Posted: 4/28/2011 4:37 AM
Post subject: Versions of emulators for watching published movies
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klmz
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I found it annoying to figure out which version of an emulator to use for watching a published movie from the input file at times. There have been some GBx movies with notes about the emulator versions, but wouldn't it be better to add a specific category/tag row noting the compatible emulator versions into the publication header?
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days <adelikat> no doubt <adelikat> klmz, they still do
Posted: 4/28/2011 9:08 AM
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feos
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Yeah, even submissions don't mention the emu version sometimes. But I suggest not only some tag about the version, but even a link to it. Or we shall have a list of all used versions with links.
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Posted: 4/28/2011 3:00 PM
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Randil
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I strongly support this idea.
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Posted: 4/28/2011 3:01 PM
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Flygon
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Posted: 4/28/2011 3:13 PM
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Mukki
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Agreed. This is becoming particularly annoying in the case of SNES publications. Emulators can be quite consistent for some consoles (i.e. Gens), but quite varied for others (i.e. SNES, GBx). Will we add tags to all entries, or just those that are problematic? A notice in the movie description would suffice imo, rather than adding a slew of new tags.
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Posted: 4/28/2011 3:18 PM
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feos
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I am for adding a graph into submission that faces the version just like it does for rerecord count or so.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Posted: 4/29/2011 1:50 PM
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klmz
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I think it would be more convenient if a publication entry could tells whether the movie file could be watched with the latest and/or most used versions of the emulator, though that would definitely increase the workload of our Movie Editors.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days <adelikat> no doubt <adelikat> klmz, they still do
Posted: 4/29/2011 1:51 PM
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adelikat
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It wouldn't be hard to add a field to the movie & submission databases then display "Emulator used:" on them. Then of course it would be up to some movie editors to go fill in that info on a whole lot of movies. I think the idea makes sense though.
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Posted: 4/29/2011 2:46 PM
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MESHUGGAH
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It won't take too long since most of the submission text already notes which emulator used. I would help if I could (no permission to edit those texts).
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Posted: 4/29/2011 5:56 PM
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BigBoct
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Wouldn't it be possible to parse the emulator version out of the movie file? Or could you only parse the branch of the emulator?
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Posted: 4/29/2011 6:48 PM
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boct1584 wrote:
Wouldn't it be possible to parse the emulator version out of the movie file?
Depends on emulator/movie file format. Most of them only shows the "version" and not the build (for example both Snes9X v1.51.ep10r2 - Geiger's Snes9x Debugger and Snes9X v1.51 uses version 4 in the header, while Snes9X 1.43 uses version 1). edit: but I think that parsing the version (and convert it to proper version) number is possible.
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Posted: 4/29/2011 7:45 PM
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Warp
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The best would be, of course, if the entries would list all the emulator versions with which the movie works. Of course this would be a whole lot more work because the movie would have to be tested with numerous different versions of the emulator. (I assume this cannot be automatized in any conceivable way...)
Posted: 4/29/2011 8:24 PM
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feos
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Warp wrote:
The best would be, of course, if the entries would list all the emulator versions with which the movie works. Of course this would be a whole lot more work because the movie would have to be tested with numerous different versions of the emulator. (I assume this cannot be automatized in any conceivable way...)
Err.... How can a machine know if the game synced properly? It couldn't match these versions correct, I think. And this is far not necessary.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Posted: 4/29/2011 8:38 PM
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Derakon
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If savestates are compatible across versions (or even if just memory watch is) you should be able to run the movie on each emulator and checkpoint it by comparing the hash of its savestate (or by reading out the console's memory and doing similarly). Obviously this only works if you have a version on which the movie is known to work.
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Posted: 4/29/2011 10:00 PM
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Warp
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No need even for a hash. Just compare the savestates directly to each other...
Posted: 4/29/2011 10:20 PM
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Warepire
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adelikat wrote:
It wouldn't be hard to add a field to the movie & submission databases then display "Emulator used:" on them. Then of course it would be up to some movie editors to go fill in that info on a whole lot of movies. I think the idea makes sense though.
I support this, it would simplify so much.
Posted: 4/30/2011 12:14 AM
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Kuwaga
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The problem would rather be how to display those long lists of supported emulator versions. It'd maybe be more practical to just link to a location where the version it has been recorded with can be downloaded and leave it at that.
Posted: 4/30/2011 12:43 AM
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MESHUGGAH
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I'm currently started to make a simple C# program that parses the movie files and writes it in to a log file. Here's the source code and here's the current log file. (I used the moviefilesall-1.02.zip movies) As you can see @ line 85 you can easily reformat the version number into a string. So you could actually able to print out all the values into an sql insert command. Also there are movie formats where the same version is used (for example FBM). So this list could serve as a base to start identifying correct emulator version. I will post when it's complete.
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Posted: 4/30/2011 1:46 AM
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MESHUGGAH
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updated: It's currently supports DSM FBM FCM FM2 FMV GMV JRSR M64 MC2 MCM MMV PJM PXM SMV VBM and YMV (OMR and ZMV is the only missing ones). Source code, and log file. Please ignore the code redundancy, I just wanted to show this way. Any comments regarding the output are welcome.
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Posted: 8/14/2011 12:08 PM
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creaothceann
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*bump* I also second this feature request.