Posts for sgrunt

1 2 3
52 53
Posted: 11/27/2011 9:48 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
So, let's see here: we have ten or so seconds of intro followed by 45 seconds of walking from point A to point B while being subjected to poor quality graphics, music, etc. Can I have my minute back?
Posted: 11/25/2011 4:18 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Perhaps "uncaring" would serve as an adequate one word substitute.
Posted: 11/19/2011 11:13 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
ledauphinbenoit wrote:
Are the following assumptions correct? SD/512/10bit444 should show just the 2 screens, oriented either horizontally or vertically based on how the game orients them.
True with the possible exception of 512s, which are intended for streaming and therefore may also be set up in the fashion as HD encodes.
ledauphinbenoit wrote:
HD is up to the discretion of the encoder to chose whether one screen should be "featured". Both screens should appear somewhere, but possibly minimized in favor of one larger screen, aka Contra 4 HD encode.
Also largely correct. The preferred style at the moment seems to be "1x2"-style, such as that seen in the YouTube encode for [1902] DS Super Mario 64 DS by mkdasher & ALAKTORN in 14:23.34, though as long as you're showing both screens somewhere, I probably think that's okay.
ledauphinbenoit wrote:
Edit: Also, should there be spacing between the 2 screens? Or is that entirely up to the encoder as well?
In my view, this is game-dependent. If there are segments where the two screens form one continuous view separated by some distance, the screens in the encode should also be separated by that distance (we have a few examples of this, but I cannot immediately think of any). Otherwise, I would prefer no gap, but it's not the end of the world if a gap is present outside of those cases.
Posted: 11/19/2011 4:46 AM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
It looks like you either recorded over your submission, or submitted the wrong file - unless you really did manage to complete everything in two seconds. If you have a submission file that actually represents the full run, upload it to Microstorage and link the URL from here so that we can update the submission with it.
Posted: 11/18/2011 11:33 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
At first glance, you might think this is faster than #3008: X2poet's NES Rainbow Islands - The Story of Bubble Bobble 2 "No Diamond" in 14:52.53 - but note that the ROM this is actually using is Rainbow Islands - The Story of Bubble Bobble 2 (J) [p1].nes, and not Rainbow Islands - The Story of Bubble Bobble 2 (U) [!].nes. Besides the problem with not using a [!] ROM, there are timing differences between the two versions; in particular, the (U) version:
  • takes an extra 297 frames to clear the title screen; and
  • has an extra 30 frame blank screen prior to every level;
  • takes longer to fade out on levels (at least 4 frames per level); and
  • takes an extra 44 frames to clear the outro.
There are 28 levels, so the extra time in frames that needs to be added to this run to be comparable in time is (28+4)*30 + 297 + 44 = 1301 frames, which is more than the (53640-52432) = 1208 frames that differ between the two submissions, and this doesn't take into account other lag patterns that I have noticed that differ between the two versions. I'll also point out that the original submission was rejected for game choice, so even a properly optimised version of this run would be unlikely to be accepted. I'll reiterate my [post 294137]earlier comments[/post] about your submissions and the submission queue - make sure your submissions are up to standard before submitting them, please, or we may need to remove your ability to submit them until you can.
Posted: 11/18/2011 10:03 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
For posterity, here's the text of a PM I have just sent to McBobX. (I am not sure if he is reading the forum threads at all, or I would have posted this here first.)
sgrunt wrote:
Hi, McBobX. I've noticed that your recent string of submissions, for the most part, don't follow the [wiki MovieRules]Movie Rules[/wiki] and/or [wiki Guidelines]Guidelines[/wiki]. Please read those and ensure that any further submissions do follow them. It would also be a good idea to check on the site for previous runs of games you are submitting runs for and/or in the forums for topics related to games you are submitting runs of for any previous work that has been done, to see how your runs measure up. If you continue to fail to meet the rules and guidelines, we may remove your ability to submit movies until such a time as you demonstrate to the satisfaction of the community that you can produce runs that are up to our standards. Thank you.
Posted: 11/18/2011 2:45 AM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Sorry for the double post, but I want to make sure people following this thread see that 0.02 has been released - see [post 293868]the first post of the thread[/post] for details.
Posted: 11/17/2011 3:50 AM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Dacicus wrote:
Just to clarify, you need to provide the dupinfo and times files for the first pass and the dupinfo file for the second pass if you're not going to use the default names?
Correct.
Posted: 11/16/2011 4:25 AM
(Edited: 12/18/2011 3:12 PM)
Post subject: An alternative AVISynth deduplication plugin: ExactDedup
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Latest release: ExactDedup 0.03. The 0.03 primarily incorporates changes from Aktan to fix some incompatibilities with AVISynth's Crop() function (and likely other AVISynth functions) and some VirtualDub usage patterns. There is also a 64-bit binary courtesy of Velitha. Previous releases:
  • ExactDedup 0.02 fixes a bug resulting in incorrect timecodes being output for some framerates (such as NTSC NES), and also outputs timecodes to nanosecond precision (as opposed to the microsecond precision of 0.01).
  • ExactDedup 0.01 was the initial release.
--- Our old standby of DeDup only supports YV12 and YUY2 input/output, which doesn't play nicely with our current projects involving YUV444. Having written a console-based filter of this nature which works in RGB24, I thought to myself, "this should be easy enough to improve upon for our purposes". Thus, I present: ExactDedup 0.01. As the name suggests, ExactDedup functions only on exact frame duplicates, which is (not at all coincidentally) what we're looking for in the [wiki EncoderGuidelines]Encoder Guidelines[/wiki], and offers the advantage of (theoretically) working in any colorspace AVISynth supports (though I've only tested it with RGB input/output). It functions in two passes, similar to DeDup; however the timecodes file is generated on the first pass, so you will not need to run the second pass twice to generate the timecodes file before actually encoding the run. If you want to use this as a drop-in replacement for DupMC/DeDup calls, you'll need to:
  • load the plugin (as usual);
  • replace the DupMC call with an ExactDedup(firstpass = true) call; and
  • replace the DeDup call with an ExactDedup(firstpass = false) call.
Further documentation's available in the package; otherwise, feel free to ask questions here about it.
Posted: 11/12/2011 8:39 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
I've replaced the screenshot.
Posted: 11/12/2011 8:22 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
I knew I missed something in dealing with the technical hiccups related to that publication. Added.
Posted: 11/12/2011 8:19 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Brandon wrote:
If you'd like to have your videos used as verifications on site[...]
I feel compelled to dispel the notion that we have formal standards on what should and shouldn't be in a verification video - we don't. (I think we can at least agree that the console actually needs to be shown in the video and that the run needs to be completed, though.)
Posted: 11/12/2011 6:55 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
I'm going to use nitsuja's in-line suggestion for the publication (for now; if we collectively decide on something else - and this would be taking further input by nitsuja into account - we can change it later).
Posted: 11/6/2011 11:43 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Sorry, but [submission 1732]you're too slow[/submission]. You may want to read up on the [wiki MovieRules]Movie Rules[/wiki] and [wiki Guidelines]Guidelines[/wiki] before trying again.
Posted: 11/5/2011 11:09 PM
Post subject: One out, one in
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
fsvgm777 has stepped down as a publisher; he will also be missed. --- In light of the recent departures, and to help with taking care of the recent rush of submissions, I am pleased to welcome Dacicus to the publishing team!
Posted: 11/5/2011 5:37 PM
(Edited: 11/16/2011 4:42 AM)
Post subject: 10-bit / YUV444 encodes
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Hi all. As I mentioned [post 292713]elsewhere[/post], I believe 10-bit and YUV444 h.264 playback support will, in the not-too-distant future, be widespread enough in media players, codecs, etc. to begin preparing primary encodes as such. Thus, I am officially encouraging that encoders produce a 10-bit YUV444 encode in addition to the set of encodes normally produced for a publication. For those Windows users employing AVISynth to carry out their encoding, you will need to make three changes to your encoding environment to be able to do this:
  1. You'll need a 10-bit build x264; this is available in the usual places. You will probably want to use a different filename for it so as not to conflict with the 8-bit x264 that you'll be using for other types of encodes.
  2. Remove the 'ConvertToYV12' call towards the end of your encoding script; you can leave the 'ConvertToYV24' call intact.
  3. Add '--output-csp=i444' to your x264 command line(s) so that the output actually is YUV444.
I have configured the site to detect adding a mirror with '_10bit444' in the filename separately from other mirrors; this means you will be able to add one of these encodes per movie without my intervention. So, go to town, everyone! --- EDIT: Since writing the above passage on AVISynth usage, I've noticed that DeDup, which virtually all of our AVISynth users are using, only support YV12 or YUY2 input/output. Both of these colorspaces have chroma subsampling, so just by doing the above you're not getting the best possible output. Thus, I suggest you use a different deduplication plugin (such as [thread 12065]ExactDedup[/thread], which I specifically wrote for this purpose). You might also experiment with removing the ConvertToYV24 call; since x264 contains a library (swscale) which can do colorspace conversions and AVISynth only support 8-bit/channel colour output, doing so (and thus using swscale's conversion) should theoretically be able to produce output covering the entire 10-bit/channel range for 10-bit encodes and thereby provide slightly better quality.
Posted: 11/4/2011 2:34 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Semi-off-topic, but
DarkMoon wrote:
Downloadables are meant to be MP4 because not everybody has an MKV player.
This is patently false. MKVs are just as acceptable for primary encodes as MP4s; any decent media player these days is going to support both.
Posted: 11/3/2011 5:36 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
My understanding from asking him on IRC yesterday is that he will have them done later this evening.
Posted: 11/1/2011 8:15 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
I'm not yet willing to let a 10-bit YUV444 encode be used as a primary encode on the basis that I don't think media player support for it is widespread enough for our average viewers to have a minimum of fuss getting them to play back. I gather VLC 1.2.0 is going to support playback of these; at the time that that's released I'll consider going in that direction, as that will mean there will be more than one or two widely-used codecs / players per platform that support playback of these encodes. One way or another, I'm not going to publish an encode which lacks an encoder logo and subtitles, and I'd like to wait for a final version of nitsuja's commentary to add to the encode before publishing it.
Posted: 10/31/2011 10:36 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
I was asked for input as to the necessity of the "best ending" tag. My view is that the tag is necessary, my reasoning being as follows: I view having no tag to be implicitly saying 'any%', that is, as fast as possible to any possible (non-game-over) ending. Only people already familiar with the game would know that that's not normally what's done for speedruns, and it would be unreasonable to assume that everyone watching this run falls into that category.
Posted: 10/29/2011 6:47 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
For the record, it appears this game only has an (E) release (in case anyone is wondering).
Posted: 10/29/2011 6:19 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Mister Epic has stepped down from his duties as publisher and site coder. He will be missed.
Posted: 10/29/2011 6:12 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
You will be missed. :(
Posted: 10/25/2011 6:53 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Huzzah! ... I am thoroughly impressed at the speed and precision applied to tearing this game apart. Though the run is pretty long, it manages to stay fresh throughout its duration. Yes vote.
Posted: 10/22/2011 7:55 PM
Quote
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Slowking wrote:
could you link directly to the post where the encodes are? It's hard to find them.
Since Aktan is on vacation, I've gone and done this.
1 2 3
52 53