Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
Well I'm still working on MM10 (Bass/Hard), so as far as I know no one is actively working on this. You're more than welcome to pick up where you left off.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
Solar Man in 1:17.56 (MM 1:34.71)
Link to video
8 robot masters down in 15:38.03 (8:38 in game time).
Took Mega Man 19 minutes flat (11:31 in game time) to reach this point.
Only the Wily Stages remain.
The delay in WIP's is due to getting sucked into the MMO scene for a short time. And well, you know how that usually goes... haha.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
Ilari is correct about the poll counter. VI is what you should be paying attention to. What has been changed to "Frame" is now the current number of polled inputs. Since GC and WII poll multiple times per frame, the number advances quite bit with each frame step. The VI can be used for all intents and purposes as your frame counter.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
That's purely to gauge my progress in the WIPs. I don't record the saves into the input files.
Here's the most recent file if anyone wants to see the progress on Dolphin*.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CHNMCZ74
*Note: The game must be beaten already to sync. [1812] Wii Mega Man 10 "Mega Man" by diggidoyo in 33:42.37 accomplishes this requirement. Must also have the DLC .wad installed.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
I always test all alternate routes and tactics before committing to one. For this level, there's actually an interesting point behind-the-scenes.
With Mega Man, the top route is ~100 frames faster than the lower route.
With Bass, the the top route is ~100 frames slower that the lower route.
The direct correlation is merely a coincidence, but there's a specific reasoning for the path choice. It all comes down to individual character qualities. Bass excels at horizontal movement, but suffers when it comes to upward movement without Rush. The real factor here is the reverse flow water screens, which is about 4 screen lengths long. Bass can power past it, but Mega Man loses way too much time. Also, Bass can take full advantage of the forward flow water screens.
I'm a little fearful off Wily Stages 3 and 4 at the moment. Without Rush Jet, I'm not sure how I"ll get past the spike screens in Wily 3. I'm hoping I can damage hop between enemies and make it across, but we'll see. And without Rush Coil in Wily 4, I'm not going to be able reach Wily's second form efficiently. We'll see how it all pans out in time.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
You have to realize that you will never be able to please everybody. This issue happens all the time. The best and easiest course of action is to simply do whatever it is YOU enjoy the most, and submit it. As much as it may seem like it, TASvideos is not the be all end all of tool-assisted movies. Even if it's not accepted, a completed movie will hold merit to somebody, even if that somebody is only you.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
Toad King wrote:
I can work on this. Didn't know about this issue because somebody else implemented the read only option.
What should the exact behavior be when a savestate is made/loaded in read-only mode?
Awesome!
When in read-only mode, saving states should remain the same. But when loading a state, the emulator should load that state, and continue playing back the movie from that point. I'm not sure how it should handle states not part of that movie, but most other emulators have a read-only mode that should provide more information on how it's supposed to work.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
CoolKirby wrote:
So "DTM ignored" means they don't even care about our problem? I notice the issue says that happens for versions up to 7506. I assume that was the latest version as of the time of that post, since that still happens on r7573, the one I usually use.
DTM ignored is part of the title of the issue and it is explaining that the read-only option when playing .dtm's is ignored. As far as I know, it hasn't worked since it was first introduced. I'm now using r7666 and it is still inoperative.
The later stages of my MM10 run took over an hour for the emulator to get to. So I would record 10-20 seconds of input, and then have to wait for over an hour to see if it synced. This is why a read-only option would make TASing on the Dolphin much more efficient.
I can give you piece of advice, however. While recording, idle skipping must be off to make the emulator deterministic. But while playing back the recording, you can check idle skipping, and it will still sync just fine. This should speed up the playback by about 15fps.
I made another issue. Naturally, it was subsequently closed and merged with the original issue. At least I now know at least one other person now knows about this. Please star issue #4463 to highlights it's importance.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
CoolKirby wrote:
When I let Dolphin play the movie while I'm doing something else, I usually miss the part I'm looking for and have to start the playback all over again.
That has happened to me numerous times. When it does, I just play the movie again. It's definitely one of the drawbacks to the method I use, but with no alternatives, it's the best we got we for now.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
Yea, same here. Dolphin has been my first experience with TASing as well, and I've adapted to this read-only problem by letting the replay run in another instance of Dolphin while I continue TAS'ing in the other instance. I only pay attention to the replay when it gets the part I'm at.
When I dabbled a little bit at NES TASing with FCUEX, I was amazed at the amount of features specific to improving the quality and efficiency of TASing in particular.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
Yes, but it's been largely ignored. I commented on it recently in an attempt to "bump" it to a higher priority, but to no avail. This was the bane of my MM10 TAS. It would significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to TAS a complete game if I didn't have to watch the recording from the beginning every time.
http://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/issues/detail?id=4463&q=%22read%20only%22
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
Sir VG wrote:
Realistically, you could probably get a lower real time run (for the first video if you paused once.
I don't mind pausing. I just hate excessive pausing.
A weapon cancel (refreshing from the pause menu) takes 74 frames. Changing weapons takes more depending on how far away it is. Naturally, this means for any time saving tactic doesn't save at least 74 frames, a real-time route will remain on the current weapon (usually the buster).
To me, it seems I would I would have to limit the capabilities of a TAS in order to conform to the real-time goal. 74 frames means I'd have to exclude weapon canceling, zipping, little tricks with different weapons, possibly even coiling up ladders and t-blowing up some ledges, and who knows what else. I can't see how this would make a more entertaining TAS when it reduces to the game play to a near buster-only run right for justice.
The hostility towards excessive pausing is acknowledged, but I'm able to watch these pausing segments without being bothered by the breaks. For now, I'm still working on MM10 Hard Bass, but when I move on to this, someone else might need to fill the real-time void.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
Alright, time for an update. I found out the Triple Blade Glitch that I used in my Mega Man 10 run is also usable in Mega Man 9... in the form of the Magma Bazooka Glitch. It bypasses boss invincibility in much the same way the Triple Blade does. With this insight, I ran a real-time vs in-game time fight with Jewel Man in the time trials. The overall time isn't important since I didn't optimize the level. What is important, is the differences between boss fight times.
Here's a comparison video that showcases the differences between the two.
Link to video
To sum up the videoFavoring real-time
Real-time: 5.10 seconds
In-game time: 5.10 seconds
Note: I wasn't even able to switch fire the Black Hole Bomb once, since doing so would result in a net real-time loss of over a second.
Favoring in-game time
Real-time: 9.38 seconds
In-game time: 2.09 seconds
Which one looks more like a tool-assisted superplay?
I think this was enough to swing my vote back over to the in-game time side.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
I could have sworn I had beaten this game on the N64 back in the day. But I can't recall ever actually fighting Majora's Mask. Weird...
Definite yes vote from me. Highly entertaining and informative TAS.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
partyboy1a wrote:
Or throw him on top of the spikes, or put him somewhere in a way you can repeat the bug of level 4?
The underwater bug of level 4 can actually be replicated on every level by constant jumping. Here's level one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZLyHBqs4NI
Unfortunately, it doesn't save any time, as far as we know. This is because there's no reason to stop at all in any level after picking up the baby.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player
(580)
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon
AngerFist and I will pick up the ball on this one. For now, we're still trying to settle the real-time versus game-time debacle. To add some more fuel to this debate, I made a run of that same segment pausing only once.
Link to video
This strategy is much faster for real-time than the heavy pausing in the teaser video. For in-game time, it's .7 seconds slower.
It still shaves almost 2 full seconds of the game clock. But despite that, since switching weapons takes almost 2 seconds, it is roughly the exact same speed as a buster only real-time run of the same segment.
Thoughts?
