Interesting, you'd think the detail would have an effect on it.
It might load the same amount of level information no matter what detail it plans to render (e.g. the stuff in the level is not separated in such a way that it could do faster loading)
I came across an aptitude test for would-be computer science students and found an interesting question (which I could not solve at the time of writing):
Task L2
Time: 20 minutes
Find two natural numbers in ]1;100[.
Two persons, "Mr. Product", who knows the product of both numbers, and "Mr. Sum", who knows their sum, are having a talk:
Mr. Product: "I know neither of both numbers."
Mr. Sum: "I, too, know neither of both numbers; but I knew that you wouldn't know them."
Mr. Product: "Now I know both numbers."
Mr. Sum: "Now I know both numbers as well."
What two numbers are they talking about (only one answer is correct)?
A. 3 and 5
B. 2 and 7
C. 8 and 11
D. 4 and 13
'Mr. Product: "I know neither of both numbers."'
So there is more than one factorization (not using 1) for the product.
This rules out A, as 15 can only be factorized as 3*5.
This rules out B, as 14 can only be factorized as 2*7.
Leaving C and D.
Mr. Sum: "I, too, know neither of both numbers; but I knew that you wouldn't know them."
So Mr. Sum's sum cannot be broken down in any way that has only one factorization.
Let's consider C. 8 and 11 add to 19. This can be broken down into:
2 and 17, product 34, only factorizable as 2*17
So in the world of C, Mr. Sum cannot claim this.
Let's consider D. 4 and 13 add up to 17. This can be broken down into:
2 and 15, product 30, factorizable as 2*15 or 6*5
3 and 14, product 42, factorizable as 6*7
4 and 13, product 52, factorizable as 2*26
5 and 12, product 60, factorizable as 10*6
6 and 11, product 66, factorizable as 3*22
7 and 10, product 70, factorizable as 14*5
8 and 9, product 72, factorizable as 24*3
Can you see? In the world of D, where Mr. Sum knows 17, Mr. Sum knows that whatever the two components are, it is AMBIGUOUS for Mr. Product as to what the factors are for him - so Mr. Sum knows already that Mr. Product could not know his numbers.
Mr. Product knows 52, which factorizes as 26*2 and as 13*4. If Mr. Sum had 26 and 2 23 and 5 is a unique factorization - so he would not have claimed Mr. Product could not know his numbers. So Mr. Sum must have 13 and 4. So now Mr. Product knows his numbers and declares this fact.
Mr. Sum knows 17. How did he figure out which one of his universes was correct (Mr. Product wouldn't have said he now knows both numbers in this universe)? I think this is just tedious elimination, try every 'Mr Product knew this number' universe and only 4 and 13 should work (haven't tried yet). We don't need to know it to determine D is the right answer at least.
Hi! Everyone! I have a question about which version(u/j) should I use for a new run, because I found some improvement of this game, there are new glitches can be used in the (J) version only. In (J) version, I found a method with password to access to the 1st stage, this is faster than press start, but I am not sure whether it breaks the rule.
If that's the only new thing I wouldn't change just for that (it doesn't show any technical skill or anything interesting about the game)
But if you would have swapped to (J) for other time saving glitches go ahead and swap
Could someone answer a question I have? I'm at the final boss now and I'm worrying about the movie timing. Do I end the movie recording as soon as the last possible input is entered that lets the credits roll?
Yes, end input when you make the last input needed to kill the final boss.
However, this makes two different things you can optimize:
1) Optimize for ending input early, even if it kills the boss later. (for example, donkey kong country)
2) Optimize for killing the boss early, even if it ends the input later.
Both are equally OK. Pick which one is more technically interesting.
For concept, the answer is yes. There was a run submitted for Sonic 2 in the category 'PERFECT BONUS' where Perfect Bonus (from grabbing all rings on the level) was acquired on every level possible:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12503
However, it was rejected due to being an arbitrary goal (on some levels you simply CAN'T get perfect bonus, or no one has found out how to yet - so what do you do?). That doesn't stop it from being an interesting TAS of course, just one that was not well defined for acceptance at tasvideos. Just keep that in mind - you can TAS to get on tasvideos, or you can TAS for some other reason (personal enjoyment, practice/improvement, to show something is possible, to speedrun a goal even if it's not very well defined/arbitrary, to show a real time route being done with no mistakes (called theory TAS)...)
For sonic 3 & knuckles, the game doesn't care how many rings you collect or how many bad guys you kill, and there is no way to prove that you collected them all/killed everything. So tasvideos would not accept such a movie, but it can still be a very good watch for its variety of movement/content/exploration of the level.
The topic for discussing sonic 2 'perfect bonus' is here, if you want to glance through it:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12070&highlight=
We have a number of sonic TASers on this site (I am not one), I am sure you can get a lot of feedback from one of them on movement.
You say they're on two different emulators? Bizhawk (which uses bsnes/lsnes as its core) tends to emulate lag a lot more correctly than other emulators. Lag caused only by being on a more accurate emulator should be ignored.
One thing I got ask is how do you guys beat all those annoying minigames? Is there like a TAS that will allow you to beat the minigames?
What, do you mean in real time or in a TAS? There's a setup for every minigame in the game (you need to do them all for 100%, for example - zfg and sva both have very strong 100% times if you want to watch their runs), and I think the only luck minigame you can't avoid is dampe heart piece (10% chance of getting it first try)(
The definition of 'any% no WW' and 'any% no WW no RBA' actually got an upset recently with the new castle collapse skip that has you void out and hit a loading zone on the same frame. Technically it's NOT the same glitch as the reason why the category was made - but it's very similar in trigger and visual effect, so I think it got banned from both categories.
I like 'All Dungeons' because it's very easy to define as a category:
-'use up' every blue warp
-Now go beat the game
That's it.
It also has a very interesting route and less downtime compared to MST (no light arrow cutscene, no zelda's lullaby cutscene are the big ones), including a wrong warp using the odd mushroom timer and the '1080' wrong warp from fire temple to tower collapse (on top of that, I think a TAS would do fire temple goron tunicless)
Of course, it will have to wait for Bizhawk to integrate a good N64 core, and even then 100% is more likely to get worked on first.
FWIW, I suspect the majority of old console games have total control glitches, just people tend not to be looking for them. Anything that crashes a game but only sometimes (like the Coin Case in G/S) is a prime candidate for looking at to see if it's exploitable.
I kind of agree, but Pokemon RBY/GSC is a special case - the program is a very special kind of hacky and corner cutting that few other games can claim to have. Plus, it's full of so many dynamically long strings, numbers, other data structures, etc that the player has many ways of manipulating. Never know though!
Myself, I am wondering if this can be combined with a glitch like the 'Affirmative Action' glitch (showcased in the run below) to get access to enough things to pull off total control:
Link to video
The topic where arbitrary code execution with the coin case is being discussed also brought up this technique for mutating and cloning items:
Link to video
If your intention is to learn to speedrun, do ILs or TAS the game, wouldn't it be a good learning experience/getting a feel for the mechanics to beat the game 100% anyway?
after watching plexa beat werster's record by 15 minutes in real time and 2 minutes game time, I was surprised to find out that there wasn't already a TAS of golden sun, is there any particular reason why?
Probably only the default reason: Long + RPG.
But assuming you can TAS soft resets and hard resets, the current WR route could be used - BUT. TAS can do even more in depth RNG manipulation, so there could probably be a much faster TAS only route that would need extensive research. That's probably the big reason why.
I think this has been gone over before; you should have separate usernames for separate people. There's no benefit in having multiple people share one username, it's just a confounding gimmick.
In a TAS, if you are in a place where it is completely dark and you cannot see anything, how can you TAS that part of the game perfectly like all the other parts?
There are lots of possible strategies, for example
1) Turn the lights on, TAS it with the lights on, copy the input, paste it into your real TAS. (Works only if the game is deterministic there)
2) If the darkness is due to a layer change or palette change, many emulators let you easily change what layers/palettes are being used without needing to know how to code or assembly.
3) If it's not, you can still write a camhack or otherwise write a script/edit the ROM so that the area is bright. (Sonic games have a similar problem - you can go so fast the camera is not showing where Sonic is at all. The solution is to write a camhack, that tells the emulator to draw the screen around Sonic even thought the in-game camera is somewhere else, such that the ROM is unchanged and the input made in the camhack syncs in normal non-camhack playback)
4) If 1) 2) and 3) aren't possible, you can STILL use memory watch to find X and Y position of your character, try 1) to see what the route through the area is ROUGHLY like, and do trial and error until you can get something similar to what you do in 1)
Maybe this has been asked before, but:
Why are TAS videos of obsolete runs not set to 'Unlisted'?
Unless there's a special reason why you want to look at an obsoleted run (you're navigating to it from the obsoleted movie's page on tasvideos) you should after the most up to date version instead.
The only exception should be when the obsoleted movie has higher entertainment rating than the movie it obsoletes (e.g. Chrono Trigger glitched)
Of note that TasVG hosts illegal downloads of ROM files, and thus violates this site's rules. That said, I could download the movie file from there just fine. Should I upload it?
My biggest problem with a glitchless category is hitboxes.
The #1 complaint from people who are not familiar with SMB1 speedruns and watch one for the first time is the pirahna plant hitboxes. It looks like you should have died and yet you did not. Is it a glitch that the hitbox is wrong? Even if it's not a glitch, it looks glitchy as hell.
When something as simple as 'how to jump over a pirahna plant' is contentious I think a 'glitchless' category can't be defined for SMB1.
