Hello, I am new to this site but have been RTA'ing SNES Mega Man X games since December of last year and have recently taken interest in making an X2 Any% TAS to beat the currently fastest published run by FractalFusion and Graveworm while showcasing new optimizations in the game which have been found after their TAS was made.
My main question is in regards to something I read on the movie rules page: "Snes9x v1.43 movie files are deprecated and not accepted, unless a continuance is granted."
Since the fastest published run of this category was made on Snes9x 1.43 and I am aiming to beat it, it would be more than likely impossible to do so unless I also used Snes9x 1.43 since it has faster load times and considerably less in game lag than Snes9x1.51/Bizhawk, even to the point where I would have to do a slower route in order to kill a certain enemy to reduce a substantial amount of extra lag.
Would a Snes9x1.43 submission be acceptable if it is aiming to be a previously existing 1.43 run? If so, how do I go about getting a continuance granted?
Also regarding Bizhawk, whenever I try to load a savestate while making a movie in a either of the two cx4 chip games(X2/X3), all things related to the chip either become invisible or disappear entirely which even soft locks the game at one point. Is there any way to fix this?
There have been situations where players have changed ROMs, even for MMX2, and games have been judged by their per-level times by actually measuring them. Eg: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=94162#94162 Something similar would apply here I think.
I don't think anybody would argue with an emulator change since 1.43 is so old now.
If changing to a more accurate ROM or Emulator causes lag/loading times/text/etc to be slower, then when the TAS is being judged, differences not due to actual gameplay changes are ignored, so there's nothing to worry about.
Thank you for the responses.
These timings you did, DeHackEd, I believe were to measure the gameplay differences between a run on (J) version and a run on (U) version (so that text speed differences were not taken into account), correct?
Would there actually be an accurate way to compare game play in this manner of runs done on 2 separate emulators where the differences are differences in lag that affect the game play within the stages as well?
For example, a TAS on 1.43 is able to visit Bubble Crab's stage 4th in order to target the Counter Hunters on the stage select map sooner, use speed burner to pass through the giant fish's laser beam without taking damage, then ignore the fish for the rest of the stage since it does not cause a significant amount of lag. On 1.53, I have to visit Bubble Crab 7th or 8th (after Overdrive Ostrich), so that I can kill the giant fish with sonic slicer to reduce the lag. This causes more counter hunters to warp on an off the map during stage select, prevents me from being able to burn through the fish's beam, and I have to wait for its beam to disappear while it is getting killed by slicers before I can pass.
This probably the biggest example I can think of, but there are lots of small differences between 1.43 and 1.51 in which you must take extra measures in order to reduce lag on more accurate versions in the SNES Mega Man X games.
If you say differences in lag, not actual gameplay, from version to version are discounted when judging the TAS, isn't this a problem when different lag reduction strats bring about differences in gameplay?
Personally I'd just subtract the lag frames of the SNES9x TAS from that TAS's frame count and the same with the BiHawk TAS, then compare both. But BizHawk is more accurate anyway, so imo it should be able to replace any SNES9x movie.
Hetfield90 wrote:
Also regarding Bizhawk, whenever I try to load a savestate while making a movie in a either of the two cx4 chip games(X2/X3), all things related to the chip either become invisible or disappear entirely which even soft locks the game at one point. Is there any way to fix this?
Personally I'd just subtract the lag frames of the SNES9x TAS from that TAS's frame count and the same with the BiHawk TAS, then compare both. But BizHawk is more accurate anyway, so imo it should be able to replace any SNES9x movie.
I thought about this method, but then doesn't this undermine the fact that lag reduction is a significant part of optimization in tool-assisted as well as real time speed running? For instance, there are a lot of places in the game where dust sprites from dashes need to be avoided or strike chains omitted to reduce significant amounts of lag (resulting in more gameplay frames/less lag frames and faster real time completion), which FractalFusion and Graveworm's TAS takes into account. If I were to use this method and aim for lowest number of actual gameplay frames, it would be advantageous for me to omit all lag reduction strats, resulting in a run that lasts even longer in real time.
Again, thank you everyone for taking the time to read and respond to my questions.
doesn't this undermine the fact that lag reduction is a significant part of optimization in tool-assisted as well as real time speed running?
Depends on what metric you want to go by.
Super Metroid for example has "realtime" runs and "ingame time" runs - there's a timer that shows its time in the ending, but it pauses during door transitions, in menus and (I guess) cutscenes.
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Hetfield90 wrote:
Also regarding Bizhawk, whenever I try to load a savestate while making a movie in a either of the two cx4 chip games(X2/X3), all things related to the chip either become invisible or disappear entirely which even soft locks the game at one point. Is there any way to fix this?
I think that particular bug was fixed. It was related to how the savestate method behaved. If it still being bad in BizHawk 1.8.1 let me know.
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war.
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Super Metroid for example has "realtime" runs and "ingame time" runs - there's a timer that shows its time in the ending, but it pauses during door transitions, in menus and (I guess) cutscenes.
As far as I know every TAS of the SNES Mega Man X series games has gone by real time, so I want to make my TAS while aiming for fastest real time completion as well.
Would the most affective method of comparing them then be to discount lag frames from total frame counts, as well as show how many additional gameplay frames I am causing by doing certain lag reduction strats that the Snes9x 1.43 TAS doesn't have to do? Also would these comparisons be something I would have to include as "proof" that my run is more optimized as part of my submission? Or would these be things done by the people who are judging my TAS to determine if it gets accepted or not?
Also regarding Bizhawk, whenever I try to load a savestate while making a movie in a either of the two cx4 chip games(X2/X3), all things related to the chip either become invisible or disappear entirely which even soft locks the game at one point. Is there any way to fix this?
I think that particular bug was fixed. It was related to how the savestate method behaved. If it still being bad in BizHawk 1.8.1 let me know.
I just downloaded BizHawk 1.8.1 but can't seem to get X2/X3 to work in them at all. When I open either rom, the frame count starts running but the screen remains black.
