speeding up SMB1 with an emulator

Edit history:

slowbro: 2007-05-22 06:50:45 pm

2007-03-13 02:55:23 am

edit: stanski's 3:01 at 200% speed

I know that TAS makers slow down games with emulators. But I've got to think that an emulator could speed up a game too ...

I wonder what is the fastest any person could beat SMB1 given the option to have the game play at any speed they want (without using savestates or bots).

(I think proof would be impossible without an observer actually witnessing the playing of the game).

Thread title:

laughing_gas

2007-03-13 02:58:42 am

Existence as you know it is over

SMB1 isn't that complex of a game, it won't be a lot faster than the existing run.

slowbro

Edit history:

slowbro: 2007-03-13 04:29:06 am

2007-03-13 04:21:51 am

Say, like, if someone speeds the whole game engine up to double its normal speed on an emulator, then starts playing. This would make a 2:40 time (or slightly faster) possible. I bet there are people with extremely fast reflexes who could then beat the game in 4 minutes.

This topic has nothing to do with SDA or any site; I don't think any site would feature a video like that, I just wonder what's the fastest anyone could complete the game, with the strange rule that the play engine could be sped up.

Zhegan

2007-03-13 04:37:48 am

[Insert text here]

Most emulators (atleast snes9X anyways, I'm guessing the rest are the same way...) have different speed settings, going twice.... 5 times as fast... so there really isn't much of an answer to your question since you could pretty much play the game at any speed where you can still physically see whats going on. I understand what you mean though, would still be interesting to watch.

slowbro

Edit history:

slowbro: 2007-03-13 04:53:49 am

2007-03-13 04:51:49 am

I agree it would be interesting Smiley

I HIGHLY doubt that anyone could play through the game totally accurately with the game playing at 5X normal speed, but I bet some people could beat the game even at that speed.

In other words, if there were a long-term competition for this, I think the winner would beat the game in somewhere between 1 and 5 minutes (probably between 1 and 4).

pony16

2007-03-14 04:54:20 am

i've actually pondered about this idea before: allowing for speeding up a run but counting only real time. Stuff like RPGs could be done extremely fast.

at really high speeds, SMB would essentially be ddr. you just have to time pressing the a button at the right moment.

stanski

Edit history:

stanski: 2007-03-14 07:18:17 am

2007-03-14 06:48:46 am

wise fwom yo gwave

Ok, I got a pretty good run of smb1 that i did at 200%. It comes in at about 3:19 with one death in 8-2. Only problem is I don't know how to make an AVI from FCEU ultra at 200%. Anyone know how to do this?

Oh, and i even made the leap of faith at the end of the movie, its too cool to leave out :-). Its 20 times more of a leap of faith at 200%, and more nerveracking since i was recording for like 3 hours today and my best time was like 4 minutes.

Edit: I'll just post the regular version here (dumped the avi at 100% but played at 200%) once its done uploading and let someone else double the speed if they could for me. i suck at video editing and don't feel like spending a lot of time on this. Watching at 100% its pretty funny.

slowbro

2007-03-14 07:18:27 am

I just realized, for someone who has mastered every timing in a fast game like Sonic 2, SMB1 at 200% speed might not even seem all that fast.

I hope you manage to make an AVI of it. I wonder how people at Youtube would react to that video?!?!?! Maybe it would be a good idea not to put it on Youtube if you don't want people to accuse you of being a cheater somehow.

stanski

Edit history:

stanski: 2007-03-14 07:53:25 am

2007-03-14 07:37:58 am

wise fwom yo gwave

Yea i'm not putting it on youtube, for some reason the emulator spat out a huge avi though (yea, I suck at encoding, shoot me for it).

http://www.f-forge.com?d=5vEHaJgXUB8V12dkCGlO

My performance in 4-1 is awesome, its just as fast as the speedrun on this site even! 8-4 was really good.

Anything that looks 'wtf' was luck. A lot of strange things happen at 200%. The hard part isn't the jumps, its that all the enemies move at 200% too.

Someone else can modify this so that it only plays at 200%, but for now just use the tool in whatever video player you're using.

Edit: watching 8-4 again, I have no idea how i actually made the leap of faith without dying. Complete luck at 200%, as the hammers were lined up terribly even for 100%.

slowbro

Edit history:

slowbro: 2007-03-16 04:20:04 am

2007-03-14 08:27:18 am

Watching the run, of course it is not perfect, but I've got to say it is obvious that you practiced this a lot. The only part that I could have done better is the last set of two big jumps in 8-1 ... those jumps are extremely easy if you take your finger off the run button (which I know well because I could NEVER pull them off while pressing the run button when I played this game ... nope, I was never good at SMB1).

I've got the video sped up to 200% (Nate and the KB taught me the basics of avisynth). But once I sped up the audio I couldn't turn it into .mp3 and I don't know how to do anything else with it, so the file is still going to be big (30mb). I'm also going to upload a version with no sound (14mb).

stanski's 3:19 with audio (32mb):
http://www.f-forge.com?d=B2ySVrhgOM9jFsWzx6He

stanski's 3:19 no audio (14mb):
http://www.f-forge.com?d=7XDxJHGRZr3ehd48o0Yn

edit: 12mb with sound
http://www.filefactory.com/file/3bcd27

pony16

2007-03-14 09:37:14 am

that was pretty entertaining. 4-1 was really good, especially jumping over the 2 piranha plants, i sometimes mess that up on normal speed! I thought 8-1 had some close calls, but 8-2 (the second time around ;)) had some even closer ones. 8-3 was really well done, too, how you went under one of the four solo hammer brothers. and 8-4 was sick, especially the water part and the final hammer brother and bowser.

How did you mess up 1-1 so bad though? Tongue

Another option would be to run games at lower %'s like maybe 50%. It would sort of be the halfway point between a non-tas and a tas.

DRybes

2007-03-14 09:45:13 am

O Zlda?

That was pretty much the most awesome and cute thing I've ever seen.

You absolutely must watch it with sound, if only to hear the water theme in 8-4.

I'd tip my hat to you, but I haven't got a hat...

pony16

2007-03-14 10:01:48 am

dang, i downloaded the soundless version b/c the dl was so slow off that site. I didn't even realize that the sound would be faster, too. And I'm over my stupid bandwidth limit, so it's gonna cost me like a penny or something.

DRybes

2007-03-14 11:53:21 am

O Zlda?

I used my (painfully weak) VirtualDub skills to compress the audio at least a little. (Grr, not a lot of available audio codec options) File's down to 16 MB and am uploading it to FileFactory which is hopefully a faster site.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/ca10fd/

Kabuto

2007-03-14 12:42:21 pm

From what you wrote ("couldn't turn it into .mp3") it seems that the audio sample rate is doubled too (maybe to 88200 Hz). And MP3 can handle a small number of sample rates only, the most important ones being 44100 and 48000 Hz. So what you need to do is to resample audio to 44100 Hz in VirtualDub.

stanski

2007-03-14 06:27:09 pm

wise fwom yo gwave

Thanks for the editing guys.

I was really sick of restarting for 1-1. I didn't think it was that bad compared to some of my efforts.

I may try to improve this and see if I can break 3 minutes with no deaths.

slowbro

Edit history:

slowbro: 2007-03-16 04:23:51 am

2007-03-16 04:19:04 am

Thanks, Kabuto! Now I see the option to change the audio sample rate (under "Conversion" for anyone as newb at VirtualDub as I am :S ).

Also thanks to DRybes; I didn't know about filefactory.com.

Well, posting another edit seems silly since stanski will probably beat this run soon, but I'm gonna do it anyway:

http://www.filefactory.com/file/3bcd27

with sound, a little under 12 megs, video quality almost down to YouTube quality :S
I used DivX at 400kbps; I wonder what codec works best for NES games.

stanski

Edit history:

stanski: 2007-03-16 05:37:26 am

2007-03-16 05:36:00 am

wise fwom yo gwave

I spent way too much time on this, so hopefully you guys appreciate it. This was so much harder then it looks, I slowed down in places I either thought i was going to die or died often at: http://www.filefactory.com/file/7dd725/

Again, can you edit this to 200% slowbro? Thanks!

Oh, and i think it comes in at 3:01. Meh. I'm sick of trying to go for sub 3 minutes.

slowbro

Edit history:

slowbro: 2007-03-16 07:02:31 am

2007-03-16 05:48:27 am

Sure thing! I really want to see this. And this time (thanks to Kabuto) I know how to compress the audio.

edit: uploading ... wow, that's impressive. I know Mario got tongue-tied in two spots when trying to land squarely on pipes, but so much of that run is good. You looked almost flawless 1-1 through 4-1.

stanski's 3:01 (w/sound, 14mb)
http://www.filefactory.com/file/d71b4a

~~http://www.filefactory.com/file/f04bbc~~ (version with mp3-encoded sound)

I had no idea anyone would actually take this sped-up SMB1 idea seriously. Kudos to stanski for trying something weird (and doing really well at it).

I'm curious, do the usual NES emulators allow for play to be sped up to odd speeds, like say 120% or 170% or 225% rather than exactly 200%?

DRybes

2007-03-16 06:12:29 am

O Zlda?

I resampled to 44100Hz for my version of the video. I was frustrated though, that even the highest quality Mp3 option available produced really crappy sound. The original had a very bright and full range with all the highs intact (which you need with a double speed soundtrack, the pitches all increase). So I settled on some odd encoding method that preserved 95% of the original PCM sound quality but squashed the soundtrack part of the video down from 15MB to 1MB. I also really appreciated the quality of the video and left it intact.

I didn't listen to your latest 12MB remix of that run but I have to wonder if the sound was rich and full, if you used VirtualDub and have the same codecs I do. Please consider using another format than MP3 (like the GSM thing I used) if you discover the audio is pretty downsampled and lacks highs Smiley

/audiophile rant... but seriously, the sound was the cute part!

pony16

2007-03-16 06:15:52 am

Quote:

I spent way too much time on this, so hopefully you guys appreciate it. This was so much harder then it looks, I slowed down in places I either thought i was going to die or died often at: http://www.filefactory.com/file/7dd725/

Again, can you edit this to 200% slowbro? Thanks!

Oh, and i think it comes in at 3:01. Meh. I'm sick of trying to go for sub 3 minutes.

I didn't read that carefully, just clicked the link.
This was pretty boring to watch at 100% :\

stanski

2007-03-16 06:23:48 am

wise fwom yo gwave

Watch it at 200%. Hell, play at 200% and then watch it. You'll appreciate it more.

slowbro

Edit history:

slowbro: 2007-03-16 06:42:20 am

2007-03-16 06:26:34 am

Quote:

Please consider using another format than MP3 (like the GSM thing I used) if you discover the audio is pretty downsampled and lacks highs Smiley

/audiophile rant... but seriously, the sound was the cute part!

I agree, this video would be a lot better with high-quality high-register sounds!

edit: Yup, I'm using virtualdub. I'll take your advice.

pony16

Edit history:

pony16: 2007-03-16 06:33:02 am

2007-03-16 06:31:39 am

Quote:

Watch it at 200%. Hell, play at 200% and then watch it. You'll appreciate it more.

i know. i watched your other one. if you watch any run at half the speed it is played on, the mistakes just look so much worse. This would actually make for a pretty funny video. Take a 5 hour SS speedrun, take biggest mistakes, play them slowly in a compilation video.

EDIT: recently my audio on windows media player seems to be "faster" than the video. Basically it gradually gets ahead more and more, and after about a minute it is very noticeable. I just click the seek bar and it resyncs. Has anyone else had this problem or know how to fix it?

stanski

2007-03-16 06:32:59 am

wise fwom yo gwave

/me points sadistically towards the old DK64 run.

Anyhow, does anyone know any genesis emulators with recording that can be sped up? I'll make a sonic 2 vid if anyone does know of any.