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Hmm, well I don't think those can be done faster (EDIT: no, actually I was wrong, they definitely can), but why are you doing the training levels? You can just say you don't need to train to skip them (and all the tutorial dialog) and start on the first real level.
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quietkane: I think you should start these over with a lot more precision when playing. I did a quick test a little while ago and it was 6 full seconds faster by the end of the first level (warpless). I'm really enjoying your Lufia II run, though.
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I didn't notice your edit before, so I'm responding to it now.
Valagard wrote:
(Edit) Like it, some parts are much faster, Boss fights are quick but brutal on your guy ;P. I can see where you saved time thou, Guess I am going to have to do my time attack over again ;D.
Good luck if you're going for it. Looking back at it, I think there are still another 10-20 seconds that can be saved compared to my run. I'm pretty sure my boxing fight can be even faster by quite a few seconds with a lot more luck manipulation, I didn't do a very good job of destroying various barriers as fast as possible, and having more health when starting some boss fights would've let me take more hits to save time (not dying on that rotating crystals boss was almost impossible with as little health as I had going into it).
Valagard wrote:
BTW how did you keep the bot boss in the corner durring the fight? I kept trying and trying but I could never keep him locked in the corner without punching me.
I think it had something to do with being all the way in one corner while auto-fire punching with the fist that's closer to the other side, while the boss is recovering from being pushed backward by a jet burst. I couldn't get it to happen as long or as often as I wanted to, but I think it's possible.
Also, there's this one mecha-tank guy you had to get over in your run that was mysteriously gone from mine. I have no idea why he didn't spawn for me, maybe I somehow boosted over the spawn trigger.
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I'm wondering why you allowed yourself to be seen by the space pirate the very first time, when it is faster to not be seen (because then you don't have to wait for the gate to open, saving a second or two - here's proof starting from a frame in your movie). Also, there were several times you took damage where it wasn't obvious to me that it was faster to do so (it didn't look slower either, just wondering why they were necessary). Finally, at the boss with the mirror, is it possible to manipulate the the time delays between the symbol appearing or are they always the same?
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OK. That will only work if there isn't any randomization or other frame-specific things you rely on after it. Also, to actually convert your movie to start with lag reduction on, you can hex edit bit 4 of byte 0x017 (see source\vbm-format.txt) to be "1" instead of "0" (it's probably easier to start recording a no-lag vbm of the game to another file and copy that whole settings byte over from it).
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Zurreco wrote:
Can someone tell me how to enable Lag Reduction? I can't seem to figure this out on my own and I need to test something before I go on with any of my movies.
I think it's "Options->Emulator->Lag Reduction (GBA)". If you have to do it while a movie is going, hold down Ctrl while navigating the menus to override the disablement of changing it, but of course that change won't get recorded into the movie input so it'll desync on playback, that's why it's normally disabled when a movie's active. During movie playback, the check represents whether the game is currently using the lag reduction, otherwise it represents whether lag reduction will be used if it can be. Also, the state of the lag disablement option is stored inside the save state, so when you load a save state it will reset to whatever it was when you saved it (so save after making the change to test something from there).
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BoltR wrote:
but make sure Options->Emulator->Lag Reduction (GBA) is turned off
Actually, people watching this should leave this option ON; it turns itself off automatically when viewing the movie, and back on again later. But anyway, I'll definitely watch this soon...
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Well, it's difficult to compare them for various reasons so the number I gave could be innacurate within +/- a second or two.
It looks like the major savings are from manipulating luck more so that eye guarding the door didn't get nearly as much invulnerability as before, somehow killing the first boss even faster, and slightly better precision overall (probably partly due to not having a frame counter before).
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This can be probably done like VBA does it without too much trouble. But the Snes9x developers seem unwilling to consider that change, and I'm not sure of all the reasons for that. I was going to try giving them some patches soon (it's long overdue that I do that), so I'll wait until that before making any more new changes.
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feitclub wrote:
Speed > Stealth
Speed + Stealth > Speed (i.e. I say, do best speed AND stealth) (Well, at least test again to see which is faster, the difference is nowhere near as large as 125 frames.)
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BoltR: Hmm, it seems a flag somehow got set in your movie that makes VBAs above a certain version think it isn't valid. I uploaded a quick fix for this so your movie now works in 8c. Backward compatibility remains unbroken even for recording, so please update to this version because it probably has less bugs than whichever version you're using.
(Now watching, it's still looking great...)
yet another EDIT: It is definitely possible to manipulate luck here. Just delay for a frame or so while crawling just before entering the room with the first space pirate - you can get it so it turns around at the exact moment you fall down to shoot him with no waiting time at all.
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Nach wrote:
Movies made with older version of ZSNES don't have the same timing, thus you can expect desyncs at some point.
Hmm, then I'm not sure why old movies are supported if they can always be expected to desync at some point, unless this is planned to change. (And I'm surprised the timing differences are small enough that it stayed synchronized for so many frames.)
Nach wrote:
nitsuja wrote:
- Binding Pause to a key doesn't work right - the key isn't recognized about half the time it's pressed, both when trying to set it and when trying to use it after it's set.
Can't replicate. Make sure you're using the latest WIP, perhaps it was a problem earlier.
It's a problem with DirectInput, which I've seen in some other applications. The Pause key sometimes registers as a different key instead (maybe Break, I can't remember at the moment) even when it is pressed alone, which isn't detected. I think it's possible to fix by converting a keypress of that other ID to the keypress ID that Pause is expected to be.
Nach wrote:
nitsuja wrote:
And, maybe I'm missing something obvious, but is there any support for saving or loading a save state with a single key/button press?
Look at game keys for what you want.
That's where I was looking, and I still can't find it there. The only relevant key seems to be Snapshot but that is only one single key so that can't be it.
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This game is not that bad compared with a lot of other games... I only vaguely remember playing it, though. This run was pretty fast considering the game. (It looked like it must have been a little frustrating that Bubsy can run really quickly but can almost never keep going that speed for any amount of time due to all the obstacles and jumps.)
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Is the finished test run uploaded somewhere? I wouldn't mind watching it, even if it's just a test run that can be improved a lot. And maybe someone will notice some mistakes you wouldn't have, saving you time later.
Also, your "LINK TO VBA Re-recording EMU" is out of date, it should point here now. (The speed changing not working that you noticed has been fixed.)
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Nach, I tried this briefly and have a few bugs to report (that apply to r8):
- Pressing F3 while an old movie is playing usually causes a crash.
- I tried playing Saturn's old Terranigma movie, and it seemed to play fine but then suddenly went out of sync around frame 55000.
- Binding Pause to a key doesn't work right - the key isn't recognized about half the time it's pressed, both when trying to set it and when trying to use it after it's set.
- Double-clicking below any ROMS in the Load Game dialog causes the currently selected ROM to be loaded (so when I try opening the last ROM on the list, it usually opens the first one instead because I clicked slightly too far below the last one)
Also, I think the "new graphics engine" option should be on by default, not off, as games tend to have weird graphics glitches when it's off. And, maybe I'm missing something obvious, but is there any support for saving or loading a save states with a single key/button press?
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ventuz wrote:
er why I cannot change speed % for playback in v8? *roll back to v5*
Umm, good question! I had a line of code disabled for debugging, and totally forgot to re-enable it. Fixing...
EDIT: It's fixed, try version 8b. (And hey, I've transformed into a Coder.)
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I think the first post on this topic is actually talking about a hard reset, by saying a reset that Famtasia records a single button press for (which VBA can also do now). Soft reset is through some button combination the game itself recognizes and resets itself with. I think both should be allowed - they're not even very different from each other in concept. There probably aren't a lot of cases where resetting is anything but a huge waste of time, so if someone's able to recognize when it's truly faster to do it, they might as well be allowed to go through with it.
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Hmm, well I know it is slower on playback, although not always as much as twice as slow, and I can see how when using frame advance (or slow motion) it is much harder to notice that sort of slowdown, even though it seems like it should be easier to notice it then. Once I recorded falling some distance in lag and moving after landing, and upon playing back without lag, Samus fell the same distance but got to the bottom faster, then stood there for a while, then started moving again causing it to temporarily re-synchronize.
Anyway, if that's what you want to do, fine. The only thing I'm not sure of is whether a 2nd version you do is worth also doing with lag just for the sake of making it more comparable - I think it will be clear or at least possible to determine which is faster without needing to do that.
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Wow, how did I not notice this topic? (Was paying too much attention to the non-off-topic topics, I guess.)
I thought someone would figure it out, actually it wasn't meant to be a mystery or anything... At some point I just got tired of not having any avatar at all, took screenshots of some sprites at random, and noticed the Terranigma one looked pretty interesting with part of its palette inverted.
And suraimu, I think you have one of the most annoying avatars I've seen, no offense or anything. Also, VGCats is great.
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Zurreco wrote:
and then nitsuja will release some new patch and ruin my efforts.
Oops, did I just do that, or are you talking about some hypothetical new patch later? Sorry for causing so much trouble for everyone making GBA runs, but I think it's to be expected that an emulator will undergo run-breaking changes before submissions are even being accepted for it. Anyway, carry on...
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Zurreco: Hmm, I wasn't sure whether it would obselete it, I think they were pretty different, although I know the 1P one can also be improved with at least some better routes and the mistake caught later with the nova reactor boss fight.
Ferret Warlord: Sorry to disappoint you but... what Wind Waker reference? (Actually I haven't played that game.) I found the interaction scenes pretty fun to do, and when I realized the game gave all the control necessary to make it look like Kirby killed the helper, I couldn't resist doing that at the very end, despite it increasing the frame count a little (it didn't affect the AVI time).
BlackMagic: I'm pretty sure I tried this... but maybe it is possible. Anyway, I think it might save more time to not even get the hammer ability at all, although that would mean yet another ability not shown off.
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Ah, guess I was wrong about the horizontally moving platform, although maybe a few frames can be gained by maximizing the time spend running along that platform as it's moving to the right (I forget if you landed all the way on the far left tip of it).
For the fireball, maybe it's not because of lag... it just seems like Mario doesn't slow down as much when it hits immediately, but I could be wrong about that.
About the motion sensor, it keeps track of analog motion variables internally, and pushes those variables around in increments when the motion sensor buttons are pressed, so it just records those buttons. It should really not even get recorded for games like this that don't have motion sensor capability in the cart, but it doesn't make any difference anyway except when viewing what buttons you pressed. (I have not actually tried recording a movie of a game that uses the motion sensors, so it's likely there's some oversight that would cause it to desync, but if there's ever demand for that functionality I'm sure someone will discover if that's the case.)
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Oh... well first of all, I believe the non-laggy timing is now acceptably finalized to me, as it is no longer an arbitrary hack and I really do not want to spend any more time changing it. Secondly, I think the lag does affect the frame count considerably when it happens, although it does not happen all the time so I'm not sure how much it would add up to. I do not think a run done with laggy timing should not be accepted just because of that, but I would consider it to be like making an NES run with Famtasia when FCEU is now available, sort of.
Honestly, your first set of updates came so quickly that I didn't think you would have much trouble with just re-tracing the steps you'd done so far. Either that, or finishing the run with the previous timing, and then going back to redo it with improvements and the added bonus of better timing. The former sounds like less work to me. But I didn't realize you were also unsure of which of 2 routes are better. Is it not possible to do some tests to get a rough idea of which one is faster? If not, I guess I'd prefer to see a run with the route you originally intended and leave open the possibility of it being improved on later, than to wait a long time for a lengthy comparison of two runs with no progress updates.
Also, I know it's not much, but you get to keep the first 5000 frames or so of your run with either timing you use since there is no lag at all in the game until then.
