DTM replay issues in recent Dolphin versions

[Super David]

Has anyone tried to make a replay on a recent version of Dolphin? I originally tested 5.0-9654, but it looks like the problems are still there in the very latest one too. I have only tested this on Mario Kart Wii and Double Dash, but if I press the start button during a replay, it actually pauses the race, which causes the replay to desync. Some other buttons were also working during the replay. Normally, what you press on a controller during a replay is ignored so it can play back uninterrupted.

Also, while a sample Double Dash race replay worked offline, multiple races I played online don't play back correctly, even though I know I was using the right settings.

I noticed that I was getting different results from a replay by what controller setting I used. For example, my offline Double Dash replay was made with the GC adapter, but if I play the replay with "standard controller" selected, it doesn't work.

Finally, Dolphin never asks you to save a replay before it shuts down like it did before. The only way I can even save a replay is if I make a save state before closing the game, which creates a dtm file at the same time. I don't know exactly how far back these problems started, because I have mainly used 5.0-3345 until now, and found that one to be very reliable. Again, the things I'm mentioning here are only problems I have seen in the new versions of Dolphin. Back on 5.0-3345, I didn't notice any of these issues.

[JosJuice]

You're right, it seems like read-only mode doesn't actually stop your button presses from affecting the game. Thanks for the report. I'd assume this is due to the nee Qu GUI not having being tested much with TASing...

[Super David]

Would it be a good idea for me to make multiple bug reports, one for each problem I listed here, including the button presses during TAS playback? I never tried the bisect tool before, but I could possibly find where each problem started. I wouldn't want to do that immediately, though.

[JosJuice]

Yes, that would be useful. But you can skip reporting the issue about Dolphin not asking about saving on shutdown, because there's a pull request for that now: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/7884

[Super David]

I had always wondered if Dolphin couldn't just save to a dtm file as it's recording instead of keeping it in memory, or however it's currently being done, so the prompt to name the file would be right when you open the game rather than after as it's closed. If Dolphin happens to crash, the replay is gone if a save state isn't made ahead of time, while in some other emulators, the replay is still ok even when an emulator crashes. It's not super common, but Dolphin has crashed on me, while closing the game, before I saved the input, so I lost it. Now, I always save a state before closing the game just in case. Anyways, that's all sort of beside the point. I will try to get around to some bug reports fairly soon.