Topic by Josh_the_FunkDOC

Posted: 5/19/2006 5:25 AM

Post subject: another preview

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chupapi

Former player

Joined: 8/15/2005
Posts: 77

Here i post another preview, i will accept and appreciate any comments about my Run. Remember that my incentive is your interest, if nobody is interested in this movie, it won't be finished. I hope you enjoy it. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1163/fullmod.fcm

Posted: 5/19/2006 9:09 AM

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OgreSlayeR

Former player

Joined: 7/12/2004
Posts: 524
Location: USA

I liked it and would probably vote yes now. I noticed the 4 players seem more like a team now rather than 4 players clumped together like 1 player. Each player seems to do their specific role with eliminating lag and the like. It's a pity falling rocks and things lag it so bad and you can't do anything about it...oh well. Keep up the good work! Edit: I also like the 4 gymnists ownage. :)

Working on: Command and Conquer PSX Nod Campaign

Posted: 5/29/2006 8:22 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden

I think it looks very good. The only possible improvement I can think of is to jump off corners rather than walk off them, but I doubt that this makes much difference since you have to wait for other characters. It has been a while since you last posted and I really hope you haven't given up because this looked very promising.

Posted: 6/20/2006 5:28 AM

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chupapi

Former player

Joined: 8/15/2005
Posts: 77

Truncated wrote:

I think it looks very good. The only possible improvement I can think of is to jump off corners rather than walk off them, but I doubt that this makes much difference since you have to wait for other characters. It has been a while since you last posted and I really hope you haven't given up because this looked very promising.

thanks for your comments. in fact im working on the movie very slowly, but i hope it will be finished soon.

Posted: 3/21/2012 2:45 AM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

So I was just re-watching the old runs and it was clear that if the lag wasn't ridiculous the 4 player run would be way faster due to the quicker bone collection and that only the bosses would be slower (since they have like double life). I was reading through the submissions and it said that the majority of the lag occurs when 6 or more items are on screen, so I thought why not try with 2 players instead of 4? It gives the best of both worlds since lag is close to non-existant (at least far less prevalent) and you can collect all of the bones quickly. As such here is my first WIP. I have no idea what this would replace when finished but at least one of the runs would have to be. In this WIP I just finish the first boss and I am 00:08.85 seconds ahead of the 1 player run and 00:06.33 seconds ahead of the 4 player run. That is an 11% improvement over the 4 player run and a 14% improvement over the one player. I need someone with more experience to look at this to tell me if I am doing well or not because I don't want to waste time, submit and immediately get told it sucks. Final note: on the boss. I know I can make the entertainment before a little better but all attempts so far was screwing up luck, but I am 99% sure I can get this done in the same amount of time and have a better entertainment. Also I beat the 4p boss battle by about 25 frames but I am around 70 frames slower than the 1p boss battle. The 4p and the 2p boss both have 23 hp and the 1p boss only has 11 hp which is why there is the difference in lengths.

Posted: 3/21/2012 2:48 AM

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adelikat

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3573)

Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee

I agree too that 2-player is probably going to be the fastest combination, and I've considered doing a 2-player as well. Good luck with this. I have no idea either what it would obsolete. But if it is the fastest TAS for this game, it kind of is a no brainer publication one way or another. I still think a 4-player run could be significantly faster than the published tas though.

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

Posted: 3/21/2012 2:49 AM

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DarkKobold

Skilled player (1652)

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy

adelikat wrote:

I agree too that 2-player is probably going to be the fastest combination, and I've considered doing a 2-player as well. Good luck with this. I have no idea either what it would obsolete. But if it is the fastest TAS for this game, it kind of is a no brainer publication one way or another. I still think a 4-player run could be significantly faster than the published tas though.

I'd think it would obsolete the 1 player, just because the 4 player is such a unique TAS for the NES. I don't think any other 4 player NES game is worth a TAS.

Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.

Posted: 3/21/2012 2:53 AM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

DarkKobold wrote:

I'd think it would obsolete the 1 player, just because the 4 player is such a unique TAS for the NES. I don't think any other 4 player NES game is worth a TAS.

That's what I was figuring as well, basically the "any%" situation. The only problem I saw with it was that the 2p is going to look a lot more like a faster 4p than it will look like like a faster 1p. But this is a decision for the judges (when it is submitted because I have only finished the first boss).

Posted: 3/21/2012 5:31 AM

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Randil

Skilled player (1827)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

Interesting, good luck with this. I'll throw in the RAM addresses I have for good measure:

040B Pixel|Position
03F4 Subp|Position
00E8 Screen|position
057B Jump|on|0
0113 Boss1|HP
0114 Boss2|HP
0072 Invincible
06C8 ZZZ|scale
06CC ZZZ|scale|parts
06D0 ZZZ|timer
0450 Pixel|speed
0439 Subp.|speed
00D6 Lag|when|!=|0
508 Y|sub
047E Y|position
0508| Y|subp
52c spider|y|pos
6eb Taken|bone
0486 Platform|Y|pos

My own page on this site.

Posted: 3/21/2012 11:46 AM

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AnS

Emulator Coder, Experienced player (728)

Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682

I'd say, go for 4P run. Since you use TAS Editor, 4P shouldn't be more difficult than 2P. And 4P is the only outstanding feature of this othervise mediocre game.

Posted: 3/21/2012 12:52 PM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

AnS wrote:

I'd say, go for 4P run. Since you use TAS Editor, 4P shouldn't be more difficult than 2P. And 4P is the only outstanding feature of this othervise mediocre game.

I'm going to continue 2P for now as it will most likely end up being the fastest of the options by 2 minutes or so (terrible estimate but it will be something "substantial" to the effect of multiple minutes). Also, the 4P TAS deserves even more credit than it currently receives because it is way harder than a 2P one. The immense lag means you have to control all four characters at the same time or the game will cause your input to desync when you add input for a different character. Also since there are four characters it is extremely difficult to keep track how far you are ahead of the original movie since different positioning on the screen can lead to different times to hit the bones. I started and got about halfway through the the first of two rooms in the first building and it took my about twice to three times as long as it took me to finish the entire first building in the two player. Plus I think I was like 5 frames ahead, but I would have to to do a frame comparison of the screen, front character and one of the characters in the back to know for sure. I really want to do a 4P run eventually but it will have to wait until I get a desktop with a second monitor. I need a second monitor to display the input so that I can have the video blown up a bit and still display the around 60 pieces of RAM that has to be watched at all time to be optimal.

Posted: 3/21/2012 2:27 PM

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AnS

Emulator Coder, Experienced player (728)

Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682

Do note that I'm not questioning the difficulty of the whole thing. I'm saying that pure speedrun of such game seems like Meh to me, unless it shows some stunt like 4P handling, which I think you're quite capable of doing.

Posted: 3/21/2012 2:34 PM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1254)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Some of RAM may be displayed on screen, for example speed may be tied to the character's onscreen position, that makes things way easier. In 2.1.6 rewind works in lua too, so I see no problem.

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: 3/21/2012 2:37 PM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

AnS wrote:

Do note that I'm not questioning the difficulty of the whole thing. I'm saying that pure speedrun of such game seems like Meh to me, unless it shows some stunt like 4P handling, which I think you're quite capable of doing.

Oh, that makes sense. I really do intend to make a 4P, but as I said I need 2 screens, which I will be getting this summer as a Graduation/getting a job gift to myself, as 4P TAS Editor takes up like 80% of my monitor and I still need room for RAM addresses (I need to learn lua because these can be compacted) and I like having the emulator large enough to see details. And I managed to improve the boss fight by around 10 frames and in my opinion made the entertainment better but I am not going to post WIP at least until the next building is finished as it would be overkill.

Posted: 3/21/2012 2:46 PM

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adelikat

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3573)

Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee

I personally find the 1-player, as well as a 2-player run of this game entertaining. Nothing earth shattering, but certainly above "meh". I think you are on the right track doing a 2-player first. What you learn from that will only make an eventual 4 player run better. Also, keep us updated! I'm interested in this, I started a 4 - player movie some years ago but didn't get very far (at the time I was not happy with the tools for 4 - player, but those have evolved considerably since then).

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

Posted: 3/22/2012 2:24 AM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

Update again. Currently I just finished the third house which is almost a quarter of the way through and I am currently 00:23.22 seconds ahead of the 1 Player run and 00:37.67 seconds ahead of the 4 Player run. If the exact pace is maintained for the rest of the movie the final result should be about 93 seconds faster than the 1 Player run. That is of course an estimate and could be larger or smaller but I feel it is about right. Currently I beat the 1 Player run by at least 30 frames in each room (some rooms as large as 526 frames) excluding the exterior walking scenes which is unavoidable since the second player has to walk further than 1 player would. I tried to keep things as entertaining as possible without sacrificing frames. Also for some reason when I export from fm3 to fm2 file if I do it with 2-player the run desyncs and it only works if Four Score emulation is chosen even though there is no input for the third or fourth player so as a result the 3rd and 4th player input is in the file but they are just blank. If there is a way to fix that I would love to hear it because it makes the input file unnecessarily large and just doesn't look as good if you look at the complete input. I am open to suggestions and would love to hear what you think about the progress so far. EDIT No new WIP yet (but I am actually progressing pretty well) but I just calculated this so I thought I would post. I knew I was using more optimal movements than the 4 player run but I wanted to quantify it so I tried to find the improvements if you ignore lag. Up to the junkyard I am 00:39.98 seconds ahead of the 4 Player run. Using the lag counter I found that up to this point in the run the 4 Player run has 00:41.17 seconds of lag (this includes the fading in and out of black between levels so it is higher than in game lag but whatever) and my current 2 Player run has 00:07.40 seconds of lag. This means that the 4 Player run has an extra 00:33.77 seconds of lag at this point than my run does, which means that my run has an extra 00:06.22 seconds of real improvement over the 4 Player run even with the 4 Player run able to have 2 characters continuously moving forward so the screen can move more continuously. I know this is not a 100% accurate metric but this gives more encouragement to the 4 Player run because not even attempting to reduce lag the run could potentially be improved by a predicted 21 seconds.

Posted: 3/24/2012 6:46 PM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

Double Post! Here is my updated WIP which is now right around 70% of the way done which just means I have to get to and do the High School level. Right now I am ahead of the 1 Player run by 00:49.77 seconds and ahead of the 4 Player run by 01:46.78. The predicted ahead by numbers have decreased to being around 70 seconds ahead of the 1 Player run, which is still over a minute of improvement. The predicted improvement for the 4 Player run will be around 153 seconds. While conclusively proving that the 2 Player version will be the fastest version of this TAS this is also making it clear that the 4 Player version could be improved (1 Player can too but the improvements appear to be much less and it sounds as if this run may obsolete that one? I am not sure.) Currently non-lag improvement over the 4 Player run is 00:14.17 seconds with a predicted 20-21 second improvement. This agrees with the information I listed in the previous post so it seems to be pretty accurate. I recognize that lag in this game is very much determined by your input so it is just an estimate, but it is a good starting point. Plus I am pretty sure lag may be able to be reduced through better positioning which would allow for more enemies being destroyed. I would like to hear your opinions of the boss fights. Including lag they are all faster than the 4 Player bosses. Ignoring lag they are faster in around half the bosses (I will have exact numbers when I submit) which is impressive since the 4 Player can fire 4 times in the amount of time the 2 Player can fire twice. They are slightly slower than the 1 Player run but that is, as I said, due to the 1 Player bosses having between 1/2 and 1/3 of the life that is present in 2-4 Players. As always opinions are welcome. Movie could be finished this weekend but that entirely depends on how frustrating the high school is.

Posted: 3/24/2012 9:31 PM

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Randil

Skilled player (1827)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

Personally, I support that this should obsolete the 1 player run - it's faster, there's more happening on screen with two players, and there are some nice new time savers that can be used. Although I like the game, I don't think it should have 3 categories (I definitely think this run should be published). I'm afraid I didn't spot any potential improvements in the WIP. Never the less, I look forward to the finished product, keep up the good work!

My own page on this site.

Posted: 3/24/2012 10:21 PM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

Randil wrote:

Personally, I support that this should obsolete the 1 player run - it's faster, there's more happening on screen with two players, and there are some nice new time savers that can be used. Although I like the game, I don't think it should have 3 categories (I definitely think this run should be published). I'm afraid I didn't spot any potential improvements in the WIP. Never the less, I look forward to the finished product, keep up the good work!

Thanks for your support. Ram values, strategies, and tricks were all borrowed from your run so it was a lot of help. The only problem I had with the obsoleting the 1 player was how similar this one is going to be to a 2 Player. It is obviously not exact but the strategy as a whole is more similar to the 4 Player. EDIT Also you not spotting improvements makes me feel more confident about the quality of my run, so no news is good news in this case.

Posted: 7/10/2012 8:14 AM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

Starting the 4-Player run now and I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Here is the lua script I will be using so that I don't have to have a separate memory watch window since TAS Editor already takes up enough space. It will display X position and velocity for each character, y position for each character, whether or not each character can jump on that frame, the screen position, the movable platforms Y-Position, and the enemies' HP. I saw no reason to display the lag indicator value or lag counter that was included in past Nightmare on Elm Street lua scripts because fceux already has these features built in. To anyone, is there any other values that you think I should find and display to speed up the process? Otherwise (and even if there is) I will now be starting and am planning on a roughly 30 second improvement over the currently published 4p run.

Posted: 7/15/2012 7:46 AM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

WIP 1 Currently at 57 seconds into the run and am 00:02.15 seconds ahead of the currently published 4 player run. This puts me at a predicted final savings of around 35 seconds which is pretty spot on with my guess when I was finishing up the 2-Player run of around 33 seconds. Slightly surprising to me is that there are only 3 less frames of lag than chupapi's run up to this point. That means 00:02.10 seconds are saved through better strategy. The two main improvements are better movement on the stairs and a better boss fight. chupapi walked up and down each stair which is almost half the speed that you travel either running on flat ground or in the air. The boss fight is improved as I manipulated the boss to appear a frame later which resulted in the ideal movement strategy for the boss fight. As a side note, I have discovered that, contrary to what I believed in my 2-Player run, the boss movement pattern is determined based on the frame that their HP loads into the ram. Previously I only believed this occurred for the last boss room and that the rest were determined by X-Value. What this means is that I can now control so that I have ideal boss movement on each boss. Less important but it is currently 00:04.32 seconds behind my published 2-Player run. This is due in part to the fact it takes 51 frames longer to enter the first building with 4 players and more importantly that there is an additional 307 frames of lag. Now that means that the first level is actually 99 non-lag frames faster than my 2-Player run which can be assigned to being able to use 4-Players to collect items, resulting in a more constant screen progression. A final interesting note that has no bearing on the quality of the run is the fact that at 6% of the way through the run I am already at 2274 rerecords whereas chupapi's run ended with a total of 5352. I can't be thankful enough for the creation of TAS Editor because I can't imagine what 2274 rerecords of a traditionally done 4-Player TAS would be like. I know for a fact that it would be miserable though because with these tools this is already quite frustrating at times. As always if you have any feedback feel free to let me know. I hope you enjoy and that I did enough to entertain throughout.

Posted: 7/15/2012 8:00 AM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1254)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Yeah, now I do feel the pace of the run! Link to video

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: 1/13/2013 7:38 AM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

After 6 months of being too busy to focus on a 4-Player run I present WIP2. I am now at 01:47.83 which is about 11% of the way through the run. I am currently 00:05.38 seconds ahead of the currently published 4-player run which gives me an estimated final savings of 46 seconds, which is much greater than my previous estimate. Hopefully I could break 15 minutes and 30 seconds but who knows how the rest of the run will progress. So far 35 frames have been saved from lag management whereas the rest has been saved through optimization and better route planning. As a side note this puts me 00:14.75 seconds behind my 2-Player run but that is to be expected as it contains almost 1000 extra lag frames from the 2 extra characters. I am hoping that this will be a start of a stretch of TAS'ing for me where I can knock this game out soon but as real life has been taking up a large percent of my time I wouldn't be too hopeful for the super near future. This is going to essentially double my highest re-record count and the lag amount is so damn high that is getting rough to stay with it. As always if you have any feedback feel free to let me know. I hope you enjoy and that I did enough to entertain throughout.

Posted: 1/1/2016 10:30 PM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (520)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

3 years later I have a new WIP3 for this game. I am now happy with it up to 03:01.50 which is right around an extra 1.25 minutes or about 5% further. Most of the delay from my last WIP to now is not having time to do TAS at all in the past few years, but also because every time I have started up this game I have rage quit because optimizing around the lag in this game is absolutely awful. NES was not designed for 4-player. At the end of the last completed level exit I am 00:07.73 seconds faster than chupapi's published run. That comes out to be an improvement of 4.42% which has held pretty steady so I'm still shooting for an eventual 47 second improvement if I ever am able to finish this project. Here is a complete breakdown of improvements so far. I was going to wait until I defeat the next boss before posting but the stupid bats in the last section keep turning around staying on screen much longer than in chupapi's run which adds in a ton of lag and I wanted to post in case I give up again for a while in case anyone from 3+ years ago is still curious about progress. Even copy-pasting in chupapi's input results the bats turning around and the excessive lag I am seeing. It appears to be based on the position of your character but not completely or else chupapi's input would work. I'm hoping to keep working on this but this part is really frustrating. If anyone has any feedback, sees any issues with the run, has knowledge about how these bats work, or any other comments on the run feel free to let me know. Hopefully I have another update before 2019.

Posted: 1/2/2016 1:41 PM

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Alyosha

He/Him

Editor, Emulator Coder, Expert player (3821)

Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2829
Location: US

Oh wow glad to see this is still being worked on, looking forward to seeing this finished, good luck with the lag.

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