Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
If the optimization strats are not the result of worse emulation, it can obsolete it.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
Anyone has the original twitch link with timecodes?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
Watched it yesterday and it was mildly entertaining. I very rarely watch movies in their entirety, and I didn't get bored here. Gameplay combined with music was very meditative (much like in NES James Bond Jr that I tased a while ago). Voting yes.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
dekutony wrote:
I would like to see a new Genesis core that could hit cycle accuarcy, like a BlastEm port or something.
That's probably going to be difficult to do though.
You don't like the current Genesis core in bizhawk at all?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
Your best bet with IMB PC is just porting PCem (or 86Box). But those have no savestates, so they'd have to be waterboxed. But waterbox build environment has been recently posted and tested, so it's at least now possible to use it again. Cool thing about PCem is that it can run DOS, Windows, Linux, Adobe Flashplayer, JRE8 applications, and whatnot. A pure monster.
For Amiga there's a full-blown thing called FS-UAE that's being rapidly developed and kept up-to-date with WinUAE, but has an advantage of being cross platform and hosted by a more friendly dev. And it has savestates. It'd be an interesting task to port given the infrastructure, but probably still easier than PCem.
Developing emulation for these from scratch looks like a waste of time to me if instead existing emulators could be improved and reused.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
If you get the linux release and configure it to show all square pixels without any filters, I'll agree.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
The game renders a 640x480 screen, and its weird pixel sizes seem to be intended.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
Ship damage is random.
I'm reaching this place on frame 8558. The ship starts rotating at frame 9700. And in this submission it's 8990. And it's random which direction it will rotate.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/60431167774439216
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
theballaam96 wrote:
What I mean is that if one frame or two that could be saved is found by a judge when judging a long TAS, from what I have heard from others, the run is generally accepted even though it's not 100% optimal (unless there is some other factor that comes into play).
However, you would reject a RTA-style submission ("Wouter goes bananas" is just a hilariously bad run that was submitted to SDA) since it is clearly unoptimised, and proves as an example of what the optimisation rule intends to do. From my perspective, that intent is to ensure that runs that are submitted to the site are of high enough quality, but that the bar is at a level that doesn't exclude everything that is not 100% perfect with 0 frames lost in total. This is also highlighted in the judge guidelines ( http://tasvideos.org/JudgeGuidelines.html )
In a similar stance, I believe that the PAL rule definitely wants to rule out scenarios where you get that 2m timesave from text but 90% of that is lost to the 50fps, however I feel like this run isn't a case of what the rule should be getting rid of (see Ringrush's reply). Being strict with the rule gets rid of runs like this, as shown by the current decision, however if the optimisation rule is applied strictly (no frame losses whatsoever), then it would be hard to a 3D game published and would make people less likely to submit.
We've never had an optimization rule saying "if we can improve your run it's rejected", it's always been a matter of good enough to look superhuman. The judge role requires TASing experience exactly to allow distinguishing between good enough and not good enough. It still remains a matter of helping the author improve their skills, for example when we see that something is rejectable, we try to give useful hints and test things for the author to rely on.
In fact, the PAL version of the game also needs to be good enough to be acceptable. I think I provided enough examples of acceptable PAL versions in this thread and in the judgment. The problem here is that "good enough" is not the argument pro this version's movie. We kinda all agree that this version is the same in terms of actual gameplay that you get to see in an optimized movie, aside from the dialogs that we don't count. It's the same situation as between NTSC and PAL versions of Super Mario Bros.
The point pro this movie is "even though it's not any better or different than the NTSC version in terms of gameplay, let it be there until an NTSC run is made". One problem with that approach I covered in my previous post, but there's actually more. Since the game engine is very slightly different, how can we reliably compare optimality if there is a published PAL TAS, and an NTSC one gets submitted? Some differences in mechanics will be just a result of the version switch. But to properly obsolete movies we want to be sure new optimization techniques are applied. If we don't demand new optimization techniques, then we can't be sure the new movie is on the same (or higher) level of optimality until we try to reTAS it all. And if we demand new techniques, then we end up preferring the PAL version by default until those techniques are discovered, and they may never be found. Which, again contradicts the meaning of the rule.
theballaam96 wrote:
The TAS gains entertainment due to getting to the actual gameplay faster and loses 2-NTSC-framesworth of time (If a hypothetical NTSC TAS lost just 2 frames, it could be argued that this would be accepted, so what is the difference?)
Just like with PAL SMB, I don't think marginal difference in dialog skipping adds much entertainment value for the general audience, because it's not an automatic thing. There are certaingameplay features people usually expect to be showcased in a run to consider it entertaining. Those features may be different for different people, and of course some people get entertained by marginal timing differences (or even nuances you can't see in the movie at all). Yet the general audience's tastes still look for something more apparent and specific, like visibly creative gameplay. And I think jumping into a wall to end the game does feel rather creative indeed, which is why this movie's feedback was really positive. I just doubt it makes sense to compare entertainment value that comes from a few seconds of dialog skipping.
theballaam96 wrote:
Being strict with this ruling doesn't benefit any party and everyone loses (The TASer, TASVideos, The Audience).
To add to what RingRush has said, I find it hard to justify in myself to go through another month of TASing on NTSC in the near future just to produce the same run, but 0.74s+ slower because of cutscenes when I have other things to be getting on with (eg. 100%).
Does an NTSC "TAS" exist? Yes, but only in video form because I do not have the input file anymore, and even if I did have the file, I couldn't submit it to TASVideos because it's unoptimal. But I don't think I ever mentioned making another NTSC Any% TAS in the near future unless something gets found that makes NTSC faster
I did evaluate the overall opinion of the audience about version usage, and it was mostly against PAL, just like the rules are. We care about the author's motivation as well, but we can't make decisions only based on that if it doesn't align with the site's and the audience's takes. It would make things arbitrary and unpredictable on the long run. For example if we randomly bend or ignore rules, then the overall impression of unexpected outcome would damage the site much more than having to put into practice decisions that look unpleasant to some people. And in the case of those unpleasant decisions we still try to explain all the relevant details so it doesn't feel like arrogance on our part.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
Yeah, also we use to just poke the memory value of level counter to check farther levels easier.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
theballaam96 wrote:
I understand the reasoning for the rule, since it would be undesirable to publish a movie that was faster on PAL purely because it saved 2m to text over NTSC but lost 1m50s to 50fps. Unless of course this hypothetical run then saved another 10s for PAL because of some PAL-only glitch, in which case it would provide something unique for PAL.
That I get, and hence I understand why the rule is in place.
My personal disagreement with "because this is on PAL, it should be rejected" is more because that initial disqualifier (losing time to 50fps) is so marginal (0.06s), especially in comparison to the time saved (0.8s).
I get that there has to be a line so that the initial case I mentioned doesn't occur, but I feel like this run is not like that initial case that the rule is trying to prevent and that the line should be somewhere in between this run and that hypothetical run.
It doesn't matter which version's run is marginally faster or slower. The PAL version just has to be either different enough or better to be allowed. Here's a good example of general preference: #5749: Chef_Stef's PSX Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back in 36:06.78. The submission text explains why using the PAL version is reasonable on its own grounds.
Version Choice
I used the PAL (Europe) version because movement in that version is generally 5-20% faster (depending on the circumstances) which leads to a few version-exclusive tricks. It's also the version typically used in the speedrunning community. The PAL version does have longer loading times, including a few in-level loading pauses that aren't in NTSC (for example, at the end of level 4 and throughout levels 22 and 24). But overall the are enough benefits with the PAL version to make it the fastest option.
Note that speedrunners typically run the game on a PS2 Slim with faster load times, so RTA times aren't directly comparable to this TAS. This run on a PS2 Slim would likely be minutes faster.
PAL runs at roughly 50FPS, but the game only renders every other frame. With a few exceptions, the game only reads controller input on render frames. So in the discussion below, whenever I mention "frames" I'm talking about input frames, i.e. 25 per second, not the full PAL rate of 50FPS.
When instead of this, the 2 versions are nearly identical in TASable gameplay, we simply prefer the NTSC version.
theballaam96 wrote:
Just like the optimisation rule, I know a longer run has more room to breathe in terms of frames lost to suboptimal inputs. However, where is the line drawn in that respect so that the TP Any% TAS which might lose a frame or two overall gets accepted but someone submitting the input file for a "Wouter Goes Bananas"-esque DK64 101% submission ( https://youtu.be/_FBGO6Lm6O8 ) gets rejected.
Personally, I feel like this submission lies on the TP Any% side of things and not the "Wouter Goes Bananas" side.
I didn't understand this part at all.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
RingRush wrote:
What I do believe is that this decision effectively says having no run is preferable to a run with the "wrong" version, even if they are essentially identical. This is not a question of legitimacy of the run, but rather how strict to be about enforcing rules for the sake of it.
The rejection message tries to sidestep the issue by saying "Looking forward to an NTSC submission". But there is no guarantee one is coming (and based on what Ballaam has said elsewhere, I doubt one will be coming in the near future). The run is up on YouTube, so why would the TASer jump through a hurdle and redo the run just to have an end product that looks identical, when they can spend their time working on other things? This kind of red tape just frustrates people and make them less likely to bother submitting in the future.
If this run was posted with the clarification that future improvements on NTSC could obsolete it, then that seems perfectly reasonable to me given the site's version stance. That makes everyone happy and is consistent with what happens when improvements are known but may not be implemented right away. But the case that the site is in a better place without this run is weak to me, and alienating to others.
That would actually be rather arbitrary. It would either mean that we're ready to ignore the PAL rule every time there's no NTSC run yet, or just from time to time. To be less arbitrary we have some discussion about the audience's general preference, to check if it aligns with the rules. I even posted my preliminary stance on this movie, and the author expressed understanding. What was seen in this thread can't be considered general consensus that PAL should be allowed in this case, it was actually the opposite. Having no noticeable gameplay differences between versions plays a role I think. And skipping dialogs doesn't count as such unless the very gameplay is based on that.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
Here's the rule we use:
http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#GamesWithoutClearEnding
We require that difficulty no longer increases and all unique gameplay has been beaten. BG color doesn't seem to affect gameplay, but are you sure the difficulty stops at level 2?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
it's also #3 among all current Mega Men, not bad.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
PAL versions of ROMs are generally not allowed, unless there are significant technical and/or entertainment merits to using this version.
It says "generally not allowed", not "generally not preferred". It's stricter than "okay for now, but do it right next time". And with this game, there are no significant merits worth using the PAL version. It's just very slightly different, like SMB PAL.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
There should be font size config somewhere in tastudio menus.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
Gimmick and RMMI have the lowest rating on the list, so we could replace the former with Celeste and the latter with something else MM related.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
Memory wrote:
I do really like PoR All Bosses but my one question is whether or not we need a DS Castlevania in Stars in addition to the ones we already have for other platforms.
If you're counting classic castlevanias in addition to "Igavania's" as they're called, we currently have 4. If you're counting only Igavania's, we have 2, but that is 2 out of 3 systems they were even released for.
Over representation of franchises is a potential issue with the star list and I'm not sure this pick helps with that.
Right now there are 4 starred Castlevanias: 2 old-school and 2 modern, and the latter 2 do cover "all souls" and "all bosses" categories. If the suggested run is notably different from both, it can be starred.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
I'd like more discussion about both of these suggestions. Celeste is kinda asking for it, but still.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
--> scrimpeh (~scrm@p200300CE170E7C00A81018B72121DE0C.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has joined #tasvideos
<-- scrimpy (~scrm@p200300CE170E7C00D924E2A0001E8C5B.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has quit (Ping timeout: 248 seconds)
<-> scrimpeh is now known as scrimpy
--> scrimpeh (~scrm@p200300CE170E7C005D19D9068611AD2E.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has joined #tasvideos
<scrimpeh> oh ffs
<-- scrimpy (~scrm@p200300CE170E7C00A81018B72121DE0C.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has quit (Ping timeout: 248 seconds)
<-> scrimpeh is now known as scrimpy
--> scrimpeh (~scrm@p200300CE170E7C001CF9189FF449DB68.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has joined #tasvideos
<-- scrimpy (~scrm@p200300CE170E7C005D19D9068611AD2E.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has quit (Ping timeout: 248 seconds)
<-> scrimpeh is now known as scrimpy
--> scrimpeh (~scrm@p200300CE170E7C002454CB91972DFB3A.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has joined #tasvideos
<scrimpeh> omfg
<-- scrimpy (~scrm@p200300CE170E7C001CF9189FF449DB68.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has quit (Ping timeout: 248 seconds)
<Mothrayas> australia?
<-- scrimpeh (~scrm@p200300CE170E7C002454CB91972DFB3A.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has quit (Ping timeout: 245 seconds)
<Dacicus> Hostmask suggests Germany. Has Australia taken over Germany?
<Mothrayas> yes, but only the house scrimpy lives in
-*- Dacicus wonders what scrimpy did
<feos> he's been practicing head balance
<Dacicus> Is that bad?
<feos> standard thing for Australians
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1236)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11270
Location: RU
Trimmed on last input before credits (-7 minutes) http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/60059890207877968
There are 2 screens that the submitted movie skips (cheat unlocked and save), but skipping them isn't needed in the main movie. For encoding I can use either version though.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I'm reaching this place on frame 8558. The ship starts rotating at frame 9700. And in this submission it's 8990. And it's random which direction it will rotate.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/60431167774439216