You da baws Komrade. Fully support the decision

"I'm still confused as to what data is suggesting mGBA is closer to original hardware than VBA-next"

I based this deduction on the data available in the table to the right on the first page;

The 2 runs made with WiiUVC consistently has a total of 107 transition frames. DSLite has 106 total transitionframes. Bizhawk with mGBA core has 107 total transitionframes (same as WiiuVC and only 1 more than DSLite), Bizhawk with VBA-Next has a total of 112 frames, which is 6 more than DSLite and 5 more than mGBA and WiiUVC.

So if I consider "DSLite" as "Original hardware", then mGBA is more accurate than VBA-Next, since the total transitionframes differ by a single frame, as opposed to VBA-Next's 6.

Fully agree on everything you say Sopha! welcome to the investigation squad!

Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot to clear the rules after the discussion started, looks much better portraying where we are in the investigation right now

I finished the second page of https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1il4q4AjNEPI0WpcEABWLf7hkTE2sshJrmlEwoNnQj5Q/edit#gid=1585218115 where I list everyone's Gameplay frames in all the screens. From my listings I can conclude that SORP saves 14F (0,46s) in the Dracula Elevator room over the second fastest (gossyo). This is purely because of roll horisontal momentum and the divekick putting him on the elevator.

Sorp 828F -> 918F = 90F Reaching the bottom of dracula's chamber 918F -> 947F = 29F Bottom -> Elevator

gossyo 468F -> 560F = 92F Reaching the bottom of dracula's chamber 560F -> 601F = 41F Bottom -> Elevator

For the boss fight itself, both WiiUVC and VBA RR applied 1 new shuriken damageglitchtext per frame, showing no real behaviorchange or slowdown. I can find no evidence at all that suggests that Any emulator (or hardware) differ in pure gameplay portions of the game (This, of course, might need a second eye). All frame differences I've seen can be logically explained by the execution of the rooms per player.

As a bonus: Owata's newly found dracula kill: https://twitter.com/th1018495/status/969558254593298432/video/1 saves 13 frames (75F total) vs NOVel's 88F, which is 0,44 seconds!

@sorp While I do agree that it's not optimal to analyze 30 FPS footage of 60 FPS capture, all my findings and statements has been taken that into consideration. I always expect +/- 1 frame difference because of 60 FPS -> 30FPS Truncation. Looking at the numbers of the document, this method seems to be working, since both of the WiiUVC runs AND mGBA core run had the exact total of transition frames. DSLite hardware can be included based on this +/- 1 frame rule.

Glad that I was able to spark such enthusiasm from you guys!

@sopha: correct, it seems like a copy paste error regarding mine and NOVel's dracula fight. I just added it since I was sort of curious of how much the different top runs differed on the dracula fight. I'll correct it when I'm at home on my work PC. That being said, the dracula fight time played no part in any calculations done in the document. And of course I welcome all effort put in to proofreading the document as well, that is why I have it publicly shared.

@VB: I completely agree that this lag should be examined as well; How it behaves on WiiuVC, VBA RR, DSLite, Bizhawk(mGBA) and Bizhawk(VBA-Next) respectively. Additional adjustments may be needed with these findings.

Additionally I would like to personally put in some time to really dissect SORPS run on VBA RR to see what else might differ, and how he somehow saves 0.9 seconds over NOVel with a worse dracula fight (Again, the dracula fight need to be re-evaluated in case I made an error there).

For the record, I use Quicktime player for all the research. It has the option to display #Frames instead of time and can frameadvance using the left/right arrowkeys while paused.

I look forward to a clean board with clear adjustments and clear rules :)

"So basically the standard you are converting to is WiiU-VC and DSlite(whose load times appear to be the same)? And even though VBA-next is more accurate than mGBA, you want mGBA to be used since its accuracy is also comparable to those two platforms?"

Correct. I'm interested to know your sources of how VBA-Next is more accurate though, since my spreadsheet basically states otherwise, at least for this very specific application.

As for VBA-Next being pardoned for runs, I can agree to that, but in that case I'd like to change

• The runs must (at least at the end), show the Bizhawk window with the mGBA core in the bottom left corner, to make it easier for the mods to verify the runs.

to:

• If the run is made on Bizhawk, you must specify what core (VBA-next, mGBA) you are using to help the verifiers do the time-conversions, alternatively show the bizhawk window before/after the run so the core can be recognised. Otherwise it will be rejected.

One of the things I really want to achieve with this rule is to minimize work for the verifiers. You should not have to download the run and do frame-by-frame analysis to figure out which of the two the player has used.

Also I would actually say DSLite = WiiUVC = Bizhawk (mGBA), since I expect an errormargin of 1 frame all the time since 60FPS game footage is truncated to 30FPS Youtube/Whatever video.

Hello!

Maxim Any% has grown to be really competitive, with a multitude of runners from many countries. The runs that are submitted uses Both Hardware (DSLite), as well as Emulators (VBA RR-V-24, Bizhawk, WiiUVC, others). Concidering that the top times are now hunting for mere frames, I felt the need to do some extensive investigation into the accuracy of emulators, since a frame could mean the difference between #1 and #2 at this point.

The main focus of my investigations has been the amount of frames it takes to transition from one screen to the other, showing without a doubt that there are many differences between emulators. My full research is pretty selfexplanatory and can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1il4q4AjNEPI0WpcEABWLf7hkTE2sshJrmlEwoNnQj5Q/edit#gid=0

The new proposed rules for run submissions of ANY Maxim Cathegory are:

• IF Emulator on computer is used, Bizhawk 2.2.1 OR later, along with the GBA BIOS and mGBA core MUST be used. VBA-NEXT has been proven to be inaccurate.

• WiiUVC is an exception to above rule, it is perfectly fine to use it

• The runs must (at least at the end), show the Bizhawk window with the mGBA core in the bottom left corner, to make it easier for the mods to verify the runs.

• No Turbo or Autofire-option may be used. This rule has been in effect before but never explicitly stated.

These rules conform well with the Metroid: Zero Mission scene and has worked well for them. The investigation into the preferred emulation has also been the same. Reference: https://www.speedrun.com/mzm/thread/syvkl

In Addition to the investigation done, the need to adjust some times on the leaderboards are well motivated. Runs made prior to this post has been made will have time-adjustments (Explanation can be found in the above linked document):

SORP Yu #1: 30,67 -> 31,07

NOVel #2: 31.93. No change, performed on DsLite (Original Hardware)

Charleon #3: 32.11 -> 31.93 (Tied for #2)

Gossyo and T2-CVHD: Unchanged, played on WiiUVC

Any feedback and/or objections to this proposal will be welcome, but if no solid argument can be made, these new rules and timeconversions will be made in a couple of days. The rule for Emulator is in effect now when this message is posted

I'd be happy to become a mod of this game, since I did the initial analysis of the run in question, however I do not know who to contact for that end. Can Dugongue, WhiteHat94, and RottDawg all appoint new mods?

And also k0zzx, absolutely no hard feelings from me, I know you have grinded this game a lot and that you did so with a passion, which I really liked. I just have to speak up when I don't agree to certain things.

I know I probably won't be able to change anything, but I just want to give my two cents on this decision, and why I think it's a bad idea.

1. Removing these times will erase some important historical data of this game. The top 2 runs prior to the removal featured very different strats for the stages which saved almost 20 seconds in total. New western players who plan to run this game might not find those videos when trying to compete for the top score, which I think is sad.

2. Referring to 1, China has done some tremendous work on this game. I was completely blown away by the 10:50, and it really felt heartwarming to how some new fresh eyes on the game can create something even better. I was very happy that the work we'd all put into the game was developed even further.

3. I can't recall who it was that submited the run a year or two ago, but I fairly recall a chinese player submitting a run which clearly used the turbo function (jumps in narrow corridors in 4-2), I really hope this incident doesn't have any bearing on this decision.

4. This is my personal analysis of the 10:50 posted on twitter when it happened: https://pastebin.com/1WQ4Vsdn . I have no doubt that both the players actually have great skill in this game, since gathered from my pastebin both has even greater knowledge of the game than I do. And knowledge of the game at that level is nothing you gain from cheating. I know a lot of people were very suspicious about the 10:50 when it first got released, but after spending hours dissecting it, I found nothing suspicious other than 3 frame perfect container-slashes, which is far from impossible with a bit of practice.

5. It's very sad to me to alienate runners just because they don't have the same preconditions as we do. I know for a fact that many Chinese players stream to the Chinese equivalent of twitch.tv, can't recall what it's called, doiyavuTv or something? It's only to the western world that Twitch.tv is an obvious choice.

6. I don't really understand what the problem is with using a keyboard. My opinion on input method is that it doesn't really matter. If you really put in the time you can rock with a guitar-hero controller (pun, rock!). There are pro's and cons to every input method, but none that I can think of as holding a "definitive advantage", concidering you are tempering your muscle memory with each playthrough you make, and be it fingers or wrists that does the motion, the fact still is that the player did all the inputs with his body, showing deep understanding of timing and applying it to perfection. There are fightinggame pros that plays on a midi piano because it suits them, for instance. I might have overlooked something crucial in this point, but currently I don't see the issue, since every input-method available to man could be "cheated" behind the scenes, as Koh1fds pointed out.

7. It's also a belief of mine, that times added to a leaderboard should be a lot harder to take out than put in. There are some wonderful examples about cheaters and investigations that has been done in the broad speedrunning scene these past months, proving without a doubt that some runs are purely fake. I can not feel that way about these times being removed though, since they are based on suspicion, with no evidence whatsoever. Was the players even contacted about this prior to the deletion? Was there any investigation done at all rather than being suspicious? I just can't feel allright with this given the few facts in this post.

8. I don't know how the rules for the game looked like before this incident, or even before the chinese runs were added. But I'm sure it didn't say anything about the prerequisites that judged these runs to be removed. But personally the only thing that was really suspicious to me was the run that actually had an input-playback display. I do not know if that one was one of the runs that got removed though..

All in all, it really saddens me that the runs were removed for the above reasons, and I really hope Chinese players won't be discouraged from submitting new times in the future

speedcontrol now resides on twitter; will aim to notify on updates, provide videos, and provide community feedback: https://twitter.com/speedcontrolApp

Hello Everyone, and welcome to speedcontrol!

I've been developing speedcontrol since December last year, and I'm finally feeling confident enough to go public and create awareness of it, since it's a tool I've designed for the speedrunning scene as a whole! My main aim for now is to get more people to try it out experimentally to get feedback and make it better. It was previously used throughout the whole pre-ESA-Marathon where it was very well appreciated.

Speedcontrol is a nodecg bundle (same technology was used for AGDQ for example) developed for the speedrunning scene which helps the people organizing the stream for marathons greatly by automating tasks that would before would have meant manual work for people working with the overlay / stream side of things, such as:

¤ Twitch Integration (Upon starting a new run it automatically changes the played game on twitch). You can also specify and update the stream title directly from the dashboard! this way you won't ahve any need to keep a twitch window open for managing stream title / game played

¤ Horaro schedule import; paste a horaro schedule link and press import, and VOILAH! There will be no need to manually change any text fields on the overlay at all, Estimates, runners, game information will be pulled from horaro and put into a local database, so the only thing you'd need to do is press "Play next game" to update all the information on the overlay

¤ Optionally you can add runs manually which comes in two flavors; 1. The first alternative is to use an automatic sync with speedrun.com. All information is pulled from speedrun.com, which means when you add a runnername and choose it based on the runners speedrun.com name, you automatically get all the information such as twitch link, etc. This also works for games, getting the correct name, and cathegories for said game. 2.Add games and runners by using free text (manual input for runner names and their twitch handles, if speedrun.com integration is not preferred)

¤ Support for custom animations; in Pre-esa marathon we faded in an animated finish-flag with the finish-time whenever a person in the race finished. Also a twitchicon faded in and the runner name was exchanged to his twitchhandle every now and then (look at pre-esa twitch vods ( https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkd2f6JAHslJPSQ5a9zYL09Ie-LugT8eB) for reference).

¤Once the schedule is imported from horaro, or runs are added manually you can drag around the run items as you'd like, to reposition runs in the list/ remove runs from the list, in case there are any schedule updates.

¤ Everything is handled from a dashboard that runs in google chrome by surfing to http://localhost:9090, and it can also be accessible from external computers if you give other co-hosts your IP (this has not been tested yet though, and might mean further configration steps to your nodecg instance)

¤ Timer is built into the dashboard, and contains separate split-buttons for all runners, dynamically changing if a 2, 3 or 4p race is currently playing, to remove the need of a third party timer like LiveSplit, providing a tailormade interface having online marathons in mind

¤ All Items on the overlay is fully configurable during run-time, but should really be configured before the marathon, which means that you can change positions of the game-capture cutout of the background, moving timers, moving player nameplates, game information, etc, etc.

¤ Oh no! Runner X and Runner Y nameplates are under the wrong gamefeed! No problem, the "Player Layout" element of speedcontrol lets you click and drag the player to the correct gamefeed.

I've put together 3 video tutorials showing off what speedcontrol can do, howto set it up and operate it:

Instructions, and information can be found in it's github repository here:

https://github.com/Charleon/nodecg-speedcontrol

speedcontrol is not done by any means, but It's in good shape to be tested for marathons, and to receive feedback from users to ensure it develops in the right way, which is pretty much why I'm trying to create awareness of it here! If there are people that might want to use it for their own Online/Offline Marathons, please let me know, and I just might customize the look & feel to your liking! or if you just want to test it out and give feedback i would be just as happy.

In the future I aim to create some videotutorials on how to customize it fully with your own graphics, as well as make it easier for people to actually do it on their own.

For those who actually want to give a shot at customizing it themselves, please give me a holler! It shouldn't be harder than just replacing some images and alter some css attributes (Since it's based on HTML afterall)

I agree that going for IGT might be more accurate, at least for Julius since it's a fiercely competitive cathegory where screentransitions might end up deciding the outcome in the end. I ended up doing runs on VBA-next as well for SOMA based on your input, since the battery of my cart seems to have died :/. One thing to note though is that it should be clearly stated on the leaderboard that IGT is to be submitted, not RTA

Dammit Sambss! You just gave me a heart-attack hahahaha! got a mail that " a new WR has been set in Any% NO 0HP glitch by hectorpaddy", took me 15 seconds to realize you were splitting up the boards. Good work man!

Hello! don't know if this forum is monitored by admins, but it's to my belief that it would be good to split the Any% cathegory into "Any% no 0HP Glitch" and "Any% 0HP Glitch", due to many reasons:

"Any% no 0HP Glitch" is the main competitive cathegory that everyone plays, and I hate it to have my 9:32 listed on the Any% leaderboard. it could also discourage people to actually run the game since the glitch required is a double frame-perfect trick followed by a strict fault-less playthrough because of strict potion management. The "Any% no 0HP Glitch" cathegory is much more lenient and fun to play, a good start for newcomers, which is why I feel it to be pretty misleading to have my 09:32 on the leaderboard since I'm one of VERY few runners that actually runs the new batshit-crazy route.

I'm not a mod of this game on here but if anyone has the power to create new leaderboards for this game i strongly suggest to do so, knowing it's an AoS community-approved decision.

I are a go! o/

I'll be up for some Xrd, if requested I could bring a console, screen, speakers as well, but only if specifically requested