PSA: Turn Vsync ON.
6 years ago
Drenthe, Netherlands

So, I guess this was never clarified on speedrun.com and the active runners just kind of knew about it, but obviously this has to be spelled out explicitly.

Transistor is framerate-based. It will run faster if your game runs at higher than 60 FPS. Therefore, for fair competition, your run must be done at 60 FPS.

The game's vsync system isn't as simple as a menu option, though. Usually, as long as you play in online mode, it should be on. However, to ensure your framerate is capped, open the game's Steam launch options and enter "/SwapInterval=1". This should apply vsync to any NEW save files you start.

(Apologies to Murihoro whose PB is invalidated by this.)

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Rhône-Alpes, France

I'll have to check on that this evening, but I played it in online mode (and as a proof, you can see my steam page: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198012270276 ). I didn't make any modification to the game, except activating the "disable display scaling on high DPI settings" option because the game has problem with full screen on my computer, but this has normally nothing to do with vsync. If there is eventually a problem with vsync, that might have something to do with an update of the game (it may have been made an option in the menu and I would have unchecked it).

This may also be a video bug, because it does feel faster than when I am in game. I'll try to get better/smoother video (it may looks faster because of the 30fps so I'll switch to 60fps), and I will check if the video is not simply running faster by comparing my real time and the length of the video.

Anyway, nothing malicious on my part, and sorry for the trouble. I'll investigate that matter and submit a proper PB.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Drenthe, Netherlands

Just see if entering /SwapInterval=1 in the Steam launch options makes a difference.

It's my fault for not explaining this issue on speedrun.com anywhere, since nobody reads SDA anymore.

Rhône-Alpes, France

I looked it up a little bit on Google, and the culprit might be the Nvidia Control Panel which can bypass Steam and deactivate the Vsync on its own. But I won't be sure before getting back on my computer tonight.

And yeah, after rewatching it, there's now way I can do a shorter first segment than Cadarev by more than 10s.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Rhône-Alpes, France

Yeah Nvidia control panel can dick you sometimes and update your settings to "best default" without asking you. I never knew about this rule, however I always played online. If I get back to speedrunning Transistor I'll just use the option!

Rhône-Alpes, France

Ok, forget my previous comment. In short, I was saying that my game was faster and that the -SwapInterval=1 fixed that but it actually didn't.

So my game IS faster than 60FPS: the FPS displaying tool in Steam indicates a framerate of 66FPS. What is funny is that the ratio between 66 and 60 is approximately the ratio between my first segment and Cadarev's one, so it is probably the explanation behind my time.

However, all the things I tried to activate the Vsync didn't work, and my framerate is still at 66FPS. The only thing that I managed to do is having my framerate at 200FPS thanks to the /nofixedstep launching option. But using either -1, 0 or 1 on SwapInterval doesn't seem to change anything. Not sure how to continue from there, any idea ?

EDIT : Apparently the game is locked at 66 FPS in "VSync", so my game is actually not faster ( https://steamcommunity.com/app/237930/discussions/1/540743128801326102/ )? I'm started to get lost in all that...

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Drenthe, Netherlands

Try running the game in offline mode, and using swapinterval=1. Or just see if at 200fps it runs at the correct speed.

Rhône-Alpes, France

Nope, 200fps is faster, and significantly. I can't see why the speed would be more accurate at 200 fps than at 66fps. x)

It's as if my game didn't want to be capped at 60fps. I tried using Dxtory, but it will either cap at 30fps (which is awful to play but does get me longer segments) or at 66fps. I'm completely at loss right now. I'm reinstalling the game right now, will try some compatibility mode (I'm on W10) and hope for a miracle

EDIT : Ok, I may have something. The only way that I found is to deactivate completely the Vsync thanks to "nofixedstep" and to externally cap the FPS of the game thanks to DXtory. It seems to do the trick, even though I'm really surprised to be the only one having to go to such lengths in order to have my game running at 60FPS. Anyway, it might be better to clarify the rules as "run at 60 fps capped" as I'm deeply convinced that the "Vsync feature" of the game is making it run at 66fps on my computer.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
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