Re: Dungeon Keeper (I)

2007-09-25 06:08:26 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

I'd be interested in watching this. If I remember correctly each level is considered individual, as there's no resources that get transferred between levels, so this may end up being recorded much like Star Craft with individual levels. I could be wrong though since it's been quite a while since I played this game.

Thread title:

TheVoid

2007-09-25 06:47:48 pm

I'm also interested, would be great to see the game (And speedrunned) again after a long time since I've played it myself Smiley

Here are 2 previous threads about it in case you haven't seen them yet:

http://speeddemosarchive.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=pcgames;action=display;num=1130855485;start=
http://speeddemosarchive.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=pcgames;action=display;num=1171682639;start=

Wahoo

2007-09-25 07:28:35 pm

Quote:

I'd be interested in watching this. If I remember correctly each level is considered individual, as there's no resources that get transferred between levels, so this may end up being recorded much like Star Craft with individual levels. I could be wrong though since it's been quite a while since I played this game.

Monsters can be transferred between levels, you'll just have to ban the use of it for the runs i suppose.

Enigma_Nova

2007-09-26 12:51:56 am

Quote:

Monsters can be transferred between levels, you'll just have to ban the use of it for the runs i suppose.

Or show a continuous stream of levels, training up a monster and transferring it.
The problem with DK isn't the transfers, you can show (quite clearly) you clicking the transfer creature box and selecting your creature to transfer.

I'll need a video/audio capture for this. Fraps refuses to work. Someone in the other thread mentioned Camtasia, I'll look into it.

Enigma_Nova

Edit history:

Enigma_Nova: 2007-09-26 01:57:21 am

2007-09-26 01:28:20 am

All right, Camtasia -can- capture audio and video, but pallette swap screwups abound, probably due to switching from 16 bit color on the desktop to 256 colors in DK.
It's not even bloody well watchable.
Fraps can capture the low-res version of DK, the version I can't even play.
Checking some other desktop-capture programs, they have the same color switch problem, probably caused by trying to record a 256-color palette in a 16bit-color format.
Fraps doesn't, but refuses to record the game's 640x480 mode.

Seems the only way to record this is to buy a webcam with sufficient resolution, tape it to my shoulder and point it at the screen. I'm not going to do that.

Rake

2007-09-26 06:14:13 am

Just a heads up that a web cam record won't be excepted but on your color screw up I had a similar problem with Ultima 7 that I'm yet to fix properly but as a temp solution if I ran it as a window I could record properly that way

Lord_Booga

2007-09-26 06:28:29 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Have you tried the Direct3D version of DK? Fraps should capture that fine...

Goggen

2007-09-26 07:50:22 am

"Time to go to work..."

Do *not* use a webcam, that would look awful. If you *do* need to buy something, try to use a video-out from your graphics card (or another card specifically for the purpose), and hook that up to a DVD Recorder.
I'm not sure, and I haven't tried, but it might actually be possible to hook a video-out to a capture card on the same computer, and then capture. To a different computer should work, also.

qaylIS

2007-09-26 09:03:24 am

There is no victory without combat

Dumb QUestion, but when the colours are swapped in the Video file, couldn't you swap them back with an video-editing program?
I think Pinnacle Studio could do that, or Adobe Premiere.

Kabuto

2007-09-26 12:02:20 pm

Is running the DOS version of DK inside DosBOX allowed for a speed run? IIRC DosBOX's video recording works quite well.

And is it fast enough at all, even at 640x400?

Enigma_Nova

Edit history:

Enigma_Nova: 2007-09-26 01:23:44 pm

2007-09-26 01:21:14 pm

Fraps: Doesn't work in D3D, I've tried.
DosBOX: ... Aw hell naw. DK requires a 133MHz machine, and DosBOX can barely output 25MHz.
Palette swapping back: I have no idea how to do that.

Capture card: None. No 2nd PC either. My Video card -does- have 2 TV-outs, though (8600GT), but I have no DVD recorder (or any electronics outside my main PC). >.>
I don't think Dungeon Keeper can be run in a window.

TheVoid

2007-09-26 03:18:57 pm

About the palette swap, when exactly do you start\stop recording?

I remember having that issue sometime ago with some game, not sure how I fixed it. Maybe try to start recording in Windows, start the game and load the save (Or start a New Game), attempt the level, when you've finished the level alt-tab to Windows and then stop recording. Maybe that helps? Smiley

Have you tried different codecs in Camtasia?

I don't know, I hope you'll find a recording solution.

Enigma_Nova

Edit history:

Enigma_Nova: 2007-09-26 04:32:43 pm

2007-09-26 04:28:13 pm

Here's a 10MB .avi file of the palette screwing up.
Made in Camtasia.
http://www.mediafire.com/?0dy2obymcyw
Whatever it is, it's common across codecs that capture desktop. They don't capture the screen reddening or the "Loading" CD fading in.

Kabuto

Edit history:

Kabuto: 2007-09-26 09:11:57 pm

2007-09-26 09:09:34 pm

Something's completely wrong with that video. The color indices from the in-game frames don't make any sense - there are no more than 18 ones in any given frame. And as Dungeon Keeper makes use of the full 256 color palette I'd expect to see many more colors at once.

If the color indices were right I could patch the in-game palette into the avi file but as in that video the color indices themselves are messed up there's no chance of repairing anything.

Lord_Booga

2007-09-27 09:03:00 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Try VirtualPC perhaps?

Paused

2007-09-27 10:21:32 pm

Have no idea on how to help with the recording, but add another to the love to see this list, especially as you really seem to know what your doing.

One question: Could you possibly elaborate on the Speed on a level9 as apposed to a levell10 bug you mentioned?

Enigma_Nova

2007-09-27 10:54:34 pm

I've got a 308 MB .avi file of Eversmile, done in 3:40.
I'm edumacting myself, trying to learn how to encode it into something that isn't as huge as an Xbox.

The bug is that the duration of self-buffs on level 10 mobs is greatly reduced. This affects Protect, Fly, Stealth, Reflect, and Speed.
Speed increases a mob's attack speed, movement speed, rate of work, and effectively doubles the mob. When a mob is level 9, it will keep itself sped up constantly. At level 10, I hardly ever see a mob with speed.

posix

Edit history:

posix: 2007-09-28 02:37:35 am

2007-09-28 02:34:56 am

are you sure it's actually a "bug" ?
i have been pondering about this myself for a long time. especially because they DID release a patch for the game once concerning the lan play issue. would they forget to fix this potential bug back then?
yet i agree it appears to be, especially when you consider that a fight of two creatures of the same kind, one at lv9 and the other at lv10 will be won by the lv9 creature. (i'd say in above 95% of cases)

about the recording issue,
is your windows running in 16 or 32 bit colour depth? i'm not really sure if dungeon keeper in-game is 8 or 16bit. the main menu most likely is 8 bit, but the d3d version in-game looked better than that. although i might be mistaken, it's been a while since i last played it.
speaking of d3d, i'd very much recommend you use that no matter what. without d3d, in low resolution (i suppose that's 320x240) the framerate was well. when you set it to so called "svga" mode, the resolution is higher and the picture quality of the game improves, yet frames are dropped and the game overall runs a little slower.
however in d3d version, it runs the high res version at good speed, not to mention the overall image quality improvement and pixel filters.
so in any case, i think the d3d version is by far superior to anything else.

as for recording,
have you tried gamecam?

http://www.planetgamecam.com/

i don't have any experience with this thing, but it looks interesting. worth a try, i'd say. however i doubt it can detect dungeon keeper because it's too old a game.
other than that, i'm not sure as of how to properly record the game, especially as there's possibly no way of getting replay files as in .dem that record your inputs.

as for compressing your video,
for fast encodes, i recommend you use vfw codecs in virtualdub and compress video to mpeg4 (i guess xvid will do) and audio to cbr mp3.

http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/XviD_Codec

are you sure it's actually a "bug" ?
i have been pondering about this myself for a long time. especially because they DID release a patch for the game once concerning the lan play issue. would they forget to fix this potential bug back then?
yet i agree it appears to be, especially when you consider that a fight of two creatures of the same kind, one at lv9 and the other at lv10 will be won by the lv9 creature. (i'd say in above 95% of cases)

about the recording issue,
is your windows running in 16 or 32 bit colour depth? i'm not really sure if dungeon keeper in-game is 8 or 16bit. the main menu most likely is 8 bit, but the d3d version in-game looked better than that. although i might be mistaken, it's been a while since i last played it.
speaking of d3d, i'd very much recommend you use that no matter what. without d3d, in low resolution (i suppose that's 320x240) the framerate was well. when you set it to so called "svga" mode, the resolution is higher and the picture quality of the game improves, yet frames are dropped and the game overall runs a little slower.
however in d3d version, it runs the high res version at good speed, not to mention the overall image quality improvement and pixel filters.
so in any case, i think the d3d version is by far superior to anything else.

as for recording,
have you tried gamecam?

http://www.planetgamecam.com/

i don't have any experience with this thing, but it looks interesting. worth a try, i'd say. however i doubt it can detect dungeon keeper because it's too old a game.
other than that, i'm not sure as of how to properly record the game, especially as there's possibly no way of getting replay files as in .dem that record your inputs.

as for compressing your video,
for fast encodes, i recommend you use vfw codecs in virtualdub and compress video to mpeg4 (i guess xvid will do) and audio to cbr mp3.

http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/XviD_Codec

Enigma_Nova

Edit history:

Enigma_Nova: 2007-09-28 09:55:59 am

2007-09-28 09:44:36 am

Cursed lossless compression. How do I get this down from a ridiculous 50MB for 3 minutes down to something like 14Mb?
I can see VirtualDub analysing a 400bit MPEG, but it refuses to save in that format.
The so-called lossless format makes the file fuzzy, too. Unacceptable. I'll keep reading more about how to compress a FRAPS .avi into something reasonable.

You'd think it'd be easy to find a program to convert FRAPS .avi into a decent format.

Enigma_Nova

Edit history:

Enigma_Nova: 2007-09-28 10:39:44 am

2007-09-28 10:35:38 am

Using Windows Media Encoder, encoded variable bitrate video and audio.
Uploading it to my Filefront account.
And the LORD said, let there be speedrun!
I'll make a new thread when this is done, and delete this one, to clear out the nubbiness. =]

Enigma_Nova

2007-09-28 10:50:53 am

Okay, nuking post 1 doesn't nuke the entire thread. Does this board run on VB?

Lag.Com

2007-10-02 02:02:30 pm

sda loyalist

No, but deleting entire threads is up to moderators. Locked.