I was finally able to test the Duke Nukem test run that Dimon12321 made. Works fine on console.
Holy Father! I didn't expect it to sync at all, knowing it's unusual hardware utilization, 3D graphics and uncapped framerate, because all three FPS TAS tests I've provided are lag-sensitive.
Judging by verifications of side-scrollers, all those RNG troubles, I was convinced "When every known game can be played back, only then Duke Nukem can be played back too". Well, that feels different now.
I made a 100% low-effort TAS of Duke Nukem. In case you'd like to check it even further, here's the movie: User movie #638510452607262334
Regardless, you've influenced my TASing priorities!
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
I was finally able to test the Duke Nukem test run that Dimon12321 made. Works fine on console.
Holy Father! I didn't expect it to sync at all, knowing it's unusual hardware utilization, 3D graphics and uncapped framerate, because all three FPS TAS tests I've provided are lag-sensitive.
Judging by verifications of side-scrollers, all those RNG troubles, I was convinced "When every known game can be played back, only then Duke Nukem can be played back too". Well, that feels different now.
I made a 100% low-effort TAS of Duke Nukem. In case you'd like to check it even further, here's the movie: User movie #638510452607262334
Regardless, you've influenced my TASing priorities!
Unfortunately the 100% run desync in v2.1.3 because 2.1.2 used the wrong EEPROM size.
If you plan on TASing Duke Nukem or Doom, be sure to use v2.1.3 where these EEPROM issues are fixed.
Unfortunately the 100% run desync in v2.1.3 because 2.1.2 used the wrong EEPROM size.
Oh. I though EEPROM is used for game saves and high score boards only, and I didn't make a single save in my run. It goes out of sync about half way through Level 1-3.
I assume, the reason is I changed the weapon auto-switching option and the emulator wrote to the wrong part of RAM which caused extra lag frames and/or RNG change. Am I on the right track? Just a guess.
My Doom TAS of Level 1 goes out of sync when I save the game at the end on v2.1.3. More time is spent saving
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Oh. I though EEPROM is used for game saves and high score boards only, and I didn't make a single save in my run. It goes out of sync about half way through Level 1-3.
I assume, the reason is I changed the weapon auto-switching option and the emulator wrote to the wrong part of RAM which caused extra lag frames and/or RNG change. Am I on the right track? Just a guess.
My Doom TAS of Level 1 goes out of sync when I save the game at the end on v2.1.3. More time is spent saving
Yes, when you change weapon to auto-switch it writes to EEPROM, and that causes the desync.
Even with the correct EEPROM size, timing can still be variable. If you want a complete run to work on console, I recommend only TASing like one level / stage past the first EEPROM access / save, then test on console to make sure timing on that particular cart matches emulator before continuing.
Or maybe for Duke Nukem its not a big deal to avoid to weapon switching thing to preserve determinism.
Even with the correct EEPROM size, timing can still be variable. If you want a complete run to work on console, I recommend only TASing like one level / stage past the first EEPROM access / save, then test on console to make sure timing on that particular cart matches emulator before continuing.
I can't really imagine it. If it doesn't match, then what? You won't tweak the emulator for the sake of each game with an incorrect EEPROM timing(-s), will you?
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
I can't really imagine it. If it doesn't match, then what? You won't tweak the emulator for the sake of each game with an incorrect EEPROM timing(-s), will you?
If it doesn't match there is a sync setting that can be changed in the movie file (settings -> sync settings -> EEPROM offset) to adjust timing until it matches. This doesnt require modifying the emulator. It can also be changed after the fact in the .bk2 file.
Run-to-run variance in timing appears to be small, within ~100 cycles or so, so once a good value is dialed in continuing the run should be pretty safe.
If I could make a request I’d like to see if this run can be console verified without needing to deal with the sram creation screen that happens on boot. https://tasvideos.org/4246M
I basically had to resync this TAS to adjust for dirty sram because on console it seemingly wasn’t working on clean. Might be a good thing to test out with GBAHawk if possible.
[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
If I could make a request I’d like to see if this run can be console verified without needing to deal with the sram creation screen that happens on boot. https://tasvideos.org/4246M
I basically had to resync this TAS to adjust for dirty sram because on console it seemingly wasn’t working on clean. Might be a good thing to test out with GBAHawk if possible.
In what way was it not working? Having to add extra frames, bad RNG, different lag?
In what way was it not working? Having to add extra frames, bad RNG, different lag?
Lag between some levels or rooms had to either be added to removed. But the main problem was the run couldn’t be played back on a clean SRAM. This is one of those GBA games that actually has to format save data whenever it’s first played on a console. It actually displays this after the GBA bootup before displaying the “Nintendo presents” screen.
Once it does this though, the game will simply play the boot up then jump to the “nintendo presets” screen like usual. I had to make a version of the run that didn’t go through the process of formatting the data just to get it past the first parts of the game. But even then some of the loading times had to be adjusted in some room transitions as well.
[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
In what way was it not working? Having to add extra frames, bad RNG, different lag?
Lag between some levels or rooms had to either be added to removed. But the main problem was the run couldn’t be played back on a clean SRAM. This is one of those GBA games that actually has to format save data whenever it’s first played on a console. It actually displays this after the GBA bootup before displaying the “Nintendo presents” screen.
Once it does this though, the game will simply play the boot up then jump to the “nintendo presets” screen like usual. I had to make a version of the run that didn’t go through the process of formatting the data just to get it past the first parts of the game. But even then some of the loading times had to be adjusted in some room transitions as well.
Ok, I don't currently have a cart but I'll put it on my todo list of things to check. This game has Flash memory, so it will be a good one to check when I take another look at that.
Starting to see some more desyncs, but haven't managed to figure out any causes. Here's a current list:
DKC2: Desyncs in Glimmer's Galleon due to lag differences.
Another World:Desyncs due to (what I think is) walking animation counter being at the wrong value (ironically at 0xF0E in WRAM.) Since most time is spent running the cause of the desync could be long before the effect. Fixed: was an input timing issue
Snood: Mysteriously crashes on console.
All of these are too complex to really work with. Its possible I'll only really see complex cases, but for now I'll just catalog these and try other games hoping for something simpler. I don't really even have any guesses as to where to look for inaccuracies, so I'm sticking with my current strategy of just trying different games until I find some critical clue that points me in the right direction. I've also been getting burned by fake / counterfeit GBA carts recently which is getting really annoying and slowing things down.
Its possible I'll only really see complex cases, but for now I'll just catalog these and try other games hoping for something simpler. I don't really even have any guesses as to where to look for inaccuracies, so I'm sticking with my current strategy of just trying different games until I find some critical clue that points me in the right direction. I've also been getting burned by fake / counterfeit GBA carts recently which is getting really annoying and slowing things down.
I'm wishing you luck and patience!
I'm currently living in Romania. I can look for required games and send them to you by post. Yeah, most games won't likely match by region, but I've seen a couple of world-wide (W) ROMs on the net in pirate collections, so, at least, a list of (W) ROMs can be made and, if a game you need is on this list, there's some chance a purchased GBA cart will work on your USA console
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Its possible I'll only really see complex cases, but for now I'll just catalog these and try other games hoping for something simpler. I don't really even have any guesses as to where to look for inaccuracies, so I'm sticking with my current strategy of just trying different games until I find some critical clue that points me in the right direction. I've also been getting burned by fake / counterfeit GBA carts recently which is getting really annoying and slowing things down.
I'm wishing you luck and patience!
I'm currently living in Romania. I can look for required games and send them to you by post. Yeah, most games won't likely match by region, but I've seen a couple of world-wide (W) ROMs on the net in pirate collections, so, at least, a list of (W) ROMs can be made and, if a game you need is on this list, there's some chance a purchased GBA cart will work on your USA console
Thanks for the offer, but I prefer to get carts myself. That being said I need runs more than carts, so any new runs are greatly appreciated, especially of games without EEPROM or Flash saves.
I figured out the issue with Another World, it was just an input timing issue. The game polls input in a weird way (at the end of a frame as opposed to the beginning.) So I just had to adjust inputs and the script to make sure there were no weird things happening.
I also console verified a resync of Dora the Explorer: Pirate pigs Treasure, which coincidentally also suffered from input timing issues.
I completed this verification with the resynced file:
Link to video
Also I did the recent Donkey Kong Country run and the other Dora the Explorer one as well.
Today I was able to accomplished one of my goals and console verify a Mega Man Zero run!
Link to video
RetroEdit's script was invaluable here as there was hundreds of extra lag frames all over the run. Resyncing didn't take long with the script though.
I'll try to work on the other Zero 1 and 3 runs, I forgot 2 was the japanese version so I don't have a cart for that right now.
The zero games were some of my favorites from the console, so it's really satisfying seeing a console verified TAS, I'm hopeful for the rest as well.
Onwards!
All of the Mega Man Zero 1 & 3 runs are now verified. Here is the Zero 3 100% one:
Link to video
Eventually I'll do 2 & 4, but presumably they are are about the same in terms of accuracy requirements so I'll move on to other games for now.
With almost 60 GBA runs verified, I'm well ahead of where I wanted to be this year in terms of numbers, though fell a bit behind in emulation work as I still don't have manual Flash timings done.
I really want to figure out DKC 2 though, so I'm going to keep on the grind, maybe I'll try some glitchier runs like Dark Arena.
I finally got a 32 MB cart so I can test the remaining metroid runs. Super Metroid GBA edition desyncs about 30 minutes in due to a missing lag frame on console.
I looked at the trace logs, and in GBAHawk the offending frame misses not being a lag frame by only about 12 cycles, new record!
I'll take a closer look and see if this is easier to track down than DKC2. I'm still surprised how small the margins of error can be. If this trend continues into more modern and complicated systems, tracking down root causes starts to seem impossible. But on GBA I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.
The other 32MB zero mission rom hack, metroid desolation, console verified just fine:
Link to video
One thing I noticed about both Super Metroid GBA and DKC2 is that they both desync in places where HBL DMA is running every scanline. This makes me think that some weird DMA edge case is responsible for the desyncs, but so far I can't conjure up any cases I haven't already covered.
Link to video
After improving emulation with the newly discovered fact that DMA halts IRQ pipeline, I was able to verify Super Metroid - GBA Edition.Now all the metroid runs are verified.
Doing the testing of this one used up a lot of my time, and unfortunately it didn't fix DKC2, so now I will have to repeat the process again for that game to finally figure out the issue. So progress is very slow, but at the least with this testing methodology finding the problem is almost garaunteed, just extremely costly in terms of time.
Link to video
Donkey Kong Country 2 is finally verified!
Now the only remaining run that fails to verify is Snood with that weird crash, but I'm going to set that aside for now and move on to more interesting (and simpler) things.
DKC 2 and Super Metroid GBA were both huge time sinks, but both ultimately revealed important emulation details.
Time to focus on Flash saving.
Link to video
Recent 101% DKC run verified as well. That's all DKC runs verified (even though I have to wait for next release to put a check mark on DKC2.)
