Posted: 3/4/2015 2:07 PM
Post subject: Is Gambatte/BizHawk the most accurate GB(C) emulator?
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Dyshonest
Joined: 9/15/2013
Posts: 154
A speedrun I'm planning to do for an RPG (Dragon Warrior Monsters) is going to have to be done on an emulator as opposed to the real console (because it's hard to record from a GBA). In particular... how does it handle RNGs and stuff compared to a real console? Will I notice oddness/too many repeating numbers or, provided there's no save/load stating, it'll just play like the real console?
Posted: 3/4/2015 4:31 PM
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MUGG
Editor, Expert player (2330)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3933
Location: Germany
Gameboy TASer of 2015 NES TAS of 2013 Gameboy TASer of 2011 Gameboy TASer of 2010
I can only encourage you to get a gamecube, gameboy player and a capture device such as ezcap. Then you can just play GBA games on TV and record it. I don't know about Gambatte. BGB seems to run too fast. VBA seems to run at the right speed so you could use that, although it may have emulation inaccuracies. VBA v24 has gotten rid of many emulation problems but not all. I don't know about Bizhawk. I think console runs are more legit and credible than emulator runs. I think the only good reasons not to use a console is when you're only doing a casual run (not trying to compete for a world record), when the game cartridges are too expensive (Earthbound, Trip World) or depending on system (you would use Dosbox for DOS games rather than using an actual PC with DOS installed on it).
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Posted: 3/4/2015 4:36 PM
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Noxxa
They/Them
Moderator, Expert player (4125)
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
Exotic platforms TASer of 2018 Exotic platforms TAS of 2018 Exotic platforms TASer of 2017 Exotic platforms TAS of 2017 Exotic platforms TAS of 2017 Exotic platforms TASer of 2016 Exotic platforms TAS of 2016 Gameboy TASer of 2013
To answer the topic title: Yes, Gambatte is the most accurate GB/GBC emulator, and BizHawk (and lsnes) use Gambatte for GB/GBC. So if you can't use/record from a console, use Gambatte or use BizHawk/lsnes, depending on whether you need TAS tools or not.
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.
Posted: 3/4/2015 7:17 PM
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Dyshonest
Joined: 9/15/2013
Posts: 154
MUGG wrote:
I can only encourage you to get a gamecube, gameboy player and a capture device such as ezcap. Then you can just play GBA games on TV and record it. I don't know about Gambatte. BGB seems to run too fast. VBA seems to run at the right speed so you could use that, although it may have emulation inaccuracies. VBA v24 has gotten rid of many emulation problems but not all. I don't know about Bizhawk. I think console runs are more legit and credible than emulator runs. I think the only good reasons not to use a console is when you're only doing a casual run (not trying to compete for a world record), when the game cartridges are too expensive (Earthbound, Trip World) or depending on system (you would use Dosbox for DOS games rather than using an actual PC with DOS installed on it).
I have the first two, and an okay camera. ...well, one and a half of the first two. I lack the disc necessary to boot games via the GameBoy Player. I have NO idea where it is now, sadly. I didn't know EZCap was so cheap. O.o I remember when even those were like 60-70$ in the US. Nice to know SD recording is finally an affordable venue! What I'm trying to do is likely not a world record, but I know emulation can do some very weird things, and I remember from the Cheetahman 2 TAS that emulators always start at the same seed or something? Basically I'd just like to make sure things are still possible to do on a real console.
Posted: 3/4/2015 8:26 PM
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MUGG
Editor, Expert player (2330)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3933
Location: Germany
Gameboy TASer of 2015 NES TAS of 2013 Gameboy TASer of 2011 Gameboy TASer of 2010
I would not worry about that, really. It's really as easy as downloading from here and starting the run if you ask me. Are you going to stream your attempts? I can't guarantee you the game will behave as accurately as you hope. Someone with the knowledge needs to step up and explain how seeds work and if there are differences between GBA and NES. I'm just saying I personally would not worry about that, of all things. There could be more serious issues such as graphical emulation glitches or timing differences. What I said about BGB's and VBA's timings is based on my little testings in GB Super Mario Land 2, and I don't know if timing accuracy is different on GBC/GBA/other GB games.
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Posted: 3/4/2015 10:43 PM
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ALAKTORN
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Former player
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
DS TAS of 2012
Timing issues should be your only problem. Seeing as you want to do a speedrun an emulator isn’t that great of an idea as it probably won’t run at the exact same speed as the console… but maybe it could. Anything else not acting as a console would be a bug, not expected behaviour. So you shouldn’t expect it to be inaccurate.
Posted: 3/5/2015 4:40 PM
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Warepire
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Joined: 3/2/2010
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Dyshonest wrote:
What I'm trying to do is likely not a world record, but I know emulation can do some very weird things, and I remember from the Cheetahman 2 TAS that emulators always start at the same seed or something? Basically I'd just like to make sure things are still possible to do on a real console.
There is less worry about starting on the wrong seed with gameboy games as the bootloader sets all memory to 0 during boot. The only thing you may have to worry about regarding randomness is hardware clocks emulation and interrupt timings, both which at least Gambatte should get correctly enough.