10 seconds per sub chapter by load times alone would result in a final game time 3 minutes less than the SDA record due to hardware differences.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Now that I think about it, what they probably did was encode it at 1440x1080 (the non-widescreen 4:3 resolution) and then added the black bars on the sides to fill it to 1080p (16:9 widescreen). I can encode in 1440x1080 with Dolphin but when I upload to youtube it puts it at 360p, just cause the resolution isn't exactly 1920x1080, although the resolution is far above 360p.
EDIT: Also, I remember trying to TAS parts of Majora's Mask. If you run Mupen at certain resolutions, the .m64 files will not sync. So it should be encouraged by TASers to create their playback file with a resolution the original console actually supports (I'm sure this is common knowledge, but I'm new).
DOUBLE EDIT: New WIP. I really hope someone would give me feedback on how this looks, and what improvements I could make. The only thing I could think of is somehow get an extra grenade (as if using 3 in 1-1 isn't enough) and blow up the trip wire AND the lock off the house at the end. This would save a weapon switch pause, I could run straight to the door without going around the tree, and I will keep the running speed of grenades for most of ch1. Whether a grenade has a big enough blast to blow up both is unknown to me. This is also about 38 seconds faster than the unassisted record, although about 8 seconds of that is because I don't collect the Pendant.
Link to video
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
This concept about polled inputs has me a little flustered. For every VI advanced, the poll advances 2. That means that I should be allowed 2 inputs per frame, correct? If (ideally) I would be able to have 2 inputs per frame instead of 1, this would make TASing this game much tighter, or does this even matter?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
This is an improvement of about 16 frames up until the crow, and I also equip a grenade to run faster. This means I can't use the handgun to get lucky drops from the two guys at the bridge. Derek (the SDA RE4 record holder) told me this is for the best.
Here is by dtm file if anyone wants to try and sync it themselves.
http://www.2shared.com/file/kGfX7hN-/tillvillage.html
See if you can record in 1080p. This video is in 1080p, but the only way I could get Dolphin to do this was to force widescreen mode, which just stretches the image. I'm not sure if RE4 even supports widescreen (since it puts the black bars at top and bottom anyway). How was the MegaMan 10 TAS recorded? RE4 for some reason dumps frames at about double the framerate, and I just use a video editor to correct it.
Link to video
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Well if the Vertical Interrupt occurs every drawn frame, and the game is at 30fps, could I essentially use this as the frame counter? Kind of a big leap to say that, I know.
And why would the "frame" counter be off so much? Think it is just an error by the developers?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I know, double post. Sorry.
I may be able to continue with the WIP since I figured some things out with Dolphin r7693 (haven't tried 7685). Although the frame counter increments by 2, I believe this is not the actual frame number. There is something called "VI:" which increments by 1 every time I press "play" to frame advance. The actual "Frame:" though increments by 2 (sometimes 3). I am assuming VI is the actual frame counter, as this number seems very close to frame count in my other dtm file. In r7323 I could move Leon about frame:720, but on r7693 I can move him on VI:718. Sometimes, however, VI increments by 3-4, but this only seems to happen during cutscenes; this is not an issue so far. Anyone know what VI stands for?
[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/69/re4v.png/][/URL]
Uploaded with [URL=http://imageshack.us]ImageShack.us[/URL][/img]
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I'm still using r7323 for my Resident Evil 4 TAS WIP. Many are encouraging me to go to a newer version, but it seems like all revisions have different load times or something. In the first 50 or so frames it desyncs. Me and gameinn confirmed that one of my dtm files on r7323 presses the START button at frame 295, but on the revision he used (76**?) it presses START at frame 299. Idk why that would be, since I thought the dtm was just a recording of button input based on frame number. A very odd thing indeed.
Secondly, frame advance in newer versions is garbage. I have no problem with r7323, but on the recent 7683 and 7688 builds, when I press the "play" button to advance 1 frame, it goes 2-4. I can't even TAS menus cause it skips several frames. Is there a good build which doesn't do that? Also, has anyone else seen the frame counter skip frames? Example, say I have frame advanced to frame 1000, then I press "play" to advance 1 frame, but it stays at 1000 (the screen image itself also stays the same). When I press "play" again, it goes to 1002 (and the screen image advances 2 frames). If I load state to frame 999 and "play" from there, it consistently will skip frame 1001. I have a feeling this may cause desyncs in the future. Btw, surprisingly I have ZERO desyncs since I started about 3 days ago. I must be lucky.
Thirdly, is there a Lua Script of sorts for Dolphin? I would like to go in and manually add/delete frames from my WIP. I tried opening the dtm in notepad, but it is just gibberish.
Lastly, I agree with a lot of posts here about "read-only" mode. Do the newer revisions (or any revision) fully support it? Sorry for the long post, but (hopefully) my questions are simple to answer.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Slowking wrote:
You can not make a TAS with such old revisions.
If you have problems with frame advance. That's what we have a Dolphin subforum for. THere are actually a few Dolphin devs in there from time to time. ;)
Is this subforum you are refering to the "Gamecube and Wii emulators (Dolphin)" link to the right side of the forum index? I'll look into it. :)
Btw, WIP for the old r7323. I hope I can somehow edit this into my new WIP, but it is doubtful. The different revisions, I think, have different load times and such. Even the menu to skip the memory card (the first 50 frames or so) desyncs.
Link to video
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Slowking wrote:
SoulCal if you really want to do this get the newest rev from here: http://dolphin-emulator.com/download.html
A few revs ago were horrible for TAsing. So you should use the newest.
The newer versions, I think, are worse for TASing. The newer version don't have a good frame advance and when I try it, it goes 2-3 frames at a time instead of only 1. I can't even TAS the menus correctly because of this.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
There is also a strange issue me and gameinn are having with the dtm files. If he plays my dtm on his computer with a different dolphin revision, the frame inputs don't match up. For example, when I play my dtm on r7323, I press START on frame 295, but on his revision, it says I press start on frame 299. This concerns me, since I thought all emulator movie files just remember which buttons you pressed on certain frames. Somehow dtm files add or delete frames based on the revision we use.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
gameinn wrote:
Edit - Dolphin is also forcing PAL to 30fps when it should be 25fps.
I would think that is the case, since we selected the 60Hz option. 60 is a multiple of 30, but not 25. But does dolphin force 30fps even if you don't select the 60Hz option? And is the menu that says "run in 60Hz mode" suppose to run in 50Hz? Cause if that is the case, the first few frames of a recording will be 25fps, and then once the 60Hz option is selected it will switch to 30fps.
Also, Dolphin r7323 works fine for me, and records 480p on both PAL and JAP.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I am trying to find a different version of Dolphin to use since I was using the old r7261. Also, I am still getting an odd resolution of 624x468, and I've tried 3 revisions of Dolphin with 480p enabled. I want to just go back to the old version to use (although I have the resolution issue on that version anyway) because "frame advance" on these newer versions is garbage; when I press "play" when I want to advance 1 frame, it advances 4-5.
Which version of Dolphin should we use? We need to stick to 1 version (for now) cause I don't want my dtm files to not work if I switch to a different version later on.
Also, why do different revisions not sync dtm files? It is so frustrating (I cannot begin to express my discontent) that the .dtm files I created don't sync on newer versions. Like why does the JAP version ask for a memory card at frame 40 in one revision and frame 43 on another? If one revision "loads" the game faster or something, then doesn't it mean that the revision could be loading faster than the actual GC can? That seems almost like cheating IMO.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I have problems encoding the videos. For some reason the video file is corrupted and it won't play in media player. It also has some odd resolution; 740x476. I have it set to 480p in the emulator settings.
I'm also stuck on the first ganado. I cannot manipulate him to drop anything good. I can get him to consistently drop 1000 gold or 10 ammo. I do this by holding up (D-pad or analog stick, doesn't matter) after shooting him and he drops 1000 gold. If I change direction at any time while walking forward, he either drops 10 ammo or nothing. If I hold B, regardless of what I have been doing, he drops nothing. These of course are just circumstances I am dealing with atm, but for future enemies I NEED some sort of method to predict how items are dropped.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I created this test just now. I attempted to make my movements as optimized by going in as straight of a line as I can. For the corners in the house I just did testing until I lowered the number of frames I could get to to trigger the cutscene. The crit on the Ganado was pure luck, but doing the Cstick-R combo to destroy the window was the hardest part. I kept getting 1 frame behind in order to fire the 2nd shot off to destroy the window. I was able to somehow get the 1 frame (literally THE frame before the cutscene) and destroy the window. This will allow me to escape from the 1st floor instead of the 2nd. I will test if this is faster or not.
Also, encoding this is a b****. Unless we can reliably encode a video on the emulator I don't see a reason to continue. The video, for me, is double framerate of what it should be. Audio is also horribly out of sync.
EDIT: gameinn did a TAS comparison, and it turns out the lower window is slower (at least 1 second)
Link to video
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I will do a small WIP with the PAL version then, but I still dislike the idea of forcing 60Hz, even if it is a built in mechanic. Do I just hold B when I click "start recording?" My laptop can't render the game at 100% speed so I wouldn't be able to tell if it is running at 50 or 60 Hz.
Also, when I try and dump frames to record, the title screen for some reason goes at double speed, although on playback it works just fine. The audio dump is good though. Solutions plz?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I guess since I'm the only one defending JPN I'll use PAL. JPN does have all the glitches of PAL though, as far as I know. If bosses have less health that won't be much of a change since rocket launcher is used for most bosses (1HKO). Any other advantages?
And do I just hold B on startup? On NTSC holding B forces progressive scan 30fps. Does doing progressive scan change or screw up emulator settings?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I would prefer JPN because I have heard of its benefits over other versions. The only one I can readily remember is that headshots are suppose to be more frequent. What are the exact advantages of PAL? Also it runs at a lower framerate. Gameinn informed me that we can force 60Hz onto the PAL version by holding B. Idk if this is part of the gamecube structure or the emulator, but I'm fairly certain forcing 60hz on a 50Hz game is against TASvideos rules. If it is allowed, I'll consider switching over, but I need to know exact advantages of PAL over others, and if anyone can plz be as specific as you possibly can and list as many advantages as you can.
And again, is there a way to (easily) test item drop rates between versions? Headshot rates? Critical hits? I would prefer a version with higher rates, if one version has that advantage.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Angerfist, I noticed you said something about using a certain TAS plugin to do this run. I am just using the default options for the 64Bit-r7261 release of Dolphin. If there are any necessary benefits to the other plugins, I don't see a reason to use them. Also, anyone know how to do memory watching?
Also, keep in mind that movement is done in a digital fashion, as in up down left right and combinations of those only. Aiming however is analog to allow for precise shots. This benefits me because I won't have to do exact micro-movements when changing directions. So if I'm running straight and need to slightly go left, I'll just hold up-left for a certain # of frames. For sharp corners however I will use the (analog) Cstick-R combo to change to the exact angle I need, then proceed to run in that direction straight.
Lastly, what is the default X and Y values for a GC controller not plugged in? I'm getting an X value of 128 and a Y of 131. I would also like to see if these numbers affect enemy item drops or other things like that, even if the joystick isn't tilted enough to cause Leon to move. I could use the D-pad for movement and the analog stick for affecting the RNG.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I am having trouble starting the game. Luckily I was able to figure out frame advance and such. Darn thing desynced on me 78 frames in! :/
I need someone to translate these screenshots for me. I am 99% certain the first screen is asking to either "retry locating memory card" and "continue without saving."
[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/268/g4bj081.png/][/URL]
After that, I select "start" and it gives me and Easy or Normal option. Being a purist, I will choose Normal, since NA versions don't have Easy.
I will try and create some WIP in the next few days. I have never TASed, so I want to know if I screw up.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
To avoid any confusion, I am Daniel, aka SoulCalibr. I have an SDA record for Pro Mode (which the run I will say is rather unimpressive). I am currently leaning toward the JPN version of the game unless others have objections to that. Some text may go by faster in JPN, and also the PAL tricks still work, as well as the JPN version is reported to be easier. The biggest problem will be manipulation of the RNG. If anyone can inform me of how to access this sort of information in Dolphin, it would make me go insane at a slower pace. I will also test which version has the most enemy pickups (I think NTSC, but not 100% on that)....anyway, good luck to me I suppose. FIRST TAS ATTEMPT! :D
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Mothrayas wrote:
Also, when I tried out some of the newer RCW games, I found out that instant weapon switching causes one frame of lag. May not sound like much, but this really cripples weapon variety because to stay optimal you only have to switch as much as is needed and no more.
Oh, and for anyone thinking to TAS MM1 on the newer versions, it's (at least in RCW1) not possible to use instant weapon switching for Magnet Beam. Which effectively destroys quite a bit of the point of TASing newer versions. (It also has only about half its soundtrack redone in the Navi version, making the music not that worthwhile too.)
If you play MM4,5,6 on AC, you can use the C-stick to switch between the balloon, beat, & Rush items. I don't think weapon switching on AC causes that 1 frame of lag either, but I could be wrong.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
(333)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
I did a speedrun of MM3 on the AC, and I discovered a glitch about 4 years ago. When you beat a Doc Bot and slide at the same time, you retain the slide speed while running and riding rush jet. This makes the NeedleMan revisit stage extremely fast with the super fast rush speed. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it only works on Anniversary Collection. Also, for MegaMan 3,4,5,6 with the 'slide button' you can slide while on the top of a ladder (idk if that is possible on the actual NES games).
Also the weapon switching stuff would be amazing to see!
[/URL]
Uploaded with [URL=http://imageshack.us]ImageShack.us[/URL][/img]
[/URL]
After that, I select "start" and it gives me and Easy or Normal option. Being a purist, I will choose Normal, since NA versions don't have Easy.
I will try and create some WIP in the next few days. I have never TASed, so I want to know if I screw up.
[/URL]
LOL, Link has dishonored himself! YES YES YES YES vote for me.
