Hello,
If I'm looking to record a video of me playing through a game on Gens, could someone give me some sort of step-by-step walkthrough of how to accomplish that? I have Gens 9.5, and every time I record something, it desyncs, so I didn't know if there were some things I'm doing wrong. Any help would be appreciated, even a link to a full discussion on recording via Gens.
Thanks
You might be playing a game that will desync, or you could have the wrong settings. I can't help much though because I don't use gens (I don't have any gen games so I don't have any gen roms).
Hello,
If I'm looking to record a video of me playing through a game on Gens, could someone give me some sort of step-by-step walkthrough of how to accomplish that? I have Gens 9.5, and every time I record something, it desyncs, so I didn't know if there were some things I'm doing wrong. Any help would be appreciated, even a link to a full discussion on recording via Gens.
Thanks
I'd like to help, but first I have two questions:
What game are you playing?
When you say you're recording a video, do you mean you're making a .gmv file, or a .avi file?
If you can answer those two, it will give me insight into the nature of your problem.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Thanks upthorn,
I'm playing Shining Force 2 (the file name is: "Shining Force 2 (E) [!].bin" ), and I'm using Gens 9.5c
As far as type of video goes, I'm simply just wanting to document a fullgame walkthrough that I post on youtube - I know, nothing tas-related, but since you guys are the professionals at this stuff, I figured you'd be the first to ask. So, by that, I assume I want to create a gmv file, then sync it with avi? I've tried a couple times, but I don't know if I was doing it wrong, because the game always desynced after the loading screen.
Thanks!
This is very typical for SF games. You need to create a zero byte Shining Force 2 (U) [!].srm, and set it to read-only. Then, every time you play back the movie from the start, you MUST re-open the ROM in Gens.
Gens doesn't reset the SRM data without re-opening the ROM.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
This is very typical for SF games. You need to create a zero byte Shining Force 2 (U) [!].srm, and set it to read-only.
Slight correction and clarification here: it should be Shining Force 2 (E) [!].srm, because you're using Shining Force 2 (E) [!].bin
Also, the easiest way to do this is to delete the file which already exists, open the rom in gens, and immediately close it. Then just set the resulting Shining Force 2 (E) [!].srm file read only in the right-click->properties menu.
The rest of DarkKobold's solution here is entirely accurate.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
OKay, I get what you're saying about creating the srm, and have done exactly what upthorn said - I opened the rom (bin), then immediately closed the game, then changed the srm file that formed to read only. I'm not sure what you're telling me I need to do after that though...
Thanks for all the help!
Update: Actually, the 0-file size srm isn't going well... it keeps loading as 16kb file size whenever I create one. I try to open the game then immediately close it, but nothing shows up. When I wait for the "Sega" screen to appear and close, it's at 16kb. Any suggestions?
This is very typical for SF games. You need to create a zero byte Shining Force 2 (U) [!].srm, and set it to read-only. Then, every time you play back the movie from the start, you MUST re-open the ROM in Gens.
Gens doesn't reset the SRM data without re-opening the ROM.
upthorn wrote:
Slight correction and clarification here: it should be Shining Force 2 (E) [!].srm, because you're using Shining Force 2 (E) [!].bin
Also, the easiest way to do this is to delete the file which already exists, open the rom in gens, and immediately close it. Then just set the resulting Shining Force 2 (E) [!].srm file read only in the right-click->properties menu.
The rest of DarkKobold's solution here is entirely accurate.
I just discovered to my chagrin that these are not equivalent. I began recording a movie for another game with upthorn's method, which worked as long as the 16KB read-only SRAM was present, but found it did not sync when played back with no SRAM or read-only zero-byte SRAM.
I'm assuming it's better to use the zero-byte method, since no sharing of SRAM would be necessary to playback the movie...
Anything else on this? I would love to get to recording. Is there perhaps an emulator that's better-suited for recording avi's? Or do any of you know of any step-by-step FAQ's/Manuals on recording w/ a genesis emulator?
Thanks!
-Ish
Okay, I finally succeeded in getting a session to play back without desyncing. I went to Tools> Record New Movie, and named the movie SFWalk001.gmv. I checked the box "Record from now and make a savestate," and named the savestate SFWalk001.gs0 (just to not confuse myself). I recorded for awhile, hit "Stop Recording," and then played the movie back by selecting "Play Movie/Resume Movie etc etc", and selected the appropriate file. Then checked "Play from savestate," and selected the appropriate savestate. And everything perfectly fine, no desyncing, it's awesome. HOWEVER, how do I continue recording from that point now? I can figure out how to start a new movie (continuation) from the point I left off at. Any advice?
Okay, I finally succeeded in getting a session to play back without desyncing. I went to Tools> Record New Movie, and named the movie SFWalk001.gmv. I checked the box "Record from now and make a savestate," and named the savestate SFWalk001.gs0 (just to not confuse myself). I recorded for awhile, hit "Stop Recording," and then played the movie back by selecting "Play Movie/Resume Movie etc etc", and selected the appropriate file. Then checked "Play from savestate," and selected the appropriate savestate. And everything perfectly fine, no desyncing, it's awesome. HOWEVER, how do I continue recording from that point now? I can figure out how to start a new movie (continuation) from the point I left off at. Any advice?
I attempted a recording and didn't seem to desync. So, It seems like the SRAM trick that I did with Sonic 1 Megamix worked. Here's a SRM file. Put it in your Gens folder where GENS******.exe resides, (overwrite the other SRM file) and set it to read-only. It would be wisest to do this, then to require a save-state as this could cause your run to not be accepted (As far as I'm aware, your recording has to be able to run from start to finish with no save-state, although I think there have been a few exceptions)
It shouldn't de-sync anymore, If you stop recording then want to resume again, You have to reload the rom! So it would be best to learn to use quick-save quick-load, or the savestate keys (F1-F8 i think it was? ask someone else for those).
Goodluck!
(Note: It's a SRM file, opened up with a HEX editor, then all data replaced with 00 . Gens will ignore a savefile that isn't precisely the same size. So Hex-Editing is the only way to "cheat" the SRM into not saving)
