Posted: 1/10/2017 8:30 PM
Post subject: Non-Standard Controllers and Console Verification (NES)
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Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Emulator Coder, Expert player (3821)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2829
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
As pointed out by Dwedit, DMC start up state for NES seems inconsistent, assuming this is true, it has serious impact for console verification of games using DMC channel. Basically games would be split into 3 categories: 1. Games that don't use DMC channel, seems like they should in principal be console verifiable, Battletoads for example needs subcycle accuracy and a two player run was recently verified by True. 2. Games that use the DMC channel but don't need cycle accuracy to verify, assuming glitched controller reads are ignored. Ninja Gaiden falls into this category as well as cretain runs of SMB3. 3. Games that use the DMC channel and do require cycle accurate timing. Kirby's Adventure glitched is in this category. Category 3 games probably are not verifiable, but my question here is about games of Category 2. Ninja Gaiden was verified assuming no glitched controller reads, this implies a non-standard controller, one that essentially ignores latches that are too close together. FCEUX does this implicitly, but NESHawk currently does not. This is more accuracte, but assumes a fixed DMC start up state, which would certainly kill any attempts at console verification assuming it is inconsistent. So I am wondering, for the sake of getting as close as practical to console verifications, should an option be added in NESHawk to turn off DMC glitched controller reads for submitted TASes? I'm interested what people's opinions are on this. It's basically a trade off between having more console verifiability but using non-authentic controllers.
Posted: 11/5/2019 1:48 AM
Post subject: Extreme Kayak
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Dragos-san
Other
Joined: 11/4/2019
Posts: 21
Location: Apple Macbook Pro (Early 2015)
Extreme Kayak (http://tasvideos.org/2030M.html) is a game where you, you know, kayak the heck out of a mountain range. This is what Swordless Link (the TASer) had to say after getting a 1:26 in-game record: "This run takes advantage of the fact that the TAS input plugin does not have a limitation on the range of the analogue stick, meaning that I can extend it well beyond the intended maximum. This is what allows the kayak to move at hyperspeed. On console, due to the N64 controller's limitations, only a fraction of this speed can be achieved (to put this into perspective, the best time recorded on console is 3:36, using this character)." So, would you, as an experienced TAS expert, say that these kinds of facts fall into the 'glitch' category or the 'abuse' category? I'd say it falls into the 'glitch' category because early game programs only measured the input of the analogue stick and it doesn't seem like there's any programmed limit. Anyways, it depends what you mean by 'game'. Do you only mean the software, or do you include the hardware? It definitely does not include the hardware as using TAS emulators are a given AND using remade games (like using the Switch Online version of Super Mario Bros instead of the original) are acceptable. If it doesn't include the hardware, then it's acceptable. If you say it only includes the 'official' hardware, like only using Nintendo controllers for Mario, then it's unacceptable. It depends on what you define a TAS - do you define it as the optimal controller input, or do you define it as the optimal overall input?
Thank you and have a nice week! :)