Don't think so, either. Even though the Dolphin Wiki page says it's perfectly emulated since build 11518 till now, it concerns regular emulation rather than .dtm playback. Nevertheless, it's not excluded that a wonder will happen and the movie won't go out of sync at all the resonant game events.
I came up with another idea. Make a typewriter save at the beginning of each chapter, complete it, make another save, save the movie file (.dtm) and a memory card (SD-card file?????). And then create another movie where you load your previous typewriter save. And so on until the game is completed. That sound stupid, but we'll eventually get a verification movie made of dozens particular movie.
I don't know what to think of Base TAS. There might be a probability of desync if you use a different memory card for it, but we can make sure if we won't do that.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
From now, I'm working on a verification movie for Wii version which will let people TAS Separated Ways, Assignment Ada and Mercenaries.
Since Wii version isn't as stable as GC version in terms of TAS replayability, I decided to complete each chapter from a start-up and maintain the overall progress. Eventually, we will have a series of input files which will complete the whole game if you play them in Dolphin.
It looks like a tool-assisted walkthrough. I don't try to beat the game as fast as possible. It's mainly made to help Ubercapitalist make the Mercenaries TAS of Basement.
Dolphin used: 5.0 build 12575
Game ROM used: RB4E08.wbfs
CRC32: e5d0c3f9
MD5: 6891432cf49e6cf2cbf3d09f52945f3d
SHA1: c2bac5e948c6217c8ec47827289b36ff6af2d00c
Chapter 1-1 completed: User movie #65990955505020555
YouTube's smashed encode can be watched here.
Chapter 1-2 & half 1-3 completed: User movie #66002280506498621
Chapter 1-3 finished: User movie #66013367965378796
Chapter 2-1 finished: User movie #66078775247819442
Over.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Thanks! I hope you have better results than me with your segmented method.
"But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends:
A day is like a thousand years to the Lord,
and a thousand years is like a day"
-2 Peter 3:8 NLT
Thanks! I hope you have better results than me with your segmented method.
I'm ready to share some news.
1. Looks like I'm becoming older. When I first tried to make a verification movie for RE4 Wii, I had better results during the walkthrough. I managed to go OOB (you know, this trick) and even manipulated a pair of grenades from enemies, but now the best I can do is to kill an enemy with a headshot.
I don't know how successful my possible walkthrough will be, but if I fail to make an important time-saving trick, I'll have to ask you to do it for me =)
2. Now an important one! I have faced the first desync!
I use a custom window resolution when recording input: about 600p with 2x Internal Resolution (for 720p). I record input in these conditions, then play it back to see if everything's fine, then switch to 3x Internal Resolution and auto-adjust window size to record a video.
The first 3 parts seem to work fine. No desyncs occured. Still, you'd better download them, watch them and confirm their stability.
The 4th part, on the other hand, fails the last requirement. It desyncs by the end of the chapter when break 2 barrels in the very first room with Ashley. I get the same loot, but for some reason I don't grab one of the items and everything beyond it goes out of sync.
Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ70y4cl9cI
Here is the input file: User movie #66028318155722196 (not included in the file list)
Here is an archive with all 4 movies and 4 saves: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lVKciCndisDFp3yfOSd2qqOPZTHt45al/view?usp=sharing
If you don't feel like watching from the beginning, copy the folder "Dolphin Emulator" to the respective "Dolphin Emulator" created by Dolphin on your storage (My Documents folder), get the inner folder (Dolphin Emulator\Wii\title\00010000\52423445)
and copy the files from "part3-save" to "data" to make the RE4_part4 movie load the correct file.
For some reason, it can be played back with at best 2x Internal Resolution and the window size must be smaller or equal to it (as auto-adjusted by Dolphin). 3x IR makes the movie desync.
That's beyond my mind why the resolution affects the movie stability, but I guess it's one of desync triggers.
Ubercapitalist, I hope you follow this thread. Try to play my movies and write back if you face the same desync or even different one.
If that's true, you should try to playback your movie in a low-resolution window.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Dimon: To make things easier, youtube videos are not necessary for verification movie. I'll test out your .dtms and see I they sync for me on Dolphin 5.0-12575. Your desync is typical of what I've experienced.
"But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends:
A day is like a thousand years to the Lord,
and a thousand years is like a day"
-2 Peter 3:8 NLT
Your first 3 parts played fine, and Part 4 desynced after rescuing Ashley as you said.
"But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends:
A day is like a thousand years to the Lord,
and a thousand years is like a day"
-2 Peter 3:8 NLT
Is there something else I should be aware of?
I tried to remake the ending of part 4 and this room desyncs again. Looks like I have to mark a special rule for that part: "In order to playback the movie properly, Dolphin's Internal Resolution mustn't exceed 2x! Bigger IR causes desyncs" or something like that.
Even if this crutch save the progress, I don't know what will happen further.
EDIT: well, at least it doesn't influence the verifying process. I'll to continue.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Looks like my journey is over. For the second time =(
I made a half of part 5 (around 10k frames), played it back, it synced with all resolutions.
Today I finished it, played it back and it desyncs by any means around frame 4700. Why???
User movie #66093856531976105
I'm so upset now. 2 days wasted. I feel like it doesn't worth any further effort because I've passed only 20% of the game and who knows how many times I'll have to redo various parts in order to get them stable.
If the game goes out of sync, it doesn't matter if you're making a single movie or divide it by parts - it still goes out of sync because of a tiny bug inside Dolphin.
Sorry, Ubercapitalist! I hope you will save your enthusiasm about TASing RE4. Maybe we'll find better possibilities in Dolphin 6.0.
P.S: let's finish the caper on a good note! Here is some Cabin footage with headshots because I managed to keep 1 savestate not in the end of that desynced movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeD3RVwMJKA
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
That's OK, thank you very much for trying.
I am attempting again, still going for a good New Game+ file, this time using GC controls (from 2 dtm files, per my post in Dolphin section). I played through the end of the cabin fight, which I was quite happy with the money collected. Naturally, it desynced in the village before this fight. I'll keep trying. The GC controls seem a bit more reliable. If I only lose 50% of my progress each night I should still eventually make it to the end.
"But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends:
A day is like a thousand years to the Lord,
and a thousand years is like a day"
-2 Peter 3:8 NLT
Use every last typewriter. Then it's gonna be easier to restart where you left off.
BTW, the IR desync problem is known: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/9018
I doubt it's gonna fix all the problems, but it makes sense to wait for the merge.
JosJuice wrote:
That pull request won't fix any desyncs, just the pointer being consistently offset when using TAS input.
At least, I delivered a problem to people who might fix it.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Not good. With frequent desyncs, even with GC controls, I put this down. All desyncs only occurred when playing movie back from the start.
-During cabin fight
-During 2nd El Gigante (was able to get past by loading an earlier savestate)
-In sword room in castle
I got through the water room and tried playback from beginning again. To get past 2nd El Gigante, I have a copy of the savestate that worked but can't recreate the state. Also the sword room desynced for a second time.
I need to go back to 2nd El Gigante to resume.
"But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends:
A day is like a thousand years to the Lord,
and a thousand years is like a day"
-2 Peter 3:8 NLT