GermanyI would not do that without their permission.
Starting the time on the first input is an ancient method used by Speed Demos Archive, they did only time videos of good runs. Most RTA runs today use timing on the start screen/file selection. Your scripts cannot be used if you want to run games on actual hardware. Manual timing on the start screen is much easier, if you have to do it manually. Yes, there were no rules, there was no reason to define them, because everyone was using the same rules anyway.
Well, the Amiga version does not have this problem. As far as I know, the game doesn't load anything after it has been started. All levels are in memory. I would prefer if we would keep the current timing method that is used by all runs on the leaderboard for the Amiga version.
Nice. Your timing is a bit different from the other Amiga runs, it starts on the menu screen. But that should only be like a second more. 3:33 is a good time, if you can make it through the whole game.
I don't remember if I let go of the gas, I got on the grass at one point, don't know if that would make any difference. I think it also matters which line you take on the road, I'll have to compare some runs to verify that.
I'll certainly try to do other tracks, when I'm satisfied with the time on the track I'm currently doing. Not sure if I'll go for 20s.
I think you usually want to have IL leader board if there are strategies and techniques that are too hard for a full game run. If there is a 1 in a 100 chance that you make something work in each level that would be impossible to do in a full game where you have to do it 4 times, which would be 1 in a million chance. In that case the IL leader board could have people fight over how can do the level including the skip the best. But for now the skip is already part of the WR run and the segment time is basically the same as the IL run so that would make no difference.
I didn't care, I just wanted to post the run. Up to the moderators to fix this. But as far as I know, you can post runs without verification on this game anyway, so no idea, if anyone is actually looking at this.
In other games like Metroid the rule is often that timing stops when you lose control but you still have to watch the ending until the score screen. So you cannot lose any race because then you would not get to the Congratulations screen. Otherwise the game would not be beaten. Getting first place would probably be a different category.
If you suicide would you get your current position if all the other cars are already destroyed or would the game place you in last place anyway? Because then it would not work, right?
I would to request to become moderator for https://www.speedrun.com/greatgianasisters again as I already did in https://www.speedrun.com/post/8vhd9. I have been waiting for a run verification for over 2 month again. The moderators have been online but do not seem to care about it. Trying to contact them via social media (Twitter and Twitch) also did not get a reaction. I have also heard from other runners that they are waiting for verification of their runs.
I already did that in an earlier post. You just need to have 0 bonus at the end of a level. So you can not skip it in every level, as there are some gems that you cannot avoid and dying on purpose to reset the bonus will also remove all your power ups, which will probably slow you down much more than what you would gain from the bonus skip.
I'm not a moderator for this game, so I can not say anything about the rules and the emulator setup for this game. We are just discussing the problems with the timing for now. Removing the bonus countdown from the timing will also make all the setup for it during the levels obsolete.
The game itself most likely will use fixed addresses in Chip RAM anyway, so adding Fast RAM won't matter. But WHDLoad needs Fast RAM to preload the disk images, which is usually what you want to do. Without preloading WHDLoad has to reenable the OS and load data from the harddisk, which will then depend on the disk speed again.
WHDLoad is not emulation, you can use it on real hardware. It can be used on every Amiga with a harddisk that has at least Kickstart 2.0, as far as I know. If you really want to get rid of loading times, some Fast RAM would also be required. Most people on real hardware seem to use at least some kind of flash card. If you have enough Fast RAM for WHDLoad to preload all data, then it won't access the harddisk or floppy at all while playing. Like that it doesn't even matter if you have a slow or fast harddisk.
The countdown speed has nothing to do with the floppy speed as far as I know. The game is only loading the next level, after the countdown has finished. The countdown is just faster if you run the game on a system with a faster CPU. So the countdown is not "loading time", and skipping it requires some actual work during the levels, so it is a nice time save in an RTA run.
It seems the version you are using is missing a level. Level 31 should normally be an outside level. The C64 version has 33 levels unlike the Amiga version, because the final boss is an additional stage. The high score screen even shows a score for stage 33. Maybe the hack you are using that offers additional levels messed up the levels.
https://www.speedrun.com/greatgianasisters doesn't seem to have an active moderator. My run and others have been pending for a long time.
Maybe it would be better to enable the "Separate load times" option for the game and set the default to "Time without loads" instead of adjusting the RTA time we can then can just retime the runs entirely without loading time. We would just need to define when a loading time starts and when it ends.
The game is probably doing some decompression of data. The actual loading should happen from RAM with WHDLoad and the PRELOAD option, so that makes a different with a faster CPU.
I usually use an Amiga 500+ setup for games that do not need the AGA chipset, to be more compatible with actual hardware. You just need kickstart 2.0 for WHDLoad. But if you want a different setup i'll do future runs with those.
I could not find any information about that version of WinUAE but it should be fine. Most Amiga emulators are based on the UAE/WnUAE core anyway.
There is not really an Amiga speedrun community i know of. Most Amiga games here have only a few runs and most people probably just did a single run just to get a time.
I looked into the disk activity with an emulator and it seems the game starts to load the next level on the frame when the time countdown is either at 1 or 0, which maybe be different due to some display lag, and it stops when the screen switches to the "Get Ready" message for the next level. So that could be used for a timing which keeps the bonus countdown in. On the level which the bonus time skip the loading starts immediately when the screen goes black. This would also keep in the time for the reaction on the "Warp" and the "Get Ready" screen. So if you are better at hitting the right timing you get a better overall time.
The different speeds of the countdown however are a problem. A faster CPU seems to speed up the countdown on the floppy disk and the WHDLoad version and I have no idea how you could prevent that on actual hardware.
Also you can do the bonus time skip on every level, you can't do it on every level in a run. It is really easy, you just need to have 0 bonus at the end of the level. I specifically collect enough gems to get to 0 at the end of level 14. There are not enough gems that can be easily collected without a time loss to do it again. Maybe you could take an intentional death to get back to 0, but i never tested if that makes sense in any level, as you would lose all your power ups. That is the main reason why i like the skip, the time save happens between the levels, but the work you have to do for it, is during the first 14 levels, you have to plan which jumps to take for which gems you get. Cutting out the skip would also eliminate the need to do that.
Emulation would allow that, but I think it should always be possible to compare times for players on actual hardware. Since the Amiga has very different setups that is not easy to do. A faster processor seems to improve loading times, but comparing someone playing on a floppy vs. someone using WHDLoad (which is on actual hardware and no emulation) is almost impossible.
The only problem I have with the current removal of all time between levels is that is cuts out one of the tricks you can do to save time in RTA. There is not really much going on in this game except playing perfectly, only the warp glitch and the bonus time skip. So I would not want to remove that from timing.
Maybe I'll check when the game is actually accessing the disk between levels and if it is possible to remove only that time without too much trouble and keep the bonus time in.
