Current runs - Re-Timed
5 years ago
Berlin, Germany

Hey there :)

I just did some work and re-timed all the current runs with the actual in-game playtime and cutting out all the loading times and level transitions in-between. As written in this thread (https://www.speedrun.com/greatgianasisters/thread/v5g6y) it's really difficult / impossible to make a reliable RTA ruleset for emulated games of this kind, that makes it fair for everyone. Different emulator settings result in different loading times, but also maybe other factors like emu-version may make a difference in the resulting times in-between the actual gameplay. Especially people who want to play on real hardware would be treated really unfair. The only solution i found, is to just take the actual time the game is played and eliminate all the other "analog" factors.

My method was to take the uploaded video and cut out all the level-transitions with a video editing tool. I tried to do this as accurate as possible. Though because of different framerates of the captures (the game runs at 50 fps, some videos are 25, others 30 fps etc..) there may be one frame plus or minus in the transitions, though they shoud even out through the entire run. But i don't think we have to be accurate down to milliseconds anyway yet. ;)

Here's the results and the corresponding supercut-videos:

  1. Reboot - 06:01 -

  2. RoboSparkle - 06:22 -

  3. MilkToast - 06:31 -

  4. WojT__gl - 06:53 -

Some final things i noticed in these runs: In Reboot's original video there was no Timer-Countdown between stage 14 and 15. Looks like a glitch but i never encountered that in my attempts before. Also WojT__gl used some weird graphics mod i didn't see before. I wouldn't have accepted this run, but it looks like the gameplay is still legit. Also i didn't bother to cut the Warpless run from TaTuMi3 since it's just a random slow playthrough and not really a speedrun.

I hope this may bring some more consistency into this game and hope to see more runs submitted. Mine will come soon, too :)

Stay awesome! Mike

Edited by the author 5 years ago
MilkToast likes this
Hesse, Germany

Hi,

great work retiming our runs thanks mate.

The version WojT__gl is playing seems to be the special edition so it might be legit. http://www.indieretronews.com/2018/07/giana-sisters-special-edition-amiga.html

About becoming a moderator: If you like to you can also suggest me as an additional moderator, I am already one for some other games so I am kinda legit. I am not sure if they will grant moderator right to a person which is kinda new to all of this. (We did the same at Loom, Firefyte became SuperMod and made me normal Mod)

Cheers and keep on running ;)

MightyMike9001 likes this
Berlin, Germany

Hey MilkToast,

I just submitted my first run :) Of course i can suggest you as an additional mod. But maybe it's even better when you apply and suggest me as Co-Mod, because as you said, i'm quite new here.

I also developed an Auto-Splitter which stops time during the level transistions. I used it the first time in my run. It's not really user friendly to use yet, but i will continue developing and post here as soon as it's somehow useable :) If you (or someone else) is interested in testing, feel free to contact me.

Here's the Supercut of my current submission (6:03). There's still a lot of room for improvement, but at least i have something to show ;)

have a great time, Mike

MilkToast likes this
Hesse, Germany

Wow nice one, looked almost flaweless (didnt see much room for improvement, but still possible to beat). Only god nows how much of a grindfest this was for you :D Wonder which section/Level did drove you crazy the most?

I asked about becoming a moderator you can follow that here: https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/63nr7/342#d0ni1

Cheers

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Hesse, Germany

Hi Mike,

I would suggest everyone of us tries to contact a different Mod (if not already done?). You can choose if you like to have RoboSparkle or Mmeaninglessnamee. Lets see when and what result we will getting. Okay?

(I dont really get this Discord, tried to send you a message but seems only to work if you are online...dunno yet)

Germany

[quote=MightyMike9001] In Reboot's original video there was no Timer-Countdown between stage 14 and 15. Looks like a glitch but i never encountered that in my attempts before. [/quote]

Yes, that is a glitch in the game. And it is not random, you can do it every time. Which is actually a reason why cutting out the loading and bonus screen might not be a good idea. If you can do the trick, you get a better time. Also if you time your button press to start the next level better. It is not just a loading screen, it has some interaction which affect your overall time.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Berlin, Germany

Hmm ok i understand.. but is this really the way we want to go here? I mean in the end it would only depend on whether you get the glitch or not - in every of the 20 levels. Playing the levels good or bad would become more and more meaningless. Maybe it could be an extra category or something like this.

Berlin, Germany

Hey MilkToast, i wrote you on twitch, look at the Icon in the lower right corner ;) I also tried to contact RoboSparkle through twitter. Let's see

Ohio, USA

Hey, game mod here.

I have no useful feedback but I just wanted to say something so people know that I am still alive. I really have no opinion on how to time this game, I only play Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams but got added as a mod for this game too.

If there's a good tool for removing load times or something, switching over to that is probably the best solution, but I'd defer to the people actually playing it.

Mmeaninglessnamee#3696 - you can contact me on discord since I pay a lot more attention to that than these forums.

Norway

Cutting loading times is a really bad idea and will prevent the best possible runs from taking place. Just require WinUAE to run at Approximate A500 CPU Emulation Speed and 100% floppy emulation. It should be fairly consistent.

Germany

Emulation would allow that, but I think it should always be possible to compare times for players on actual hardware. Since the Amiga has very different setups that is not easy to do. A faster processor seems to improve loading times, but comparing someone playing on a floppy vs. someone using WHDLoad (which is on actual hardware and no emulation) is almost impossible.

The only problem I have with the current removal of all time between levels is that is cuts out one of the tricks you can do to save time in RTA. There is not really much going on in this game except playing perfectly, only the warp glitch and the bonus time skip. So I would not want to remove that from timing.

Maybe I'll check when the game is actually accessing the disk between levels and if it is possible to remove only that time without too much trouble and keep the bonus time in.

Berlin, Germany

Well there's not an easy solution for this after all. Just as Reboot said, in RTA you can't compare the times on real hardware since it can be too different. And you shouldn't give emulators any advantage or disadvantage to real hardware. Also as mentioned in the other thread, the countdown speed of the timer between the levels seems to be faster on faster hardware. I could just rerun the game with an A1200 instead of an A500 and get an easy WR. I don't see any other solution for this, but cutting out the transition between levels in the video, which is actually not so uncommon in many other speedruns. You also can't see when your disk is accessed or any other internal hardware-data on videos. Maybe anyone has a better idea?

Besides these issues in RTA, what also needs more discussion is the bonus-time-skip. Reboot, can you explain how to exactly pull it off? It seems to be fairly impossible to get it every time between every level. You also just got it once in your run and it cuts away so much time, if you can pull it off more than 2 or 3 times in a run, the rest of the gameplay would become meaningless and the run just becomes "Who can pull off that bonus-time-skip more often?". Just for some math: If you could actually pull it off with 50% success on every level, The chance to get it 15x in a run is 0.003% or less than 1 in 30.000 attempts. I can imagine that this would keep away many potetial runners from grinding for WR since it reduces the whole run to just this one trick. I see still a lot of improvement possibilities within the game itself and maybe there are other yet unknown in-game shortcuts, which sould be encouraged to get discovered to keep this speedrun interesting.

My suggestion for now would be to make an extra Category for the RTA with loading times and bonus-time-skip (but then, only emulator and with fixed emulator settings). Then everyone can choose what to aim for.

Germany

Also you can do the bonus time skip on every level, you can't do it on every level in a run. It is really easy, you just need to have 0 bonus at the end of the level. I specifically collect enough gems to get to 0 at the end of level 14. There are not enough gems that can be easily collected without a time loss to do it again. Maybe you could take an intentional death to get back to 0, but i never tested if that makes sense in any level, as you would lose all your power ups. That is the main reason why i like the skip, the time save happens between the levels, but the work you have to do for it, is during the first 14 levels, you have to plan which jumps to take for which gems you get. Cutting out the skip would also eliminate the need to do that.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
MightyMike9001 likes this
Berlin, Germany

Thanks for the great explanation! :) Ok this changes my opinion completely, so forget everything i said about that skip before^^

I'm absolutely in favor to keep this in any way in the run because of the different route options this opens, and this is an absolutely legitimate strat which makes the run indeed much more interesting.

Hmm but this doesn't make the other problems with Emu vs. Hardware disappear :/ Difficult to say which one is better now. I think neither is. Does anyone know how other Amiga Speedrun Communities handle that Load Time and Hardware-difference topic? I think this isn't a Giana Sisters only problem.

Germany

There is not really an Amiga speedrun community i know of. Most Amiga games here have only a few runs and most people probably just did a single run just to get a time.

I looked into the disk activity with an emulator and it seems the game starts to load the next level on the frame when the time countdown is either at 1 or 0, which maybe be different due to some display lag, and it stops when the screen switches to the "Get Ready" message for the next level. So that could be used for a timing which keeps the bonus countdown in. On the level which the bonus time skip the loading starts immediately when the screen goes black. This would also keep in the time for the reaction on the "Warp" and the "Get Ready" screen. So if you are better at hitting the right timing you get a better overall time.

The different speeds of the countdown however are a problem. A faster CPU seems to speed up the countdown on the floppy disk and the WHDLoad version and I have no idea how you could prevent that on actual hardware.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Norway

The out of the box settings for WinUAE 4.3.0 are pretty decent for emulating A500 and there should not be any speed issues unless people start changing parameters where they shouldn't. All that should be touched is location of the kickstart ROM, directory locations, screen/window resolution and controller keymapping. If "cycle-exact" should be used is debatable. The easiest solution is either a configuration file or mandatory settings/configuration guidelines.

Stage 14 is too late for bonus 0 if you want 3 bonus skips throughout the run.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Norway

Start running the game again guys, so we can have some fun. ;) With perfect execution and the 3rd bonus skip on stage 31, or earlier it should be possible to get sub 7:35.

You might want to sett up some rules for the runs though.

Austria

Hey. This is another one of those scenarios that hold me back from running. If one uses WHDLoad, you obviously have the game on an emulated hardware which accesses data way way faster than Floppy. I just tested it and Floppy is way way WAY slower during the countdown. However, I don't think WHDLoad should be banned...

I think the correct solution would probably be to include both loadful and loadless times, but yeah, tough.

Germany

WHDLoad is not emulation, you can use it on real hardware. It can be used on every Amiga with a harddisk that has at least Kickstart 2.0, as far as I know. If you really want to get rid of loading times, some Fast RAM would also be required. Most people on real hardware seem to use at least some kind of flash card. If you have enough Fast RAM for WHDLoad to preload all data, then it won't access the harddisk or floppy at all while playing. Like that it doesn't even matter if you have a slow or fast harddisk.

The countdown speed has nothing to do with the floppy speed as far as I know. The game is only loading the next level, after the countdown has finished. The countdown is just faster if you run the game on a system with a faster CPU. So the countdown is not "loading time", and skipping it requires some actual work during the levels, so it is a nice time save in an RTA run.

Austria

So the countdown is not "loading time", and skipping it requires some actual work during the levels, so it is a nice time save in an RTA run.

Can you elaborate on that? Is there a way to skip the countdown altogether? And is it allowed to increase RAM in an emulator?

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