Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
EZGames69 wrote:
Rerecord counts do not always determine how optimized a run is.
There's also the fact that the submitter, Vynneve, appears to hold 1st place in the Normal and Zipless categories on the linked Speedrun.com board in the submission comments, so might simply be frame-optimizing realtime strats.
Vynneve is only 2nd on NMG though, and the one run ahead of him on the board is faster than this submission (about 1:49:12). This is not TAS timing because Speedrun.com starts their clock when you first gain control of the prince, however it's hard to tell whether that run would actually be faster adjusting for that because they don't start from power-on. Here's the YouTube video of the other run for comparison and analysis:
Link to video
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
link_7777 wrote:
I suppose if order were really intended it would be a numbered list and not a bulleted list.
If I'm reading things correctly, the bullet points are arranged in such a way as to emphasize the policy of "no significant new content at all to be discovered" first and foremost. If that's true, then the bullets should indeed be numbered.
Does a killscreen count as "significant new content"? I would say yes, minor though it might be, and that the run should go that killscreen. Entertainment won't matter much (if at all) in this case because the submission can just be put in the Vault - that's what it's there for. :)
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Very very Meh, very very Vault material. That's what I think of it.
You didn't mention why you chose the NES port though link_7777, as there were a few different reasonable choices for this game, some with different mechanics than the NES port:
* Arcade original (it was long thought that this had a killscreen but this isn't actually true)
* The very good Colecovision port (playable in BizHawk)
* The very good Intellivision port (also playable in BizHawk)
The only port that should be avoided is the Atari 2600 version (mostly because of the god-awful graphics it had!)
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Not really a new discussion topic, but more to announce my current TAS attempt at the A2600 port of the arcade game, which is more than 28 seconds faster than GameBreaker64's woefully unoptimized second submission for the game.
Userfile: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/59062312797578783
Video Encode:
Link to video
This was performed on BizHawk 2.3.2 using the default game start and settings, with the final input being on frame 7,273 (2:01.37), a full 1,713 frames (or 28.59 seconds) faster than GameBreaker64! Note that despite the amount of savings I have found here, I do not believe this effort is submission-worthy yet because A2600 Jungle Hunt appears to mimic the original arcade game in the difficulty increasing up to the fourth loop.
While continuing my efforts to get through the full four loops of the game for a proper submission, I will invite anyone to give their feedback and possible improvements to the current 1st-loop userfile in this topic.
--------------------------------------------
Individual Section Comments:
* Deadly Forest: After finishing this section, I was surprised to find it was actually ~32 frames slower than GameBreaker64's time! I tried introducing deliberate delays at various points, but nothing seemed to allow me to catch an earlier vine cycle down the line. I then tried playing back GameBreaker64's inputs back to see what was going on, but that resulted in a desync after a few jumps. When I tried resyncing the inputs, I found the exact same jump pattern I had already come up with, so I'm convinced the loss in this section is the result of changes to AtariHawk in 2.3.2 (either a slower scrolling speed or a different vine pattern than the one GameBreaker had in 2.3.1), but I would like someone to prove me wrong.
* Reptile River: As feos pointed out in the discussion topic for GameBreaker64's second submission, it is much faster to kill all the crocs rather than letting some go past you. I was able to improve this section by roughly the same amount feos had.
* Boulder Field: Standard "run left and jump as needed" affair, but it turns out the collision detection on the larger boulders isn't great - when in mid-air, you can clip anything from your leading foot downward through the boulder without triggering a death! This means stopping to duck boulders is completely unnecessary - all you need is a correctly timed jump.
* Cannibal Camp: After jumping each cannibal and continuing left, the game will normally stop you against an invisible wall briefly before unlocking the screen scrolling to let you continue on. Constantly jumping after clearing the cannibal allows bypassing this invisible wall (or shortening your time behind it), allowing you to get closer to the left side of the screen before the controls lock during the screen scroll. (This works for all three transitions - I think this is the same as the "double jump" strat Spikestuff found, but that only was applied for one of the transitions.)
-------------------------
Potential Improvements:
* If someone found a way to match GameBreaker's strat for Deadly Forest in 2.3.2, then the ~32 frames lost there could be recovered.
* Skipping the transitions completely in Cannibal Camp could lead to a sub-2:00 time - I can get close with jumps, but it seems the controls completely lock as soon as the next sprite in the sequence appears on screen.
* In theory, you could jump right up to the cannibals in Cannibal Camp to save time, but I believe it would require extensive manipulation of their behavior to be useful (usually the cannibal just runs right into you if you try). In the absence of any evidence for a potential benefit, I will leave that to someone else who believes such a benefit can potentially be found.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Late to the party much?
That said, no idea about the possibility of a true 100% submission - that would depend on whether a bugfixed ROM (that fixes the uncollectable trophy bug mentioned in earlier posts) would be legal for submission or not.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Based on the experience of feos and reading LizStar's spreadsheet, I have conjectured that something happens regularly every 5 or 6 frames that can affect the timing of other events in the game. The only culprits that make sense are the music and score display - perhaps there's something similar going on to the effect music and score value have on lag in Super Mario Bros. 3 that was discovered during the warps run last year?
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Is there a reason for selecting particular characters for particular worlds beyond entertainment value (i.e. does the character you play as make a difference)?
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
I'm going to take a guess that this has a similar cause to the Controller 2 effects seen in Mega Man 3. Both games were developed by Capcom around the same time, so it would make sense to assume the same root cause.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
(crushed by wall of pictures and text)
Aran, could you PLEASE make an offsite link to that gallery? I don't think the mods are going to like the amount of pictures you've got up there...
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Kage, do you have a memory address for Felix's horizontal on-screen position? I think it would help whoever is judging this decide how optimized it is, as well as give insight into why the glitch happens in the first place.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Yadra hasn't logged in the forum since making the post with the video of the completed TAS, so he/she probably hasn't seen either of the last two posts. Try giving a nudge on the YouTube channel instead -> www.youtube.com/user/YadraSpeedruns
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Probably simply because it's time-consuming to judge a six and a half hour submission properly. Not to mention ThunderAxe has had plenty else on his judging plate over the past two months (including TiKevin's Pokemon Blue TAS, which was an hour and a half itself).
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Lizstar wrote:
Basically, depending on the frame you die on, the Dinosaur can respawn slower, giving you an extra 6 frames or so to try and make it to the higher platform so you can jump over him.
Hmmm... it sounds like the dinosaur spawning follows some kind of frame rule. Maybe if you can figure out what it is, you can figure out if there's any possibility of a spawn that is delayed long enough that will allow you to skip the bonus item on 7-6.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
The actual final max score you have is 1,252,050 - you forgot to add in the ones you got from the movement on the final screen. :)
Also, it looks like you could get past 7-7 by deliberately skipping the bonus item on the previous screen and triggering the screen-warp bonus with the cross on 7-7. Did you try that strat?
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
@LobsterZelda Might be related to this issue in GitHub: github.com/TASVideos/BizHawk/issues/1524
Haunted House isn't on the list, but does it act the same way as the games described there?
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
I also voted Yes because it's fun watching the guy scamper around the screen (and I've also heard that the controls on the Colecovision version are not great to begin with, so TAS really helps in this case).
I also think it would be worth trying a "max score" run i.e. collect everything you can get to, kill all the enemies you can and find the optimum treasure room run to collect as much as you can out of it. The Colecovision version has an advantage for that type of run considering you're not under a time limit there.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Matslo123, I would recommend editing the comment about the difficulty choice to something like this:
"The only rule / limitation of this category is to complete the game with 0 Kills, which awards you the Pacifist rank, so for this reason I use Normal difficulty. On the game's hardest difficulty (Ultimortal), a Pacifist run is impossible because you are required to kill a boss on that difficulty. On the Hard and Extreme difficulties, a Pacifist run would be far more time-consuming, due to required Nano farming and other factors, without a significant gain in difficulty under TAS conditions. This would result in a far less entertaining movie in comparison to one on Normal difficulty."
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 250
Location: Stafford, NY
Baxter wrote:
Chef Stef wrote:
Note that this strategy is also 98 frames faster than the published warps TAS, which does aim for last-hit timing.
I wonder if I should make this improvement to the existing warps TAS. Or do you think other improvements are possible?
I imagine that Chef Stef's bot could be fairly easily (by anyone well-versed in Lua scripting) tweaked to prioritize getting a warp powerup instead of a multiball. Then once you get through the demo glitch as in the current warps submission, the bot is set running. The task would both be easier (fewer levels to check and less stuff to keep track of in each level) and harder (RNG manipulation to get a warp powerup in the first place) than the warpless run.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
