Posts for haslomaslo1

Posted: 12/5/2011 12:59 AM
Post subject: TAS binary loader.
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
I was just thinking. We have all those TASes that corrupt memory in controlled ways. How hard would it be to corrupt the memory enough to allow a simple binary loader to run and then to bootstrap FORTH or BASIC through the controller or to do some other fun thing like that?
Posted: 11/25/2011 5:39 AM
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
I don't know the game and I wonder why the stars in the video start at 77 and end up being 120. Just curious.
Posted: 11/21/2011 3:44 AM
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haslomaslo1
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
How long does it take to normally win the game?
Posted: 11/13/2011 10:46 PM
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haslomaslo1
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
Getting an MSP430 board is 4$ and 30cents away. Shipping is free. This will give you a Launchpad. Now a Launchpad can be rigged to program some more advanced chips. Not that you need that... The default chips that come with the launchpad don't have much ram, but you can use a 23K256 to store more data that is an SPI use away. You can get a 23K256 as a free sample from Microchip. Not much data space either, but larger chips that fit the socket are a free sample from TI. You can probably breadboard/solder an SD card without an adapter too. An alternative is to run an UART from the computer. There is a 9600 UART on the Launchpad. EDIT: In my limited experiments it will hold up fine at twice that speed. The last issue might be the pin count, but a fix for that is a shift register away... Hard to get as a free sample, but not impossible. Or rig up a free sample MCU to act as one. For software there is always mspgcc and friends. Not that nice, but will do the job. The whole thing is probably doable under 50$, if you are resourceful about it. EDIT: Also, MSP430 is a crap architecture, unless you want low power.
Posted: 11/9/2011 12:57 AM
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
I quit. The emulator is too slow and clunky. Maybe in a year or two, once things improve a bit. The bare minimum of what I need: - Running at 15 fps minimum. - Mouse button status clearly displayed. What I'd actually like on top of the above: - Easy memory watch. - Undoing savestates. - Adjustable slowdown. - Running at 30 fps, which is still not ideal but much better. - Frame advance working with the virtual keyboard selected.
Posted: 11/7/2011 4:53 PM
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
:( Profiling shows two parts of code that eat a lot of the time: Executing microcode and running the clock. The clock looks mostly optimal, I chopped out a couple of bits that just give an informational message, but that (not surprisingly) did not result in any major speedups, if any. Nothing that I can take out of the microcode part, not without deep thinking anyway. I will try to switch some of my Java settings around as well. As is, making this run is impossible. Too slow. I can cope with anything else, but the lack of freedom to experiment is killing me.
Posted: 11/6/2011 9:58 PM
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
I would love to find out about chops stacking. I'd do it with memory watch. ------ Whine time! There is no memory watch. And with the performance being horrible (~90 seconds of game in 15 minutes real time!) experimentation is not exactly fun to do. I have read two chapters of Master and Margarita while waiting for the emulator. If I run out of the book, I quit. Guess it is time to mess around with the defaults. Oh, wait. Cannot do that. Have to start over to do that. Great. Guess I'm stuck. -------- But seriously, do give me ideas of things to try if you have any, I'm new to all this... EDIT: It takes 22.5 seconds to chop a tree. 49 chops. EDIT: Interrupting a peon causes the job to reset. I have a chap sawing at a tree for good 70 seconds now with a few frame interruptions here and there. Still nothing. Redirecting the job to another tree also does reset the job. I wager that two peons in fact don't chop down the same tree any faster than one peon, but this is not tested. EDIT: I'm on chapter 4 of the book. Trying to tweak the performance of the emulator. Due to the construction of the sack of shit that the emulator is it won't be easy. It is a microcode interpreter. An idiotic approach if performance is anywhere near your goals. More than one peon can be in a mine at the same time. It takes a bit over a second to mine a bag of gold. Finally some good news there! Gold is quick to get. Lumber sucks. Now to ponder a trade-off. Get more peons at the cost of having long transit times to get gold or to try to make do with just three that let us not use the distant mines. We start with enough food for only one peon, but that can be fixed with a horrible fate meeting one of the starting grunts... Heh. Heh. Heh. I'm going to get dosbox for experiments, this emulator will have me burned out before I can say "FED UP!". Is there a different dos emulator that has any tas tools, even if not accepted for submission?
Posted: 11/6/2011 6:39 PM
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
You are correct about squares A and B. I aim to play more with high-speed combat. Today the aim is to play like this: O - Orc H - Human H..O .H.O - Human starts moving onto the tile next to the Orc. I attack. I start moving back. ..H.O - I attack again, repeat. This may give me an extra hit or two, at the cost of nanomanaging (yay, I made a word!) my units. Given this ...O H..O ...O I can get hits... maybe, I have to try. Did not research gold harvesting yet, lumber is depressing enough.
Posted: 11/5/2011 8:55 AM
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
Yeah, the shift tip does work. Yay! Thanks. Building things in quick succession is a failure. Even when the display still shows good numbers, building is no longer allowed when I don't have the resources. This may mean having to deal with the economy. Harvesting 100 of lumber takes 15+ seconds on the fastest setting. I'd love to see if there is a good way to speed it up but... ------- Whine time! No easy memory watch. No, a manual hex dump does not count. ------- A farm costs 300 lumber. We need, I believe, 6 farms. One is provided for us. We have the lumber for one and a bit. That leaves (5x300)-400=1100 lumber for farms alone. That is 11 loads. Plus five for barracks. 16 loads. At least 240 peon-seconds, keeping in mind that I stopped counting after 15 seconds of seeing the peon hack away at the trees. Likely much much more. Goldwise we need a fair bunch of gold as well. We start with 1000, enough for two farms. There is a mine nearby with 3000 gold to be mined. That buys the farms and the barracks leaving 900 gold to spare before we have to use distant mines. That translates to two peons. Of course all that mining translates to more peon-seconds. So level 1 is going to be long and boring. :(
Posted: 11/5/2011 5:49 AM
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haslomaslo1
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
Two movies. One orc. one human. High speed combat is a failure. Once a unit starts moving onto a square it is committed to keep moving that way. There is no trivial way to dodge a blow that is being delivered. The best that I can do is to set my units up to deliver the first blow. There may be opportunities to dodge catapults or to use catapults with perfect accuracy. It seems like using the mouse is actually slower in many cases. Keyboard is better whenever possible, usually one frame faster. With the mouse I seem to have to click, advance, click and advance to get where I want to be. With the keyboard it is just a matter of press, unpress and advance. Tomorrow logging/mining/building research. Then to plan the stage more carefully. EDIT: When you build something your money starts to decrease slowly, kinda like life in Earthbound. Might be worth a try to play with building stuff in quick succession. And time for something that is likely to become a recurring feature... ------- Complaining time! The emulator is a great headache. Keyboard keys stick. Yuck! I'd love to be able to frame advance using F when the active window is the virtual keyboard. As it is, I have to switch back and forth. I'm not sure if the mouse sticks or not, even after playing for two days. Awful. No visible mouse press indicator either. No autofire. Trying to hold F for steady rolling made the emulator choke. Even when running without frame advance it takes forever to get anywhere. This slowdown effect is nice, but I'd love to turn it off or regulate it on the fly. (And it's a fairly new computer too!) If not for c-square I'd not even have good mouse control. I'm also not getting sound when emulating, but that may be just my own issue. It works in the dumps.
Posted: 11/5/2011 12:15 AM
Post subject: Warcraft I
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
Well, here goes. A new TAS dedicated to Warcraft I: Orcs and Humans. I'm right at the start of the first orc level, and it begins. Current strategy is to finish the first level without optimizing too much, produce a WIP and then refine it until it is good enough. Repeat for every level. The problem is that I suck at RTSes. (Or any other kind of game, really.) So, level one. Objective: Build farms and barracks. The first thing is obvious: Switch the game to "fastest". Easy enough. Then what? I guess I will have to figure that out. I intend to experiment with looking for glitches. Two things that would help the most are a way to harvest lumber faster and high-speed combat glitches. I will do the research and see.
Posted: 10/28/2011 2:01 AM
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
Ok, I got the source code for the hacked version of the emulator. Thanks, c-square! Mouse is go! I will build the source and get set up over the weekend and start work after that. Still thinking in terms of games (Warcraft I is nice...), so if you have any suggestions... EDIT: Going with Warcraft I.
Posted: 10/24/2011 1:17 AM
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
Yeah, I want to give the mouse a try. That's one of the points here. The mouse is a must for an RTS. I actually never made a serious attempt at a TAS before. I don't expect to finish, I'm rather hoping to generate enough interest for someone to take over eventually. (Or prove that there is nothing interesting in crazy mouse bouncing around.) Till that happens, I will do my best. First things first: Which game? I think Dune II at this point, but I'm open to suggestions. I'd love to do Super Dune II Classic, but that being a hack of a hack...
Posted: 10/23/2011 9:40 PM
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
The DOS/Genesis thing is more or less arbitrary. 1. I like the DOS graphics better. 2. Mouse use. I like the sidebar! 3. No one tried it yet.
Posted: 10/23/2011 9:26 PM
Post subject: The RTS TAS project.
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haslomaslo1
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Joined: 10/23/2011
Posts: 15
I always wanted to see a TAS of a real time strategy game. Guess I can try to make one. (Or at least try to jumpstart enough interest...) There are a few possibilities here. - GBC Warlocked - DOS Dune II - DOS C&C - DOS Warcraft I Warlocked is not a very nice game, but GBC emulation should be rock solid by now. I'd be worried about trying to work with a DOS rerecording emulator at this point. The gameplay is not very fast. Lag can happen as well. It might not be very entertaining, but probably easier to set up and get started on. Dune II has its share of bugs and strange behaviors that can be exploited. A few people tried it on the Genesis, but I think DOS is the way to go. Not sure about the last two and any other possibilities. Thoughts?