Submission Text Full Submission Page
At TASVideos we typically aim for fastest time. But today, I decided we should mix it up a bit. So I have submitted a movie that aims for longest time.
Since one could simply make a TAS of a non-timed game where the character stands there, I decided that the Longest Time goal needed some basic ground rules:
  • Game must have a timer
  • Do not die
  • Do not complete the game more than once
  • Always make "progress" in the game
And with these goals in mind I present to you, an infinitely long TAS. On a side note, this TAS beats the previous record of longest submission of 41 days by infinity days.
Since it is difficult to encode an infintely long tas, I have decided to Live stream this movie for the duration of its submission life!

How

To achieve a never ending TAS, BizHawk 1.4.1 is required. I coded in a movie parameter called loopoffset. When this is present, BizHawk will loop back to this frame after reaching the end of the movie. In this case, I put LoopOffset 1275 into the movie file. It will play the first 1275 frames, then loop 1276 to the end of the movie endlessly. Now the challenge is simply to find a segment of input such that the game will continue to play!

Verification

I have confirmed sync up to 50 million frames. (It would have kept going but an ill-timed Windows update thwarted my plans!) 50 million was enough for it to completely wrap the lives and score addresses at least once.

Noxxa: Claiming for judgement so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I can judge it so that I ca--ERROR TEXT OVERFLOW
Noxxa: Initially, I figured to just follow my first judge instincts, which is to automatically reject. However, I figure that if I actually watch it, it's probably good enough to accept.
So, I'll just go and watch the run now. When I'm done, I will accept it. Until then, I'll keep it at rejected.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15635
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3912: adelikat's FDS Super Mario Bros. 2 in 115:17:46:40.00
Skilled player (1743)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4986
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
No vote as the main loop is sub-optimal. And yes, I watched it loop from world 1 to world 3 and back.
Joined: 2/3/2013
Posts: 320
Location: Germany
jlun2 wrote:
No vote as the main loop is sub-optimal. And yes, I watched it loop from world 1 to world 3 and back.
What else would you expect from 110 rerecords? Voting "No" for the above reason and because I am not going to be the one who encodes this.
All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.
Skilled player (1743)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4986
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
RGamma wrote:
Voting "No" for the above reason and because I am not going to be the one who encodes this.
adelikat is streaming it atm here.
Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4045
I watched it for an infinitely long time and I can confirm it hasn't finished yet. Yes vote.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
NitroGenesis
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (557)
Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
Don't watch this. Let's all watch some quality original programming on ABC Family. Don Brodie lived to be 101.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Experienced player (521)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
A new Super Mario Bros. 2 TAS? I am suspicious but will give it the benefit of the doubt. Will vote after watching. EDIT Looking good so far. Frame 580,000. Will it go to infinite? I guess we will have to see. EDIT 2 I don't know if this run ever ends but I can promise you that this is the song that never ends. Frame 752,000. If my estimates are correct we should see the score hit its max within 12 hours so that will be something to look forward to to start work tomorrow. EDIT 3 1,320,000 Frames now. Still progressing towards infinite but I am not sure that it will actually make it. I looked it up in Wolfram Alpha and it says I am still only at 0% done so there is still a lot of room for error. It appears that despite being over a million frames I still have infinite to go so my math may be wrong.
Active player (348)
Joined: 3/21/2006
Posts: 940
Location: Toronto, Canada
Link to video Relevant.[/url]
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!) My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
Editor
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris
Isn't this cheating to a degree. Why would you want to loop forever? And YU No Love Desert Bus?
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
I find it fascinating that it actually syncs through all those iterations. That takes some doing, the lag-resistance that is.
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3576)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
In regards to optimization, I find it a bit of a conceptual mind fuck the idea of optimizing an infinitely long TAS lol However, I did attempt to do so, but it is far from trivial. Anything requiring subpixel precision such as the acceleration tricks at the beginning of levels or the flagpole glitch were impossible to successfully sync on every loop. And for enemies, you can't just avoid them. You have to avoid the entire spectrum of possible locations an enemy could be (even in this game that has no RNG, there is variations in enemy patterns). I'm not saying that this is an "optimal" looping pattern but I am saying that an optimal one would look quite different than from a normal TAS.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Skilled player (1743)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4986
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
adelikat wrote:
In regards to optimization, I find it a bit of a conceptual mind fuck the idea of optimizing an infinitely long TAS lol However, I did attempt to do so, but it is far from trivial. Anything requiring subpixel precision such as the acceleration tricks at the beginning of levels or the flagpole glitch were impossible to successfully sync on every loop. And for enemies, you can't just avoid them. You have to avoid the entire spectrum of possible locations an enemy could be (even in this game that has no RNG, there is variations in enemy patterns). I'm not saying that this is an "optimal" looping pattern but I am saying that an optimal one would look quite different than from a normal TAS.
Manually TAS the loop until eventually, the subpixels start to repeat themselve I guess? Idk. For the enemies, uh....same thing?
ALAKTORN
He/Him
Former player
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
I’ve been watching it for a while, and I don’t really see a change in enemy pattern…
Skilled player (1743)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4986
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
goofydylan8 wrote:
Looking good so far. Frame 580,000. Will it go to infinite? I guess we will have to see.
Nice! Keep this up and maybe we can solve the halting problem for this run!
Active player (348)
Joined: 3/21/2006
Posts: 940
Location: Toronto, Canada
I saw the run twice and I'm seriously impressed. Voting yes, 5/5, would run again. *tongue placed firmly in cheek*
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!) My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
Skilled player (1743)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4986
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
I was reading this when that song suddenly played in the stream. Clearly adelikat is a god among men.
Joined: 4/5/2011
Posts: 61
ALAKTORN wrote:
I’ve been watching it for a while, and I don’t really see a change in enemy pattern…
Hammer Bros have different patterns, so sometimes Adelikat kills one on the bottom and sometimes he doesn't. So what's the ETA for max score and max lives?
Kaylee
She/Her
Editor, Active player (434)
Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 706
Location: Canada
This should be in the workbench forever due to the vote after watching rule...so beautiful. :')
Expert player (2574)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 831
Cool, ∞. I'll just sit here, grab some popcorn and watch it over. :p
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Publisher, Expert player (2657)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6450
Location: The land down under.
HappyLee wrote:
Cool, ∞. I'll just sit here, grab some popcorn and watch it over. :p
*Grabs popcorn*
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Skilled player (1743)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4986
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
Joined: 5/2/2009
Posts: 656
HappyLee wrote:
Cool, ∞. I'll just sit here, grab some popcorn and watch it over. :p
and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over.
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =) (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ
Joined: 2/8/2006
Posts: 60
I wonder how many iterations it would take for score/lives/position to sync up such that the exact memory state of the game was identical to a previous one. Once you can show this, you know it will go on forever.
Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4045
subanark wrote:
I wonder how many iterations it would take for score/lives/position to sync up such that the exact memory state of the game was identical to a previous one. Once you can show this, you know it will go on forever.
It also has to be at the exact same frame in the loop, but yes.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Skilled player (1743)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4986
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
subanark wrote:
I wonder how many iterations it would take for score/lives/position to sync up such that the exact memory state of the game was identical to a previous one. Once you can show this, you know it will go on forever.
Be sure to console verify this. Don't worry, we still have like 10150years left.