If savestates from MAME are the issue then maybe bizhawk should rely on a different savestate method, rather than the ones in the core.
A quick test with a game showed that the input movie file synched. However, once you start AVI dumping that file, it randomly desychs! Out of 5 tests to dump it on 2 different PCs, it desynched 4 out of 5 times.
Out of curiosity, how a game with multiple branches affects the site negatively?
Something that might be reassuring is that this'll probably be the last new run in a new category this game will get for a good while. Could even be the last one altogether.
Along with having multiple valid goal choices (any%, NG+, 100%, and ring attacks) it also has multiple characters which are all unique in their own way. Don't get me wrong I'm definitely not saying there should be a branch for every single possible combination. I'm just saying it's reasonable for a game like this to end up with so many branches.
I would vote for publication to its own separate branch, consistent with past precedent surrounding this particular game. While that precedent, itself, may be somewhat at odds with the way TASvideos likes to handle branches in general, I think it may be okay as S3K is one of the main entries in the entire Genesis library, partly because of the sheer amount of content that it has as one game spanning two carts.
I think the rule should really apply to limit the amount of community created branches for each game, not for branches offered by the game.
It seems obvious to me that there's a real market for all three solo-character runs, and they each deserve an any% branch.
As a casual player, I definitely would not feel the need to play all 4 character combinations. Sonic & Tails is not different enough to me from solo sonic or solo tails to warrant a separate playthrough. Or perhaps vice versa. Maybe I wouldn't feel the need to do solo sonic if I did Sonic & Tails. In that sense the character differences are minor.
By this point, I've pretty much lost interest in glitched runs of this game; watching terrain scroll by every couple seconds while a character is teleporting or clipping through, and then watching a stage-end score tally/cutscene that is almost as long as the entire stage gets old after a while. EDIT: Note that I'm not specifically advocating for a category cap or anything like that. But if it is decided that we only have a total of 8, I'd rather have a no-holds-barred, maximum speed run and a low-glitch solo Sonic run which we still don't have instead of the current 100% and this run (which is, for all intents and purposes, a Sonic and Tails any% without Tails), because the latter two don't fully commit to a particular style of gameplay.
I don't think it's fair to require an emulator hack to be able to appreciate the movie.
Obsolete Knuckles with Tails. Obsolete Tails with this run. That way we have a Knuckles branch as well as one full completion branch, and further single-player runs could obsolete one another based on technical novelty and entertainment. Then if someone invents a novel concept, be it "low glitch" or something else entirely, there will be a place for some more branches that are meant to represent entirely different play style other than "same single-char levels with some new tricks". This option preserves the most different concepts separated and advertises up-to-date runs.
That’s only going to discourage people from tasing this game again.
The fact that this got so overly complicated to the point where you have to do this kind of trickery with the branches is really heartbreaking. Regarding glitchless/low glitch runs. That actually ties into this topic. I was considering making some myself at some point in the future, but after this ordeal I’m afraid of what may happen if I do so. Like, you actually discouraged me from making these runs now.
It seems like the desire to keep the branch count low is not doing anything productive except hurting the desire of TASers going forward, so I am not sure that the rule is having any desired useful effect.
Just as a note, Service Mode is currently non-functional for replays. I'm assuming it's due to the nvram.
also for Neo Geo, the Service mode settings dont seem to have a default setting. when I reloaded bizhawk and loaded the movie again, the "turn off how to play" option did not go back to being on by default. This tells me that boot up does not have the same settings for each boot up. this might need to be a sync setting or something.
Alright, so far the biggest issue that I have with TAStudio regarding MAMEHawk is Savestates dont always load correctly. They arent always loading the same inputs from previous frames. I had to sometimes delete them by clearing green zones so incorrect data wasnt loaded. This might not be an issue with the core itself but possibly a leftover with the same bug in 2.3.3, but I am not certian. However it's clear that this bug is really bad with this core as of now.
Since most of my real life activities got cancelled due to covid, I'll have much more free time than usual for a few months. Thus, I'll be able to do some TASing during this time, and although I mostly intend to work on 96 exit, I might touch this movie again and give it a proper end of input. In a couple weeks, hopefully I will get it done.
The biggest problem is the performance. Gens core is MUCH faster than the one used in Bizhawk. Its assembler code is even divided into 2 parts to make the core work faster. I have major doubts Bizhawk will reach such speeds in the near future, or maybe, ever! Unless we'd have a state of Alyoshas that would work on every console core.
Currently there is no Cam Hack available for BizHawk and if one was made with lua, it would run incredibly slow, and that gets really annoying for tasers to deal with (like it would take some seconds to advance a frame each time)
I've already found a major sync instability issue. Download and play back this movie file: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/get/737638915/Pokemon%20Mystery%20Dungeon%20-%20Blue%20Rescue%20Team%20%28USA%29.bk2 Emulator version: BizHawk_Developer-2020-04-03-230826-#96a753324ada6486d0ec1dd978d0c54e1555a68b ROM checksum (No-Intro):Around frame 640, you will see a Pokémon walking up. The issue is that each time you play back the movie, a different Pokémon will appear! This obviously shouldn't happen in a deterministic environment. Note that DeSmuME doesn't have this issue, as it always spawns the same Pokémon (Eevee) when it starts from clean SRAM.File: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - Blue Rescue Team (USA).nds CRC-32: b6c4143e MD5: 61373235da72064e8c058fae3c646916 SHA-1: 503edef4fe6088bca00616efcac3b13da90cd105 SHA-256: 4bdf72ce0dd7a19c66f49e840f046124994d719678e88a0814d0148f705d3e8b
