Did anyone else watch the Vice City run? Ordinarily wouldn't have been something I'd have watched but it ended up being run of the show for me. The guy running explained exactly what he was doing and the reasons behind it the entire time and had good banter along the way. Just a very unexpectedly entertaining run.
i saw about half of it cause i couldn't sleep last night, but wasn't able to make it through the entire thing. it was a really informative run though, and pretty entertaining too.
I 100% don't understand what is going on currently. Is this a recording?
The TAS in TASBlock stands for Tool-Assisted Speedrun. They create scripts (I think they call them videos, or whatever) of extremely precise button inputs using emulators and then run those scripts through actual consoles using kludged up controller setups. What you're seeing is gameplay that's technically possible with just an NES and a controller, but of course no human can achieve that level of precision.
If you saw the SMB3 thing, that was manipulation of the game's internal memory tables via precise placement of enemies and mario movement, basically rewriting the game's code. Then they do something else that executes the new code and boom, a custom screen and music plays. Again, technically possible with just an NES and a controller.
I 100% don't understand what is going on currently. Is this a recording?
What the hell was up with that Gradius run? What is so special about all of this that I'm missing?
TASbot is a preprogrammed bot that can manipulate bugs in the game that appear through extremely rapid and precise button inputs(we're talking more than the game was designed to handle and more than a human can input at a time) and actions to cause some really bizarre shit to happen.
If you look at the couch camera, they've got a few racks of controllers set up, and the buttons and such are blinking to show input; they're feeding inputs from all of those controllers to whatever system is working at the moment. I'd say it's an SNES, but they're playing Mario 64 on it now? I have no fucking idea.
TAS has been around for a while and it's really interesting looking up your favorite games and watching TAS speedruns of them. And by "interesting" I mean "mind-blowing."
the TASbot runs are interesting, but as someone that's not super into speedrunning they're also one of the weakest parts of the GDQ events for me. am more impressed by seeing what is humanly possible. but others seem to love it so gotta give the people what they want. can't really complain all that much when its all for charity.
Heh, ok. So for the Super Mario 64 and Portal gameplay, a pair of NES' were responsible for the left and right audio channels and an SNES was responsible for the video channel (at 10fps). And the racks of controllers are sending, to the three consoles combined, over a quarter of a million button presses per second. And they wrote some custom NES audio software to turn button presses into audio? And something similar for the SNES to convert button presses into video?
I love how the portal thing they did was apparently a new record as well if I didn't misunderstand the stream, showing of some new ways to destroy the game.
Well it was faster than the world record held by a human, I gathered that much from the stream. I don't think they really keep track of records done by TASBot though.
IIRC they said the TAS was 3 minutes less than the human record. The TAS is likely a Source engine demo thing they played on one of the macbooks and streamed into the console via the controller ports. I think the actual-TASes themselves aren't super interesting, but I enjoy their creative process for the more "out of the box" exploits
it has accounted for a very healthy up swing in donations. the tracker has barely stopped moving since they showed it off. good on Bandai Namco for giving them all that swag.
the TASbot runs are interesting, but as someone that's not super into speedrunning they're also one of the weakest parts of the GDQ events for me. am more impressed by seeing what is humanly possible. but others seem to love it so gotta give the people what they want. can't really complain all that much when its all for charity.
Honestly for the past few years the TAS block is less about speedruns and more about ridiculous feats of programming/engineering.
Yeah, the TAS runs themselves are fun I guess, but the cool stuff is them doing really really impressive stuff with old console hardware.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
The thing is though, I think lots of TAS actual speedruns would be great to include because there is a ton of opportunity for commentary. A lot of the best TAS records involve painstaking path plotting, frame and number crunching, and rng manipulation that most human done games can't even touch. And while that might be technical, thats the kind of stuff that really entertains people.
Also, you can REALLY make TAS runs showy because there never has to be safe strats.
the TASbot runs are interesting, but as someone that's not super into speedrunning they're also one of the weakest parts of the GDQ events for me. am more impressed by seeing what is humanly possible. but others seem to love it so gotta give the people what they want. can't really complain all that much when its all for charity.
TAS stuff is less than half an hour of event time though man. If we want to look at seeing an even larger variety of runs, I'd start by looking squarely at the three to four hour behemoths that annually choke other games out of the schedule, or work on optimizing some of these 25-30 minute setup times that several of the runs have commanded.
the TASbot runs are interesting, but as someone that's not super into speedrunning they're also one of the weakest parts of the GDQ events for me. am more impressed by seeing what is humanly possible. but others seem to love it so gotta give the people what they want. can't really complain all that much when its all for charity.
TAS stuff is less than half an hour of event time though man. If we want to look at seeing an even larger variety of runs, I'd start by looking squarely at the three to four hour behemoths that annually choke other games out of the schedule, or work on optimizing some of these 25-30 minute setup times that several of the runs have commanded.
its not really about the length. its just me not finding that section to be particularly engaging to watch. and i'm not asking for it to be replaced either. plenty of people enjoy it and that's great. i'm just not one of them. i can do something else during that block, its ok.
From what I've seen, the Awful Block is my favorite. Lots of silliness and lots of different games. The interview segments have been surprisingly entertaining as well.
I'm wondering how feasible it would be for them to have two separate stream areas that they alternate between in order to cut down on the downtime.
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i saw about half of it cause i couldn't sleep last night, but wasn't able to make it through the entire thing. it was a really informative run though, and pretty entertaining too.
How about a spring roll?
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
What the hell was up with that Gradius run? What is so special about all of this that I'm missing?
The TAS in TASBlock stands for Tool-Assisted Speedrun. They create scripts (I think they call them videos, or whatever) of extremely precise button inputs using emulators and then run those scripts through actual consoles using kludged up controller setups. What you're seeing is gameplay that's technically possible with just an NES and a controller, but of course no human can achieve that level of precision.
If you saw the SMB3 thing, that was manipulation of the game's internal memory tables via precise placement of enemies and mario movement, basically rewriting the game's code. Then they do something else that executes the new code and boom, a custom screen and music plays. Again, technically possible with just an NES and a controller.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
TASbot is a preprogrammed bot that can manipulate bugs in the game that appear through extremely rapid and precise button inputs(we're talking more than the game was designed to handle and more than a human can input at a time) and actions to cause some really bizarre shit to happen.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
PSN: BrightWing13 FFX|V:ARR Bright Asuna
You don't say.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
http://tasvideos.org/
TAS has been around for a while and it's really interesting looking up your favorite games and watching TAS speedruns of them. And by "interesting" I mean "mind-blowing."
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Also, you can REALLY make TAS runs showy because there never has to be safe strats.
TAS stuff is less than half an hour of event time though man. If we want to look at seeing an even larger variety of runs, I'd start by looking squarely at the three to four hour behemoths that annually choke other games out of the schedule, or work on optimizing some of these 25-30 minute setup times that several of the runs have commanded.
its not really about the length. its just me not finding that section to be particularly engaging to watch. and i'm not asking for it to be replaced either. plenty of people enjoy it and that's great. i'm just not one of them. i can do something else during that block, its ok.
I'm wondering how feasible it would be for them to have two separate stream areas that they alternate between in order to cut down on the downtime.
and already past $1,525,000. that record is gonna get smashed. eager to see just how high this goes :biggrin:
EDIT: BOOM! and its done! $2M HYPE!!!
What bundle is this? I'm not seeing it.
Oh, a donation incentive prize bundle? I thought it was like a Humble Bundle, they did one last year.
After how many donations it brought in, they extended the cutoff to the end of the marathon, as opposed to the end of DS3.