Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Is there a setting somewhere that would prevent the game from writing anything to the hard drive? I've encountered at least one game that would require the movie maker to delete a file every time after playback to ensure synchronization. You can see how that would get tedious.
There was some discussion about and proposed solutions to this problem in Issue 5.
I'm a new user to the forum and I have to say Hourglass is an impressive tool. That said, I've been trying to use Hourglass to record a movie of the game Temporal and while Hourglass basically works, I can't get it to record the game's audio.
Silence of the Chicks, another game from the same author, also has some issues when used with Hourglass; the game runs in fullscreen and I can't switch back to the Hourglass window even if the game is paused.
Other Allegro based games are also hard to get to work with Hourglass, in particular if the games run in windowed mode.
I know getting all games to work is not an easy task for the Hourglass developers but I hope these games can eventually work.
just downloaded latest version (r81) and tried running Rotate Gear, but it won’t understand input… one of the early versions of Hourglass worked with it
just downloaded latest version (r81) and tried running Rotate Gear, but it won’t understand input… one of the early versions of Hourglass worked with it
RotateGear (rg_105) still works fine for me. I even tried on a Windows 7 x64 system with r81 and it worked. Make sure you're hitting Record and not Play, and make sure the "Paused" box isn't checked in Hourglass after you press some buttons. Try waiting until it says "Action Love!", then press Z or X.
Billy Johnson wrote:
I've been trying to use Hourglass to record a movie of the game Temporal and while Hourglass basically works, I can't get it to record the game's audio.
This game indeed doesn't work yet in Hourglass, and I think it has bigger problems than just the audio (such as desync issues). Allegro games are a little difficult to support properly, but I think it's definitely possible to do it, especially because the Allegro engine is completely open-source and there are open-source games written with it, so it shouldn't be as much of a guessing game as usual.
just downloaded latest version (r81) and tried running Rotate Gear, but it won’t understand input… one of the early versions of Hourglass worked with it
RotateGear (rg_105) still works fine for me. I even tried on a Windows 7 x64 system with r81 and it worked. Make sure you're hitting Record and not Play, and make sure the "Paused" box isn't checked in Hourglass after you press some buttons. Try waiting until it says "Action Love!", then press Z or X.
I do “Run and record new movie”, Hourglass isn’t paused (I wouldn’t hear the music nor would it go through the menus, would it?), but pressing Z or X does nothing… I don’t understand why… :/ it still works fine with Ninja Senki
where can I find an older version of Hourglass…? I’ve deleted mine when I downloaded r81
I’ve tried downloading a clean RG 1.05 but that didn’t help either
where can I find an older version of Hourglass…? I’ve deleted mine when I downloaded r81
They're all still on the downloads list.
ALAKTORN wrote:
I’ve tried downloading a clean RG 1.05 but that didn’t help either
I'm noticing some weird problems with it now. It runs fine from the directory I normally work from, but if I move Hourglass to a different directory, RotateGear freezes on startup. I'll try debugging it... hopefully it's related to the problem you're having.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2174
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
This is a thought I've had for about a week, and I decided to post it in case it will help in some way:
Somewhere off in the far future I am guessing we will be able to TAS commercially released games. Some of these games run better with older versions of DirectX than 9.0c (or higher for those who have Vista / 7). Is it anywhere feasible / possible to make Hourglass able to handle several different versions of DirectX?
A great example of a game that runs better on older DirectX versions is Tiberian Sun that utilizes glitches in the DirectX version it was developed for. With DirectX 9.0c (and higher) it crashes randomly because some objects use illegal methods for drawing outside the screen etc.
Hyper Princess Pitch works fine with Hourglass. No surprise as it uses the same engine as Iji.
Anyway, I been thinking about doing a TAS of Hyper Princess Pitch in the ReallyJoel's Mom difficulty. I was able to reach room 5 in Stage 1 but I guess it's impossible to reach the boss room. Too bad; it would've been nice.
To get the hang of hitboxes, booster timing, etc. for a non-TAS run, I tried running Cave Story+ using Hourglass r81 on Win7 x64, but all it did was open a new window for the game and then hang with 100% usage of one processor.
Here's my Hourglass log: http://furoticon.com/hourglasslog.txt
Thanks! :)
I apologize if it has already been asked, but is it possible to disable mouse input in Hourglass for games that doesn't require you to use the mouse to play? Like Dink Smallwood for example.
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential.
Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
It was mentioned in the IRC that Tyrian didn't emulate under any rerecording emulator. BUT, OpenTyrian (http://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/) seems to work fine under hourglass!
Koumajou Densetsu behaves quite strangely in Hourglass. The game itself runs at 60 FPS, but the input is delayed. Plus, the BGM plays in slow-motion. The resulting input file is only ~50 frames long for ~40 seconds of gameplay (I should note that I set the FPS in the Hourglass window to 60).
Hourglass log
Secondly, Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object has some issues with the BGM in Hourglass (it only plays the first few seconds of a song indefinitely). Plus, the game claims to run at 75 FPS in-game, which is 25% faster than usual (the game normally runs at 60 FPS) (again, I set the FPS in the Hourglass window to 60).
Hourglass log
Note: Both games are updated to their respective latest versions. I used Hourglass r81 with default settings. I should note that the games run just fine outside of Hourglass. I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium x64.
Secondly, Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object has some issues with the BGM in Hourglass (it only plays the first few seconds of a song indefinitely).
Eversion seems to have the same problem. But it has the additional problem that all other sounds (jumps etcetera) are looped as well, resulting in horrible noise by the time you reach the end of a level.
where can I find an older version of Hourglass…? I’ve deleted mine when I downloaded r81
They're all still on the downloads list.
ALAKTORN wrote:
I’ve tried downloading a clean RG 1.05 but that didn’t help either
I'm noticing some weird problems with it now. It runs fine from the directory I normally work from, but if I move Hourglass to a different directory, RotateGear freezes on startup. I'll try debugging it... hopefully it's related to the problem you're having.
I downloaded r35 and both Rotate Gear 1.05 and Search Light 1.02 work correctly, in r81 Rotate Gear doesn’t understand in-game input, and with Search Light it understands the arrow keys for movement, but not Z for selecting
edit: ah right, for Green Island r81 just says that the game crashes when opening it, while with r35 it works fine
did you ever understand why that was? I’ll just be using r35 for ASB games I guess (haven’t tested if other newer releases work with them)
I tried out The Urquan Masters -- the free port of Star Control II for modern operating systems.
Concusion: Game won't start unless both video and audio are SDL and Hourglass's Multithreading is set to Allow. With Wrap or Disable the game game window won't even appear.
When the game runs, there's a 50 % chance that graphics stops updating whenever you load a savestate, and a 50 % chance that the game stops responding to input whenever you load a savestate. In addition, in certain situations (such as the in game menu), Hourglass's pause function does not work properly.
I've tried a bunch of games and none of them work. The closest I got was with NetHack, and as soon as I started the actual game (after choosing who I am and things) it crashed. Other games don't work much at all. I use a 64-bit Vista. Any help?
I believe hourglass' pause function works by hooking sleep(), and suspending execution when it is called until the user unpauses or advances frame. So if a game doesn't call sleep during its loop in a certain mode, hourglass can't make it pause.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
SWIM IKACHAN! FOR EVERLASTING PEACE!
Don't know if it was just the wrong settings or something, but sometimes when loading a state, sometimes the game's visuals freeze. Everything runs normal (not sure about the sound, haven't been in an area to test that), just the visuals.. stop.
Edit: An Untitled Story crashes when accepting the name. Other than that, and some sound and multithreading options, it seems to work fine. An option to start recording a video in Frame Advance would be nice....
Even if it changes, it should always be backwards-compatible. I believe so far only the header of the file has been changed. It's just had a few things added to it.
I forgot to mention this. While TASing "Syobon Action", I had Windows Task Manager up the whole time, and it seemed that the memory for hourglass increases everytime the game was closed and reopened. I managed to get this:
After several more times of closing and reopening, hourglass closes itself.
I'm using hourglass-r81, if that helps.
I can confirm that MUGEN works with Hourglass. It is able to use save states and frame advance.
Good luck getting anything from there published though :P
Judging would require looking at how well programmed the fighters are via fighter factory, seeing if they aren't Overpowered to begin with.
Not to mention it would be a hassle for the Judges to get the same fighters anyone did in the movie file.
Joined: 12/17/2010
Posts: 1
Location: Historic Over There
Cooljay wrote:
I can confirm that MUGEN works with Hourglass. It is able to use save states and frame advance.
Under what settings? I've been trying Mugen in Hourglass for about a week now (specifically this game) and have been having constant crashes on state load.
After several more times of closing and reopening, hourglass closes itself.
I'm using hourglass-r81, if that helps.
