Topic by Bablo

Posted: 3/12/2009 5:21 PM
(Edited: 3/16/2009 2:20 PM)

Post subject: How do you TAS?

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Bablo

Player (223)

Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 399

So I don't mean to ask whether you use a controller or keyboard or TASing, or what kind of game choices do you make, or how much time you spend on TASing a segment, etc. What I mean is: how do you get the TASing done? For example: *When I TAS, I always listen to either classical or jazz music. Ambient is okay too. It ultimately relaxes me, thus I'm able to concentrate better. *Another habit of mine is to have pen and paper always next to me. Firstly, I write there all the numbers down. Secondly, while trying to come up with a solution for something, doing something advances my thinking, even if it's drawing something abstract. *I also prefer TASing at night, because nothing can interrupt me. I "should't be doing something else", MSN isn't bothering me and dog doesn't need to go out. *I get dismotivated often so I have to get my hands on something else. That's why I'm TASing 2-3 games at the same time. When I get bored with one, I pick another and continue it for a while. This is why my TASes take a long time to get finished usually. So are you as neurotic as I am? Let's share it all. Edit: Since keyboard/controller and button hotkey choices seem to be pretty personal, it's not a bad idea mentioning them too. *I'm tasing with an xbox360 controller, even 2player tases. And frame advance is always on space bar. You can just imagine how hard it gets sometimes executing input.

<adelikat> I've been quoted with worse

Posted: 3/12/2009 5:34 PM

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Soulrivers

Former player

Joined: 12/27/2006
Posts: 532
Location: Göteborg, Sweden

Let's see. * I write all my frame numbers that need comparing or anything of that nature in a single notepad document. They make absolutely no sense to an outside viewer as I don't comment on anything, it's just numbers. :) * I use all ten savestates, but I have no system. Sometimes I overwrite the "good" state by mistake, which one time actually made me redo an entire level. Sucks, eh. * I rarely complete an entire TAS without taking a break somewhere. Usually it lasts around 2-4 weeks, but with my current one I'm on ... 5 months or so. * I can never TAS for long periods of time. Usually I do 1 hours blocks, with a lot more than that between the next block. * I hardly ever complete a single level without sending it to either Tompa or Swordless Link for review. Don't ask me why, they don't help much at all. >:| * NO MUSIC. It's kind of weird that I do that, because the fast forwarded (alternatively slowed down) music in games sounds like shit. I just can't concentrate with music in the background. That goes for everything in life, from reading to preparing dinner. * I whine a lot when something goes wrong. When I get a desync, I have a need to tell someone, usually #nesvideos. :( * As a continuation to the previous point, I need to tell someone I'm on a project. As always, it's often shared with #nesvideos. I just can't keep stuff like that a secret, not that I would want to ... really. More to come when I think of something.

My published movies [03:45:05] <Naohiro19> Soulrivers: ... [03:45:19] <Soulrivers> ? [03:46:35] <Naohiro19> <Soulrivers> No! <Naohiro19> So? <Soulrivers> Yes! [03:46:48] <Naohiro19> joke

Posted: 3/12/2009 5:39 PM

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Mitjitsu

He/Him

Banned User, Experienced player (532)

Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997

- I use notepad for writing notes down when making the run, but it's never saved because it will become irrelavent or I won't know what it relates to - I used to focus on one run at a time, but slowly I've began to TAS 2-3 games at the same time. All with different priorites to attached to them ,which is an aspect I feel many TASers lack on the site*. This stops me getting too demotivated if one run bogs me down. - Currently I'm working on 3 runs. I have one scheduled to be completed in a few weeks, thats if I can recover the input data from GENS. One scheduled for around the summer and the biggie around sometime in the later half of this year. - Always use Spacebar for FA - Use a controller for 2p TASing although this probably wouldn't apply to N64 games - Late evening/early hours of the morning is the best time I find to TAS - Always look for tricks and glitches in each area, never do the most obvious thing. As 80% of the time it's probably not the fastest method. - Do a lot of hex editing, this is probably because I rewatch my WIPS a lot *One person come to mind in particular

Posted: 3/12/2009 6:26 PM

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Cpadolf

Skilled player (1432)

Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden

- Most often I listen to music while working, it's usually bitpop, electropop or classical. - I try to focus on one run at a time but if it is a long one I tend to get bored with it after a while, at which point I usually try to find a shorter run I could do while gathering motivation (I think I finished 4 other runs while doing my SM 100% run). - I make use of all 10 savestates (and depend on it to the point that TASing on dega became impossible for me, because I didn't find hotkeys for that, only for changing which state you are using). 0 is usually not used for playing though, I try to make it so that it is within a minute or two to from where I currently am, and if there is a run I'm comparing too I use 9 for that run the same way I use 0 for the new run. - Whenever I am motivated to work on a run I can work for very long periods of time, often up to 3 hours. When I'm not though, I work for maybe 30 minutes at a time instead, but try to do so multiple times a day. - I use 7 on the numpad for frameadvance (out of habit), sounds pretty unusual to me so I thought it was worth mentioning. - Sometimes when I get really consumed by a run that I love to work on, I often come up with ideas for improvements in earlier areas when I'm trying to get to sleep. And if I do I always need to test it right away. - I don't take notes unless it is absolutely necessary. I can usually keep the necessary numbers in my head for as long as they are relevant, as they rarely are very complex or needs to be remembered for a long time.

Agare Bagare Kopparslagare

Posted: 3/12/2009 6:40 PM

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Mukki

Skilled player (1090)

Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom

- I never really use note pad. I always type my route out and type general observations as I test run, but when it comes down to recording my final copy I have most of this committed to memory. - I only ever TAS at night for varying lengths of time. Usually starting about 9-10pm until 1-2am. I'll usually have about two or three nights a week where I have this time, but may well get caught up with friends or there may be a movie/tv show I'd rather watch. - I HAVE to be listening to music. Sometimes it's as simple as just listening to the radio, but if there's nothing on I'll just listen to an album. I usually go for something relaxing and ambient like Bablo; jazz is a favorite, but blues and reggae also work well. - I do all my TASing on my laptop and usually in my bed because I'm lazy and it's awesome. - Although my sessions are fairly long I take a lot of thought time. I'll do something cool and then make a cup of tea or do some other chore while I dwell on it. - Anyway, when I finally get down to it; tunes on, rom loaded, play movie to current point (usually fast forward but sometimes I may want to watch my most recent work again), I always put a state 1 at the start of the current level/area to watch back read only, state 2 is always at the start of the current segment of the levelvso I can redo with a slightly different tact if need be and the rest of the states are just optimisation and comparison, I then load the RAM watch file and a comparison emulator and go for it. I use keyboard for everything other than Gens since you can assign frame advance to a shoulder button (joytokey doesn't let me hold FA to scroll at normal speed with the others). Frame Advance is always \ and I like to use quick save and quick load hotkeys if the emulator supports them.

http://tasvideos.org/Mukki.html

Posted: 3/12/2009 6:51 PM
(Edited: 3/12/2009 7:56 PM)

Post subject: And I'm passing the savings onto YOUUUUU!

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Dromiceius

Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332

I don't TAS, but I have a suggestion: use a personal Wiki like Tiddlywiki. It's great for organizing heaps of arbitrary information that you would otherwise lose or forget about. Things like routes, diassembly notes, and memory addresses would all be stored in a permanent, centralized location. Suspicions about glitches and things to investigate later can be jotted down and retrieved in a useful way. Since the entire wiki is contained in one HTML file, you can easily archive it until you need it again, (i.e., long after you've forgotten everything) or pass the wiki along to someone who wants to do an improvement. EDIT: AND IT'S NOT A GLUE! IT'S A SERIES OF TUBES! [/infomercial]

Posted: 3/12/2009 7:36 PM

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Rick

Former player

Joined: 6/25/2004
Posts: 607
Location: Maine

When I TASed, I kept the chat room up so I could get check times and chill out whenever I got working too hard and needed to take a break. I do a lot of memorizing of how many frames it takes the game to do various actions (jumping, screen transitions, etc.), and it cut down a lot of unnecessary re-records for me. I'm very trial-and-error, which is probably common.

http://wiki.rustedlogic.net/The_Cutting_Room_Floor The Cutting Room Floor wiki.

Posted: 3/12/2009 7:39 PM

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Sticky

Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: Minnesota

You know Dromiceius, more people would have listened to you if you had WROTE IN ALL CAPS, SO PEOPLE WOULD THINK YOU WERE YELLING!

adelikat wrote:

I very much agree with this post.

Bobmario511 wrote:

Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.

Posted: 3/12/2009 8:08 PM

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Soulrivers

Former player

Joined: 12/27/2006
Posts: 532
Location: Göteborg, Sweden

Sticky wrote:

You know Dromiceius, more people would have listened to you if you had WROTE IN ALL CAPS, SO PEOPLE WOULD THINK YOU WERE YELLING!

Off-topic but ... 0:37 in that video, I laughed so hard. ;D

My published movies [03:45:05] <Naohiro19> Soulrivers: ... [03:45:19] <Soulrivers> ? [03:46:35] <Naohiro19> <Soulrivers> No! <Naohiro19> So? <Soulrivers> Yes! [03:46:48] <Naohiro19> joke

Posted: 3/12/2009 9:11 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

1. I split about 50/50 between listening to music and not when I TAS; sometimes it'll help me keep my cool (I get frustrated pretty easily,) but sometimes it's just a distraction. 2. If I need to keep notes (comparisons between my run and another run, for example) I'll do that with Notepad. 3a. I'll use savestate slots 1-3 for my so-called quicksaves, and the rest for backups. 3b. If I'm using ZSNES, I don't need to maintain multiple savesates thanks to the ever-so-handy Rewind button. (Does any other emulator have something comparable to this yet?) 4a. I'll typically work on my TAS in spurts, going for about an hour, then playing it back to check the sync, then taking a quick break before going to work on it again. 4b. I may stop before an hour is up if I've hit a good breakpoint, like the end of a stage. 4c. If I'm using ZSNES, I'll check the sync a LOT more often. Accursed core randomness.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 3/12/2009 10:00 PM

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Dromiceius

Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332

Solon wrote:

3b. If I'm using ZSNES, I don't need to maintain multiple savesates thanks to the ever-so-handy Rewind button. (Does any other emulator have something comparable to this yet?)

"Comparable"? Maybe. I wrote a Lua script for snes9x 1.43 to imitate rewind/fast-forward buttons. Aside from crashing (the script itself; not the emu) occasionally for reasons I didn't bother to debug, it seemed to work as one would expect. The script is only a couple dozen lines of code, and I commented it as thoroughly as I could, so you may be able to work out a solution for yourself- more easily than redoing all those ZSNES desyncs, I mean. ;)

Posted: 3/14/2009 2:04 AM

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andymac

Experienced player (618)

Joined: 11/30/2008
Posts: 650
Location: a little city in the middle of nowhere

The only emulator that I know that runs backwards is nesDS for the ds. The music runs backwards and everything until about 20 seconds previously. I believe it does this without the use of savestates, because it needs to pause for about a second to make a savestate due to DS hardware restrictions or whatever, and there is no lag during normal play. There is no input recording though so it could not be used during a TAS. How I TAS: generally with a PS3 controller for input. I use (shift) f1-f8 for save state/load state. and I've always used \ for frame advance. When TASing N64, I use the mouse for the joystick interface and disable the joystick on the controller. it's kinda weird, but it worked for me. I'm always taking my hands on and off the controller to activate shortcut keys. For notes, I use a scrap piece of paper for music, it really doesn't matter for me, I can listen to the shit frame advance sound or music in the background. my first savestate is usually at the beginning of the stage and is only ever used as backup. My second state is used when I've advanced properly and in the fastest possible manner, all the other states have no system to them.

Measure once. Cut twice.

Posted: 3/14/2009 2:21 AM

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adelikat

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3600)

Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4739
Location: Tennessee

-NO Music. Though sometimes I like to have the TV or a good AVGN episode in the background. -I always have two emulators open, one with my TAS and one with a movie to compare to (either the published movie, or a previous test run). Each has a memory watch window open with relevant ram addresses -I meticulously record frame comparisons into a spreadsheet set up to auto-calculate comparisons. I also use this spreadsheet for all version of that TAS I've made, and put all my notes, as well as ram mapping into it. -In the past I typically worked on 2-4 TASes at once. If one gets tedious or I'm just stuck, I switch to another. -I TAS morning, or nights, or afternoons, depending. Mornings is by far the best for getting things done.

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

Posted: 3/16/2009 1:39 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

He/Him

Active player (278)

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712

I would normally leave on the game sound all the time, even for frame advance, since it can be helpful to know whether a certain sound effect has played, and the position of the music helps remind me how long it's been past some checkpoint (meaning, "The less I've heard of this song before I get to the door, the faster I must have been!"). The only reasons I don't do so always are because my new headphones get uncomfortable after a while and because game sound at different speeds can be irritating to listen to. I don't think I ever put on some other music, because I would feel as if I'm in some kind of race to finish what I'm working on before the end of the song.

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

Posted: 3/16/2009 4:11 AM

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Kyman

Editor, Active player (430)

Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 706
Location: Canada

- 75% of the time music. Sometimes I just forget. - I don't use notepad for frame counts and things, I just use my memory. - I always get thirsty when I TAS (wtflol) so I usually have a bottle of water near me. - I usually TAS whenever I feel like it, no specific time of day. - My save states are just random, sometimes overwrite things I didn't want to overwrite. - Frame advance is shift. Save slot 1 is 1, load slot 1 is F1 Save slot 2 is 2, load slot 2 is F2 etc.

Live Streams

Posted: 3/16/2009 9:15 AM

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nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1301)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

I never mute the game's sound, since hearing it is really important to me for several reasons, but I usually listen to other music at the same time. I find that works best when the music fits the general mood of the game. I used to type a bunch of frame counts into a text document with hyphens in-between so that I could copy any two of them and paste into calc.exe to get the time difference. Lately I've mostly replaced that with using Lua scripts that show visually how far I am from all the other savestates and from the other movie I'm comparing against (with some way of resynchronizing per level or per screen). There's often no need to time things out when I can plainly see which attempt is faster even while a new attempt is being made. On the other hand, sometimes I have to stop and write down some equations and solve them before continuing, since I can't be sure I've gotten close to the fastest method otherwise. Probably not nearly as much as people that do RPGs and such, but sometimes it even applies to short-term goals in action games. For example, I found this in my notes: "SOLVE: find x and y such that 1303*x*y - 23*x*x*y >= 64640 with minimal ((x+1)*y)" [and x and y must be integers]. It was for figuring out the fastest way to jump up a ladder. I think 1303 was the initial jump velocity, 23 the gravity, 64640 the height of the ladder, x the number of frames to hold down the jump button per jump, and y the number of times to grab the ladder. (The solution revealed that the fastest way to climb the ladder involved making much shorter jumps than I would have guessed. Also, I wish I could remember the correct way to solve that sort of equation, instead of having to write a program to brute force it...)

Posted: 3/16/2009 12:14 PM

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upthorn

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Active player (388)

Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 1802

I also always leave the game's sound on, because it can contain useful in-game information, but I usually listen to other music at the same time, only turning it off when I'm really absorbed in the TASing process and want to eliminate all distractions. I've never bothered with typing frame counts into a text document. If there's a reasonable TAS to compare my effort to, I'll just have it open in a second copy of the emulator, and advance the two movies by the same amount, advancing the comparison movie to catch up when my improvement effort reaches a good comparison point ahead of it. When more information, (like knowing the solution to a formula) would be helpful, I usually write a hack into gens to help me with that (although I'm hoping now to be moving away from that and more toward Lua scripting). I make use of all 10 savestates, although it's rare for states 6-8 to get used. My system is that 0 is the start of a level, 1 is the start of the current section of the level, 2 is for testing the optimal start time for things like jumping, 3 then tests the optimal time for something dependant on 2, like releasing the jump button, or rolling into a ball on the downward surface of a loop. Then 4 is dependant on 3, 5 is dependant on 4, and so on until 7. When I get a result from all this, I save it in slot 9, and then try reaching the same comparison point in a different way. If it's faster it replaces slot 9. On rare occasions I will also end up using slots 8 and 7 for comparisons, although I cannot currently think of a case that would require me to do this. Then, when I finish the game, if I haven't TASed it or something similar before, I'll usually start over from scratch using all the techniques I've discovered in the process. Repeat until I make a full run without discovering techniques that could be useful before I discovered them. I usually only have one TAS project at a time, although when I got really demotivated on Ecco 2, I ended up completing three other TASes before coming back to it.

How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

Posted: 3/16/2009 1:19 PM

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MUGG

Editor, Expert player (2316)

Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3856
Location: Germany

*Music: There's only the TV in the background and the game is not mute. No additional music. *Notes: I use a sheet of paper as a mouse pad, and I just use that when I need to write down frame numbers. *Savestates: I use all of them. #1, #2 being my back-up savestates. #7, #8 and #9 being my solutions I already found. I overwrite these when finding a faster solution. *Frequency: I used to TAS everyday, but nowadays... maybe 3 times per week. *time of day: Evening. I often end up having to end the TASing session because I need to go to bed. >_> *number of projects: I currently have 3 active projects (like Kirby Amazing Mirror), and about 5 low-priority projects I randomly started (like Yoshi's topsy turvy). But I never work on two games at once. *assigned keys: Frame advance: W A: A B: S L: E R: R Start: Num7 Select: Num9 *Somehow, after posting a WIP, I'm getting really demotivated and can't continue for a long time. So I'm trying not to post any WIPs anymore. (edit: this doesn't apply if I'm already demotivated.) *Since I'm so demotivated these days in general, I often end up just watching my WIPs but not continuing them.

Youtube • Livestream • Progress 11th TASer of the Decade 2010-2019 !

Posted: 4/3/2009 11:01 PM

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legoking831

Former player

Joined: 3/16/2009
Posts: 42
Location: In the USA, nowhere else.

I've just started expert TASing, and before then, I used to run the game at 50% speed while only making use of 1 save state. Because I never paused the emulator to save, I made careless mistakes without fixing them. Times have change nowadays. I only use this method in test runs now. I NEVER listen to music while TASing. In fact, if you make the sound get lower pitched when slowed down instead of being correct, it actually sounds kinda nice :-) I use frame advance in almost every tas. When I have to wait, I unpause the emulator and use fast forward, which is mapped to ~/`. I make use of two save slots. One is used when I know I'm taking the right path, while the other is used when I'm not sure about something(like if I manipulated like correctly) When you use buttons to skip through menus, I alternate buttons because I obviously don't want to count how many frames until I can skip. In a 1P controls 2P TAS, I use 1P on the keyboard and 2P on my Xbox 360 controller.

Lego is awesome!

Posted: 4/3/2009 11:04 PM

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Comicalflop

Editor, Experienced player (730)

Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA

Sometimes I use my chin.

☣ Homepage ☣ Retired

Posted: 4/4/2009 6:30 PM

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Cardboard

Skilled player (1671)

Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden

I sit on my chair and press keys on the keyboard until desired result is met.

Warp wrote:

omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!

Posted: 4/5/2009 3:45 AM

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jaysmad

Other

Experienced player (834)

Joined: 12/1/2006
Posts: 629
Location: Mom's

- I like to smoke a big doofus when i TAS. - I TAS at night on the week-ends, when i have nothing to do the next morning. So i can work many hours. - If im trying to beat a run, i will have 2 emulators open to see my time compared to the existing run. - I always have memory watcher turn on. - I sometimes have music on, usually psy trance or i'll just have the television in backround but i always mute game sound. Playing midi tunes frame per frame can really drive you nuts.

Posted: 5/29/2009 8:48 PM
(Edited: 5/29/2009 8:55 PM)

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

After doing some work on a SMW hack (The Second Reality Project Reloaded) I've learned not to listen to music while I do higher-level TASing; it's too much of a distraction. This work has also taught me that ZSNES's lack of Memory Watch (plus the desync problems) is a fatal blow to using it for high-level TASing. ALSO:

Cardboard wrote:

I sit on my chair and press keys on the keyboard until desired result is met.

"I'm sorry, that's not vague enough for me. Can you be a little less specific?" --Ryudo, Grandia II

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 5/29/2009 8:54 PM

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pirate_sephiroth

Active player (309)

Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil

Music is great for inspiration, especially metal or dance. I usually turn off the game's own sound,... that's a distraction.

"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate

Bisqwit wrote:

Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.

Posted: 5/30/2009 3:22 AM

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applepieman

Former player

Joined: 10/6/2007
Posts: 86

-Load up the emulator/ rom and then start TAS -load up some youtube pages for various music playlist -usually TAS at night time -make use of all 10 savestate slots -once I finished my first playthrough of stage the entire game or playthrough I start a new one This is where I do something different I have TWO of the same emulator running the same rom up at the same time, one of them being my first playthrough and the other being my second playthrough (the TAS I'm working on) I make it like a competition for myself, watch the first TAS until a certain frame (such as going to a new area/screen/killed a particular enemy/etc.) and see if I can beat that time on my second tas. It works out really well.