42 replies to this topic

[Zephiel]

NES game racing

I'm not sure if anyone is interested or has the slightest idea of what I'm talking about so I'll leave a video here as an example. http://polsy.org.uk/...group-1-5324883

Essentially, a group of people get together and try to finish the game as fast as they can, fastest times win. I've really enjoyed watching these videos so I've been tinkering with my video editing software and I've managed to get it so I can put four videos in a 2x2 grid like the one shown in the video. I don't have any terribly fancy editing stuff so it'd pretty much just be 4 videos right next to eachother (if I can figure out how to add borders for spacing I'd do that as well). What'd happen is people would get together at a set day/time and record their race attempt at the same time in a recorded skype call. Once that's over you would send me your race footage and recorded call (or I'd just record the call depending on what happens).

I already know of a good emulator for recording and skype recording software which I will link after I find out if people are interested enough. Obviously, you can participate even if you don't have a mic for skype or something. Currently, I'm thinking the first race would be Mega man 2 since it's probably the most played/easiest to get into. I'd like to do Mega man races first because the games are really well suited to racing and some have some nifty tricks for speed running. If you would rather race a different Mega man game please post a suggestion and we can do whatever is most popular. Once I know this is going to work we can try to do races of other NES games and eventually SNES games. Remember anyone can enter you don't have to be a speedrunner or even familiar with the game, just have fun playing it!

Right now I just want to see how many people are interested so please post if you'd be up for doing something like this and would be willing to be in a test race as I haven't gotten the chance to test out the setup in a real race situation.


List of software:
Emulator FCEUX: http://fceux.com/web/download.html
Skype call recorder: http://voipcallrecor...e_Call_Recorder (don't worry too much about getting this one, I will likely record the calls)

Roms used
Mega man 2: http://www.coolrom.c.../Mega_Man_2.php

How to record your footage so I don't go nuts trying to use it:
Open FCEUX
Go to config -> video
Make sure it's set to custom and 320 x 240
To record, go to file -> AVI/WAV -> record AVI
Name your file something so I know whos it is (your username will work)
For compression, please use the Xvid MPeg-4 codec
Configure -> set the target bitrate to 2000 or so, this affects the video quality. I'd say 1000 is a bare minimum, anything lower will make it hard to watch and anything higher than 2000 has no noticeable difference with a NES game (feel free to go up to 4000 or so i guess)
When you're done recording, go to file -> AVI/WAV -> stop recording
Upload your footage to mediafire or some similar site and send me the link
Note: DO NOT turn off the sprite limit/tick on "Allow more than 8 sprites per scan line" This can cause desynch in the video and in general isn't considered legit.

List of races:

[Zephiel]

This post reserved for updates

[General_Tobias]

I might be down for this but I would need help getting all the necessary programs.

Megaman 2 is a great one to start with. Though you may want to consider Megaman 1. Just because it's shorter and would probably be easiest to jump into.

Megaman 7 would be awesome but I can't see myself beating the final boss in any sort of reasonable time. If we were to jump into the X games I would only be down for the first one (which I have played several times through). I still have yet to get through X2 and X3 without cheating (though that is largely due to laziness).

I would need to practice in order to be able to complete the game in a reasonable time. Starting now.

Also this may be an odd request but I also really like Megaman V for the GB. That would be a fun one to do and the game itself is one of the easier Megaman games I have ever played

[Pemblem]

If we do Mega Man X, I'm gonna cream you all.

[Zephiel]

General_Tobias, on 14 November 2011 - 09:50 PM, said:

I might be down for this but I would need help getting all the necessary programs.

Megaman 2 is a great one to start with. Though you may want to consider Megaman 1. Just because it's shorter and would probably be easiest to jump into.

Megaman 7 would be awesome but I can't see myself beating the final boss in any sort of reasonable time. If we were to jump into the X games I would only be down for the first one (which I have played several times through). I still have yet to get through X2 and X3 without cheating (though that is largely due to laziness).

I would need to practice in order to be able to complete the game in a reasonable time. Starting now.

Also this may be an odd request but I also really like Megaman V for the GB. That would be a fun one to do and the game itself is one of the easier Megaman games I have ever played

The original megaman is actually one of the hardest in the series imo (barring the pause glitch of course), at least I found it to be during my marathon run of the series a while ago. It's a bit shorter but the difficulty might be offputting for some people while I found megaman 2 to be alot easier to get into. Megaman 4 is pretty new-player friendly as well. I haven't found a good way for everyone to record the SNES games yet, my editing software is very strict with how a video needs to be recorded, while the NES emulator I found works perfectly with it, but those are definite possibilities, I loved me some megaman x.

Havent played much of the gameboy ones but I heard that V and IV were really good so those are also possibilities when I get a good way to have a stable/uniform recording process for people.

[Leos]

Im up for this. Megaman races are exciting.

[Zephiel]

Looks like we might have enough people to do a test race soon if this keeps up. I encourage anyone interested to just make a post, you don't have to be a speedrunner or whatever, tis all in the name of fun

[Malthael]

You know I'm interested ^^

[Pemblem]

I'm down for Mega Man X.
I suck at the NES/GB/etc ones, but I'll totally go for X.

[General_Tobias]

Pemblem, on 15 November 2011 - 05:08 PM, said:

I'm down for Mega Man X. I suck at the NES/GB/etc ones, but I'll totally go for X.

I am not good at most of the Megaman games. I would encourage you to give it a shot.

Zephiel, on 15 November 2011 - 09:15 AM, said:

Looks like we might have enough people to do a test race soon if this keeps up. I encourage anyone interested to just make a post, you don't have to be a speedrunner or whatever, tis all in the name of fun

You should also put this in the first post.

[Zephiel]

OP updated with the emulator and how to record a video. Anyone interested in participating should make a test recording to see how it affects your gameplay, I only had a little lag at the start but it was completely smooth after that.

[Kirei]

If enough people are interested, is it possible that this branches out to things besides Mega Man and other NES games? I don't think I'd stand a chance in any NES game, let alone any Mega Man game, but there are definitely GBA games I could do, and VisualBoyAdvance has a built-in recorder.

[Zephiel]

Kana Kirisame, on 15 November 2011 - 11:19 PM, said:

If enough people are interested, is it possible that this branches out to things besides Mega Man and other NES games? I don't think I'd stand a chance in any NES game, let alone any Mega Man game, but there are definitely GBA games I could do, and VisualBoyAdvance has a built-in recorder.

It's entierly possible yeah, personally there are a few SNES games I'd love to see races of. I just want to start on the NES/classic series megaman since they're easy to do races of and to record/edit. Once I know we've got plenty of interest I'd be glad to do races of other games and other consoles.

Also you could always enter anyways, it's all in the name of fun, there's no prize for winning anyways~

[Pemblem]

Zephiel, on 15 November 2011 - 11:26 PM, said:

there's no prize for winning anyways~

Winners get promoted to admin

[Pemblem]

If i can, I would like to request that we not allow use of any turbo functions of any kind, as well as any cheats (such as the earlier mentioned pause glitch, or the Hadouken in Mega Man X)

EDIT: also, make sure you either use real hardware or have a good emulator (IE, don't play X in ZSNES. jussayin')

[Zephiel]

I already have the emulator of choice for the NES listed. ZSNES has never given me issues as a SNES emulator but the SNES emulator of choice is to be determined later (ZSNES ran MMX just fine for me for the record). As for what is and is not allowed in an actual race, that will be determined when the race is decided on, I'm still waiting on a test-run before I start an actual race. Although no turbo-fire/save-states will be global rules for any game, everyone MUST use the provided ROM and emulator as well. Trust me, I have things in mind already and I won't need much input for the specifics.

Also getting the hadoken would take way too long and ruin your race time in a MMX race =w=;

[General_Tobias]

Zephiel, on 17 November 2011 - 04:29 AM, said:

Also getting the hadoken would take way too long and ruin your race time in a MMX race =w=;

I need to learn to actually beat the final boss as I only ever did this without hadoken in the psp version. Also other than the boots (which would be the the first stage everyone would do) I wonder which pieces of armor would be good for the race. It might be difficult weighing time against armor and hearts (obviously you wouldn't want to get all of them).

[Pemblem]

Zephiel, on 17 November 2011 - 04:29 AM, said:

I already have the emulator of choice for the NES listed.

I'm just gonna trust your judgement on that one. I suck at the NES games and I probably won't even play them. Also, I don't really work with NES emulators, so I don't know what works and what doesn't.

Zephiel, on 17 November 2011 - 04:29 AM, said:

SNES emulator of choice is to be determined later (ZSNES ran MMX just fine for me for the record).

For me, ZSNES has much more of a slowdown issue than on a real SNES. Also, as soon as you enter a boss room, you are suddenly sent back to the stage select screen with that bosses power without even fighting them. I've tried this on several different computers in Windows, Linux, FreeDOS, and MS-DOS, they all do the same thing.
Although, it could be that I just have a bad ROM, I don't really play emulators much.

Zephiel, on 17 November 2011 - 04:29 AM, said:

Trust me, I have things in mind already and I won't need much input for the specifics.

'kay.

Zephiel, on 17 November 2011 - 04:29 AM, said:

Also getting the hadoken would take way too long and ruin your race time in a MMX race =w=;

this.

[Yahweh's-Samurai]

I have no idea how Skype works, but I'll make an account.

Still haven't passed Megaman 2, but this sounds like an opportunity to finally do so. Megaman 6 appears to be the easiest for beginners. All the bosses have similar attack patterns.

[Misha]

I'm so terrible, but, hell, I might be up for it some time.