Speed Runs

Ask questions that relate to playing the game. Hardware / software issues do not belong here.

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Nullpointer
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Post by Nullpointer »

I've made a tool that's way better for recording Giants demos than Fraps is. It dumps Giants' object storage to disk (and, in order to save space, for following frames just the difference to the preceding frame). For a typical single player mission running at 40 fps this gives 0.25 to 0.4 MB per second, quite too much but much less than typical Fraps recordings. While working quite well it has a number of drawbacks, e.g. playback speed is dependent on the frame rate.
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Post by Tasiin »

Does this tool also work with the GeForce 3 version of Giants or standard versions of Giants patched with the DX8 renderer? If so, this would be a huge help to me and anyone else using the DX8 renderer that plans on doing any recording at all. For some reason, Fraps seems to absolutely hate the DX8 renderer and lowers my framerate to 10-15 regardless of resolution or detail settings when recording. I can usually stay above 80 FPS when recording with the standard renderer even at 1600x1200, so I suspect the problem lies more with Fraps not properly supporting the GeForce 3 version of Giants than anything else.
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Post by SSJBardock »

Nullpointer wrote:I've made a tool that's way better for recording Giants demos than Fraps is. It dumps Giants' object storage to disk (and, in order to save space, for following frames just the difference to the preceding frame). For a typical single player mission running at 40 fps this gives 0.25 to 0.4 MB per second, quite too much but much less than typical Fraps recordings. While working quite well it has a number of drawbacks, e.g. playback speed is dependent on the frame rate.
What do you use to playback the file?
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Nullpointer
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Post by Nullpointer »

It should work with the GF8 version as it records the game's state *before* it is passed to the renderer.

Demos can (and must) be played back with the same tool.

There's a large number of bugs left but the basic functions are working.

I'll try to make a version that's suitable for public release as soon as possible.
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RichardMH
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Post by RichardMH »

How can you use 1600x1200? I tried it and my eyes started to feel pain.
SSJBardock
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Post by SSJBardock »

Nullpointer wrote:Demos can (and must) be played back with the same tool.
The tool actually renders the game states? (if so, what does it look like?)

Also, shouldn't it be possible to record the time at which the game state was captured in order to playback the file at the real speed?
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Post by Tasiin »

RichardMH wrote:How can you use 1600x1200? I tried it and my eyes started to feel pain.
Um, that would probably be because your monitor has too low of a refresh rate to display 1600x1200 pixel without flickering.
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Post by Glude »

wouldn't it be possible to record the video played in this tool with fraps?
that way, you can play without getting 30 FPS and encode the video later.
JOE[OWNS]
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Re: Speed Runs

Post by JOE[OWNS] »

but how do jou got nulpointer as a 2 kabotos are even not in
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RichardMH
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Post by RichardMH »

how high should the refresh rate be to handle 1600x1200?
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Post by Tasiin »

That really varies from person to person. Some (insane) people claim that they don't see any flickering at 60 Hz at all, but those of us blessed with eyesight can see it clearly. I would say 75-85 is probably good for 1600x1200 for most people - though I personally consider 75 to be unacceptable, and 85 flickers noticeably for me on the desktop, but not in games. Whatever works for you, I guess.
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RichardMH
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Post by RichardMH »

I tried 120 and I see not much diff from that and 90 but at 75 for that res wont be the best option.
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Post by Tasiin »

120? I seriously doubt your monitor can do 120 Hz at 1600x1200. That would be the first I've seen, even among $500+ 21 inch monitors. What are you using to change your refresh rate?
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RichardMH
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Post by RichardMH »

www.hellstrand.org/120.bmp (16colours)

if you are wondering i am using XP but on lowest settings.

by the way, check this out:

www.hellstrand.org/speeed1.bmp
www.hellstrand.org/speeed2.bmp

10Mbit/sec baby! ;)
SSJBardock
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Post by SSJBardock »

Don't we all understand Swedish...
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