You are not giving us much to work with. However, this:
Nach wrote:
I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I should be static linking.
makes me suspect that the exception is being thrown in a dynamically linked library. Is that correct?
Dynamically linked C++ libraries are often prone to not work as expected because the dynamic linker does not necessarily work properly with C++ code. (For example if there are static objects in the library, they might not get properly constructed.)
The halting problem is only unsolvable on turing machines (machines with unlimited storage space).
That's like saying that all algorithms are O(1) in practice because they will always be run in limited environments and thus will always end in at most a given amount of steps.
Even though algorithms are always run in limited environments, there's a strong correlation between their theoretical difficulty and their practical difficulty. If the halting problem is unsolvable in an unlimited environment, it means that it's practically unsolvable in a limited environment as well, unless that limitation is ridiculously small (such as a few tens of bytes of RAM).
I wonder if there's a way to intelligently analyze the ROM contents (both the state transitioning of the ROM as well as the memory contents) to pre-determine if a certain sequence will lead to an bad-route (without actually running the emulator)?
Sounds to me eerily similar to the so-called halting problem. If that's so, then no dice.
I'm not so sure that computing power is growing so "exponentially", but even if it did, it wouldn't really be of so much help to us. Here's some math:
To brute-force a game like SMB, you have to test all possible combinations of buttons on all frames. Since a SMB completion is roughly 5 minutes long, that would be about 18000 frames. If we consider only the 6 main buttons of the controller, that would mean that all combinations of 6 buttons would have to be tested on each frame.
Each button represents one bit of information. Each time you add one bit to test, the amount of combinations to test doubles. The total amount of bits to test on a 5-minute run is about 108000, and hence the total amount of combinations to test is about 2108000.
We don't need to calculate that number in this hypothetical situation because, as hypothesized, computing power grows "exponentially". Let's assume that computing power doubles each year (which is a ridiculously optimistic estimation, but let's assume that for simplicity). That means that we would have to wait almost 108000 years before brute-forcing the 5-minute run becomes feasible. (Not exactly that much, because it becomes feasible a few dozens of years earlier. Some pruning algorithms may shave off a few years more. It makes no difference to us, though.)
To be fair, there are many works of art named "call of something", such as Call of Juarez, Call of Duty, Call of the Wild and Call of Cthulhu. (Incidentally, "Call of the Cutie" rhymes with "Call of Duty".)
That inspired me to make these:
(Does this make me officially a brony?)
Edit: Just realized that Dash's shtick is extreme speed, so naturally she would have haste. I added it.
Yeah, Warp most definitely has a persecution complex, and there's really nothing. No random baseless insults thrown around at him or anything.
Note for anyone whose sarcasm detector is broken: HEAVY sarcasm here
rog wrote:
If you accidentally hurt someone, and they get upset by it, the appropriate thing to do is usually to apologize, and explain that you did not intend to. Insulting them for getting upset over a misunderstanding/accident is incredibly rude.
Thanks for the support.
I apologize for having caused so many posts not related to the topic at hand, and perhaps I do often take negative comments on my person (either perceived or real) way too seriously, but I do think that if I express my completely on-topic opinion on a subject, it's not appropriate from the part of an admin to make belittling comments on how commenting on site policy is "90% of the reason" I come to the site. If the comment was not meant to be belittling nor demeaning, a simple "I didn't mean it like that, it was not my intention to sound belittling" would have sufficed, rather than "I feel sorry for you because you don't understand what I write".
It is also worth noting that any published author automatically gets the right to edit and add game resources pages. My hope was that published authors could utilize the game resources pages to 'document' what they learned.
Really? I never knew that. =0
Perhaps this could be expressed more clearly to authors, along with a suggestion that any contributions to such pages are greatly appreciated?
How is that comment belittling? It is an observation that you appear more interested in the how a run applies to the rules than the actual content of the run. I fail to see the insult there. You do latch on to the threads that discuss rules. You do not tend to comment or ... hell, even watch runs, as far as I can tell. Observing that, and stating that observation is not an attack on your character.
You wrote it in such a way that it sounded like you were saying "he only comes here for rules lawyering", giving the impression that I'm pedantic and nitpicky. Even if that were so, it's not the place for an admin to be commenting on a visitor using such a demeaning attitude. If that's not what you meant, you worded your text poorly. In fact, I don't see anything in your response that corrects my impression. On the contrary, this only seems to confirm it:
If you honestly believe that comment is belittling, I feel sorry for you.
Rather than saying something like "I didn't mean it like that" you end up saying "I feel sorry for you". If that's not belittling and demeaning, then I don't know what is. I really think you should revise your attitude. If you don't appreciate my opinions then just ignore them rather than making such public demeaning comments. (Or at the very least learn to express yourself more clearly.)
For the record, I don't come here for rules lawyering. I come here because of the community. I like reading people's posts and I like writing to others. I like the interaction with the community.
(I'm waiting for you to now accuse me of derailing the topic, as if you were completely innocent and had absolutely nothing to do with it.)
(Heck, I think that is 90% of the reason he comes to the site)
*sigh*
Admins make belittling comments just because I like to express my opinion, and it's just supposed to be a "persecution complex". It's all in my head. Right.
I think an attitude revision would be in place. I'm entitled to express my opinions without having an admin belittling me because of that. If you don't value my opinion then just ignore it. Making a public jab at me is going too far.
They're all inputs. How fast you can open the lid isn't an issue. A bot would just hook directly into the "is the lid open" sensor. How fast you can swap discs isn't an issue; a bot would hook into the disc reader and just start feeding it a different image. Similarly, the physical limitations of buttons aren't really an issue, because bots don't need buttons. There's no need to physically connect and disconnect controllers; a bot can just report "there's no controller connected".
But then you would be modifying the original hardware. Where do you stop these modifications?
You could speed up the CPU clock just by a little. Or by more than just a little. After all, since we are making modifications to the hardware, why stop at the disc tray or the controller? We could also modify the interface between the game cartridge and the cartridge reader so that we can insert whatever data we want. This is not a problem for a bot any more than it is for it to send the console a signal that "tray open" or "this button was pressed".
I don't think hardware modifications (even if the hardware is only emulated) is any more valid than modifying the game ROM itself.
(Edit: By the way, I do not oppose the idea that a special exception would be made for changing discs in a multi-disc game, as long as this is used only to proceed in the game normally. This should be specifically written as a special exception which does not set a precedent.)
Actually, fun fact, E.T. was one of the best selling games for the Atari 2600, with a grand total of 1.5 million units sold. With a game going for around 19 dollars, that meant 28 500 000 dollars in the good ol' 1980s.
Note that many of the cartridges were returned. Anyways, counting only gross revenue is misleading. A high gross revenue doesn't make the game a success. In this case Atari might have sold units worth of $25 million gross revenue, but overall they netted a loss of about $100 million.
It was still the time (and for quite many years after that) when the mentality was "anything will sell, if it's a video game; quality is irrelevant".
Every list I've made have included actually writing about the games on each place, why I consider them part of the best X games ever, why this one gets this particular position once you reach the higher ones.
I have to agree. Better have a top-10 list where you explain the reasons than a top-100 list of random game names.
Btw, I didn't know about these easter eggs. I stumbled across the "tilt" easter egg purely by chance when I was making a search for "tilt shift photography".
A wise man once said "Nostalgia is a great thing until we actually go back and experience it".
Tomb Raider 3 was one of the first PC games I ever bought. It was a fantastic experience. Marvelous scenery with beautiful graphics, wonderful acrobatics and fights, and really tense moments (especially in the Area 51 levels).
10 years later I watched a speedrun of it. The game hasn't survived the pass of time very well. The graphics suck, the scenery is extremely blocky and limited, the sounds suck, the game play is relatively simplistic...
As technology progresses, one's standards increase accordingly.
(Does this make me officially a brony?)
Edit: Just realized that Dash's shtick is extreme speed, so naturally she would have haste. I added it.
