K since the threads got merged, I'll post in this one.
I shot a total of 183 pictures of and on my equipment taken with my Camera (an Olympus Stylus Tough 12 MP, not that it's the best camera for the job, but it's what I have), with a total file size of 893 MB raw footage. Now be advised, these pictures are about 4-6 MB each due to me taking them at 12 MP. Expect them to look ugly when ultra-zoomed in. I hand-selected the best of what I took. The lighting on my pictures changes based on how much light is in the photo I'm taking, so if I'm taking a picture of the TV while it's on, everything is darker. Some pictures I got away with using the flash, others I didn't.
Also please note, I'm not taking a stance on this matter, and thus unbiased. I don't want to spark more flame-war/arguments on here. My pictures are what-you-see-is-what-I'm-seeing in it's unedited glory. I'm merely sharing my photos as info. Take it for what you will, and try to be civil about it please.
First off, we have my equipment. I cleaned and scrubbed the equipment out with 70% rubbing alchy + qtips for the carts, and the rest I wiped down with a microfiber cloth and a bit of warm water from the sink to the left. Made it look very shiny :) Also note that other than the N64 Xpack, and the SNES Advantage, none of my equipment has been modified, and with the exception of those 2 things, everything is genuine Nintendo-brand stuff. I couldn't find my true SNES controllers as I knew this was gonna be a long project, so I was short on time.
This is the TV I will be using. It's pretty run-of-the-mill. Note that it doesn't have a right audio RCA jack, not that it matters for the purposes of this test.
===GameBoy Color Pictures===
A late entry came about with my Sister's GameBoy Color., We didn't find it until after I made the SGB pictures, so some of these pictures may be out of order chronologically, but I properly ordered them by hand on Dropbox.
My stats screen on a GBC. Shown here as verification that it's my game and such.
Something I noticed while I was remembering things about the SGB was that the sea was blue, but on GBC and GBA-SP, it's red as you see here. Not that this has any significance, it was out of the ordinary for me, and thus I took pictures of the sea on everything to be as through as possible given my timeframe to work on this.
Of course, what documentation would be complete without an in-game battle. I chose this for the lulz of course. It's also good for showing off the pixels of the pictures in my findings.
===GameBoy Advanced SP Pictures===
My GBA-SP with Red inside it. I couldn't show the GBC on with red inside it without getting it to stand up properly for my camera. This photo also has my stats screen on it as well, not that it's necessary because...
...I took one of the stats screen close-up.
Here's a photo of the stats screen stretched out. I took extra photos for completionist's sake. You can stretch out the picture by using "R" on the GBA-SP, as I'm sure a lot of you know.
The Red Sea on a GBA-SP. I didn't notice the red sea till I played it on my sis's GBC, so this picture was an afterthought. It was taken near my sink as shown in photo #1. I didn't take a stretched out photo because like I said, this was an afterthought.
An encounter on my GBA-SP.I didn't get the other battle like I did on the GBC, so I settled on this guy. Shame it didn't grace us with its presence :(
The above encounter stretched out.
===SNES + Super GameBoy Pictures===
The SNES I'm using sitting atop of the TV. I didn't even think to take a picture of the controllers hooked up to it as it would add another angle to the picture, and this picture had good lighting to it, imo.
And now we get to the good stuff. Here's my stats screen on the SGB, with the SNES in view as verification. I ran the cables for the controller around the back and around the right side. You can also see the composite cables hooked up to the TV as well.
Here's a picture of how the sea looks on an SGB. It also has the SNES in view for verification.
Here's what I'm seeing from the SNES. The coloring is about right in this picture. It wasn't totally pitch-black for reasons I explained earlier.
Here's the encounter with the SNES for verification. Now you can see the lighting problems I was talking about earlier...
Here's a better look at what I'm seeing from the SNES from the above photo.
===N64 + Pokemon Stadium 2===
Here's my N64 sitting atop my TV. Again, no pictures of the controllers hooked up due to time. These last photos are a bit rushed in a sense. Not that I was short on time, but I got a few lucky ones that looked good that I didn't have to take multiples of.
Pokemon Stadium 2 at the Intro Screen. Also showing this because you can see "Expansion Pack detected" on it.
Here's a better look at the above picture. I got some good lighting from my cam in this one, showing off the colors.
Here's a good look at the stats screen on my Pokemon Red, play thru Pokemon Stadium 2. This photo has my N64 in it for verification as well as showing off good lighting in it.
The blue sea, as seen in Red thru Pokemon Stadium. All of the verification pictures I took had the N64 too blury, but if you notice the background, it's nearly the same lighting and style that everything else has been taken in. This photo was a bit rushed, and for that I'm sorry. If you zoom in on the top of the photo, you can see the base of my N64, so I'm offering that for verification.
The encounter as seen thru Red on Pokemon Stadium 2. Also has the N64 for verification. Another good photo that I didn't need a second take for.
I hope you enjoyed the fruits of my labor on this matter. I know it's not much, but maybe the experts can draw some conclusions based on my photos and we can all learn something. That's the motivation behind all of this, knowledge.
then, using Nero Photo Editor (due to lack of knowledge in photoshop) Inverted the colors (making the BG black and the V white), changed white into purple, and upped the color intensity to make it sort of shine in a few places.
I had a few others before this one.
I also used to use this as my encoder logo
I made this using MS Word, using a black page color and diff color fonts. I also made the one I use now in MS word, cuz I'm too lazy to really get into image editing.
Well right off the getgo, fox decides to bair right off the stage... I have no idea why but I can't help bursting in laughter... I'm guessing I don't have the right Rom however, but that desync was just too funny to not post. I mean, he just kinda Bairs off the stage LOL ^_^
3 Different roms later, still nothing on syncing from my end, even with the correct mem card file.
After playing around with settings in Dolphin, I can't even get a test video audio/video to sync up. The video dumps SUPER fast, while the audio records the lag in my fps due to dumping. 2.5 minutes of audio vs 40 seconds of video.
We have had instances people using old versions of tas's to do certain glitches however (bisqwit's lunar ball vanquishes the balls from the table, but only on an old version of fceu), but I think you have to get that kinda thing cleared with the people first.
From the Rules on the site:
No questionable emulator settings
The emulator should be set to emulate the system as closely as possible while still allowing the game to be played. You should not depend on a particular emulator hack to gain speed.
The BIOS must be real
If the system you are using makes use of system BIOSes, only use real BIOSes, not hacked ones.
The settings "Skip Idle Frames" shaves seconds off the run, as does skipping the gamecube bios. However, it's gaining an unfair advantage over consoles through emulator settings (and makes things slightly harder for people to encode, or maybe it's just this version of dolphin, idk for sure). Also, I can't seem to get "skip gamecube bios" unchecked at all, every time I turn it off, it still turns itself on...
I'm gonna have to vote No on this for breaking the site rules, and due to playback issues.
Also, I do give up on Dolphin encoding at least for now. Add some MD5 checksum checking of the Rom file, and save settings per movie that could affect the dumping and playback. It's got potential, it's just not quite there yet.
