Posted: 6/7/2012 11:55 PM
Post subject: Ragnarok Battle Offline
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DDRKhat
Player (36)
Joined: 9/9/2006
Posts: 388
I recently got introduced to this by a friend. Particularly "ex3" which is basically all the expansions put into one. I would be quite interested in watching a TAS of this or doing it myself but I am having issues with save-states when I get into a stage, it just straight-up crashes. The game cannot run outside of multi-core and turning off audio doesn't help with it. The odd thing is the save-states weren't causing crashes before, but now they are.. Not sure what's different.
A whisper in the wind~~
Posted: 6/8/2012 2:12 PM
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Tseralith
Active player (456)
Joined: 11/12/2010
Posts: 183
Location: Sweden
Computer TASer of 2014 First edition TAS of 2014 Computer TAS of 2014
Might there be any auto saves or something similar in the game?
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential. Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
Posted: 6/8/2012 2:34 PM
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DDRKhat
Player (36)
Joined: 9/9/2006
Posts: 388
They are, but as far as I can determine they aren't where I'm loading states, in particular the ones I know of... Character Creation Character Update (adjusting character stats) Stage defeat (for the completion time) Replay (You get prompted "Do you want a replay file?") I presently have a blank file set up as read-only for the slot that I am using so that the TAS syncs, and it doesn't seem to mind this at all, (if it did I would have assumed it would throw a complaint before it gets to stage select)
A whisper in the wind~~
Posted: 6/8/2012 2:59 PM
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Tseralith
Active player (456)
Joined: 11/12/2010
Posts: 183
Location: Sweden
Computer TASer of 2014 First edition TAS of 2014 Computer TAS of 2014
How many times did you manage to play the game without it crashing? And did you play on the read-only slot then too?
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential. Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
Posted: 6/8/2012 3:51 PM
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DDRKhat
Player (36)
Joined: 9/9/2006
Posts: 388
I can't give a count unfortunately. And I'm also not certain about the read-only slot either, I was moderately confident but I'm literally in a moment going to try without it being read-only (and just manually deleting it) Edit: Having just tried it, unfortunately no luck.
A whisper in the wind~~
Posted: 6/8/2012 5:32 PM
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Tseralith
Active player (456)
Joined: 11/12/2010
Posts: 183
Location: Sweden
Computer TASer of 2014 First edition TAS of 2014 Computer TAS of 2014
Ah, I didn't mean exactly how many times. I was thinking more if you've played it a few times, several times or a lot before this happened? Also if you've played it for several days too. Have you tried downloading a new Hourglass to play, or, if that wouldn't be too bothersome to try out, reinstall the game and attempt then?
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential. Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
Posted: 6/9/2012 6:09 PM
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DDRKhat
Player (36)
Joined: 9/9/2006
Posts: 388
I grabbed the latest hourglass recently before I started doing any practice runs. I've also tried with a new copy of the game. Not too sure what's going on... =/
A whisper in the wind~~
Posted: 6/10/2012 2:47 PM
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Tseralith
Active player (456)
Joined: 11/12/2010
Posts: 183
Location: Sweden
Computer TASer of 2014 First edition TAS of 2014 Computer TAS of 2014
Hmm, has there been any updates to either your computer or the game? The only thing I can think of now is that your computer has changed something in how it handles Hourglass, which in turn makes your save states unstable. Actually, when I play Tyrian I have to put Multithreading and Wait Sync on disabled or else the game crashes after a few save states. And if I just want to watch my imputs I change them back to Wrap. Have you tried to experiment with these settings yet. It could be as simple as changing one of them to make the game more stable.
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential. Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
Posted: 6/12/2012 12:13 AM
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DDRKhat
Player (36)
Joined: 9/9/2006
Posts: 388
Unfortunately the game does not appreciate those options. The game itself has not updated at all, and only a windows update perhaps to my main system. The game itself cannot get to the stage-select screen with those options, I'm wondering if I did have some odd options setup that allowed it which I've since messed with and now can't find. Gonna get HourGlassLog.txt... Will edit this post with contents... Error log can be obtained here
A whisper in the wind~~
Posted: 6/12/2012 12:54 AM
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DDRKhat
Player (36)
Joined: 9/9/2006
Posts: 388
Update: I seem to have resolved the issue a little. I still get crashing but I can get at least two-three save-states working in just my preliminary testing (it used to straight up crash immediately after). So I might be able to continue on this. Here is new error log from a sample crash though, just in-case this is fixable too... Edit: insane_coder from IRC offered an insight. <Ilari> DDRKhat: The game allocates a memory area for some purpose. Then it decides it doesn't need it anymore and frees it. But then, it actually needs it, and uses it, reading a memory address from there. Then it uses that memory address and things blow up. <insane_coder> Ilari: Older versions of windows don't actualy free right away <insane_coder> so setting compatibility mode way back may fix it There was more discussion later about how that came about but either way setting it to Windows 2000 compatibility has given me a significant stability in the save-states (Note these errors do not occur outside of trying to save-state) it's not perfect, still happens, but as long as I don't spam my save-states and such it's MUCH more tolerable, Thanks to him! Writing this here just in-case it might help others. 2nd Edit, turska did some testing for me whilst I was AFK.: <turska> DDRKhat-AFK: it can be somewhat unstable if you keep "wrap" on when loading states - start the movie with "wrap" and set it to "disabled" once you enter the stage and start using savestates. the movie should still sync with "wrap" - of course, you should test often and you'll need to play back the movie from the start with wrap on if you ever need wrap re-enabled at some point for the game to not lock up
A whisper in the wind~~
Posted: 6/12/2012 11:06 PM
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Truncated
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Arcade TAS of 2023 Sega TASer of 2021 Sega TAS of 2021
So, if you get this to a workable state... which character will you use? There is support for three simultaneous characters, but maybe that's a bit much for a first run. Usually it's near impossible to just play each stage once, because your level will be too low. You need to replay stages to level up. Even though it should be possible to avoid all damage with TAS skills, enemies and bosses will take a very long time to beat if you have too low level. Any plan for how to handle this?
Posted: 6/13/2012 3:43 AM
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DDRKhat
Player (36)
Joined: 9/9/2006
Posts: 388
I need to do a lot more testing before I can say this with confidence (and subsequently still having alot of issues with recording capability) but if I can get multi-track recording for this then I planned on having multiple characters run through. I reckon this game would be fantastic (and perhaps a little over-whelming on the viewer.. not sure) to have 3 players running through. An female mage for high damage (Firebolt can easily net 1000-2000 quickly, mana management is the only problem here) An male archer for easy enemy sweep during stages, his arrows can go an entire stage making it nice and easy for those moments where back-tracking is forced. An (male/female) (fighter/thief) for consistent moderate damage, this is the one I need more research into. If I cannot multi-track then I think I will either run a female mage or a thief (because of their movement speeds) In the case of a single player, an way to avoid repeating stages would be to beat arena mode alongside the story stages, arena mode is just a fight against multiple bosses on one screen which can offer enough exp to level once or twice and not take very long if managed well.
A whisper in the wind~~
Posted: 6/15/2012 1:09 AM
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DDRKhat
Player (36)
Joined: 9/9/2006
Posts: 388
Seems I was incorrect about the earlier fixes. After I go far enough towards the right of the screen that the first enemies are defeated it seems the dynamic memory allocation in this game is causing save-state issues still (only during a TAS)
A whisper in the wind~~
Posted: 1/9/2013 7:32 PM
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DDRKhat
Player (36)
Joined: 9/9/2006
Posts: 388
I'm picking this back up. The save-states are still an issue. So I'm simply re-watching from the beginning and using the "Save-state" to fast-forward to where it is... VERY time consuming and will become more so as I get further in the run. but...
A whisper in the wind~~