The console definitely handles the disc swap properly, I've played through this game many times on PS1, PS2, PS3 and PSP and never had any issues with disc swapping at any point, I'd be willing to say I'm certain it's an emulation bug...
I'm sorry for chiming in late - but how do you do the disc swap?
In my FF8 TAS, the only way I could get it to not display the "WRONG DISC" screen was this process:
Wait until the swap-disc image had fully loaded.
Open the CD case - Frame advance 10-20 times - Insert new CD - Frame advance 10-20 times - press start.
I probably lost a second or two each transition, but having disc swap errors in the TAS is far worse than losing a couple seconds.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
THANKS A LOT DarkKobold !!!
That was just that.
If you Disc Swap too early, it works but as I mentionned the 4 adresses that should register the Disc Change aren't changed so the game still thinks we're in Disc 1.
Using DarkKobold method, the 4 adresses now registered the change and everything works.
Thank you sooooooooo much.
And Also thanks Funnyhair for taking the time to check it.
EDIT : I was waiting for the swap-disc image to be fully displayed then Swap immediatly. In fact for the game to register it, you need to wait for the swap-disc image to be fully displayed, Open CD case/Insert Disc, and wait 13 frames before closing the CD case and there is no need to press X anymore.
It ends up losing 17 frames but it's indeed WAAAAAAAAAAAY better than having Disc Swap error to fix.
EDIT 2 : Luckily enough the RNG is not moving during Disc Swap, so by just adding those 17 blank frames and 1 frame of lag that mysteriously disappear in Cleyra, everything hex-edit perfectly, so I don't even have anything to redo.
WIP + savestate at the start of Disc 2 :
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RJCCU92A
Glad to be done with this part. I usually love to manipulate luck but those battles were a real pain in the ass...
Technically speaking, those 17 frames aren't lost - since the TAS won't sync or even really exist without them. Hex editing memory is a big no-no.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Yeah I know, I've just express myself badly. My english is not what it used to be :p
I just meant that the Disc Swap should last 17 frames longer in order to work properly. Of course the current WIP is with the proper Disc Swap and no hex-editing.
I'm currently around 8min40 ahead of the japanese TAS which ends up in 7h59, so I'm 99.99% positive that sub 8h will be done. Sub 7h45 seems possible too. But I won't know for sure until way later.
Sure but there's nothing really interesting in it.
It's just a bunch of dialogue skips, walking around and FMVs. Just one fight against Lani who goes down in one hit.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OFTO1AJT
Savestate at Pinnacle Rocks inside.
Once upon a time...
There was this guy named Zidane. He reached Condie Petie and ask Choco to help him move faster. He trusted what he saw pretty easily so, he gets out of tracks to find Choco, spend some time finding a gysahl green in his bagpack and figured out that his little friend only help him save 2-3 seconds at best. Which was more or less the time he spent picking up the gysahl green in the first place. So Choco was not necessary there. No big deal. He's gonna help him later. Yeah but the second gysahl green he picked up was a 5-6 seconds detour. Which is more or less what Choco is going to help him save once again...
At that precise moment, he realised he spent ~40 seconds to go to Chocobo Forest to allow Choco to help him later, and Choco won't help him at all...
So he was really pissed at himself for not checking that earlier and went back to where he learned Limit Glove, said "F*ck you Choco" and moved on to the Gizamaluke's Grotto by foot...
I can pretty much hex-edit all the travels with minor change for the random encounters, but obviously all the fights have to be redone. But I can't let my stupid mistake make me lose 30~40 seconds.
So just saying, don't expect Disc 2 too soon.
Thanks for the support Dada ;)
Back to fighting Zorn and Thorn in Alexandria Castle.
All the bosses fights' strategies remain the same but I'm pretty amazed by the dumb luck I had with the Random Numbers on the previous WIP.
It was way harder to set up this time and a little bit more frames consuming.
All in all, ~2500 frames are saved at that point.
Holly %*$ !!
It appears that lady luck is on my side ^^
In Alexandria Castle there are those turning platforms where you have to wait before jumping on it.
Now the RNG is moving faster here, when you're moving than when you're standing still, so by running in circle while waiting for the platform you can make the RNG go way further without wasting time. That leaves the possibility of about 230 differents RN for the Beatrix fight reachable without wasting time. One of the latest was the fastest one and appears strangely familiar to me.
Yep, I catch up with the RNG from the old WIP ^^
As no tricky lag frame showed up, I was able to hex-edit all of Alexandria Castle from Beatrix INCLUDING THE BATTLES which would have take me days to reoptimized otherwise.
The sneaky lag frame decided to show up on the World Map but that's really no big deal as Lani's fight is extremely easy to set up.
So big YEAH ! Should be back in Condie Petie before 2011 ends ^^