Why is it required for you to include loading times in runs?
7 years ago
Virginia, USA

My runs are terrible so you could beat them even with bad loading times. :^)

But honestly, I don't know why. It's just the way that things have been done. I would have no problem with omitting loading times to make it fair for people who don't have the best PCs. Plenty of other games have a space for submitting times without loads as well as the general RTA time, like Dishonored or Fallout 4, so why not L4D2? I guess it just hasn't been seen as a big deal considering not many people run this game as it is.

Czech Republic

Because most speedruns here use RTA method of timing (real time attack). Using time without loads without auto-splitter means manually timing every run, which is quite a lot of work.

If your loading times are really that bad, but you have enough RAM, you can use Ramdisk like this one:

https://www.softperfect.com/products/ramdisk/

North Carolina, USA

I agree loading times are silly, and that comes from the aforementioned master who is currently benefiting quite a lot competitively from their being included. I love you, my precious little Solid State Drives! Just for measurement, I'll paste my loading times again that I tested a while ago. These are taken from a fresh launch loading into Dead Center and rotating maps by noclipping to each saferoom.

Newest: 11.03, 6.90, 7.00, 6.26

2.0.0.8: 8.03, 3.33, 3.73, 2.16

On the old one I load Atrium in 2.16 seconds. I mean... really now.

To add to the couple of games Canterlott listed, Alien Swarm has two columns to submit times with and without loads as well, and that is a game I currently have the records for so I have experience with removing loads from a run. For individual level RTA's, the method I worked out there was to cut the frames specifically on when the game's HUD appears and disappears which isn't hard at all, you just need Avidemux (in my case) and a little direction. For the full-game run, it's a bit different but still easy. I've already utilized this idea in L4D2 when my splits were right on the edge between seconds, cutting where the HUD appears and disappears which seems consistent. Loading between levels would probably be about the same, that I haven't tried.

The only problem is this does create a bit of overhead for the individual runner as they will need to do this before submitting and a lot of people just have their Twitch stream and throw it up there. In this case perhaps they should just take the extra hit in time? I'm not sure, really, but I agree that, now that the times submitted are quite competitive, this advantage is about to be magnified tenfold if any runners try to come in and seriously compete now. It may not have been a problem when the times were slow anyway, but it will be soon. You would also wonder what to do about co-op timing, to that I'd say it should resume the moment the host (or first player) finishes their load, which will require their perspective to be recorded (me, in the case of our runs).

Considering not many runs end up being submitted it's also possible for moderators to download the video and grab the time without loads themselves, but of course it should fall on the runner to take that job. Although it is still not very hard or time-consuming, really.

The real problem is, assuming this new rule was put into effect, what is done about the runs already up? Now converting those would be quite time-consuming. I'd happily update my own if that is enough... I guess it is? It's kind of the starting point anyway, updating the other runs probably wouldn't change the leaderboards around much at the moment.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Czech Republic

There's one thing that can have a huge effect on your loading times: Graphics setting

Lower resolution, textures or shaders means less data needs to be transfered.

Game stats
Followers
1,525
Runs
2,609
Players
508
Latest news
Minor rule changes/clarifications

Hey everyone, some minor changes to the rules - solely to clarify things/change wording, no rules actually "changed" (at least not in any way that will be relevant to 99.9% of people):

  • The linked guide for demo recording is now in a new location on the internet ( 👀 ) and was reworked to hope
1 month ago
Latest threads