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moozooh wrote:
Well, you could also raise an issue that some (all) movies can't be reproduced on the real consoles because their emulation isn't 100.00% perfect (it really isn't). Alternatively, you could ignore that and simply enjoy the movies.
This does bother me, actually. SNES emulation is very close to 100% hardware accuracy. Anyone up to building an inputfile player that controls a real console to fix any remaining bugs? =)
I enjoy the movies, and do find tricks like the one inichi brought up interesting. Of course, input files are closely tied to the emulator codebase used - I understand this. But I thought the main point of the TAS was to play the game, and break it under conventional methods - that is to say, with things the game is expecting to see such as keypad input, and not necessarily by doing things that the game does not expect to see, such as a CPU reset. I guess it could also be argued, however, that the game does have checks for this, but they're obviously being bypassed, as in this case, an invalid savefile is being loaded.
The scope of a TAS isn't written like that anywhere though, so maybe my interpretation is just wrong...
In any case, whether or not I think it should be done, all the cases where I've seen CPU reset have been interesting thus far, and worth watching.
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I'll be honest - I'm not too fond of the reset tricks, either, for this very reason. With typical frame-by-frame input, if the emulator is accurate, a movie could possibly be replayed on a real console. But the reset tricks? Hitting the reset button on my real console likely won't result in the same exact sequence, due to instruction timing rather than frame timing. That's quite a few orders of magnitude difference. And with this much difference, it's not just tool-assisted - it's tool-only. Or am I wrong?
Still, it's neat to see what can be done when these games load corrupt data.
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Watching now. Thanks, inichi. Test runs I've seen from you have already been extremely high caliber - I'm only barely prepared to be blown away by your new submission.
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For those watching the WIP in snes9x, I've written a Lua script to slow down the game when the dialog/text box appears on the screen. Handy for those who like reading the dialog and haven't memorized FF2. Don't know if it's the most efficient way, and of course it slows down music when text shows, but it works. For me, it makes the run more enjoyable to watch...
Only problem right now is that sometimes, when the text box is full, the box closes before you can read the last line. :)
Edit the pausetime variable to adjust speed to your liking.
http://trueserve.org/ff2-dialog.lua (edit: fixed some bugs)
Let me know if you think anything else would be useful, or if this doesn't work. (edit: found the room title flag. script now pauses a few frames to show you the room title.)
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inichi,
It does the invalid display for a couple of frames at the end of battles too. But you're right, I'm not worried about it :)
(EDIT: I fixed this bug. It was easier than keeping it unfixed.)
By the way, I haven't congratulated you on this run so far. It's absolutely fantastic and quite entertaining. Keep up the good work.
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Dromiceius,
The only problem with your ATB bar is that it will start drawing part way through instead of all the way at the left. That's why I used the math I did - enemies use an ATB of 18, 24, and 32 it seems, but since there may be others, I used the math. Minor thing.
Also, detect for invalid entities by checking ATB - it will be 128 if it is not a valid enemy. That seems to do the trick with all the flying info, even at the rat area.
Regarding subtitle commentary, that'd be pretty neat :)
EDIT: Found a bug with your script. In inichi's run, when he fights the five Alkalines, three are reduced to 1hp. Since you check for 1hp or below, the bars and HP info disappear. Check for ATB >= 128 instead and the bug should be fixed.
I've also worked on the overlap checking, so it checks X position and makes some battles (like the R-Series battle) look much better.
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Dromiceius,
I was going to post earlier, decided against it thinking nobody would care, but maybe one or two will.
I updated your script before your fix (about ~10min after your release) to fix the enemy info appearing near the top of the screen, as well as to make the ATB go from left->right like the character ones do, and resize to fit properly.
You can get it here.
It seems to work 100% through the speedrun, but may still have bugs (like what inichi described). This is my first time playing with Lua, as I am a Simpl+/Netlinx programmer by trade, and a PHP and C programmer by hobby :) It's only a few lines for a fix, though. Hopefully the ATB thing will be more visually useful, anyway.
