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I think everything FatRatKnight said is correct.
But then you probably get minor bugs like this one: http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/209639#209639. Still, I rather have that bug instead of having the screen filled by old emulator-related messages, as in Gens. :P
I just checked in Gens and you don't see the Lua junk after loading a savestate. I'm sure it's the same in PCSX-RR too, so probably it's the same in all emulators.
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I saw this in one of the recent MM2 submissions: fceutools. There should be a command-line program called "fm2tofcm.exe" that does what you're looking for. I haven't tried it yet, though.
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I made some multiple encodes syncing each movie at the start of each level:
Team 3 left - Team 2 right
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U3NPSWSI (68 MB) (YouTube)
Team 3 top left - Team 2 top right - Team 1 bottom center
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HX3GKWR0 (36 MB) (YouTube)
You should submit it, in my opinion; this is an excellent game for a TAS. I know some of the levels are currently improvable, but until a new movie is made, this one is the best movie we have (and by a considerable amount of time).
Even if it gets rejected or you decide to cancel it, at least we'd still have it on the official database now and it would not get lost in a third page of a forum thread, or stored in an external server. It would also let more people know about the contest.
EDIT: added Megaupload links.
EDIT 2: added YouTube links.
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Fixed!
Congratulations to both teams for finishing their movies on time. :)
I had a great time watching dammit blast through the game. I've now seen what it takes to make a great TAS: a very special kind of mind and a lot of will!
Unfortunately two members of our team had real-life issues and couldn't make it to the contest, and I tried TASing some levels, but my times were always literally raped by dammit's times. The whole Team 3 movie was made only by him, heh. I hope he will submit this to the site.
I'm also looking forward to more contests in the future, maybe where even normal TASers can have a chance of winning. :P
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If you've already tried loading that savestate while recording/replaying a movie in read+write mode, and you couldn't fix it, then no, there's nothing I can do, I'm afraid.
I'm not very familiar with the internals of FBA, I'm sorry.
EDIT:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/206093
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If you liked Parasite Eve 2, you're probably going to love Dino Crisis 2.
Here are a few more PlayStation games that I like:
-Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
-Choro Q: Wonderful/Combat/Marine Q Boat/Jet: Rainbow Wings/Penny Racers/1/2/3 (I'm currently translating this one. :P)
-Gran Turismo 1/2
-ISS Pro Evolution 1/2/Winning Eleven 4/98-99/2000/2000 U-23/2001/2002
-Mega Man 8
-Mega Man Battle & Chase
-Mega Man Legends 1/2
-Rage Racer
-Robo-Pit 2
-The Misadventures of Tron Bonne
-Tobal 2
-Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1/2/3/4
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That's weird, it did sync for me; but it wouldn't be the first time a run syncs for some and it doesn't for others...
Stage 3 was really funny, by the way. :P
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Ok, sorry then. I though that you had at least watched my movie so far before claiming things like "If you think my method is wrong, you need to think again." or just doubting about everything I said to you. Also, your condescending tone led me to think that your knowledge of this game was rather vast.
The truth is: I'm not very far on the run yet, and that's why this walking trick hasn't been very useful yet; although you showed to me one place where I could have already used it and I'm very thankful for that (as I also am for the "walk only for one frame" thing, which will be very useful in a TAS).
I don't have an estimation of how many steps I'll take in total, but I don't think that's really important at the moment; that's what this test run is for, anyway.
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I'm telling you my current test TAS finishes at step 84. If you didn't even know that, then that explains why it seemed like you ignored all of my posts and were just focused on explaining once and again how the random encounter system worked.
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Er... How? By step 65 my DangerValue is 50, and its DangerLimit is 13. I think you're mistaking this TAS with a segmented speedrun, which I'm not making one at the moment.
Well, my TAS so far ends at step 84, so I hope you don't mind if I say again "So... All in all, darkwasabi and I were right about it not being any useful so far."
I also hope this made you get how that fact changed my mind on the subject:
If you still think that walking all the frames for ~25 steps is faster than escaping a single battle, maybe we're just playing different games.
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If you are referring to his huge Excel table which I recently found, he has his first (and only, so far) battle skip after Dollet, at step 74, which I couldn't reproduce in my run without doing several walking steps, and I've been told he was able to do it only because he used a save a few steps before.
Also, this is where your "only walk in the first frame of a step" trick could make this whole walking thing useful.
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Thanks for all the help so far, but I already know very well how the mechanics work. The problem is, if, for example, you only walk 3 or 4 steps to skip a battle, you've not only wasted time by walking, but you're also still left with a rather high DangerValue, and you most probably won't be able to skip a battle in the next few steps...
You can always avoid random battles in the world map, without the need of cars, trains or the walking trick. Also, higher levels are a bad thing in this game. :P
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Walking "a few" steps didn't look faster than escaping from a battle in my tests, since I needed to walk quite a few steps just to delay most battles.
I thought with your trick I could keep the DangerValue relatively low, with minimal speed loss, if I apply it to most steps; but I haven't made any tests yet, so I don't know how that will work, but you seem to be sure it's not a good idea.
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Oh... This I didn't know. I guess this is what makes the whole thing useful in a TAS.
I will have to find a way to do this automatically with a Lua script, or it will become boring as fuck just trying to find the first frame of each step.
Thanks for the information.
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This is from a PM I sent to computerbird recently (we're going to work together on a real TAS of this game):
(MGS crashes due to hacks in the SPU plugin to prevent movie desyncs.)
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About the crisis levels: is it possible to even know in what level are you at the moment? I mean, how do you know if you are in level 1, 2, 3 or 4?
I think I've been at the same crisis level throughout most of the run so far, and yet I've been able to greatly change the damage inflicted by Renzokuken with a bit of luck manipulation (with it you can change from only 3 hits to ~8 hits plus Rough Divide, for example).
Heh. :P
I doubt it; there are just too many variables that seem to be RNGs. Maybe a debugger can help, but I'm not too experienced with ASM yet.
That's correct. There seems to be two different types of G-Soldier:
I haven't tried this one yet, but I think you are correct. Though I don't know why darkwasabi didn't use it...
None yet. :P darkwasabi used Renzokuken for Granaldo and Shiva for the 3 Raldo; I'll see if there is a faster way in a TAS.
---
I haven't been working on this lately because I've been trying to find a fix for Metal Gear Solid (the game crashes right before the final boss in PCSX-RR), though without any success, by the way.
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Hah, nice. I had to watch it twice to actually notice you were using the shotgun in the second stage boss. :P
Looking really good so far.
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By the way, the person who wrote this should be fired:
He should watch this TAS. :P