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Extremely late to the party, but holy crap was that a crazy ride! So impressed that someone found a way to improve on the run so drastically.
Hats off to Archanfel... CZ is such a pain to run just because of all the randomness and lag, and to find all the new tricks and game breaks. AWESOME STUFF!
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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feos wrote:
xoinx wrote:
I'm pretty sure it is possible to optimize the current run by at least another 30ish seconds if we can figure out the RNG and what triggers the arrow flags and dialogue flags so we can get rid of all the waiting. I get the feeling that this game is so glitchy that it is possible to find a way to glitch through the page boundaries without arrows, but that's just a guess...
There are too many possibilities, but I don't have the time to study how the game works in depth... but if anyone is interested to work on this, I'm happy to help!
I have the time! I'd need all RAM addresses you have, and 2 movies demonstrating 2 possible RNG outcomes for some event. Or an explanation how to get them different.
Sorry mate, just saw your reply. Back when we were working on this TAS we didn't use any RAM watching--all outcomes were actually obtained blindly. That said, for manipulation of ? items, most button inputs seemed to influence the outcome (hence the random movements before picking up ?)
Not too sure what triggers events e.g. enemy spawn/dialogue/arrows etc., so will need to do more digging on that.
Its been so long, but might be fun to relook at the game to map out some important RAM addresses... Let me see what I can do this weekend.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/20/2006
Posts: 287
Location: Singapore
Hi everyone!
First time checking in to the site in a really long time...
I'm pretty sure it is possible to optimize the current run by at least another 30ish seconds if we can figure out the RNG and what triggers the arrow flags and dialogue flags so we can get rid of all the waiting. I get the feeling that this game is so glitchy that it is possible to find a way to glitch through the page boundaries without arrows, but that's just a guess...
There are too many possibilities, but I don't have the time to study how the game works in depth... but if anyone is interested to work on this, I'm happy to help!
On the roadkill spawn glitch, my guess is that lag from the paper plane caused sufficient delays to the sprite spawning, and by then the screen had started the pan down, resulting in the sprite spawning outside the cage.
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Nice run, congrats on making SOR look like one hell of a bowling match LOL. The only thing I felt slightly out of place was committing suicide in stage 5... Was that necessary to manipulated the unseen enemies to fall into the pit as well?
Nevertheless, YES vote!
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Submission Text wrote:
Rerecord count = 1306
Is that value tampered? That's awfully low with respect to the amount of improvements made in this movie... haven't watched it yet but will get to it real soon.
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Could anyone post a direct dl of the published avi on maybe megaupload or something? I've been trying for quite a while now but can't seem to get the torrent working right...
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Thanks for the compliments :) I think credit has to go to XYZ for finding all the weird quirks in the game that I never ever bothered experimenting with. Almost all the new strategies from chapter 2 were contributed by him, and those alone account for about half of the total time saved.
NesVideoAgent wrote:
I'm not sure I got the right ROM though...
This appears to be the game over screens, so I guess NesVideoAgent's automated screenshot producer met with a desync...
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OMG! I'm at a loss of words... indescribably good! Bowser 1 was unexpectedly exciting now that the stupid red coins can be avoided. Rock on dudes, hopefully DDD can soon be glitched past too... nothing is impossible for you guys!
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upthorn wrote:
(I can't really answer your other questions though)
I figured there would be no easy way out when finding these addresses... I'll go explore a bit more first and maybe I can find something eventually haha
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I hope my topic sounds logical to most others... basically what I am looking for is similar to what upthorn implemented in Gens 9.5. In most games, there are frames where input is ignored temporarily while the characters are completing some form of animation based on the last input, so I was wondering if there is actually a separate memory address within the game itself aside from the 'lag flag' which tells the game when exactly to accept input. If so how exactly are these flags found?
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Just one thing about playing the movie... delete the SRAM(.srm) before opening any movie file to ensure the movie syncs. I wasn't aware of this earlier and wasted quite a bit of time getting the new movie file to work. Maybe an option should be added to the load movie window to allow the viewer to playback with a clean SRAM...
Anyway, about the WIP, it's interesting though tedious to watch, especially through the enemies' turn. That may hurt the entertainment value quite a bit
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Definite YES, it's amazing how you managed to get on the platform 1 cycle earlier in stage 10. And getting extra points without sacrifising time was another added bonus. All in all, a movie worthy of succeeding the STAR from its predecessor
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I personally do not mind the additional 16MB of RAM usage, though some others might... though is possible implement an option switch between 100% reliable cheat system and the current 'RAM-efficient' system? That would be the best solution to your question.
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One thing... the option "0-9 load, shift+0-9 save" doesn't quite work anymore. Saving is fine, but loading does not take place unless ctrl+0-9 is pressed. Is this intentional? Any way to revert back to the original settings?
EDIT: upthorn wrote:
Yeah, that's a partially implemented feature -- you may notice it no longer requires advancing the frame for the screen to display when you load state.
However the working palettes aren't currently saved or loaded, so the colors are a little out of whack.
I just did a little testing and realised that if I used savestates made using 9Z, the colours look perfect when loaded on 9.5a... but when the states are made using 9.5a, they look bad whether loaded on 0.5a or 9Z. Any reason for this??
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Ok, this translation sucks, so this is what the site basically says:
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A Chinese mobile phone manufacturer GIONEE is attempting to break into the Taiwanese market, and thus is releasing 10 new phone models into Taiwan. Of these 10, 2 models, the S20 and V9, are designed to be game phones, much like the Nokia N-GAGE. Both the phones come with an organic NES emulator as well as A/B buttons above the screen for use when playing games.
Specs of the phone:
S20 -- 2" display
1.3 MegaPixel Cam
128mb internal memory
Expandable T-Flash slot
V9 -- 2.2" display
2 MegaPixel Cam
Touch-screen Enabled/Comes with a Stylus
128mb internal memory
Expandable T-Flash slot
Performance:
The speakers of both phones perform exceedingly well; even at loud volumes, sound projection and pitch remains clear.
As for emulation performance, the colour and music emulations remains accurate. The polyphonic capabilities of the phone are able to accentuate the in-game music to provide a more complete gaming experience. Lag was not noticible in areas where it should not appear, which is very impressive for a device this small.
Other than the NES emulator, the phone also contains the usual applications, like an MP3 player and camera, as well as some other more advanced features. When connected to a computer, the phone can double up as a webcam. Unfortunately, the 1.3 MegaPixel camera of the S20 is far from being capable to provide good quality images as compared to other competion.
Another interesting feature is that the phones are both built with a TV-OUT jack. This means that with just a little configuration, one can play one's NES games on a TV just like the old days, or screen videos and photo slideshows for the viewing pleasure of family and friends!
----
That basically summarises the 5 pages on the site. I must say I am very impressed by the capabilities of the Chinese innovators, I am quite overwhelmed by the sheer number of cool features that they managed to squeeze into a mobile phone. Unfortunately, while the phones sounds really good, I can help but think that they are just gimmicky product out there for the novelty factor... perhaps this product may take off, but unlikely anywhere outside China/Taiwan due to copyright infringement issues. If you're really interested, your best chance is to get an import; I doubt it would reach your local phone dealers.
