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It turns out sparky's SNES run can be almost directly used in the GBA version with some file editing. Having done so I managed to get past Cold Man and verified that the zip glitches also work on the GBA version. I didn't keep track of RNG so I eventually ran out of Ice Wall, but I console verified up to where I got in Astro Man's stage:
Link to video
Cold Man didn't have the same RNG so I had to redo part of the fight, and there are some small changes needed where the screen being slightly smaller led to some desyncs in hitting enemies, but other then that and fixing some minor desyncs the inputs are sparky's. Pretty convenient that the port matches so closely.
I'm not sure if I'll work through all the necessary RNG manipulation to get the complete run to sync, it would be funny if a SNES run got verified on a GBA first though.
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CHN_96_STUDIO wrote:
Alyosha wrote:
So what exactly is happening here? Mupen memory management bug?
devwizard — 2024/04/03 12:37: it turns out that several things don't do bounds checks and so i can access some memory that i'm not really supposed to be able to access
through many layers of manipulating the emulator i can get it to run my own x86-64 payload (which just calls NtRaiseHardError)
Original message: https://discord.com/channels/280806848909541376/280806848909541376/1224940725003747400
Neat, I hope the details get posted, would be an interesting read.
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Dimon12321 wrote:
I recorded a small TAS of Duke Nukem Advance: User movie #638491602391815310
The game features unusual usage of hardware. The sound chip participates in calculation and doesn't play music during the gameplay. Besides, the framerate is uncapped.
So I think it will be a good accuracy test for GBAHawk, if you have the game around.
Woah that's really interesting!
I don't have a cart right now, but I'll be sure to get one when I can and give this a try, thanks!
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https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638490759514684900
I was going to console verify this but I found a couple improvements in the latter levels. Maybe there are still some other improvements out there that can be found before I make a new submission.
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Link to video
Here is a test run of the first level of Megaman and Bass GBA. This game uses the other variety of EEPROM (8kb while the other games I tested use 512b.) As it turns out my cart has very different timings compared to the other 2 EEPROM verifications I did so far. Those were -9000 or so on the cycle timing offset while this one is +28000. This value seems pretty stable at least.
Right now the only other 8kb cart I have is Ty 2, so I'll have to go back and check the timings of that one more carefully to see what kind of agreement I get.
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despoa wrote:
Is it possible for you to verify this again on camera?
Best I can do is a low quality cell phone video with no audio (i don't have a crt and my monitor won't recognize the NES component inputs.)
EDIT: Figured out how to output audio through OBS, video updated.
Link to video
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Link to video
I finally managed to console verify this!
It turns out the data rate was only too high for a short time when the code is first being loaded. So I increased the latches per command from 28 to 32 (with some minor fiddling to prevent buffer overruns) in that area, then returned it to default 28 for the rest of playback.
With this tinkering and using my hacked SMB ROM that sets RAM for me, it worked out first try.
Really amazing that this worked out, you have really mastered the NES OnehundredthCoin!
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I made a rom hack of SMB that loads the required RAM at power on (by editing unused level data and jumping to that) to avoid having to do any cart switching, but I still can't get sync. I get a white screen about 40900 poll in. I occasionally get one (incorrect) frame of animation before white screen.
I think to narrow it down further I would need some kind of test rom to verify that the bot I have / hardware registers can keep up with the rate at which data is being pushed.
The closest thing I have right now is NESnake 2, which has 300k polls in 3 minutes, and that works on console but this run has several times more than that.
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With a cart that sets RAM to the initial state, I can get to the 'N' worlds about 1/4 times on console, but then it crashes at Bowser. I imagine I need a more sophisticating swapping technique then manually to get it to work. The probability of none of the bits decaying away in the time it takes me to swap is probably very low.
Anyway really cool project!
Do you think you will re-submit stop and swap now that it works in 2.9.1?
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2 months since my last post and now we are at 365 runs console verified. Pretty steady progress.
I suppose we could easily pass 400 with the numerous Action 52 runs alone, but I don't have any way to play those back myself.
At least on my end I expect progress to continue at roughly the same pace. Soon I'll be looking at Mega Man Zero I hope those are syncable.
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RetroEdit pointed out a serious bug in v2.1.1 which prevented using the default core without a pre-existing config file.
I fixed this issue and with a couple other minor fixes released 2.1.2. I also backported the fixes to 2.1.1, to avoid having to simply delete it altogether.
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Here is a video and movie file for a complete test run of Super Monkey Ball Jr. Master stages. It is console verified, but quite a bit slower than the published run (which doesn't sync at all.) I had previously tested one level but wanted to follow up with at least a complete test run since I was previously unable to get the skip in level 4 to work.
Link to videohttps://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638464781749776967
I won't be working on a complete new run, at least not any time soon, a working test run was my goal and that's good enough for me.
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I have updated the release of GBAHawk 2.1.1 to fix a save state error when using EEPROM or FLash mappers. This error has apparently been present all along, and happens when loading a state where saving to cart is happening. So, I strongly recommend updating to the the current release of 2.1.1 to avoid sync errors.
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Dimon12321 wrote:
I wish I could have such a strong motivation to deal with my stuff! Great work once again!
I went through your repository and the console-verified GBA publications and, I guess it makes sense to clarify the things.
I assume a gbmv input file recorded in an elder version of GBAHawk (say, 2.06) will playback in the latest version, so there's is no point in marking them in the repository. However, you mentioned RNG manipulations for some of the games to become verified, like you had to add some blank frames here and there to make the movie successfully play on a real GBA. Does it make sense to store these input files as well, for example, in "gbmv files verified" folder? Even if this final step of input adjustment has to be done for each verifying device independently, this at least will give verifiers the right whereabouts where to add or remove blank frames.
The verified movie files are played back as is, there is nothing added to adjust for console after the fact. By RNG adjustment I mean compared to the original move file on either VBA / BizHawk. The only exception to this is that occasionally I need to adjust the time stamp on the input file that GBI uses, but this is a limitation of the resolution of GBI not an accuracy issue.
I do check some previously console verified movies with each new version release to make sure I didn't accidently break anything, so yeah movie files should all be forward compatible.
Your post reminded me that there is one exception to this though. Feline currently desyncs in current versions. At first this didn't make much sense to me since it seemed to work on console just fine. But it turns out I dumped the movie with an old version of the GBI input script that didn't a include start up offset. By some weird coincidence of error cancellation this let it work on console. When I dump it with the current script it desyncs the same as on emulator. So at some point I need to find some frames to save to get a new movie and remedy this.
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For some reason I am unable to add the console verified flag to Fire Emblem: https://tasvideos.org/1878M
When I pick the flag and hit save nothing happens.
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Link to video
With some considerable effort I was able to get Fire Emblem to work on console after all!
I should get the Sacred Stones run done some time this week as well.
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GBAHawk v2.1.1 is released!
This version adds a sync setting for EEPROM timings, along with various bug fixes. This allows me to add a check mark to DKC 101%.
I also fixed a bug in reading from BIOS while not executing in BIOS region, which is supposed to return the last fetched instruction from BIOS. I was not properly reading the correct byte when only byte sized data was asked for. I found this out when trying to figure out a desync in Fire Emblem. It turns out this game has a bug in calculating enemy movement when enemies are on the edge of the map and attacking characters also close to the edge of the map. In this case the game ends up reading from an incorrect address (in this case 0x00000007) which is in BIOS region.
After fixing this I was able to get a resync of Fire Emblem to work on console. All the actual moves are the same with only small RNG adjustments needed, so I'll go ahead and give that one a check mark too.
I'm half way through the same process for Sacred Stones as well, so that one will be next up for verification.
It's pretty satisfying to get the Fire Emblem runs working, as when I first started testing it I couldn't even get past the first start press. Good Progress!
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https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638446788869509673
With a bit better understanding of how the lag resync script works, I was able to get a good resync of Mario Vs Donkey Kong. Unfortunately it doesn't work on console because the save time is just way too long on my cart. As far as I can tell it's like 50% longer than the stated maximum on the data sheet, which is causing sync issues.
My cart uses the same Flash chip as Sonic Advance, so I'm not sure why the timings are so different, but perhaps after 20 years this is just what you get.
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despoa wrote:
Is it okay if you could provide extra input for the credits stage? It's kind of silly for a TAS for the credits to run while the player does nothing but fall into the abyss multiple times.
I'm not really interested in doing so, but I won't object if you or anyone else wants to add something there.
