BSV playback?

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

I was told to look at using RetroArch for PS1 emulation. After some trials I got it to play the game fine. I noticed this has a toggle option in the input for movie recording. I did a quick movie and stopped the recording. However, how do I even PLAY the bsv inside RetroArch? I find it highly amusing that there is an option to record a bsv but not actually play it back. I’m sure I’ll have to use some command line stuff but ugh… why? The best thing to do would be to have an option that says “BSV Playback” and then you highlight the BSV from the ROM folder and it plays.

If I do manage to get playback working, I have additional questions.

  1. Save states and BSV playback don’t work together as said here right? - https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/543

I.e. It’s not TAS level in the strictest sense of the word? I can at least use frame advance though right?

  1. Is the BSV just like a “one thing only” recording? Like I can’t get halfway through a game and then shut it off and restart it the next again day?

  2. How likely am I to desync? I’m guessing if 1 doesn’t allow save states then the probability of something going wrong (aka a desync) is very minimal right?

#2

BSV recording is not a feature that has received a lot of attention. You can think of it as vestigial at this point. The old RetroArch-Phoenix launcher had direct recording/playback access, and I would recommend using it for this purpose (Here are 2 32-bit builds I had lying around: here and here and here’s an older 64-bit build: here).

  1. yeah. dunno about frame-advance, but it seems likely. You can rewind (in supported cores; no psx, obviously) and it will erase those bits from your bsv recording, which can be good for long-plays, walkthroughs, etc.

  2. not sure about that, but seems likely it’s one-time-only.

  3. depends on the core, really. For example, snes9x is more reproducible than bsnes, so bsnes is more likely to desync.

Tbh, if you want to TAS and re-record, you’re better off using bizhawk, which caters to that specifically.

#3

BSV is for the most part a dead feature. It’s a flawed format, and is not suitable for anything but the most trivial use cases. If you need actual re-recording I suggest you use something that’s designed for it. BSV is basically save state for initial state + streamed input data. That’s it.

#4

Ah damn, what a shame. It had really great potential IMO.

One of the main reasons for me looking into this was because the current PSX TAS emulators won’t load a game I really want to TAS and Bizhawk doesn’t have PSX support as of yet.

#5

Suck man :frowning:

Good luck finding a solution!

#6

Thanks. Hopefully it will not be long a wait! =D