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Uh, try replacing __int8 with char. Or give the rest of the errors if they're unrelated to that one.
EDIT: And I seem to recall hearing of a "VBA[-re-recording]-linux", you might want to ask DeHacked about it, either that or use Wine if you find this version too outdated otherwise.
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Well if it's a hacked ROM then you should also try using a non-hacked one, but I know that VBA has this problem with the non-hacked ROM of this game as well, if not using a BIOS file.
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Updated VBA to version 16:
- fixed sometimes-skip-10-frames-on-loading problem, and added speed modes less than 6% in case that's not good enough
- made frame count update immediately upon loading a save state
- changed to statically link with MFC, so it might need less DLLs to run now
The frame counter already gives all that information.
Maza: If the fix for the frame skipping still doesn't work, use 5% speed and it should definitely be fixed there, or if you don't want to use 5% speed either you could try choosing "Options->Speed->Accurate Sound Pitch" to see if that helps.
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You'll need to use a BIOS file for this game. Find a BIOS image file (it's usually called "GBA.BIOS") and choose it from "Options->Emulator->Select BIOS file" in VBA, then make sure "Options->Emulator->Use BIOS file" is checked, now open the ROM again and it should work.
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I thought about it and took a look at it, but I think I'll be staying away from that game for the time being. The movement is nearly identical except that they improved jumping and on-land control, but they also fixed the turn+dash bug that made it possible to skip barrier glyphs or hover out of the water, and the game looks longer and even more tedious than this one (fake-3D minigames, pushing crystals pieces together with sonar...)
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Does anyone know what causes the bad guys to duck when they shoot at you? I suspect it's somehow randomized, but I haven't ever been able to manipulate it except accidentally/unreproduceably. If it could be manipulated at will, it would save time in the levels that are done and make higher levels of difficulty survivable. (And allow for more tricks.)
About the car glitch: It sounds unlikely to me. I found a way to walk around (keeping control) on the basement floor, and a way to get shot in the head without dying, but it didn't seem to make any difference to the end sequence.
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Not at the moment, but it definitely sounds like a bug.
Try changing your audio plugin in the plugin settings to something else (try out each of the sound plugins for a while to see if one of them works better for you), and/or go to sound settings and increase the buffer size (if there is such an option, which there might not be depending on what audio plugin you chose).
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Well, ok, maybe I'm too willing to tolerate pointless things but it doesn't bother me. About this submission, not to discourage the author from trying something else, but I doubt this will be published. There's probably not much more to say about it, unless someone objects or the author wants to hear some specific mistakes pointed out.
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Entering the red doors is necessary - if you skip any, the game teleports you back up to the first one you skipped when you try to end the level.
Also, the enemies continue to increase in difficulty without any regard to the limits of the player, so I would think that would make it more entertaining in the later levels (if only it was possible to dodge their bullets without waiting around so much).
Guybrush: One mistake I keep seeing is where you wait on top of an elevator when you could glitch inside of it. For instance, at the end of levels 3 and 4, you let the elevator hit the bottom floor before getting in it, when you could have already been in it by then. (There is actually a bug related to this that allows you to jump out of the elevator onto the bottom floor and walk around on it like a normal floor over to your car, without ending the level. It's not useful for completing levels, but if the levels are really infinite then maybe it could be done before ending the movie.)
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I completely disagree with this - he usually has something relevant and intelligent hidden in even the most pointless-appearing posts. No need to attack him for posting comments lightheartedly.
I agree with this... I can't tell if this game could ever make a good run, but if it could, there would have to be more of an effort to kill every enemy possible and find some way to kill the ones that seem impossible to reach, and less missed shots. And maybe it can't make an entertaining run... A non-autoscrolling game would probably be a better choice.
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The fastest I found was 8-12 on, 1 off, so I used 10/1 for the autofire once I realized that was fastest. However, normal 1/1 autofire is better for accelerating about-face turns. BTW, I also found that the game only checks for turning input once every 8 frames, which is the real reason Echo seems to turn along a grid that depends on his speed.
FODA: Thanks. Actually most of it wasn't very stressing, except for the 2 boss fights, the chasing enemies, and those starfish-pushing sequences. I think not having to play it in slow-motion pressing the C button all the time helped a lot.
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The game does not tell you the password to the last boss until after you beat it. (So unless you're getting passwords from somewhere else, you're forced to play that level again.)
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I get crackles seemingly from a conflict over use of sound resources with different programs. Like if I open WinAmp and then Snes9x, Snes9x will have crackly sound. Usually it can be fixed by fiddling with the sound settings (especially the sound driver option) or restarting everything.
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Nice, but... well, it still looks like faster should be possible, but that's not really based on anything and I'm a bit afraid to try now, and it's probably better to move on. Anyway, I didn't really mean it as competition, it's just that showing some input that's faster seemed to be the clearest way of explaining what's definitely not optimal.
EDIT: My message was probably too hidden there, so I'll clarify: I think that last WIP you posted is quite close to optimal and that I probably wouldn't be able to improve it by any significant amount if at all. But, I won't know for sure unless I try it. If I just tell you it could be faster, but that I'm not exactly sure how, that's pretty useless since you don't even know if I'm right. But by all means, keep going with this, if you're not already.
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You have to turn off "Sync sound with CPU" in the movie playback dialog of every movie you play, if you're getting this problem.
(Crappy RealTek onboard sound, eh?)
Genisto: Yes, I've thought about this too, but right now all it has is a modal dialog... making it track and display a few selected variables on the game screen wouldn't be too hard, though. (And I didn't know about that bug from snes9x 1.43 with deleting codes. It bothers me more that loading a save state resets your codes to what they were when the state was saved, though.)
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The octopus slashes the tentacle too fast to sneak by that way, unless you move very slowly like you're supposed to which would waste too much time. Plus, I needed to be moving leftward going past the spike to be able to turn into the crystal in time.
The main problem here is that it takes basically pixel-perfect positioning to avoid hitting those spikes. Hugging the rock makes the rock push you down too low to avoid the spikes, and the dash move homes into nearby enemies so I had to wait long enough for the jellyfish to line up exactly above the spikes before dashing through.
The other solution I found was to move a bit lower, causing it to not even attack, but this looked cooler and made the path slightly shorter.
You can push them safely if you line it up exactly right, but they'll hurt you after any other movement. (And I was only able to dash through the second one without breaking it like that because the level end boundary was there.)
Sonar cancels dashing instantly, allowing Ecco to slow down faster to make tight turns. (Ecco's dash actually slows him down compared to full speed, and spending more post-dash time not pressing C slows him down even more.) However, at this particular time (2:52) I wasn't dashing and was just firing the sonar for the heck of it.
EDIT: And sonar doesn't stun enemies at all. I didn't get either of the optional sonar upgrades.
The collision detection with the rocks is pretty bad, so if I was any further to the left, Ecco would just swim straight through the rock instead of pushing it.
BTW, nobody's asked, but the inconsistency of jumps in the Open Ocean level isn't from being too lazy to make them all the same, it's because Ecco drifts up 1 pixel after every jump and eventually jumps less and less effectively, requiring doing something to push him downward. Dashing above an enemy makes Ecco drift a few pixels downward.
They're called trilobytes, and yeah, they really suck. I noticed that they anticipate your movement to intercept where you're going to be, so what I did there was push down and then up at the right times to make it predict that I would be going down then up enough to put it into an orbit around me just wide enough to miss.
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Maybe there could be some way for any categories that really define the movie to be emphasized, and a category search could be made to only match runs that have that category emphasized.
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Well, the first/only mistake I noticed so far is that you can get past the title screen stuff 68 frames faster (by pressing B sooner, and maybe something else).
EDIT: Hmm, here is 241 frames faster than that: pulseman bug 2 (and I think it can still be faster somehow, maybe by doing one or two more volteccers or not bouncing under those blocks for so long)
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I edited my link to it (above) to make it easier to see what sort of thing they have - the site is hard to navigate. They don't have all that much, and no MMZ runs, but there's considerably more than at the megazpeed site (I don't know about the quality, though... I much prefer SDA).
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Oh... I assumed you already did this because I would think having it on for you and off for me would completely break the sync on your Bomberman 64 run. Well, that's one less mystery, anyway. (I should stop being lazy and fix that Raw Data thing...)
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Oh, well I assumed anybody trying to edit their movie would already know what input sample count range they're interested in from looking at the in-emulator counter. It sounds like it could be useful from what you're saying, but I don't want a change to make the movie files more difficult to hex edit normally, and I don't want to store any extra data per input sample. It's probably impossible to avoid both of those at the same time, though, and I'm not sure which one is worse.
EDIT: On second thought, the best and most straightforward way to implement this would be to simply record dummy/duplicate input samples for every no-input frame.