United StatesGreat question!
There's no requirement to see it from within the Dev Room, it just has to be that specific credits box was always my view. I know there's ways to get Out of Bounds and see it but figured they'd ultimately be slower than the traditional way. We could always make the OOB way a separate category if it's not competitive with the traditional way if folks would like!
Hello there!
I'm the mod on another Super FX game called Vortex and was running some specific emulation tests and attract mode tests for it. Attract Mode tests consist of running a few common emulators and methods of play and comparing them by syncing up a portion of the title screen and allowing them to run over the course of an hour.
For those that don't know, "Attract Mode" is a piece of the title that shows gameplay or impressive elements of the game to "attract" folks. Commonly it was used to entice folks to play arcade games, but most early console games and SNES games have them too.
For kicks, I decided to run the same Attract Mode tests with the rest of the Super FX games I have access to. One of them is Dirt Trax FX.
Here's the raw footage:
Basically I'm seeing how far out of sync the different options are after an hour.
Keep in mind, while the attract mode tests are a good ballpark as to what might be accurate, there's a lot of other factors too. It might give folks an idea for other emulation options to put through paces and eventually allow though.
Based on the video, it appears there's:
Significant issues with emulation on Mesen and No$sns - game crashes after 10+ minutes.
SNES 9x is 40 to 50 seconds ahead of hardware, giving it a very large statistical advantage in even the shorter runs.
Kindred seems to run a very slight bit faster, while most emulation runs slightly slower than hardware (BSNES, Bizhawk - BSNES, Mednafen).
Super NT, Hardware, and SD2SNES are so similar after an hour that the differences are statistically insignificant.
I'll hopefully be testing some other emulation methods at a later date as well.
Hello there!
I'm the mod on another Super FX game called Vortex and was running some specific emulation tests and attract mode tests for it. Attract Mode tests consist of running a few common emulators and methods of play and comparing them by syncing up a portion of the title screen and allowing them to run over the course of an hour.
For those that don't know, "Attract Mode" is a piece of the title that shows gameplay or impressive elements of the game to "attract" folks. Commonly it was used to entice folks to play arcade games. but most early console games and SNES games have them too.
For kicks, I decided to run the same Attract Mode tests with the rest of the Super FX games I have access to. One of them is Star Fox.
Here's the raw footage:
Basically I'm seeing how far out of sync the different options are after an hour.
Keep in mind, while the attract mode tests are a good ballpark as to what might be accurate, there's a lot of other factors too. It might give folks an idea for other emulation options to put through paces and eventually allow though.
Based on the video, it appears there's a:
15 second difference between BSNES, the most accurate emulator in terms of timing.
Super NT and SNES classic are slower, but considering the clock difference,(HDMI is 60fps, not the SNES 60.0988fps) it makes sense.
SD2SNES/FXPAK seems rather accurate to hardware for Star Fox, or at least a bit more accurate than the Switch.
Switch appears to be a statistically insignificant bit faster than hardware.
I will be following up on some other emulation options including Ares, Higan, and MiSTER options some time in the future and will update then.
Hello there, I'm the mod on another Super FX game called Vortex and was running some specific emulation tests and attract mode tests for it.
For kicks, I decided to run the same Attract Mode tests with the rest of the Super FX games I have access to. I was particularly interested in the now Official version of Star Fox 2 as I wasn't sure how things would stack up considering there never was an official cart made, but didn't realize there was a board for the Beta.
Here's what the tests look like:
Basically I'm seeing how far out of sync the different options are after an hour.
While I have all my tools up, I could test the prototype in the same way if there's an interest.
Keep in mind, while the attract mode tests are a good ballpark as to what might be accurate, there's a lot of other factors too. It might give folks an idea for other emulation options to put through paces and eventually allow though.
Let me know!
(Oops the title of this was supposed to be Star Fox 2 attract mode tests)
Yeah, I should clarify that the scripts are mostly just to be able to quickly compare, test, or prove any findings from the algorithm.
That and I figure they might be useful for folks who don't want to dive in the depths of the theoretical. Goal is to lower the barrier to entry for folks finding their own strats, and bots are an accessible way to do that.
Jokers, items from towns, and items from units are all on my list to figure out! And if you (or anyone) have any other ideas of things for me to test, please feel free to mention!
I'm having some fun relearning lua. Used to use it and vbs all the time 15 years ago, but I'm more than a little rusty.
I'm growing increasingly suspicious that - at least in the original - the leader name + save slot is a large part of the RNG.
There may be other factors, but basically to fit the game into the cart, it looks like they made some serious compromises compared to the Nintendo power version. It's relatively clear they meant to use Timer 2, which exists in the original, to provide more variability, but so far it doesn't seem to have a role in anything I've tested.
My watermark is I mostly play incredibly stupid things. No one wants to steal an hour and 15 minute run of Castlevania Amiga. =P
Ei!
Peço desculpas, só sei um pouco de espanhol e estou usando a tradução para preencher as lacunas do meu português
Sim, apenas o melhor horário será mostrado, mas não há problema em enviar os dois.
Este é uma joia!
Hey!
I apologize, I only know a bit of Spanish and am using translate to fill the gaps for my Portuguese
Yes only the best time will show, but it's fine to submit both.
This one is a gem!
Well, since there's some new mods... I didn't want to be nitpicky, but the current 4th place run doesn't use the correct settings. I don't think any of that guy's run's ever did, but I think that's the last one. =P
I recently started doing deep dives into all versions of the games, initially focusing on differences, but my goal is to gain a complete understanding of RNG across all versions.
I'll try to update this thread with information as I confirm more. Information will also be posted here.
Currently I'm working on: Mapping initial Tarot RNG DONE - Preliminary search for time counters. DONE - Found Tarot locations in Memory for ALL versions. DONE - Find Leader Name Memory locations. NEXT - Scripting a bot to play through and find all possible card sets per version:
- DONE - SNES Beta version here: https://github.com/Krayzar/OgreBattle-MotBQ-TarotMapper See it in action here:
- DONE - Nintendo Power SNES
- DONE - PS1
- NEXT - Saturn - started
SNES USA and JPN Both versions use a 256 counter for initial card RNG. @Dragondarch 's RNG manipulations for the name "!" will work well on all original versions of SNES. The documented card sets may be off by a single digit compared to hardware perhaps due to recent accuracy improvements in emulation or issues with the BSNES core in recent bizhawk versions that make replicating accurate to hardware results impossible, but in practice it doesn't change how anything works. I'll probably need to test with save states on real hardware to figure what the discrepancy really is with the SD2SNES, assuming I can get save states working on my older model.
Time Counter stored at WRAM: 0x51
Secondary Time Counter stored at WRAM: 0x52
Tarot Cards stored at WRAM: 0xDBE - 0xDCC
Leader name stored at WRAM: 0x7A4 - 0x7AB 0x87B - 0x882
Nintendo Power Kiosk version Nintendo Power SNES ROM uses a 256 counter for initial card RNG but has a vastly different algorithm that seems very similar to the PSX version. Current Manipulations for "!" do not work. 0x52 is a secondary time counter that resets to 0 once it gets to FF (255). 256 x 256 = a 32bit counter (65,536) and this timer seems to have involvement with the cards, so it may be the exact same system used for PS1 and Saturn.
Hopefully scripting the card RNG will illuminate just how close it is - 3600 iterations and counting!
Time Counter stored at WRAM: 0x51
Secondary Time Counter stored at WRAM: 0x52
Tarot Cards stored at WRAM: 0xDBE - 0xDCC
Leader name stored at WRAM: 0x7A4 - 0x7AB 0x87B - 0x882
PS1 Seem to have RNG based on program start - there is a main counter that counts up indefinitely and initial card RNG seems entirely based on it. That appears to be a full 32bit counter and does reset to 0 once it reaches the limit. There are semi frequent areas of lag frames on PS1. This essentially means that there are small 2 to 4 frame windows where it's very likely you will get a specific set of cards, but the card sets are based solely on the timer and algorithm and the periods of lag being inconsistent can make things tricky. There is also a 0 to 64 counter I'm aware of that doesn't seem involved in card RNG, but may have a role in other types of RNG.
Tarot Cards stored at PSX MainRAM: 1C6B85 - 1C6B93
Leader name stored at PSX MainRAM: 1C6C14 - 1C6C1B
Time Counters stored at PSX MainRAM:
T1: 13C8FC
T2: 13C8FD
Other counters: 00E20C 13C910 135104 14188C
Unknow why there's so many on slightly different offsets/starting positions.
Saturn Seems to have RNG based on program start - there is a main counter that counts up indefinitely and initial card RNG seems entirely based on it. That appears to be a full 32bit counter and could take over a year to figure out if there's any interesting effects if it maxes out. Tarot cards are stored odd/even in the address range - only version that does this.
Time Counter stored at SAT work ram high: 0F9670
Secondary Time Counter stored at SAT work ram high: 0F9671
Another time counter (Realtime) stored at SAT work ram high: 0C63F8
Tarot Cards stored at SAT work ram high: 0CD46C - 0CD479
Slot 01 = 0CD46D Slot 02 = 0CD46C Slot 03 = 0CD46F Slot 04 = 0CD46E Slot 05 = 0CD471 Slot 06 = 0CD470 Slot 07 = 0CD473 Slot 08 = 0CD472 Slot 09 = 0CD475 Slot 10 = 0CD474 Slot 11 = 0CD477 Slot 12 = 0CD476 Slot 13 = 0CD479 Slot 14 = 0CD478
No idea why Saturn does this. Cards are reordered shortly after final pick too.
Leader Name stored at SAT work ram high: 0F9674 - 0F967B
Same odd/even storage pattern.
These games are incredibly different under the hood though - that much is clear.
I'll just reiterate again that the very fact that folks keep popping in to by proxy defend ELO's lack of communication is literally the worst part about all of this, and contains no upsides. That speaks to how much you care about the community, which while noble, does not help the situation or address concerns. That's not your fault though. ELO should be here in this thread instead of DarQ and you @Lieutenant_Boo.
They should have taken more care with the ad rollout and made sure they - at the very least - didn't have constantly shifting layouts when ads reload. Full stop. That's pretty basic usability stuff and they're better than that. We SHOULD hold them to a higher standard as they do this successfully elsewhere. I'd rather not use an add blocker and give them the ad revenue after all, because I do want them to succeed, a feeling I'm sure many share here. I think we can all agree the new features seem great, but this is definitely a misstep, and the promise of new features and fixes shouldn't immunize them from criticism.
Are some folks here are a bit off base with threats of leaving the site (and general tone) at this point? Sure, but it only goes to show how little goodwill towards SRC there was in the first place. The danger of souring larger communities is real, and they need to step up and make sure they have the basics down before that happens.
That's all I'll say for now. Let's all submit feedback and see what happens in the coming weeks.
I mean no disrespect @DarQ_Massacres and @Starlight, but clearly the fact that you feel the need to jump in here and explain in ELO's place DOES mean that they have failed significantly in this instance.
We as users and invested parties have the right to hold them accountable for misteps and sub par communication.
ELO also needs to understand that SRC is a monolith that could easily topple and be replaced with a few badly placed mistakes and miscommunications. There is no special love or loyalty for the site. Speedrunning has existed long before SRC and will exist after it, should they fail here.
They are the ones that are expendable to us, simply put.
EDIT: Oh and I actually really like the news articles by the way! Felt there should have been a community news section for a long time. That's one thing they've done very right IMO.
I was in and out of hospitals a lot as a kid and some kind soul donated an incredible amount of NES stuff to the hospital I was in a lot. There wasn't much variety of games, so eventually the kids in the ward started keeping track of times and competing for fastest times to certain levels and things. Made for a ton of replayability. It kinda became a natural part of the way I played games after that, weirdly enough.
I was very excited to see with the advent of SDA back in 2004 that it was a thing! Took 15 years, but I finally decided to give it a real try and record stuff for some of my favorites.
It's 2021. If an ad can change and disturb the page layout enough that the entire site moves down, you're doing something very wrong. I'm fine with the ads, but stuff like this is amateurish and rightfully gives the new management a black eye.
Start course correcting now. Start fixing stuff like this and communicating better. Start taking changes seriously, or there will eventually be a better run competitor that will make it it's goal to run SRC into the ground. SRC is a monolith because of low barrier to entry, not because it can't be replicated, and you're actively damaging that reputation.
I like the new management and the general direction - don't start digging your graves now.
So after hearing about some arbitrary code execution possibilities in Castlevania Chronicles via the Tonyhax research, I took a look at some possibilities! (if you're wondering what Tonyhax is, look here: https://orca.pet/tonyhax/)
Chronicles allows you to name your save and it turns out that the game doesn't actually have any checks for that field. You could potentially write whatever you'd want there and have it call code to warp you Dracula.
Unfortunately, there's no way to go beyond the character limit in the save name that I can find from within the game, and thus there's no way to do anything cool beyond manually writing save exploits with external tools. That's just plain hacking, and if we're going to do that, we might as well take a look at how the save system is structured and try to exploit it instead.
Turns out, the save system is extremely basic. There's no checksums like in other PS1 games, and absolutely no sanity checks, so you can use some hardware quirks and other games to doctor a glitched save that warps you to Dracula, all from within a PS1 or PS2, like so:
Make no mistake - this is a parlor trick or meme run at best, and a poor consolation prize to the fact that this game could have easily had arbitrary code execution zaniness with a bit longer of a name option!
I don't think it needs a category or anything as I doubt anyone would ever be seriously interested in running the game this way - but it is possible.
Hi Runners and potential runners!
If anyone has any category ideas, feel free to suggest here. Everything is a bit barebones at the moment, and I haven't been terribly active due to some work related craziness.
I apologize @SpaceColonizer - I know my initial run wasn't much competition but I was worried a run with Wormhole tech would get the game rejected for being too short. There's obviously much longer ideas for runs available within the confines of this game's engine. Work limited my ability to route them though and I have this crazy rule, I'm only allowed to speedrun 4x games during the month of February.
Also, personally, I like the idea of being able to choose the specific seed for runs, but if any one would prefer a true RNG based run, we could add a sub category option that limits the advanced settings options and forces a random seed, though honestly with the ability to always see the seed, I don't see much of a point. There's already a decent amount of RNG even with choosing your seed!
Very true, totally forgot about the sub game options now! Also, thanks for promoting me - I'll try to be a good mod!
Sorry, work got the better of me for a while there. After asking around, it seems like the consensus is a "Master of" series is too general to be approved, so I ended up just putting in for Master of Orion.
I still hold out hope for a remake though. While the new MoO wasn't perfect, it's better than nothing and was at least faithful, and if anyone could do Master of Magic proud, it would be Slitherine.
Well, this is surprising. PS1 Ogre Battle seems to have an entirely different system for the initial Tarot RNG. There may be less RNG in general. Your name and gender choice doesn't seem to affect the cards at all, and neither does skipping or not skipping initial Logo FMVs. The frame you leave the Title screen and the Frame you select your gender are the only variables.
Still testing, but damn, I wasn't expecting this. Tomorrow I'll map the Initial Card RNG if this holds up.
Oh, also, I did a few tests with a PlayStation ODE recently and one of the games was Ogre Battle. The ODE came in last for most of these due to the PS1s pitiful bus speeds, but it's interesting to see what the fastest possible speeds on PS1 are compared to the PS2 and Vita. In general this illustrates just how swingy what the best platform for PS1 games is in reality:
