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I think we need to decide which SMS emu to use before we go further.
Meka
Pros:
* Excellent Compatibility
* Supports multiple systems (SG-1000,SC-3000,SF-7000,Sega Mark III,SMS/GG,ColecoVision,Othello Multivision)
* Joystick & Mouse support
* Memory Viewer already exists
Cons:
* "unique" graphical interface
* Source code is a mess
* convoluted build process
* Linux and dos versions not updated as recently as windows version.
* No gamepad support (unless it emulates a joystick)
Dega
Pros:
* Standard interface
* Current Linux build
* Good source code organization
Cons:
* Compatibility issues on certain games
* Only supports SMS/GG
* No support for control configuration. (No support for gamepads/joystics)
* No DOS version
Gens+
Pros:
* Centralization -- Gens rerecording support could be ported here, and there would be no need to modify a second emulator
* Move recording framework already exists
* Standard interface
* Buttons are remappable
* Gamepad support
* Theoretically easily portable to linux because it's based on Gens
Cons:
* Compatibility issues on certain games
* Only supports SMS/GG Genesis/Megadrive (plus addons)
* Source code is a mess
* No DOS version
* No current Linux version
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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Nitsuja
Upthorn
Okay, Gens+ has some pretty substantial SMS emulation flaws
(like completely freezing up on certain games), so I'm not sure if there's any good reason to make it re-recordable at all.
Well it played Game Gear games well enough when I tried it. Also, since it supports Sega CD already, it might be worth seeing if it doesn't have the same desync problems that Gens has.
EDIT: or maybe it would be easier to merge in SMS/Game Gear/some of the Sega CD support to the re-recording Gens?
Originally I had thought that, but then someone directed me to try Sonic Drift.
Sonic Drift locks up as soon as you start a race. I imagine that this would be true of some of the later SMS games, as well.
Also, what Sega CD support does Gens+ have besides (40% working) savestates?
Edit: I'm going to be checking out Meka, though.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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Okay, Gens+ has some pretty substantial SMS emulation flaws
(like completely freezing up on certain games), so I'm not sure if there's any good reason to make it re-recordable at all.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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Either [url]http://www.ThePlaceYouAreLinking.net/ThePath/thefile.ext[/url]
or [url=http://www.ThePlaceYouAreLinking.net/ThePath/thefile.ext]some text[/url]
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One of the things I like about GMV is that it's static. Input always starts at the same byte. This makes hex-editing significantly less complicated.
Also, SMV has a wasted nibble per player per frame.
I do like the idea of including SRM data, though.
I'm not sure about including the checksum. It would be useful, but as far as I know, Gens doesn't have any routines involving the checksum, so I'd have to write them myself.
If someone could tell me how to get the checksum of a Genesis ROM (.smd or .bin), or even just point me to a place which explains, I could probably do something, but it'd be way more effort than I'm prepared to put in to figure it out myself.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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When you go to "record new movie", don't check "record from now and make savestate".
Your movie should start from power on.
After that, it's okay to use savestates you made during the movie to resume recording, or to go back and correct mistakes.
This can be done in two ways:
1) Loading the savestate while your movie is recording.
2) When loading the movie, choose "play from savestate" under "playing options", click the button to the right marked "...", and then click "resume record from savestate"
Please note that only savestates made while recording your movie will work when loading, otherwise there will be a number of frames where every button is pressed, or your movie will desync at the frame number the savestate had.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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nitsuja wrote:
Phil wrote:
New Gens release. Time to update it. It already has sega cd savestate support.
But isn't it the same Sega CD savestate support we already have? I mean, it says on the Gens site that the Sega CD savestate contributions were by upthorn.
Yes, it's the same SegaCD savestate I made, and a slightly outdated version, however, there are a couple of other changes listed, so it might be worth checking through the source.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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Blublu wrote:
I think I have encountered a severe bug. I go to a cyberspace-esque area after getting ball 4 (before 3), but the level itself is actually way different from the one shown on the screen. Is this intentional or am I screwed?
I think that's intentional.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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Well, after doing a bit of poking about in the source code and a hex editor, I have discovered that the .gir format is nothing more than a GMV file compressed via 7zip
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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Actually, porting the rerecording code from gens to gens+ shouldn't be too difficult.
The question in my mind, though, is whether I should just port the rerecording part to Gens+, or the whole GMV format.
Gens+ already has it's own movie format, which may be better than GMV, or may be worse.
Either way, it'd take a while to track down and port the slow-down and frame advance functions.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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Yeah, when I said "up-right" I misremembered that you only need to grab right.
With the desync, it looked like you were reaching left to grab the pole. Hence the correction.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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I get the same desync, but I can also tell you two things that you don't appear to be aware of:
1) Hard mode makes a difference on the bonus stages.
2) Your strategy in bonus 1 isn't the most efficient. If you jump the very first frame you can move, and grab up-right after that, you'll get the pole much sooner. You don't need to get hyper-mode to reach the chest, so grab direction is irrelevant..
Edit:
Did you typo your 2-1 time?
2-1 > 3.16
Because the best I've been able to get on that stage, via any method, is 4.14.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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I just watched this run, and I'm withholding vote for now, because I'm in a terrible mood and don't want it to influence my decision, but I didn't find this run entertaining at all.
I think that's more the fault of the game than the player, but it remains true.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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jimsfriend wrote:
Anyway, I'm just replying here because I want to see the train wreck. I hope it's a good one.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
___X______X______X______)=|=<_____________X_________|
_/\/\/\
<BAM>
_\/\/\/
There were no survivors.
The end.
Hows that for a train-wreck?
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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nitsuja wrote:
upthorn wrote:
... my theory is that Gens continues to generate frames while performing CD seeks & reads. And those times aren't always constant.
I'm planning on trying to make CD Reads into a blocking operation, but ...
It shouldn't need to be a blocking operation to operate consistently, unless it's running it in a separate thread (which I don't think it is). If the CD seeks and reads aren't taking a constant amount of time under the same circumstances, then the problem is probably that the functions for performing CD seeks and reads are using some variables that don't get saved and/or reset properly (or at all).
That may be, and probably is the case, however, even if fixing that leads to consistant performance on the same machine, there'd be no guarantee that the same GMV would sync on someone else's computer. And since the end goal of these mods is to make SegaCD games TASable, I'm not sure how much help it would be.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
