Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Embarrasingly, you're correct. I'll try to replace the file tomorrow. Sorry for the screw-up :/
Do you happen to have a framenumber or a timestamp for that particular screenshot?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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symbolic X wrote:
But the reason I bring this up is because certain versions of Windows will have some kind of impact on FCEUX - and of course the other emulators as well.
And what would that impact be exactly? It's gonna need less RAM so that emulator run better/more smoothly? I wouldn't be surprised if it just broke everything in sight. But that's just me.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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I already found CT1 to be somewhat meh and unfortunately, CT2 doesn't seems so be so different to me. Sure I'd watch the submission and vote for it, but not with something better like 6.5 in entertainment, I guess.
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Uh. yeah...
Some parts of the game looked like a big glitch and were confusing, to say the least. Still, I found it to be somewhat entertaining. 6.1/abstained
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Raiscan wrote:
I disagree with everything ShinyDoofy has said.
Great to see some discussion. :)
Raiscan wrote:
* Added AVI Logging using custom Kega Game Video 1 lossless codec. This is needed because logging RAW video causes poor performance even on highend machines
This is pretty good news. Now if you had problems in the past with capturing and playing, you now have a better option.
Sure that's correct, but for me it started off with the wrong argument. After all I find his definition of "highend" very vague. If he said something like capturing in general to be of poor performance, I would have understood, but like this? I don't know.
Raiscan wrote:
and using any of the available codecs either doesn't compress well enough to fix that, or does compress well enough, but can't keep up with 60fps, so you get poor performance either way.
ShinyDoofy's mention of x264 here was pretty silly, since x264 is one of the most cpu intensive codecs out there for video at this time. I assume x264 is what he's referring to when he mentions "can't keep up with 60fps".
If x264 is the one to blame, then why not fork it and create something new out of it instead of starting a codec from scratch? Sega games from this era have a really low resolution, so I assume that even older machines are capable of capturing the gameplay at a decent speed. If he started a codec that would not only generally outperform x264, but also have better quality at the same target size and be versatilely usable, I might try it out. Given that it's a purely lossless codec only designed and useable for this purpose, I'm not going to try it.
Raiscan wrote:
The codec is able to use hints from the emulator to aid in compression, allowing pretty good compression while taking very little CPU time.
I like this idea. If this were to be added to other emulators, this could also theoretically increase the speed of initial captures, saving encoders on this site some time. He's a bit vague with actual numbers though.
And that's just my point. It's all a little too vague. Helping the encoder out really is a great idea, but if this was to be his goal, he could have made it open source from the very beginning. I appreciate him even thinking about releasing his specs or even the code to the public, but see it this way: in order for this to be used by another emulator, he'd have to reveal parts of what he has kept secret from the public for over 10 years, as the emulator itself would have to be partially put open as well. I can't quite say why, but it feels like Microsoft's OpenXML. Most things are disclosed, but some just aren't. So my approach of either keeping everything shut or showing everything you've used is not met. One could call such an attempt half-assed, but it's too strong of an expression and doesn't quite match it imho.
Raiscan wrote:
The codec to allow you to play back and convert the files is included in the archive, and can be installed via right clicking on the INI file and telling the OS to continue with the install. Tested on XP and Vista64, should work fine on 9x and Vista32.
I find it really funny how ShinyDoofy complains about the choice here (re: no linux) yet somehow he completely forgets that Kega is Windows only. What is it that you expected?
I know that Kega is a purely Microsoft-software-based emulator (it was from the very beginning), I admit that I'm sometimes a bit of a OS nazi. It's not that I want to nuke Microsoft (well, sometimes I do, but not in this case), but laying something like this open also means that anyone is supposed to be able to use it, not just people natively running Windows. That's like saying "Hey, we're about to revolutionize the internet, but only for white people" in my eyes.
Raiscan wrote:
Note that these AVI files are not really meant to be shared as they are, it's just a way for you to log video without horrible laggy gameplay. Convert them to Xvid or something using the excellent VirtualDub program (Google it.)
This is the same as FRAPS, and is completely understandable. It's just a better way of doing initial captures, and really shouldn't be used for actual distribution.
As you probably know, different codecs use different colorspaces. I don't know for sure, but I guess it won't use yuv420p, so you'd also have to change the colorspace again, which takes more CPU time than actually capturing it in the previously desired codec. I used to capture Genesis games in FFV1 and the first pass of encoding ran at about 40 to 50 fps (due to the colorspace conversion, I assume; you're welcome to correct me if I'm wrong). When I captured the same games with x264, the first pass ran at 80-90fps. Imho this saves more time than using a faster codec for capturing and then having to slowly decode it again for using x264 (which encoders at this site are encouraged to use to publishing accepted runs).
Raiscan wrote:
I can't believe someone who is an encoder on this site can be so pessimistic and narrow-minded on what has the potential to be very useful if made well.
Usually, I welcome progress and new things in general, but this one has a somewhat bitter taste to it for me for the reasons stated above. If this really gets to be open source some day and any of the emulators we use here at TASvideos really support this, you're welcome to use it as long as the results are good. I, however, am not going to use it until I either see it running flawlessly and far better than x264 with my own eyes on my machine or I'm forced to use it. In case the latter becomes true and my objections are not resolved until then, I might as well quit before I voluntarily return to a closed source world where I'm bound to what the designers/programmers though was good for me instead of leaving the choice to me.
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* Added AVI Logging using custom Kega Game Video 1 lossless codec. This is needed because logging RAW video causes poor performance even on highend machines
I'd like to know this guy's definition of "highend", seriously. Today I've got an outdated AMD X2 3800+ with 3GB of RAM and I capture anything on Gens in realtime. Given that Vista sucks so much performance, I can understand his need for yet another proprietary codec. Way to work around the issue!
and using any of the available codecs either doesn't compress well enough to fix that, or does compress well enough, but can't keep up with 60fps, so you get poor performance either way.
Never heard of x264?
The codec is able to use hints from the emulator to aid in compression, allowing pretty good compression while taking very little CPU time.
Pointless. Seems like he just wants to show everybody what a great coder he is that he wrote something like this.
The codec to allow you to play back and convert the files is included in the archive, and can be installed via right clicking on the INI file and telling the OS to continue with the install. Tested on XP and Vista64, should work fine on 9x and Vista32.
Obviously, good operating systems were neither tested nor given a chance to be tested.
Note that these AVI files are not really meant to be shared as they are, it's just a way for you to log video without horrible laggy gameplay. Convert them to Xvid or something using the excellent VirtualDub program (Google it.)
So you're supposed to encode it again afterwards instead of having a sharable file in the first place? Now that's neat! I'm sure somebody will thank him for all the energy wasted due to this.
I'll open up this codec sometime later incase it's useful for other purposes/programs.
As far as I can see, Kega is completely closed source. Thus I highly doubt that part of the code would ever be released publicly, even if it's just a codec.
I'm sorry for the rant and I really think you meant it in a good way, but to me this is absolutely pointless. It might bring something for lowend machines, but stating that highend ones lag while capturing just because you've got an inferior OS is really the wrong thing to do. Guess he misunderstood the cause of the lag.
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wicked wrote:
i give this tas 6/5
well i ddint like the tear drops of fire scene
the mecanism happens again on the piramid, when big blocks fall from the sky
I must admit that those two parts aren't the most entertaining, but they're unskippable.
wicked wrote:
it tooks damage that could be avoided, and donalds walks give some steps back in some stages.
well this tas can be improved
In case you're referring to the damage in the second level: it actually boosts Donald up a bit to save time for him not to swim up.
Whenever I had to walk back a bit it was necessary to avoid damage (which would have cost time).
You're welcome to improve this run or give hints as to what could have been improved in detail. :)
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Kirkq wrote:
Is it bad that I get my all my news from TASVideos?
That quite depends. You could either be classified as an always-online-gaming-addict who doesn't care about anything else or a (politcally) ignorant American. Pick which stereotype suits you best or feel free to enragedly object, if you like. ;)
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Unfortunately, getting hit in the SMS version (without having picked up a powerup) makes you lose the hammer and thus the boss fight with the bear would take considerably longer as one would have to jump on his head instead of hitting him with the hammer.
About the frame rule: Every time a boss dies, Donald walks into the middle of the screen to continue to his nephew or the dime that one of the birds held captive. When having to jump on the bear's head for the last time, I think it would take longer to reach the (horizontal) middle of the screen to continue.
/edit: nevertheless, thanks for sure observation(s)! :)
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Dromiceius wrote:
so I banged on it a little and- if I'm not mistaken- saved a couple frames by damage-boosting over the springboard in the first level.
Feel free to give details. This is already my second version of this game and as I didn't receive any real comments on improvements (like "on frame xx, you jump too early/too high/whatever"), I has hoping to get some real answers here. I know that this is not the right place to post WIPs, yet maybe this run was already optimal enough to be published (which is for the judges to decide, not me).
DarkKobold wrote:
Given that the background image is 1600 pixel in width and that your screen resolution is wider than this, the former is repeated. I assume this may be fixed with some CSS greatness (by making the logo a seperate image to be added instead of it being embedded directly into the picture or whatnot).
){kind=link}