Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
AngerFist wrote:
Pretty pretty pretty pretty please :)
Well, I did ng3 up to the end of level 4 after my first ng1 run was published... was roughly a second ahead of TheAxeMan's run at that point. At the time I think I estimated it would be about 2.5 seconds faster if I finished it. With what I know now, I'm sure I could do better than that... BUT barring the discovery of some cool glitch, a new ng3 run would probably be nearly identical to the published one, so the motivation is pretty low there. Also, in ng3 Ryu takes hits more like a Belmont than a Hayabusa... and abusing hits was probably the most enjoyable part of doing ng1.
As for ng2, I played with it a bit since my last post here and pretty easily found about 3 seconds of improvement. Up+down+left works in this one too, but it's of pretty limited use since Ryu changes direction every wall jump. I do plan to work on this one eventually if noboby beats me to it.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
Atma wrote:
thats a lot of edits.
that referring to the rerecords or the 30 minutes i spent screwing with the descrip?
Ninja Gaiden involves an ultra superior ninja, capable of defying the laws of physics by climbing through walls, while beating bad guys in record time.
This run is about 10 seconds faster than the prior submission due to the ninja thinking more like a ninja.
where have i seen this before?
Rising Tempest wrote:
Give this thing a star!
or at least a moon :)
Happy to see this being enjoyed... maybe I'll set my sights on ng2/3 now.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
Found a few optimizations in 5-2 and 5-3 today and managed to kill the red orb another 5 frames faster... expect a submission of 39164 or better very soon.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
I've got a run that finishes at 39201 now, but I'm going to sit on it a bit and try to find solutions to these issues:
* in the second screen of 2-2 i wait one frame so an enemy in the next screen won't throw an unavoidable knife
* in 3-1 i take two extra frames so an enemy will throw a knife to boost me up to a ledge in 3-2 (if i could fix the first issue it would also fix this)
* I wait 5 frames before pressing start at the end of level 4 so those skull-heads won't throw sticks that hit me in the back (this one doesn't bother me too much since one of them ends up giving me a boost that saves 5 frames)
So, it could just take a one frame improvement before the last screen of 2-2 to potentially fix all of this. Maybe.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
Up+Down saved about a second more than I expected. So, should be 39200 (10:53) if/when I manage to manipulate the position of the bird at the end of 5-2. I also found that I could exit the first screen of 5-2 15 frames faster if I don't pick up the jump n' slash... I haven't actually tested it yet, but I suspect I'd lose at least twice that by killing Malth without it.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
So... I discovered that up+down+left/right has the same effect as left+right, except it works in both directions. This should shave about 220 frames off the 39487 that I was about ready to submit.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
pretty much done with it i think... just need to clean up some of the input and make a few small tweaks. should i pick up point bags or not?
looks like it'll be 39488 frames... so 3 seconds faster than the cancelled run and 4.3 faster than the published one i think.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
Well, I had really hoped I could put this obsession behind me and move on, but no, I just had to find more improvements. Once I work those improvements in I should have something at 39635 or 39632 (I'm hoping Ken will help me out with those 3 frames) but my goal is 39629 so it will round down to 11:00.
So yeah, cancelling this.
also, if anyone has any aesthetic criticisms or suggestions for possible speed improvements, I would love to hear it.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
Just thought I'd mention here that I've determined that the boss/cinema/3 frames thing can't be manipulated and is simply a function of when you reach the boss stage. The fact that what frame the level 1 boss steps forward (a difference of 1 frame) can be manipulated is what led me to believe that the other issue might be manipulatable.
Anyway... managed to shave another 13 frames off this: 1 frame by eliminating another down+b from 5-3; 7 frames by improving the bird hit(s) in 5-1 (involves a few pauses, a lot of jumping and one hit instead of 2) and 5 frames by moving back one frame to spawn a bat to bounce me up in the first screen of 6-3.
If I could get to 3-2 at least 52 frames faster there's a chance that the first ghoul might throw me a handy-15-frame-saving knife. Somehow I don't think that's going to happen though. :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
Slotermeyer wrote:
First let me say I was completely floored to see 4 seconds shaved off my run, very impressive.
You and me both. When I first analyzed your run I thought it could be improved by 15-20 frames at best. :)
Slotermeyer wrote:
I'm 8 frames ahead where it stops, though really there's 11 frames of improvement because I lose 3 on the first boss fight. 9 come from 1-1, and 2 more from the little platform jump on the second screen of 2-1. If you make a new version I'm sure this will be of some use.
Wow. I'm kicking myself for never trying to simply grab that wall in 1-1... that worked out to be 2 frames faster than bouncing off that guy into the wall. Very nice work with that funky platform in 2-1 too... I thought I had tried everything there. I would appear to be 2 or 3 frames ahead but would actually end up 1-2 frames behind when leaving the screen but your way actually works! So anyway, working your improvements into what I had saved another 4 frames, which is great, but it also changed some enemy behavior later on which had slowed me down. (unavoidable thrown objects, I really hate those skull guys) So now I have a file that completes the game in 39709 frames. Got any more tricks up your sleeve?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
Thanks for the info, that's certainly something to chew on.
btw, seems i was mistaken about where the relative speed difference lies... there's 3 intervals which vary: number of frames between when ryu appears in the boss fight and when the timer appears, number of frames between when the timer appears and when it ticks off the first ''second'' (the latter seems to always occur on the exact same frame after leaving the previous level in a range of 5-10 frames.. i hope that made some sort of sense) and the number of frames between when the score stops adding up and when the screen fades to black. /scratch
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
So I've been working on improving my recently published Ninja Gaiden run and after making sure every jump was optimal, adding a couple of new hits and a couple other things I forgot to do and after getting screwed out of 3 frames in most of the boss fights... I've got something that completes the game an amazing 26 frames faster.
I figure the only way to improve it now is to get those missing 12 to 15 frames back from the bosses, and I'm pretty sure that can be manipulated without slowing anything down. At first I thought it was related to the game timer (i've observed that my input does effect how many frames are between each second displayed; it ticks every 60 frames if there is no input and i've seen it take as many as 80 frames to tick as well) but i've concluded that what the timer says is irrelevant. What frame your score stops adding up after the boss fight seems to be the key. I've had limited success manipulating this (so far only in level 1)into occurring one frame later (3026) by changing a couple jumps in 1-1 and then back (to 3025) by removing one kill. But I feel like I'm stabbing around in the dark here.
Anyway, the purpose of this post was partly to vent a bit, but also to ask if anyone perhaps had similair experience with other games and had some advice beyond the ''do stuff different and stuff'' on the common tricks page.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
Hyena wrote:
Very nice. I see no reason why this shouldn't be published.
Because it's already been obsoleted! :)
As I was typing my previous post I realized that left+b could in fact make some parts faster. So, I worked that into the last screens of 4-3 and 6-2 which saved 4 frames in both cases and cut out another 25 frames while I was at it (including one frame of no input after a down+b which was no longer needed... how embarrassing!)
Anyway, cancelling this one and submitting the new one. (I hope that's the proper way to do it)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
LagDotCom wrote:
Nice mucking around at the bosses, too. :)
Thanks. :)
When I did those parts, I discovered that B+right (or B+left) has the same effect for wall jumping that left+right has for left-facing walls except it can be used on walls facing either direction. Unfortunately, (but also somewhat to my relief since I wasn't looking forward to redoing major things at that point :p) this won't make anything any faster because there's only one right-facing wall that has to be climbed and for much of the game ''ninja power'' has to be conserved for the spin slash... or maybe not...
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
I'm glad to see it's being enjoyed so far. :)
Wherever I could do anything different than the published run, I did unless different meant slower or less enjoyable to watch. This made for a lot of trial and error when, for example, killing an enemy set me back a frame like in the final screen of 2-1. I think it took a couple of hours to figure out that I didn't lose a frame if I killed the last two enemies a couple frames earlier.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
I guess i found the answer to my first question. I'll assume since Bisqwit/AngerFist's Megaman movie gives the same message it's a non-issue.
Thanks for the info.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(151)
Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150
I wasn't able to come up with anything about this by searching so I thought I'd post here about it. I've just completed my third attempt at a Ninja Gaiden TAS using FCEU 0.98.15 (it's 140 frames faster than Slotermeyer's current published run) and after converting from .fcm to .fmv and back for editing i get this message in the replay movie dialog: "missing data: acc=8'' Is this a problem?
Also, I seem to have messed up the re-record count while copying back and forth and hex-editing. Can I or Should I try to edit the proper value (my finished version says 1819 when it's actually around 5500) back in before submitting it?
If these are stupid questions please feel free to tell me so.