Posts for Alyosha

1 2
104 105 106
109 110
Posted: 5/11/2015 9:07 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
jlun2 wrote:
Hey, I'm not sure how you would check quickly, but with the introduction of vault, several TASes that were submitted from way back but were rejected were accepted and published. So if you want more ideas, those could work too.
Good point, I didn't consider that in thinking up this project. I think I have more then enough to keep me busy though. If I ever make any substantial progress in this project, surely those street fighter runs will be saved for last, entertainment is not my strong suit.
Posted: 5/10/2015 4:31 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/22688727279303428 Found a neat new trick (not sure exactly why it works, intentional or not) but if you hit a boss on the last possible frame before you die as they deal you a killing blow (where you die while still having HP left) then they will die too, regardless of how much HP they have remaining. Only useful for bosses that slump over and die instead of blow up. EDIT: complete run saves about 25 seconds. Not sure how much can be saved additional.
Posted: 5/9/2015 2:13 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
So I did a bit of testing to find out why the boss takes so much longer to kill in kyman's run. Here is how killing a boss works. after the last hit, a timer at $0392 is reset to zero. Then it increases by 1 each frame until it hits 128. At 128 the boss explodes. After this happens and the sprites leave the screen is where things change. In the original run (and in the mini-boss) the timer does not reset, it counts up to 255, at which point play is resumed. But in Kyman's current WIP, the timer resets to 0 and has to go all the way back up to 255. So it's not really a frame rule per say, we just need to figure out why the timer resets in some cases but not others. I also noticed that kyman gets 50000 points for beating the boss, where the original run only get 10000. EDIT: seems like both things are connected to the critical hit head shot. When I beat the boss with it, it slows down, without it, speeds up. Critical hit gives 50000 points, normal hits, 10000. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/22672731366586841 WIP up to stage 5. Pretty easy with TASeditor.
Posted: 5/7/2015 2:25 AM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
your resulting file only needs to have 1 number for each result, which won't result in a file bigger then 16 MB And if you are only interested in 1-ups anyway you can just store those. Hmmmm not really sure what else to do with that pattern though, maybe it resets somewhere in there for some reason?
Posted: 5/7/2015 1:50 AM
(Edited: 5/7/2015 2:06 AM)
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
The dragon fight takes the same amount of time, I just happen to have a different power up. The second and third dragons were the same as Baxter though. This game is quite simple compared to most other platformers and sidescrollers. There are very few tricks that actually speed you up at all. Let's see 3-1. I played that level the exact same as Baxter, so not sure what you see as different, was it something specific? vvv done!
Posted: 5/7/2015 1:36 AM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
What is your current script that you used to get the data you have so far? There are 'only' 2^24 ~16.7 million options to check. Even if the script only does 5 per second that is only a month of computing time, quick compared to the ~3 decades it would take if you had to check the whole 2^32 RNG
Posted: 5/7/2015 1:22 AM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
ALAKTORN wrote:
How did you figure out that it only uses the first 3 bytes, btw?
I created a save state 1 frame before killing an enemy with a bullet about to hit him. Then I just tried different RNGs just randomly testing. I had saw that FractalFusion originally suggested maybe only the first 2 bytes effected the item. When that didn't work I happened to try 3, and it did : ) Are you sure the cycle is 5699? That does not divide evenly into 2^24, so it would mean the RNG does not contain a whole number of cycles...
Posted: 5/7/2015 1:02 AM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
ALAKTORN wrote:
Alyosha wrote:
You can test this yourself by simply using 2D A7 59 XX (the first three bytes from 1683597101)
That’s a weird definition of “first three bytes” to me… 1683597101 is 0x6459A72D, so instead of taking either 0x6459A7 or 0x59A72D, it takes 0x2DA759? Isn’t that like… looking at each byte individually? I’m pretty confused… I’ll have to look into that some. Edit: Well if the calculation gives 5531, that doesn’t give a Life Up, so it’s still wrong…
Look at memory watch/viewer in DeSmuMe and you'll see it, yeah I expected it to be the opposite way as well, I didn't notice until I froze the RNG in cheats.
Posted: 5/7/2015 12:53 AM
(Edited: 5/7/2015 1:00 AM)
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Ohhhh ok I get it now, I had the wrong endianness. now it makes sense. Well it still has the same behavior I mentioned before. Only the first 3 bytes effect the item. You can test this yourself by simply using 2D A7 59 XX (the first three bytes from 1683597101) they all give 1-ups. In your example, the first 3 bytes are 0x59A72D = 5875501 5875501 % 5699=5531 But since this definitely gives a 1-up, there must unfortunately be something wrong with your list or formula.
Posted: 5/6/2015 11:18 PM
(Edited: 5/7/2015 12:35 AM)
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Yes that is strange . I will do some testing and try to track down what is going wrong. EDIT: Ok so all my testing was in the intro stage. I'm guessing this is an area that uses the other drop list you were referring to since I tried your RNG that should give a 1-up and got nothing. So I'll get to a region that has the proper list and test from there.
Posted: 5/6/2015 11:09 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Hmm sorry I wasn't specific enough , by first 3 I mean address wise, not numerically. So the RNG bytes are AA BB CC DD AA BB CC determines item drop So mod24 doesn't work since that is like using BB CC DD When you calculated the table did you do it this way?
Posted: 5/6/2015 10:24 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
I have an idea what the problem might be I think. Only the first 3 bytes of the RNG effect the item outcome as far as I tested. so RNG's larger then 2^24 need to be dealt with by only considering the first 3 bytes of the number.
Posted: 5/6/2015 9:56 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
what answer is it giving? Is it working on lower RNG values and only failing up to that point? You could also write a little code to just subtract 5699 from the RNG repeatedly until it gets the modulo result to test it. By the way why are you starting at -1?
Posted: 5/6/2015 11:14 AM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Randil's run was 7 frames ahead in level 1 (which is roughly 17000 frames long.) Baxter's original was really solid. So in this case, old doesn't mean poorly optimized. Same with Blublu's Rad Gravity run. As a side note, it is interesting how standards have evolved in TASes like this one. In the original, Adelikat, Arc, and Bisqwit all gave Baxter's run a technical rating of 9. By today's standards though the run seems like nothing special. EDIT:
just four seconds
Oh yeah, the run is only an improvement of about 100 frames. So I guess the other ~2 seconds comes from how the site calculates movie length.
Posted: 5/5/2015 9:08 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
oh cool, you found something! Well now, as you play the game, if you know when the RNG updates, you can kind of predict the future right? For example you will know what the RNG will be 30 frames into the future, and will know how far you are from getting a 1-up or any item you want and how much you need to adjust? That was my original thought anyway, but maybe the cycle you found can be useful in other ways? EDIT: To expand on this a bit. You already know the RNG seed for each level and how the RNG formula works, so if the RNG simply updates once per frame, what you can do is map out the item that will appear at every frame in the level simply by running the RNG code and matching the result to the table you made. Then you just need to kill an enemy on the right frame, which you now already know.
Posted: 5/5/2015 12:42 AM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Oh nice glad you are still working on that Ferret Warlord, good luck! (And also glad I don't have to do that one.)
Posted: 5/4/2015 10:00 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/22561027219611492 Here is my first attempt. I saved more frames then what I thought since the trick also works in the conveyer belts and saves about 3 frames each jump in that area. I'm glad I found this trick, as this run was one I was concerned about actually being able to improve. I also included Diman's jump. EDIT: second attempt much more optimized then the first one
Posted: 5/3/2015 9:38 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
I found a small trick in the river level that lets you jump out of river without losing your horizontal velocity for so long. Basically just let go of right for a frame when you start jumping. It saves about 2 frames every time you do it. There are lots of jumps in that level, so it should add up pretty quickly. I suppose I will continue off Randil's WIP and see what I can do. Also have to remember to add Diman's trick at the end too.
Posted: 5/3/2015 9:33 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
@samsara: I think that would be a good idea. Well, if more people are interested in taking on runs. Right now its just my pipe dream, so it would be a pretty lonely channel. 8D I found a trick in Jackie Chan that looks like it will save about a second in the river level, so looks like that is the next target!
Posted: 5/3/2015 11:24 AM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
I was about to start working on this run, but here it is already done! Is there anything still keeping this from going to the workbench? I can help out if anything needs work.
Posted: 5/3/2015 11:17 AM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Samsara wrote:
Would this project benefit from something more actively collaborative, like a Skype chat or a dedicated IRC room?
I didn't really have anything formal in mind beyond this thread, but I'm certainly willing to team up with anyone who wants to work on one of these. Especially some of the longer ones, as runs of more than an hour or so seem much more rare recently.
Posted: 5/2/2015 9:36 PM
(Edited: 12/14/2022 12:48 AM)
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
So in trying to set up an actual goal for myself in my quest to obsolete old runs, I looked at the list and saw that only 36 7 of the first 500 published runs are left to be obsoleted. Looking them over, I didn't think there were any that were unsurpassable technical achievements. So I thought what I might do is make a project out of updating these runs, given that there is a lot of recent activity in the list by others besides me. I would say my overall goal here is for the list of 'longest non-obsoleted runs' to represent runs that are solid enough that they aren't likely to be improved, rather then just being old. So if you are interested in taking on one of these runs please post here, I will try and keep this list updated. I think many of these should be somewhat easy, although there are certainly some challenges in there too. MOD EDIT: updated the list to the best of my knowledge, removed authors known to not be working on their runs anymore. <3 samsara [288] SNES Lagoon by OmnipotentEntity in 1:08:32.68 [318] SNES Kirby Super Star by nitsuja in 41:56.17 [369] NES Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight by nesrocks in 17:39.98 [396] SNES Secret of Evermore "100%" by Saturn in 2:04:06.12 [419] SNES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time "1 player" by nitsuja in 18:55.00 [493] SNES Star Ocean by fuzi2 in 1:53:13.43 [500] SNES Super Smash T.V. "2 players" by JXQ in 28:48.68 There are also a number of movies that were submitted earlier then these but rejected as the vault has yet to be created. Here are the remaining runs that would fall into that category (thanks to jlun2): #726: Acmlm's NES Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf in 08:26.00 #742: quietkane's SNES Claymates in 15:21.92 #881: tool23's NES Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom in 37:23.28
Posted: 5/2/2015 2:47 PM
Post subject: The Adventures of Rad Gravity
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Here is my latest WIP, I am pretty comfortable with it up to the last boss. I can't seem to improve blublu's last boss fight, but it seems like it should be possible. Maybe a Wizards and Warriors II situation where more eyes looking at it will lead to quick improvements. So anyone who wants to give it a try can be co-author, I really wonder how much it can be improved. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/22507545392735988
Posted: 5/1/2015 11:11 AM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Nicos wrote:
great improvement, yes vote on the emulator side in tehberral's encode the second counter (lag counter) seems to only count loading zones and not slowdowns ( frame drop or real LAG? ) am i correct or do i get something wrong there ?
oh good point I forgot to mention this. The game doesn't lag in the traditional sense, it just does less each frame when there is too much to keep track of. I'm not sure of the details, but I think it is something like only updating a fixed number of actors on the screen per frame. I'm not sure of any other examples of games that do things this way to compare it too. Can anyone think of any?
Posted: 4/29/2015 8:53 PM
Quote
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Expert player (3536)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2733
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Are you still working on this run Dooty? Now is the perfect time to get this done!
1 2
104 105 106
109 110