Posts for Alyosha

1 2
19 20 21
109 110
Posted: 4/1/2021 1:49 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
How much more difficult would it be to make it work without cheats? Or is it eve possible?
Posted: 4/1/2021 1:44 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
Nice work and good clean up.
Posted: 4/1/2021 1:42 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 you basically did all that in a week? That's impressive.
Posted: 4/1/2021 3:19 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
Turns out zero can make a time saving in Hornet's stage: This saves about 1.5 seconds, and I think this is enough to guarantee zero to be faster overall. I had resynced zero up to sigma 3, and zero is slightly slower in sigma 2 which about cancels out the timesave in sigma 1. With saber 2 he can beat the boss a bit faster though. Without this timesave it was neck and neck, really within frames, it would have been difficult to actually conclude that zero was faster, but I think this new time save is enough to put zero over the top.
Posted: 3/31/2021 2:44 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 well, thanks for trying. Pretty sure we looked at RAM state before and it didn't use any uninitialized. I'll get those working someday.
Posted: 3/30/2021 6:11 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
Here are the two runs resynced and working in the most recent BizHawk: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/36428673262038989 http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/70450743255778683 Here is a version of one of the runs that works in mesen 0.98, but not BizHawk (current mesen (0.99) doesn't appear to load .bk2 files anymore): http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/53160118032498328 I'm not sure if we ever did anything with SRAM in the previous testing so maybe that has something to do with the problems we had? Also these will only work from power on and again only sometimes. I had looked at the code before, and it doesn't run any DCM stuff, it just reads 4 times, maybe the controller code is just meant to be used for different projects possibly using it. Thanks for the testing so far!
Posted: 3/29/2021 10:13 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
Very Cool! I've always wanted to see Punch Out work on console, nice to see it finally happen. 8 minutes is further then previous attempts have made it on bionic commando, which I seem to remember only made it to around 5. I think I recall testing that run on Mesen also and it worked out fine, so emulation shouldn't be an issue. But it's also been too long now for me to give any accurate details about it. Seems like you are making rapid progress on NES though, cool stuff! Thinking back to when I was briefly working on NES verifications with true, the biggest mystery seemed to be the Streemerz runs. They don't use the DMC channel, so it seemed like they really should work on console, but we could never get them to. Not sure what your goals are but if you want a challenge that is probably the biggest (non-DMC related) issue out there. Also the recent Battletoads runs would be cool to see, but they would only work from power on, and then will only work occasionally, but should be doable.
Posted: 3/28/2021 8:03 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 didn't notice it before, but in level 36 MattyXB is able to switch characters while an enemy animation is still on screen. This is apparently a glitch where if another enemy is despawning, or a tower of block collapses completes you have 1 frame to switch characters before the game switches to tracking the other defeated enemies. Apparently he didn't realize it either because this glitch can be used in several places throughout the run. I also found a few more ladder optimizations and improved the strategy in level 35. Here is an almost 15 second improvement: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/70408149362496710
Posted: 3/28/2021 3:19 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
Tom Sawyer and Lethal enforcers are gone thanks to Lobsterzelda. Catrap is on the workbench but needs a little more work, should be done shortly. Will try to do the remaining GB/C games on the list. EDIT: Catrap done. Asmik World is VERY tedious but I'm making progress EDIT2: Asmik World done
Posted: 3/28/2021 3:14 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
Awesome I'm glad to hear about more NES console verification work happening. Please do Mike Tyson's Punch Out if you can. The previous TAS sycned on both NESHawk and Mesen but desynced on console, I don't think the current TAS has been tried though. Also Bionic Commando would be a good one. This one didn't work previously due to bot limitations (interrupt fired mid polling routine and the bot timed out the request if I remember correctly) so it would be a good test case. That's some good info on N64. That's probably the one I have the most interest in, even just characterizing which games can work with current technology would be a big step.
Posted: 3/27/2021 11:00 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
Jules wrote:
Anyway, I just checked right now, and my WIP has two rounds faster than this submission: - In level 10, it is a few frames faster to go down the ladder before walking off the edge after pushing the rock down. - In level 17, after you kill the first enemy, it's a bit faster to go down the ladder before walking off the ledge... so basically the same idea as the above. (...) Going to do Boomer's world?:)
Interesting, I didn't notice that before, even though I thought I remembered looking into it. I'll have to go over the run again and look for similar spots. Yes I will try Boomer's world in the near future, as well as the remaining GB\C runs from the 'First 500' thread. I can't really think about BizHawk dev. stuff right now but Lobsterzelda's work on Lethal Enforcers has given me motivation!
Posted: 3/27/2021 9:27 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
HandsomeRudy wrote:
Meh vote. Would this save some time? Round 91, 50:49 in video, kill that bottom level creature first, then stand still below that boulder, switch characters and go kill the other creature.
Yup, that's definitely a time save, good catch, (not sure how I missed that.)
Posted: 3/21/2021 10:29 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
Here is a more careful comparison up to catfish's stage. Currently Zero is ~160 frames ahead. X route: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/70254910989155755 Zero route: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/70254895436613917 Just based on known factors, zero will lose 2 seconds to the 2 remaining bosses, but regain them on velguarder. In addition ~100 frames will be saved once I need to switch back to X. So zero has to do the next 2 levels within about 250 frames of X to stay ahead. It seems almost doable, but my last attempt made it seem far off. I'm going to retry though since it just seems so close. EDIT: I did a rough draft of X's climb in Catfish's stage. It turns out you also have to add a lot of lag to X's climb as well, it seems like VBA did not emulate this game especially accurately. He can still do it a bit faster then zero, but it's really not by much. I think not accounting for lag in X's resync is what led me to think that zero would be a lot slower, now that I am re-syncing and doing a direct comparison, zero isn't losing much time in Catfish's stage. he will still ose a good chunk of time in Hornet's stage, this is unavoidable, but maybe with enough work it will work out. At the very least, I have plenty of money in both runs, at this point it's basically a non-issue.
Posted: 3/20/2021 10:39 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
Wow nice work, I admit I also just assumed the old run was doing things as fast as possible and didn't really look into it. Maybe I'll have to look into the 2 old gameboy games Catrap and Asmik World now that this one and Tom Sawyer will be gone.
Posted: 3/20/2021 2:56 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'm still going compare my WIPs to the original route and post my results once I get back up to the same point, but it's already clear that Zero's lack of reach is just way too costly. the combination of the fish / mini boss in octopus' stage, the climb in catfish's stage, and the climb / enemies in Hornet's stage was just too much. Anyway, I've redone the first 4 bosses and am 1 second ahead with plenty of money for now. I'm going to compare going through tiger's stage with zero and X, I think it's going to be better overall to switch to just before entering the second ride armor. Also Zero can go through the first part of Sigma 1's stage much faster then X (it looks like X needs to stall for about 2 seconds to wait for platforms), so maybe it is preferable to switch to zero on the last hit of hornet, since velguarder will take 8 hits anyway. EDIT: It's about 40 frames faster to do Tiger's Stage as Zero. Since zero can also defeat tiger in 7 hits, I wonder if it is better to beat the level as tiger and switch in octopus. Then we save 20 frames of load in animation from X, but maybe it's not worth it not to have the claw attack.
Posted: 3/19/2021 4:25 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
Well seems like the zero route is dead. Not being able to kill enemies fast leads to lots of extra lag in later levels. Plus zero can't kill the last three enemies before the mini boss in the hornet's stage as fast as X. There is no way I can catch up to the several seconds I lost. I think it's faster overall to change to X later in Tiger's Stage, and it's definitely a time save to take the overhead path in flame mammoth's stage, so I guess now I'll just try to improve the original route. At least farming doesn't seem to be so bad.
Posted: 3/17/2021 12:04 AM
(Edited: 3/21/2021 10:55 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
Here is a new wip that gets back to launch octopus about 1 second ahead of my previous attempt: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/70145395782161866 This time though I already have almost all the money I need to get Saber 2 before Sigma 1. It wasn't as annoying as I thought it would be. I probably could have been less aggressive at farming early on and saved maybe 20 more frames, but at the risk of RNG taking a turn for the worse I think I'll leave it as it is. Now all I need to do is get a good launch octopus fight and I should be able to complete the run.
Posted: 3/14/2021 1:35 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
I have started redoing things with RNG in mind and aiming for early saber 2. One thing I did was forgo damage in the intro stage. This cost 10 frames but allowed me to farm 60 money without having to worry about the lag time of healing up when collecting it. Right now I have 100 money and am 2/3 into flame mammoth stage. I also I found that jumping up to the conveyor here: Is about 30 frames faster then climbing the wall, and I don't have to take damage so I can try to do a bit more farming. This can be done in the original run too, so it doesn't really count as a time save for the new route, but does make farming money just a little bit easier.
Posted: 3/13/2021 2:03 AM
(Edited: 3/21/2021 10:55 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/70058201114250334 Here is a WIP of launch octopus stage with zero. It is 400 frames slower then the original, a bit more then i was expecting, which means this route is now only barely on the edge of being viable. Launch octopus is weak to lightning, so I could get a 6 hit kill, but it's probably the same speed as just hitting him 8 times after all the menuing. So just to summarize. ~11 seconds are saved by not getting any of X's weapons and the associated actions plus zero having a faster load in animation. Then ~7 seconds are lost on launch octopus stage and ~3 seconds are lost on bosses that now take 8 hits instead of 7. I think exit animations are about the same, and the weapon texts I think are roughly equal overall, so as long as I can beat the remaining two levels while only losing one second, I'll be able to be 2 seconds ahead if I get Saber 2 and get 6 hit kill on valguarder. It's pretty crazy how 2 completely different routes are less then ~150 frames apart overall.
Posted: 3/7/2021 3:57 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, that means I need to average about 50 income per level, sounds pretty tedious. With how close things are, it might be the only way to definitely be ahead though. Do you happen to have any scripts or memory addresses still left from your original run for luck manipulation?
Posted: 3/7/2021 3:41 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
Unless the Sigma 1 or 2 bosses can be sped up with Saber 2, I'll just be getting it at the same time as the current run. I haven't really thought that much about it yet honestly, still checking to see it if this route is feasible. Looks like I'll be losing maybe 2 seconds with zero not being able to shoot enemies far in front of him, so it will be pretty close.
Posted: 3/7/2021 4:19 AM
(Edited: 3/21/2021 10:56 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
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/69927227682947055 Here is a WIP with only zero that reaches launch otcopus' stage. Zero can still defeat neon tiger with 7 attacks, and can still beat the stage about as fast as X (discounting added lag in a few places) so right now no time is really lost. Not having to buy X's two weapon upgrades saves 5 seconds. Not having to equip them and switch back and fourth to zero saves about 5 as well. X's animation when entering a level is slower then zero's by about 20 frames, so this adds up to 1 second of savings as well. So overall I should have 11 seconds saved versus the current run. Currently my best attempt at a quick kill on the octopus mini boss is about 4 seconds slower. I'm not sure if zero can defeat the remaining bosses in 7 attacks or not, if so and he can still navigate levels as well as X, I should be comfortably ahead once the runs recombine in the Sigma stages. Also not having to heavily manipulate RNG for extra money makes this whole process much easier.
Posted: 2/24/2021 2:24 PM
Post subject: Re: The Terminator (SMS) won't show backgrounds
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
PrinceWatercress wrote:
So I've tried to play The Terminator on the newest version of Bizhawk (2.6.1), and the game won't show backgrounds at all. Apparently this has been a thing for what seems like numerous version of Bizhawk; even 2.5.2 seems to do this. All you really get are your sprite as well as those of the enemies. Backgrounds are just completely black as if they don't even exist. https://twitter.com/PrinceWatercres/status/1364264787194957828 EDIT: Changed the link so you could actually see the screenshot.
I'm pretty sure the game gear version of this same game was fixed a while back by adding SRAM to it. I can't test it right now myself, but if you go into gamedb->gamedb_sega_sms and replace this line: 
F224907676A09C7F0404C95C316F1503		The Terminator (E)	SMS			Europe
with this: 
F224907676A09C7F0404C95C316F1503		The Terminator (E)	SMS		SRAM=8192	Europe
(or equivalently for the brazil version if you are using that one.) I'm guessing it will probably work. Let me know if so and I can commit it to master.
Posted: 2/22/2021 7:57 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
Make sure you are using 2.6.1 or the dev build.
PikachuMan wrote:
THIS IS URGENT! GBHawk is NOT saving SaveRAM properly! This NEEDS to be fixed ASAP!
Looks like it works fine for me. I would need a specific example where it's not working.
PikachuMan wrote:
UPDATE! GBHawkLink doesn't save properly for 3 and 4 players. Also, Pokémon might have trouble linking on 3 and 4 players.
I would need specific cases to check, do you have a file that's not working?
Posted: 2/20/2021 10:30 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
To follow up on this, natt has fixed the state bug in TAStudio, so dev build should work for TASing O2Hawk now.
1 2
19 20 21
109 110