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Schneelocke

TASDOOM again

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Has anyone ever managed to get TASDOOM to run on Windows XP?

The reason why I'm asking is that I'm trying to watch the Donatas' TAS NM Speedrun of Nullspace (nulnx415); I've fiddled around with various versions of PrBoom, not to mention various complevels, but it seems that PrBoom doesn't even read the demo file correctly, and I'm not sure if there's any other port that could play these back. The original TASDOOM seems like the only option to me right now. (And in fact, it seems that TASDOOM support has been on the PrBoom TODO list for more than 4 years, but hasn't been implemented so far, so it's probably no surprise that I've had no luck there.)

Of course, if there's another port I could try, I'd be happy to hear about that, too - anything's fine as long as it runs under Windows XP. :)

Thanks!

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Searcher said:

Have you tried TASMBF?


Yeah, but I get the same error message that TASDOOM gives me: "Failed trying to allocate DOS near pointers."

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Yes, while TASMBF and TASDoom are both TAS ports and DOS programs, they are very different projects, and not compatible with one another.

My understanding is that Prboom 2.3.x's -complevel 6 will work for TASDoom demos, but only if they have been processed by a tool that removes the save tics (see the tasdoom text-file). As far as I am aware, this tool has not been publically released, and I don't have a copy. Maybe Opulent does?

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Grazza said:

Yes, while TASMBF and TASDoom are both TAS ports and DOS programs, they are very different projects, and not compatible with one another.

My understanding is that Prboom 2.3.x's -complevel 6 will work for TASDoom demos, but only if they have been processed by a tool that removes the save tics (see the tasdoom text-file). As far as I am aware, this tool has not been publically released, and I don't have a copy. Maybe Opulent does?


Do you know the specifics of how TASDOOM demo files differ from "regular" (i.e., doom2.exe etc.) demos? If yes, writing a small tool that converts TASDOOM to regular format shouldn't be too difficult to come up with (in theory, anyway).

Of course, if Opulent already has the program hinted at in the textfile, that would be great, too.

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No, I don't know any details, I'm afraid.

The format may not be vastly different though, given that LMPC can convert it to text, but with "unknown use" appearing quite often (and its "clear-save" option doesn't convert this demo successfully).

I'd suggest comparing the original rn06x827.lmp and the converted one (in here) if you want to investigate what the differences are.

I don't see that such a tool being made public would be a problem nowadays, given that it is now quite straightforward to create a TAS demo that plays back with Doom2.exe.

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Grazza said:

No, I don't know any details, I'm afraid.

The format may not be vastly different though, given that LMPC can convert it to text, but with "unknown use" appearing quite often (and its "clear-save" option doesn't convert this demo successfully).

I'd suggest comparing the original rn06x827.lmp and the converted one (in here) if you want to investigate what the differences are.


Thanks. A quick glance seems to suggest that the authors merely switched the meanings of the different flags - for example, TL becomes SR, SR becomes GF and so on. I'll try and make a list of these changes; after that, it should be easy to convert demos by first converting them to text (using LMPC - version 3.30 converts the demo just fine for me, although of course it warns about unknown use flags, too), then changing the flags, and finally converting back to binary format using LMPC again.

Of course, the keyword here is "it SHOULD be easy". :) Maybe there's other things that need to be taken care off, too, but at 4am, it's a bit too late for me to worry about that. :)


I don't see that such a tool being made public would be a problem nowadays, given that it is now quite straightforward to create a TAS demo that plays back with Doom2.exe.


Why would it be a problem at all? I can see why the authors might not appreciate their own tool being released to the general public if they gave it to Opulent (or someone else) in private, but I can't see what would be wrong with someone else writing their own tool to do this conversion (or, at least, I can't see what would be wrong with it as far as legal issues etc. are concerned. the authors may or may not be happy with it, of course, but even assuming that they still care (which I doubt)... such is life.)

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OK, I've worked on it a bit, so I can present you the first version of a new tool (creatively dubbed "tasdoom_unscramble") that converts TASDOOM demos to "normal" demos.

I haven't tried it with any demo except for Xit's rn06x827 (which you mentioned) yet, but that one works: the resulting demo is exactly the same as the converted demo provided by the TASDOOM authors. Considering that I haven't tried it with anything else, and also considering that there's probably still some stuff missing, the first version of the tool is only 0.01.

The way it's used is as follows: you have to convert the demo you want to convert to text format using LMPC (I've used 3.3.0 - probably should work with other versions, too, but I haven't tried); then, you filter the text file through this script, and finally, the
result is converted to binary format using LMPC again.

Oh yeah, and you can get it here. It's licensed under the GNU GPL, too, so feel free to redistribute it and all that.

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so any luck with your tool on nulnx415?

All TAS demos are converted that successfully convert... it has always been that way on the TAS site.
However, there are a number of reasons the demo may fail to convert(winding up with a demo that is corrupt or much more often one that desyncs).
I retried the convert and it desyncs about 1/2 way in at the same point with both prboom-plus and doom2.exe.
good demo. :)

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Opulent said:

I retried the convert and it desyncs about 1/2 way in at the same point with both prboom-plus and doom2.exe.
good demo. :)

Even if successfully converted, Tasdoom demos still may not play back with either of those. As far as I know, only Prboom 2.3.x has a compatibility mode for Tasdoom. (I've made a feature request for one in Prboom-plus...)

The fact that many of the converted demos do play back with Doom2.exe can be viewed as a happy coincidence, or a reflection of the fact that Tasdoom didn't differ greatly from Doom2.exe. Remember the way the converted rn06x827.lmp desynched near the end with Doom2.exe? It plays back OK right to the end with Prboom 2.3.1 and -complevel 5.

So, I'd suggest playing back the converted nulnx415.lmp with that. Be sure to put -complevel 5 in the command line - this overrides the autodetect. I don't know how good the compatibility is in this case (there's little to test it with), but the complevel for Dosdoom 0.47 works pretty well in my experience, which must be a good sign.

Incidentally, the converted rn06x827.lmp also plays back OK with 2.3.1 & -complevel 4. I'm not sure what the difference is between these two in fact. According to tasdoom.txt, the conversion makes them Dosdoom format, but maybe there are still some small differences in behaviour (I don't know).

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well, my stance on that is that it either plays with the real game or people can use Tasdoom.
The purpose of doom(2).exe support is to prove that it is compliant with the dynamics of the real game.
there are 2 categories:
1) the real game
2) everything else
I don't wish to trade one port for another.
but you are right, I recall dismissing 2.3.1 because I still had tasdoom to use.
You are also right that it works, of course.
prboom -complevel 5 -file nulspace.wad -playdemo nulnx415
http://www.doomworld.com/sda/dwdemo/nulnx415-fixed.zip

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I'm a little confused. Does Schneelocke's tool fix TASDoom-format demos so they can be played with the experimental PrBoom, or does it fix TASDoom demos that were converted to Doom2.exe-format but desync?

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Basically, it converts a raw Tasdoom demo to Dosdoom 0.47 format. Doom2.exe can then attempt to play it back, but there is no guarantee that it will actually play back OK, as the exe it was recorded with was a little different.

All being well, the experimental Prboom should be able to play back the converted demos, without them desynching.

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Actually, I wrote a tool to convert the demos from TASDoom to Doom2 format two or three years ago. But I never released it: first, I thought the creators of TASDoom wouldn't want that, second, I'm VERY horrible as a "programmer", and this tool is also very horrible. First, you have to edit a TAS demo with an ASCII editor, then create a text from it, then run my tool (it creates NINE temporary files during the process), and finally, convert it back to binary format. Meh.. how could I release such a thing :P

Speaking of Nulnx415, it desynchs when converted to doom2.exe format, so I sent it to Opulent the way it was. And, IIRC, when playing it back with TASDoom, a higher than default -heapsize is required (like -heapsize 10).

I see Opulent converted it and gave a cmd line for prboom, so the problem is probably already solved :)

EDIT: however, it desyncs, in the same way as with normal doom2.exe. So I guess you still have to use TASDoom or have Andrey take a look :)

EDIT2: Similar thing happened when recording a NM in one of Gene's BA maps. The converted demo desynced near the end. I then just re-did the end, converted again, and it seemed to work fine. Maybe I should redo Nulnx as well and see if it replays when converted...

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Opulent said:

so any luck with your tool on nulnx415?


Haven't tried yet - it was 6am last night when I made the post, and I was too tired to do anything else. I just wanted to finish the first version, but that was it.


well, my stance on that is that it either plays with the real game or people can use Tasdoom.
The purpose of doom(2).exe support is to prove that it is compliant with the dynamics of the real game.
there are 2 categories:
1) the real game
2) everything else
I don't wish to trade one port for another.
but you are right, I recall dismissing 2.3.1 because I still had tasdoom to use.


I'd use TASDOOM if I could, but as I said in my initial post, it doesn't work under Windows XP (doom2.exe doesn't either, BTW). PrBoom does, though (not a big surprise there), so even though it's just "another" port, if a demo can be converted to something that works with PrBoom, then that's a good thing, because it (hopefully!) will allow me to watch it. :)

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Donce said:

EDIT: however, it desyncs, in the same way as with normal doom2.exe.

It works fine for me. Note that if you have to use Prboom 2.3.1 - none of the 2.2.x versions (including Prboom-plus) have this compatibility mode.

Edit: omg, 7500 posts, lol.

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Grazza said:

It works fine for me. Note that if you have to use Prboom 2.3.1 - none of the 2.2.x versions (including Prboom-plus) have this compatibility mode.

Ah, that explains it. I tried Plus. OK then :)

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I've put up version 0.02 of the script, which is slightly more complete than the last version. Converting nulnx415 still causes a desync (near the yellow key), and the demo produced still differs from the fixed version Opulent provided (and which definitely works) in two bytes, so I'll have to look into that.

But I've got other things to do now, so that'll have to wait until tonight. ^_~

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Schneelocke said:

I've put up version 0.02 of the script, which is slightly more complete than the last version. Converting nulnx415 still causes a desync (near the yellow key), and the demo produced still differs from the fixed version Opulent provided (and which definitely works) in two bytes, so I'll have to look into that.

My unscrambler always makes demos that differ by 4 bytes, but that doesn't matter since they get added to the very end I think :)

If you really want I can send you mine, however, I lost its source (it was written with Qbasic, anyway). I haven't tested its output with PrBoom 2.3.1, but it works in general, so probably would be OK.

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Donce said:

My unscrambler always makes demos that differ by 4 bytes, but that doesn't matter since they get added to the very end I think :)

If you really want I can send you mine, however, I lost its source (it was written with Qbasic, anyway). I haven't tested its output with PrBoom 2.3.1, but it works in general, so probably would be OK.


Sure, that would be nice - my email address is schneelocke@gmail.com. :)

Pity you lost the source, but that's another reason to keep on working on this one, then. ^_~

BTW, would it be OK if I put your tool up on my website, too? I always find it rather disappointing that most of these demo-related utilities are often hard (if not impossible) to find without asking someone who has them - so this would be a good start for collecting them all so that interested people can get them without going through lots of hoops and hassles. :)

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Schneelocke said:

BTW, would it be OK if I put your tool up on my website, too? I always find it rather disappointing that most of these demo-related utilities are often hard (if not impossible) to find without asking someone who has them - so this would be a good start for collecting them all so that interested people can get them without going through lots of hoops and hassles. :)

Well, it is so inconvenient to use that I doubt it's worthwhile making it public. When I get home and send it along with instructions (first I'll have to remember the procedure myself) you'll understand :P

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Donce said:

Well, it is so inconvenient to use that I doubt it's worthwhile making it public. When I get home and send it along with instructions (first I'll have to remember the procedure myself) you'll understand :P


*s* OK.

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Opulent said:

I make all of the publically released tools available on the DSDA/TAS sites.


Ah, cool - I never noticed that before, but after looking around a bit (do they have to be that well-hidden? ^_~), I found them now. Still, LMPC 3.30 is missing, at least.

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Schneelocke, I tried to email you, but:

schneelocke@gmail.com on Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:43:32 +0200
    The recipient could not be processed because it would violate the
security policy in force
    <mail-src.takas.lt #5.7.0 smtp;552 5.7.0 Illegal Attachment
m1si1546351uge>
I see Opulent provided a link, you still need it?

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Donce said:

Schneelocke, I tried to email you, but:

schneelocke@gmail.com on Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:43:32 +0200
    The recipient could not be processed because it would violate the
security policy in force
    <mail-src.takas.lt #5.7.0 smtp;552 5.7.0 Illegal Attachment
m1si1546351uge>
I see Opulent provided a link, you still need it?


He did? Where?

Anyhow, that's weird. Did you send the EXE file directly, or did you pack it? In the former case, you may try putting it in a zip file or something - I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if GMail blocked direct EXE file attachments.

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Well, I just saw he mentioned about his site, but I didn't check myself :)

I sent it zipped. Anyway, I PM'ed you.

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Donce said:

Well, I just saw he mentioned about his site, but I didn't check myself :)

I sent it zipped. Anyway, I PM'ed you.


Strange, then. Ah well. :) Thanks for the file, in any case, I'll take a look!

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VinceDSS said:

speaking of demo formats, anyone has seen a LMPC that can read longtics demos ?

no sir.

Donce: Schneelocke was referring to your cool TAS demo utility... I think.
file.exe might be blocked, but file.xex most likely wouldn't be.
(there are some email servers that 'file' a file to see what type it says it is... but those are rare in my experience)

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