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How to Create a Walkthrough with VICE's Event History
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VICE supports recording an arbitrary session on the emulated machine and
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playing back this session later. This is done by saving a snapshot at the beginning
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of the recording session and then remembering all the user interaction such as
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keyboard and joystick input. We call this an 'event history'.
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The main purpose for having an event history is to create game sessions, e.g. recording
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how to solve a game. An example walkthrough for the well known game "Fort Apocalypse" is
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This brief document will advise you how to record and playback such a session.
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Although it is based on the WinVICE x64 release and its user interface, histories may be
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transferred to other machines and other ports that support event history, e.g. the
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2. Recommended Settings
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When using the event history feature it is possible that the playback session
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differs from what was done at recording time. This might arise due to a problem
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in the initial snapshot or settings.
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Here are some suggestions to minimize the chance of failures in the session:
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a. Reset to default settings.
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b. Choose refresh rate 1/1.
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c. Choose joystick and Video/Doublesize settings as desired or needed.
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d. SID engine must be reSID (which is the default).
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Do not change any settings during recording or playback!
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The following is a list of the user interaction that will be recorded:
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- Joystick movement and button
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- Resetting the machine (hard and soft)
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- Attaching or detaching disk/tape images (see 8. Limitations)
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4. Recording an Event History
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Recording an event history will create one or two files for a snapshot and
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the list of the user events. First, create an empty directory in which these
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files are to be saved and then select this directory via 'Snapshot//Select
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History directory'. Next, attach the disk or tape image with the game you
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want to record and load and run the game.
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Start recording via 'Snapshot//Start/Stop Recording History'.
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Play the game. All actions will be recorded.
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After the game is finished, stop recording via 'Snapshot//Start/Stop
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Recording History'. The selected directory should now contain the two
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files start.vsf and end.vsf
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5. Setting and Returning to Milestones
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It is difficult to finish a game in one sitting and noone wants to
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record all their mistakes and lost lives. Use the milestone feature in a
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recording session in the following way:
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Set a milestone when you have finished a level or completed a task
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('Snapshot//Set recording milestone' or ALT-E). This will save the event
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history and a snapshot of the machine to the file end.vsf but recording will
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Return to the last milestone when you have made a mistake or lost a life
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('Snapshot//Return to milestone' or ALT-U). This will reset the game and the
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event history to the last milestone snapshot so that you can try again.
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6. Continuing an Event History
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If you have stopped a recording session and want to continue it later, you
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should create a backup of your start.vsf and end.vsf files first to avoid
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overwriting them by accident.
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Then change the event history start mode: 'Snapshot//Recording start mode//Load
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existing snapshot'. When you start recording now, you will continue where the
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session was stopped last time.
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7. Playing Back an Event History
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To play back an event history, select the directory with the history files
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start.vsf and end.vsf via 'Snapshot//Select History directory' and start the
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playback with 'Snapshot//Start/Stop Playback History'. Enjoy!
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During playback any user interaction is disabled.
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The playback stops when the end of the session is reached or if
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'Snapshot//Select History directory' is selected again.
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8. Limitations and Suggestions
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a. When playing back a session in which images were attached, those images
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need to be in the same directory that they were located during recording.
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This makes it difficult to distribute a walkthrough for games that need
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disk or tape changes. We will fix this later.
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b. The names of the snapshot files start.vsf and end.vsf can be changed with
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the resources EventStartSnapshot and EventEndSnapshot. However, we suggest
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keeping the defaults as there is no GUI support for changing them.
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c. Snapshot files will be quite big (>1MB) if a disk image has been attached.
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If possible, use PRG or T64 images to reduce the size of snapshot files.
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d. Snapshots may not be 100% accurate even with all the recommended settings.
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doc/html/plain/Walkthrough-Howto.txt
