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CoolHandMike wrote:
Looked at the movie file at the end and there appears to be 250 frames of additional frames that look like for entertainment. Do you still wish to keep those? I did not see anything in the submission notes about that (although I might have missed it).
Yes, please. Chrezm and I have considered removing them in both this and last year's TAS, but ultimately decided against it. They originate from [4266] Genesis Sonic 3 & Knuckles "Sonic" by kaan55 in 28:24.76, and it's clear it was a deliberate stylistic choice - which is likely because Sonic dies on the last frame, but Chrezm and I like the assumption/coincidence that it makes the TAS end timing coincide with when we stop the timer in RTA runs.
Both times we've discussed it, we've always came to the same conclusion - it's a cheap time save that feels rather disrespectful to the work we're building upon.
Mr._Pwnage wrote:
Is there any chance it would be possible to get an overflow write into the save data and, instead of restarting in unlocked S&K mode, writing values that let you go back to the main menu and level select directly to CLEAR as a functional credits warp?
Unfortunately, that would likely require ACE, which hasn't been found yet. I'm not entirely sure it's possible with the limited amount of memory we have to play with, and most, if not all of it, is determined by the game, e.g. we can't control that we get the pity shield from 4 capsules.
The only useful (or in most cases detrimental) Save Ram Manipulation we are currently aware of in this game is the Emerald Copy glitch, where there is 1 non-lag frame available in the loading of the data select screen, that if you press Start on that frame, it will have the emerald data from the last (8th) save slot still in memory. You can then go into a Blue Sphere stage, and irrespective of the outcome, the emeralds from that last slot will be saved to your file. SuperSonic has a video demonstration here:
Link to video - the detrimental outcome is if you're going for collecting emeralds, and you perform the glitch, if your last save file is empty, then your emerald progress is lost.
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YoshiRulz wrote:
BenInSweden wrote:
[...] the import into Bizhawk desyncs in UG1.
This might be inevitable due to emulation differences, but we do now have a second option for SMS core that you could try. Config > Preferred Cores > SMS |GG > Genplus-gx. You might have to run the importer again.
Thanks, unfortunately, I think it's just a Dega inaccuracy, as both SMSHawk and GPGX desync at the exact same spot. But it's also a bit of a tall order expecting an 18 year old TAS to sync on modern emulators.
It's not important anyway, since I now know Challenger has already improved the TAS in Bizhawk 2.4 at least.
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Challenger wrote:
Of course! I'll plan to return to the project when possible, and the huge discovery renewed my motivation with this game :)
Uploaded User movie #639002216989476462
I'll have to take a look at what you've done since Mike's TAS, as I was tempted to try to update it to include this, but I wasn't keen on TASing in Dega, and the import into Bizhawk desyncs in UG1.
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Challenger wrote:
Link to video
Queen PiB discovered a huge timesaver: the boss from Zone 5 can be skipped completely!
Thanks for linking to my video.
There's a couple of revisions to it now, 22 is possible and the capsule can be hit very early by panning the camera down before the jump.
Link to video
That was done on PAL (since it's what RTA runners use). I can update my 60fps IL TAS later if you're interested, but it is pretty easy to pull off.
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Jairo_Apa wrote:
BenInSweden wrote:
Pretty sure the submission isn't valid with it not being a complete GMV. TAS Movie Editor can be used to combine the inputs of the two movies to make one whole one.
As mentioned in the previous thread, the closest comparison for improving upon is #8919: ShiningProdigy9000's Genesis Sonic Classic Heroes "Team Hyper" in 26:40.28, where this is now ~4 minutes slower. I don't think there is enough of a difference between Team Super and Team Hyper to have as separate goals.
Yes, but on my channel you can see the encoding of only the first part and you can see that I select s1 only
Link to video
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Pretty sure the submission isn't valid with it not being a complete GMV. TAS Movie Editor can be used to combine the inputs of the two movies to make one whole one.
As mentioned in the previous thread, the closest comparison for improving upon is #8919: ShiningProdigy9000's Genesis Sonic Classic Heroes "Team Hyper" in 26:40.28, where this is now ~4 minutes slower. I don't think there is enough of a difference between Team Super and Team Hyper to have as separate goals.
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Compared to #8919: ShiningProdigy9000's Genesis Sonic Classic Heroes "Team Hyper" in 26:40.28, this submission only covers half the game and is a lot slower in many places (5+s and all the way up to 20s in places). But it doesn't look like it comes down to the team choice.
4 stages are faster here compared to Shining Prodigy's TAS: lab2, lab3, star light 1, and scrap brain 3. Could be down to glitches that were patched and unusable in SP's TAS.
It uses a much older release too, but submission doesn't explain why.
If the faster strats are doable in the version SP uses, it probably would be better as an improvement to that one?
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
Although the run itself looks impressive, I've abstained from voting because of a possible technical concern I noticed in the encode. If you get items (birdseed or eggs) at a quick enough pace after the fourth one both the bonus counter and death timer will stop for a while until a large enough gap occurs between collecting items. This happens throughout the run, but is a little more obvious on the Mother Duck levels. Is the game supposed to work this way, or is there an emulation error here?
DigitalDuck has explained it already whilst I was looking for TinyTim's explanation at BSG, but worth posting it:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2223016432?t=04h58m00s
For the speedrun, they want points because you will (almost certainly) lose lives and for every 10K points you get an extra life. Obviously, in the TAS we ignore this because losing lives is slow.
With lives, one little tidbit I found whilst RAM searching the game, is that before you gain control, the level will show 1 more life than you actually have. i.e. the hats are meant as extra lives, so when you have 0 you are on your last life. But during that short period before gaining control, it shows the total life count.
DrD2k9 wrote:
As this is an endless game, choosing an appropriate endpoint is necessary. The chosen endpoint seems valid with the last increase in enemy difficulty. As such, the “40 levels” branch name is likely not needed as this will probably be considered a baseline run.
Should I edit the submission for this, or wait for whoever judges it?
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ais523 wrote:
After overwriting the lock-on status memory address, which save file is the game saving to? In particular, could you reset somewhere during the Sonic & Knuckles half of the game, reload the file, and a) continue from the same point in the game and b) have the game think you are completing Sonic 3 & Knuckles? Or would the file fail to load for some reason?
The first line of the "SaveGame" code is a check for the value of the SK_alone_flag ($FFAE-$FFAF). So whenever the game tries to save after the game thinks it's S&K, it won't save - which the end of the video in my previous post shows. Post #530403
The Game Over (or starting from the S&K title screen), removes the reference to the save file in memory, so would be unlikely to be possible without ACE.
There is the remote possibility that if we didn't use the game over, and found something similar in the S&K to set both bytes of the flag back to 0 without a crash, then the next act 2 completion will update the save file, and you could reset and load the save file.
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Inititally voted yes, however, have a few comments surrounding objectives etc.
• Aims for in-game time instead of real-time
Given time bonuses can be skipped surely there is no difference in the goal? Unless I'm missing something, there isn't a case where taking longer IGT comes at a faster RTA/frame time? Even single-segment runs are timed RTA.
• Forgoes time-saving glitches
I'm not well versed in SCH and what's patched or not, but what time-saving glitches weren't taken and why?
I did notice that one of the flippers in CN2 wasn't skipped that single segment runners of Sonic 2 do skip, but other flippers are skipped, so I don't think it's that.
Upon further review, it seems like this is unnecessarily slower than #8924: MightyRainbow100's Genesis Sonic Classic Heroes "100%" in 45:54.93 in the Sonic 2 portion.
EH1 0:15:32 vs 0:15:38
EH2 0:26:13 vs 0:26:60
CP1 0:16:30 vs 0:17:05
CP2 0:24:20 vs 0:24:52
AR1 0:16:47 vs 0:17:27
AR2 0:26:82 vs 0:28:70
CN1 0:21:40 vs 0:21:88
CN2 0:38:87 vs 0:48:78 (there's a glitch here in 100%, but should be explained as to why it wasn't used).
HT1 Can't compare whole level as Super used but at the point 100% turns super it's at 0:19:43 and this is at 0:20:60
HT2 Can't compare whole level as Super used but at the point 100% turns super it's at 0:22:02 and this is at 0:23:65
MC1 0:23:15 vs 0:25:08
MC2 100% turns super at 0:18:48, this gets there at 0:19:38
OO1 0:18:63 vs 0:21:62
OO2 Different routes and uses super but reaches a comparable point at 0:20:72 and 0:21:83
ME1 Doesn't compare as 100% is getting rings to turn super.
ME2 Comparable point reached at 0:12:38 and 0:14:17
ME3 Comparable point reached at 0:26:92 and 0:29:83
SC 2:05:90 vs 2:05:92
WF Comparable point reached at 0:13:13 and 0:14:27
DE 0:35:88 vs 0:35.97
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For those on the fence about whether we are switching games or not etc
Here is a video of what would happen if we didn't game over in Marble Garden, and just carried on playing the stages as per the previous TAS - and MH as this TAS.
Link to video
Complete bk2 from power on to showing the data select screen if anyone is interested in examining it themselves.
User movie #638562865824141834
Essentially showing:
- Title Cards still show S&K
- S3 Levels still play out correctly - i.e. the S3 cart hasn't been removed.
- We still get S&K's MH1 despite coming from S3/Launch Base
- Doing a soft reset in FB shows that we get back to S3K, and the save file still shows Hydrocity, even though the game has had 3 chances to update the save file (end of CN, LB, and MH).
If I had run it up to the end of the game the S&K logo would still show, despite never seeing the S&K title screen.
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Not sure if you were going for No Level Wraps or not, but Sando 1 is possible to wrap without left or right. You also end up facing left in the boss arena :)
User movie #638560254369646716
Otherwise, yes vote from me, great seeing some of the routing choices that made me realise "oh wait, can't go that way due to x needing a directional input" MG2 being the main one for that.
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FractalFusion wrote:
Submission title wrote:
"minimum left/right inputs"
Do you know whether it is possible to make it all the way through S3&K without pressing down in addition to not pressing left/right?
There are probably other locations but one I definitely know is Knux will get stuck in Ice cap with the first breakable wall as you need to spindash through it.
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McBobX wrote:
I don't fully understand the confusion here, but from what I'm seeing, you're unlocking S&K from within S3&K.... I don't think you're beating S3&K in this case, cause after you unlock, it is a "brand new" game that you're clearing. In other words, you're going out of your way to set up the corruption just to play S&K from within S3&K, when you can just beat S&K itself.
If this is the case, then I would say that you didn't beat S3&K, you actually transitioned to another game (even if it is the same cartridge).
Technicalities aside, run is awesome and I liked all the madness there! Yes vote!
Worth noting, the game doesn't really change entirely.
If we carried on after the set up through marble garden, carnival night, ice cap and launch base the game will still say sonic & knuckles, and play as normal (well as normal as a TAS would show). However, when reaching Mushroom Hill 1, it will use the s&k level even though coming straight from launch base.
It will also give the sonic & knuckles logo at the end of the game.
We just shortcut to mh1 by game overing.
Also it's likely that if you took the inputs from the SK start from this TAS it would desync at one or more of these places:
- Mushroom Hill 1 boss final hit
- Mushroom Hill 2 preboss
- Lava Reef 1 Boss death position.
- Sky Sanctuary Boss RNG
- Death Egg 1 red eye platforms.
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Who would have thought after all these years, that a timesave for Gapsule was found, by missing the triggers for certain hits.
42f in total. 44f over the one in kaan's TAS (this comparison video is a 40f timesave with 42 over kaans)
Link to video
Here's the 42f/44f over kaan's without comparison:
Link to video
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Paused wrote:
Crazy stuff. Somehow I'd missed Wrong Warping things had been found, at least to this degree. Sure as heck wasn't expecting the Sonic and Knuckles alone title screen to pop up.
Looking forward to the finish submission.
Yeah, it all happened over a span of about a week in May - one discovery had a snowball effect of looking into a variety of things, so would have been easy to miss.
Latest progress is here - we're getting close to finishing:
Link to video
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feos wrote:
That worked, because when 2 versions of the game have the same branch label, we add the version to the tab.
Great, looks good, thanks
As a general comment on the TAS, at the time of publication, there were already faster strats known and in a couple of instances the TAS is slower than what was possible RTA at the time.
e.g.
FBZ2 - 1:08 RTA without death: https://www.speedrun.com/s3k/runs/y961kpvy (done in 2021) vs TAS which is 8s for the death + 1:10 for the level. So 10s IGT slow.
SOZ1 - 1:05 RTA: https://www.speedrun.com/s3k/runs/m35025wy vs 1:11 TAS, so 6s slow.
HP - Kaan did a TAS in 7s 39 frames in 2020: https://youtu.be/bl6hzjYtJIk
Sky Sanctuary: 57 has been achieved a couple of times RTA https://www.speedrun.com/s3k?h=Sky_Sanctuary-Knuckles&x=l_xd4njm8w-zdnx1lq2 whilst the boss is RNG based on frames from power on, I'm pretty sure 57 could have been easily achieved here.
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Could the branch be named something else and moved along on the game page https://tasvideos.org/127G? As it's just "100%" and comes first on the S3K page.
Kinda confusing seeing one for "100%" and it's only for the SK half.
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A few of us in the RTA community have been working on the updated TAS. Needs to be Bizhawk for basically a single frame - a soft reset, to prevent the game from wiping the memory corruption in AI2.2.
Here's the progress so far: It currently saves 18691 frames versus the current Sonic TAS. So over 5 minutes.
Link to video
