Joined: 6/29/2016
Posts: 53
In case anybody is interested, I finally released a new version of Mesen. It adds support for 20 more NES/Famicom peripherals (controllers, keyboards, mice, barcode readers, external storage, etc.). This version also brings a rewrite of the movie file format to use a format very similar to Bizhawk's own format instead (zip container with input logs and settings stored as text data). It can be used to record every input device that Mesen now supports (although I have not had the time to thoroughly test every single one of them), including weird stuff like the barcode readers or even the Family BASIC Data recorder (it stores the loaded file as base64 data in the movie's input log). It also works properly with VS System or FDS games, etc. Beyond that, it's mostly a lot of random small features (60.0 FPS mode, exclusive fullscreen, etc.), a good amount of debugger improvements and a lot of bug fixes. Still ways off being able to use Mesen for TASing, but with the movie format rewrite done, a lot of the work needed to start building TAS-related features is done.
creaothceann
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Expert player (3514)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2713
Location: US
Awesome! Looking forward to this becoming TAS capable!
Sonia
She/Her
Joined: 12/6/2013
Posts: 435
Location: Brazil
Good news! Thanks for the work, Sour. :)
EZGames69
He/They
Expert player, Publisher, Reviewer (3941)
Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2701
Location: Michigan
Sour wrote:
Still ways off being able to use Mesen for TASing, but with the movie format rewrite done, a lot of the work needed to start building TAS-related features is done.
any update on how this is going?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Expert player, Publisher (2254)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6324
Location: The land down under.
To quote Sour on the 0.9.7 release.
Sour wrote:
This will almost certainly be the last release for 2018. I'm leaving on a trip in just a little over a week, and won't be back home until early December.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Joined: 6/29/2016
Posts: 53
Unfortunately have not really had the chance to work on TAS tools yet. Most of my time this year has been spent on improving the debugging tools, for the most part and adding some smaller features here and there (along with making a libretro core). The code refactoring I did for VS Dualsystem support in 0.9.6 (which also allowed me to create the "History viewer" tool) should come in handy once I do start working on a TAS editor, though (since it gives me the ability to run multiple independent copies of the emulation core at once, etc.) I don't think there is too much missing from the emulation core to support TASing, it's mostly a matter of building the proper UI for it. Unfortunately, I still have no clue how people typically create TAS runs (never did it myself), so that's a bit of a roadblock at the moment - I need to actually sit down and learn how people use the tools in FCEUX/Bizhawk before I can create something that meets most people's expectations. A large chunk of what I wanted to implement for the debugging tools is done at this point, and a TAS editor is essentially one of the last few major things that is still missing, so I think I might actually start working on a TAS Editor when I get back (like Spikestuff mentioned, I will be away until next December)
Post subject: Some TAS to play in Mesen (not made in Mesen lol)
Cyorter
He/Him
Editor, Player (236)
Joined: 2/8/2017
Posts: 138
Location: Venezuela
I've been tried of testing NES TAS movies made in China with BizHawk in Mesen Emulator, as Mesen will have in the future TAS features, BizHawk is too slow and the input file is similar a BizHawk (regular expression makes it very easy to "convert") it's nice to see the TAS syncing in more than one emulator. With the sync of both emulators with the same TAS, will prove the accurate they are, not just because tests says it, and also makes it more probably to see if movie will sync in Console (if isn't been tested yet). (http://tasvideos.org/Movies-NES-TypeB2-NoScreenshot.html) Ok after testing ALMOST all NES TAS made with BizHawk, passed them to a Mesen file, play the movie and do other things until I stop hearing because emulation has been paused because movie has been finished... well... only 15 TAS syncs without any input modification, wow, it was more than expected. (now I can watch these TAS without lag/slow emulation ;u;) [3290] NES Hudson Hawk by Alyosha in 07:03.89 [3713] NES Conquest of the Crystal Palace by arkiandruski in 10:41.43 [3297] NES Faxanadu by Invariel in 23:04.69 [3737] NES Beetlejuice by ktwo in 07:21.26 [3753] NES City Connection "warps" by link_7777 & EZGames69 in 10:21.99 [3748] NES The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt by link_7777 in 08:37.60 [3718] NES Spy Hunter by link_7777 in 05:56.86 [3489] NES Super Glove Ball by link_7777 in 02:08.24 [3596] NES Die Hard by link_7777 in 02:12.93 [3685] NES Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight "warp glitch" by MESHUGGAH & Challenger in 06:50.22 [3421] NES Adventures of Lolo 2 "Pro Levels" by TheRealThingy & BrunoVisnadi in 02:00.00 [3404] NES Circus Charlie by TheRealThingy & Randil in 03:23.51 [3549] NES Holy Diver by Vatchern in 14:26.44 [3836] NES The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles by XTREMAL93 in 10:50.83 Here's another list with all tested files, these ones that worked and these ones that didn't. And here's a zip with all "converted" files that syncs. (upload them in userfiles will be spamming, and obviously, credits to all original authors, your TASes are amazing.) Good luck with adding the TAS tools Sour, hope you get it done! :3 *gets out and gets ready to watch the TASes in Mesen*
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Expert player (3514)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2713
Location: US
Hey that's some really cool work there Cyorter! NESHawk and Mesen have slightly different startup timing, so any games that require ppu level sync are destined to fail for now. Not even due to accuracy really, the NES is just non-deterministic enough for these things to happen. NESHawk is tuned to a particular run of Battletoads, while Mesen is tuned to the most common case of the read_2004 test ROM I believe. Still that's a pretty good list of ones that work! Hopefully someone can take these and try them out on a console too. Awesome stuff!
Post subject: Now, FCEUX TAS in Mesen
Cyorter
He/Him
Editor, Player (236)
Joined: 2/8/2017
Posts: 138
Location: Venezuela
Well, it has been some 5 months since I've "converted" BizHawk TAS to Mesen (that convert was just removing the last | every line). Now, it's the turn for FCEUX, which has some 400+ TAS, but as FCEUX has a different pattern, I used a Python program to make it a Mesen/BizHawk friendly file. The method to ensure the TAS syncs in Mesen is the same I did with BizHawk -> Mesen: Play, do other things while playing and when it pauses, I see if the movie sync or not. A little more than 100+ movies sync in Mesen (yay), the other 300- files desync due to lags, luck fails, CPU decisions or other accuracy differences. Only the FDS tloz TAS has much edits to make it sync, I was just curious to see that ACE working. I would upload the files synced in Mesen but I don't have internet in my computer and I'm on mobile so once I get internet (probably not soon) I'll upload all them to MediaFire/GDrive and list them somewhere (maybe editing this post)
creaothceann
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany
You can transfer files between your computer and your phone and upload from there, if you really want to. (I use Total Commander for that.)
Cyorter
He/Him
Editor, Player (236)
Joined: 2/8/2017
Posts: 138
Location: Venezuela
I finally got a chance to upload the files! There are the 100 movies from FCEUX to Mesen and the other 15 movies from the past occasion where I "converted" from BizHawk to Mesen. I would like to list here the successful TAS but I want to finish this and avoid adding more things to do, at least I did the most important for this mini-project. There are also 2 more movies, I included them because desyncs at the last frames and just editing them probably would solve it :p (I hope I shared the right link and the right way...) http://www.mediafire.com/folder/nud6j2n3up34y/
Editor, Player (132)
Joined: 4/7/2015
Posts: 328
Location: Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
How is the process to get the emulator acceptable here? Now both Mesen and Mesen-S (Snes) have recording tools, and taking into account they have great debugging tools too they will be valuable for researching and TASing in general.
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math. My things: YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Expert player, Publisher (2254)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6324
Location: The land down under.
Mesen/-S have both had rerecording tools for a while (2017 and 2019 respectfully). However it's to the style without the piano roll (unless I'm blind) so it's dated in that field when compared to the S/NES TASing emulators we have. (The bonus is that the movie file contains zipped content, meaning it can be edited easily through a text editor but then the shenanigans of that step) And unfortunately as we know sour was also finished with creating both emulators at the start of 2020 basically and wouldn't be seen making any more updates as they completed all that they needed. It can be forked and work can be continued on to add complete TASing functionality or it can be ported into Hawk.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.