Posts for Lex


Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
How could you be so delusional not to understand that others don't know the specifics of your problem? Put yourselves in our shoes. How are we supposed to help you solve your problem if we don't know exactly what your problem is? Specifically, what emulator (and version) are you using? What game are you playing? What actions did you take specifically? If you don't tell us vital information like that, we can't help you find solutions. In general, when talking about something and using pronouns like "it", you must first define "it". This is something that should have been learned in infancy. I'm sorry, but I just don't understand how you missed this seemingly-automatic lesson in life. Edit: Okay. I'm sorry for the above. My best advice is this: Put your emotions aside for now. We all know that losing hard work to desynchronization glitches sucks, but you'll have to ignore the anger and frustration that event generated so you can figure out how avoid the same loss occurring in the future. While you are in this calmer state, you can figure out the cause of the problem much more easily. Focus on details which would relate to the cause of this problem, like, 1, the emulator version you're using and, 2, the things which have changed between the time you recorded the input and the time you played it back. Older emulators have had synchronization issues, which have generally been fixed with more recent versions. There is a very helpful article on this site which should explain this much better than I can: http://tasvideos.org/DesyncHelpTAS.html I recommend reading that entire page. It's possible that the specific problem you've had is there. It has good reminders for what can prevent desynchronization.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I'm sure it wasn't necessary, but I voted "No".
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
There is at least one point where I think, "Wow, if only he had jumped right when he landed, he wouldn't have hit the side of that platform, stopping his horizontal motion." I'm in a similar boat to Samsara, but I have faith that NitroGenesis wouldn't be that bad and it's probably a game limitation. Assuming that, the run is entertaining and definitely much better than the compared run. I'm clicking "Yes".
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Make sure you've read the author's submission comments (linked in the publications) which detail the emulator version in which the movie is supposed to be played. Use that specific emulator version. More info can be obtained by looking at "Emulators" section of this website.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Cardboard wrote:
Let me start off by saying that I always wanted a GBA Micro but could never find one. Thanks for pulling that wound open :(
It's okay. You wouldn't like it. The GBASP buttons are so much better and less "squishy" than the GBA Micro buttons. I don't know why Nintendo made the GBASP's buttons and then went backwards with ALL their hardware afterward, giving them all a terrible squishy feel. The GBASP's buttons are perfect.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Warp, nobody here cares about that distinction but you. If someone says "programming errors", I'm sure you know what they mean by it. Putting enough effort into every post to prevent you from jumping on every little thing that isn't worded properly hinders productivity. Please encourage productivity by suppressing your need for optimal semantics. That's how I see it, anyway. Also, I know this is going to sound hypocritical due to the above paragraph, but I don't think the Sega Tetris "TAS" described by zaphod is a "TAS", since actual real-time gameplay was necessary. That sort of run is simply an unassisted speed run, considering you have to play it in real time. This sequence mapping is the similar to the route mapping that's done by the players of Speed Demos Archive. It's not like andrewg got his 5-minute SMB run on his first time playing those levels, only knowing the game's physics mechanics.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
How's this run going, Hikaru? Are you still working on it? I assume so, considering your sig. I recently started playing this game (unassisted). Just know that at least one person is looking forward to your progress.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
tall wrote:
If you enjoyed this run (also everybody who complimented the technical aspects), let me know what else you'd like to see. I finished this run over a week ago and have been feeling the itch to play a new game very slowly and count frames and read memory and stuff.
My request: N+ for DS! I beat that game myself and found that there are some really awesome things you can do and some really tricky levels. In my opinion, it's far better than the original Flash version of N. I'm not sure if Andymac is still working on his run. Anyway, for game choice, I think N+ would get a universally positive response; highly contrasting from Pilotwings.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
upthorn wrote:
If dying and continuing is actually faster, I say go for it. And certainly if a TAS is well planned and executed, the use of deaths and continues should never disqualify it from publication. You guys are just seriously overthinking this.
I completely agree. I'm also of the mindset that whatever is fastest from the beginning to the end of the game (with a predefined goal, which can vary beforehand (eg. any% vs 100%)) is absolutely the best, no matter what.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Any decent video player (MPC, WMP, etc.) can do that, and so can AviDemux (via its AVS proxy) and MeGui. I've had a couple bad experiences with VirtualDub in the past year or so. Its methodology is really outdated. It can only completely handle the AVI container. It can only run VfW codecs. I can't recall other problems I had, but those were the major stoppers for me. I guess if it works for your singular purpose, that's fine. It just seems like it'd be another program to maintain which can be replaced by one with a larger scope at this point to me, though.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Flygon wrote:
VirtualDub
Ew. Isn't VirtualDub obsolete now, due to AviSynth, x264, MeGui (and its associated software), and AviDemux?
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
This run is beautiful. I saw it before it had a star and thought, "Wow, this run is definite star material; one of the best runs on the site." and when I checked the next day, it was starred. :)
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
It's quite a coincidence that I saw this thread for the first time today since I uploaded a lossless 1920×1080 H264 video to YouTube today and was appalled by how it handled it. The double-resolution method is a good idea for a workaround, but YouTube somehow manages to botch that slightly too. It's so close, though! If you made torrents of these, I'd totally download them all and help seed them. I'd really like to see the non-YouTube-ruined versions.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I've encoded my Mission Impossible 2 TAS from 2007 and uploaded it to YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3JItjyKVPI Can someone with an actual 1920×1080 1080p monitor tell me if the video looks sharp and perfect in the YouTube player's 1080p mode? If so, I may upload more to YouTube in this format. I like the still camera showing the entire map. My monitor's 1920×1200, which, I think, is the reason that the video looks messy on my monitor in fullscreen. Edit: No, it's YouTube's shitty post-processing.
Post subject: Re: Games which are the most unsuitable for TASing
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Warp wrote:
Are there any existing games (or entire game types) which are absolutely and totally unsuitable for TASing? Besides color-a-dinosaur, that is.
Whaaat? Why "besides color-a-dinosaur"? Isn't that exactly the type of game you're talking about?
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
adelikat wrote:
No death - forgoes time saving death Uses no warps - forgoes warps
Make sure you use hyphens properly. "Forgoes time saving death" is ambiguous, and at first read, sounded like "Forgoes time, saving death" which almost meant something very strange. Use "Forgoes time-saving deaths" for disambiguation. Also note the "s" added for consistency. Also, make sure your capitalization is consistent. These ones didn't have a capital at the beginning.
adelikat wrote:
Starts from a predefined save - Starts from savestate or SRAM
"savestate" sounds terrible. Use "saved state".
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Wow, the score tally at the end of every level is ridiculously long. I realize this wouldn't be entertaining, but would it be technically faster to wait a while before beating the level so the score tally doesn't take FOREVER? I voted yes, btw.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Raiscan wrote:
I have no objection with the boolean logic term in brackers alongside the english meaning, however.
Oh, agreed!
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
NrgSpoon wrote:
You guys are arguing terminology, when it already exists as AND, OR, NOT, and XOR.
To be honest, those names are terrible. They may be assembly standard, but just suck for anything meant to be read by a human rather than a machine. Maybe you were joking, and understand that "Combine" is clearly better than "OR" and "Invert" is clearly better than the nonsensical "XOR".
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Warp wrote:
Speaking of multi-tracking, how about having a "piano roll" view of the keypresses, similar to what eg. midi sequencers or movie editing software use? That way you would not only be able to easily scroll through the entire movie and see which keys are being pressed at which point, but you could also easily edit key presses (add, remove) with the mouse, if so desired.
Great idea! It could continually show the input during playback like, for example, Reason or Fruity Loops does. In a well-written emulator with proper rewinding and seeking like QuickNES, you could browse through this "piano roll" type viewport and seek to a specific spot in the movie (to skip a long section of no input, for example).
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I commend you for your ability to continuously do this incredibly repetitive game for that long. I did watch through the whole thing. I think I saw some improvable parts, but I'm no expert. I'm voting yes on the basis that this is the first movie for this game, and could possibly be the foundation for some healthy competition if someone is willing to find glitches (if there are any exploitable ones).
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I'm not sure if this information is entirely relevant, but I wanted to show another approach to re-recording that may help with discussions/ideas. I'm not saying I advocate these methods 100%. I'm just explaining neutrally. In Worms Armageddon PC re-recording, Deadcode implemented (without knowing about tool-assisted speed-running beforehand) switching between these types of modes on the fly. First, the replay file (input video) is played back in Playback mode. From here, the user can press the R key to switch to Redubbing mode. This restarts the playback in this other mode. As the replay is played back in Redubbing mode, input from the original replay file is written (redubbed) to a new replay file frame-by-frame. In this mode, the user can press the T key (to Take control) at any time to switch to In Control mode. Also, M can be pressed to mark a frame to automatically fast-forward to that frame upon redub, like saving states. Obviously, this wouldn't work in a more complex movie (hours long). While In Control, any input given by the user is written to the newly-redubbed replay file. R can be pressed at any time to redub a new replay and take control of it at the desired frame. With this method, at the end of a TASing session, the user ends up with precisely 1.0 buttloads of unfinished replays which can be browsed through in case they wanted to use some method they had ditched several re-records ago. --- The "Append" mode adelikat explained above is very interesting. I can see it being very useful in many games, especially for luck manipulation. I agree that "Append" is a misleading term here. What about "Add Simultaneous Input Mode"? That's probably pretty long, but it explains what it is better.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Ryuto wrote:
Lex wrote:
I loved the run! I have the same pleased comments as OmegaWatcher. However, starting on stage 3 doesn't make sense to me unless it's the latest stage you can start on. If that was the case, then I would consider it a speed-running strat, but if not, it seems really arbitrary as a starting point. I'm holding my vote until I know whether or not stage 3 is the latest possible stage to start on.
That's right, it is the latest possible stage I can start on.
Therefore, voting yes, as that's technically a TAS strategy for this game!
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I loved the run! I have the same pleased comments as OmegaWatcher. However, starting on stage 3 doesn't make sense to me unless it's the latest stage you can start on. If that was the case, then I would consider it a speed-running strat, but if not, it seems really arbitrary as a starting point. I'm holding my vote until I know whether or not stage 3 is the latest possible stage to start on.
Lex
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Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
That was such a huge improvement with the zipping glitch. I voted yes on the last submission, and I'm voting yes on this one.