You of course need the ROM, that's the first step. You can find it here. >>> eien86: Removing reference to ROM download. The game is based on licensed material. <<<
If you followed the guide correctly and have the emulator and game set up, you should be good to go!
Intro
Sonic the Hedgehog for MS-DOS is a Spanish Sonic fan game released in either 1999 or 2000 by Virtual Dreams. The game also has wonky physics compared to the Genesis game of the same name, so it's kinda like Sonic the Hedgehog for the GBA, but a few years before that.
Goals
Try to beat the game as fast as possible
Perform stunts in specific areas, like boss fights
Input manipulation to make some areas faster
Levels
Green Hill (Fase 1) - Time: 0:28
The start of the game, nothing too special here, just run and jump.
Garfol Cyte (Fase 2) - Time: 0:18
The first boss fight, where you are in Star Light Zone but fighting Robotnik in his car from Sonic 2's Emerald Hill Zone.
The first stunt is here too, Sonic essentially bounces on Robotnik to defeat him, like how boss fights in Sonic the Hedgehog for the GBA works, but Sonic eventually starts bouncing on the spike of Robotnik's car... Weird hitboxes right there.
Pico Land (Fase 3) - Time: 0:28
This one is also like Green Hill, run and jump. But near the end, there's precise maneuvering to let Sonic keep his speed, since if there wasn't any precise maneuvering, Sonic would get hurt.
Final Timur (Fase 4) - Time: 0:15
The final stage with the final boss fight, where Robotnik has essentially became vulnerable, but not really, because he can shoot flames and spike balls out of his body.
The final stunt is also performed here, where Sonic hits Robotnik more times than normal, still don't know why this happens, because Robotnik's hitbox resets after a few seconds, not a few frames.
Emulation
libTAS 1.4.7 was used along with PCem 17+st-1 with the late90s package.
The TAS itself was made using Linux Mint Debian Edition 6 (Faye)
Screenshot suggestion for publishing
Other notes
I tried finding other improvements, specifically in Garfol Cyte where I tried to see if the power-up hidden behind a wall when you go left will improve the time, unfortunately, it was slower by about a second, so yeah. This is the final product. Hope you enjoy!
eien86: Sonic The Hedgehog (DOS) is an obscure unlicensed game made by VirtualDreams Productions in 1999, based on the original Sonic game for the Sega Genesis. The game is made using the DIV Studio game making software using assets from the original game, and features two full stages, each with a boss fight. Overall, the game is pretty well made in that it very closely repllicates the Genesis game's physics (though not its pace).
This movie solves both stages with pretty much seamless execution in both the stage traversal and boss fights. I didn't find anything that indicates any evident suboptimality.
Congratulations Stockiel on your very first TAS! If you are going to TAS another DOS game in the future, I much recommend using Bizhawk 2.11's DOSBox-X core.
Accepting to Standard
fsvgm777: I'll figure something out with PCem hard-locking while dumping. Anyways, processing.
Hi Stockiel,
Can you specify which configuration you used for PCem?
The Late 90's package configuration is what I used for this TAS.
I was able to sync your movie up to frame ~10000 on the last stage but then apparently it desyncs there. Can you please upload an encode of your movie so I can determine the exact point of desync?
Also please provide the following:
* The SHA1 sum of your TAS_CD.iso file by running: sha1sum TAS_CD.iso
Mine is: b112da7a16550f35e3b2662a268618faafe95fb9
* The exact contents of your late90s.cfg file. You can use pastebin for this
Hi Stockiel,
Can you specify which configuration you used for PCem?
The Late 90's package configuration is what I used for this TAS.
I was able to sync your movie up to frame ~10000 on the last stage but then apparently it desyncs there. Can you please upload an encode of your movie so I can determine the exact point of desync?
Also please provide the following:
* The SHA1 sum of your TAS_CD.iso file by running: sha1sum TAS_CD.iso
Mine is: b112da7a16550f35e3b2662a268618faafe95fb9
* The exact contents of your late90s.cfg file. You can use pastebin for this
I couldn't encode my TAS unfortunately, IDK why it's not working, could be because I'm running it inside of a QEMU VM, but I can provide the sha1sum of the TAS CD, and my late90's config.
sha1sum of my TAS_CD ISO: 16cf227bbdcc515235fd06547e29c917adacbf39
late90s.cfg file: https://pastebin.com/pvcKbdBR
(TAS_CD ISO removed)
(sorry about no encode, I tried with all the encoding methods, but I could only get frame 1 encoded, and it would lock up, but besides that, I hope this helps a bit.)
Edit: I got it to encode, but only in the game, the BIOS part of the encode just wouldn't budge. So, the encode starts at frame 2051 of the movie, and ends at the movie's end frame (11728), and goes a little bit after it. Link to video
Don't talk to me until I've had my god damn sugar.
Amateur TASer
Hi Stockiel,
Can you specify which configuration you used for PCem?
The Late 90's package configuration is what I used for this TAS.
I was able to sync your movie up to frame ~10000 on the last stage but then apparently it desyncs there. Can you please upload an encode of your movie so I can determine the exact point of desync?
Also please provide the following:
* The SHA1 sum of your TAS_CD.iso file by running: sha1sum TAS_CD.iso
Mine is: b112da7a16550f35e3b2662a268618faafe95fb9
* The exact contents of your late90s.cfg file. You can use pastebin for this
I couldn't encode my TAS unfortunately, IDK why it's not working, could be because I'm running it inside of a QEMU VM, but I can provide the sha1sum of the TAS CD, and my late90's config.
sha1sum of my TAS_CD ISO: 16cf227bbdcc515235fd06547e29c917adacbf39
late90s.cfg file: https://pastebin.com/pvcKbdBR
(TAS_CD ISO removed)
(sorry about no encode, I tried with all the encoding methods, but I could only get frame 1 encoded, and it would lock up, but besides that, I hope this helps a bit.)
Edit: I got it to encode, but only in the game, the BIOS part of the encode just wouldn't budge. So, the encode starts at frame 2051 of the movie, and ends at the movie's end frame (11728), and goes a little bit after it. Link to video
I was able to sync -- I used the windows version of create_iso.sh instead of the Linux one. This is the first time I observe them behaving differently.
Please remember not to provide links to full games (the .iso file) in TASvideos. For legal reasons, we cannot host protected game files or even links to them.
Hi Stockiel,
Can you specify which configuration you used for PCem?
The Late 90's package configuration is what I used for this TAS.
I was able to sync your movie up to frame ~10000 on the last stage but then apparently it desyncs there. Can you please upload an encode of your movie so I can determine the exact point of desync?
Also please provide the following:
* The SHA1 sum of your TAS_CD.iso file by running: sha1sum TAS_CD.iso
Mine is: b112da7a16550f35e3b2662a268618faafe95fb9
* The exact contents of your late90s.cfg file. You can use pastebin for this
I couldn't encode my TAS unfortunately, IDK why it's not working, could be because I'm running it inside of a QEMU VM, but I can provide the sha1sum of the TAS CD, and my late90's config.
sha1sum of my TAS_CD ISO: 16cf227bbdcc515235fd06547e29c917adacbf39
late90s.cfg file: https://pastebin.com/pvcKbdBR
(TAS_CD ISO removed)
(sorry about no encode, I tried with all the encoding methods, but I could only get frame 1 encoded, and it would lock up, but besides that, I hope this helps a bit.)
Edit: I got it to encode, but only in the game, the BIOS part of the encode just wouldn't budge. So, the encode starts at frame 2051 of the movie, and ends at the movie's end frame (11728), and goes a little bit after it. Link to video
I was able to sync -- I used the windows version of create_iso.sh instead of the Linux one. This is the first time I observe them behaving differently.
Please remember not to provide links to full games (the .iso file) in TASvideos. For legal reasons, we cannot host protected game files or even links to them.
Alright, I won't put a link to any ROM again, unless if it's just freeware or something. But hey, at least you got it to sync. That's good.
Don't talk to me until I've had my god damn sugar.
Amateur TASer
Edit: I got it to encode, but only in the game, the BIOS part of the encode just wouldn't budge. So, the encode starts at frame 2051 of the movie, and ends at the movie's end frame (11728), and goes a little bit after it. Link to video
I could reproduce the issue myself, and it's due to a change that was introduced in 1.4.7, which notably catches when the ffmpeg process closes....which just so happens to be on each split. I built 1.4.7 without that change, and got it to dump in full (including BIOS).
