Posts for jlun2

Post subject: Question on optimizing 3D games
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For anyone who has/are TASing 3D games (Super Mario 64 type of 3D, not N3DS), how exactly do you optimize movement? Currently, for things like general gameplay, I play through it slowly in real time, then based on the time obtained from that, slowly reduce it with savestates/frame advance. For things like turning, I focus on one turn at a time (rather than focusing if it slows down several turns/corners later). I'm aware this approach has flaws; for the former, any TAS-only tricks would be mostly infeasible even at slow-motion without frame precision/luck manip, and for turning, something fast for 1 turn may be slower overall. Also things that require constant changing directions mess it up. I want to improve upon this, but I'm having difficulty finding a better approach. Tl;Dr - How do you folks optimize 3D game movement efficiently?
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Samtastic wrote:
Cool. I got the RAM address to work in Bizhawk which is good news. I will try in my final submission for this category to match exactly what Dooty did in PCSX to save even more frames. Bearing in mind we did have a small improvement of Abe's Oddysee back in 2014 which was a 21 frame improvement. http://tasvideos.org/4298S.html
Since you just learned of RAM Watch now, it would probably be wise to find x/y addresses and see if some minor frame savings can be gleamed from the run.
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I got a suggestion: Try running the console verified runs on BizHawk and see if they sync. Most of them were done on FCEUX, but if for whatever reason it does not sync maybe something is wrong?
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To avoid derailing, from: Post #436223
Invariel wrote:
This is a way to expand your playerbase without alienating your old players. Similar techniques are used when designing traditional cross-platform games (PlayStation Something <-> X-Box Number <-> Nintendo Alphabetti-Spaghetti <-> PC), but in the case of developing for the PS3 and the PS4 specifically, the developers on these teams were already developing a game for the PS3 (a system notoriously difficult to write code for), whereas the PS4 "features an AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) built upon the x86-64 architecture" which is a far more common architecture to work with. I'm not saying that the work required to develop the PS4 version out of the PS3 code is trivial, just that you don't need as specialized a team to do it, particularly if your PS3 and PS4 teams are talking together on a regular basis. Doing cross-platform development like this while the game is still being worked on is factored into budgets, and is a completely different animal than digging up a fossil and adding new code to it.
That made me curious on developing for Cell, but a google search along with wikipedia only conclusively states PS3 as using the Cell microprocessor. What other mainstream devices/consoles/things utilized Cell anyways? How about today? Is it still in use?
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Samsara wrote:
Yeah, uh, don't do that. That's clear abuse of the system. One more cancellation like this and you won't be able to submit anymore. Feel free to submit the final run, but warn us in advance and talk about your reasoning long before you choose to cancel it again. EDIT: To everyone else, if you're immediately voting No on the run just because of the submitter, that's not cool either.
It's 2 no votes and 1 yes vote (at this post); I'm positive chances are people don't like this game/run more than having some conspiracy against him.
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I have no idea how it happened, but when I loaded a tasproj file this suddenly appeared: http://pastebin.com/jKV9gjAb I cannot reproduce it yet, but I'll post again if it happens. This appeared for the dropbox version Feos linked. Edit: Feos, was the seeking feature removed? Currently for some reason the latest dropbox link still has "Turbo seek" option, but it does not seem to do anything. http://imgur.com/kJk179r Edit2: Anyone else experiencing this bug with feo's revision? In case no one knows what is going on, right clicking sometimes makes a different marker get selected.
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This Movie is made with only turbo tools, re-recording tools and frame step tools. It is meant to show players how the game can be beaten in five minutes.
You should probably post it on the forum thread for this game instead; the workbench has a bunch of rules for it, while you can post anything you like on the forums as long as it's not illegal. You can use one of the following to upload input files http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/my#uploadfile http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php then paste the link to a thread.
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Are you able to test which revision between those 2 it stops desyncing?
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The setting for binding markers to input does not seem to save after closing BizHawk. Also what exactly does that setting do?
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xy2_ wrote:
Yes, there is no more content from that point (this game has no ending.)
How far does the level counter loop?
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Have you tried posting the config file and input file here? Maybe if they follow the same settings it would work?
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CoolKirby wrote:
That jumping glitch sure makes the game more entertaining, and quite funny. Here's an encode of that WIP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_1ptk64uhM This is only the first mystery, right? If so, I wouldn't mind seeing more levels glitched like this.
Thanks. And yes, this is only the first stage. There's 5 in total, and forgoing the glitch doubles the length of the first stage. Since the other stages are even larger, it probably increases the time even more. Edit: So.....while going back to the first stage to optimize 0x11, I found out I forgot about a trick I used earlier in room 0x10 that could be applied to multiple rooms.
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E-Dragon wrote:
Well, a few casuals got something we call "Where's the room Glitch" in one of the rooms in Impact Creator, which appears to be a very random glitch though. The glitch get's you into a room without the map transitioning, so the game actually thinks you are in a different room. With that we can get infinite speed on a wall and then use that in some way to skip exo. ( I don't know the exact details for which triggers you want to hit/avoid with IS to make that work, but andy should know the specifics ) If we can replicate that, then we pretty much have exo skip confirmed. Another possibility would be to just find a secret world (oob) in one of the rooms in Phazon Core, which might be possible with the use of Fission Metroids, where we have ideas, but no positive results yet.
If it works on dolphin, would recording an input file then trying this glitch over and over until it works help with debugging it?
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Another marker request: When you delete a frame in TAStudio with a marker also on the same frame, can it please not delete the marker and instead make the next frame be that marker (unless there's nothing left in front)?
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/31512973782766605 Spreadsheet of improvements: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1at3BGx6-XHpb7XADz1FqSmlo-QIEONuy46DskYAv7Rk/edit?usp=sharing 3rd run of this game. This time I used every trick I know to improve it by 1568 1599 frames on the first stage from the 2nd run. Edit: Corrected the file. Sorry! Also saved an additional 31 frames, but not on this WIP uploaded.
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That interim is this dropbox link right? https://www.dropbox.com/s/3p2agitqff88qrd/BizHawk.zip?dl=0 Using BizHawk 1.11.6 to make a project, then dragging it to that version have this.
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This may be a bit odd, but is there any online MMOs with "Quests" similar to "RuneScape"? Example quest from said game. I tried searching for non-RuneScape, and it gives "amazing" quests like kill x, escort y, fetch z, etc. Is RuneScape the only one that isn't...shit?
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Ready Steady Yeti wrote:
I found a way that you can theoretically complete the game without really doing any of the lessons and just doing one single minigame about 200 times after the placement test (each time would take an inhumanely short amount of time, done within seconds). Does that count as "nontrivial routing"?
Can you please try and make a rough run of this route vs the intended route and record it? It's rather hard to judge when this is not exactly a mainstream game people are likely more familiar with.
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Kurabupengin wrote:
jlun2 wrote:
That's because this isn't the optimal solution; iirc real time runs abuse a glitch that allows pretty much all battles to instant end. Early pokemon games are weird like that.
But what about games like Zelda 2, Kirby's Adventure or SoTN? Those games have that category going on. The "no memory corruption" branch looks weird in comparison to those other games.
GL with that; the GB pokemon games are far too broken for a meaningful somewhat glitch-less-ish sorta category.
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Minor bug, but when a marker is deleted by control z/undo, can redo please readd the marker? Sometimes I accidentally press undo more than needed, and this gets rid of frame markers.
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Fortranm wrote:
http://www.mariowiki.com/Pianta_Village
In fact, it is possible to access Pianta Village before starting Bianco Hills by Wall Jumping to the top of the Shine Gate and entering the Warp Pipe that leads there (the small cutscene that zooms in on the Warp Pipe may not show).
Are there any videos that show this phenomenon?
This? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3m-1qKe034 I remembered doing this as a kid, and drove me nuts failing over and over. :P
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That's because this isn't the optimal solution; iirc real time runs abuse a glitch that allows pretty much all battles to instant end. Early pokemon games are weird like that.