Ram Watch is a windows dialog for rerecording emulators designed to find useful ram values. It was originally developed for GENS rerecording by Upthorn and Nitsuja. Since then it has been ported to most rerecording emulators supported by the site. Therefore, it is documented here.
Many watch files for various games can be found on TASTools.
Emulators with Ram Watch:
Documentation
Ram Watch is intended to aid in making TAS movies by allowing the user to monitor a chosen set of RAM values while making a movie. Most emulators support some kind of ram watching ability but the success of this particular dialog in GENS rerecording has caused it to be ported to many emulators.
For RAM Watch to be effective, the user must already know which RAM values to watch. For that purpose, emulators with the RAM Watch dialog also support the RAM Search dialog.
Adding addresses
By clicking the "New" button (or from the menu item) a dialog will appear in order to enter an address as well as specifications about it.
- Notes: This will be the name or comment about the address.
- Data type: Signed, Unsigned or Hexidecimal TODO: explain with proper detail
- Signed/Unsigned can ease the understanding of monitored addresses so knowledge of this property is important. Speed address, for instance, will usually be signed whereas x,y coordinates and subpixel values will be unsigned. Signed addresses are intended to be used for values that go positive and negative, Unsigned is linearly positive.
- Hexadecimal display can be useful, especially for values that tend to be base 16 anyway (NES subpixel values for instance are almost always 1 byte with 1/16th precision. Hexadecimal display will show these values as 10, 20, 30, A0, etc).
- Data Size: Allows you to specify 1,2, or 4 byte value
- A very important value to set and depends on knowledge about the platform being used. NES for instance will almost always be 1 byte (8-bit) values whereas SNES and GENS will often be 2 byte values. DS and GBA are typically 4 byte.
Watch files
RAM Watch supports the saving of a address list into a watch (.wch) file. This file saves the list of addresses and the order in which they appear.
Auto-load
When this menu item is checked, Ram Watch will automatically load and load the most recent watch (.wch) file whenever a ROM is loaded.
Hotkeys
Ram Watch is equipped with hotkeys for various buttons and menu items.
U and D move a highlighted address up or down the list. R will remove an item from the list. N will add a new item. A duplicates the current item.
Window position
By default Ram Watch is opened next to the main emulator window. If
Save Window Position is check (under the File menu) then the dialog will open in its last used position.