I talked to Derek on MSN about the different versions and I asked him about what version we should use. He told me the Jap version is basically PAL but running at 60 Hz.
So the two options are JAP at 60 Hz or use the PAL's feature to run at 60 Hz. NTSC not being able to blowup the boulder is a huge disadvantage (wasting minutes) which even Derek agrees with.
If a PAL-Game supports 60 Hz, it asks you if you want to use it at the start of the game. This message only appears on games that support 60 Hz.
I could't find a list of all the PAL/60 Hz titles though.
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Only a few games will ask you. For most games you'll have to hold B at startup.
Btw. I was not generally discounting J, just saying, that you should do a little more research, SoulCal. Like if the text speed really differs. And that you should be able to actually use the game. ;)
Other than that I'm looking foreward to this either way. :)
I will do a small WIP with the PAL version then, but I still dislike the idea of forcing 60Hz, even if it is a built in mechanic. Do I just hold B when I click "start recording?" My laptop can't render the game at 100% speed so I wouldn't be able to tell if it is running at 50 or 60 Hz.
Also, when I try and dump frames to record, the title screen for some reason goes at double speed, although on playback it works just fine. The audio dump is good though. Solutions plz?
You hold B when the game starts. Either it will ask you after a while if you want to switch to 60Hz or it will just do it. Don't know how RE4 works.
It may also ask you without holding B. Like I said some games do that.
Btw. you are not forcing it into anything. It is a built in feature of the game. Has nothing to do with hardware or the emulator.
Edit: RE4 actually supports 480p in it's NTSC versions, so yeah forget what I said about the picture quality being the same with PAL60. ^^"
The PAL game you would have to actually force into 480p, since that feature was removed from PAL games. I don't even know if Dolphin can do that.
If PAL really has the same glitches J (I' still not convinced of this, but like I said don't know enough of the game), using J might be worth a try. Still you should figure out a way to actually use it. :D
I created this test just now. I attempted to make my movements as optimized by going in as straight of a line as I can. For the corners in the house I just did testing until I lowered the number of frames I could get to to trigger the cutscene. The crit on the Ganado was pure luck, but doing the Cstick-R combo to destroy the window was the hardest part. I kept getting 1 frame behind in order to fire the 2nd shot off to destroy the window. I was able to somehow get the 1 frame (literally THE frame before the cutscene) and destroy the window. This will allow me to escape from the 1st floor instead of the 2nd. I will test if this is faster or not.
Also, encoding this is a b****. Unless we can reliably encode a video on the emulator I don't see a reason to continue. The video, for me, is double framerate of what it should be. Audio is also horribly out of sync.
EDIT: gameinn did a TAS comparison, and it turns out the lower window is slower (at least 1 second)
Link to video
I always preferred the wii version for the superior aiming, and I'm also pretty sure it has less loading times. It would probably be easier to TAS because you can precisely aim in fewer frames, assuming wii remote movement is supported.
Did you actually put the game into 480p, SoulCal? Doesn't look like it. That would really be important in the end...
@Vykan
Even if there are still the same glitches in the Wii vesion, whcih I don't know, Wii TASes still desynch like hell.
I have problems encoding the videos. For some reason the video file is corrupted and it won't play in media player. It also has some odd resolution; 740x476. I have it set to 480p in the emulator settings.
I'm also stuck on the first ganado. I cannot manipulate him to drop anything good. I can get him to consistently drop 1000 gold or 10 ammo. I do this by holding up (D-pad or analog stick, doesn't matter) after shooting him and he drops 1000 gold. If I change direction at any time while walking forward, he either drops 10 ammo or nothing. If I hold B, regardless of what I have been doing, he drops nothing. These of course are just circumstances I am dealing with atm, but for future enemies I NEED some sort of method to predict how items are dropped.
Usually you have to put the game into 480p with pressing B on startup (yeah it's the same thing as 60Hz on PAL).
I guess Dolphin can probably force the game into 480p... But a 480p video should be 640 × 480.
Maybe you should ask in the dolpin subforum why the video comes out so weird...
I am trying to find a different version of Dolphin to use since I was using the old r7261. Also, I am still getting an odd resolution of 624x468, and I've tried 3 revisions of Dolphin with 480p enabled. I want to just go back to the old version to use (although I have the resolution issue on that version anyway) because "frame advance" on these newer versions is garbage; when I press "play" when I want to advance 1 frame, it advances 4-5.
Which version of Dolphin should we use? We need to stick to 1 version (for now) cause I don't want my dtm files to not work if I switch to a different version later on.
Also, why do different revisions not sync dtm files? It is so frustrating (I cannot begin to express my discontent) that the .dtm files I created don't sync on newer versions. Like why does the JAP version ask for a memory card at frame 40 in one revision and frame 43 on another? If one revision "loads" the game faster or something, then doesn't it mean that the revision could be loading faster than the actual GC can? That seems almost like cheating IMO.
Something I don't understand that puts a spanner in the works. I understand why when I record an NTSC or JAP game it should be 480p but why is the PAL version recording at 480p when I dump frames? I did not even use the B option. It looks like Dolphin is forcing it automatically.
If it was using the true PAL resolution when dumping it should state 720x576 to me but it's not.
Edit - Dolphin is also forcing PAL to 30fps when it should be 25fps.
Edit - Dolphin is also forcing PAL to 30fps when it should be 25fps.
I would think that is the case, since we selected the 60Hz option. 60 is a multiple of 30, but not 25. But does dolphin force 30fps even if you don't select the 60Hz option? And is the menu that says "run in 60Hz mode" suppose to run in 50Hz? Cause if that is the case, the first few frames of a recording will be 25fps, and then once the 60Hz option is selected it will switch to 30fps.
Also, Dolphin r7323 works fine for me, and records 480p on both PAL and JAP.
SoulCal- It would probably be best to wait a while before trying to continue TASing the game.
Problem list:
-I doubt there's an input plugin for dolphin, which is essential for optimizing 3D games.
-You haven't yet cracked the RNG, meaning getting a ganado to drop a grenade is a complete and very futile guessing game. I doubt dolphin has a functional RAM search, but if it does then you can ignore this point.
-No real discussion of new tricks/techniques.
-Most importantly, massive problems with synch/playback/encode rendering, and even nastier things like save corruption.
Diggidyo's Megaman 10 run's got us all excited about the reality of Wii TASing, but keep in mind that was a relatively simple 2D game. The 3D realm is a whole new can of worms.
I don't want to discourage you from experimenting, though. It's great to see short concept demo type TASes to get excited for what the future has to offer.
There is also a strange issue me and gameinn are having with the dtm files. If he plays my dtm on his computer with a different dolphin revision, the frame inputs don't match up. For example, when I play my dtm on r7323, I press START on frame 295, but on his revision, it says I press start on frame 299. This concerns me, since I thought all emulator movie files just remember which buttons you pressed on certain frames. Somehow dtm files add or delete frames based on the revision we use.
When I used r7323 (which did show the correct frames) I realised that the revision is automatically asking for the game to be ran in 60 Hz (even though Dolphin shows it running at 30 fps anyway) which the latest revision (and revision r7261 which Daniel used to use) do not ask for 60 Hz.
Something I don't understand that puts a spanner in the works. I understand why when I record an NTSC or JAP game it should be 480p but why is the PAL version recording at 480p when I dump frames? I did not even use the B option. It looks like Dolphin is forcing it automatically.
If it was using the true PAL resolution when dumping it should state 720x576 to me but it's not.
If I reember correctly: You can force PAL versions of games that support 480p on NTSC into that mode with software. It even works on GC and Wii.
If that would fall under the "forcing games into modes that are not supported rule, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it's ok, since the gameplay isn't alteres.
Edit - Dolphin is also forcing PAL to 30fps when it should be 25fps.
So you either got 480p runnign at half speed or really PAl60, which is 480i.
Vykan12 wrote:
-I doubt there's an input plugin for dolphin, which is essential for optimizing 3D games.
Yeah there is. Well it's not a plugin, it's fully integrated in Dolphin, but it's there. Thre are still a few Wii controls missing, but it's perfectly fine for GC.
-You haven't yet cracked the RNG, meaning getting a ganado to drop a grenade is a complete and very futile guessing game. I doubt dolphin has a functional RAM search, but if it does then you can ignore this point.
In 3D games you usually can't crack the RNG. You change the camera and button presses till the drop you desire happens, preferably without losing frames.
SoulCal if you really want to do this get the newest rev from here: http://dolphin-emulator.com/download.html
A few revs ago were horrible for TAsing. So you should use the newest.
SoulCal if you really want to do this get the newest rev from here: http://dolphin-emulator.com/download.html
A few revs ago were horrible for TAsing. So you should use the newest.
The newer versions, I think, are worse for TASing. The newer version don't have a good frame advance and when I try it, it goes 2-3 frames at a time instead of only 1. I can't even TAS the menus correctly because of this.
Sound like 30/60 fps issue, if the game is really 30fps then even if you input any frame its same result, since the game is still processing and not polling anyway.
SoulCal if you really want to do this get the newest rev from here: http://dolphin-emulator.com/download.html
A few revs ago were horrible for TAsing. So you should use the newest.
The newer versions, I think, are worse for TASing. The newer version don't have a good frame advance and when I try it, it goes 2-3 frames at a time instead of only 1. I can't even TAS the menus correctly because of this.
You can not make a TAS with such old revisions.
If you have problems with frame advance. That's what we have a Dolphin subforum for. THere are actually a few Dolphin devs in there from time to time. ;)
You can not make a TAS with such old revisions.
If you have problems with frame advance. That's what we have a Dolphin subforum for. THere are actually a few Dolphin devs in there from time to time. ;)
Is this subforum you are refering to the "Gamecube and Wii emulators (Dolphin)" link to the right side of the forum index? I'll look into it. :)
Btw, WIP for the old r7323. I hope I can somehow edit this into my new WIP, but it is doubtful. The different revisions, I think, have different load times and such. Even the menu to skip the memory card (the first 50 frames or so) desyncs.
Link to video
I know, double post. Sorry.
I may be able to continue with the WIP since I figured some things out with Dolphin r7693 (haven't tried 7685). Although the frame counter increments by 2, I believe this is not the actual frame number. There is something called "VI:" which increments by 1 every time I press "play" to frame advance. The actual "Frame:" though increments by 2 (sometimes 3). I am assuming VI is the actual frame counter, as this number seems very close to frame count in my other dtm file. In r7323 I could move Leon about frame:720, but on r7693 I can move him on VI:718. Sometimes, however, VI increments by 3-4, but this only seems to happen during cutscenes; this is not an issue so far. Anyone know what VI stands for?
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Well if the Vertical Interrupt occurs every drawn frame, and the game is at 30fps, could I essentially use this as the frame counter? Kind of a big leap to say that, I know.
And why would the "frame" counter be off so much? Think it is just an error by the developers?
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