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Wow, the related PR has Fix Pending status now!
Too bad, leoetlino who announced a new version of savestates, which would have solved some desync problems, didn't finish it. I think this is one of the branches he used to work on.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Use every last typewriter. Then it's gonna be easier to restart where you left off.
BTW, the IR desync problem is known: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/9018
I doubt it's gonna fix all the problems, but it makes sense to wait for the merge.
JosJuice wrote:
That pull request won't fix any desyncs, just the pointer being consistently offset when using TAS input.
At least, I delivered a problem to people who might fix it.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Looks like my journey is over. For the second time =(
I made a half of part 5 (around 10k frames), played it back, it synced with all resolutions.
Today I finished it, played it back and it desyncs by any means around frame 4700. Why???
User movie #66093856531976105
I'm so upset now. 2 days wasted. I feel like it doesn't worth any further effort because I've passed only 20% of the game and who knows how many times I'll have to redo various parts in order to get them stable.
If the game goes out of sync, it doesn't matter if you're making a single movie or divide it by parts - it still goes out of sync because of a tiny bug inside Dolphin.
Sorry, Ubercapitalist! I hope you will save your enthusiasm about TASing RE4. Maybe we'll find better possibilities in Dolphin 6.0.
P.S: let's finish the caper on a good note! Here is some Cabin footage with headshots because I managed to keep 1 savestate not in the end of that desynced movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeD3RVwMJKA
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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1. I have another Dolphin build installed. Does this fork have it's own settings? Even though I see the "Sys" folder in the root directory, I hesitate to launch it.
2. Does it work for Wii Remote as well?
Personal edit:
1. No, it doesn't. If you have a newer Dolphin, you will get bombed with "Trying to read an invalid SYSCONF" message boxes all the time.
2. No, it works with Gamecube games for now.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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feos wrote:
Several verification movies is fine as long as they only depend on in-game saves and not emulator savestates. Recording from a savestate isn't allowed, because there's no guarantee it's legitimate.
Is it fine that one or multiple movies will require specific emulator settings in order to stay synced till the end? I don't know how to explain it, but Dolphin plays the movie correctly only if you set the Internal Resolution to 1x or 2x (with the applied window auto-adjustment),
but if it's 3x - the movie will desync for sure.
I don't know how many special conditions I will remark if I finish the whole series of verification movies by some miracle.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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There's some progress done on porting PPSSPP's core into Bizhawk, but that person dropped it. I don't know why. Maybe it was too complicated.
There's also some progress done on implementing TAS Tools in PPSSPP, but for some reason Fog has lost all the enthusiasm and dropped this thing. I don't even know how you can get in contact with him.
You can also install Linux and use libtas program to record external TAS movies in PPSSPP. Actually, it's possible to launch a lot of Linux emulators (which have no TAS tools) and record TAS movies using this trans-layer (libtas), but I haven't seen any major TAS movies made on it so far. I remember slamo was doing something, but these are just tests.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Ubercapitalist wrote:
Your desync is typical of what I've experienced.
Is there something else I should be aware of?
I tried to remake the ending of part 4 and this room desyncs again. Looks like I have to mark a special rule for that part: "In order to playback the movie properly, Dolphin's Internal Resolution mustn't exceed 2x! Bigger IR causes desyncs" or something like that.
Even if this crutch save the progress, I don't know what will happen further.
EDIT: well, at least it doesn't influence the verifying process. I'll to continue.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Zinfidel wrote:
Hopefully one day this can become part of the official builds and help improve Dolphin as TASing emulator in general.
I don't think so. I have been using Dolphin since early builds of 4.0 and, guess what? They break and fix and break again every tool and option throughout a big amount of builds. I'm all for adding TAStudio, but it will complicate even more complicated development.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Ubercapitalist wrote:
Thanks! I hope you have better results than me with your segmented method.
I'm ready to share some news.
1. Looks like I'm becoming older. When I first tried to make a verification movie for RE4 Wii, I had better results during the walkthrough. I managed to go OOB (you know, this trick) and even manipulated a pair of grenades from enemies, but now the best I can do is to kill an enemy with a headshot.
I don't know how successful my possible walkthrough will be, but if I fail to make an important time-saving trick, I'll have to ask you to do it for me =)
2. Now an important one! I have faced the first desync!
I use a custom window resolution when recording input: about 600p with 2x Internal Resolution (for 720p). I record input in these conditions, then play it back to see if everything's fine, then switch to 3x Internal Resolution and auto-adjust window size to record a video.
The first 3 parts seem to work fine. No desyncs occured. Still, you'd better download them, watch them and confirm their stability.
The 4th part, on the other hand, fails the last requirement. It desyncs by the end of the chapter when break 2 barrels in the very first room with Ashley. I get the same loot, but for some reason I don't grab one of the items and everything beyond it goes out of sync.
Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ70y4cl9cI
Here is the input file: User movie #66028318155722196 (not included in the file list)
Here is an archive with all 4 movies and 4 saves: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lVKciCndisDFp3yfOSd2qqOPZTHt45al/view?usp=sharing
If you don't feel like watching from the beginning, copy the folder "Dolphin Emulator" to the respective "Dolphin Emulator" created by Dolphin on your storage (My Documents folder), get the inner folder (Dolphin Emulator\Wii\title\00010000\52423445)
and copy the files from "part3-save" to "data" to make the RE4_part4 movie load the correct file.
For some reason, it can be played back with at best 2x Internal Resolution and the window size must be smaller or equal to it (as auto-adjusted by Dolphin). 3x IR makes the movie desync.
That's beyond my mind why the resolution affects the movie stability, but I guess it's one of desync triggers.
Ubercapitalist, I hope you follow this thread. Try to play my movies and write back if you face the same desync or even different one.
If that's true, you should try to playback your movie in a low-resolution window.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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From now, I'm working on a verification movie for Wii version which will let people TAS Separated Ways, Assignment Ada and Mercenaries.
Since Wii version isn't as stable as GC version in terms of TAS replayability, I decided to complete each chapter from a start-up and maintain the overall progress. Eventually, we will have a series of input files which will complete the whole game if you play them in Dolphin.
It looks like a tool-assisted walkthrough. I don't try to beat the game as fast as possible. It's mainly made to help Ubercapitalist make the Mercenaries TAS of Basement.
Dolphin used: 5.0 build 12575
Game ROM used: RB4E08.wbfs
CRC32: e5d0c3f9
MD5: 6891432cf49e6cf2cbf3d09f52945f3d
SHA1: c2bac5e948c6217c8ec47827289b36ff6af2d00c
Chapter 1-1 completed: User movie #65990955505020555
YouTube's smashed encode can be watched here.
Chapter 1-2 & half 1-3 completed: User movie #66002280506498621
Chapter 1-3 finished: User movie #66013367965378796
Chapter 2-1 finished: User movie #66078775247819442
Over.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Do you accept verification movies that were recorded from a savestate? We need to make one for Wii's Resident Evil 4, but the game occasionally goes out of sync and we think it's because Dolphin rarely misreads the input from the emulated Wii remote in some Wii games.
We need to pass introductory screens with Wii Remote, plug a Gamecube controller and starting recording an input file, as described here.
Also, if the problem won't be solved this way, will you accept a series of verification sub-movies where we complete several chapters, save the game progress, create a new input file and continue the walkthrough until we finish the game?
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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JosJuice wrote:
You can absolutely have two different controllers at the same time. What you can't do is connect or disconnect a controller during the movie.
So, can we assume that Wii's RE4 will actually work if we use Player 1's Wii mote to pass the introduction and Player 2's GC controller to pass the game? I doubt that's possible because we don't play an arcade game where both controller inputs are equitable.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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JosJuice wrote:
Regarding the desync problem, do you mean that having a Wii Remote connected is affecting the inputs of the GameCube controller? Or only the inputs of the Wii Remote?
Emulated Wii Remote occasionally goes out of sync in some games. That would be so great to reveal the problem and fix it.
He means, a dtm input file can't have 2 different controller inputs at once. Switching from GC contr. to Wii Remote (and vice versa) is impossible during a movie recording.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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InfamousKnight wrote:
Why not try latest build?
Don't think so, either. Even though the Dolphin Wiki page says it's perfectly emulated since build 11518 till now, it concerns regular emulation rather than .dtm playback. Nevertheless, it's not excluded that a wonder will happen and the movie won't go out of sync at all the resonant game events.
Dimon12321 wrote:
Ubercapitalist wrote:
I may just longplay it with no savestates just to get the unlocks without trying for New Game+, but it may have the same desync trouble when I attempt Base TAS. Any suggestions?
I doubt you will have positive results. I faced the same problem when Dolphin 4.0 was up-to-date, but nothing has been changed since then and the problem still remains. The only way to make a verification movie is to assume that judges would accept a long video (maybe, a stream) of you beating the game from start to finish. You'd better ask them about it.
I came up with another idea. Make a typewriter save at the beginning of each chapter, complete it, make another save, save the movie file (.dtm) and a memory card (SD-card file?????). And then create another movie where you load your previous typewriter save. And so on until the game is completed. That sound stupid, but we'll eventually get a verification movie made of dozens particular movie.
I don't know what to think of Base TAS. There might be a probability of desync if you use a different memory card for it, but we can make sure if we won't do that.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Ubercapitalist wrote:
I may just longplay it with no savestates just to get the unlocks without trying for New Game+, but it may have the same desync trouble when I attempt Base TAS. Any suggestions?
I doubt you will have positive results. I faced the same problem when Dolphin 4.0 was up-to-date, but nothing has been changed since then and the problem still remains. The only way to make a verification movie is to assume that judges would accept a long video (maybe, a stream) of you beating the game from start to finish. You'd better ask them about it.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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I'm a big fan of Dolphin, but I don't know neither LUA nor Python to use their benefits.
What it can do for me? For example, I have a round crosshair and, if I keep shooting from my machine gun, it gets bigger and there is no clear pattern where exactly the next bullet will fly (aka dynamic random bullet spread). Is it possible to write a script that would track that pattern and mark on the screen where the next bullet is going to fly?
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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I want to make a TAS where I kill all the enemies and find all the secrets in all the levels, aka 100% run. Unfortunately, the game has several sections where enemies spawn infinitely and the player is forced to run away. Are such remarks acceptable if I submit a TAS under "100%" branch, or it's more reasonable to restrict the goal from "100%" to "All secrets" or something like that?
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
