Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6436
Location: The land down under.
InfamousKnight wrote:
Now, what do you mean by "hacks"?
Wow, it took you a whole year to respond to that comment.
Even when prompting the same question on the libTAS thread you got given a relatively close answer about it.
A hack is a hack, it's specific to the game for a specific game fix instead of trying to look into the code and determining why this is caused and if it pops up in other games (which it does).
Hacks are meant to be a temporary fix before being outright fixed (see: Dolphin who implement and remove hacks after solving the problem and have relatively low hacks, and better functionality).
Echoing Woops.
It's clear you haven't attempted to test PS2's rerecording functionality, it's like you're making others do the work for you.
And in that case I'll give an answer about PCSX2 TASing in a word. It's trash.
It's been trash since PCSX2 crew wanted to do nothing with TASVideos and it will be trash in the future since it's just an implementation they won't give proper time working on it.
Unlike Woops I can deal with dumping video by some lucky miracle. Like Christmas.
PCSX2 TASing can't be considered as a legitimate way to TAS as in order to use the damn thing you have to watch all the cutscenes and FMV sequences and then pray the ever loving shit that the piece of shit hack doesn't desync for no bullshit reason. As Sonic says "gotta go slow".
The other difference is I've been following this scene almost a year after it was conceived (after the declining of making it a TAS emulator).
I'll stay on my stance of stating that "PCSX2 didn't give a shit to begin with several years ago and that 'change of heart' now is way to late to get proper support and making it decent and reliable thanks to their decisions."
And I'll hold my stance of "waiting on the better emulator to become king, and won't require relying on plugins to hell and back and actually gives a shit in the long run for actual TAS useage like, oh shocker, I'm bringing it up again. DobieStation."
So bloody early into it's life and they already want to know how to make it a decently functional TAS emulator.
Meanwhile this emulator is 17 years old and it's still garbage.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 540
Location: Waterford, MI
I did test the rerecording functionalites on some early builds, and back then it was trash. Rng was nondeterministic(which from what I was told the upstream fixes that, so no need to splice segments anymore). Plus no tas input. Which was also implemted. So Ill test the upstream build sometime later.
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6436
Location: The land down under.
InfamousKnight wrote:
I did test the rerecording functionalites on some early builds, and back then it was trash.
See, here's the issue with your comment you're contradicting yourself and I'll show you:
Running Yuzu in libtasInfamousKnight wrote:
Anyone want to test it?
Something you could've done if you had Linux installed on your system.
Running rpcs3 in libtas
And here, you should've been able to test it yourself or see into the information instead of just going thread and done, like the Yuzu one.
And in comparison to the Yuzu one, well 2 months apart making it possible that you now have a LinuxOS (especially after the comment you left behind on DobieStation -- Here's the git build error you left behind).
And I'm ignoring everything else you wrote, cause simply put, I don't believe you on your comments.
Especially as they are on the past and you made a post on the present without checking it yourself, which led to two people to comment about the issues with the product.
My comment prior to yours has it summed up:
"It's clear you haven't attempted to test PS2's rerecording functionality, it's like you're making others do the work for you" by you stating you attempted on the earlier builds.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6436
Location: The land down under.
InfamousKnight wrote:
rpcs3 require high end pcs, which I dont have.
Check yourself, before you wreck yourself.
This is a low end system:
Link to video
As you can see by this low end system. It's still able to check and run a game, something you could've easily done.
You made an excuse.
I have a mid range system where some games run comfortably (Catherine, Payday, Hitman 2, Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon) and some games well even the HIGH END PCs can't even run at full speed (Tomb Raider (2013), Burnout Paradise).
Now let's turn our attention back to PS2 emulator development.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 540
Location: Waterford, MI
Wow, I did not know that. As for dobiestation not being tested, it doesnt have an sdl frontend, so I couldnt test it with libtas as it requires qt.
I have a mid range pc too, i5 series. So I might start testing some things now.
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 540
Location: Waterford, MI
Looks like the dobbie station project is in faster development now. Over 1000 commits!
Before it was in some pretty slow development which was a bit disappointing but thats
finally being sped up.
That day we see it being integrated into bizhawk will make me want to skip work! As in my real life job that keeps me alive :]
PCSX2 1.6.0 has been released.
https://pcsx2.net/293-pcsx2-1-6-0-is-out.html
TAS Tools are disabled for now to fix some issues. I hope we'll get them back in 1.7.0 and another platform will become more open for TASing. Regardless of its possible disadvantages, I wanna spend some time on some popular games.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Joined: 11/21/2019
Posts: 247
Location: Washington
It's a shame that the tools had to be disabled, but it'll be exciting when the bugs can be worked out and the PS2 library becomes more accessible for TASing. Unfortunately for me I've become accustomed to the power and convenience of TAStudio and I doubt that software like that will be available for PCSX2 too soon, but a good foundation is of course a good start.
I read this topic after jumping on reddit, github and other forums, looking for some improved PCSX2-rr version, or maybe an alternative emulator.
Looks like the problem goes far deeper than I imagined, since it's not only about the program itself, but also some "misdeed" PCSX2 dev team made to TASvideos... Idk.
Then I stumbled upon this comment.
Woops wrote:
I followed this PR for a couple of weeks before it was merged, and when I first saw it was I grabbed the latest binary to try it out.
I had planned to do some specific movement in Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness, just for showcasing that a TAS is now "possible"- unfortunately the emulator wasn't on my side.
First off the emulator is not user friendly at all- everything is scattered around and just doesn't feel "stable"
At first I couldn't figure out how to use the savestate hotkeys properly (thought it would be a separate hotkey for each slot, but apparently there's one hotkey for saving in the "current slot", one for reloading from the "current slot" and the last for choosing the "current slot"- this had me mixing up slots quite often and honestly got me frustrated from the first 30 minutes.
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There's some sort of fade in effect every time you reload a savestate- that was especially annoying when trying to skip the first FMVs and going through menus because every time I reloaded a savestate the screen would go blank (for the fade in effect)- I'd advance 1 frame to see if the FMV had started or not. I kept seeing a blank screen, advance 1 frame then save and reload sometimes. I kept seeing blank when the FMV wad actually running. Of course it went on until I reached about 2 seconds into the FMV before I realized what was happening- then I was taunted again by the menu which on has a fade in effect of its own which made it hell.
-
After getting through the menus and getting in-game the game played fine. Took me quite a bit of time to get about 20 seconds of gameplay (out of 2-3 minutes showcase) but I was done because the savestate system was just so frustrating. I try to replay the movie and, surprise: desync. About 5 seconds of gameplay went properly before a desync happened out of nowhere. I tried replaying the same movie from a savestate from after the desync spot and hit another desync after that...
-
I ended up just settling for the 5 seconds that actually worked-
"time to dump a video"~ Woops
"No."~ PCSX2
It crashed. Twice.
After fighting with it for some time I ended up trying a lossless avi, and it worked. Kinda.
It dumped audio and video into separate files- when joining these the audio wasn't in sync with the video. At that point I rage quit and deleted everything related to PCSX2.
-
Just wanted to share my experience with these new tools- and they are everything but useable.
As a TASer with hundreds of videos of experience on PCSX2, I found it quite funny.
But, since I only ever used PCSX2 to TAS, it was also "helpful", 'cause it gave to me an insight of other TASers habits and methods.
I'd like to share my personal experience with this guy, maybe it can help him like his helped me.
First off, PCSX2's TASing Tools are unreliable when TASing games that use analogs, like the one you tried. I can very easily TAS things like Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3, 'cause it uses only frontal buttons, mostly. But if I try to TAS - let's say - God of War, or Killzone, it just goes nuts.
Idk why but some games that use analogs almost kinda work (I tried Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and God Hand, they both make use of analogs and tend to desync, but short gameplays CAN be recorded, like I did here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IbJfbI7904). In anycase, desyncs aren't often permanent, this means that you can just reload the .ISO or the savestate and it will sync back. If it doesn't work, using another savestate should do the trick. If it doesn't, rebooting PCSX2 may work. If it still doesn't work, reboot the entire PC.
I saved several recordings that kept desyncing for unknown reasons by following these steps, and they often work. Other times I went for lucky fixes throught trial&error while game was running, but I was desperate. lol
Idk what does Woops meant when he said everything is scattered around, 'cause I usually need very few things to work with PCSX2. Again, it's probably a matter of habit, I'd like to know where is everything he needs in the other emulator he uses to TAS.
Ironically, I found absolutely unusable and incomprehensible BizHawk when I tried to just BOOT it to casually play a game. Habit, again.
I'm pretty sure PCSX emulators are meant to be used by more casual audience for casual playing, not pro TASers recording, that's what makes them this way.
The savestates hotkeys may be confusing, I know, but at the top of the PCSX2-rr windows there's clearly written which slot you're using (Idk if other emulators do this too), like "|Slot: 0|" and you know that you're currently saving or loading Slot 0. I also think there's a way to remap controls and bind keys differently, but Idk if it's inside the emulator as well or you need to tamper with the .ini files.
The fade-in effect is terrible, I know, it also ruins my recordings, but while on frame advance it lasts only 1 frame, during recording it takes several more, not to mention the fade away effect of game's audio.
I """resolved""" it by making savestates during blackscreens, or with some post-processing editing in Premiere Pro.
Desyncs are very common on games like TB:AoD, you can just keep trying, reloading and rebooting, or just record from scratch again. Sometimes records are just... damaged? And there's no way to get 'em working. But the next record may actually work no problem.
Why? Emulation's misteries.
The video dumping part got me. lol
Because I honestly never dumped a video from PCSX2-rr, not even once. Jeez, I didn't even think it was possible, was featured or required in an emulator.
I tried after reading your comment and it crashed. lol But I don't need it. I usually just pull off PCSX2 in fullscreen, launch the recorded file from a savepoint and record everything on screen using RadeonReLive or other programs.
So, by my personal, onesided and unexperienced TASer point of view, PCSX2-rr just works. Not fine, ok, but mostly depends by which game you're TASing and how you're doing it.
I know, now, how all this WoT will look like to the eyes of a experienced and seasoned TASer, grown on BizHawk and DeSmuMe: PCSX2-rr is a bootleg version of an actual TASing Emulator. And it really is. But my point is that, as long as we have no other option, we must play with what we have, and PCSX2-rr is still far better than nothing. I found a way, even if not really confortable or reliable, to do it, and that's a good start.
Idk what exactly happened between PCSX2 dev team and TASvideos.org, nor I want to judge/defend any of the two parts, but I feel like we should make our part to still show how much a reliable PS2 TASing emulator is needed.
I say so because, while I was searching for stable and newer releases of PCSX2-rr, I read several comments saying that no one cares enough about PCSX2-rr TASing Tools because they're aren't allowed anyway on TASvideos.org, which is the main site for TASes. So I asked myself if this would change whenever TASvideos.org's admins allowed it back.
Maybe with restrinctions or specific rules, or even with some tweaks to help preventing desync, but getting PS2 most famous games TASed on here would prob wake up the interest about this problem again?
Lastly, and I swear I'll stop, I also read that analog desyncing may be caused by the controller plugin used to inputs the commands. I'm currently testing if it's plugin's settings fault, the whole plugin, or maybe even if you can make it sync by using KeyEditor (yes, PCSX2-rr has it).
I'll come back to you after my testing is finished.
