CanadaHello!
So I've been doing tests of GB emulators lately in an attempt to find an accurate one for OSX runners.
While doing this, I also tested RetroArch's implementation of gambatte.
The conclusion for RA is that it runs about 0.4% too fast relative to a real game boy. I've posted these specific results here:
I suggest we clean up innacturate runs currently on the leader board, and then institute rules for legal and illegal emulators. (I'll have full updated emulator results later today, but wanted to post about the RA marble timing I did here.)
For now, I suggest that these be allowed: Windows: -bgb -gambatte -bizhawk -sameboy v 0.11+ (Maybe, untested currently)
Mac: -Sameboy v 0.11+ -openemu 2.0.8+ (Im iffy on this one though, I plan to do more testing)
While banning all others (Especially and explicitly banning Visual Boy Advance).
I also suggest we add a rule to name your emulator explicitly in your run submission for emulator runs.
Oh hey, I did not notice you had responded to me!
I used my SGB for a few months, but I eventually ordered myself an SGB2 from Japan. Back then it was only about 20 bucks (Also it looks way cooler :p). SNES is by far my favourite way to play GB games as well.
Thanks again for hearing me out on the matter! I like game boy speedrunning a lot, so it's always exciting to see people running different games like this! :D
Thanks so much for hearing me out! When marathons calm down, I plan to look into this run :D
GBC and GB have accepted known accurate emulators as well.
Most of the time you will see bgb and Gambatte as accepted emus. VBA is never acceptable. Some boards accept the use of bgb and gambatte cores in other emus (Retroarch, bizhawk), but others do not (There is documented issues with the way retroarch implements the core, for example.)
More details can be found here: http://www.gbrunners.com/game-boy-speedrunning-explained
I believe it was the API, as I had the same issue, but it was resolved the next day.
Edit: Nevermind, At first I thought they meant the autofill of the categories in livesplit.
A tonne of game boy stuff; most of them are short and a lot of them are glitchy messes. Mole Mania and the Super Mario Land OOBs come to mind.
You go to the board of the game you'd like to submit (You can use the search bar at the top of the site)
On that games page, there will be a button to 'submit run'. You will likely need a video of that speedrun, and to fill in some basic info (Time, platform, comments, video link)
Then a mod of that game will need to verify it, at which point it will appear on the leaderboard. :)
Legs
I used to use the Twitch Leecher but it did some odd stuff to vods sometimes.
I would download a vod, time exactly 60s of livesplit running, but I would get less than 60s in frametime. I assume it was just smashing the video together in any points where frames were dropped, but I have never bothered to find out if that was the exact cause.
I've used JDownloader2 since, and I've never had any issues with it. For pulling YT vids or Twitch vods. So I can recommend it
Sure! Let me try to explain the concerns I had! Forgive me, as Im not great with words.
My biggest concern is that the exact frame where you can "gain control" of Harker can't be reliably checked from a video.
When I was using the first frame of Harker being visible as the initial frame, I would notice that he was already mid turn, so the game had already been reading inputs. (edit: In testing, you can get anywhere from 1-3 frames of input before you become visible. It seems totally random between runs. Effectively giving people 1-3 free untimed frames at random. )
The old timing rule stated that timing starts when "The user gains control of Harker", but since this is before Harker is rendered, I have no way to tell when that frame actually is.
-So leaving the start time at the first visible frame seems to skip some user input. -but checking a start time of "when you game control of Harker" seem impossible to verify from video.
So since the point at which the screen dims after pressing start is consistent between runs (the 4th frame after pressing start). I feel it makes the runs more comparable to each other, since we can be sure the start and end frame is the same between runs.
With runs getting so close within 1 second of each other, I thought I should bring up my concerns with the existing start time.
I hope my rambling made any sense, do you have any specific concerns about the new timing rules? Making sure things are fair and accurate it my only goal! :)
Thanks! Legs
Given the attention the game is getting, I would like to be more specific with some of the game rules. Namely, save states.
It's known for a lot of GB games to set important RNG seeds at different points, including the first input of a user.
As such, it's common for a lot of games, and I propose this game, that the games bust be hard reset between runs. Using a save state at the start of the run, can lead to things like fixed RNG that other runners would not have access too without these third party tools.
As is, the only run effected that I can see would be CoKami. Given how new that run is though, I personally would be fine with grandfathering it in, and leaving it up. But for all future runs, require runners to hard reset between runs.
Thoughts?
Legs
So, given how close the top times are getting, I thought it was worth discussing the current timing rules of GB Dracula; as well as some of the enforced rules.
Currently, the game starts from the old standard of 'first gaining control'. I have an issue with this though.
Currently, I retime runs by marking in/out frames based on the rules of any given board.
My out frame is the first frame after Dracula disappears (Signifying the last hit, and start of the explosion.)
My in frame, has always been the first frame which I could see Harken moving. (Which was almost always the first frame he was visible, as he tends to be already turning on the first visible frame. As the game seems to "accept" inputs being made before this.)
See: 
I propose we move the start frame back, to when the user first presses start (The frame I have in mind, is the last frame where the start menu is visible before dimming)
See: 
This would help rule out any possible discrepancies between runs and making timing much easier and more accurate.
Legs
Hey again!
Checking on your old broadcasts, it appears that you are using VBA as an emulator. I should mention that VBA is almost exclusively banned in GB speedrunning due to it's inability to run at a constant frame rate, or emulate a lot of GB functions accurately.
The emulator standard for GB speedrunning is Gambatte, bgb, or bizhawk with a bgb core; all of which have been shown to emulate properly. These are also the only emulators accepted on this board_
If you want, you can read more about it here: http://www.gbrunners.com/game-boy-speedrunning-explained
And if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me. :) I plan to still look into this glitch, but it could be emulator specific given the use of VBA.
Legs
What in the world.
Can I get details on the hardware/emu involved? You don't know what buttons, if any, you happen to be mashing between the transitions?
You should consider running with an input display up, so that when things like this happen we could recreate it easier. :D
I'll look into this in a TAS later once I get your details, to see if I can replicate some stuff.
Cool find! :D
Specifically to comment on capturing GB games, not all hardware standards act the same and it can be handy to know the differences:
Many boards (but not all) will accept SGB1 times; but since it runs at consistently faster, you will have to convert them to the proper time first. (Shoutouts to Nudua for his converter: http://nudua.com/convert) It is encouraged to use an SGB2 if possible though, as it runs at the proper clock speed.
The SGB2 and GBP(Running stock software, or GBi) are the main hardware standards we use in the GB community. There are technically video out mods for DMGs, but they are rarely seem in running.
I paid about 40 CAD for my SGB2, but I've noticed the price creep up lately.
The GBP has the added benefit of playing GBC and GBA games, as well as not having to deal with SGB enhanced games (which suffer from slight loadtime issues, because of the extra data associated); but the SGB2 has the benefit of working fine out of the box (The GBP suffers from some picture and input lag issues on the stock software, hence the use of GBi)
I think this may be -slightly- out of date, but you can read more about GB Speedrunning, as well as the technical issues with it here: http://www.gbrunners.com/game-boy-speedrunning-explained
If anyone ever has any questions or issues, feel free to contact me directly ^^
Acronyms: SGB - Super Game Boy SGB2 - Super Game Boy 2 DMG - The old grey brick game boys GBP - Game Boy Player GBi - Game Boy interface
https://www.speedrun.com/user/mina9000
Appears to be a bot for posting in the forum. Just rewrites the previous comments and adds links
The SGB2 and GBP (Running stock software, or GBi) are the main hardware standards we use in the GB community. There are technically video out mods for DMGs, but they are rarely seem in running.
I paid about 40 CAD for my SGB2, but I've noticed the price creep up lately.
The GBP has the added benefit of playing GBC and GBA games, as well as not having to deal with SGB enhanced games (which suffer from slight loadtime issues, because of the extra data associated); but the SGB2 has the benefit of working fine out of the box (The GBP suffers from some picture and input lag issues on the stock software, hence the use of GBi)
I think this may be -slightly- out of date, but you can read more about GB Speedrunning, as well as the technical issues with it here: http://www.gbrunners.com/game-boy-speedrunning-explained
If anyone ever has any questions or issues, feel free to contact me directly ^^
-SGB and SGB2 do in fact count for hardware. -Many boards (but not all) will accept SGB1 times; but since it runs at consistently faster, you will have to convert them to the proper time first. (Shoutouts to Nudua for his converter: http://nudua.com/convert) -It is encouraged to use an SGB2 if possible though, as it runs at the proper clock speed.
Game boy games make for some great speedruns, so have fun in exploring the library!
This is a good start: https://github.com/LiveSplit/LiveSplit/blob/master/Documentation/Auto-Splitters.md
Almost the entire Game Boy library has runs around 10 to 15 minutes. May be worth looking into the console.
