Posted: 9/1/2006 9:31 PM
Post subject: The Lost Generations
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Mukki
Skilled player (1099)
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
GBA TASer of 2012 GBA TAS of 2012 Lucky TAS of 2011 Gameboy TAS of 2011 N64 TASer of 2007
Basically, there's a new gaming generation coming round the corner (PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, DS) and even consoles gone past (PSone) that have not been TASd at all. And even only the surface of N64 has been scratched. Is this as far as it will go? Will we never get to perfect the games of future generations? Also, will TASing die off in future due to catridges being obsolete and consoles being downright impossible to emulate (Nintendo DS)?
http://tasvideos.org/Mukki.html
Posted: 9/1/2006 9:50 PM
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atro_city
Active player (256)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 476
Possibly, but with arcade rerecording a possibility, I don't think it'll be all that bad.
[URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcuV2JdaBYY]Streets of Rage 3 (2 players)[/url]
Posted: 9/1/2006 10:06 PM
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Baxter
Skilled player (1410)
Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821
TAS of 2013 SNES TAS of 2013 Speedy TAS of 2007 Innovative TAS of 2007
Mukki wrote:
Also, will TASing die off in future...
We're not even done with NES yet, and there will always be some who want to keep trying to optimize stuff.
http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html
Posted: 9/1/2006 10:35 PM
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L4yer
Joined: 6/12/2006
Posts: 368
There will be a gap just for the fact that CD/DVD and now blu-ray games are difficult to emulate but eventually computers will be able to handle them.
Posted: 9/1/2006 10:39 PM
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Wahoo
Joined: 4/5/2006
Posts: 15
Computers in the future will easy handle this kind of thing. They've managed to find technology that will enable several hundred gigahurtz cpu's already.
Posted: 9/1/2006 10:57 PM
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Mukki
Skilled player (1099)
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
GBA TASer of 2012 GBA TAS of 2012 Lucky TAS of 2011 Gameboy TAS of 2011 N64 TASer of 2007
I've read in the past that PSone games (and so i suppose any CD based TAS) can't be TASed properly because of disc reading differing between consoles. So that excludes basically the last three major consoles. Also, how will computers in the future, despite all their gigahertz, be able to emualate a touchscreen DS or the bizarre Nintendo Wii. All of which will have games we would love to TAS.
http://tasvideos.org/Mukki.html
Posted: 9/1/2006 11:03 PM
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Morrison
He/Him
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Joined: 8/2/2006
Posts: 195
Location: USA
The problem is that newer games are so much longer and more intricate than NES/SNES/Genesis games and therefore take substantially longer to TAS. The possibilities for variation in route and tactics grow exponentially with 3D graphics and more options in terms of technique or execution. In the future, many games will probably take many months or even a year or two to optimize on the same level as 8 bit or 16 bit games, and the length will not only be a turn off for many, but very time consuming. Just think of games with rerecords of... I don't know, 300,000? So unless the TASing community grows greatly in a few years, we probably won't be able to TAS as fast or faster than re-recording emulation technology progresses on to newer consoles and newer consoles. Also, this community is a little older and perfers retro-gaming. I see little interest in taking on newer systems. For example, as Mukki said, "only the surface of N64 has been scratched." Part of that is due to less than ideal re-recording technology and probably lack of interest.
twitch.tv/Retrogaming2084
Posted: 9/1/2006 11:13 PM
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OmnipotentEntity
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Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2631
Wahoo wrote:
Computers in the future will easy handle this kind of thing. They've managed to find technology that will enable several hundred gigahurtz cpu's already.
n, They've managed to find technology that will enable several hundred gigahurtz chips. Not CPUs. They have chips that will make a several hundred gigahurtz signal, the kind that cordless phones have to make a 5 GHz signal.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Posted: 9/1/2006 11:25 PM
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Blublu
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Well, the disc-reading issue is hardly insurmountable, and I think we will eventually have TASes for every console ever made, provided the interest is still there in the future when the technology allows for it. Remember, no matter how weird the input system gets (DS, Wii), it is still digital. Which means it will be possible to find some solution. I'm intriqued by the prospect of making a TAS for the Wii, though. I mean, there is actually a limit to how fast matter (the remote) can move, so I guess a speed limit of c would have to be implemented in the emulator, just to keep things "realistic".
Posted: 9/1/2006 11:37 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
What if you switch remotes?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 9/1/2006 11:44 PM
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Blublu
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
That depends on how the remote switching will actually work on the actual Wii. If I remember correctly, you press a switch on the Wii itself, and it syncs with the remotes that are close enough. So you couldn't virtually put two remotes on the opposite sides of the universe and then instantly switch, if that's what you're thinking.
Posted: 9/2/2006 12:41 AM
Post subject: Re: The Lost Generations
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JSmith
Joined: 8/1/2006
Posts: 428
Mukki wrote:
Basically, there's a new gaming generation coming round the corner (PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, DS) and even consoles gone past (PSone) that have not been TASd at all. And even only the surface of N64 has been scratched.
Some companies are still making GBA games...
Trying 127.0.0.1... telnet: connect to address 127.0.0.1: Connection refused telnet: Unable to connect to remote host
Posted: 9/2/2006 1:08 AM
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atro_city
Active player (256)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 476
Also, this community is a little older and perfers retro-gaming. I see little interest in taking on newer systems. For example, as Mukki said, "only the surface of N64 has been scratched." Part of that is due to less than ideal re-recording technology and probably lack of interest. I have a feeling that as time goes on people in this community will slowly gain interest in "newer" games, just like there is a noticable interest in GBA games right now. This could be a very slow process, though...
[URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcuV2JdaBYY]Streets of Rage 3 (2 players)[/url]
Posted: 9/2/2006 8:58 AM
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Mukki
Skilled player (1099)
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
GBA TASer of 2012 GBA TAS of 2012 Lucky TAS of 2011 Gameboy TAS of 2011 N64 TASer of 2007
I agree, by the looks of things it is the very user friendly aspects of the VBA that will introduce those that are not as familiar with the retro games into TASing. The GBA games are the most modern and so the games contain the depth, cleverness and prettiness of the modern gaming era, but they are presented in the same way as the SNES making them easier to TAS.
http://tasvideos.org/Mukki.html
Posted: 9/2/2006 3:50 PM
(Edited: 9/2/2006 4:42 PM)
Post subject: Look into the future...
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captainobvious
Joined: 7/1/2005
Posts: 56
Location: Central Pennsylvania, USA
So... the Wii ("wheeeeee!" aka "dabbayoo too"). Virtual Console. Millions of people playing older games. What of the Emulator market? Speedruns will certainly continue, but what of Tool-Assisted Speedruns? Why would people get an emulator if they can already play all their favorite old (Nintendo) games? People might use emulators for savestates and slow-down to make the game easier, like game-genies or cheat codes. If Nintendo charges for playing the old games ("buying" them), emulators would be a free alternative. Will emulators actually become more popular? Which means more ROM pirating... Will the pirating cause the eventual legal downfall of emulators? Virtual Console means old games will become more popular. And they are already TAS-able. Increased TAS popularity? However, if emulation goes down the tubes, so will TASes. Still, unless emulators are attacked like free music, I expect TASing to enjoy a larger community. Assuming emulation continues into future years, there is still the hurdle of motion-sensitivity and touch-reactions. For touch-screens, I imagine an emulator window with the bottom half able to be clicked on. Your mouse would act like the stylus (click and drag). If you really wanted a controller feeling, just use a modified Palm Pilot. As for motion-sensitivity, buy motion-sensitive controllers that attach to the computer? (Would any company make them?) Not sure what to do about the blueray thing. Maybe future technology will use blueray, and be able to copy the discs.
That's what she said!
Posted: 9/2/2006 4:02 PM
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atro_city
Active player (256)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 476
I'd have to say that it depends more on the individuals inside the community and not what happens outside the community.
[URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcuV2JdaBYY]Streets of Rage 3 (2 players)[/url]
Posted: 9/2/2006 4:03 PM
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Mukki
Skilled player (1099)
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
GBA TASer of 2012 GBA TAS of 2012 Lucky TAS of 2011 Gameboy TAS of 2011 N64 TASer of 2007
I think (i hope) emulation will not go down the same route as music, and even if it is it shouldn't happen for a long time. It'd be a real shame if emulation was to go down due to piracy. We can hardly be blamed, can we? As far as i know using emulators and ROMs is completely legal as long as you already own the original console and game. That works perfectly for us, i mean, you can hardly properly TAS a game if you don't own. We TAS games we've owned for years, and only use emulation because its the only way to do what we do.
http://tasvideos.org/Mukki.html
Posted: 9/3/2006 5:13 PM
Post subject: Emulation
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Catastrophe
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
DS: Easy! Just use the mouse. Touchscreens can only register one point at a time. If you touch two places at once then those two points are sort averaged together to create one point. So the movie file would save: X, Y, (d-pad), B, A, Y, X, start, and maybe hibernate. Totally doable. Wii: This is speculation on my part, but the game software probably recieves all of the following: X, Y, Z, Roll, Pitch, and Yaw. (And buttons.) So there are six dimensions where the DS only has two. You can definitely still record the input and make movies although there is no good input device. You'd have to input commands like "Add 30 to Z, frame advance, Add 10 to Y + A, frame advance" etc. Or you could invest in a 3D mouse but I doubt that anyone wants a Wii emulator that costs $400. (Irony.) PS: 512 MB of RAM is standard now and 1GB will be standard soon. So basically we can hold both the console and a disk image in memory at the same. Correction: in system memory. If you have that much RAM then your graphics card must have at least 64MB of video ram as well and that's more than enough space to run a PS1 game. There is no need to emulate the optical drive. I think PS2 emulation might exist. Besides stability I think the main issue is that it runs at 5fps maximum. But that's not a problem here, is it? :P I can imagine some devs working on the project as a hobby, slaving away just trying to get at least one game up to a good framerate, when someone pipes up with a feature request: "Hey, can you make this run even slower? Maybe even manual frame advance?"
Posted: 9/3/2006 10:19 PM
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Mukki
Skilled player (1099)
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
GBA TASer of 2012 GBA TAS of 2012 Lucky TAS of 2011 Gameboy TAS of 2011 N64 TASer of 2007
I guess that using the mouse is the only way to properly emulate a DS. From what i've heard DS ROMs are difficult to come by because nintendo has made every effort to copyright them from every viable way. And like you said, from the looks of things Wii emulation would cost more than the console itself, and if anything like the N64 TASs, ROMs would be even more unreliable and so of little use to us. I have seen PS2 emulators floating around on various sites, however, i assume that they are very experimental and have never tried them out myself. Also, as far as PSone emulation goes i personally wouldn't stick a treasured CD into my drive and mess about with the game in the way we do for making TASs, which is particularly nasty because i think ISOs are a bad way to emulate they only usually come segmented. Not as convenient as the full game we get with Roms.
http://tasvideos.org/Mukki.html