PC Disc Versus All Other Versions Excluding DC
9 years ago
Ohio, USA

Now, HOPEFULLY many of you are aware of this, but if you aren't, you will be now. PC Disc runs at a faster speed, or has a higher capped speed than the other versions EXCEPT during cutscenes. It's cap is 63 frames per second which is about a 5% increase in speed. Just to be clear, if the game adds an extra 3 frames per second, after 20 seconds, the person will gain 1 extra second off of any of the other versions. Obviously, you'd need a damn good PC to keep the framerate constant enough to do that, but this can factor in for about an entire minute in Sonic's Story alone. Possibly even more.

For a clearer picture of how much is affected by this, here's a comparison between a run I did on console versus one of CJ's older runs (where we had the same time in a level):

Now, CJ's game doesn't run at a constant 62 frames per second. I want to make that completely clear. Most people's PCs would run the game between 60 and 63 FPS most of the time, with some lag spikes here and there. Now, there is a problem with this, or it impedes on something I've wanted to happen for a while... Switching over to RTA without loads. Even with this, PC disc would have at least a minute of advantages, and people with the faster PCs would reign supreme anyways.

So... What? You want to know what this means? Well... Not very much, really. Separating the versions would be stupid and kill competition/motivation for competition and removing PC disc in general would pretty much be even worse. The only proposal is a mod for PC disc to have a continuous timer in the HUB world that doesn't count cutscenes, results screens, and loading screens. Then you could just manually count everything in the other versions for RTA without loads and it'd be very accurate. However, not sure if that's possible, or even worth doing anyways, so... Yeah...

Colorado, USA

Does the disk actually run faster than the Steam version? Why would it do that?

The most fair way to deal with this would be to require an FPS counter and the use of FPS limiting software. If not, then the only way to seriously speedrun this game on PC is to play the disk version on a rig that can keep the game at a constant 63 fps.

Ohio, USA

Yes, PC disc runs faster than Steam

Unfortunately, though, limiting the FPS for PC disc somehow would actually make EVERY PC disc run invalid. EVERY SINGLE ONE!

However, I HAVE found a possible way to track in-game time using the file timer (in the cheat engine, the value actually stores frames and is accurate enough to work), but the problem being using it for other stories (which is fine on PC disc, since you can use the cheat engine to hack the save file and revert the frame counter to 0) and viewing the actual amount of frames in other versions (which might be possible, but it'd only be easy on GC, since you could check the values by transferring data to an SD card, pop it in Dolphin and check the value that way).

If we find a way around this, we could use those numbers to be a better comparison (at least for Sonic's Story), and that would disregard the difference in framerate. It'd be a necessity for Super Sonic's Story, but anything other than Sonic's Story is for a later date

Not to mention this is all theoretical to begin with, but it's a good basis, so...

Ohio, USA

Yes, PC disc runs faster than Steam

Unfortunately, though, limiting the FPS for PC disc somehow would actually make EVERY PC disc run invalid. EVERY SINGLE ONE!

However, I HAVE found a possible way to track in-game time using the file timer (in the cheat engine, the value actually stores frames and is accurate enough to work), but the problem being using it for other stories (which is fine on PC disc, since you can use the cheat engine to hack the save file and revert the frame counter to 0) and viewing the actual amount of frames in other versions (which might be possible, but it'd only be easy on GC, since you could check the values by transferring data to an SD card, pop it in Dolphin and check the value that way).

If we find a way around this, we could use those numbers to be a better comparison (at least for Sonic's Story), and that would disregard the difference in framerate. It'd be a necessity for Super Sonic's Story, but anything other than Sonic's Story is for a later date

Not to mention this is all theoretical to begin with, but it's a good basis, so...

Scotland

Thought I'd give my 2 cents (if this work pc lets me post things that is). I liked the idea of the without loads because I've always been a big believer of the other games that have without loads that usually have huge load zones for some people (portal and amnesia mostly in my case) would make running it for other people to be a huge hassle and not even worth attempting. Sadly, it does look like the only way to make a fair run like that would be to manually count overworlds and add them on to the finished time due to the fact that a 3 hour Sonic Story run could technically be 14 minutes XX seconds IGT. The way it stands is weird for now, I guess SADX isn't too highly technical and demanding that the loads are a problem "yet". The sad fact is obviously nullifying other versions seeing as it stands to show that PC is conquering all. Hopefully this discussion has progressed a bit since me posting this, I'm away and can't exactly check Skype and such but yeah, hope my words are appreciated.

New York, USA

I've been talking with mainmem, and sonicfreak, trying to remove "loads" and actually limit the games "fps" to 60 and timing all hub movment but due to the exact requirements needed by said mod, MM/SF cant just drop everything to do it, i have been working with them in their free time, just like all the mods for this game, "CCEF, Keep Alive, Ghost ETC" they are ALL free from non paid devs. things take time. no ETA no teaser, just know its being worked it, expect for when it itsnt being work on,

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