It was always my understanding that even if you took a factory-fresh console, inserted a brand-new cartridge, and hooked a robot up to the controller port, you still couldn't time things perfectly because of natural entropy that occurs when anything occurs in the physical world -- and also because all pieces of hardware are prone to faults. I also understood that no emulator will perfectly emulate a console because of little things like new model hardware/firmware, software/hardware differences, and the fact that since the emulator, input and display are seated inside a computer, the conditions are perfect and not achievable in reality.
Name me one scientific experiment with direct or indirect human interaction that didn't have to use "significant figures" to prove that the amount of error is negligible.
That you guys are stressing out because of hardware imperfections NOW of all times really pisses me off. I thought this issue was resolved some years ago when you discussed luck manipulation. How in blazes is anybody, robot or not, supposed to manipulate the RNG when physical hardware components are involved? Hypocrites!
This discovery is as meaningless as your decision to close down the site. Think about the number of times you let something slide: a few frames of possible improvement that the author recognizes as the run is submitted; the incredible desyncing nature of most (if not ALL) N64 runs; sacrificing speed for entertainment. You've already made several decisions that prove you are human after all, and that the community is important, even if speed is the ultimate pillar. How dare you take that away from us just because you realized, "hey, guys, these actually CAN'T be played on a console." We already knew that because we aren't robots!
I motion to return the site to yesterday, and modify certain Articles to explain that TASes are typically not possible in real consoles due to the physical entropy (and not just the human element). Yes, your site integrity may take a hit when people realize, "so this really ISN'T possible on hardware." But most of us, I thought, already knew that.
The end result of this process is simply a series of key-presses which could theoretically be performed on the original hardware.
Our runs may not be perfect (if that is even possible), but are still high quality and aim to be as entertaining as possible.
Also, as said at least twice before, the fact that there is a community here devoted to breaking the game within the virtual constraints of the game, and not simply hacking it, has led to vast improvements and discoveries that real speedrunners can use that other hackers could not. At the very least, we are a hardcore community of scrubs that actually contribute positively to gaming awareness.
I say, make a poll and see if people care about the impossibilities and the "cheating" or if they just enjoy what we have been doing.
well, i'm not sure if a poll would matter so much. i know we've always had polls whether or not runs should be published, but in the end it's always the mods who decide if it's published or not. slowking proved that tasvideos isn't a democracy, it's a dicktatorship: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=229296&highlight=#229296FatRatKnight wrote:
I hear all about the timing crystals and all that for older consoles. What about newer ones? XBox360, Wii, PS3, DSi? Are they subject to the exact same rules of hardware randomness that the older consoles have?
i tested the beginning demo in goldeneye (n64) with emulator and without any input, i got the same demo every time. someone could try that with a real console to see if they get a different demo, and if that's the case, i guess newer consoles might have this problem too, and then it's time to start deleting some goldeneye TASes from my youtube channel, so watch them before i delete them (link is in the website link below)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I agree with what Eratyx said. I disagree with the decision, and find it overblown. I've known for a long time that the input from TASes won't beat the game on a real console - take lag for example, the emulator and a real console often don't emulate lag the same way, so any TAS with lag will likely desynch on a real console. I honestly thought most users here knew that no emulator can emulate a game 100% identical to a console. I don't see this as a problem, in my opinion the emulators emulate the games close enough. Even if the exact input from the TAS won't beat the game on a console, by tweaking the input slightly, I think most of the input from TASes here could beat the game on console.
Anyway, I will definitely join Raiscan's clone site, and I hope more of you will. I'm very, very saddened that this is the end of TASvideos. This community and the art of TASing means so much to me.
I'm not really going to talk about why I hate the decision of shutting down this site but I will say this... I hope tomorrow when I visit, I see a giant APRIL FOOLS on the front page. Shutting down the site from the realization you guys had is kind of stupid in my opinion. Especially from the time most people here devoted to this site. Other than that, I really don't know what to say. This also brings to mind of the glitch in Megaman X2. You can skip a miniboss on console but it isn't possible on emulator.
The administrators (and whoever else had access to this topic when it was hidden) deserve an award for the planning and resolve that went into this decision.
I just registered (and waited a long time to for loading...) to make this post.
I dont really see a point of shutting the site down.
TAS' should entertain you, they show what is possibly on a machine that works exactly like the system was designed.
you cant compare it to a real console, but its using the same system architecture. It runs like the system would do if the hardware was perfect. SO you just have to write that down in the rules or somewhere that you are playing on a "perfected system", which is not comparable to a real console.
please dont shut the site down, you gave me hours of fun watching the movies, I would miss great site...
So I know I'm just a lurker, I haven't been involved with the community here, but I've watched hundreds of videos from this site over the years, and I wanted to make a post firmly planting myself in the "I don't really see what the big deal is" camp. We all know TASes could never be played on consoles, for a variety of reasons. Heck, unless I misunderstand, you already allow for things which patently can't be done on real hardware, such as pressing left and right at the same time. How exactly is this any different?
The site shouldn't be shut down over this...you just need to reformulate a few definitions.
To the admins and staff:
So I came by here today to find a run for a friend and noticed the front page about the site. I read through this thread and seen the thoughts and opinions of the staff here on site and while I do see the points your making let me use a personal example for why this site needs to keep going.
I run a Halo modding website. You could say it's pretty popular among the modders around there. The staff on my site as well as the modders put alot of work and devotion into our mods to make the best things we can for the community. So when its late at night, were all in Team Speak and winding down do you know what we like to do? We come here to find some vids to watch together until its time to call it a night.
So why do we watch them? For the simple fact of how much work and effort you guys place into these runs. For us the speed is one thing but planing out your routes in the game, getting knowledge on how the game works and how to exploit its weaknesses is what we love the most. Recently we pulled out the LoZ: OoT TAS and just laughed at the trick and glitches in it along with the clever use of routes and items.
I personally found TAS videos by watching a member of this site named "Swordless Link" on YouTube and it lead me here long ago and have been a fan since. I never paid it any mind to actually make a account cause the only thing I could really contribute is simply saying a run was awesome and so forth. I don't know the technical side of these run nor do I wish to. I want to know when I invest time into watching a run on a game im assured that im going to get some entertainment and also some trickery. Hell, there has been a few runs I have simply watched cause I remember owning the game as a kid and just want to see someone reply it again and beat it cause I never did back then.
For the members of my site and friend who I share TAS videos with it was never a debate on if someone is cheating, hell, the average schmo on YouTube who see's on of these vids automatically think your cheating hence why Link has to put up that god aweful disclaimer on each vid description saying "This is not meant to show skill cause your to stupid to know what a TAS is about".
I think the meaning behind a good TAS has been lost in my opinion. If you spend so much time worrying about who has the best time by a few frames or seconds or arguing over is this valid and that valid the true meaning of all of it gets lost for me. It's about the games, pushing the games to the limit and finding new and more improved ways of doing so.
So your emulator isnt perfect. So what? Do what you did by announcing that you found out this and that some things may be off some and merely change the obsolete time for a vid to adjust for whatever you need to do. Like I said, I don't know how any of this stuff works, what I do know is that I, my friends and my community enjoy these vids. How many other community's out there do you think feel the same way I do? I bet there are tons and your YouTube video views more then prove that.
I never want to see this place go but if it came down to that I would be more then willing to offer a archive for the vids and so forth for future viewers to see the vids I have grown to love. It would be such a shame to see so many people's time and effort just get removed over something being so imperfect. The games you play are imperfect as well you know hence why you strive to keep doing run after run on them. Well, the system of these TAS runs may be in that same category to which you just keep plugging away like always of either trying to find a way to fix the emulator or simply correcting the issues with TAS policy and mandate. Throwing in the towel was never a option for a TAS runner or we would still have to get that star on Dire Dire Docks for SMB64.
I have never known any of you to quit or simply walk away from a challenge and now you have your biggest one in front of you. So what do you do? Do you simply say this is the best we can do for the fate of our site or do you get off your butt, try to find a resolve for the mayhem and try to continue on looking for a answer to which there seem to not be one.
My offer on making a archive for this place is legit and if you wish to view our website it can be found at the bottom of this post. I will simply buy a domain to reflect the TAS name and keep a archive of this place and its achievements for future gamers and old school gamers who love to linger in the golden days of gaming.
In closing either thanks for the memories and the time you invested in your runs for my own entertainment and others..
or..
glad to see something is going to get worked out eventually.
-Pepsi
http://www.halomodding.com
Just restating things people have already said that I agree with:
1. This strikes me as an April Fool's joke and I really hope it is one.
2. You already do things like left+right/up+down, memory watching, wall zipping that are technically possible on consoles but too ridiculous to actually try, why is this different?
I'm just a spectator. There was a time when I tried to participate, but I'm really lazy, so.
she/her/hers
We all know TASes could never be played on consoles, for a variety of reasons. Heck, unless I misunderstand, you already allow for things which patently can't be done on real hardware, such as pressing left and right at the same time. How exactly is this any different?
The left+right thing has actually been done in realtime. It's on youtube, though I forget where.
Notwithstanding, I don't see how this finding would "invalidate" TASes, anyway. If I understand right, it means that we start with clean state and the realtime runners are using leftover bits from previous games, kind of like dirty SRAM. I figure that's part of the joke.
Also, I have to change my entertainment score on this fiasco to 9.5— I hadn't seen the "community of lies" remark until a minute ago.
There is no way emulation can be perfect... You simply can't simulate all aspects of hardware in the software. For example, no software can simulate randomness well enough to imitate the imprecisions because, well, you can't write software that is truly random. Why? Because all modern computers are deterministic in nature. Therefore, you can get close to random, but in the end everything is pesudorandom. The only way to get true randomness is to use some kind of hardware sensor to read electrical random charge or something, but you can't use that to simulate the inaccuracies of an NES timing chip either, since it would have a different nature.
Oh, and let's not forget that Adelikat is a major contributor to FCEUX (if not the lead of the project). There is no way that he could have written core functions of an emulator without realizing that it could never simulate the NES hardware exactly.
Besides, emulators are not written to make games run exactly the same as they do on the hardware (except bsnes, but even then they can't be 100% accurate to the hardware). They are made to run games as best as possible on a different hardware architecture.
Remember the Resident Evil hack? It is used to make RE playable with PCSX-rr. However, it could be used to influence other games, which is why any submission that uses it is flagged for using the hack. Also, in one of the old Mario Land (2?) submissions, someone realized that one of the tricks that was used was due to an emulation bug, causing the run to be rejected. We have measures for countering people trying to take advantage of imperfect emulation, but most people don't.
In other words, many of us have known that emulation does not accurately duplicate the hardware and, therefore, not all TAS's can be done quite the same way on hardware. Why hasn't this fact stopped us from creating and enjoying Tool Assissted Speedruns before? Because nobody really cares when the emulation is already nearly perfect, ignoring the random hardware fluctuations. There is no need to require perfect emulation (an impossibility) for Tool Assisted Speedruns when nearly perfect is good enough.
<ccfreak2k> There is no 'ctrl' button on DeHackEd's computer. DeHackEd is always in control.
If it is a "April Fools" joke then way to make a mockery of people's time and effort and more or less people actually saddened by the site being removed. I just didn't think people would be that shallow to do the whole "the site is going down, goodbye all!" thing >_>
You guys should check up on your algorithmic information theory. A true random number is uncomputable, so no algorithm can create one (there do exist approximations, but they all deffer depending on your formal language).
Oh God no, I hope the site doesn't go down. I watch TASes to be entertained, and to learn a trick or two on occasion. But TASVideos is still one of the reasons I still breathe. If the site goes down, I'll die a little more on the inside.
D:
Now, there's nothing better than registering just to give a statement on this:
Stop making such a big deal out of this.
Have you looked out of your window and noticed the sky hasn't turned red yet and pigs haven't started dropping from the clouds?
Yeah. They are tool-assisted speedruns. Notice how there are the words "tool assisted" and "speedrun" in the name, not however the words "possible on a real console". I could right now, fire up SNES9X, load Super Mario World and make a TAS. It won't break any records on this side, but it'll be a speedrun, and a tool-assisted one at that. Requirements are met, problem solved.
If you rephrase the description from "possible on a real console" to "possible on [INSERT EMULATOR HERE]", all your issues are solved, you can still compare your speeds and you can compare various emulator versions to see which one yields the fastest result.
Keep in mind that you couldn't replicate TASs on a console anyway. You can't just reprogram the system or the game to provide the input by itself because then, it wouldn't be a "real console/game" anymore. The only option left then would be to create a mechanical device to provide the input on a controller. But this will never be accurate either.
So, as a whole, just keep everything like it is and adjust the definition accordingly if you feel this is neccesary. I, on the other hand, still look forward to see PS2 speedrunning become possible, DOS speedrunning to become possible, GC/Wii speedrunning to become possible, etc. etc. etc., and it would be very disappointing to see all that fade to nothingness because somebody felt the need to cause some existential drama.
At the very least, keep the video archives because TASs, if they may not be accurate enough for some people, are entertaining as all hell.
tl;dr - too much drama, keep the site open.
Thanks,
-scrimpeh
What???
The site is being shut down? What about the thousands of hours that all the players have put in those TAS?
I noticed a lot less submissions this past year but i never thought it would end up like this.
I sincerely hope, that there is a god and that it does not go down so easily.
GEAKON!!!
You guys should check up on your algorithmic information theory. A true random number is uncomputable, so no algorithm can create one (there do exist approximations, but they all deffer depending on your formal language).
If so, surely the universe cannot 'compute' a random number either?
Long time lurker, first time poster.
The first thing I want to say is that this had better be an April Fools' joke.
If not, then I see all of this defeatism as an extremely severe overreaction.
Several points come to my mind...
1) Emulation has never been perfect. It has always been an approximation. There's a nice debate in the Mega Man 1 thread comparing PPUs to determine whether or not a glitch is admissible because the question came up whether it was an artifact of the game, or the emulator. That kind of debate is fine, and leaning on the side of accuracy with regard to the console is preferred. But the understanding must remain that it will never be perfect. Which brings us to the issue at hand...
2) Programmers are lazy and flawed. Using uninitialized memory is a no-no if you want your programs to be consistent, but what if you don't care? What if you want a random event and you don't have a decent source of entropy? Read from something you've never written to and see what it is! Sure, why not? It gets the job done. This I see as the fault of the programmer, and not one of the site or the emulator. However...
3) Emulation provides a controlled environment. It doesn't matter if the real hardware is seeding new bits of randomness constantly. What you care about is that one bit the instant you plug it in, and that will be the bit used by the emulator on game startup. Assume a null state, begin with all zeroes for the registers, agree upon that as the standard, and move on. Because...
4) If the movie syncs, it is admissible. I assume for Blades of Steel and similar games the emulator starts with the same memory initialization every time, so movies made should sync. This renders the randomness issue moot. You assume the same initial state each time, the same input each time, and you will therefore reach the same conclusion each time. The Turing machine never lies.
So if you're taking this hardware glitch seriously, don't. I refuse to see this site disappear on a trifling technicality. This site provides a great amount of inspiration, entertainment, and nostalgia. The TASers are truly artists in their craft of breaking algorithms and discovering shortcuts.
Check it out, the banner of the site has been changed to "Tool-assisted console game movies."
Just a few days ago it was "Tool-assisted speedruns."
Archive.org has an old version of the page for your reference:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080730205014/http://tasvideos.org/
CLEARLY this plays into the whole concept of this April Fool joke.
For the record, I think it was a terrible idea and has not been a positive experience for many in this community.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Thanks for letting me know in advance that the site was going to explode, adelikat. I just made a €50,000 short sale on TASVideos' stock and will soon be departing for a well earned extended vacation. Goodbye everyone!
Don't be so immature just because it's April in Fiji! Obviously this is the real deal! You can tell that the judges are totally serious because this is how they always act; they're all worse dictators than Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot combined! They always make the most irrational decisions possible because they're sadistic, tyranical narcissists who get off on controlling and making havoc with our entire lives!
First they lured us in with their lies about TASes being legitimate speedruns instead of emu-hacks, and now that they've got us all addicted to their web-crack they've closed the mouse traps around our necks! This site's hold over my life is obviously reason I live in poverty without love or friendship! Why, if I thought any amount of money would be enough to repair my ruined life I'd totally sue the lot of them, but instead I'll have to suggest we all commit mass suicide in protest. Whoever's with me, I'm willing to start collecting donations immediately for anyone who wants to be in on the pact. And everyone else? Obviously you're one of them!
Seriously, not something to joke about. Absolutely never joke about suicide, it's not some fictitious act that never happens. I know two people who have attempted and one person that succeeded in killing themselves.
