Since itsPersonnal said that he was able to recover some files, I assumed it wasn't full-on hardware failure. If any of those programs or options would assist him, then it would be awesome to see. I had to RMA mine as it failed Western Digital's diagnostic test, and refused to format to any file system. But as I have seen, there are far more knowledgeable people on this forum than me to help itsPersonnal with his hardware issues.
Seems like if you try hard enough and use infinite boosts to solve every problem you run into, a lot of stupid precise stuff is feasible in a TAS setting.
Link to video
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
Here's this, sadly at the moment only the wallcrawl part is faster (saves ~4 seconds).
Link to video
Here's a comparison for skipping the Tower, it's less than a second slower, but has a lot more room for optimization I think. I could see that BSJ being replaced with some sort of ledge-clip-ghetto, when I messed with it I was able to get within 2 height units.
Link to video
And here's a comparison of the wallcrawl vs using the elevator.
Link to video
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
I'm not sure, there are a handful of variations of out of bounds in this room. For instance, you can ghetto jump out in a similar fashion at the corner right where you roll out of the hole in the floor the fallen tower creates. I've never personally seen the one I used for the elevator skip wallcrawl before, but I'm sure I'm not the first to find it.
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
Hey all,
As a heads up, I'm working on making the DVD code more accurate in Dolphin (landing post-5.0) based on some more detailed hardware testing.
PR 3701 has a WIP patch. I'd be interested to hear any feedback on loading speed differences between the PR build and real hardware:
https://dl.dolphin-emu.org/prs/pr-3701-dolphin-latest-x64.7z
(other platforms in the PR folder https://dl.dolphin-emu.org/prs/)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Good luck my man! I hope you'll finish your wip as soon as possible. The shitload of new routes and tricks itsPersonnal has found is astounding and it would be a huge waste if he didn't manage to finish upon his tas. However, I don't think he is very fond of redoing from start because of his revision he was using. Maybe you could implement your fix to his revision. Then again, I think I've seen a few recent commits finding and fixing even more leaks and whatnot. Devil's advocate!
Due to persistent RNG emulation inconsistencies I had to lower the optimization level of the TAS a lot. It essentially devolved into a "high optimized controller savestate spliced TAS", which I don't think most people can even tell the difference honestly. Everything in Chozo, where I first ran into inconstant enemy movement, was done pretty fast, but not grinding down frames like Frigate was. Where I'm going with this is that this current TAS, which I do plan on finishing once my new computer is built, is not TASVideos legit, it's not optimized to the level I'd like it, and is more of a concept and comparison for a future TAS to improve on than anything else.
Edit: And it'd also be nice to have around for comparing route changes, like skipping Varia.
Hopefully accurate loads, and more importantly accurate RNG, will be present whenever it is that I, or someone else, wants to actually go all out on this game. It's nice to see some progress being made on at least one of those things. It's a shame I can't help with confirming load times until I have a computer.
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
TASVideos shouldn't have a mandate for absolute frame-perfection. IMO you should submit a run that is the best you can manage with a) your ability to commit time to it (subject to some reasonable minimum), and b) the quality of the tools you have to work with. Back when we didn't have frame advance, it would have been expected that you'd just lose frames here or there due to input inaccuracies; similarly, if you have an emulator that desynchs frequently, then you can't be expected to be as rigorous with your optimization.
I'm sure the run will still be great. Good luck!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
The bigger problem is that the TAS literally will not play back from start to finish. If you savestate before RNG factors and reload them over and over again you can technically make it sync, but it'd be pretty stupid for someone to consider that fair and legal. I personally just TAS a couple rooms at a time and then record them and make a savestate at the end to record the next couple rooms. That's why having my harddrive fail on me was such a big problem, I lost the encodes and the TAS didn't play back so I didn't think I could get that footage again. Thankfully I have managed to rerecord all the missing footage and audio though the means of constantly loading states like I said. But even if this weren't the case, I personally don't feel the level of effort put into this is worth submitting.
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
Ahh, yeah, if it just flat-out isn't reproducible, then that violates one of the core rules of TASes on this site. That sucks. :( I'll still look forward to the completed work, though.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I guess I should share things on here. I'm pretty sure skipping varia is faster but it's going to be a long time before I can confirm it due to the stupid amount of things to time.
This is important to know is possible because it allows me to collect Wild inbounds from the back.
Link to video
This is less important because there's no way a 2 tank would find it's way into a full route, getting back from Phendrana to Chozo will likely take 4 tanks meaning the VMR on the way there would have 3.
Link to video
Speaking of which, Strength being collected with 3 tanks seems just barely possible.
Link to video
It'd also likely be faster to get the Energy Tank on the way to Phendrana instead of on the way out, which I'm working on optimizing to maybe be feasible. This is very suboptimal and has a lot of room for improvement.
Link to video
And if I do get that Energy Tank and Strength on the trip to Phendrana, I believe wallcrawling the trip back to Chozo will actually be more energy efficient than inbounds, mostly do the more direct movement in some rooms but also being able to avoid the double heated room with Nature. And luckily I found an out of bounds right at the start of Magmoor, though the Energy Tank can't be collected from out of bounds.
Link to video
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
Great stuff, I hope all this research will pay off!
The only thing I'm worried about, is if all of the varialess Magmoor stuff will also work with accurate loading.
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
The loading is very accurate on the 4.0-4222 revision, I don't think it's anything to worry about. But worst case scenario I could route in an extra tank somewhere to make sure it's 100% possible, if it is shown that console loads wouldn't allow this.
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
Here's another little time saver, I'd estimate it'd save around 5 seconds with optimization. This video only saves 3, but you'll note the door took a while to open due to how late I hit the load trigger, dashing with a better angle to hit the load trigger sooner would save a fair bit of time, as well as just turning around more optimally to be facing the scan point when I land on the ledge.
Link to video
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY