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DK64_MASTER wrote:
Randil wrote:
EDIT: It should be pointed out that zipping through walls does not count as "top speed" here, since that is not a "programmed" top speed. But we could have a small tournament there too, if there's any interest in it. :P (though Mega Man 1 will most likely win that fight.)
What about mario from super mario world using yoshi to jump through walls with a spring...
Or what about Mario's vertical velocity on a spring in general?
Well, it's hard to points out what is a programming error and what is just a trick. I guess the easiest way to determine what counts as a legit top speed is a speed that the programmers who made the game intended you to have. Of course, this is subject of debate, so if you find anything, just post it here for fun. :D
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Inspired by some posts in "The Mask" submission thread, and having thoughts on doing this for a while, I decided to make a thread dedicated to the different speeds of videogame characters! The purpose in this thread is to find the fastest videgame character for each console.
With "fastest character", I'm talking about who moves the most pixels per frame when he/she has reached top speed.
For example, for the SNES, The Mask is a good bet, because he moves as fast as 16 pixels per frame at times. Supposedly, Samus moves 15 pixels per frame in Super Metroid.
Fastest character for the NES is a tricky one... My first vote is on Tiny Toon, where you move 5 pixels per frame when holding down left+right.
So, what videogame character are you gonna vote on? I was thinking we could have a small competition for each console. I wonder who the fastest character for GBA is, Sonic in Sonic Advance 1,2 or 3? :P (I doubt there's anyone faster than Sonic, but I could be wrong)...
EDIT: It should be pointed out that zipping through walls does not count as "top speed" here, since that is not a "programmed" top speed. But we could have a small tournament there too, if there's any interest in it. :P (though Mega Man 1 will most likely win that fight.)
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Here's how I find speed addresses:
1. Search for "value equal to 0" when you're standing still.
2. Start moving to the right, and search for "value greater than previous value" when you're still having your horizontal momentum.
3. Stop moving, and search for "value equal to 0" again.
4. Jump straight up in the air, without any horizontal movement, and search for "value equal to 0" again. (this is because often, memory addresses hold information regarding both your horizontal and vertical speed. You want to rule those out.
5. Repeat step 2.
6. If necessary, repeat step 2-3 a few times.
That should do the trick. :)
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AngerFist wrote:
Can we determine which one is the fastest: The Mask or Sonic 3.
I was actually thinking about doing an "off topic" topic about this subject, who the fastest videogame character is for each console. I think that "The Mask" is the fastest character for the SNES, or perhaps Sparkster is faster. Anyway, I think this is pretty interesting. :) For reference, The Mask moves as fast as 16 pixels per frame, which is a lot.
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Okay, here's some feedback on the first 4000 frames:
1. You didn't handle the start menu as fast as possible. This was both visually obvious, and if you looked at the input display, you could see that you just mashed the start button.
2. It looked like you ran too far before climbing down the first ladder, around frame 1180.
3. You fire one shot too much on the first enemy, around frame 1593.
4. You fire one shot too much on the second enemy, around frame 1684.
5. Is it really faster to fall down the "stairs" around frame 2000? You take damage when you hit the ground, can't that be avoided?
6. When landing from a jump, you automatically stop for a few frames. So you want to minimize how many jumps you make, throughout the whole movie. Isn't is possible to jump the whole way down (and up again) around frame 2100?
7. The same goes for the "stairs" around frame 3150 - can't you jump two steps per jump here?
8. Fired one shot too much on the enemies around frame 4000.
Overall, this was decently played, but could be optimized more, oveall. I personally think that you should redo this, as it's a pretty good game to TAS, but this time not firing too many shots and optimizing movements some.
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How nice, I'll watch this later today. :) Just curious though, did any of the mathematical formulas I gave you help at all, or were they too strange and hard to read? :P
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FODA wrote:
AngerFist wrote:
I think this is the first time we see a submission made by 4 authors.
There was of course the gb Super Mario Land 2 submission, but Randil decided to consider his work on it insignificant (which is higly debatable), so it was edited down to 3 authors, but initially it was as 4.
Not to go too much off topic here, but I think you're thinking about Shinryuu. If you watch the submitted run you'll see that I'm one of the authors. :) Although I did do some work on that run, I remember that you and BoMF always beat my times. :P
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Shingen wrote:
The falling money is not caused by the Sumo, it was because you beat the level by launching one snowball. Try it - Edit in a second snowball launch and you'll remove the money falling. Probably won't save a whole lot of frames... this is the only reason why I voted "meh" instead of "Yes".
Damn, you're right. :S I feel really stupid now. Avoiding the money saves 115 frames. I'll try to edit this in, but I'll have to redo a few levels anyway... I'll let you all know later how it works out, but it's likely that I'll ask Bisqwit to update the movie file. Thanks for telling me about this, Shingen. :)'
EDIT: I have now PM:d Bisqwit with the new .fcm file. In total, the new movie file is 95 frames faster, so the 10 000 frames wall has been reached! :) The editing went just fine, though I had some bad luck on the slots machines and lost a few frames there, but it's nothing to worry about. I also managed to beat floor 39 a bit faster.
EDIT2: The .fcm-file has been replaced! Now this submission is 95 frames faster. :)
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mmbossman wrote:
One question, in floor 28, it feels slower than the other levels, and you never touch the sumo guy (whoever he is). Is there something special about that level, or am I imagining things?
Level 28 is a little special. There are two ways to end the level:
1. The way I do in the run, kill all the enemies, wait until sumo disappears, and grab the money.
2. Use the enemies to get to the sumo and shoot him, to skip the money drop. Interestingly, this is slower than taking the money drop in this level, since I have to wait a lot of time for the enemies to get into positions. That's why I go with the first strategy.
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Allright, so I've done a few rough calculations on how much time a warped run would save:
Using warps allows you to go from floor 11 to 18, and from floor 31 to 38. However, since you have to go through a stupid slot machine scene, each time you use a warp you have to watch this slot machine for around 37 seconds per warp, which isn't very fun.
Going from floor 11 to 18 saves around 75 seconds. Going from floor 31 to 38 saves aroud 80 seconds. This gives us that using warps will save around 80+75-37-37 = 81 seconds.
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mmbossman wrote:
Not familiar with the game much, but the faster movie uses a warp of some kind, which has prompted discussion as to whether a warped and non-warped run would be accepted.
Exactly. Everyone who has an opinion on this matter is more than welcome to discuss whether a warped run would obsolete this run, or if a warpless run is more entertaining. I personally think that a warpless run is more fun to watch, plus the current run is warpless so I thought I'd stick with that. But if the general opinion is that a warped run would be a lot better, I'll cancel this and make a warped run instead...
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Bisqwit wrote:
It is slower than 金属狂人's movie, around half minutes so. Why's that?
Because this run is warpless. 金属狂人's movie uses warps and skips several levels, thus saving a lot of time. I'll add to the comments that this run is warpless.
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Chamale wrote:
"Smallest improvement" might also be interesting, to see what games get "frame-warred". Of course, it's tricky to phrase that in a positive way.
Yeah, that could be interesting... It could also be interesting to see a list of biggest (Improved time) / (previous movie's time) ratio, to get a hunch of what runs improved the previous run the most.
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This run would be much faster if you used 2 players instead of 1. Plus, I think it would look more entertaining.
Would both a warped run and a non-warped run be accepted on this site? If only the fastest run (the warped run) would be accepted it would feel kinda stupid that I'm working on a non-warp run that would be obsoleted by a warped run, when it comes out, anyway. Or is a non-warp run more entertaining to watch?
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DJ FozzBozz wrote:
Are you sure that the regular shots don't hurt the bosses? Because I remember killing a boss with constant firing+snow balls, and snowballs only, and the boss went down 1 snow ball earlier... Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it worked... Maybe not all the bosses take damage from the regular shots... Or maybe it takes 30 regular shots to make his HP go down by 1 point? Just throwing some ideas...
I'm absolutely sure that the first boss can't be hurt by normal shots (I confirmed this with RAM addresses), no matter how much you fire at him. I tried firing at him for several seconds in a row, and he didn't take any damage at all. Perhaps other bosses can be hurt by normal shots, I haven't checked that out yet. I'll test this on each boss when I reach them. :)
Keep those ideas coming! :D If you think some floor looks weird or wonder why I do something, just ask. :)
EDIT: I've done a lot of progress. I've completed 30 floors now, so I have only 20 floors to go now! So far, I'm about 71 seconds ahead of the current run. I've met a few sumos now, and on those levels there's not much you can do to speed up things.
On floor 28, it is possible to reach the sumo and shoot him, but it's actually faster to leave him be and pick up the money after you've killed all the enemies.
Here's the WIP.
EDIT2: Umm, so I'm gonna have to take back what I said about bosses not taking damage from normal shots... All bosses seem to have 2 different HP meters - one for freeze shots and one for snowballs. For example, it's possible to kill the first boss with one less snowball if you have dealt at least 40 freeze damage on him. You can only deal 1 snowball damage with freeze shots on the first boss, so no matter how much you fire at him you'll still need at least 5 snowballs to kill him.
I'll probably have to redo some stuff, such as all the boss fights. It's not very much though since this game is very edit-friendly.
EDIT3: Since I'm the only one posting here there will be lots of edits. ;) I have now redone the first 2 bosses, using both freeze shots and snowballs. The first boss fight went 95 frames faster, and the second boss fight went ~40 frames faster.
I have had some issues with the slotmachine, losing about 30 frames after boss 2, but the good news is that I don't think it's very hard to manipulate the slot machines into getting 3 X faster. So right now I'm gonna analyze how randomness works with the slotmachines, and hopefully find some RAM addresses that will help me optimize them easily.
I'll wait with posting a WIP until I've done the slot machines after boss 2.
EDIT4: WIP up to floor 30, this time killing bosses with both freeze shots and snowballs. 225 frames, 3.75 seconds, faster than the previous attempt, and ~75 seconds faster than the published run. Here it is.
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I have now completed the first 10 floors, and I'm about 23 seconds ahead of the current run Those who know the published run well will see lots of differences - I play almost every floor in a different way, partially in order to avoid getting items, now that I am as powered-up as I need to be.
The boss on floor 10 takes 6 hits before dying. You can't hurt him by shooting at him with your freeze shot, you have to roll snowballs at him. In the current run, he is hit seemingly three times with the first two snowballs, however, he only takes 2 damage from this, so that's why I don't use the snowballs that way.
Then there's this stupid bonus game, which I just skip as fast as I can. not much to add here either.
Here's the WIP. Enjoy! :)
EDIT: I've taken notes on how long effective playing time each level is. With effective playing time, I mean the number of frames between the first frame I can move on to the first frame the end-level counter starts counting. On boss-levels, the effective playing time is the number of frames between the first frame I can move on to the frame the boss takes his final hit.
So far, My effective playing time is 3305 frames, that is 55.083 seconds! And the .fcm is 10793 frames long, which makes the effective playing time 30.62%. Not very much. :P
EDIT2: I've done 6 more floors, so I'm on floor 17 now. Currently about 44 seconds faster. Here's the new WIP.
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DJ FozzBozz wrote:
Have you considered the Blue potion too? (Takes less time to completely freeze enemies, and hits bosses a bit harder (I think)). I guess you can wait a little bit before taking that one though... But I'm pretty sure that over 50 levels, it'll save time.
The Yellow potion (increases the distance that snow can be thrown) might be a bit useless, unless in later levels you wanna freeze enemies to perform some combo or something before they fall on a lower platform...
Oops, I didn't update this thread in a while so I missed this post. You are right, blue potions are quite useful, so I got a blue potion for both snow men in the latest WIP (see my post above). I don't think I'll need yellow potions, but I'll take a good look at what the remaining levels look like, and maybe I'll decide to get yellow potions.
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Nope, it's not possible to get past that tree. However, if you're really interested in knowing what's behind it, I guess you can change some RAM-addresses to teleport you there, though chances are pretty high that the game will crash if you do so.
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mmbossman wrote:
I daresay that's the longest (nonretarded) bump I've ever seen. Good luck on this Randil, pretty soon we won't have any movies on the site pre-2004.
Thanks. :) Don't get your hopes up too much though, I have a bad habit of not finishing everything I start on, but I'll do my best to get this finished. ;)
I also did floor 4 today, and I used a completely different strategy than DJ FozzBozz on this level: I take the left part of the screen with player 1, and the right part of the screen with player 2. Sadly, I'm not sure how much faster this strategy is, but I know it's a little faster than the current run... (stupid desyncing .fmv's....)
Anyway, here's the WIP. Yeah, I intentionally made it exactly 3600 frames. ;) Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! :)
EDIT: I'm gonna have to eat up all the words I said earlier about not getting speed drinks. I didn't really consider it, but speed drinks affect your vertical speed too! Normally it takes 39 frames to jump up one level. With speed drink, I do this in 22 frames. Also, my horizontal speed is doubled. So yeah, I think I'm gonna have to seriously consider getting speed drinks for both characters, as soon as possible, preferably on level 1, as you said...
EDIT2: After some consideration and calculations, I have decided to get speed potions as soon as possible for both characters. It seems that I can get one of each potion per level, so I should have both speed potions by the end of level two.
I'll also test in each level how much time it wastes to get the other potions. If it's not that much, say 10-30 frames per potion, I'll probably get those too, where possible, since they'll shave off some more frames here and there. The end-floor counter will start counting faster if you pick up a potion than if you pick up a points-item, because if you pick up a points-item, you have to wait for the points-number to disappear from screen.
So yeah, I'm doing the exact opposite of what I initially planned on doing. :)
EDIT3: Lot's of edits lately. I've just redone floor 1 and 2. After these two levels, I have both improved speed and improved attack power for both snow men! This will save lots of time on the upcoming levels.
However, obtaining these potions on floor 1 and 2 cost me 103 frames. However, I will save much more than this in the upcoming levels, so it's no big problem.
Here's the new WIP!
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DJ FozzBozz wrote:
Did you try dropping Speed Potions at the first level?
Nope, I don't think that speed potions will help me out that much, and it wastes quite a bit of time to get one, if it's even possible - it seems like you can only partially manipulate luck on this game... Or are you quite certain that picking up a speed potion would save much time?
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3.5 years bump! :)
I've been fooling around with this game a bit today, and I've completed the first 3 floors. So far, I'm almost 10 seconds ahead of the current run (I can't tell exactly how much faster I am since the current run desyncs on all versions of FCEU, so I'm comparing against the .avi-file).
I saved a lot of time by avoiding getting items from enemies when they die. When you've completed a floor, a timer (RAM address 0089) will start counting up to 127, then you get warped out of the room. The timer starts counting up when all sprites, except the two players, are gone. So if enemies drop items, I have to pick these to get the timer to start counting. To avoid getting items from enemies, I have to kill them when they're completely covered in snow. (Note that I did get an item on floor 3, because it would be slower to cover that enemy in snow before killing him. Besides, the item he drops is right next to me, so it doesn't waste many frames at all.)
I also found out how enemies turn into snowballs when you shoot them: After an enemy gets hit by your snow attack, they will take 48 damage. When their damage reaches 191 or higher, they're completely covered in snow, which allows you to puch them! The maximum damage they can take is 255, it won't go any higher than that. As soon as they're hurt, they'll slowly start to heal - that's why they break free from the snow after a while if you stop attacking them.
One might ask whether or not it would be faster to actually get these items, since potions increase your attack power and horizontal speed. I'm sure it's faster to avoid getting items when possible, since there isn't much horizontal movement in this, and a higher attack power wouldn't save much time at all. The key to victory is to keep moving vertically! :)
Maybe this was a bit too much info, but some of you might find it interesting! ;) I'm not 100% sure I'll finish this any time soon, it all depends on how motivated I am. I'll at least do a few more levels.
If anyone else has a WIP of this game that might interest me, go ahead and post it here. :)
Here's the WIP.
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This was pretty fun to watch. I liked how the story evolved with the player getting worse and worse. Perhaps he was out celebrating his other records a little too much the other night, and got back a little hang-over for the high-jump. ;P
Yes vote, I feel that this should obsolete the current 3 movies.
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My TAS of The Mask used to desync if you fastforwarded in the beginning of the movie. It also desynced a few times in the middle of the movie when fastforwarding, but didn't desync when played in normal speed. The submitted movie doesn't have any of these issues though, since I managed to fix them.
I'm not sure what causes it, but what I'm getting at is that it has happened before. Perhaps Nitsuja or someone else who knows how SNES9X works can tell you why this happens.
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partyboy1a wrote:
That's the hex address list I currently use:
;================================
; >> Road Runner's Death Valley Rally
;================================
[RR DEATH VALLEY RALLY0]
7E04C6,2f,X Speed
7E0554,2f,Y Speed
7E031C,2u,X Pos
7E17A2,2u,X Pos2
7E194C,2u,Y Pos
7E0038,2u,Y Pos2
7E1F1C,2f,Bird Seed
7E1F1D,1u,Bird Seed2
7E1F1E,1u,Health
7E14DC,1s,Random?
I have some other addresses for this game:
;================================
; >> Road Runners Death Valley
;================================
[RR DEATH VALLEY RALLY]
7E0036,1u,X position
7E0006,1u,Y position
7E04C7,1u,X pixel Speed
They're probably mirror-addresses of yours, but perhaps they could be of some use.