This must be the Rubix Cube of Mario Games! Loved the movie, hardly knew what was going on, but it looked very impressive (as always by Genisto's work). Definitely a quality hack in terms of using the SMB engine to its fullest. :)
A yes, because I've seen the run up to the beginning of the 3rd Bowser. I get an Invalid Compressed folder error when I try to view the newest one. I tried extracting it with winrar and winzip, and it didn't work either...
This just started to happen to me. It happens on the SDW game but it didn't before it got published...?? And now it happens on the AIR SMB game.
I don't know what's going on.
Yes, Yes, Yes!! This is probably the best run I've seen this year (Bisqwit's megaman run doesn't count, and neither does the SM64 run).
Great job, congratulations!!
It's not guaranteed to work, but it's more of a concept.
Let's say you have a board (or a room in Zelda), and your algorithm gives a numerical score of each position in the room. Call this algorithm
A(x,y), where x,y are locations of each pixel, and the return value is a 2D array of pixels, each with a score.
Now lets say your room has 4 enemies.
You make 4 copies of the room, each with 1 enemy in each room.
So you have 4 different Algorithms:
A(x1,y1), A(x2,y2), A(x3,y3), A(x4,y4)
The individual scores of each room can be ADDED together and the score for the new room.
A(x.y) = A(x1,y1) + A(x2,y2) + A(x3,y3) + A(x4,y4)....
And your final value will have a new 2D array of pixels containing scores of the optimum locations.
Think of Minesweeper, and me wanting to add another mine to a pre-determined board.
All I have to do is score the board for that 1 mine (where I want to add it), and add it to my the score of my pre-determined board (which contains some mines already), and I have a new valid minsweeper board containing all the original mines, plus that one extra I wanted to add!
That is the concept of superposition.
Heh, I like the idea. Instead of SETI@Home, lets do TAS@Home.
Sounds like a plan. The problem is, do we have experienced enough coders to make this work seamlessly? How would we distribute the rom legally?
If we manage to do this (I think it's not feasible at the moment, though) We should make certain sections of 1 game a Work Unit...
Then when one game is done, we move on to a new one. I personally think SMB should be the first one, though. Then Zelda, then SMB3...
Ah well, one can dream.
if you're meaning the top of the tower star, you can't raise the cannon until you've gotten that star, but if you could it'd probably be faster.
edit - nrg beat me to the point.
Ok, should have realized :).
What about skipping the cannon completely, and getting that caged star by triple jumping (I can't seem to get in the cage, but I can get onto the green platform right next to the cage, but I'm sure it's possible?) Then get one more quick star in Cool Cool mountain, JRB, Whomp's Fortress or Bomb-omb battlefield?
In the 16 star run, route is of utmost importance. We can follow the speedrun route, or spend more time trying to do stars that take a while, in a shorter amount of time, due to the fact that we have an emulator.
Great run! :).
Quick question, is it faster to use the cannon to get the star at the top of Whomp's fortress? I mean, you have to open the cannon, but you have to do that anyways for the shoot into the wall star.
Raisng the cannon does take a while, though...
If you have to open the cannon anyway, then how does the time it takes to open the cannon even make a difference?
I think DK64_MASTER meant the time to "raise" the cannon by jumping into it.
Yes, the time to raise the cannon, and the time to shoot through the air.
Maybe we can even skip using the cannon in the first place? Find a replacement star? Something in Cool-Cool mountain? But then we have to go through that animation of opening a new level's door. Probably not worth it.
This grey area also appears when I activate a pull down menu, but if the ROM is being played, it goes away after it refreshes the picture.
Could you explain this more? I thought you said there's always a gray area when the ROM is being played, what does it go away to? (I know you've switched to another plugin but I'd like to know why this one isn't working for you - it can possibly be fixed.)
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
You didn't switch to glN64 for the video, did you? That plugin doesn't work after the first time for me.
What are your settings in the glN64 configuration dialog? I've never seen this happen, and I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "after the first time", but maybe "hardware frame buffer textures" is screwing it up, or maybe your monitor doesn't like the selected texture bit depth or cache size (even if they were the defaults, the defaults could've been bad for your setup).
I think BOMF is experiencing the exact same thing as I am.
I'll describe the characteristics as best as I can (it's late here, and I'm sleepy).
1. The Mario 64 ROM plays fine using glN64 when I first load it.
2a) When I reset the ROM, it doesn't show any video input, but plays sound. Basically the windows stays the same size, but is filled with grey. The frame counter still moves.
I'll take a screencap, but printscreen doesn't work, and I forgot how to change my hardware acceleration/overlay options in order to make it so I can screencap... I don't think it's necessary.
EDIT: Got a screencap:
I think the fact that I was able to get a screencap without any problems, means there is no video playback whatsoever!!! And this occurs after a rest.
2b) Playing a movie file results in the same as 2a (probably because it resets the ROM), however sound still plays.
3) Running Windows XP, on a Dell Inspiron 700m, 1.8Ghz, 60gb HD, 768 RAM (16MB shared, w/intel accelerated graphics).
4) I haven't tested all the plugins, but a few others don't work because my video card doesn't support some its features (integrated video). Could that be behind the cause of this "reset" glitch? Could it be my graphics card? It was working before.
5) I'm currently using: Jabo's Direct 3DC 1.5.2 plugin. Everything else works, except for Glide64 V0.7 ME SP8 (and glN64), since "My video card doesn't support GL_ARB_TEXTURED_MIRRORED_REPEAT" extension.
Hope that helps. :)
EDIT2: Is it possible for you to post the Alpha3 binary again, so I can verify it works for glN64? Or is that not necessary?
Hmm, this begs the question, in Whomp's fotress, is it faster to reach the caged star by tripple jump wall kicking (right near the spinning bridge) onto a spinning green platform, and then triple jumping into the cage? That skips opening the canon, but then you have to still open it for the break the wall star.
Is it even possible to triple jump the spinning green platform (I can't really test this out, since my keyboard hates Mario, even slowing down).
If getting to the caged star by triple jump is faster, we still have to open the cannon, so triple jumping has to be faster than the time lost by the cannon opening and flying through the air. I'm not sure how likely that is... It might be a stretch.
After Alpha 3, I was unable to playback any movie file in Windows XP. I haven't touched any of the plug in settings, and any old movie files that I have tried to play don't work.
The movie has sound, but there is no video. It just displays a grey area.
This grey area also appears when I activate a pull down menu, but if the ROM is being played, it goes away after it refreshes the picture.
Anyone else having this problem?
I got a few questions though: Why does Bowser's face show from the get-go in the portrait that is supposed to look like Peach? Is it the emulator's fault? IIRC, Peach is supposed to fade into Bowser. Also, how come the background for the Bomb-omb Battlefield portrait room look very dark, and quickly change to light as soon as you enter the portrait?
This is the video plugin's fault. I beleive gl64 and direct64 are the only two plugins to have the Bowser LOD working correctly. Same goes for the portrait; sometimes certian plugins just render things strangely.
Ok, thanks for the info. So is this run going to be published? Always nice to have something to start off with :).
Very nice :).
I got a few questions though: Why does Bowser's face show from the get-go in the portrait that is supposed to look like Peach? Is it the emulator's fault? IIRC, Peach is supposed to fade into Bowser. Also, how come the background for the Bomb-omb Battlefield portrait room look very dark, and quickly change to light as soon as you enter the portrait?
Is it the AVI's fault, or the emulator's fault?
Yoshi doesn't appear till you have 120 stars, you can get up to the castle room from either side, but Yoshi won't be there till you're done with the game.
Ahaa. Since I never got up there without the cannon I figured he'd be around even if you hadn't got all the 120 stars. Hmm, but this extra powers are gained from many lives, right? I don't know when the powers starts to kick in but I know that I have died a few times (10 perhaps) and still have got the powers. So perhaps one just need "only" 50 lives or something? If it would help there might be worth picking up 1-up mushrooms along the way? Or maybe they are just out of path for a TAS.
I think you get the extra power after you get 120 stars, and visit Yoshi.
I'm trying to get it to play the movie at http://spezzafer.home.att.net/sm64.zip , but it seems to work completely randomly.
So far, I haven't found any logic whatsoever as to what settings I need to have with the plugins so that the movie plays.
About 30 tries ago, the movie actually started when I set the "interpreter" mode on in the RSP plugin. Excited, I turned it off to test whether it was the cause, and the movie desynced again. I turned it again on, and the movie still desynced. So that much for that theory.
**image removed for space**
This is as far as it gets. The demo will continue to run, and eventually the hand icon disappears.
To me, it seems like there's a 98% random chance that in the very beginning, the emulator will fall several frames behind the movie, causing the movie to attempt to start the game (click Mario's eye or whatever) before the game allows it.
I actually got this same problem (using windowsXP) but running the emulator for about 30 seconds before each movie playback, seems to have fixed it. I'll see if I can do more tests if I have more time (but now I'm pressed for time).
Awesome fantastic run! Truely I can't wait for the 70- and 120-star runs!
Another thought hit me. When visiting Yoshi (or getting ridicoulus many lives somehow) Mario will gain extra powers. Could this be of any help? I don't know much about it because everytime I get to Yoshi I'm pretty bored of playing the game but Mario will sparkle and stuff when jumping (perhaps triple jump). Does it do any difference in jumping skills or speed or is it more of a cool effect and a bonus for finding Yoshi and that you have got all 120 stars?
Anyhow, even though I have never succeded Yoshi should be reachable without the cannon, right?
IF this could save any time somehow I guess it's better in the 70- and 120-star run, but then again it might just be wasted time?
If someone does the 120 star run, and decides to when get the vanish cap, it MAY, be beneficial to get the extra-hop from Yoshi, if there is a shortcut that can be found using the extra hop. Wait, do you even get the extra hope when you visit Yoshi? Or is Yoshi even on the roof? IIRC he isn't even on the roof...
Bravo!!! The third Bowser level was hillarious. I loved that jump + jump-kick to the rotating platform!! That was the moment of the run! Thank you so much for providing the first even TAS N64 run! I hope it gets accepted just for a first ever submission's sake!!
GOOD JOB!!! :)
I think the fact that I was able to get a screencap without any problems, means there is no video playback whatsoever!!! And this occurs after a rest.
2b) Playing a movie file results in the same as 2a (probably because it resets the ROM), however sound still plays.
3) Running Windows XP, on a Dell Inspiron 700m, 1.8Ghz, 60gb HD, 768 RAM (16MB shared, w/intel accelerated graphics).
4) I haven't tested all the plugins, but a few others don't work because my video card doesn't support some its features (integrated video). Could that be behind the cause of this "reset" glitch? Could it be my graphics card? It was working before.
5) I'm currently using: Jabo's Direct 3DC 1.5.2 plugin. Everything else works, except for Glide64 V0.7 ME SP8 (and glN64), since "My video card doesn't support GL_ARB_TEXTURED_MIRRORED_REPEAT" extension.
Hope that helps. :)
EDIT2: Is it possible for you to post the Alpha3 binary again, so I can verify it works for glN64? Or is that not necessary?