TAS demos on a Mac

I was wondering if anybody has been successfully recording TAS demos on a Mac (OS X). As I have no experience with TAS anyway, I've been searching around a lot but apart from a few (mostly) old threads but haven't really found much. Currently, I've succeeded in getting a Mac version of PrBoom Plus to work and I've managed to reduce recording speed.

If you overwrite your demo file you can append to it but unfortunately your deaths are also recorded. It would have been nice to pause and go back or at least re-record from save games or from a certain amount of seconds. Unfortunately, the -recordfromto and -skipsec parameters also don't work at all. I either end up back at the terminal or the main menu of the WAD appears.

The other tools I've found are XDRE and TASMBF. The executives are .exe only so unless I use some kind of emulating environment it won't work. I guess it's a possibility but I don't have experience running emulators with success on OS X (tried but failed).

As a side note, is there any documentation with tips on how to properly record a TAS demo? i.e. which parameters to set and so forth. All I've found are bits and pieces in various threads.

Thanks in advance for your feedback. Sorry if I've missed something obvious, but I've spent a fair amount of time on my own searching for information.

Cheers, K

EDIT: I use v. 2.5.1.3.

Nothing I can help you with the main subject, unfortunately.

Kotzugi said:
As a side note, is there any documentation with tips on how to properly record a TAS demo? i.e. which parameters to set and so forth. All I've found are bits and pieces in various threads.

I always believed the "TAS knowledge" was treated as arcane and considered as one which would better not be too widespread. And if, as a result, TAS are less than 2% of all the demos and most of them are of high quality, then I think it's a good thing.

I can't really say I agree vdgg. The way I see it, it's supposed to be quite time-consuming to do right, so not a lot of people will go to the trouble anyway (although I for one would love to see more TAS demos). But at the very least there should be a little text file somewhere on the Net which will reveal itself to the determined seeker. :)

We've got a bunch of TAS features made user-friendly with PrB+; which means many people lacking that arcane knowledge can and do make TAS demos anyway.

So even if* there was a conscious desire to build an artificial barrier of entry, that ship has sailed. Keeping certain parts of TAS obscure can only result in lower average TAS quality.

I'd say IMHO, but, well... My shitty TAS demos should prove this is reality. ;)

Peer pressure is probably a bigger factor. People expect optimized runs.

*and that's a "if". People are pretty helpful around here, on TAS as on any topic. It would seem to me the most likely reason for the obscurity surrounding specific quirks and utilities is the amount of effort required to explain and document things, rather than purposeful obstruction.

Edit: @vdgg:

if I remember, some user were not concerned about the tools you used, but about too little effort you put...

I agree! This is my point, sorry if I wasn't clear.

There are people who will put less effort than others, in the runs themselves and in the lengths they're willing to go to acquire knowledge. Because some tools require little effort to use, there is effectively no barrier of entry for TAS demos; so, having some other tools requiring much more effort to use, some knowledge being much more difficult to acquire, doesn't change anything in itself. It just means the people who aren't willing to put in much effort might go the easy way and not use TAS possibilities to their fullest. Doubly so as the skills required can be computer knowledge or even social skills (talking to the right people), all stuff that isn't directly tied to speedrunning... arguably.

Kotzugi said:

Unfortunately, the -recordfromto and -skipsec parameters also don't work at all.

you might be doing it wrong.


./prboom-plus -file myHouse.wad -complevel 2 -skill 1 -warp 01 -record myDemo.lmp

play --> die somewhere --> exit

./prboom-plus -file myHouse.wad -complevel 2 -recordfromto myDemo.lmp myDemo2.lmp -skipsec 120

demo loads --> hit the key that exits demos and gives you back control (I forget what it's called, or what it's bound to by default -.-) --> continue playing


note the lack of skill/warp params in the re-recording line (I assume you can omit complevel as well?).




as far as TAS goes, whenever I hear the term I usually anticipate hyper-perfected runs with cool tricks and immaculate accuracy, and am usually disappointed otherwise, but that's just me. I know nothing about the other tools people use (xdre, etc) to make super-awesome runs, but I assure you running windows on mac is pretty painless, so I'd recommend you check out parallels or bootcamp or something :)

@Phml: if I remember, some user were not concerned about the tools you used, but about too little effort you put... I don't have anything against your demos personally, as you were honest about the whole demo-making process, and, for example, your No Chance demo was a valuable entry back then with no demos on that map.

Ribbiks said:

./prboom-plus -file myHouse.wad -complevel 2 -recordfromto myDemo.lmp myDemo2.lmp -skipsec 120

let's be thorough with everything we can leave out. :)

Ribbiks said:

you might be doing it wrong.

./prboom-plus -file myHouse.wad -complevel 2 -skill 1 -warp 01 -record myDemo.lmp

play --> die somewhere --> exit

./prboom-plus -file myHouse.wad -complevel 2 -recordfromto myDemo.lmp myDemo2.lmp -skipsec 120

demo loads --> hit the key that exits demos and gives you back control (I forget what it's called, or what it's bound to by default -.-) --> continue playing

Thanks for trying to help. This is what I'm doing.

Record demo:

./PrBoom-Plus -file ../../../wads/Rebirth1.wad -skill 4 -fast -nomusic -warp 9 -record reb9

and die after about 20 seconds. Demo file plays back fine, so recording is done correctly. Now:

./PrBoom-Plus -file ../../../wads/Rebirth1.wad -recordfromto reb9 reb92 -skipsec 5

(or whatever value after -skipsec) and the main menu appears, instead of a demo playing. My guess is that the port may not have been properly tested on OS X, either that or there is some value in the config that shouldn't be there.

Also, whenever I record or playback I get a warning:

2013-09-10 01:11:08.395 PrBoom-Plus[6345:207] Warning once: This application, or a library it uses, is using NSQuickDrawView, which has been deprecated. Apps should cease use of QuickDraw and move to Quartz.

Not sure if it's relevant.

Ribbiks said:

as far as TAS goes, whenever I hear the term I usually anticipate hyper-perfected runs with cool tricks and immaculate accuracy, and am usually disappointed otherwise, but that's just me. I know nothing about the other tools people use (xdre, etc) to make super-awesome runs, but I assure you running windows on mac is pretty painless, so I'd recommend you check out parallels or bootcamp or something :)

I guess that's an option. I do have an old Windows machine that's kind of falling apart (physically) but should run the tools fine (Win 7). So I might shift to that reluctantly. :)

Thanks.

Hmm, idk what to tell you then, I use the latest 2.5.1.4 on os X 10.8 and everything seems to work flawlessly.

dew said:

let's be thorough with everything we can leave out. :)

heh, shows how much I know. I recall reading that prb would find wads and such for you, but I never trusted that enough to omit the -file param. Does the absolute path to the wadfile get embedded in the .lmp? o.O

Ribbiks said:

heh, shows how much I know. I recall reading that prb would find wads and such for you, but I never trusted that enough to omit the -file param. Does the absolute path to the wadfile get embedded in the .lmp? o.O

The name of the wadfile and iwad get embedded in the .lmp, so I assume that the parameters are automatically added to the manually added parameters. Although, personally, I never remove the -complevel and wad params because if I want to run a new map, it's easier to modify the command line.