Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
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Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
SXL wrote:
so yeah, the focus system of windows kinda ruins the concept. and yeah, it seems terribly tedious.
Actually, that's not the problem. Any emulator that uses DirectInput interface can be modified to receive messages even with lost focus.
You should change DirectInput device init flag from FOREGROUND to BACKGROUND, now every copy will receive keyboard/gamepad input. Teoretically you can make triple/quadruple/... run. Yesterday I made an experiment and was able to walk Rockman's Cutman stage + Rockin'Kats first Channel. Man, it's insane thing to do without savestates!
You can try it youself with little FCEU mod I asked fellow CaH4e3 to make. Well, it's just "quick&dirty solution", not suitable for tool-assisted movies. Right now CaH4e3 is too busy to make something more useable.
The bad thing about FCEU is that it uses different way to read system keys (savestate/frame advance). This flaw is removed in Mednafen (<-Nintencer<-FCEU), but we need TAS-oriented mod like blip's one. Maybe someone here can combine blip/nitsuja mod with mednafen (or rewrite fceu's system buttons' code) + modify DirectInput flag at the end. This will allow to record multigame speedruns in Windows.
I'd make this myself if I were fluent with C. To think, there are much more experienced coders for this, so I'll leave it to Nitsuja. :)
As for other emus - it's already made in some ways. Half a year ago I saw VBAlink mod which can read buttons in lost focus mode. Don't remember the site, but you got the point.
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
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Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
Good old game, well-made run. But it could be much faster if you find a way to avoid lags in places with many objects on screen.
Here I fixed your file with hexeditor.
http://shedevr.org.ru/temp/takahashi-fixed.rar
It took only 10 minutes and 2 bytes to modify. Also I cut some useless bytes at the end of file, and now movie is 1 second less. :)
Interesting fact - fixed movie works perefctly with good and bad rom.
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
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Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
So... Did anyone find Channel X?
To acess it you should wait at the staffroll - after several seconds of looking on ATLUS logo that bulldog boss appears and you are welcome to play difficult level without any items collected. Note that if you press any button during staffroll you won't acess this channel, so just wait patiently.
Speaking about this submission... it has too many flaws everywhere/ It's possible to run the game in less than 20 minutes and without taking damage. If author doesn't intend to release an improvement, I'll think about making it myself. This game has great potential actually.
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
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Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
Yeah, the game is awfully straightforward, even if I'd find a glitch to walk through walls it won't reduce time needed to finish a level here.
After all, this is speedrun, not an aestetic replay or glitchrun. Mainly it deserves publishing only because of non-standard boss battles. Well, and because of great musics. :)
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
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Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
FODA wrote:
I have one question and one complaint:
- so the enemies in hard mode don't drop health upgrades? or they do?
Yes, in hard mode they don't drop health, only eagle's sign (which is useless in speedrun).
FODA wrote:
did you experiment taking damage to be pushed forward? i think the screen moves faster while he's being pushed forward, but then he stops for a while, i'm not sure if it's faster to do this.
I tried it, but it's definitely slower - those stops eat more time than pushing forward gives, so you end up with 2+ frames lost (not mentioning health losing). That's why I planned to take no damage - consider it just side-effect of primary aim).
FODA wrote:
My opinion is that it's uninteresting to see a no damage run in this game, it's too simple, it's better to have this added takes damage to save time element.
I made several runs before this final one and I'm sure I used the best time-saving strategy. Also, i thought that taking no damage in boss fights is somewhat unexpected for thit game.
FODA wrote:
- there are some minor optimizations, like jumping before falling a ledge on a certain level..
..........................____
you enter here->__..|
..............................|..|
fall on this shaft->.|..|
..............................|..|
..............................|..|
..............................|..|___
..............................|_____ -> and exit here
i don't remember which level was this but it looked like you could have jumped before falling to avoid downwards acceleration.
Thanks for advice, but it's impossible to jump properly in this place (it's level 6) mainly because of lack of space for rising phase of jump . :(
I'm thinking about boss fights optimization - several frames can be saved by making last hit while jumping to the left... maybe I'll try it soon.