Project:General Discussions: Difference between revisions

Project:General Discussions (view source)

Revision as of 23:27, 30 October 2013

4,542 bytes added , 30 October 2013

Moved "Perfect Compatibility?" here where it belongs. Time to stop putting this rating stuff off and get this handled. Also, promoted the rating changes stuff we talked about up to the second position for visibility.

MayImilae

Bureaucrats, Administrators

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 == Open Discussions ==
+=== Perfect Compatibility? ===
+I'd like you to take a look at the SSB:M compatibility page. This game is rated 5 stars as "Perfect: No issues at all!". Yet, there seems to be one or two minor, ''minor'' errors listed on the page.
+So what is the specific criteria for a perfect rating? Would no known bugs, period, be too out of the question? Or is "perfect" emulation accuracy unreasonable anyhow, considering it isn't cycle for cycle accurate and won't be anytime soon. Basically, can we define the word perfect?
+[[User:MirandaStreeter|Miranda]] ([[User talk:MirandaStreeter|talk]]) 01:16, 24 October 2013 (CEST)
+Perfect should mean there are no known issues/defects with the reproduction. It's unclear why Melee wasn't knocked back to 4 stars earlier, since it clearly has open issues. As you note it doesn't necessarily mean there is an exact 1:1 reproduction, as we're dealing with high-level emulation in many places. There should not be noticeable image defects/gameplay issues though. So for instance, even if a character starts to talk a tenth of second too late in some title; it could still be rated perfect, if that doesn't effect gameplay and would generally be unnoticeable without a stopwatch. [[User:Kolano|Kolano]] ([[User talk:Kolano|talk]]) 04:13, 24 October 2013 (CEST)
+:SSBM isn't the only offender. A number of games seem to be 5-star happy yet have known issues listed without fixes. These include:
+::* Aggressive Inline
+::* Harvest Moon: Magical Melody
+::* Ikaruga
+::* Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut
+::* Tales of Symphonia
+:Yet more are listed at 5 stars without any version compatibility reports or test. None at all. These include:
+::* Donkey Konga
+::* Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet
+::* Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
+::* Hudson Selection Vol. 3: Bonk's Adventure
+::* Mr Driller: Drill Land
+::* Pac-Man World Rally
+:You'll also find some 5-star games that require DX9 backends as a fix, despite it being entirely dropped in latest revisions. These include:
+::* Hot Wheels World Race
+::* Sega Soccer Slam
+:While all of those are obvious fixes, others aren't so much. Many of the rest either have conflicts between the reporting graph and actual report entries, list 4 stars in the graph while reading 5 stars in the official list, are listing compatibility results without any details, or haven't had a test entry since v3.0 and previous. These would have to be looked into on a case by case basis. I'd also check and see if a specific user/IP is marking 5 stars prematurely, or if it's a collective problem. --[[User:MirandaStreeter|Miranda]] ([[User talk:MirandaStreeter|talk]]) 21:10, 30 October 2013 (CET)
+-----
+Whoa now. This is exactly the problem. ALL GAMES HAVE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEM. A tiny lighting bug. Tev derp. SOMETHING. By the criteria of "no known problems" there should be no five star titles. And even if we keep the ones that have no known bugs, it is just a matter of time until someone grabs one of those tiny global problems and there we go. The "perfect" rating concept is inherently flawed.
+As was discussed in the rating changes below, it is the opinion of the devs (minus skidau) that 5 stars ''should not mean absolute perfection''. 5 stars is something we should use, and since the emulator isn't perfect then nothing would be five stars. The criteria that was discussed is below in the Rating Changes section. That criteria is "almost perfect". Very very very good, with allowances for very minor bugs. Melee is a perfect example. Everything is perfect, except for some very very tiny bugs that no one bug someone who goes back and forth from console and dolphin a lot would notice (JMC47 and the netplay people in this case). Under the "almost perfect" criteria Melee is five stars.
+We need to work this out. We've been putting off this rating thing forever, and now that demotions are starting to happen based on the old ratings, it's time to get this settled. Until this rating issue is settled please do not demote any more 5 star games. Kolano, if you revert 5 star pages I won't get into an edit war with you, you pretty much handle all the boring tasks like this and I respect that. But anyone else? I'm reverting all five star demotions until the ratings issue is settled permanently.
+For the record, I promoted Melee to five stars based on encouragement from the devs that it qualified for "perfect" status regardless of the little bugs (again, skidau objecting :P). - [[User:MaJoR|MaJoR]] ([[User talk:MaJoR|talk]]) 22:27, 30 October 2013 (CET)
+=== Ratings Changes ===
+As you know, our ratings are old. Very old. I'll paste them here for memory sake.
+::[[File:Stars0.png]] Unknown: Has not been tested yet
+::[[File:Stars1.png]] Broken: Crashes when booting
+::[[File:Stars2.png]] Intro/Menu: Hangs/crashes somewhere between booting and starting
+::[[File:Stars3.png]] Starts: Starts, maybe even plays well, but crashes or major graphical/audio glitches
+::[[File:Stars4.png]] Playable: Runs well, only minor graphical or audio glitches. Games can be played all the way through
+::[[File:Stars5.png]] Perfect: No issues at all!
+Because of how vague that is and the need to handle more complex situations, we (or at least I) generally operated on a variant of those. Here they are.
+::[[File:Stars0.png]] Unknown: Has not been tested yet
+::[[File:Stars1.png]] Crashes when booting
+::[[File:Stars2.png]] Cannot reach gameplay but can reach menus
+::[[File:Stars3.png]] Major unsolvable issues
+::[[File:Stars4.png]] Minor unsolvable issues or fixable major issues
+::[[File:Stars5.png]] Perfect (with some tolerance for issues too minor to be user noticeable)
+Now this has been the case for a long, looooong time. But there are a lot of problems with this. There are almost no 1 and 2 star pages anymore. Dolphin has evolved past the point where such a system is needed. Furthermore, the scope of each rating is vast: a game that has major graphics glitches but is completely playable: 3 stars. A game that has severe stuttering and is utterly unplayable: 3 stars. A game that crashes during the first level: 3 stars. Plus, 4 and 5 star ratings are vague and weird.
+So, to solve this, we discussed it in the IRC and we hammered out a proposal that should address these issues. Most of them anyway. Here it is:
+::[[File:Stars0.png]] Untested
+::[[File:Stars1.png]] Does not pass the main menus
+::[[File:Stars2.png]] Unplayable or cannot be completed
+::[[File:Stars3.png]] Main mode can be completed, but has major glitches/crashes or missing modes
+::[[File:Stars4.png]] Minor issues
+::[[File:Stars5.png]] Perfect with the right settings
+Now, obviously it's a little vague here and there. That can't be fixed; what determines minor bugs, major bugs, unplayable is a bit subjective. And there are some decisions that have to be made:
+*is it Perfect if a super tiny non-user noticeable bug remains? Example - {{issue|6398}}.
+*if it requires an extreme compatibility setting (interpreter, LLE, EFB to Ram uncached, MMU) with a significant performance hit to be perfect, should it still be marked as perfect? And if so what settings count for that?
+*Is user configuration a component of this rating? If a major bug can be fixed is it still 3 stars or is it put up to 4 or 5?
+And of course it could use a little polishing in phrasing and the like. Still, I think overall this is a lot better. Removing "crashes on boot" gives us more room in 3-4-5 to make the ratings more specific. Plus, most of the changes are in the 1-2 star range, so it won't require us change ratings for every single game on the entire wiki. That's definitely a benefit.
+So guys, what do you think? We'll need to get as many specifics as we can hammered out before we go along with this. If things get too complicated we can use [[Project:Wiki Conventions]] for detailed information and have a trimmed down version in the ratings guide. It's work, definitely, but this is a long standing crappy system that really could use an overhaul. When it's done, this should be a nice improvement for us. - [[User:MaJoR|MaJoR]] ([[User talk:MaJoR|talk]]) 06:11, 23 August 2013 (CEST)
+: Well, I'm in with it. About rating 4 and 5, I think that if a game need an extreme setting (interpreter, LLE, EFB to Ram uncached, MMU), we should mark it as 4. Otherwise, mark it as 5. And for graphical related issues, if the problem is backend specific and the issue can be fixed by using OpenGL (that works Windows/Mac/Linux), we should mark as 5, otherwise mark it as 4. Despite this two notes, I agree with the rest - [[User:Jhonn|Jhonn]] ([[User talk:Jhonn|talk]])
+:: I agree with Jhonn on this. I'd even go further and say games that require interpreter, video software or full MMU+TLB emulation (=> no way to run even at 50% speed on any current computer) should be marked as 2 (unplayable) instead of 4. LLE, EFB to Ram uncached should be 4. Not sure about Single Core / SyncGPU. Please tell me when you reach a decision, I'll need to update the website to match that. [[User:Delroth|delroth]] ([[User talk:Delroth|talk]]) 14:14, 25 August 2013 (CEST)
+: I'm generally OK with rehashing the definitions, but it will be a big job to re-align existing rankings. It looks like anything that was a 1 or 2 becomes a 1, which we could automate and 5 would stay 5 but all the 3/4 rankings would likely need investigation. We'll need some way to flag ratings that have been checked, perhaps we can script adding a comment/category into ratings pages to indicate ratings need review.
+:I'm a bit concerned regarding the "Perfect with the right settings" description for 5 stars though. I'd prefer to keep that as "Perfect with default settings", since if special settings are needed we likely should be looking at updating game ini's to provide more appropriate defaults. Such aligns with current page handling as well since: Config entries should generally have related Problem entries explaining why a setting is needed, and games with problems aren't perfect.
+:On the topic of ratings, it might be nice if the ratings link took you to a list of titles with that rating rather than just to the rating definitions. Adding a set of categories should handle that easily enough. [[User:Kolano|Kolano]] ([[User talk:Kolano|talk]]) 21:52, 27 August 2013 (CEST)
 === Wii Network compatibility ===
 Now that the wii-network was merged to master and we also have a stable release that support, it would be nice having a compatibility chart or rating somewhere. From tests I ran with the games that I own that have Nintendo WFC features, I suggest something like that:
@@ Line 75: / Line 164: @@
 I'll also squash some double redirects while I'm at it. [[User:Delroth|delroth]] ([[User talk:Delroth|talk]]) 14:16, 25 August 2013 (CEST)
-=== Ratings Changes ===
-As you know, our ratings are old. Very old. I'll paste them here for memory sake.
-::[[File:Stars0.png]] Unknown: Has not been tested yet
-::[[File:Stars1.png]] Broken: Crashes when booting
-::[[File:Stars2.png]] Intro/Menu: Hangs/crashes somewhere between booting and starting
-::[[File:Stars3.png]] Starts: Starts, maybe even plays well, but crashes or major graphical/audio glitches
-::[[File:Stars4.png]] Playable: Runs well, only minor graphical or audio glitches. Games can be played all the way through
-::[[File:Stars5.png]] Perfect: No issues at all!
-Because of how vague that is and the need to handle more complex situations, we (or at least I) generally operated on a variant of those. Here they are.
-::[[File:Stars0.png]] Unknown: Has not been tested yet
-::[[File:Stars1.png]] Crashes when booting
-::[[File:Stars2.png]] Cannot reach gameplay but can reach menus
-::[[File:Stars3.png]] Major unsolvable issues
-::[[File:Stars4.png]] Minor unsolvable issues or fixable major issues
-::[[File:Stars5.png]] Perfect (with some tolerance for issues too minor to be user noticeable)
-Now this has been the case for a long, looooong time. But there are a lot of problems with this. There are almost no 1 and 2 star pages anymore. Dolphin has evolved past the point where such a system is needed. Furthermore, the scope of each rating is vast: a game that has major graphics glitches but is completely playable: 3 stars. A game that has severe stuttering and is utterly unplayable: 3 stars. A game that crashes during the first level: 3 stars. Plus, 4 and 5 star ratings are vague and weird.
-So, to solve this, we discussed it in the IRC and we hammered out a proposal that should address these issues. Most of them anyway. Here it is:
-::[[File:Stars0.png]] Untested
-::[[File:Stars1.png]] Does not pass the main menus
-::[[File:Stars2.png]] Unplayable or cannot be completed
-::[[File:Stars3.png]] Main mode can be completed, but has major glitches/crashes or missing modes
-::[[File:Stars4.png]] Minor issues
-::[[File:Stars5.png]] Perfect with the right settings
-Now, obviously it's a little vague here and there. That can't be fixed; what determines minor bugs, major bugs, unplayable is a bit subjective. And there are some decisions that have to be made:
-*is it Perfect if a super tiny non-user noticeable bug remains? Example - {{issue|6398}}.
-*if it requires an extreme compatibility setting (interpreter, LLE, EFB to Ram uncached, MMU) with a significant performance hit to be perfect, should it still be marked as perfect? And if so what settings count for that?
-*Is user configuration a component of this rating? If a major bug can be fixed is it still 3 stars or is it put up to 4 or 5?
-And of course it could use a little polishing in phrasing and the like. Still, I think overall this is a lot better. Removing "crashes on boot" gives us more room in 3-4-5 to make the ratings more specific. Plus, most of the changes are in the 1-2 star range, so it won't require us change ratings for every single game on the entire wiki. That's definitely a benefit.
-So guys, what do you think? We'll need to get as many specifics as we can hammered out before we go along with this. If things get too complicated we can use [[Project:Wiki Conventions]] for detailed information and have a trimmed down version in the ratings guide. It's work, definitely, but this is a long standing crappy system that really could use an overhaul. When it's done, this should be a nice improvement for us. - [[User:MaJoR|MaJoR]] ([[User talk:MaJoR|talk]]) 06:11, 23 August 2013 (CEST)
-: Well, I'm in with it. About rating 4 and 5, I think that if a game need an extreme setting (interpreter, LLE, EFB to Ram uncached, MMU), we should mark it as 4. Otherwise, mark it as 5. And for graphical related issues, if the problem is backend specific and the issue can be fixed by using OpenGL (that works Windows/Mac/Linux), we should mark as 5, otherwise mark it as 4. Despite this two notes, I agree with the rest - [[User:Jhonn|Jhonn]] ([[User talk:Jhonn|talk]])
-:: I agree with Jhonn on this. I'd even go further and say games that require interpreter, video software or full MMU+TLB emulation (=> no way to run even at 50% speed on any current computer) should be marked as 2 (unplayable) instead of 4. LLE, EFB to Ram uncached should be 4. Not sure about Single Core / SyncGPU. Please tell me when you reach a decision, I'll need to update the website to match that. [[User:Delroth|delroth]] ([[User talk:Delroth|talk]]) 14:14, 25 August 2013 (CEST)
-: I'm generally OK with rehashing the definitions, but it will be a big job to re-align existing rankings. It looks like anything that was a 1 or 2 becomes a 1, which we could automate and 5 would stay 5 but all the 3/4 rankings would likely need investigation. We'll need some way to flag ratings that have been checked, perhaps we can script adding a comment/category into ratings pages to indicate ratings need review.
-:I'm a bit concerned regarding the "Perfect with the right settings" description for 5 stars though. I'd prefer to keep that as "Perfect with default settings", since if special settings are needed we likely should be looking at updating game ini's to provide more appropriate defaults. Such aligns with current page handling as well since: Config entries should generally have related Problem entries explaining why a setting is needed, and games with problems aren't perfect.
-:On the topic of ratings, it might be nice if the ratings link took you to a list of titles with that rating rather than just to the rating definitions. Adding a set of categories should handle that easily enough. [[User:Kolano|Kolano]] ([[User talk:Kolano|talk]]) 21:52, 27 August 2013 (CEST)
 ===DB Error===
@@ Line 170: / Line 208: @@
 :: Done. A very small amount of pages already had GlobalProblems inclusions - these weren't modified, even when they were obsolete. I unfortunately don't have a list. [[User:Delroth|delroth]] ([[User talk:Delroth|talk]]) 21:33, 12 August 2013 (CEST)
 ::: Thanks delroth. Only two pages already had the GlobalProblems (I commited manually to test), so, no worry. I reverted some pages that we're using Arcade category but weren't Virtual Console Arcade games, so everything is perfect now. Thanks again... [[User:Jhonn|Jhonn]] ([[User talk:Jhonn|talk]])
 === Global Problems Template ===
 Splitting this to get more attention. Well, I started coding the global problems template for VC games, and before I continue the work, I need to get opinion of you guys regarding how we'll handle the universal problems in every VC game page. First off, I fell this necessary because some users just jump directly in the game page through context menu option in the emulator or by the forum thread, so, we need to add the universal problems in the game page too. Regardless of what design we choose, we'll need to add a template call in every VC game page (yes, it's a booooring job that has to be done -- at least there aren't to much VC game pages created). But before I continue working in the template, we need to decide how we'll show this, and I have two suggestions: first, calling the template without an argument (eg. in a game page) create a section named "Global Problems", and parse the problems for that system. The second one, is adding the template call after the specific problems, this way, the global problems will just appear together with the specific problems. Do you guys have any other suggestion? What you prefer? I vote for the first one... [[User:Jhonn|Jhonn]] ([[User talk:Jhonn|talk]])