By popular request, the PC AI speedrun community has decided to revisit use of the Crouch-Clipping and related glitches (V-Sync Toggling, Resolution Toggling) in any/all categories of runs.

Crouch-Clipping has been treated as permissible under one of our early rules, which allowed runners to rebind their mousewheel to function as the "use" key.

By extension, V-Sync Toggling and Resolution Toggling have been treated as permissible as mid-run manipulation of an in-game option without the use of a third-party program.

Over the past few months, a number of concerns have been expressed as to the use of each of these glitches, and specifically whether and to what extent they should be permissible in any/all runs. Therefore, we as a community must consider the following options:

(1) Do Nothing

Preserve the status quo: Crouch-Clipping, V-Sync Toggling, and Resolution Toggling continue to be permissible in non-legacy category runs. Third-party programs continue to be impermissible in all runs.

(2) No Resolution Toggling

Crouch-Clipping and V-Sync Toggling continue to be permissible in non-legacy category runs. Resolution Toggling and third-party programs become or continue to be impermissible in all runs.

For context, please see my previous post at http://www.speedrun.com/ai/thread/nio77

TL;DR - Resolution Toggling was an effort to level the playing field among runners whose hardware could not produce the 200+ FPS required for V-Sync Toggling, specifically needed for one clip in Mission 11 and simplifying the elevator clip to Mission 18. It quickly became apparent that Resolution Toggling enabled many more clips than were previously thought to be possible without the use of a third-party program.

The main expressed concerns with Resolution Toggling have been that (1) it requires "hacking" the game's configuration file to add a custom resolution high enough to provide a sufficient drop in FPS for these and other clips; and (2) it requires swapping resolutions to actually achieve the FPS drop, which feels - and looks - messy. Additionally, Resolution Toggling is not a perfect solution; runners with better computers are still able to "toggle" faster between resolutions because of the time it takes for GPU drivers to refresh the display between toggles.

If we decide that Resolution Toggling should not be permitted, it may renew concerns about V-Sync Toggling, which is only possible for certain machines capable of running the game at 200+ FPS.

While most PC speedrun communities do not ban glitches simply because they cannot be performed on low end or older hardware, the communities may take steps to make those glitches possible even where the runner's hardware does not. See (5) below.

(3) No Resolution Toggling or V-Sync Toggling

Crouch-Clipping continues to be permissible in non-legacy category runs. Resolution Toggling, V-Sync Toggling and third-party programs become or continue to be impermissible in all runs.

The initial concerns with Crouch-Clipping focused on perceived randomness or luck of certain clips. Through extensive testing across a diverse range of hardware, it became apparent that Crouch-Clipping is highly FPS dependent. Certain clips do not work consistently if the game is running above or below a specific FPS, or outside a specific FPS range. As noted above, a few of those clips (M11 and M18) were determined to be either impossible or demonstrably less consistent without use of V-Sync Toggling. Thus, certain runners whose hardware could not produce 200+ FPS could not take advantage of V-Sync Toggling.

If we decide that Resolution Toggling and V-Sync Toggling should not be permitted, it may renew concerns about the difficulty or inconsistency of certain clips (M18) absent use of either. It may also be difficult for runners with low end or older hardware, or conversely very high end or new hardware, to achieve optimal FPS for specific clips.

(4) Legacy

Revert to pre-legacy: Crouch-Clipping, V-Sync Toggling, Resolution Toggling, and third-party programs become or continue to be impermissible in all runs.

(5) Go Further

Crouch-Clipping, V-Sync Toggling, Resolution Toggling continue to be permissible in non-legacy category runs. Additionally, third-party programs (e.g., Dxtory) may be used SOLELY to toggle FPS decreases for purposes of Crouch-Clipping or Air Running in non-legacy category runs. Third-party programs continue to be impermissible for any other use.

The foregoing list would be incomplete without this option. Compelling arguments can be made both against and in favor of use of a third-party program in a speedrun. The argument against is quite simple: use of a third-party program goes beyond the confines of the game.

The argument in favor is more complex, but worth exploring. Given the nature of our "skips," it is a source of tremendous frustration that we were not provided a developer console or simple in-game option to allow us to dynamically change FPS, which is a trivial task in a number of games (i.e. Half-Life and its progeny). For those games, runners can simply bind a key to cap their FPS for whatever manipulation or glitch is being performed. Absent such an option, we are stuck doing the "messy" solution of Resolution Toggling to achieve the same effect within the confines of the game.

With Dxtory or a comparable third-party program, it would obviate the need to set custom resolutions, would work the same on essentially every machine, and would "clean up" the clunky nature of Resolution Toggling while permitting us to continue to break the game completely.

It is not unprecedented for a speedrun community to allow use of third-party programs. Two popular speedrun communities do so specifically so that runners without necessary hardware can perform all the same tricks.

A certain skip in the Dishonored speedrun is extremely inconsistent without the use of a freescroll mouse. The Dishonored community specifically allows runners who do not have a freescroll mouse to use a macro/autohotkey script to perform the skip.

Similarly, several rail/edge boosts in the new Doom speedrun require a specific (high) FPS. The Doom community specifically allows runners to use a trainer which has the sole function of dropping draw/view distance to achieve sufficient FPS for these skips.

Ultimately, though, it is up to the runners of each community to decide what is and isn't allowed. Thoughts and comments welcomed.

My thoughts are as follows.

I was one of the few people who didn't like V-sync toggling to begin with. Over time; I just simply accepted it to be part of the run, but refused to do it in actual runs. This was a forced handicap but I didn't mind. Further advances made Resolution Togging become a thing. Now it was possible for people to set insanely high resolutions to drop their FPS to 5~ and achieve certain clips that were just simply impossible without, or to allow others to clip through objects they couldn't before. This required editing a config file; which we already do to set key binds so that part I didn't mind too much. However...

What I did care about, was how it was shown to the viewers. The screen was much like a slideshow, rather than a video. It isn't enjoyable to watch for me personally, but others might have different opinions.

• Does that mean it should be banned? No, I don't think so. I just don't watch true Any% runs anymore as a preference.
• Did it kill the game? That's debatable. A:I has had slumps in the past.
• Banning it won't bring the game back to life. There are other categories.

So, in general; I believe that we could go further for the non-legacy runs to make it less "messy". Sure, it's a slideshow during the clippings, but that's better than taking 4 steps backwards in my opinion. If people don't want to run the categories; they just don't have to, and can run a different category if they wish.

• Ruuj

I'm gonna go ahead and say we should go with option 5: Keep all the clips, allow Dxtory (or similar) to facilitate them.

My thoughts on some specific issues:

Yes, the game does not look pretty at 5 FPS. I think using a tool will help this issue somewhat because we should not get bad flickering or tearing anymore, but it's still a slide show. The actual clips only take a few seconds, of course, so over the course of a run (more on the categories below) viewers and runners would only have to deal with this for a short amount of time. And using a tool actually helps with this! I just tried it out in a few spots, it takes less time to set up, it takes less time to turn it off, there is no black flickering, and you can be a lot more precise with how long you have to use it, which also cuts down on the time the toggle is active.

Any% is probably a dead category. I think if we keep clips, then All Missions will become the category of choice for most people. It shows off a lot of the game and, unlike Any%, which is three minutes of exposition, five minutes of running, two big clips, and then more running, is actually fun. I have to say I haven't been a big fan of Any% since the shotgun route (because it was basically completely luck-based) anyway, so I wouldn't be terribly upset about this. There are other games where the true Any% route is not the first choice for most runners - Super Metroid comes to mind, the most famous categories are Any% without major glitches (heh) and 100%.

I would hate it if we ended up banning clips and everyone went back to 3-hour runs. Sections of this game just drag on for so long, and I have stared at Axel's butt too many times and for too long to be enthusiastic about going back to that after we've discovered all these neat tricks for getting around that. I also don't think this will magically make the game more popular again or anything. Alien: Isolation speedruns are a niche within a niche, I don't think we will ever have more than a handful of people running this game. All Missions seems like a good compromise between keeping sweet speedtech while still showing off the actual game. You have the benefit of skipping long and tiresome parts, but things like M14 Nest and Reactor sections (not to mention runkiller M16 :D ) are still in. But Legacy runs simply take a very long time. Most runners can only really do one attempt per stream, which I think can also contribute to people losing interest. Not that I blame runners for it, I hate having to start over after dying in M11 or something (because of all the previous boring crap), but I remember when I got into this game how cool it was to catch Psycho streaming it - and how much it sucked if he had a bad mission and would end the stream early because starting over again after already putting, like, an hour and a half into a run was a lot of wasted time. Legacy runs are fun sometimes, but I'd be pretty annoyed if that became the only category again.

Initially I thought I would be in favour of banning toggling and keeping clipping, but I have to say I've changed my mind on that. Some of the crouch clips are very RNG-heavy, using resolution toggling (as in, tool-assisted FPS change) levels the playing field there and makes it easier for everyone to get the big clips without having to try over and over until they get it right. I was pretty much unable to run

So I think we should focus on making the game better to watch (by using tools), more fun to play (by running All Missions or Legacy), and getting new people involved (by doing things like regular races like Ruuj has suggested and is currently planning). No one has to run Any% - I did it to get a time on the board, I'm done with that category now - having fun should still be the main concern, but for me at least that would not be a three-hour run or lucking out on an elevator clip when a very consistent method is available. Maybe a good compromise there would be to create another category that does ban toggling. You know, no major glitches! :D

I don't run this game, but I'm somewhere between 1) and 2). The problem I see with the Resolution Toggle is that it requires editing configuration files outside of the game, which in my opinion should never be allowed in any speedrun. Some games allow you such extensive editing (simply open a text file and delete a few lines) that you only have to play 1 mission instead of 20+ :)

As for allowing Dxtory - that would make it TAS, because you use a 3rd party tool to affect the game's behaviour. Some communities allow it (Fallout 4 for example) to have more fair competition and easier skips, which I don't agree with. PC speedrunning will never be fair and people with faster PCs will always have an advantage :( The only time I would allow Dxtory is to lock the framerate of a game to fix some issues that happen with too high fps.

Resolution Toggling kills the game, it does, it might be more popular under people that have a bad PC and cannot do certain tricks with just crouchclipping (like me), but how crazy does it sounds; you get into a config folder, change some values of certain resolutions, so you're FPS will drop like hell.

I do know that it is impossible to just ban resolution toggling, and keep crouchclipping there, because it will be 'not fair' anymore. But Resolution Toggling is not 'fair' as well. First of all, it kills your desktop; this might not be one of the better reasons, but a lot of people like to have a standard desktop setup and changing to such an high resolution will screw it up. Also, for streamers in particular, streamers like to have a stream setup, game in the middle; chat next to it; livesplit on other monitor; obs open and some other tabs. One resolution toggle and everything is back to places windows wants to have it on that resolution.

Last but not least, resolution toggling is still way faster for people with high-end CPU's, switching between resolution is for them like 3/4 seconds faster, and that much time is important in runs like Any%.

I want the old route again, have a little bit of specification difference between certain people for crouchclipping, but please, don't fuck up the game by changing your resolution to such an HIGH amount, that you will get < 10 fps, it's just crazy.

This is a tough one. From purely a ‘speedrunner’ perspective, I think we should keep Resolution Toggling, V-sync Toggling, and Crouch Clipping. Our goal is to beat the game as fast as possible, using any and everything within the game to help us achieve that; exploitations, glitches, etc. included. But you can’t just approach the problem from one perspective obviously. Speedrunning is also naturally competitive and so fairness and integrity between all runners must also be upheld. From this perspective the clipping glitches can been viewed as very volatile from person to person. They can be inconsistent and all clips are different, there are hardware limitations, and there is also editing in an extreme custom resolution specific to the person in order to get FPS at an optimal level for clipping. So solely from this perspective, you’d probably want to remove everything back to Legacy. But I think the key here is finding a balance between these two and not being ignorant to one or the other.

So for me personally, I think we might have to resort to using third-party programs like Dxtory to ensure fairness while also not sacrificing things that makes running the game fun and interesting. Obviously this then brings up the counter argument that using third-party programs isn’t exactly a ‘fair’ speedrun as it’s using things outside of the games limitations. But for me, I think it’s OK as long as its intentions are for the best of everyone and the community. In the end we all just want to have fun speedrunning a game we love so why not try something different to pursue that.

Also if this did come to pass, we’d probably have two overall major categories: Legacy and TAS. Legacy is everything that does not include any form of Crouch Clipping whereas TAS would include all forms of course clipping assisted by a tool such as Dxtory. Then they would have all the subcategories (Any%, All Missions, 100%, Low%, etc.) included under. And we can’t forget Console so that would be under Legacy or a third overall main category.

Anyway, I digress a little. I also don’t think specifically banning Resolution Toggling and/or V-sync Toggling is a good way to go at all, but keeping them and doing nothing at all is just as bad. If we keep Resolution Toggling, we have the awkward, extreme switch of resolutions but it is the fairest compromise that includes all forms of Crouch Clipping to date. If we ban Resolution Toggling, we then limit ourselves to V-sync Toggling. Keeping V-sync Toggling gives a very large advantage towards people with very good hardware and people with low to medium hardware cannot even use the technique. Banning V-sync Toggling also then limits us to normal Crouch Clipping. Keeping normal Crouch Clipping can make many clips inconsistent and give people with the optimal FPS (around 130) an advantage over others, similar to that which V-sync Toggling gives. Removing Crouch Clipping obviously then just makes it Legacy. I don’t believe there is a very good ‘in-the-middle’ solution, but there may be one I cannot foresee. I believe that in the end we either keep moving forward or circle back around to the very start.

In the end, not everyone is going to happy with the outcome. Trying to facilitate for everyone also is probably going to be impossible. But I hope that we can all move forward with the goal to just simply enjoy speedrunning this game as well as having fun together as a community.

That's why I think switching to allowing tools is the best solution. It doesn't require resolution toggling, it doesn't mess up desktops (which is a huge pain and one of the reasons I only ran Any% once to get a time on the board), it doesn't even require messing with config files - although I personally don't think that's a good argument one way or another as we already do that even for Legacy runs (mouse scroll to use/button mash).

As opinions seem pretty divided, maybe the best solution would be to add another category that does not allow for res toggling (or what amounts to res toggling) but keeps crouch clipping. The hardware issues regarding vsync definitely are a problem, but like I said about res toggling, someone who doesn't feel like they want or can run a category like that, wouldn't have to. I just personally think the skips and routes res toggling allows are too interesting to give up on.

Speedrunning with programs from outside? What is happening with this game guys.... Then remove it all, or make Nightmare legacy atleast the TOP category on the leaderboards.

I mean, what's happening is people found crazy ways of destroying the game, and they turn out to not be very fun in some cases, and we're trying to figure out what to do about it. I know you don't want to use res toggling, in the same way I don't feel like going back to 3-hour runs as the only existing category... I think tools would help cut down on how clunky and annoying res toggling is, that's all.

That's why I think a good solution would be to have categories for both. Could rename Legacy to Glitchless or something to increase its standing. We'd then have Glitchless, Any%, All Missions, and maybe throw in a No Major Glitches category that would exclude res toggling (and maybe vsync, but I don't have a particularly strong opinion on that one way or another).

I do agree with some things in your post twitchy, but I don't like the idea of mixing Legacy and All Missions together, purely because Legacy is the biggest category right now (most runners), that really digged the game etc. You can't fuck up such category and have NO category that excludes the major glitches (Crouchclipping, Resolution toggling etc.) Legacy will be the most popular category, and you can't ruin that and force people (with worse CPU's & specs) to do another 'All Missions' Run to then send it in for Legacy.

Lol well qD did a speedwalk that one time... :D

When psychorunning was found, the run was shortened by 20-30 minutes, with crouchclipping the whole game changes and you have potential to save 1 hour+. You fuck up config files; so I think we should make a seperate category for this.

I agree with most of the things twitchy wrote (but not all of it :P) and a few others about no to 3rd party software! Dxtory would require to tab out of the game everytime to change the fps (?) its not like on the fly changes like DOOM's trainer? which would give benefits for people which are running the game in windowed mode compared to fullscreen one which is much slower to get out of the game also timer still stutters little bit on vod and game menu is up when tabbing back in the game @fullscreen mode, so there is that.

Also I dont really see what exactly the problem is right now, we allowed long ago changing stuff via input.cfg, so I dont really see the problem using the resolution toggling (except the timer is a little bit messy on vod) to make things better overall for the people with older pc's compared to vsync and about vsync toggling even with a 6 years old pc I can use it still and one day everyone should have a decent pc, to even think about banning vsync toggling, just no.

Overall, the only little issue I see is the timer on the vod is messy but every person can use resolution toggling which is the fairest thing right now compared to vsync.

ps. Speedrunning isnt about making every single persons wish come true or happy :P (yes I have to follow rules aswell in other games such as Outlast any% and the Mousewheel ban for jumps and if I dont like it, simply stay away from it)

pss. to change any rules, the game is toooo dead for my taste, so I dont see any reason to change anything. (and pls dont come up with "the game would be alive with rule changes" you know you are wrong, thanks :P)

Hello everybody,

I've actually had some discussions about this topic with some people these days, and I was actually asked to add my point of view to this, which im gladly gonna do now. :)

Most speedgames have a common ground considering hardware and they are equal that way for most hardware setups people have approaching speedrunning in a game. We are one of the few exceptions with our always pretty hardware heavy game. Not only with the new clips we have to find ways to make the game equal for everyone. In the past without a loadremover we had minute wide gaps between different runners just because of loadtimes; even since we had the load remover, there always have been (and will continue to be) small hardware lags for lower to even mid end systems within the game that might be minor to the eye, but sum up to seconds and are never gonna be timed out. Even old speedgames are run in 800¤600 (like half-life) for exactly the same reason. Although I hate to admit it, this will always be our problem (and the problem of other games like DOOM) we will have to find new solutions for that maybe just can't be measured by old standards (or ethics) of a speedgame.

ResT I haven't tried so far, so I sorrily don't really feel entitled to judge about it. I pretty well remember crouchclipping and vsynctoggling though, and I can say: It is (from my perspective) unfair from runner to runner (system to system), but it indeed is fun (when you don't look at the time). So for my personal gaming experience, I would go on running the game with cc and maybe vsync, but I wouldn't necessarily go for leaderboards anymore exactly because of its unbalanced nature. I'm pretty sure, other people might feel about this the same way. But twitchy may be right and those that don't have the hardware for it, will just get left behind. I don't like it, but maybe it's what has to be done.

To be honest, the question whether we wanted to try and have a run open for at least most systems was fully decided when crouchclipping came up, and it cannot be resolved (the hardware gap became too big between runners). So what we lost back then in legacy runners most likely wont come back or compete for leaderboards anymore. Since this rupture basically is history, I'd recommend going on and using this game as an experimental field for a new approach. Just go for dxtory (and further) and see what it actually can add to the technicality of a (and our and other) game(s). Because there are other games out there that might in the future have similar problems as our game, that are very hardware dependent, that have possible skips which require some unusual way to achieve them. The question here is "why not". Give it a try.

Alien:Isolation never was appealing as a classical speedgame in terms of the best times on the leaderboards in a way. As a survival-horror game of marathon proportions it always bared the fascination of the true Single-Segment endurance test. In my opinion this is what has drawn "runners" into the game, to survive the run deathless (or nearly so), to sit through it, to have the tension and the realism. The now so-called Legacy category represented more of that feeling plus the cinematic atmosphere of a horror-movie which at least got me into the game, the thrill and the myth and being right in the middle of this experience. And it is - what I think - people want to see. Legacy in its more or less glitchless nature was kind of "realistic", still kind of but less like a "run", and it should stay that way. And that is why, by standard, we may have called it Any%. It would be wrong again to measure our game with these speedgame standards. It's just not its nature (imo).

That's why I would actually keep legacy as the realistic run category, but maybe sort them differently: Any%, All-Missions (including three buttons "legacy", "TAS" and "console" (or have console runs mixed into "legacy", not sure about that, or have console as a third own leaderboards): not simply different filters, but three leaderboard categories in one), and misc (including low% (with "legacy" and "TAS", because in this category it matters hugely), 100%, novice (with "legacy" and "TAS"). Low% and 100% could also stay seperate Main-Categories again ("Why not").

That's all that comes to my mind right now. :)

Greetings qd

For the sake of thoroughness (rather than advocacy), it should be noted that Dxtory is simply one option. It seems likely that a hotkey-enabled trainer could be created to specifically perform the same desired function, regardless of the display setting (as in Doom). Additionally, from a practical standpoint, there is very little difference (in terms of "skill") between toggling custom resolutions via ALT+ENTER and simply using a program to do the same. At best, the distinction is semantic (i.e. staying "within the confines of the game").

The primary concern with Resolution Toggling (as expressed to me, even by some who are not speedrunners) is that it goes beyond merely rebinding keys. That concern can be articulated further by those who share it.

Regarding popularity, a community should never change rules it previously deemed fair simply due to inactivity of runners. We have strived to make the run as fair as possible among runners who have a diverse range of hardware, but as twitchy and metzix have both noted, it is not always realistic to fully achieve this goal.

Regarding the categories (and priority thereof), this is indeed an important question, but it is largely driven by the underlying question of "what glitches are allowed?"

"It's a huge pity to see you make the same mistake 2nd time in a row." as you can see in this topic most of the runners want to keep CC, to be honest I dont see how it would be better to ban it and revert back to legacy which was a dead category until we found CC where the game was at least alive for a little while.

Yes, crouchclipping brought the game back for a few weeks, then it started being dead again. If you really want to keep CC and resolution toggling; be my guest. But please guys; think! Outside programs, changing Engine Settings, it's all ridiculous and you know it just fine (do you?)

Metzix - [quote]Overall, the only little issue I see is the timer on the vod is messy but every person can use resolution toggling which is the fairest thing right now compared to vsync.[/quote]

Fwiw the fairest method right now is TAS as switching between different resolutions can take more or less time depending on your hardware.

We're mostly running a PC game, so I don't think there will ever be a completely level playing field, but at least for me, advocating for tools over the config file method of resolution toggling is just about the convenience of it all - especially because some people are saying one of the problems of res-toggling is the way it messes up streams and viewer experience, Dxtory reduces the impact of both those issues. (Under the assumption, of course, that clipping-type exploits remain in the game. If we revert to Legacy-style runs, then that's obviously moot.)

Beyond this discussion I guess we should also just try and find some other ways to make the game more popular again, if possible.

The "Legacy" option (reversion) was included for the sake of completeness. Since this website supports multiple categories, it is difficult to justify deleting a category (or categories) that not only have community interest, but also have submitted runs.

As a note, it appears that Bandicam, which is a free program similar to Dxtory, has a hotkey-capable FPS limiter (thus removing any need to tab out of the game). See https://www.bandicam.com/support/settings/fps/

This has been tested and works the same regardless of whether the game is set to run in windowed, windowed fullscreen, or fullscreen mode.

Based on the responses thus far, which have been both thorough and thoughtful, it would appear the best path for us going forward would be to separate runs into three sub-categories:

(1) No Crouch-Clipping

(2) Crouch-Clipping (with V-Sync Toggling, but not Resolution Toggling)

(3) Resolution Toggling/Third-Party Programs (solely for framerate/FPS limitation)

Regarding (2), there has not been a compelling argument against the permissibility of V-Sync Toggling. While it may be somewhat disadvantageous to runners with significantly older hardware, it is not always realistic to make every glitch work exactly the same on every machine. This is especially true where, as here, the glitch is possible on hardware that is already very far from cutting edge (e.g., my PC is nearly 6 years old and capable of V-Sync Toggling).

Regarding (3), insofar as multiple runners have expressed continued support for Resolution Toggling and interest in "going further," the simplest solution to the concerns about it would be to make it a separate subcategory. Those that do not wish to run this category are under no obligation to do so.

For those that do, it seems overly pedantic to draw a distinction between Resolution Toggling and use of a Third-Party Program to do the same. The configuration edits required for Resolution Toggling are admittedly more substantial than the simple input tweaks necessary to permit Crouch-Clipping. Additionally, as noted, there is effectively no "skill" difference in pressing ALT+ENTER to toggle a high resolution for purpose of achieving a framerate/FPS drop and pressing a hotkey of choice (i.e. with Bandicam) to do the same. The primary benefit is not functional, but aesthetic.

The leaderboard categories have been revised to reflect this, but feel free to provide thoughts and comments on the order/presentation.