I was under the impression BizHawk's GBA emu isn't ready yet. No, this has not been tested.
...But I rather not use an emulator I'm not familiar with and confident in when it's about TASing a game on a high level.
If however, someone is willing to rewrite my lua script for bizhawk, if there is a memory reader (where I can directly edit values) and memory search, and if Mario&Luigi is confirmed working with no emulation issues, then I will take another look at it.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Bizhawk's the preferred emulator for GBA now that GBAHawk is more functional. It uses the VBA-Next core, which as far as I can tell is based off of VBA-M, so it doesn't seem like the behavior would be too different.
Then again, I'm probably wrong on all this.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Just a question? Why everyone uses BizHawk for GBA? I mean, is there anything it adds between VisualBoyAdvance worth to migrate on BH?
Current:
Rayman 3 maybe? idk xD
Paused:
N64 Rayman 2 (with Funnyhair)
GBA SMA 4 : E Reader (With TehSeven)
TASVideos is like a quicksand, you get in, but you cannot quit the sand
I've gotten the game to run successfully in Bizhawk 1.8.2 (newest version on Sourceforge). Now I'm curious about adjusting my luascript. Please see this topic.
Current:
Rayman 3 maybe? idk xD
Paused:
N64 Rayman 2 (with Funnyhair)
GBA SMA 4 : E Reader (With TehSeven)
TASVideos is like a quicksand, you get in, but you cannot quit the sand
Honestly, I don't really know why its preffered, yeah maybe its more comfortable than VBA, but considering the fact that VBA is more than 10 years old being developed, I harldy see why.
Honestly, I don't really know why its preffered, yeah maybe its more comfortable than VBA, but considering the fact that VBA is more than 10 years old being developed, I harldy see why.
Bizhawk uses a VBA-based core for GBA games, not something independently developed.
Honestly, I don't really know why its preffered, yeah maybe its more comfortable than VBA, but considering the fact that VBA is more than 10 years old being developed, I harldy see why.
Bizhawk uses a VBA-based core for GBA games, not something independently developed.
Is it accurately emulated? The sound emulation wasn't to much accurate last time I heard it.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
When I looked it up, it said Bizhawk's VBA-Next core is a fork of VBA-M, so it should at least be AS accurate as VBA-M, if not more. The sound emulation bugs with Hachiemon and this game are fixed in the newest version, so that's not an issue anymore.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
English: Press L 12 times, hop off, Press L 2 times
As my EDIT said, on vba-24m this takes 12 L presses and only 1 subsequent L press. I did test this at least three times so it isn't random skipping ahead.
If not too much trouble, please also describe or post your pastebins so I know what you do in certain situations:
- What do you do in Teehee Valley in order to skip past the rock towards Popple/Birdo?
- What do you do in order to enter the exitway in Bowser's Castle? Do you have to cycle through all glitch commands after you "barrel hop" on Luigi or is there away to prevent that?
- What do you do to perform both "hat clips"/"huge skips" in Teehee Valley? How many L presses etc.?
- What do you do in the 2nd room after entering the yellow pipe towards Popple/Birdo? I saw there was a video for it - are you aware of it? Do you do the same thing as in the video?
Testing all these on emu will help me see if they're doable and how severe the differences are. Also in the future, I want to try to optimize those tricks if possible.
I'll make videos with descriptions later.
1st Rock Skip @ Guffwha ruins
I have high jump from initial setup of action command glitch.
High Jump on Luigi
Press L 13 times to get glitch hammer, hammer Luigi
Press L repeatedly until high jump appears (I don't know how many times, it always varies on console)
High Jump on Luigi
Press L repeatedly until high jump appears again
High Jump on Luigi
Press R 21 times then hop off
Luigi should have Barrel Break, Press A
Swap Bros, switch back Luigi to High Jump
Jump on Mario then back off
Swap Bros
Jump over the rock using Mario's High Jump (just hold right and press B twice)
Once over the rocks swap the bros
Switch back Luigi to Hammer, use Hammer twice
Camera will be restored once front Mario jumps
back Mario will have High Jump, you'll want to keep this for Fungitown skip
Fungitown Hat Clip
High Jump on Luigi
Press L repeatedly, once I feel enough time has passed I slow down
Once the first high jump appears, press L 11 times (on console I look for six high jumps to appear and press L once after the sixth one, as IDs can get randomly skipped)
Get Glitch Hammer and hammer Luigi into the ground
Press L repeatedly until you get High Jump, then you can perform the skip
Once you get across the wall, High Jump on Luigi
Press R 21 times to get Barrel Break, then jump off
Press A then swap the bros and hop on the elevator with Mario leading
I do barrel break instead of giving Mario barrel hop because it's faster for Mario to have High jump for the next skip
2nd Rock Skip @ Teehee Valley
Go up to the sign in Teehee Valley main lobby
High Jump on Luigi
Press R 21 times to get barrel break
Break out of barrel to make Luigi's action empty
Walk up to sign
Swap the bros
Press L 10 times
Swap the bros, walk away from the sign
High jump on Luigi then hop off
Swap the bros and press L twice to get Luigi Spin Jump (needed for last part of Big Skip)
Walk up to rock, High jump on luigi
Get glitch hammer in the same way you get it on Fungitown skip
Do the rock skip the same way as the one at Guffawha ruins from here
The only difference is instead of Luigi High Jumping on Mario he uses Spin Jump instead (This is very important as it allows you to high jump facing upward as Mario to get over the rock)
Once you get over the rock swap the bros so you can enter the transition
Big Skip @ Teehee Valley
Follow Fungitown skip until you get across the wall
Once across the wall, High Jump on Luigi and jump up in the air to restore normal movement
High jump on luigi again, press L until a high Jump appears then press L 15 more times (or on console count 8 high jumps and press L one more time)
Jump off Luigi, then press L twice to get barrel hop
Turn Luigi into a barrel to restore him to normal
Once you get in the room that requires the torch to be lit, Jump on top of Mario with Luigi Spin Jump
Press R twice and hop off to give front Mario Firebrand.
Keep Spin Jump on Luigi until you get the Red Peppers, barrel hop on Mario is needed for the Bowser Castle skip
---
I hope I was descriptive enough. It's hard to count button presses on console when there's a lot of L mashing and when the number varies due to random action ID skipping.
Here is my finished lua script for Bizhawk. http://pastebin.com/VbFuv1rx
In the next days I want to compare between console, Bizhawk, VBA and altabiscuit's descriptions to see how the glitch behaves in the English version on those systems.
I have already updated my script. http://pastebin.com/VXdq7UsF
Did you know that Bizhawk doesn't stretch the game screen to the window but instead leaves black space, and lua stuff gets output on that space? Doesn't work with the "draw" functions though (lines, pixels, boxes still have to be drawn inside the game screen).
I abused this behavior so I wouldn't have to worry about preventing visability by putting too much information on the screen. I re-organised everything above the game screen, and added an item display which can be expanded by clicking.
Separation lines were done by using many " | ".
I should really be done with this now, so I will hopefully get to actually testing/verifying the glitches this weekend. Most probably will be livestreaming too.
What I can say from today's livestream:
- Bizhawk and VBA24m seem to emulate things the same. Which means any slight emulation errors are on both those emulators.
- Sign glitch ("exclamation action command") also works with people ("speaking action command"), but doesn't give Mario an X so you can't get firebrand...
- I tried Peach Speech glitch again for a bit on EU version, gameboyplayer. Outcomes were mostly silent or loudnoise crashes, sometimes yellow stars appearing. Nothing special really. It would still require hours of more testing before I could make an assumption if the glitch was emulated correctly or not in VBA.
- I kind of try to find new glitches in the early game. If you could get blank action command earlier, you could skip more of the game in the beginning.
- If Front Luigi has blank command, and walks in the eastern part of the town, at the pillar thing that blocks your way, from the left side, he gets "speaking command" for no apparent reason. This doesn't happen if you walk at the other pillars in the other rooms. There might be some kind of "invisible NPC" there.
- Complete documentation about comparison of the glitches between US/EU/JP and console/VBA/Bizhawk will be posted later.
In his 1:26:25 video (US, console), the room before Popple & Birdo, altabiscuit lets Luigi spinjump on Mario and presses R to acquire "firebrand" for Mario in order to light the torch and open the door.
In a TAS this spinjump could be canceled at a corner. That means, you could walk out of the yellow pipe and around the corner, start spinjumping, press R while Luigi's spinjump is blocked by the yellow pipe's ceiling. So I could immediately move on and have "firebrand".
But VBA/Bizhawk emulate the glitch wrong and pressing R does not yield firebrand and other such commands that are at the beginning. Instead, pressing R will always go to ID 128 which is nearby "emerge", so it skips "firebrand".
I will have to rely on a 1 frame trick found by vlackSR which will cost a few frames because Luigi's spinjump won't be stopped by a ceiling now.
---
"Sign glitch" will probably be a few frames faster because part of the glitch requires you to press L 10 times on console but only 4 times on emulator.
If US or EU version is used, more frames are going to be saved in "sign glitch" because part of the glitch requires you to press R 15 times on console but only 1(+2 subsequent) or 2(+1 subsequent) times on emulator.
---
I'm really concerned about these differences. I was especially concerned about the difference at room before Popple & Birdo because I thought "firebrand" couldn't be acquired to open the door and now I have to rely on a fallback strat due to inaccurate emulation...
*****
If we could clip into the loading zone here it might be possible to save a bit of time (the time save is not confirmed).
---
I looked at memory addresses that might be related to the status of Mario and Luigi (such as "underground", "barreled", "full of water" etc.). So far I've come up with these for Front Mario:
02006e20
is 01 if Front Mario is normal
is 28 Front Mario small
02006E7D
FrontMario's height?
10 is small
20 is big
This value is used to determine how high Luigi will jump when attempting to highjump on Mario.
02006f63
08 if small
00 if big
03002414
9b if bros can be switched
9a if not
controls the relationship of the brothers in the overworld, if action command graphics are big or small or can be used or not (?) and where the bros are facing etc.
03002418
action command that is forced onto front mario (such as
02 !
01 talk
00 none
if nonzero, cannot switch action commands.
03002452=
CA small front mario
C2 big front mario
---
TODO:
-testing remaining glitches on remaining systems and versions, to finish my documentation.
-maybe some test TASes of sorts but I might be too lazy to do those...
http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/GBx/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga.html
This page is nearly finished. I added a ton of information and tried to explain it well. It is still hard to imagine that a newbie would come along and understand my "action command glitch" step by step explanations but at least the videos might help understand things better. Feel free to give feedback and if you see errors, please PM me or post about it here.
http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/GBx/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga.html
This page is nearly finished. I added a ton of information and tried to explain it well. It is still hard to imagine that a newbie would come along and understand my "action command glitch" step by step explanations but at least the videos might help understand things better. Feel free to give feedback and if you see errors, please PM me or post about it here.
Is the credits glitch ACE, memory corruption or something?
I don't know.
EDIT: It could be both of those. I have seen that the glitch will randomly give you items and more and more money, sometimes going up to 9999 coins within 50 frames... It matters if you hold buttons or not while the glitching occurs.
Also, it seems again to be one of those glitches that can desync. For example, I load a savestate right before the glitching occurs and press nothing afterwards. There are two different outcomes that can happen. The glitch is not 100% deterministic. This is the case in VBA.
In Bizhawk, I have done next to no testing but the glitch has always frozen the game and done nothing else so far for me. On console nothing very special has happened yet either. That's why I assume all the strange glitching that happens on VBA is an emulation issue. It would nevertheless be nice if someone could look into the memory to understand what the glitch does. Because I tried and can't figure it out.
jlun2 wrote:
I just had a thought. For "console", does the gameboy player for gamecube act the same for this game as the GBA regarding the glitches?
Today I found a very minor 1 frame thing.
Position the brothers in a straight line and let the back brother use hammer or hand 1 frame after you change direction.
I don't really have any new ideas for new glitches or tricks that could save time in the early game. So maybe I'm going to start route planning (which items to collect etc.) soon.
@altabiscuit:
With spinjump on Luigi, how many L presses do you need to acquire Barrelhop. Or how do you do Joke's End Early?
You cannot acquire barrelhop with Luigi's spinjump in Bizhawk and VBA24. If you say it is possible on console, then this is a rather serious emulation problem. Not affecting the TAS but still...
Is Luigi hat clip to Fungitown the same as to Birdo? Or is there a crucial difference?
@jdaster64 / llproductions2006:
You have posted this formula for the minimum damage that Chopper Bros deals:
1. Test "2nd Guffawha Rock Skip" on VBA/Bizhawk/console between US/JP/EU
2. Test "Luigi's Hat Teleport" on VBA/Bizhawk/console between US/JP/EU
3. Test "Rock skip after Birdo" on VBA/Bizhawk/console between US/JP/EU (this is going to be the same as 1st Rock skip? Or another trick? I saw someone made a video specially for this which I will look at when testing.
4. Test "Joke's End Early" on VBA/Bizhawk/console between US/JP/EU
5. Test "Popple & Birdo door skip" on VBA/Bizhawk/console between US/JP/EU
6. Test "1st Rock Skip" on console between US/JP/EU
7. Test Action Command Glitch between GB Player, GBA, DS just in case there are differences...
8. Post all results
9. Route planning
10. TASing
In the next days I want to compare between console, Bizhawk, VBA and altabiscuit's descriptions to see how the glitch behaves in the English version on those systems.
I should really be done with this now, so I will hopefully get to actually testing/verifying the glitches this weekend. Most probably will be livestreaming too.
---
"Sign glitch" will probably be a few frames faster because part of the glitch requires you to press L 10 times on console but only 4 times on emulator.
If US or EU version is used, more frames are going to be saved in "sign glitch" because part of the glitch requires you to press R 15 times on console but only 1(+2 subsequent) or 2(+1 subsequent) times on emulator.
---
I'm really concerned about these differences. I was especially concerned about the difference at room before Popple & Birdo because I thought "firebrand" couldn't be acquired to open the door and now I have to rely on a fallback strat due to inaccurate emulation...
*****
If we could clip into the loading zone here it might be possible to save a bit of time (the time save is not confirmed).
---
I looked at memory addresses that might be related to the status of Mario and Luigi (such as "underground", "barreled", "full of water" etc.). So far I've come up with these for Front Mario:
02006e20
is 01 if Front Mario is normal
is 28 Front Mario small
02006E7D
FrontMario's height?
10 is small
20 is big
This value is used to determine how high Luigi will jump when attempting to highjump on Mario.
02006f63
08 if small
00 if big
03002414
9b if bros can be switched
9a if not
controls the relationship of the brothers in the overworld, if action command graphics are big or small or can be used or not (?) and where the bros are facing etc.
03002418
action command that is forced onto front mario (such as
02 !
01 talk
00 none
if nonzero, cannot switch action commands.
03002452=
CA small front mario
C2 big front mario
---
TODO:
-testing remaining glitches on remaining systems and versions, to finish my documentation.
-maybe some test TASes of sorts but I might be too lazy to do those...
I don't really have any new ideas for new glitches or tricks that could save time in the early game. So maybe I'm going to start route planning (which items to collect etc.) soon.
