Should we use BizHawk instead of Gens to TAS Sonic the Hedgehog games?
BizHawk is better than Gens when it comes to emulation of Genesis/Mega Drive games. BizHawk uses the GenesisPlus core.
BizHawk > Gens
BizHawk is preferred over Gens.
Should we use BizHawk for Sonic the Hedgehog game TASes? Or should we stick with Gens which is inferior?
Ok there is alot to explain here.
Sonic tases are not using gens because they are “lazy”. Gens currently has the tools used to view not only ram addresses and collisions, but also due to Cam Hack. Currently there is no Cam Hack available for BizHawk and if one was made with lua, it would run incredibly slow, and that gets really annoying for tasers to deal with (like it would take some seconds to advance a frame each time)
I guarantee you every sonic taser knows that Bizhawk is more accurate and they would most definitely use BizHawk if the tools they rely on were in BizHawk. But currently they are not, that is why they rely on Gens.
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EZGames69 wrote:
Currently there is no Cam Hack available for BizHawk and if one was made with lua, it would run incredibly slow, and that gets really annoying for tasers to deal with (like it would take some seconds to advance a frame each time)
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Currently there is no Cam Hack available for BizHawk and if one was made with lua, it would run incredibly slow, and that gets really annoying for tasers to deal with (like it would take some seconds to advance a frame each time)
Is this for Genesis games as well or just the GBA games for now?
Also how fast is it?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
GPGX has the functionality but no script, since such a script won't be used anytime soon. Speed is several hundred fps on both.
Other sonic tools can be done via APIHawk (C# dlls) since there's no lua for linux yet, and when there is it may still be slow to handle all the calcs and UI.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Eventually, we will do that. There are dev builds of Bizhawk for Linux, so a stable release is just a matter of time.
I don't know if Sonic TAS tools are heavy lua scripts or something more complex, but I think Bizhawk offers all the debug tools as Gens. The question is, how difficult it will be to port these scripts to Bizhawk. One thing I know is, Bizhawk has a different RAM indexation and it's divided into various domain sections.
Maybe it's just me, but it's more difficult to find useful RAM addresses in Bizhawk comparing to Gens.
The biggest problem is the performance. Gens core is MUCH faster than the one used in Bizhawk. Its assembler code is even divided into 2 parts to make the core work faster. I have major doubts Bizhawk will reach such speeds in the near future, or maybe, ever! Unless we'd have a state of Alyoshas that would work on every console core.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Dimon12321 wrote:
The biggest problem is the performance. Gens core is MUCH faster than the one used in Bizhawk. Its assembler code is even divided into 2 parts to make the core work faster. I have major doubts Bizhawk will reach such speeds in the near future, or maybe, ever! Unless we'd have a state of Alyoshas that would work on every console core.
How fast do you need it to be and why?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
For example, I have a long TAS and I want to fast forward the movie to a ambiguous moment which I think can be improved or requires some testing. It concerns various cores when "Speed: 400%" or fast-forward gives you 70 fps.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
And your speed with gens and gpgx is...?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Personally I can get pretty good speeds with the GPGX core. My average is about 400-500fps. But that’s also because I have a newer computer. The only reason I can see where someone using it can only get 70fps is if their computer is old (or if not, some other underlying issue I’m not aware of)
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
I think talking about this again is counterproductive, we already stated our limitations about using hawk on discord/forum several times.
I agree, Sonic is one of the only cases where, as of now, it makes sense to use Gens. Better accuracy means nothing if you can't make an optimized movie with it.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
I’m not gonna lie this thread feels like a shitpost. Like Evil_3D said this isn't a very productive thread so I'm just gonna say anything. Besides after what happened last time (again, sorry about that boct) I don't think you'd want me to end up losing my cool and ripping you a new one about your own ignorance.
I'm no expert, but if we can port the tools to Hawk we'd use that emulator. But I'm gonna agree with you guys and stick with Gens for the time being. (We just can't copypasta the script)
I think talking about this again is counterproductive, we already stated our limitations about using hawk on discord/forum several times.
Porting the Sonic TAS Tools and full Linux support are already underway (or close to it), but is there a link to a post with performance targets, missing/uncomfortable workflows (aside from the missing STT), or other specific requirements?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
