Posts for J


J
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 9/8/2017
Posts: 6
I think this is somewhat relevant question: When, in TAStudio, when you go Metadata -> Savestate History Settings, what's your Max num states? Also, while playing the project back, what does the "States: " counter state at the bottom of the TAStudio window when things start to go slow? Also, if you change a single input at the start (and then change it back to what it was before changing it), making the state count to 0, will it play smoothly 'til the end?
J
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 9/8/2017
Posts: 6
Progress is rarely bad. At worst case, it'll make another game work which might've failed due to the same thing!
J
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 9/8/2017
Posts: 6
Something that came up on IRC today, the TAStudio state sizes for C64 games seem unusually large for a machine which has 64kB RAM. I tested a few roms, they seem to use either 0.26MB, 1.04MB or 4.26MB: 0.26MB Action Biker (1985)(Mastertronic).tap [841kB] Attack of the Mutant Camels (1983)(Llamasoft).crt [8.07kB] Attack of the Mutant Camels (1983)(Llamasoft).tap [145kB] Batman - The Movie (1989)(Ocean Software).crt [129kB] Batman - The Movie (1989)(Ocean Software)(Side A).tap [1.55MB] Choplifter (1982)(Broderbund).crt [16.0kB] Close Encounters (1994)(Mr. Computer).crt [8.07kB] Decathlon (1983)(Activision).crt [16.0kB] Double Dragon (1989)(Melbourne House).crt [128kB] Double Dragon (1989)(Melbourne House).tap [1.33MB] Shadow of the Beast (1990)(Ocean Software).crt [256kB] Spy Hunter (1983)(U.S. Gold).crt [16.0kB] Spy Hunter (1983)(U.S. Gold).tap [246kB] Toki (1991)(Ocean Software).crt [128kB] Wonderboy (1987)(Activision).crt [64.1kB] 1.04MB Attack of the Mutant Camels (1983)(Llamasoft).d64 [170kB] * Attack of the Mutant Camels (1983)(Llamasoft).t64 [7.41kB] Double Dragon 1 (1989)(Melbourne House).d64 [170kB] Ghostbusters.crt [33kB] Leaderboard Golf (1986)(Access Software).crt [33kB] Space Taxi (1984)(Muse Software).d64 [170kB] Spy Hunter (1983)(U.S. Gold).d64 [170kB] 4.26MB Cabal_(NOS)_(Ocean_1989).crt [208kB] Jumpman_-_Space_Taxi.crt [658kB] From that relatively small sample size, seems like any floppy disk image will use 1.04MB, any (raw) tape image will use 0.26MB and most cartridges will use 0.26MB, but some use 1.04MB, few even 4.26MB. Any idea why or how? * There're two tape formats for C64, .tap (which is a raw tape file, shows up as a supported format in BizHawk's Open ROM dialog) and .t64 (which was originally designed for C64s, doesn't show up as supported but still works, it just loads as a floppy image) From the cartridge ROMs I tested, one didn't seem to work, it just booted into normal C64 startup. Tested on fresh Vice, worked fine: "Leaderboard Golf (1986)(Access Software).crt"
J
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 9/8/2017
Posts: 6
Can confirm this behaviour with up to date developer version of BizHawk. Works fine on Vice and CCS64.
Fiendish Freddy's Big Top o' Fun + International Soccer + Flimbo's Quest + Klax (Europe) (C 64 Games System).crt
SHA1: 0b35ea869239ed1edbc4b31e6d5da185bf88ea19 
With TAStudio, there's one frame (#4) where you can press down on Joy2 to select the second game. But things don't seem to work further than that. Moving around in TAStudio (after adding the Down on frame 4) also breaks things further, need to reboot core every time for it to run expectedly. This might get more notice on the BizHawk part of the forums though, maybe in the bug reports or C64 thread.
J
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 9/8/2017
Posts: 6
Commodore 64 games tend to have a long load period (1000-6000 frames), and when I have a marker on the first non-lag frame, I need to wait for TAStudio to scan in from the beginning of the lag frame clump when I try to hop back to said marker. Example .tasproj Jumping to Level 1(+1), Level 2 or Level 3 markers should trigger the problem.
Post subject: [C64] Impossible Mission
J
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 9/8/2017
Posts: 6
Game description from a WAY earlier request post:
NFITC1 wrote:
Impossible Mission Not be confused with Mission: Impossible which I frequently did as a kid. This has a rather acrobatic spy running through an underground lair full of rooms searching for pieces to a puzzle which would spell out the villain's control room password. There are robots and balls of death to avoid (all insta-kills) and furniture to search that take various amounts of time to complete. There isn't a lives counter, but you are timed. You start out with 6 hours to finish, but every death takes off 10 minutes of that time. If you run out of time the villain wins (he does something bad, but it doesn't show you what). Thing about this game is that it was, if you can believe this, one of the first video game to use speech synth. It has an SMS port, but it doesn't have the speech that made it famous on the C64.
Hey hey. Here's my first, and I'm hoping a most optimal route (only needed two snoozes and managed to find two right on my path) of Impossible Mission. The goal was to get the shortest time according to the ingame timer, which ended up at 21063 seconds remaining. More realtime speed might be achieved with a few strategic death warps, but each death adds 10 minutes to the end in-game timer. Link to .bk2: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/41609566481934976 Link to video playthrough: http://greywool.com/tas/IM_TAS_21063.html (Loading is done around the 1:45 mark) As said, this is my first attempt at this, please let me know what I've done wrong or what information I need to provide yet.