Topic by Khaz

I'm sorry that those processes stay running. It's my bug and my job to fix that and I havent done it yet. But I dont think that made your crash happen. It could grind your cpu into dust.

Posted: 7/15/2014 5:09 AM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

So I noticed there have been a few new versions of Bizhawk since 1.5.2 and I thought I'd try switching to one, especially since it looks like my main crashing problem may have been fixed which would be great. I've found that I can't load a 1.5.2 movie into 1.7.1 though, it desyncs immediately and the frame counter is in red and so on... Though, the frame counter seems to be red all the time regardless. Is there any way to fix this, or am I stuck on the version I started on? Is there some manual way to transfer one version of movie file to another in general?

Posted: 7/15/2014 10:56 AM
(Edited: 7/15/2014 1:57 PM)

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Scepheo

Player (144)

Joined: 7/16/2009
Posts: 686

Don't use the performance core for movie recording/playback (it's what causes the lag counter to stay red). Try using the compatibility ~~or accuracy~~ cores. If you're very lucky, your movie might even sync. Edit: forgot BizHawk doesn't expose the accuracy core.

Posted: 7/15/2014 11:16 AM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

Alright, I have to be missing something here... If I go to SNES > Options and select compatibility, then the frame counter isn't red anymore but I still get the same desync... I can't find an "Accuracy" option...?

Posted: 7/15/2014 11:48 AM

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adelikat

He/Him

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Like any emulator, it is normal to be "stuck" with the version you started with. As emulation and features improve, sync changes occur. Currently there is no accuracy core option in bizhawk (nor would this be useful for you , in this case)

It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects

Posted: 7/15/2014 8:55 PM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

Soo... Is there any POSSIBLE workaround? I must be fundamentally not understanding something about how movie files are encoded because it seems to me like it ought to be pretty simple - some compressed way of expressing "Input this at frame number that". Even if something has changed between versions, can you not simply input the same commands at the same frames? Like, manually transfer the data to different version? I'll write my own code to do it if I have to. Unless what you mean is that the new version of Bizhawk's timing doesn't match up with 1.5.2, in which case... How can anything ever possibly work on a console if it differs that badly between two recent versions of the same emulator? Wasn't the whole point of Bizhawk to be extremely accurate - you mean even at that level of accuracy we aren't even sure what frame number we're on? Isn't the CPU clock predictable? I'm just not understanding what the core problem is here, and doing my new run on this new version could mean saving hours, days, weeks of my life down the line. As it stands it's UNGODLY painful to test my glitch in 1.5.2 and it could easily be at least 2-3 times as fast if I can just transfer the stupid movie... Failing that and as a last resort, is there a different emulator altogether that is generally considered stable, accurate, acceptable for TASes and not crashy? If an old version of snes9x can handle the crashes I was getting without dying completely surely some other emulator can too... EDIT - If there is a way I can access and edit the raw data, it would still probably be easier to go along and tweak a frame every time it desyncs than to redo it from scratch...?

Posted: 7/15/2014 10:43 PM

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Scepheo

Player (144)

Joined: 7/16/2009
Posts: 686

Khaz wrote:

I must be fundamentally not understanding something about how movie files are encoded because it seems to me like it ought to be pretty simple - some compressed way of expressing "Input this at frame number that".

Not even compressed: try opening the movie file in a text editor (like notepad).

Khaz wrote:

Unless what you mean is that the new version of Bizhawk's timing doesn't match up with 1.5.2

That seems to be what's happening.

Khaz wrote:

EDIT - If there is a way I can access and edit the raw data, it would still probably be easier to go along and tweak a frame every time it desyncs than to redo it from scratch...?

Again, open the file in a text editor. Editing it should be easy enough.

Posted: 7/15/2014 11:50 PM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

lol... I guess I should have tried that first... Sorry. That helps a lot. I'm going to go try to fix it. Thanks! EDIT: I think I was wrong, it probably will be faster to just do it over again... 1.7.1 seems to take one frame longer here every couple hundred or so but I can't see a pattern.

Posted: 7/16/2014 1:02 AM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

Ran into something new... Was doing a quick playthrough in 1.7.1 earlier to test the glitch and saved it, trying to load it again now and IT desyncs pretty much right away. Can't load my savestates because I get a large error saying: "System.InvalidOperationException: You've attempted to load a savestate made using a different SNES profile than your current configuration. We COULD automatically switch for you, but we haven't done that yet. This error is to make sure you know that this isn't going to work right now." And I get both the desync and error regardless of whether I try to play it in performance or compatibility mode.

Posted: 7/16/2014 2:46 AM

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creaothceann

He/Him

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Performance core is an older version of bsnes that has speed hacks applied to it, hence the name. It's meant for playing, not for TASing. (IMO BizHawk should just disable movie recording altogether in this mode.) It's only natural that you get desyncs.

Posted: 7/16/2014 3:57 AM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

Heh, well, I recorded the movie in compatibility mode... I just went and retried a new test movie right now, recorded in compatibility mode from power on, and it desyncs when I try to play it back.

Posted: 7/16/2014 1:54 PM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1236)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11274
Location: RU

creaothceann wrote:

IMO BizHawk should just disable movie recording altogether in this mode.

This.

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 7/16/2014 9:03 PM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

Anybody happen to know why my new movies made in 1.7.1 are all failing to sync regardless of what mode I record or playback in? Should I just abandon Bizhawk and switch to lsnes or something else? I have no other real TAS experience so I have no idea what is best here, all I know is this has been a positively infuriating experience so far and I don't think I can carry on the way I've been doing it. I'm also still curious about how a movie can sync on a console when it can't sync to another emulator... I could see faking it by tweaking the overall clock speed but seems to me that would just buy you time and it'll still be bound to desync eventually, unless you somehow take a timing signal from the SNES itself...

Posted: 7/16/2014 9:36 PM

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hegyak

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Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris

Khaz wrote:

Anybody happen to know why my new movies made in 1.7.1 are all failing to sync regardless of what mode I record or playback in? Should I just abandon Bizhawk and switch to lsnes or something else? I have no other real TAS experience so I have no idea what is best here, all I know is this has been a positively infuriating experience so far and I don't think I can carry on the way I've been doing it. I'm also still curious about how a movie can sync on a console when it can't sync to another emulator... I could see faking it by tweaking the overall clock speed but seems to me that would just buy you time and it'll still be bound to desync eventually, unless you somehow take a timing signal from the SNES itself...

What game(s) are you playing and having desyncs on? Which SNES Core are you using? Compatibility? Accuracy? Performance?

When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.

Posted: 7/16/2014 9:42 PM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

I've been playing Dragon View (U) exclusively. I've tried using both the Compatibility and Performance cores in Bizhawk 1.7.1, the only two options, and I seem to get the same desync problem regardless. The only other thing I could think of to try was doing it with "Use Ring Buffer IO" unchecked but it changed nothing.

Posted: 7/16/2014 10:06 PM

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hegyak

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Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris

Khaz wrote:

I've been playing Dragon View (U) exclusively. I've tried using both the Compatibility and Performance cores in Bizhawk 1.7.1, the only two options, and I seem to get the same desync problem regardless. The only other thing I could think of to try was doing it with "Use Ring Buffer IO" unchecked but it changed nothing.

Can you tell me where/when it desyncs? What did you do (if anything) before it desyncs? Can you post the Movie(s) and Savestate(s) that desync? If you don't want the files your working on to be public, you can PM me them. I ask for those files so I can attempt to recreate your desyncs and ensure it occurs on newer SVN builds. Is your ROMs SHA1: B6C1BF197AC5B85B6A691F5942783E6BFCCFEB48 That's the good dump from No-Intro.

When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.

Posted: 7/16/2014 10:20 PM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

SHA1 is indeed B6C1BF197AC5B85B6A691F5942783E6BFCCFEB48 Here's a test movie I just made: For me it desyncs in the first fight and you end up opening and closing the menu for a while. If it syncs, you should end up outside the first town, walk around a bit, between a few trees without hitting them and end looking out on the lake. Here's the file: http://www.mediafire.com/view/2l2kd42pl3x15lg/Dragon_View_DESYYYNC.bkm EDIT: Funny story! The movie I recorded on 1.7.1 plays back properly on 1.5.2 but not on 1.7.1. Just... what? Yup. Watching the longer movie I recorded in 1.7.1 last night on 1.5.2 and it's all there too...

Posted: 7/16/2014 11:09 PM

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hegyak

Editor

Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris

Khaz wrote:

SHA1 is indeed B6C1BF197AC5B85B6A691F5942783E6BFCCFEB48 Here's a test movie I just made: For me it desyncs in the first fight and you end up opening and closing the menu for a while. If it syncs, you should end up outside the first town, walk around a bit, between a few trees without hitting them and end looking out on the lake. Here's the file: http://www.mediafire.com/view/2l2kd42pl3x15lg/Dragon_View_DESYYYNC.bkm EDIT: Funny story! The movie I recorded on 1.7.1 plays back properly on 1.5.2 but not on 1.7.1. Just... what? Yup. Watching the longer movie I recorded in 1.7.1 last night on 1.5.2 and it's all there too...

So it's working? I did the first battle on 1.7.1 and desyncs. I did test on an SVN build (newer then 1.7.1) and it does sync so a new release will fix this issue. Be aware, SVN builds can and do break/crash/fail horribly/contain unfinished features.

When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.

Posted: 7/16/2014 11:49 PM

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adelikat

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Thanks to hegyak, we have some results. For SNES TASes, 1.7.1 has some kind of bug and is desyncs horribly. DO NOT USE! Whatever bug it is, has alreayd been fixed since, and the upcoming 1.7.2 release will be fine. I tried the .bkm posted in the current build and it synced. (Note: in the next release your movie will be converted to .bk2 automatically by bizhawk). Expect 1.7.2 released by the end of the week, so just hold off until then. Thanks to hegyak, he did some investigation work!

It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects

Posted: 7/16/2014 11:54 PM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

Thank you very much! I'm relieved to hear this is a known and fixed issue and I'm looking forward to the new revision eagerly. EDIT: Though I'd like to add, I just tried SVN 7249 out of curiosity and attempted to play my old movies, and it comes out saying the recording is 0 frames long. Is that the same version you tried on?

Posted: 7/17/2014 2:41 AM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

I tried out SVN's 7249, 7243, and 7234 and they all gave me the same problem, creating a .bk2 file of size zero, regardless of mode and such. Is there a procedure I should follow or a different version you used to make it convert right? Another EDIT: And should this whole thread be over in the "BizHawk" section? Was that there when I started it? Sorry...

Posted: 7/17/2014 12:58 PM

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hegyak

Editor

Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris

Khaz wrote:

I tried out SVN's 7249, 7243, and 7234 and they all gave me the same problem, creating a .bk2 file of size zero, regardless of mode and such. Is there a procedure I should follow or a different version you used to make it convert right? Another EDIT: And should this whole thread be over in the "BizHawk" section? Was that there when I started it? Sorry...

SVN Build r7255 appears to import properly. I tested your Desync file in SVN Build r7255 and it syncs correctly now. You will need to import the BKM though.

When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.

Posted: 7/17/2014 9:37 PM

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Khaz

Player (53)

Joined: 11/20/2013
Posts: 103

Aha, I see: "r7253 Support bkm conversion in movie import r7252 Fix Bkm to Bk2 conversion" My movies import perfectly fine to 7255. Sorry for being impatient and thanks for the replies!