Joined: 1/13/2007
Posts: 343
Version 4.5-X (found inside of the PSP) and 5.0-X (found in later ps3 firmwares) function with emulators and skip the white screen. this would significantly affect TASing PS1 games by allowing them to start faster. are these allowed, or are they not allowed, because they aren't found on actual PS1 hardware? I'm guessing no. They do not contain the memory card manager or the CD player function they just give a black screen if there's no CD in.
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1. The available TASing emulators (i.e. BizHawk, which uses mednafen's PSX core) are designed under a specific revision, v3.0 / SCPH-5500/5501/5502. Other BIOS files are considered "unacceptable" by the emulator due to this, and might have other emulation issues. 2. For purposes of TASVideos, "starting faster" with a different BIOS file does not count as a gameplay improvement. Thus this does not count as an actual improvement capable of obsoleting a movie by itself.
Joined: 1/13/2007
Posts: 343
The bioses are accepted by bizhawk. I tested myself. As i said, they skip the white screen, and have the memcard manager and cd player removed, and apparently replaced with compatibility logic. They are specifically reprogrammed by Sony for emulator usage. The one from the PS3 firmware update is also obtainable by using the "install firmware" function of RPCS3 with a Sony provided ps3updat.pup from the internet firmware download page, and then copying the ps1_rom.bin file form the emulator directory. This makes that version special.
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You said it yourself. They're PSP/PS3 bioses, not PlayStation.
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By "unacceptable" I mean the emulator marks them as "unacceptable" within the firmware manager, represented with a thumbs down icon. They would also not be automatically picked up in BizHawk's firmware folder, you would need to manually bind them, at which point you'll end up seeing the thumbs down icon. What you're doing is strictly a power-user type deal, like forcing wrong regions into firmware slots, with no guarantee it will work (and might or might not be grounds for rejection for TASVideos itself). Regardless too, skipping some BIOS intro or whatever by just using a different (unsupported) BIOS file is just completely pointless for a TAS here: it just doesn't count as an improvement. We do not just use raw numbers here (there are many cases of TASes with longer movie time obsoleting movies due to having gameplay improvements, with the longer movie times ultimately coming from emulation/other non-gameplay differences), and trying to lower the time with just using a different BIOS file is more of a "cheap shot" to be frank.
Joined: 1/13/2007
Posts: 343
The psp one (ver 4.5-X) has a checkbox. i JUST tested this. the ps3 one currently has a thumbs down. the 3.0A has a flower. I certainly agree with the ruling that "it's not a real ps1 bios," and it's what i expected. The only reason i was even wondering is that, as I said, the one from the ps3 can be obtained without dumping it yourself or breaking any laws i know of.
Emulator Coder, Judge, Experienced player (732)
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The PSP one seems to be added to the database in 2.10-rc1, but it was mistakenly not given unacceptable, this has since been fixed in the latest dev builds and will be marked as unacceptable in 2.10 proper.