SNES9x 1.53 Has Bugs

[poetrydiva]

My husband has been trying to play Romance of the Three Kingdoms II on the SNES9x 1.53 emulator. Everything works, except for the randomness during personal combat. The results are always the same. He dueled a ruler he created against another general. He was 65 to 75 and he lost every time by one of three different margins: 37-0, 29-0, 23-0. Something needs to be fixed with the emulator to allow randomness in all of the aspects of the game.

He also tried what someone else suggested and use the save function within the game, instead of the save game-state function, before going in to war, but that did not make any difference.

Thanks.

[odditude]

Do you get different results in other emulators (e.g. bsnes), or is it normal behavior for the game?

[poetrydiva]

Actually,
He tried bsnes and the emulator kept crashing. He tried ZNES and that one had a major bug - you couldn't recruit other generals. He even tried the sega version and that one would determine what would happen if you tried an action before you tried it and would happen the same way each time you tried, no matter how many times you try i - example: Dong Zhou ALWAYS intercepting a 95-ability war general trying to recruit another general.

Thanks

[Camo_Yoshi]

When you load the ROM in Snes9x, there is some text that appears at the bottom of the window; what color is this text?

[BearOso]

The SNES (and actually most game consoles) lacks a true random number generator, and programmers would make up for it with math seeded with supposed "chaotic" actions, usually user input. If the input leading to the generation point is the same then generally the result will be the same. If you can prove that a real SNES, or even bsnes, produces different results then there might be a bug. Otherwise you can just assume that this is how the game was programmed.

On another note, save states will nearly always result in identical runs. Only if there is variance (read: buttons pressed, etc., that change the state of the game) between the save load and the generation of a random number will the results have a possibility of being different.

[poetrydiva]

When you load the ROM in Snes9x, there is some text that appears at the bottom of the window; what color is this text?

The text is white.

[poetrydiva]

The SNES (and actually most game consoles) lacks a true random number generator, and programmers would make up for it with math seeded with supposed "chaotic" actions, usually user input. If the input leading to the generation point is the same then generally the result will be the same. If you can prove that a real SNES, or even bsnes, produces different results then there might be a bug. Otherwise you can just assume that this is how the game was programmed.

On another note, save states will nearly always result in identical runs. Only if there is variance (read: buttons pressed, etc., that change the state of the game) between the save load and the generation of a random number will the results have a possibility of being different.

Ok, some of this is above my head, but I can tell you that from playing the real SNES cartridge, the same result does NOT happen every time the action is attempted. For example: when playing the real SNES cartridge on our SNES, you can save your position right before going into a personal combat duel and then invade the province to duel against a better general in order to improve your general's war ability. The first attempt, there might be a draw (18-26)...so you reload and make your second attempt and then you lose (19-0)...you reload and make a third attempt and this time you might have another draw or another loss or you might win. That is saving a position and then reloading the SAME position each time you get an unfavorable result and doing the same pattern of things each time you reload - select ARMY, then select "war", then choose the province to invade, then select your general, then invade, then position your general where you would like on the battle field, then initiate personal combat, then wait for the enemy to accept, then proceed to duel. The duel is done automatically. There is nothing the player does. Just watches to see what the result will be. I know the real SNES game was not programmed to have the same result every time because it simply doesn't play that way, so it HAS to be a bug with the emulator.

I haven't been able to try it with BSNES because the sounds don't work and there's an extreme lag to the point of freezing.

[Camo_Yoshi]

I haven't been able to try it with BSNES because the sounds don't work and there's an extreme lag to the point of freezing.

Probably because your computer is older; what are the specifications of your computer (CPU speed, RAM, Graphic Card, Operating System...)

[poetrydiva]

I haven't been able to try it with BSNES because the sounds don't work and there's an extreme lag to the point of freezing.

Probably because your computer is older; what are the specifications of your computer (CPU speed, RAM, Graphic Card, Operating System...)

It's my laptop. Windows XP Pro SP-2; Pentium DualCore Processor 1.75 GHz; 3 GB of RAM; Intel 965 Express Chipset; Realtek Hi-Def Audio sound card. We are able to play any other high-end game on this computer.

[BearOso]

That is saving a position and then reloading the SAME position each time you get an unfavorable result and doing the same pattern of things each time you reload - select ARMY, then select "war", then choose the province to invade, then select your general, then invade, then position your general where you would like on the battle field, then initiate personal combat, then wait for the enemy to accept, then proceed to duel. The duel is done automatically. There is nothing the player does. Just watches to see what the result will be.

You're pressing buttons to set all these things up. Variance in these inputs (possibly even moving a cursor back and forth) might affect the results.

I know the real SNES game was not programmed to have the same result every time because it simply doesn't play that way, so it HAS to be a bug with the emulator.

Unless you're doing things exactly like you would with the actual hardware, saving using the in-game mechanism and then soft-resetting for different results, you can't make an encompassing statement like that.

Many used to claim that Seiken Densetsu 3 had RNG bugs with emulators, and they turned out to be wrong. Just because you don't understand how the pseudo-random number generator works and unknowingly subvert its behavior doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem.

[poetrydiva]

That is saving a position and then reloading the SAME position each time you get an unfavorable result and doing the same pattern of things each time you reload - select ARMY, then select "war", then choose the province to invade, then select your general, then invade, then position your general where you would like on the battle field, then initiate personal combat, then wait for the enemy to accept, then proceed to duel. The duel is done automatically. There is nothing the player does. Just watches to see what the result will be.

You're pressing buttons to set all these things up. Variance in these inputs (possibly even moving a cursor back and forth) might affect the results.

I know the real SNES game was not programmed to have the same result every time because it simply doesn't play that way, so it HAS to be a bug with the emulator.

Unless you're doing things exactly like you would with the actual hardware, saving using the in-game mechanism and then soft-resetting for different results, you can't make an encompassing statement like that.

Many used to claim that Seiken Densetsu 3 had RNG bugs with emulators, and they turned out to be wrong. Just because you don't understand how the pseudo-random number generator works and unknowingly subvert its behavior doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem.

He also tried doing a duel by saving using the in-game mechanism and soft-resetting to try for a different result, but the results were the same as when saving and reloading using the emulator. We have tried the exact same rom on 3 different emulators and each one of the emulators causes different things to happen or not happen. Saving using the in-game mechanism and doing a soft-reset each time doesn't change what happens.