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Xenia has been making some rapid progress lately! There are a few games that run at full speed.
The graphics are pretty weird but this video shows what Xenia can do now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djJdL4jPSRY
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JosJuice wrote:
FitterSpace wrote:
Okay, i think i found the problem. Using the newer dolphin version definitely made a difference. I just did a playthrough of the first level with lots of savestates and frame advance and it synced up perfectly on both of my computers. I'm going to send the .dtm to some other people and see if it works for them as well.
The more recent Dolphin version really helped out. I made two .dtm's that synced up on 4.0-9540 but i made 5 that didn't sync up on 4.0-9440. I'm not sure what they could have changed between those versions but it doesn't really matter to me as long as it works.
There have been no changes between 4.0-9440 and 4.0-9450 that can affect this. The only changes are to the readme file (which isn't even shipped with development builds), the installer (which isn't shipped with development builds either), and the default INIs for a few games that aren't GoldenEye 007. The reason must be something else, or maybe you just got lucky.
I'm not sure what i've been doing differently. I saw a post from JMC47 in this part of the forum and he said doing something wrong with savestates can cause desyncs. He didn't go into too much detail so i'm not sure what to avoid when making a full TAS.
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So i'm done with routing the game and i've done a few RTA runs to make sure i know everything. I had a few problems with desyncs during testing but those problems seem to be gone now. If all goes well, I should officially start the TAS in the very near future!
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Okay, i think i found the problem. Using the newer dolphin version definitely made a difference. I just did a playthrough of the first level with lots of savestates and frame advance and it synced up perfectly on both of my computers. I'm going to send the .dtm to some other people and see if it works for them as well.
The more recent Dolphin version really helped out. I made two .dtm's that synced up on 4.0-9540 but i made 5 that didn't sync up on 4.0-9440. I'm not sure what they could have changed between those versions but it doesn't really matter to me as long as it works.
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jlun2 wrote:
Have you tried posting the config file and input file here? Maybe if they follow the same settings it would work?
Well i'm playing back the same .dtm on multiple computers and it only seems to work on the computer i recorded on. Other people i've talked to seem to be having the same issue. Check my edit in my previous post. I downloaded the latest dev version and the first part of the game syncs up just fine. I will make a rough TAS of the first level just to make sure it syncs up.
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JosJuice wrote:
Are all Wiimotes set to None, so that they won't interfere?
Yes they are set to none. The only input i'm using is my Gamecube controller adapter. When doing the full TAS i will be using a standard controller with the TAS input but right now i'm just recording my inputs in real time with savestates. I've heard that savestates can cause desyncs in Wii games but i don't know how to prevent that from happening. I've also started testing on Dolphin 4.0-9450, which is the latest development version.
My favorite version of dolphin to use is 4.0-8965 but for some reason "Start Recording Input" doesn't seem to do anything. This is the same for 4.0-8246. "Play input recording" works as expected.
I'm certain my settings are correct for TASing. I have Dual Core and Idle skipping off, no cheats, JIT recompiler, DSP LLE recompiler, no gamecube memory cards inserted (although i don't think that matters for wii games), and everything on the Wii tab is turned off. To my knowledge, none of the graphics settings affect TASing but please let me know if they do.
EDIT: I started an input recording on 4.0-9450 and TASed a small portion of the game. The menus, the opening cutscene, and the first 20 seconds of real gameplay. I made sure to use lots of savestates as well as frame advance. I was still using the gamecube controller adapter. I did not get any desyncs even though i used more savestates than i did before. I'm not sure if the Dolphin version made a difference or maybe i just got lucky. Assuming the rest of the game is stable, the TAS should begin soon.
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I've been trying to record input files for Goldeneye: 007 Wii and they sync up perfectly on my own computer, but not on anybody else's. What are some things that I can do to make sure my work doesn't desync on other people's computers? I'm aware that Wii remote motion can cause desyncs but this game has full gamecube controller support, which i'm taking advantage of while TASing.
I'm using Dolphin 4.0-9440. If there is a better version of dolphin that doesn't desync as often, let me know.
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Derakon wrote:
Wow, I'd forgotten how preposterously much health Trevelyan has. That was a silly video.
Would you believe that in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions they gave him more health and made him invincible during enemy waves? We really lucked out with the Wii game since he just has a simple health bar.
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I found a really easy and fast way to kill Trev in the final level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_21VJETd5zc
If you've ever played Call of Duty multiplayer, you've probably gotten stuck in a corner because of player collision at some point. This works exactly the same way.
Just get him stuck between you and the crate and he won't be able to move. Then you can repeatedly headshot him.
Even better, enemies don't spawn until Trev moves to a certain place. This spot he gets stuck in is before that place, so no enemies will spawn!
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andypanther wrote:
FitterSpace wrote:
So there's an interesting scenario in this game. At the very beginning of the run, you can click "New Game" to start playing the game from the training mission. It lasts for about 2 minutes so it's a pretty short level. All real-time runs start from selecting "New Game". However, if you select "Mission select", you can start from the Dam level, skipping the training mission entirely. So my question to you guys on TASvideo is should the TAS skip the training mission or not?
The published Nightfire TAS skipped Paris Prelude. Can this be compared to that?
I was thinking the same thing. I'm in favor of skipping the training mission but I wanted to make sure. Right now i'm routing and practicing each level with a real-time runner for this game and we disagree about that.
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So there's an interesting scenario in this game. At the very beginning of the run, you can click "New Game" to start playing the game from the training mission. It lasts for about 2 minutes so it's a pretty short level. All real-time runs start from selecting "New Game". However, if you select "Mission select", you can start from the Dam level, skipping the training mission entirely. So my question to you guys on TASvideo is should the TAS skip the training mission or not?
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So Alec also found some .ngc files that are associated with the maps in the game. Does anybody know of any program that can open and/or edit .ngc files?
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So it turns out that some files such as .sni can be opened using NotePad++. As far as I'm aware these are mostly config files, but they can tell you a lot such as how much damage enemies can do and how much health you have. Stuff like that.
.gsf files can also be opened with audacity by using "import raw data". I've been talking with aleckermit and he's been looking through 007: Agent Under Fire. he found out pretty quickly that there was an unused level that was cut from the final game.
But we still don't know how to open .elf files.
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So there is a program called GameCube rebuilder that lets you extract, edit, and re-pack GameCube ISOs. So looking at the files for 007: Nightfire, almost everything is inside hundreds of different .elf files that I can't open. What programs can I use to open these types of files within a GameCube ISO?
Being able to look at maps or properties of the game could lead to many new time saves being found.
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CoolKirby wrote:
That was awesome! Man, this game looks good! I look forward to seeing the redone level when you decide to work on it.
And I don't know about the savestate issues, but the frame advance issue should be just about fixed.
Thanks, Coolkirby! I've been working with a real-time Goldeneye Wii runner named InfiniteSheldor and he's been showing me some small time saves i didn't know about. This level has a few seconds of potential improvement scattered throughout. I'll probably do some real-time runs so i can learn more about this game before I eventually work on a full TAS. The issue I was having with frame advance isn't present in 4.0-8965 unless Wii TASing is different than Gamecube TASing. If the issue still happens for that game on the newer version then I may wait until it's fixed in a future version of Dolphin.
Also if I make a full TAS for this game then I will provide a normal encode as well as an encode without the cutscenes since they are unskippable.
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Goldeneye: Reloaded is my favorite modern James Bond game. There are quite a few slight differences between this game and
the Xbox 360 version, which i'm more familiar with, but a TAS of the Wii version would still be very awesome and entertaining.
The hardest difficulty in the game, 00 classic, is much like 00 agent difficulty in the original Goldeneye on N64. There are more
objectives, tougher enemies, and no health regeneration. Many levels also have multiple paths you can take so that makes
routing very interesting. I think a full TAS of Goldeneye: Wii would be really cool. I plan on starting the project some time in
the near future.
Here is a TAS I did of the Facility level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JawmN9bFKM
I had a lot of problems with the dolphin version I was using to TAS this. I feel like that made optimization a lot harder than
it needed to be. For a complete TAS i can use a more recent version that fixes many of the problems i was facing. Check
the description of the video as it goes into more detail about this.
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Looks like now there is a way to speed up the Island Infiltration Autoscroller section: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4efFyKDchq4
This part of the level behaves just like Alpine Escape, where shooting certain enemies at different times can impact your speed. Right now I am testing different things to see what can speed you up. This saves at least 10 seconds over the current published TAS.
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I added another section in the top post for "Potential time saves" that show things that aren't currently possible, but may be possible in the future is someone finds a way to do it. The only thing on that list right now is a potential Last Room skip in Volcano Lair.
In the last section of the level you are at the top of this very large room and you have to fight many groups of enemies while making your way down to the "Last room", as I call it. When you get to the last room you have to fight in a huge Battle with dozens of enemies
that take a long time to kill. Lots of the enemies have shields so they can take a very long time to kill. Some of them even have the OMEN gun, which is always a one-shot kill so that can be really annoying to deal with. The video I added in the top post shows that there
is a wall that is not solid. You can walk through it and land on the bottom floor where this huge battle takes place. Unfortunately the final hallway where you kill Goldfinger is too far away to reach from the bottom floor. Even worse is that the only way to get the final hallway
to load is by going to the bottom floor. The 2nd floor is too high up, so you can't load it from there and fall down. None of the objects on the bottom floor are solid, either, so you can't use strafe slamming to get more height.
This skip would save about 2 minutes depending on how quickly you can do it, so it's a pretty major potential time save. I've had a few ideas for other ways to skip the last room but none of them seem to work.
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I added a new video to the first post. I made a new video that shows some of the smaller time-saves throughout the game. It also shows the Crab Key warehouse skip at the end.
I will continue to edit the first post when new skip or time saves get found.
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Beating the game on Hard difficulty unlocks "one-life mode", which i believe is just the same thing as expert but it restarts the entire level if you die instead of putting you at the beginning of the section. To my knowledge it's exactly the same as hard difficulty but with one life instead of infinite lives.
So a TAS of this game would most likely be done on Hard difficulty unless one-life mode turns out to be different. I can also provide a verification movie to skip cutscenes.
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Thank you for the response. I'll keep that in mind when switching disks. Thankfully there is a loading screen right after the disk change so there is no reason to use savestates in that time. You also don't have to change back to disk 1 so that's really good.
