So I was asked to evaluate whether or not this game would be syncable on real hardware and the first thing I notice is that the "The battery has run dry" message is not present, meaning the game is reading a valid value from the RTC, albeit probably all zeroes. Does anyone know if adding a working RTC battery to the mix, which WILL read valid times, will upset the TAS in any way?
E] I tried screwing with the RTC sync settings in BizHawk and it still syncs fine, so that's good news. The bad news is that it doesn't sync with BizHawk 1.11.8.2, so I'm wondering what changed and what this means for syncing on hardware.
The only thing I'm worried about at this point wrt RTC is Shoal Cave, which does have RTC-based events afaik. I'll try to get a copy of Emerald and replace the RTC, but that might take a bit. Also, if the game doesn't sync on hardware, how difficult/impossible would it be to try to port the run to BizHawk 1.11.8.2, which has a newer version of mGBA with some corrected timing?
So I was asked to evaluate whether or not this game would be syncable on real hardware and the first thing I notice is that the "The battery has run dry" message is not present, meaning the game is reading a valid value from the RTC, albeit probably all zeroes. Does anyone know if adding a working RTC battery to the mix, which WILL read valid times, will upset the TAS in any way?
E] I tried screwing with the RTC sync settings in BizHawk and it still syncs fine, so that's good news. The bad news is that it doesn't sync with BizHawk 1.11.8.2, so I'm wondering what changed and what this means for syncing on hardware.
Where did it desync? For instance, I noticed that my Scooby Doo Mystery Mayhem WIP desync initially at 1.11.8.2, but after adding 10 frames to the very beginning, it synced all fine, despite all the RNG. Not sure if this is the case for this particular game, but it was for me.
Yeah, it looks like a lag frame right when you choose your Pokémon utterly destroys the run, but I'm not sure. Memory domains seem to be broken in the mGBA core in 1.11.8.2, so it's hard to see what's going on.
Where did it desync? For instance, I noticed that my Scooby Doo Mystery Mayhem WIP desync initially at 1.11.8.2, but after adding 10 frames to the very beginning, it synced all fine, despite all the RNG. Not sure if this is the case for this particular game, but it was for me.
Correction: Appears to be 9 frames instead. Also all other lag in the game was exactly the same, leading to me believe it may be due to bios loading a bit longer.
I'm not sure if the input file mentioned for Emerald is the published more or the WIP posted a while back, but I can test it after I get back home and inserting 9 frames (or more, whatever it takes to get through the bios) and see if it ever syncs.
Edit: Inserting 9 frames get pasts mudkip, but on the way to May it encounters a wingull. The other frames around it don't work either.
It's entirely possible that the timing in mGBA 0.5.1 is still wrong. We'll see what happens when 0.5.2 or 0.6.0 comes out, or what happens when I actually get my hands on a copy of Emerald and get to poke at it some.
Understood. I will try to acquire an authentic copy online when I can. I say "authentic" simply because of all the fake copies floating around all over the place which makes getting a non-fake very difficult and somewhat pricey...
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On another subject: I was wondering if anyone with the ability and know-how could please disassemble and look into the Battle Frontier RNG? I would like to make proper TASes of the facilities, but I don't quite understand how it truly works.
I should have one coming in the mail within a few days-to-weeks, so don't worry about it. Until then, keeping working on it in BizHawk 1.11.6 is the way to go.
Sorry for short notice, but the completed Emerald glitchless TAS will be on TheTyrant14's Twitch channel in about 2-3 hours! He currently holds 2nd place for the category and I'm sure he'll making the commentary fairly interesting. I will be present as well!
Link to TheTyrant14's Twitch channel:
http://www.twitch.tv/TheTyrant14/
GoddessMaria's signature is out dated. When it was last updated, GoddessMaria had only completed the TAS up to 7 badges. For example, if GoddessMaria had only TASed the first two badges, it would read [2 Badges]. This isn't a category definition, it's an indication of progress to TAS completion.
Ok, I got a copy of Emerald yesterday so I can put some serious time into seeing what I can do to get it syncing on hardware in the next few days.
So, how did it go? Anything different between the console and emulator?
It failed at the name selection, I believe. Possibly due to a lag frame or more not being taken into account or the game reading it differently, ultimately resulting in different seeds.
