I would prefer if we wouldnt count loading times as run time

I started work on a no-loads timer but stopped doing episode runs shortly afterward, so work on it never continued. If I can find the old code for it I can maybe demo it to show people how it works. The idea would be to load it in LiveSplit so that it would run automatically.

This would definitely be the most fair thing to do it, especially considering all platforms are together for times, but I don't know how you would go about it except for PC. Also, more consistent timing might be necessary as only going by seconds could cause cascading errors when removing loads.

To follow up on this old discussion, allow me to offer a demonstration of a script I was sporadically working on but seems to be in working order:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cwuiQ-Sx1s

As the video will show, any segment of the game in which the game is loading (signified by the camera in the bottom-right corner of the screen printing the picture), the Game Time timer pauses and the "Playing" variable that I display switches from "True" (meaning the game is in a playing state and therefore not loading) to "False" (meaning the game is in a loading state).

If used for runs, times would only differ in terms of player skill, not in terms of how quickly or slowly the game loads.

I do like the idea, but hopefully there would be a way to use it retroactively to retime previous runs.

I was thinking about this today, and there are ways to retime runs so that loads are removed. Unfortunately, LiveSplit can't do this, so the runs would have to be retimed manually.

If the VOD's could be downloaded and opened in a program like Avidemux, it is possible to take sections of the video out of the footage (in this case the load screens) and determine the final time by whatever duration remains of the video. In this way, you won't have to sit through the entire video, since you can scan through the video to find loads fairly easily. You would also be able to count to the exact frame that the load starts and stops with frame advance and frame rewind functions.

This is not a perfect solution, but with some coordination among a team it would go by faster. The hardest videos to retime would of course be the full game runs.

Let me know what you think. Considering that I haven't been around for a while, it's helpful to get comments from people who are more active in the community. Thank you.

Update: I decided to try removing loads from my Episode 1 Any% time, and I ended up with a 46:43.432, which, given that my PB in real time is 46:51, means my load times take up about eight seconds. It wasn't too difficult for me to figure out how to crop out loads in Avidemux, and the camera icon in-game obviously gives a nice visual indicator of loads. What you essentially do is delete the part of your PB video from video start to run start and then from run end to video end. Once that's done, you will have to comb through your run to find the points where the game is loading. You mark off start and stop points for the loads and then delete them.

The trickiest part of this is remembering where all of the loads are, but runners familiar with the game should know enough about where they are based on what major level transitions take place in the run. You would also need the video file itself, so you would have to find a way to download it (ideally with the runner's permission) or request it from the runner.

Also, as an aside, my Avidemux crashed when trying to save my PB video with the loads removed, so to be safe, once you start cutting out loads, you shouldn't close out of Avidemux until you're done. This may not happen to you (my computer is a bit wonky) but I wanted to offer fair warning in case it does.

To do this in Avidemux, you only need to know that the button with the A on it marks the start point of a segment, the button with the B on it marks the end point, and to remove the segment you can hit the Delete key. The rest is navigating through the video, which you can do by tapping the Left/Right arrow keys for frame advance, holding the Left/Right arrow keys for real-time video playback, and using the Up and Down keys to jump ahead in small intervals.

If there is demand for it, I can make an instructional document for the Resources section, but it's not too hard to navigate around Avidemux and figure out what you're doing. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you.

The way my timer works is it removes loads in all the parts of the game where the camera is developing in the lower right on a black screen. I retimed my episode 1 PB using this standard. Let me know what you think.

Do you have kind of a demo version of your timeer? I would like to test it. Loading times seem to hold me back so I´m really interested in your timer :)

I should still have it, so I'll look for a way to get it to you. Might be easiest to post it as a resource to this game, although I'm not sure we'd be accepting it as the standard for timing runs in the future. I suppose that would have to be up for debate.

Still, it's a file that could just be opened in Notepad and saved under the right filetype, so if it can't be shared on this site it could go on pastebin or something.

This would be really nice. I think it should be standard to remove loading times, otherwise people with better pc have a big advantage

Yes, it would be nice, but then console runs wouldn't be valid since the timer only works on pc. Maybe it would work if it was a secondary time that you put in when uploading the run, along with the time with loads

Thats a very good idea. someone would have to modify the speedrun section for this run, so you can enter IGT and RT right?

I mod other boards and that is how it would typically work. There is also a Discord server linked in the forums where many of the mods are so I can bring it up with them and see if I can upload it to be used directly with LiveSplit. I've brought it up before and they seemed open to the idea except what to do with timing already uploaded runs. We'll see how it goes.

I shared the file on the Discord server, for which there is a link in these forums. You'll need to know how to set LiveSplit up to use an ASL file, which I believe means you need to add it as a component like you would a timer or a graph. If enough people test it and tell me that it works it could lead to some discussion about how to handle load removing for this game in the future.