First of all, Hi. I've been hanging around these forums for a while now but haven't posted anything until now.
I've been doing TAS'es for Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for quite a while now though the results has been far from good since i really have no idea how you guys do it.
So anyways, Got a few questions:
What input should i use for these games and how do you guys aim so fast?? (Right now i'm using keyboard for strafing and mouse for aiming)
Is it possible to resume recording after pressing "Stop Recording movie"?
What's the best way to use savestates? I mean like, what buttons to use and where to save etc.
I've heard alot of talk about frame advance, Exactly what is this good for?
Even though i'm only using a single savestate, my latest run has desynced 3 times now. And this run is a 2 minute thing, so i assume the 1+ hour stuff must desync ALOT. How do you deal with that?[/i]
What's the best way to use savestates? I mean like, what buttons to use and where to save etc.
I'm pretty sure I read this somewhere, but use a backup save, a current save (right where you are), a third save for complicated parts of the game, and a fourth for even more complicated parts. BUt you're free to use your own scheme.
Wyster wrote:
Even though i'm only using a single savestate, my latest run has desynced 3 times now. And this run is a 2 minute thing, so i assume the 1+ hour stuff must desync ALOT. How do you deal with that?
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
Yeah. If it's a level or stage based game always have a save at the start of each level and use a different one to re-record as you play through it.
Then watch it back to check if it's perfect, if not then try again.
There's honestly nothing worse than having a glaring error half way through a movie...trust me.
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
what you are doing is speedrun. read the FAQ completely again
edit: are you saving once only before each level or are you saving several times over a single savestate slot throughout the level?
I'll answer these quesions since I get annoyed when I just get people just post Links to the FAQ and often the FAQ was written by experienced users who talk in their own language.
1. Use the 0.6 pluggin (refer to emu topic)
2. Create a savestate by holding shift+FX (X=0-9), then press shift+8 to change the settings to read+write to continue recording press what ever F key you want to re-record from. If you want to watch a movie from a savestate then press shift+8 again to change it to read only
Tip: to cover accidently writing over everything make sure you have a save state at the very end of the movie that way if you load an early savestate and accidently set it to wite then all you have to do is load the latest savestate to prevent that. I would also advise using all ten savestates at all times.
3. Frame advance is very powerful it freezes the action and then you hold a certain button combination and then press the the frame advance key. I generally use the spacebar to do it but frame advance is the \ key. I can't remember whats the default key for getting it out of this mode but I use E key to do it. It may sound time consuming but its a lot faster that playing it a 5% speed.
4. I don't know how to prevent desyncs on Mupen they happen, you have to deal with it, its something to do with the plugin the lag and often a different version number causes desyncs.
From my limited experience, I can say that N64 above all others is a pain in the ass to TAS.
As a general rule for me: I only use one save state when doing a TAS. Maybe it's just some sort of superstition, but with some of my initial experimentation I had at one point had a strange desync when I used two save states. (I saved one at the beginning of the level so if I made a mistake I didn't have to skip ahead as far, then used the other for more immediate stuff.)
Since I started using only one save state for every TAS, desyncing has never been an issue (Although I've only done this on NES, SNES, and briefly on GBA.)
Doing this on an N64 emulator would be frustrating at best. If you make a mistake, fast-forwarding from the beginning would take a very long time.
Guanobowl had many, many desync issues with his Ocarina of Time run before it was finished. I experimented with Perfect Dark for a few minutes and the aiming is a very big pain. I have a controller with analog and I thought that would make it easier. It didn't. I gave up on the idea after I couldn't kill the first enemy without careful aim. (I wanted to drop off a ledge and headshot him in midair without losing speed. If you can't manage that, a TAS just isn't going to be fun to watch.)
Alright, Thanks for the answers. Resuming recording is gonna make my life ALOT easier.
I still don't get how frame advance works. I mean, it takes like 4 frames before the screen is redrawn and if i press a button usually nothing happens when i skip ahead a few frames? LIke if i try to shoot it usually doesn't shoot at all and if it does, it happens like 30 frames later(After pressing the shoot button in like 10 diffrent frames).
First, N64 is strange about how it renders frames. Although NTSC is 60 frames per second, N64 seems to render only half of that (maybe it differs from game to game) so every other frame seems to be wasted. My facts aren't clear about this. You'd have to ask someone with more experience.
Second, many games have a delay like the one you're talking about. This actually makes it more realistic and easier for the player. When you squeeze the trigger, the gun takes several frames before it actually goes off. This is hard to time for a TAS. You'll need to test to see how many frames each gun takes before the shots are fired.
Side note: I know that pistols work differently than most other games in Perfect Dark because their firing rate depends on the player. Potentially (especially for a TAS) a pistol has the fastest firing rate because you can theoretically squeeze the trigger more times per minute than the fastest machine gun would automatically fire.
If you play with slow motion or combat boosts you can really see the difference. It's actually really fun and cool to play against sims in slow motion and see them slowly turn a corner with their high powered machine guns sputtering out a bullet every couple of seconds, and then you empty your full pistol clip into them in a half second and watch them very slowly fall to the ground.
>I still don't get how frame advance works. I mean, it takes like 4 frames before the screen is redrawn and if i press a button usually nothing happens when i skip ahead a few frames? LIke if i try to shoot it usually doesn't shoot at all and if it does, it happens like 30 frames later(After pressing the shoot button in like 10 diffrent frames).
You need to hold down the keys you want to press, and then press frame advance once, while still holding them.
From what's happening to you it sounds like you press the buttons you want once, and then press frame advance after letting go of them.
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
As far as frame advance goes. Sometimes if you hold the key and then press the frame advance button it won't work (a little like 'pause'), however, if you time it so that you are at the frame immediately before, stop on that frame, hold the desired button while you resume into full play it should work fine.
As far as frame advance goes. Sometimes if you hold the key and then press the frame advance button it won't work
This problem only happens if you let go of the buttons you want to press before the emulator has time to reach the next frame. If you just loaded a savestate or if something else is happening that will cause a large delay, it's not safe to release the keys as soon as you let go of the frame advance button, so you have to keep holding them until you're sure they've registered.
Although this technically applies to almost all emulators, N64 emulators are the only ones I've seen that can be slow enough for it to be a problem.
... Either that, or you're talking about pressing a button on a frame where it won't register (for instance the game might choose to ignore your input unless you hold it down for 10 full frames), which depends on the game and where you are in it.
