Posted: 8/14/2010 9:43 AM
Post subject: Fast forward and TAS input plugin question
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Imgema
Joined: 8/14/2010
Posts: 10
Hello people, another new guy here. I started watching these movies, not long ago, and i'm hooked. So now i have downloaded every emulator and most of the movie files the site offers ;) Now to the (noobish) questions. I was wondering if these emulators have a way (seek option, fast forward etc) to skip parts of the game in order to watch later parts. I was watching SM64 the other day (120 stars run) but i had to stop it after the 40th star or something. How can i continue from there? I prefer watching the movies in emulators rather than Youtube, Avi, etc. Also about the TAS plugin. When i'm using it a window appears at the top left of my screen that i can't disable. Its also always "on top" blocking my view when i watch N64 games in window mode. Is there any way to disable or hide this? Thanks in advance.
Posted: 8/14/2010 10:03 AM
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Scepheo
Player (146)
Joined: 7/16/2009
Posts: 686
Savestates. They work during movie playback as well.
Posted: 8/14/2010 10:20 AM
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Imgema
Joined: 8/14/2010
Posts: 10
oh, i didn't thought of that. Thanks for the quick answer
Posted: 8/14/2010 11:22 AM
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Warp
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Note that skipping forward during a "playback" of a recorded movie is technically impossible because the record file is basically "playing" the game (by providing the game with pre-recorded input). Hence it's obviously impossible to directly jump forward, skipping part of the playback. The only thing an emulator can do is "fast-forward", in other words, basically emulate the game (and applying the keypresses in the record file) at high speed. Once you get the playback to a certain point, you can take a "snapshot" of the entire state of the game, in the form of a savestate. These savestates are designed (in most modern emulators) so that the playback of a record file can then continue from that point forward. However, as said, there's no way to "skip" forward for the first time, without any savestate information. The most you can do is "fast-forward" (by making the emulator emulate the game at high speed).
Posted: 8/14/2010 12:09 PM
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Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4045
Feasibly you could have a movie format which came with snapshots of the game's RAM at every X frames built into the file, so that a request to go to frame X could be carried out by jumping to the closest savestate that's earlier than it and fastforwarding until you're at that point. Not sure if it'd be worth it or not.
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Posted: 8/14/2010 12:17 PM
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Imgema
Joined: 8/14/2010
Posts: 10
Another thing i noticed is that the "read only" mode has to be checked, or else it messes the movie file, ending it exactly at the point i'm saving. Thanks people for the responses :)
Posted: 8/14/2010 12:33 PM
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adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3576)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
TASer of 2010 NES TASer of 2010 DS TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 NES TASer of 2008 NES TAS of 2008 Funny TAS of 2008 TASer of 2007 NES TASer of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
As far as I know TAS INput pluging is always on TOP and cant' be minimized or anything. Yes, its annoying.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Posted: 8/14/2010 6:37 PM
Post subject: Re: Fast forward and TAS input plugin question
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Kaylee
She/Her
Editor, Active player (434)
Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 706
Location: Canada
TAS of 2012 Speedy TAS of 2012 3D Platforms TAS of 2012 N64 TAS of 2010 Speedy TAS of 2010
Imgema wrote:
Its also always "on top" blocking my view when i watch N64 games in window mode. Is there any way to disable or hide this?
You can drag it out of the way, but you can't minimize it or hide it.
Posted: 8/15/2010 1:15 AM
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funnyhair
Player (118)
Joined: 5/13/2009
Posts: 700
Location: suffern, ny
If you need to stop, theoretically you could put it on frame advance, which would pause the game. You could come back later, and unpause the game. You mentioned you had to stop. As long as you don't close the emulator. If you have to close it, then Using stave states is the best method.
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