Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
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Bizhawk is superior to PCEjin and Dega in both UI and features.
However, FCEUX is a very solid emulator, why use Bizhawk?
The another isn't very obvious, and I'm getting the question so I thought I'd start a thread.
Bizhawk Pros:
Superior PPU emulation, uses the 'new ppu' from FCEUX but with some nice fixes
Better versions of TAS tools that aren't TASedit
Better (non-TASEdit) tools
Long term support. I (and others) no longer actively support FCEUX, but I am very enthusiastic about developing BizHawk.
THe DMA Cycle bug in FCEUX is not present in Bizhawk
Mapping Hotkeys to Joypads. Bizhawk natively supports joypads for both controllers and hotkeys (not need for joytokey.exe)
Summary: Bizhawk is of comparable accuracy to FCEUX with some nice polished tools. While it lacks fourscore, pal, and several Japanese rom mappers, it emulates well about 90% of the games TASes at TASVideos.
FCEUX:
Better mapper support (mostly the more obscure and japanese mappers, and that is only a temporary advantage as I'm still building these mappers and we intend to support any requested mappers)
The new FCEUX release will come with a very advanced TASEdit overhauled by Ans.
Speed. FCEUX runs faster than Bizhawk, for slower computer you may not get full fps with Bizhawk
Fourscore emulation. While we have very few TASes with more than 2 players, Bizhawk can not emulate these currently (givena demand though, this could change)
PAL support. While TASvideos does not typically publish PAL movies, this isn't emulated in Bizhawk yet.
Summary:
FCEUX is tried and true. The accuracy issues on
Tie:
The sound emulation of FCEUX is old an primitive. The sound emulation in Bizhawk is new and underdeveloped. They both have their pros and cons.
Now if you are a linux user, this is all moot. Bizhawk isn't supported in linux (yet) while FCEUX is probably the best linux supported NES emulator.
Conclusion:
I will be using BizHawk for my new TASes. I find the UI to be better and more convenient. I will continue to do so even despite FCEUX 2.1.6 which will have an amazing TASEdit update (thank you AnS). However, I enoucrage everyone to try this new release. AnS did a great job trying to reinvent how we all TAS, it is truly inspiring.
Feel free to debate here.
After reading the reasons you have posted, I definitely like the idea of BizHawk replacing PCEjin and Dega. I think it should replace those emulators right away. But I think the site should still allow FCEUX submissions for a while, so people who like to make 4-player TASes or use TASedit can still make their TASes on FCEUX. I like the sound of the improvements BizHawk has over FCEUX too.
I have two questions though:
1. Are runs done on BizHawk more likely to sync on a real NES?
2. I'm curious as to the origin of the emulator's name. Why "BizHawk"?
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3573)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
I agree that Bizhawk is not going to completly obsolete FCEUX (that's no easy task! FCEUX is a very good emulator). But when you say fourscore, or PAL, or people using TASedit, you are talking about very few TASes on this site.
To answer your questions:
1) There seems to be a high amount of sync compatibility between FCEUX and Bizhawk, I'd estimate about 75% compatibility, but that's very rough as I haven't fully tested it. (My Zanac runs on both emulators, we well as FCEU for instance)
2) I'm not sure anymore. The original plan was to have a base UI that we would build many different emulators and we coined the phrase Hawk (hell, it beats jin doesn't it) for the designation of our emulator. It would be a wrapper for a emulator so we would have NESHawk, PSXHawk, etc. We need a name for the base emulator and to keep it secret for now we went with Biz as it sounded rather boring. Since then we have managed to make all these cores work together as one and haven't had the need for a base emulator and different versions. I dunno, it sounded cool I guess :P
I know that zeromus and adelikat seem to think this is not an issue, but I can't get [1724] NES Super Mario Bros. 2 "warps" by Aglar & andrewg in 07:41.16 to sync on Bizhawk, which is one of the few runs I tested. [99] NES Super Mario Bros. 2 "warps" by Genisto in 08:31.30, on the other hand, syncs fine. I have verified the former personally, and the latter is a Famtasia run...this makes me quite skeptical about the actual accuracy of this emulator. I'm also hoping that the new core developers that we'll hopefully attract as a result of going public (Please?) will be interested in making the NES core MUCH FASTER, as I like playing games on my emulators in addition to TASing, and I'd like for my non-TASing gamer friends to get some utility out of this.
That said, I have strong faith that bizhawk will eventually completely obsolete FCEUX. I'm looking forward to making further contributions to it and I think it's a great project. I just think it's premature to say that it automatically does this. I don't know what I'd use personally for a NES run at this point. I'm pretty sure that FCEUX emulates Star Tropics II properly, so I'm probably going to use that until I verify that a NES Bot can sync the whole run. If it syncs on Bizhawk as well, I'll probably run it through my importer and submit it as such.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
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Joined: 11/3/2004
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Location: Tennessee
We had famtasia movies many years after famtasia was oboslete. And as of now we have many FCEU (.fcm) movies currently published. We don't go converting and 'fixing'm movies once we consider something obsolete.
I will probably stay using fceux at least until TAS Editor is ported over because that is the best TAS'ing tool I have ever used and can't even imagine the process without it, but I look forward to the progress on this.
I have a question though.
adelikat wrote:
Bizhawk Pros:
Superior PPU emulation, uses the 'new ppu' from FCEUX but with some nice fixes
In this thread it was said that the OldPPU was more accurate than the new PPU and that the old PPU should be used.
finalfighter wrote:
The behavior is corresponding to OldPPU of FCEUX.
OldPPU of FCEUX was proven to be correct!
And, because NewPPU of FCEUX is wrong, I recommend not using it.
Was it something that was fixed before it was ported over to Bizhawk (my opinion is there should be a name change) or were they incorrect.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
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Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
goofydylan8 wrote:
adelikat wrote:
Bizhawk Pros:
Superior PPU emulation, uses the 'new ppu' from FCEUX but with some nice fixes
In this thread it was said that the OldPPU was more accurate than the new PPU and that the old PPU should be used.
The new PPU by definition uses a more accurate understanding of how the PPU works in a real NES, the downside to the 'new ppu' in FCEUX is that while it uses this more accurate understanding it was still more alpha release quality, and thus overall it was safer to use the old ppu as a result. This new ppu has had some work in Bizhawk since then.
finalfighter wrote:
The behavior is corresponding to OldPPU of FCEUX.
OldPPU of FCEUX was proven to be correct!
And, because NewPPU of FCEUX is wrong, I recommend not using it.
Was it something that was fixed before it was ported over to Bizhawk (my opinion is there should be a name change) or were they incorrect.
Honestly, I don't know how Bizhawk will behave in the case of MM1. That is worth investigating.
Bizhawk (my opinion is there should be a name change)
I agree. I like the "Hawk" part of the name, but not "Biz". Maybe if someone suggested a better name, it could be changed, like how Hourglass would have been "WinTASer" if Raiscan hadn't suggested the better name?
Also, I'm not sure that .tas is a good extension for the movie files created by the emulator. You said that you want BizHawk to appeal to casual gamers too, and casual gamers sometimes like making movies of themselves playing in real-time (like for Let's Plays), but those movies aren't TASes. If BizHawk becomes as popular as FCEUX and the movie file extension is widely known, people might come to know .tas as the BizHawk movie file extension. Then it might be confusing whether someone is talking about a .tas or a TAS. Plus, BizHawk's movie files aren't the only TASes; there are other rerecording emulators that create TASes, and this term shouldn't be only representative of BizHawk (people might think TASVideos only has BizHawk movies, and not visit because they were looking for an N64 or SNES TAS). Maybe .bkm (BizHawk movie, or whatever the name might change to) would be better and more representative of what the file actually is?
I think the name won't be changed. It's been called BizHawk for over a year. We're on revision 1774. BizHawk is an excellent name. Individual components can be called *hawk, like neshawk or discohawk or pcehawk. The biz part is because hawk biz is called bizhawk. The name is perfect. The only replacement I wouldve countenanced is StarHawk (because its *hawk) but that was already taken by various things.
Fun Fact: BizHawk _is_ the better name. For some months before then it was called PayrollPro.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
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Posts: 4754
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Well said. And PayRollPro was a nice name for being able to use the CIA system and still fly under the radar. We wanted something extremely boring that no one would look into when they saw the project/commits ;)
what about checking if the already console verified runs sync in bizhawk?
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =)
(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ
Also, I'm not sure that .tas is a good extension for the movie files created by the emulator. You said that you want BizHawk to appeal to casual gamers too, and casual gamers sometimes like making movies of themselves playing in real-time (like for Let's Plays), but those movies aren't TASes. If BizHawk becomes as popular as FCEUX and the movie file extension is widely known, people might come to know .tas as the BizHawk movie file extension. Then it might be confusing whether someone is talking about a .tas or a TAS. Plus, BizHawk's movie files aren't the only TASes; there are other rerecording emulators that create TASes, and this term shouldn't be only representative of BizHawk (people might think TASVideos only has BizHawk movies, and not visit because they were looking for an N64 or SNES TAS). Maybe .bkm (BizHawk movie, or whatever the name might change to) would be better and more representative of what the file actually is?
this is a good post, that extension should be changed
Mildly dislike "BizHawk" and think the emulator will be more appealing and find greater success if it is changed. "StarHawk" is decent (and clever) and I doubt it matters that much that other things have been called that.
Strongly agree that .tas is a bad extension, for all the reasons CoolKirby gave.
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
I think *hawk is a good name, and Bizhawk isn't a bad variant of it. I've always thought .tas was a bad movie extension for similar reasons to the ones CoolKirby listed, but I'm pretty sure adelikat is adamant about this.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
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I really like the name Bizhawk.
I agree with the others about the extension though, it shouldn't be ".tas". It's both too specific (movie files can be used for many things that aren't TAS) and too vague (the extension name has little to do with its emulator name).
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
For the existing FCEUX runs, will the staff convert the .fm2 files into the BizHawk files?
No need for conversion. Bizhawk can play FCEUX movies (and many of them should sync). And FCEUX also could play Bizhawk movies, if that was necessary.
There's a nuance; in the past, bizhawk played .fm2 files natively, but now, we use "importers", which essentially function as converters, but have the important aspect of not being a 1-1 conversion. The importer takes a .fm2 (Or a .mmv, .mc2, or .fmv currently) file and converts it to a bizhawk movie object, which then exports the movie to .tas file. This yields much more flexibility in case the .tas format changes in any way.
Originally, I suggested that adelikat make the importer work exactly like the movie opener, but he decided against it. So, there are two ways to import / convert a movie:
File > Import file.
Drag a playable file to an opened game.
This certainly functions as if the movies were played natively, but I thought this was a worthwhile distinction to make. I'm working on a .fcm importer right now, by the way.
(moving my post on this new page)
Here's my justification why FCEUX should be used for making TASes at least for a couple of years since now.
1. It's 7-10 times faster than Bizhawk.
With Bizhawk you must have modern computer to simply play a NES game. Forget about Turbo.
With FCEUX you can have fairly old computer and use fast-forwarding, which is important for TASing.
2. It has higher compatibility with NES romset.
Bizhawk's NES support has yet long way to go to compete with FCEUX. Anyway, this will be obvious in a week from now.
3. FCEUX has romhacking tools (Debugger, Tracer, Code/Data logger).
Bizhawk will probably implement Debugger later, but I don't think it'll ever surpass FCEUX set of romhacking rools.
And debugging is an important part of TASing. Most of glitches I found were first discovered while playing with movie Recording on (so it's easy to reproduce). Then I'm opening Tracer and Debugger windows and looking at the glitch closely. Most of time it's possible to dissect any anomaly and put it to good use in a TAS.
Even if a TASer not experienced in 6502 assembly, he can put his FM2 movie in a forum topic for someone to test it in FCEUX debugger. You can't do it if you're making movie in Bizhawk.
So I think it's way too early to even consider switching from FCEUX to Bizhawk.
SMS, GG, SG-1000, PCE-CD, SGX - sure.
But not NES.
Now about FCEUX 2.1.6 and TAS Editor.
Old TASEdit was a prototype of this idea.
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38496#38496
In FCEUX 2.1.5 it's only a basic Piano Roll interface without clear understanding of a final tool. And it crashes a lot, don't try using it, or you may get the wrong idea of the new TAS Editor.
At first I wanted to just enhance old TASEdit with a couple of new features. But then I've suddenly envisioned the architecture of the new TASing concept. The one where TASer's mind always has the whole picture of the movie, where old "buttons Recording" method is only one of many ways to interact with the game. Where even Rockin' Kats is not tedious to TAS, because "repetition" aspect of current TASing is greatly soften by different arrangement of TASer actions.
So I ended rewriting whole thing from scratch and then rewriting some parts again and again. The final architecture is pretty thought-out, both in terms of OOP classes and in terms of how to set up TASing process efficiently.
Although now I see possible improvements, but hell, it's neverending cycle of perfection.
So.
FCEUX 2.1.6 (probably final FCEUX) will be released soon. Among usual improvements (bugfixes, new mappers, new Lua functions) it will have updated documentation and this new TAS Editor v1.0, plus its own documentation.
The code was finished this January, but I had to slow down writing detailed docs, explaining all the quirks of the new TASing methodology. This is not a small deal, it's changing the whole approach to TASing, so I want to carry the message very clearly, can't hurry.
Finally, about ".tas" extension. Actually, at first TAS Editor had this extension for its project files (as you can see in FCEUX 2.1.5), but a couple months ago adelikat asked me to change the extension to FM3, because he thought it's more suitable for Bizhawk's movie files. Well, FM3 is fine to me, so I changed. Because TAS Editor's file format is actually a superstructure for any other movie format, be it FM2 or GMV.
But now that CoolKirby mentioned it, I also think .bkm extension is more suitable for Bizhawk, because Bizhawk's movie format is very similar to .fm2, it doesn't have anything in it that screams "TAS file".
goofydylan8 wrote:
I will probably stay using fceux at least until TAS Editor is ported over
Bizhawk is too slow for now. Maybe in a couple of years PCs will progress enough... But right now I'm not even sure that you'll get stable 60FPS using TAS Editor with Bizhawk (since TAS Editor imposes additional load on processor, plus it desperately needs Turbo emulation for a couple of cool features). Also I don't want to port it (especially since it's different language and platform) until I'm sure a lot of people want to switch to new paradigm. Not wanna risk anymore. I've spent too much time (half a year in non-stop development), now the only additional waste I can afford is writing docs and tutorials.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
For attention.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
