Post by xebra

Posted: 11/1/2005 12:55 AM

Post subject: Starcraft

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flagitious

Player (201)

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511

Well it looks like rerecording is out now for n64, I am impressed I thought it would be a long while longer. I have never played the n64 version but I have played alot of the pc version over the years. It is my favorite game of all times. I don't know how similar the 2 versions are and what all can be done with this game with tools, but I am super excited just thinking about it. Has anyone else thought about it? Would people like to see it? Note I am not saying I will do it because I will be starting some contracting work soon and I don't know how much time that will take, but I am certainly considering diving into video game addiction again, even though I thought I was done for good. Once I get it running and toy around, I'll and post more.

g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}

Posted: 11/1/2005 4:30 AM

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nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1311)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

I didn't expect it to, but actually this game emulates pretty well. There are some tricks to getting it to do so, however: - Use Jabo's Direct3D8 1.6 for the graphics plugin - Set the Clear Mode to "Only per frame" in the Rom Settings of the video options (you may have to uncheck "Hide Advanced Settings" first) - Make sure Full-Scene Antialiasing is OFF in the video options (also make sure it is not forced on by your graphics card settings) - Expect it to use a lot of memory. If the game appears to freeze, that's probably because Mupen64 is trying to allocate 500 MB of RAM for it.

Posted: 11/1/2005 4:43 AM

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flagitious

Player (201)

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511

I just tried to get it working, and I after it loaded the game the screen was just black and nothing happened. I didn't see your tips then, so I will try them tomorrow. Also this comp isn't that great, about 800 mhz, and 128 mb of ram I think. Not sure if it is even possible with that kind of computer, but if not I have been considering getting a new one and this will just be one more reason to :) Playing SC with a controller will suck, but it is a fair handicap, since there is slow mo and rerecords :) I think there is a mouse for n64, but not sure if the emulator can handle it and if so if it can work with rerecords. But no worries, I am just glad there is an emulator with rerecords for n64 that works (for others at least, so far)

g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}

Posted: 11/1/2005 4:44 AM

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AnotherGamer

Former player

Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198

Kekekekekeke zerg rush! Well, someone had to say it.

Posted: 11/1/2005 5:09 AM

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Patashu

He/Him

Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4045

Maybe after the first movie is done we can make a second one consisting of as much/as many zerg rushes/ing as possible.

My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu

Posted: 11/1/2005 5:31 AM

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nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1311)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

Unless your graphics card is very incompatible, your computer should be able to handle the game... very slowly, though. I have more than twice the mhz and RAM as that, and it still takes up to 1 minutes for the game to load at the start (probably loading the (skippable) FMV sequence) and almost as long before and after every level. Once it's inside a level it's not nearly as bad, though. I'm guessing most of the slowdown is from heavy use of virtual memory caused by the graphics plugin trying to expand all the little textures and each frame of the movie clips in the game into memory, in triplicate. It's possible that using 16-bit color monitor settings will help. It's also possible that some other graphics plugins are faster despite looking terrible, which might be more efficient to use for actually making a run. (Note that it doesn't matter which graphics plugin it is recorded with for playing it back - plugins can be changed freely without affecting synchronization. The plugins are only stored in the movie and shown in the playback dialog as a hint for what might work well, not because it's necessary to use the same ones for playback.) As for the control in the game, it is joystick-based, but there seem to be built-in hotkeys that make it possible to do many things faster than could be done by moving the cursor over to do them.

Posted: 11/1/2005 8:01 AM

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Highness

Player (71)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

I'd love to see this game made. Actually I posted it in the wishlist as well. :) Someone get to it! I'm not a starcraft pro, so I won't be doing this one.

Posted: 11/1/2005 6:27 PM
(Edited: 11/1/2005 8:41 PM)

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flagitious

Player (201)

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511

This is sorta long so if you want brief version skip to end. Edit: ignore all stuff having anything to do with crashing, using jaba's 1.5.2 thing instead of 1.6 seems to have solved that problem. I installed the emulator on family comp, which is pretty fast and has 512mb of ram. I followed nitsuja's recommendations except I couldn't find "- Make sure Full-Scene Antialiasing is OFF in the video options (also make sure it is not forced on by your graphics card settings)" It crashes like a mofo in the screens where you select which race to use and such, but like you said once you're in the actual game it seems to run fine. So basically I just have to get into the game asap, which is coincidentally what needs to be done for a time attack anyways. I am not sure why it crashes, it could be that maybe it just asks for alot of ram and instead of using swap space good, windows just says good bye. Sometimes a window pops up saying there is an exception in processing the video or something, often this will happen before it crashes, but not always, and sometimes it won't crash even if that happens. I should try playing around with the settings more. Playing with the joystick isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. First of all I could just set the speed ridiculously high, which would be normally unusable but in slow mo just the thing we need. But actually even without this it wouldn't be a problem. Nintendo+Blizzard+Whoever did a great job making the game play on this port work. I don't know all the controls yet, but some examples of ways they got around the no keyboard + mouse are: -Making it so scvs automatically start mining minerals when they are born or when the game starts. -Instead of making you click on the building to build a unit there is a universal build thingy that you can get to by pressing R+Z, from here you can build any unit or building. But you can also do it the old fashion way too. -Some button to select all troops on the screen. (These I know from just playing the first boot camp level, so there are probably alot more). I actually wish that most of these were implemented in the PC version. I would guess that actually really high APM can be achieved if needed, instead of 6 APM, 600 APM is realistic (10 actions per second). This is rather speculative though because I don't know what it will be like going into battles in super slow mo with save states. I also don't know how much of an edge this will give in battles. I don't think there is any randomness, except the 70% high ground/behind tree accuracy thing, which should be heavily exploitable. Lastly there is one major flaw of this game, there is no clear cut run to do. This version actually has the brood war included in it, so there are 6 campaigns, as well as non campaign levels. Not sure if it is possible to setup a 7v1 though. There is a 2 player mode but I haven't tried to use it so maybe a 6v2 is possible. It is hard to see what else is available because it crashes so fast on me. It would take way too long to beat all 6 campaign's and it would probably get boring, even if it were done spectacularly. So one of the campaigns is a good option but which? And also I think cheat codes are useable in this so maybe we could just jump to some interesting level or something. Hope this wasn't too long for 1 post so I'll summarize: Crashes like mofo in selection, but once going works great, more toying around will do. Controls are actually really good. What should a time attack include (SC+BW campains, 1v7? etc)?

g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}

Posted: 11/1/2005 6:30 PM
(Edited: 11/1/2005 6:39 PM)

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TNSe

Emulator Coder

Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 453
Location: Norway

I request that you start by doing 2-3 of the first missions of the first campaign, and then request some feedback.

Posted: 11/1/2005 6:37 PM

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Walker_Boh

Former player

Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1276
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

Sounds awesome. This is yet another movie I can't wait for! For real! I don't know if it works in the N64 version of this awesome game, but to make things easier, but mainly funnier there is a trick to abuse. Atleast it works when playing a custom game vs some computers in the PC-version. Anyway, get a worker (scv, drone or probe depending on race) over to the enemy base and start tear down their buildings with the fearsome worker! In the PC-version all computer workers that is out and working, will now chase the poor worker you sent and thus be delayed heavily because of lack of income. Does this trick work in the N64 version? And in that case, I guess it should be used just as a cool thing, rather than to be abused to save a few frames or whatever ;)

/Walker Boh

Posted: 11/1/2005 6:41 PM

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Highness

Player (71)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

Why not then send two workers atleast? One as a decoy and one (or more) that can destroy the base? =D

Posted: 11/1/2005 6:44 PM

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Walker_Boh

Former player

Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1276
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

That could be an idea, but they don't really tear very fast ;) Of course it would save some time. If it works that is. I've never played StarCraft to N64 to be honest. But I've played it for PC for many many hours.

/Walker Boh

Posted: 11/1/2005 7:14 PM

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flagitious

Player (201)

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511

Highness wrote:

Why not then send two workers atleast? One as a decoy and one (or more) that can destroy the base? =D

Heheh well actually I remember reading somewhere that someone defeated a cpu using only 1 probe in 1v1 blood bath, took 15 minutes though because he had to constantly run from the scvs + distract scvs + attack command center.

g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}

Posted: 11/1/2005 7:42 PM

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Highness

Player (71)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

Haha! Cool. :) Something like that would be funny to watch.

Posted: 11/1/2005 8:44 PM

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Dada

Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

flagitious wrote:

Highness wrote:
Why not then send two workers atleast? One as a decoy and one (or more) that can destroy the base? =D
Heheh well actually I remember reading somewhere that someone defeated a cpu using only 1 probe in 1v1 blood bath, took 15 minutes though because he had to constantly run from the scvs + distract scvs + attack command center.

Yeah, it's possible if you're patient enough. The CPU tries to desperately attack you with all his worker units if you attack him without him having any other units. It's very simple to get a head start that way; just send a working unit to his base and attack. Then run away.

Posted: 11/1/2005 8:47 PM

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flagitious

Player (201)

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511

Switching video plugin to the 1.5.2 one seems to have fixed all crashing problems, it appears to run perfectly now. The game does not allow more than a 1v4. Starting with terran campaign seems natural but one of the earlier levels is one where the goal is to survive for 30 minutes. In the PC version on this level even if you defeat all enemies on the map, you still have to wait 30 minutes, which is rather amusing because there is all this dialog about being evacuated just in time, when there is not a single zerg in sight.

g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}

Posted: 11/2/2005 2:07 AM

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Blublu

Player (68)

Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjavík, Ísland

I made a fun little movie for this game. It starts a 1v1 Bloodbath match against the computer, and immediately rushes (and wins) with the workers. It's not extremely impressive (this can probably be done on the PC by a semi-skilled person), but it was harder to make than I thought it would be. http://fast.filespace.org/blublu/STARCRAFT_64_USA.m64 Everyone knows this: Z + control stick = scroll the map around R + C buttons = make a unit group Z + C buttons = select unit group L + D-pad = screen "bookmark" D-pad = select screen "bookmark"

Posted: 11/2/2005 4:02 AM

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flagitious

Player (201)

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511

Everyone knows this: Z + control stick = scroll the map around R + C buttons = make a unit group Z + C buttons = select unit group Thanks, I didn't. When I played the movie it desynched sometime during the battle.

g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}

Posted: 11/2/2005 4:18 AM

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Blublu

Player (68)

Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjavík, Ísland

Hmm. I can't get it to desync for me even after playing around with the settings some. You must either have a different emulator (I'm using alpha6) or a different rom. (At least I HOPE it's just one of those things.) Does anyone have a full list of ALL the button combinations of this game? I'm sure the ones I mentioned are not the only ones (they're just the ones I figured out while making that short movie).

Posted: 11/2/2005 4:58 AM

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flagitious

Player (201)

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511

Our roms had the same CRC32 and I think it is the same emu, downloaded from: http://www.filespace.org/nitsuja/mupen64-rerecording-v6-installer.exe I tried twice with a little different settings and it seemed to replay the exact same each time. For the hotkeys here are some I have noticed that aren't obvious (not mentioned in boot camp level): L, centers on last "action", equivalent of space in PC version Z, acts like shift, so you can use it to set way points or select more units. Z+L, hide/show minimap, kinda useless. If you hold A and then load a map bookmark, it won't select units, but if you press A+Z and then do that, it will select everything in that box, so you could use this to select all your units on the map quickly, if there are less than 19. Interestingly I don't think you can directly attack your own units/buildings in this version. Also no patrol command, not that it was that useful.

g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}

Posted: 11/2/2005 5:20 AM

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nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1311)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

It played back fine for me. Did you get any warnings at all when you tried to play it back, flagitious? About that movie: When you make a selection box to select units, wouldn't it be a lot faster to use the "select all nearby units" button instead? Also, I thought I saw a few places where the analog stick wasn't pushed 100% in any direction when moving the cursor across a distance, and some times where selection boxes were used to select single units when it wasn't necessary.

Posted: 11/2/2005 5:37 AM

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flagitious

Player (201)

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511

No I don't think so. I'll toy with it more tomorrow more now that I know it works for someone else at least. BTW does frame advance work or is my version just screwed up? When I press the fame advance button, whether paused or not, it actually makes it go really fast, and I can't stop it from going fast afterwards, I have to restart the emulator. Speed down + Speed up work fine though.

g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}

Posted: 11/2/2005 6:21 AM

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nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1311)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

Frame advance works for me (and several other people), but not for you or Ferret Warlord... What OS are you using? I'm wondering if the Windows code is somehow inadvertently requiring Windows XP. Also, I suppose there's still a slight possibility that it's the wrong ROM. When you go to Utilities->ROM Properties, is the MD5 checksum listed there 559F71B861F639B6376D891E3023414B ?

Posted: 11/2/2005 7:22 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

He/Him

Player (206)

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712

I'm using Windows XP, and for me the frame advance key also unpauses the game if it's paused and makes it try to go fast until I close the emulator.

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

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