Versions Differences
Deleted
3 years ago
Canada

I made the Konami GB boards years ago cause in MY opinion different games should not share the same page just cause they are on different systems (hence why we have series pages). I only made the board for the European Game Boy Color versions btw, the GBC is a different system than the GB, I felt they be on different boards (GBC wr time is 16:39, the GB version will never be that fast). The Japanese Konami GB collections were released on the original Game Boy, so those versions would be allowed on this page as well.

A category should not be the name of a system, you can have nice looking series pages like Lion King where each system has it's own page, or boards that make no sense like Toy Story where you have GB version on the same board as the SNES. Though that's not why anyone is here, that's something people will never agree on. However, the exact same game from the same platform should stay on the same board even it's available somewhere else, again my opinion. Making an AC board at this time would make no sense as the other games are already accepted to their board right?

Now, to say I have the inability to hear the community, I don't know how you got to that but ok. I know the AC version is a bit faster, how much? IDK. Probably not faster than the SGB from what I've seen. What did anyone actually suggest besides saying it's faster? Nothing. Was I supposed to guess what anyone actually wanted? Banning an official release just cause it plays faster? No. If that influences peoples decision to not run the game then your loss. With the time converted, it would still be the record. The run does things all others doesn't, that's why it's better.

I asked if anyone would agree to convert the time like the SGB, if people want to prove the framerate of the AC release. Or just outright separate it, you can decide that now.

In the meantime I added the version options to the board (for now there's the original Game Boy version, the AC version and the other option I can think of is the Japanese Konami GB version which no one has ran on that yet, I don't know if it plays any faster than the original GB version)

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Germany

uuhm... i don't wanna complain, don't get me wrong, but shouldn't AC be listed in the "platform" part instead of "version" ? i mean it is still a gameboy game after all, so that column should be the same, i guess? if anything you could change it to Nintendo Switch if you want, but in my opinion it should be mainly the "platform" / the emulator that is different. just my two cents on that... i'm not the one in charge of those desicions anyway.

and in regards of converting times, i'm still fine with all sorts of messing around with the time measurements to make them comparable to older runs. but i would rather use an incorrect factoring than completely separating AC runs and other runs, to me it feels they all still kinda belong together in one way or the other. and in addition, if the decided factor for the time conversion turns out to be incorrect, then it can easily be changed in the future once there is proof of a more accurate factor then, so i see no real problem with just slapping on a factor to the time, accurate or not. and thanks to everyone for the discussion so far.

Canada

Platforms are set by the site, I cannot make custom ones. The AC emulator itself isn't really considered it's own unique platform, it's just an emulator. I don't see the need to make it Switch, PC or PS4 platforms for the same emulator. Otherwise all old emulator runs here would be on the PC platform instead. Easier for all to be tagged under emulator, and write in your description which one used.

If you want to do more testing to determine what factor you want to use go ahead, we can go with that. I mentioned earlier the first post comparison makes the AC seem about 1.6% faster, which would make your new time 18:30.

I could remove the version column displayed, and instead just write it in your submission descriptions going forward, so people would know which one you used. I think that will be better unless you want it to stay.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Jönköping, Sweden

I think the version solution itself is fine, but I also think it should still be outright separated RIGHT NOW, until we have a proper timer conversion. More research needs to be put into it frankly, but it doesnt have to stay separated forever depending on the findings. Sounds fair?

Canada

If @Mazzin is fine with putting the AC version under it's own temporary category until a proper time conversion is proven, I will do that. The board will look as it was before, just with a new category for the latest version. It won't be a permanent thing. Their run will still be considered the Record.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Valhalla

Splitting the only two runners up into their own category doesn't sound fair at all, but w/e. Yall need real solutions and not knee jerk reactions. Not like it's even a pressing issue, it's a very small leaderboard

Germany

ok... i think i'm fine with anything. i mean i'm still the best no matter how you look at it muahaha jk, i would like to have a recalculation factor right away but since i have no real possibility to figure that out on my side, i have to go with what you guys suggest here in the mean time... do what you want, my run is all open for everything.

someone would have to programm an arduino and let it count ingame frames from a long running replay within the AC software and then compare that frame number with a similar run from a PC emulator where we have accurate numbers about framerates already. from that comparison we could get the most accurate factoring. but as i said, i cannot do that, someone else would have to put in some work there, i already sacrificed a lot of time for this game already though...

Edited by the author 3 years ago
KomradeKontroll likes this
Canada

It's your run, you've already said you feel they should share the same category, I'm also fine with not separating them, if we're voting here. We've already established that the run can share the board. The only thing is the time needs to be comparable. Those who have come forward with evidence saying it's faster can tell us how much faster it's playing at, and we'll move on from there.

@Komrade it isn't fair, splitting isn't a solution I will agree. The only thing I have done so far is accept the two runs, don't think I've done anything wrong there.

Moving the run back and forth seems pointless, why not just make it stay as is? When the time factor is found, its time be will increased and @Mazzin has no issue with that.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
xenkaroshi likes this
Germany

then i think i would vote for SGB factoring for AC too... i think that was the one with the 1.6% or was it? whatever, i vote for that SGB factor.

Germany

If you want some input, here's how we've been approaching other inaccurate official emulators - in this case the 3DSVC and the Kirby's Dream Collection on Wii(U) VC: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13_Le7b0KgGA1tT_x-ta2Yfv5PrLWViauZ26XbVzgKhY/edit#gid=0

You have to ask yourself what kind of leaderboard you want: one were versions/platforms compete with each other or one where you can actually compare the individual runs and runners - to put it very bluntly. The former has been a common approach in the old days of speedrunning (OoT was a prime example with N64 competing with WiiVC and iQue at some point). Sure, that's a way to list the technically fastest times on one board, but you lose the ability to compare one run to the other if they're using individual exploits unique to their respective platform. If you can't compare 2 things, should those 2 things compete with each other? Open question.

In the Game Boy community in particular, we've always aimed for comparability. The SGB conversion is a historical example of that aspect. With the only difference being the clock speed and lag supposedly being the same, it's an easy conversion, to be fair. When inaccurate emulators come into play, everything becomes a little bit more complicated. Therefore, inaccurate 3rd-party emulators are generally banned in all of GB speedrunning. We have the luxury of at least 2 very accurate emulators with Gambatte and BGB, which are allowed on the vast majority of boards, so banning the "bad" ones is a non-issue when it comes to accessibility. Most people will take issue with banning official releases, though, and I agree that it would feel inconsequential with the inclusive approach we've given the SGB and also the inclusion of the 2 aforementioned emulators. For that reason, I've been converting times for 3DSVC on the boards I moderate, purely based on framerate comparisons, that is. Load times are another common source of differences that are not too hard to account for in most cases. Lag is usually a different story because it tends to rely on execution and is therefore hard to quantify and put in a conversion factor - and also highly depends on the particular game. In the end, it's up to the particular communities to figure out the best approach. I'm merely pointing out that there has been a working one in the GB community for years now. You're the ones who know your games best and I'm sure you'll figure out a good way to deal with this. It might involve some research and effort, but that's not the worst thing in the world. Seeing that some people already made comparison recordings, there seems to be a good basis to build upon.

Crankykong and xenkaroshi like this
Germany

if only konami would have build in a visual frame counter in the replay option, then i think we wouldn't have much of an issue with research. but i really don't feel like counting thousands of frames manually just for some comparisons. i would rather replay every run of the leaderboard in the AC version than wasting my time with counting frames with my hand... i have to push that task to someone who either has an arduino or something that can do the dirty work for him or maybe a more accurate capture device that can actually be used to count video frames (which as a TASer im not a fan of at all). other than that i can only do very short and basic test sequences, because of my said incapability of serious frame counting on my side. (also i would have to sacrifice my existing recordings to do tests with the replay, which im not sure if im willing to do yet). and in addition, i think this game is rather inconsistent overall, so testing every aspect of it might turn out impossible to do in an accurate way. in my honest opinion we should just agree on any compromising method to make all runs somewhat comparable, because arguing over a few frames of difference in THIS specific game is absolutely overkill in my book. even split seconds do almost not matter for this software, im serious. i know this sounds a bit casual and naive maybe, but you really cannot go too deep into times with this game, i doubt there will ever be a case where frames will matter on this leaderboard, so why would you even bother? even if you press a jump only one single "input frame" later in a run, you may already be up to 10 or 20 actual frames further into the game depending on the situation of the scene, which will then result in like a quarter of a second in realtime already! just think of that! 1 frame of input results in a quarter of a second in the end, let that sink in and then tell me how accurate this time measurements really have to be...

i keep repeating myself, but for me a simple factor for the time conversion will be accurate enough to be considered "fair". i would take on a run without hesitation if it was just a few calculated seconds better than my PB for example. i know that a second is just about 4 input frames of a difference in the end, that is easily inprovable with a bit of practice... i don't know what else i could say, maybe you should express your opinions first, or tell me what i get wrong here? thanks for reading

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Canada

@Oh_DeeR I think in the nature of competitiveness it was always to use the fastest version, even if it's the most obscure, like you said with the iQue player. Eventually something faster may be discovered in other platforms. I am not familiar with the N64 Zelda games so I don't know how it's decided to keep one game all platforms together and the other separate. This game though is not close to being optimal, or popular enough for competitiveness. So far nothing suggests there's any gameplay exploits one version can use over the other, it's seems to be pretty much on the hardware side. Not enough grounds to consider separating especially for such a tiny board compared to KDL. With KDL I think everything together is fine too though, run with what you have or want and the final time may be changed based on the hardware used.

When we talk by faster version, I think of it as one that has certain glitches to it other revisions don't have, not necessarily the actual hardware that would give advantage due to framerate. I don't think it makes sense to separate a Revision A game from Revision B, run the fastest if you want a good competitive time. We convert times to be comparable for GB games, to be fair. For other platforms such as NES for example, it's a different perspective since PAL games run slower, almost no one speedruns on that system, unless the games are exclusive to it or has glitches other systems don't have (like Blaster Master for example) or it's the only thing they have to run with. A lot of times people run the Famicom version over international releases due to it being the first revision having glitches others don't, or faster text for example. Some boards still separate them just because of the faster text, which personally I don't think it should be, while others everything is together and up to you to run whichever version you want.

When Konami released these games and doesn't really care how they build their emulators and just release as is. It's too bad since again it's an official release. The Adventure one plays slightly faster, while Belmont's Revenge I believe is almost identical, not exact but way closer, someone can correct me on that.

For timing comparisons, we can again go by the first video to start for now.

Based on the times. SGB2: 10:12.567 --- 59.7275fps AC: 10:02.467 --- 60.7288fps

This makes it still slower than the SGB which runs at 61.1678fps SGB factor is 1.024115 based on this the AC version factor is 1.016764

If people are fine with this, we will use this factor to convert AC version timing. It could possibly change if someone with the AC version wants to do some more tests, this can be a good estimate for now if no one has issues with it.

@Mazzin this will make your time on the board converted to 18:31.391. Are you fine with that?

Edited by the author 3 years ago
KomradeKontroll and Mazzin like this
Jönköping, Sweden

Im not a tech wizz so I can't comment too much here but from what I gather with adventures behaviour, I assume more testing needs to be done to grasp the correct time conversion. @spriven Care to comment additionally?

Germany

ok guys, i ran a small test of the eyeball bridge section in level 2 to make use of the heavy lag there. and according to my video frame numbers (which i believe are far from accurate) i calculated a +1.9% difference in that small 48 second clip. of course my numbers aren't too precise and that section of the game is the most horrible one regarding lag, so a bit of an extreme example, but just to have something to compare to the long time test of @spriven which doesn't really take lag into account. bottom line is, i think the factor is somewhere between 1.6% (least lag) and 1.9% (most lag) that's what i can offer so far...

oh and if it wasn't clear enough yet: i'm fine with any new time for my run, no matter what factor you end up using, i'm fine with everything, as long as it makes it officially comparable to the older runs.

PS: btw i compared BizHawk and Nintendo Switch, because those are the two versions i used for TASing and Speedrunning, in case someone needs that info

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Jönköping, Sweden

There's no rush to determine this now, accurate results takes time. I still say separate the versions temporarily til someone really digs into it and can establish an exact time conversion.

Germany

i argue that it won't get much closer than what we already have... between 1.6% and 1,9% is already a pretty small window if you ask me. the average of that should be 1.75% but since the 1.9% are a rather extreme case, i would opt for just 1.7%. i don't think we get something more accurate than this and i don't think we even need to. that's my opinion, though, feel free to convince me otherwise.

Canada

@Mazzin You're probably right, it won't be much of a difference than what was first calculated. Can we see the video? Just wondering what you did. Testing lag and comparing it is more difficult than just comparing two timers run down I think, especially with the RNG and execution involved, so averaging it for the entire run wouldn't make sense. No idea how to do that so for now we're looking at timing differences.

We have the first stage counting down the timer all the way and I think that's a good basis for determining the framerate of the game, much like what KDL did here, so . .

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Germany

if only i could handle multi screens in my editor... i had quite a struggle making this but here you have it:

that is all i can contribute and i'm not doing any more though, just saying.

Canada

Looks like only a 0.1s difference from the original time conversion, thanks for showing. Not at all much considering this type of lag isn't represented in the actual runs since we destroy the eyeballs, and hopefully not taking any damage as well. That would amount to just about an extra 2s if the entire run has lag like this throughout, which we know doesn't, so it will be even less. Like other games with substantial lag, differences in lag emulation could make a difference, testing it is difficult based on its inconsistency and RNG attributed to it.

Like other emulators as WiiU VC and 3DS VC, tools aren't there yet, so we do timer comparisons as a baseline to start. We'll do that for this game too like how other GB boards have done it, call it a work in progress. Otherwise we're just stuck in a standstill here not moving forward, and we want to move on. I'm certain the top time won't be changed drastically, based on what we have as a basis from the first video. Someone if anyone ever can do more testing let us know, and we can always return to this. We won't separate emulators from hardware just because one happens to emulate the game better than another is no reason to separate it, this argument only implies to official released and not 3rd party emulators (most people already know which 3rd party emulators are accepted). You want to argue about accessibility, the AC version is the easiest to obtain. I doubt anything other than GB community actually does time conversions, though I don't know. I know NES doesn't (FDS just removes load times which is easily to calculate), even for Super Mario Bros, one of the most popular titles to speedrun.

@Mazzin I'll change your time soon (it'll be 18:31 at the moment). I'll also update the rules to reflect that time change, and if you want to update your title to reflect that you can go ahead.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Mazzin and KomradeKontroll like this
Germany

so the factor is +1.7% now or what exactly did you choose to define it?

i cannot change my thumbnail of the run unless i completely redo it with another image, but i think i might just leave that time there so that viewers don't get confused by the running timer within the video itself. and also that unconverted time is still the actual real time after all... so i guess it should be ok if i only mention it in a new video title and the description part.

other than that, thanks to all for the helpful discussions here and i personally hope to see any new or old competitor to try to beat my run. after taking the new conversion into account, we still didn't see a sub 18:30 run yet, so that is still up for grabs! go get it and claim your gold medal from me! i wish you good RNG and much fun! (because i actually had a lot of fun with it, not kidding)

PS: you could even ask me for tipps for the run as long as my mind can still remember them :D just hit me up on discord or comment on my WR run and i will help you out.

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