Submission Text Full Submission Page
Yet another chapter in the Sonic 3 & Knuckles saga, featuring two more improvements which combine to reduce the run time by 2309 frames, or 38 seconds and 29 frames.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Gens 11a + S3KCamhack + SolidityViewer + (partial)HitboxDisplay + LUA HUD for Genesis Sonic games
  • Ignores delays caused by bonus effects
  • Aims for fastest (primarily in-game) time
  • Takes Damage to save time
  • Abuses death
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Counts time spent dying
  • One player controls two characters

Comments

Two levels have been improved from the previous version: one due to a new glitch, the other due to improved precision in a boss fight.
There are 21 frames worth of luck-manipulating pauses in Sky Sanctuary: 5 at the beginning and 16 at the end. The 5 frames at the beginning of that level are to manipulate the Mecha Sonic pattern; without it, more than 20 frames would be lost at the boss fight. The other 16 frames these are intended to put the Death Egg 1 mini-boss in a more favorable pattern.

Comparison Table

ActNew TimeOld TimeSavings
Launch Base 20:26::581:04::562278
Post Launch Base cutscene 20:18::060:17::53-13
Hidden Palace0:18::260:19::1044
Total savings: 2309 frames (38 seconds and 29 frames) in in-game time.
The table shows the in-game timer values. The value after the final colon pair indicates the in-game frame counter, and is restricted to the 0-59 range. It is updated every frame (except during lag frames), and increments the in-game second when resetting to zero.

Stage by stage comments

Launch Base 2

A few minutes after the submission had been accepted for publication, Mr_Sweed sent me a video showing an improvement of 10 seconds for Launch Base 2 over the submission, and about 32 seconds faster than the previous run; that improvement turned out to be suboptimal by about 5 seconds. Splicing the improvement made the following cutscene longer by 13 frames, and nothing I did made any difference.

Hidden Palace

This features a 44-improvement on the fight versus Knuckles. I only had the idea for this improvement after the previous run was already published, sadly. This improvement first debuted in the newgame+ run.

Other comments

For more comments about the run, see the comments from the previous run, as well as the runs that it obsoletes.
Thanks goes to Nitsuja and Upthorn for their Sonic runs, Orkal for his glitch videos, to Mr_Sweed for the Launch Base 2 improvement and to you for watching.

Possible Improvements

In Marble Garden 2, there is one of Robotnik's attack patterns which allows a 1 frame improvement; it takes much longer to manipulate it (with pauses or by loitering) than it is worth, unless one were to gain enough frames in the preceding levels to manipulate this attack pattern (not an easy task).
The pauses at the start of Sky Sanctuary may be removed if enough frames are gained in the preceding levels. As is, all of the boss attack patterns cost about 20 frames with perfect play in in-game time. Those 5 frames would be a real-time improvement only.
Likewise, if one were to replay the Death Egg 1 boss, up to 16 frames in real time (but none in in-game time) might be saved by removing the pauses at the end of Sky Sanctuary. However, most of the boss attack patterns in that range are highly unfavorable and probably slower to kill; in all likelihood, at most about 6 frames of pauses might be gained by replaying the fight. Again, this would only be a gain in real time; in in-game time, no frames can be gained from this.
With the same input and the same position (right down to the same subpixel position), the death at the start of Hydrocity 2 can be 1 frame faster -- Sonic even dies at the same frame, but the timer stops 1 frame earlier. Likewise, the post-Launch Base 2 cutscene can be 15 frames faster by standing in the same exact position. I don't know what causes these differences, but it is probably related to cumulative differences in execution, as they usually occur when the preceding levels have changed in length (up or down). If one were to gain "enough" frames in the preceding levels (again, not an easy task), these "extra" frames might simply just go away; I have no idea what would constitute "enough" frames for this to happen, though.
I am not aware of any other improvements at this time.

marzojr: Canceling to look for improvements

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14776
Location: 127.0.0.1
NitroGenesis
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (550)
Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
AGAIN? WOWZ
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
OMG
No.
GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
I will do an SD + HD encode, k?
Skilled player (1305)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.
Holy...Just wow.
GGG
Banned User
Joined: 12/11/2009
Posts: 57
Location: USA
Wow, do not stop improving. I will give the vote yes, are very good
Active player (275)
Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791
Any reason why that boost at the start of LB2 occurs, and is it possible to replicate on other levels?
GGG
Banned User
Joined: 12/11/2009
Posts: 57
Location: USA
I liked the glitch they made in launch base 2, and that his time was 0:26.58. I've improved 4 frames better (0:26.54).See it here
marzojr
He/Him
Experienced player (742)
Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 964
Location: 🇫🇷 France
Toothache: it is a zip, plain and simple, followed by horizontal underflow. The trick dmtm found was a way to glitch the collision engine to enter the ground. GGG: Stop. Doing. THAT. You are not the one that has to resynch the movie, and you are not the one that has to spend hours making a quality encode only to see it go to wasted by a 4-frame improvement. Edit: moreover, as it turns out, 0:26::46 is possible, and reduces the following cutscene by 13 frames. So yes, that is 25 frames.
Marzo Junior
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
marzojr wrote:
GGG: Stop. Doing. THAT. You are not the one that has to resynch the movie, and you are not the one that has to spend hours making a quality encode only to see it go to wasted by a 4-frame improvement.
those are the victims of the frame wars...
Active player (417)
Joined: 8/22/2008
Posts: 301
Location: Brazil
Nicos wrote:
marzojr wrote:
GGG: Stop. Doing. THAT. You are not the one that has to resynch the movie, and you are not the one that has to spend hours making a quality encode only to see it go to wasted by a 4-frame improvement.
those are the victims of the frame wars...
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
If GGG would just post to threads outside the workbench/published movies forums, this wouldn't be such a problem.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Editor, Player (68)
Joined: 1/18/2008
Posts: 663
It's a problem if the input can be faster... Yet also a problem if someone brings it to light? ...
true on twitch - lsnes windows builds 20230425 - the date this site is buried
marzojr
He/Him
Experienced player (742)
Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 964
Location: 🇫🇷 France
The problem is not that he brings it up -- it is where and how he brings it up. Bringing it up in the game thread (such as Toothache did for the newgame+ run) is perfectly fine; bringing it up in the submission thread, particularly for a minor improvement, is downright rude.
Marzo Junior
Active player (417)
Joined: 8/22/2008
Posts: 301
Location: Brazil
GGG wrote:
I liked the glitch they made in launch base 2, and that his time was 0:26.58. I've improved 4 frames better (0:26.54).See it here
Empathy, man. Please.
marzojr
He/Him
Experienced player (742)
Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 964
Location: 🇫🇷 France
After looking into it and doing some thinking, I have decided to let the submission stand as is. The Lava Reef 1 miniboss desynchs, and I am sick entirely of replaying it; after replaying it or adding pauses to luck manipulate it, the Sky Sanctuary boss will probably desynch too, and then the Death Egg 1 miniboss will desynch. All of this for a 25 frame improvement... it is simply not worth it to update the run.
Marzo Junior
GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
Uploading SD encode to Archive.org... Will do the HD after that.
GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
I will redo the SD encode. My HD encode will come later during the week that will start tomorrow.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Another hex edit? Can't you just make a fresh movie, and try to improve it everywhere?
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
I salute the encoders whom sacrifice their CPUs towards these causes. *insert image of me saluting here*
Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 3999
Nach wrote:
Another hex edit? Can't you just make a fresh movie, and try to improve it everywhere?
What, again? :P Or maybe I'm thinking of a different sonic game. There sure have been lots of sonic runs lately. What happened to the curse of sonic games?
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
Patashu wrote:
What happened to the curse of sonic games?
it became the curse of the obscure frame whenever a sonic run is submited, someone find an obscure frame to shave from the submition... @marzojr: if i remember, it's still ok to submit a movie even if there is a known improvement possible. those 25 frames will be for the next submition....
GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
Uploading to Archive.org, and that's for real this time, since I could make a file that's only 463 MB big (my first one was 1,2 GB). Part 1 of the HD encode is uploaded to YouTube, but I will make it public after I've uploaded the rest.
Joined: 4/18/2006
Posts: 179
Location: East Petersburg, PA
Mister Epic wrote:
Uploading to Archive.org, and that's for real this time, since I could make a file that's only 463 MB big (my first one was 1,2 GB). Part 1 of the HD encode is uploaded to YouTube, but I will make it public after I've uploaded the rest.
I've found the link: http://www.archive.org/details/GenesisSonic3KnucklesIn3133.52ByNitsujaUpthornMarzojr but where is the video?
"I think we can put our differences behind us... for science, you monster."
GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
DemonStrate wrote:
Mister Epic wrote:
Uploading to Archive.org, and that's for real this time, since I could make a file that's only 463 MB big (my first one was 1,2 GB). Part 1 of the HD encode is uploaded to YouTube, but I will make it public after I've uploaded the rest.
I've found the link: http://www.archive.org/details/GenesisSonic3KnucklesIn3133.52ByNitsujaUpthornMarzojr but where is the video?
That's where the too big file was. Anyway, here's the real thing. Archive page Video file I have to reencode this again, because it doesn't respect a rule in the encoder's guidelines. The HD encode is still coming.