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nymx wrote:
Bonus values above 32000 can not be accelerated by holding "A". Only when it drop below, will it speed through the bonus. I never could understand the reason the game did this, so it contributed to an enormous amount of time. I predicted that this TAS would finish less than 20 minutes, until that problem showed up.
Have you already tried figuring out what's happening in debug?
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So, according to the new rules for branching, it's always allowed to a movie to have their own branch if they are forgoing the use of major skip glitches. So, is this movie so much faster than the old one thanks to a specific glitch? In that case, it would get labelled for denoting the usage of the major skip used, and the old movie would get un-obsoleted into its own active branch. What's the major skip glitch here?
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CasualPokePlayer wrote:
So for sync settings.
1. I could agree with this, although treatment of this has gotten inconsistent and blah blah casual user tasing also someone will complain we don't require it for desmume when desmume offers support for real bios anyways.
2. Above, although I could disagree. Getting a good firmware dump is a nightmare, and currently I'm having the internal CRC16s checked along with the SHA1 *decrypted* code checked for verification, the latter is questionable in effectiveness and likely different across all 7 NDS firmware revisions, only 3 of which have their hashes recorded.
Then just force the firmware IF a known firmware file is found in the firmware folder.
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I just noticed that there are some other adjustments that need to be made to the Sync Settings:
"Use Real BIOS" must be forced to True for recording movies;
"Skip Firmware" must be forced to False for recording movies;
"Firmware Override" is already forced to True for recording movies, however the SyncSettings.json file may save it as "False".
For the rest, the Sync Settings seem good.
Edit: another issue found. In TAStudio, if you enable Recording mode and then unpause with the TAStudio window focused instead of the main BizHawk window, it will record the touch pressed for all frames, with coordinates 0, 0. If instead I unpause emulation while the main window is focused, this doesn't happen.
Edit 2: ok this is a major problem. When you try opening the RAM Search window, BizHawk simply freezes.
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Ok, so... Emulations seems deterministic now. The sync settings seem to include everything that needs to be included.
There is only one thing left to implement... And that's very important in my very humble opinion... Native upscaling. Some games, like Metal Slug 7, need it real badly.
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Ok, the error has nothing to do with firmware. It always happens on the first attempt of playing an NDS game. But if I reboot the core, then it doesn't give the error anymore, and will also begin allowing me to record a movie. Here is the error screenshot:
Full text here of the error (when opening the ROM): https://pastebin.com/GEtyZvfw
When starting a new movie, the error is almost the same.
And yes, I'm using last devbuild: 2021-10-12-061627-#5a4e5d3ced28414dd9421b9475c912ea9b1b3a61
Edit: the error happens only if the Profile Config is set to "Casual Gaming" or "Longplays". Note that it needs to be set before opening the ROM; if you do a core reboot, the error won't happen in any case.
Edit 2: after following some instructions by feos from Discord, we found out that this isn't an issue specific of MelonDS, and it's related to running out of memory due to a rewinder buffer size setting being too big for my RAM. I'm opening an issue on Github now. Edit 3: there you go: https://github.com/TASVideos/BizHawk/issues/2964
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I tried playing a DS game without settning any firmware.bin, but only biosnds7.rom and biosnds9.rom, and when I opened a ROM I got a huge error message. Then the game was actually playable, but if I try to record a movie, I get another error and BizHawk completely refuses. Not sure what's going on there, but should be either implemented a firmware-less workaround or made firmware a hard requirement for playing at all.
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You need a game-specific tool that is able to extract the game data, and currently there are only for few games, for example Crash Bandicoot games.
However... there is workaround. By using cheat codes, you can move freely the playable character or even the game camera itself, which will allow you see any spot of a map. Try looking on this site: http://gamehacking.org and if you still can't find the codes you need, you can just ask me and I'll do it for you.
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I get your point. Additionally, it doesn't help that both movies are very old, and in my eye (as an experienced player and speedrunner) are both visibly improvable. So we'll talk about it again in the future...
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softschool wrote:
MAMEHawk How to turn the game vertically to horizontal?
Right click on desktop > NVIDIA Control Panel > Display > Rotate Display. You're welcome.
Note that you need to have a NVIDIA GPU and NVIDIA drivers installed.
Edit: Spike told me there is an alternative: Right click on background > Screen Resolution
Hopefully that orientation exists.
Edit 2: On systems other than Windows 7, it's named "Display Settings".
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feos wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Anycase, at least Metal Slug X does meet the Moons standards for entertainment for both 1 player and 2 players.
Does that include obvious gameplay/routing differences?
Not sure where to draw the line. But I can tell you two hard-coded differences in 2 players mode:
1) There are more prisoners to rescue, which means more guns and bombs at your disposal;
2) Bosses have more health (about the double, iirc)
For the rest, you have to figure out minor route adjustments for the sake of optimization. That is, you most likely have to use different weapons and use different approaches on some enemies, etc.
You can. https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Dramatic_Battle_Mode
"If one player is playing alone, his partner will always be the same, but if there are two players participating, they can freely choose their characters."
Spikestuff wrote:
Should also mention the fact that [939] Genesis Marble Madness (USA) "1 player" in 2:39.44 by SprintGod is not meant to have a branch.
The two player mode is a competition mode of "who's the fastest", a sprint mode if you will.
This one has already been reverted back to branchless after a quick check with other Staff members.
Why wouldn't the 2 players mode be acceptable? Wouldn't that also result in beating in the game?
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Sonic 3 movies lack the chosen character name from the label, for the movies that used both Sonic&Tails. Shouldn't they get mentioned in the label as well? Also... why do these movies have the "2 Players" tag, if both characters are actually used by the same player?...
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feos wrote:
The post that contains actual explanation and is linked from the judgment makes it sound like in addition to one game being a version of another, the author kinda makes sure there's minimal difference in the goal, and that goal is also questionable. All this is still relevant to Moons requirements. So if you want to disprove that decision, please quote its parts and explain why they don't make sense anymore, and these are 2 completely different games and they are played differently enough to look like different branches with unique, entertaining content. I'm asking you for the legwork here because I may not be able to get around to this too soon. If you actually feel they're substantially different, you'll definitely be able to formulate why.
I see.
feos wrote:
Do they meet Moons standard on entertainment?
Is that still a requirement after the tier revamp? I'm a bit confused. Still, since there is plan to update the rules for player amount, I'll wait after that before continuing this discussion.
Anycase, at least Metal Slug X does meet the Moons standards for entertainment for both 1 player and 2 players.
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Oh. Yes. The actual judgement note. Yeah, my bad.
Still, that's a very old judgement and I think with today's standards these should be considered as different games, and get the old movie removed from the obsoleted chain. I'm not asking it to happen, I'm just pointing out that it could be the case.
I'm also wondering this other movie should be reconsidered out of obsoletion, despite the judgement of the movie that obsoleted it: #5407: Arcree's Genesis Crack Down "1 player" in 09:14.18
Edit: following feos' response in the ask a judge thread, I'm holding off my request until the rules get updated accordingly.
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In there, feos wrote that a 2P full completion can theoretically be obsoleted by 1P full completion, so I'd like to know what would be the logic behind such possibility, and if there should be made a clear rule that regulates it.
In my opinion, since the current policy for fastest-completion is to keep separate branches for the different amount of players (like for Contra), then it should be also done for full-completion, for a simple matter of consistency. Or is there any reason to apply a different policy?
However, after finding this precedent, I'm not sure anymore about what's the intended policy. Due to the recent changes to the tier system, I think this would be a perfect timing for introducing a rule that clearly states if and when different amount of players should be acceptable as a separate branch.
Well, I was asking if there was any note left that I couldn't find... Indeed, if there isn't any, we can't know. But in that case, it could be decided now, if either keeping it this way or removing from the obsoletion chain, and in that case, leaving an explanation for future reference.
2P full completion can theoretically be obsoleted by 1P full completion
Theoretically? I think there should be made a rule for either always having the obsoletion or always keeping two distinct branches. I think there should be a discussion about it.
In my opinion, since the current policy for fastest-completion is to keep separate branches for the different amount of players, then it should be also done for full-completion, for a simple matter of consistency. Or is there any reason to apply a different policy?
Anycase, let's continue this discussion in a more appropriate thread. Edit: and there you go.
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For a movie that achieves full-completion while using a specific amount of players, should the amount of players be placed before or after the full-completion part?
For example, this movie: [3501] C64 Diamond Mine "all diamonds" by DrD2k9 in 17:51.69
Should it go as "all diamonds, 2 players" or "2 players, all diamonds"?
By the way, in my opinion the latter is better, because the amount of players is a premise, while the full-completion is how the play concludes.
With any else dump, it behaves like what ReyVGM showed. Note that the only good dump is this one:
Full text here of the error (when opening the ROM): https://pastebin.com/GEtyZvfw
When starting a new movie, the error is almost the same.
And yes, I'm using last devbuild: 2021-10-12-061627-#5a4e5d3ced28414dd9421b9475c912ea9b1b3a61
Edit: the error happens only if the Profile Config is set to "Casual Gaming" or "Longplays". Note that it needs to be set before opening the ROM; if you do a core reboot, the error won't happen in any case.
Edit 2: after following some instructions by feos from Discord, we found out that this isn't an issue specific of MelonDS, and it's related to running out of memory due to a rewinder buffer size setting being too big for my RAM. I'm opening an issue on Github now. Edit 3: there you go: https://github.com/TASVideos/BizHawk/issues/2964