The final ingame time is 1:35:14.
Description:
  • Emulator: Dolphin 3.0-389
  • DualCore and Idle Skipping off
  • Skip Gamecube BIOS
  • DSP LLE Recompiler
TAS Objectives:
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage and misses bullets to save time by lowering enemy health and the game difficulty
  • Manipulates gratuitous amounts of hand grenades
Comments: A tool-assisted speedrun of Resident Evil 4 (Biohazard 4 in Japan) for the Nintendo Gamecube. Unlike the most common speedruns for this game (called load game, or new game+), this one does NOT load a save file to begin with all special weapons (Infinite Rocket Launcher, PRL, Chicago Typewriter, etc) and uses no memory card or saves. This means Leon begins with nothing other than his handgun, and his stylish leather jacket, and must collect weapons and money as the run progresses.
The Japanese version is almost identical to all other Gamecube versions of the game. The JPN and PAL versions are nearly identical, and have a speed trick used in Chapter 4-2, where Leon can blow up the boulder with a Rocket Launcher instead of the Dynamite. This trick cannot be done on the North American Gamecube version, but can be done on the XBOX360 and PS3 HD versions. The TMP glitch used in Chapter 3-2 is only possible on the Gamecube versions. The Japanese version was used due to it being a 60Hz version instead of using the emulator in PAL60 mode, and some visual effects such as the Ashley section. Fortunately, all cutscenes are in English and with Japanese subtitles.
Manipulating enemies to drop certain items is almost entirely a trial and error process. Using the Joystick, C-stick, D-pad, A, B, L, R, X (when Ashley is with you), or any combination thereof manipulates enemy AI and the items they drop. A combination of button presses 1 frame before the item is dropped could mean the difference between 9,900 pesetas or just 10 handgun ammo. Sometimes hours were spent loadstating to obtain only 1 hand grenade. An HD encode with annotations discussing common questions and gameplay strategies can be viewed here.
I started this run back in July of 2011 as an attempt to help other users with some strategies. Turns out I was extremely lucky when I began running on the Japanese version of the game, as I was able to obtain a 9,900 pesetas drop, and everything went great from then on. This was an on/off project for many months until I nearly gave up. After events explained here [dead link removed], I began working on the TAS again fulltime, and ended up with a very satisfied result. I couldn't have done it without all the help and critique from the fellow users on the 4 Resident Evil thread, as well as some pro speedrunners like Derek Taylor or Magnum66 who dominate the console scene for this game.

feos: Judging...
Ilari: Fixed movie time.
feos: It was an easy decision, but hard to provide. First of all, this movie can't be played back on 32-bit Dolphin builds. Lack of testing by other people during movie creation (and the overall mess with this young emulator) led to verifying sync only on 64-bit machines. I installed 64-bit Windows 7 and got all running, but then it synced only up to 20k frames.
But 2 trusted people other than the author confirmed full sync. One was RGamma who makes Dolphin encodes for publications (and ran in on Linux). Another was RachelB, who needs no introduction (Windows 7 x64). I can blame my computer specifications, it already happened that I get rather different behavior on modern games emulators than other people using them, and my computer is old (from 2009) and weak.
I'm accepting this movie to Moons. The author requested his own encode to be used, posted on his own YT channel. Well, TVC got a time limit just on time to make that option the only one available!


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15461
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3986: SoulCal's GC Resident Evil 4 in 1:35:29.67
Active player (335)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Uh...anyone know why it is labeling the final time as 45:59.13? Is it an error with site reading the movie length? According to the discussion here, I can be given a potential exception to the TASVideosChannel rule:
17:49 RGamma > Yay, RE4 synced 'til the end 17:53 RGamma > Now we "only" have to patch it with a/v hack right? 17:56 turska > RGamma: but it's not on the workbench, so that won't be needed as there already is an author-provided youtuber up, right? 17:58 RGamma > turska: We'd need downloadables, wouldn't we? 17:59 turska > RGamma: yes 18:00 turska > but I don't like giving the full tasvideos service to a run that won't be submitted 18:00 turska > tasvideos gets nothing in return 18:00 natt > the author doesn't plan on submitting the run? 18:00 turska > in the case of a submission everyone wins, here only the author wins 18:00 turska > and we waste time 18:00 turska > natt: as far as I know, yes 18:01 turska > he had some issues with TVC, and even though he can get an exception he's still not submitting 18:02 natt > ahh 18:02 turska > or, I don't know if he's explicitly said no submission ever 18:02 turska > but it's been a month or so since he asked and got answered 18:02 turska > so I consider the case closed
This was part of a message sent between RGamma and I. He has volunteered to do the encoding for the submission, as well as verified that my dtm syncs on his computer.
RachelB
She/Her
Player (129)
Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 1579
Yes. There's no consistently accurate way to determine movie length for dolphin movies.
Player (206)
Joined: 9/14/2011
Posts: 349
Thanks a lot for deciding to upload this on the site. Well, I already saw it on your channel and seemed well-planned overall for first trial. I vote yes.
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1112)
Joined: 5/1/2010
Posts: 1217
It is made worse by the fact that the "VI" in .dtm header is in fact output frames and not vertical interrupts. If it was vertical interrupts (and interleaving was taken care of), one could obtain approximate length (which might be off by some amount, but not over 2x wrong).
Active player (335)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
RachelB wrote:
Yes. There's no consistently accurate way to determine movie length for dolphin movies.
Well I prefer using the in-game timer as the length determination anyway, cause it will be what most people want to see.
RachelB
She/Her
Player (129)
Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 1579
SoulCal wrote:
RachelB wrote:
Yes. There's no consistently accurate way to determine movie length for dolphin movies.
Well I prefer using the in-game timer as the length determination anyway, cause it will be what most people want to see.
Well the real length is 1:35:29.66. Not much different anyway.
Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Publisher, Expert player (2610)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6424
Location: The land down under.
Hug. That is all I will write... and this too.... Oh, blow me away, yes vote.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Player (13)
Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 506
I previously saw this run commented by A-M and RealMyop. Really well done and an easy yes vote. Thank you very much for posting it on TASvideos. :D
Editor, Experienced player (569)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4030
I don't suppose a byte could be added to the dtm format where an author can manually input the frame number, and the submission module could be altered to just read that? Anyway, I'm really glad you decided to submit this, SoulCal. I'll watch it sometime soon.
Joe
Joined: 6/10/2006
Posts: 152
Location: Wisconsin
Excellent use of glitch abuse, route planning, and luck manipulation. Also a pretty entertaining run throughout. Yes vote. Also, apparently the Krauser knife fight QTE had to be edited out of the Youtube video for odd copyright reasons. However I can't imagine that being all that interesting anyway, just a cutscene with minimal input.
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1112)
Joined: 5/1/2010
Posts: 1217
CoolKirby wrote:
I don't suppose a byte could be added to the dtm format where an author can manually input the frame number, and the submission module could be altered to just read that?
Yes, Dolphin should be fixed so stable length can be given, but with older submissions it is nasty. RachelB says Input frame count should give accurate time... I haven't looked into that. Well, with this submission, I plan altering the length field once I get to know the real length (byproduct of dumping it).
Warepire
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Already seen the run when it was posted in the discussion thread. Resident Evil TASes usually don't interest me but this one was really enjoyable to watch. A big yes from me.
Editor, Skilled player (1533)
Joined: 7/9/2010
Posts: 1319
I'm glad you finally submitted the run. Of course a Yes vote.
Favorite animal: STOCK Gt(ROSA)26Sortm1.1(rtTA,EGFP)Nagy Grm7Tg(SMN2)89Ahmb Smn1tm1Msd Tg(SMN2*delta7)4299Ahmb Tg(tetO-SMN2,-luc)#aAhmb/J YouTube Twitch
RachelB
She/Her
Player (129)
Joined: 12/3/2011
Posts: 1579
CoolKirby wrote:
I don't suppose a byte could be added to the dtm format where an author can manually input the frame number, and the submission module could be altered to just read that? Anyway, I'm really glad you decided to submit this, SoulCal. I'll watch it sometime soon.
Manually? Noooooooooooooooooooooo. As Ilari mentioned though, input count will work. GC controller is always polled at 60 hz and wiimote at 200 hz exactly, so it can be calculated that way.
Active player (335)
Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 383
Location: Texas
Joe wrote:
Also, apparently the Krauser knife fight QTE had to be edited out of the Youtube video for odd copyright reasons. However I can't imagine that being all that interesting anyway, just a cutscene with minimal input.
Capcom claims copyright on either the CGI or audio for that cutscene. I had a strike added to my account for a previous WIP upload, but they allowed me to keep the video up after just labeling the video as "matched third party content" and have removed the strike. I'll do another encode though that will not edit out the Krauser cutscene, and hopefully YouTube won't complain to me again.
Player (13)
Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 506
I'm not a legal expert, but I'm fairly certain that video game cutscenes are considered fair use under USA laws in the context of a speedrun. Blame the YouTube monkeys that automatically flag everything that matches their database. In any case, the official encode should be complete, whether it's uploaded on YouTube or somewhere else.
Editor, Experienced player (569)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4030
I agree with Warepire. I hadn't seen this game before, and after the first 3 minutes of the run, I thought it would be pretty unentertaining. However, the run looked well optimized (really nice to see for a GC TAS) and was pretty fun to watch. I'm voting Yes, great job SoulCal!
Editor, Experienced player (859)
Joined: 8/12/2008
Posts: 845
Location: Québec, Canada
Awesome movie, thanks for making it!
Active player (309)
Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France
Nice to see the run submitted ;) Interesting game + very entertaining run (with fun glitches but without destroying the gameplay completely) + quite a big amount of work = yes vote
Joined: 6/9/2011
Posts: 29
It was really exciting to see new WIPs appear, each was a joy to see, and even though i havent seen the finished run yet, easy yes vote from me. Thanks for your hard work, this is definitely one of the movies i won't get bored of watching again and again.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1249)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11457
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
"What are you b'ank you" Nice run, voting yes.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Former player
Joined: 3/27/2010
Posts: 270
About the only people who would vote no would be people who honestly dislike Resident Evil games (or post 4 games) no matter the optimization. :)
Active player (347)
Joined: 3/21/2006
Posts: 940
Location: Toronto, Canada
Torn338 wrote:
About the only people who would vote no would be people who honestly dislike Resident Evil games (or post 4 games) no matter the optimization. :)
Or Carcinogen :P Yes vote, absolutely. I've been following this project since day 1 and I'm super hyped to see it on the site.
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!) My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
theenglishman wrote:
Or Carcinogen :P
maybe he'd vote yes just because of the "use ashley as a bait" feature.... a fun and nice run, yes vote i liked the idea to use the JP version for the RE camera style in the ashley sections it gives a very different atmosphère...