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I seem to have gotten myself a message from past (8 hours ago):
Mental note to self: remember to post a followup in xebra's thread lamenting on the sudden decision but still pointing out why it was a good idea.
Seems like I can't think of anything to post to fulfill that thought.
Anyway, xebra, the next TAS you make, try not to make a controversial one without prior discussion. :)
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I don't like this concept of emulating an emulator.
Because if we take that approach, and later we have a real SMS emulator, we will have to redo every SMS run made on that emulate-an-emulator approach.
Or alternatively, have SMS runs on the site that require different emulators to play.(*)
I am rejecting this submission. In any case, it is an unauthorized hack (drSMS is not an approved hack here).
*)Yes I know we have multiple NES-emulators and multiple SNES-emulators. It is not a preferred situation, and in any case there was that second reason.
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Anon wrote:
See, this slightly confuses me, because older versions of official games aren't allowed, but not hacks. I'm sure there's some explanation behind this; I just can't be bothered with sorting out why.
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Wandering Road wrote:
The thing with Mother is, it's an official English translation. The game was totally translated into English and slated for release by the publishers, but then they changed their minds and didn't release it. The ROM that can be found on the Internet is of that official translation. Someone got their hands on a copy and dumped it. So it may be unreleased, but it's not a fan translation or a patch.
Generally speaking, I suppose unreleased games are okay, since they are still definite versions.
The reasons to not allow hacks are:
1. Potentially infinitely different versions (who's going to know what's normal in that particular version?)
2. It may be updated some day ― we shouldn't showcase old versions when a new version is available. It's an inconvenience for the author of the hack and it's inconvenience for the audience.
Reason 1. might still apply: If a TAS is made, and we announce it as "English version of Earthbound Zero", everyone who knows only the Japanese version, is going to assume that it's just a translation of the Japanese version. If they see things there that don't exist in the Japanese version (such as running in the overworld), they may be disappointed, that the TAS is worthless: it's not the same game.
If you are convinced that it's harmless to do so, then go ahead.
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Naohiro19 wrote:
素人がごく普通に16枚でプレイすると30分くらいかかってしまいますが、TASでプレイするとなぜ時間を縮めることができるのでしょうか？
[Translation by Bisqwit:
When an amateur plays the 16-star completion, it takes about 30 minutes. How is it possible for a TAS to become so much shorter?]
About 20 minutes, actually: http://www.archive.org/details/Mario64_16stars_1947
When making a TAS (i.e. using tools), much higher precision can be achieved. Using almost impossible paths. Mistakes do not exist in the product.
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mushroom wrote:
Yeah, it's only the transitions that are freezing, which leads me to believe that it's an emulation glitch rather than anything to do with the encoding.
It is an encoder bug. It is the only bug I observe in this video.
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I didn't find it lagging terribly, but I found it very difficult to follow regardless, because of the general crampedness of the maps and lots of movement around.
Because of the FPS perspective, the camera would never hold still.
It's a curiosity movie, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. I vote "no" with a "meh"-like connotation.
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Oh, and I used b-frames in this encode. I eschewed them for a long time because people had reported problems with them, but after seeing how Saturn's Super Metroid encode (which used them) received no complaints from anyone, I was encouraged.
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It doesn't stutter for me... but it does use 30--60 % of the CPU power (1.6 GHz athlonxp). It was encoded on higher resolution than our usual movies, and H.264 is somewhat demanding on resources.
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I installed eAccelerator on the site.
It is known to speed up PHP sites.
It is also known to cause some extraneous error messages on PHP code sometimes, so if you notice something like "undefined variable" or something, please inform me :)
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This movie does not collect 100 coins in Bowser in the Dark World. Is that an omission, or does that particular world not have that task? It does have a lot of scattered coins, though...
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Deep Loner wrote:
OK, I'm familiar with C (somewhat), but that's just like... WTF???
Hint: If you want to understand it, or intentionally obfuscated C code in general, try these steps:
1. Remove standard #includes and #defines that you do not want to expand.
2. Preprocess the source code. This can be done with with gcc -E source.c > preprocessed.c.
3. Add back the removed #includes (and #defines if you removed any).
4. Prettyprint it with a program such as GNU indent.
5. Tidy the prettyprinting manually. Very long expressions are common in obfuscated C code, and they cannot be easily automatically re-indented.
6. Find things you understand and add comments. Continue tidying.
In the case of the PET emulator linked above, the result would look something like this: http://bisqwit.iki.fi/src/ioccc2005sykespretty.c
It is now a lot easier to comprehend (at least I understand quite well what's going on in it*), even though it is still the same program (and compiles to exactly identical executable file).
----
*) Partly because I have extensive knowledge on how emulators such as this are designed in general. The PET CPU is very similar to the one in NES and C64.
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Ohh..my.
That's SO wrong.
:)
I have to say, I like the name NesVideoMoogle.
But for starters, it's 1 letter too long to work as a nickname in Freenode.
Thanks Zurreco for the support. NesVideoAgent is indeed a very "to the point" name.
EDIT: No, this is not a "not going to happen, discussion over" message.
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I don't know what's going on in this movie -- what are the goals and so on.
But I know it's technically very impressive for SNES.
My vote is a positively tinted "meh".
