PLEASE READ THE RULES BEFORE SUBMITTING RUNS
6 years ago
England

We've had more runs rejected recently than verified, please read the rules for the version of the game that you're running.

Any questions? Ask here.

Tanky, Uuguey and 2 others like this
Texas, USA

Asking in advance...so when I submit a run on Playstation I only have to show the Driver version if it would be a Top 3 run on the x.xx board, correct?

Sweden

that rule applies to both PS Driver 1.11 and PS Driver x.xx.

Texas, USA

Okay well since there's currently only 2 people on the 1.11 board shouldn't everyone be showing their driver vers. then, since the run submitted could potentially be 3rd on the 1.11 board? Haha

Sweden

And the rule states that it is mandatory as of 2017-11-11.

ConkyJoe89 likes this
Texas, USA

Yea I remember exactly when it was implemented, you and I actually had a back n forth about it back then also. Currently, my PB's are still a minute or so from even having to worry about a "Top 3 time", so I was just asking for future reference really.

Why is it getting so feisty on the re2 boards at the moment guys?

United States

If you're asking about the random threads being started by a certain user, it's just personal drama that's being drawn to the public eye for no reason other than to gain attention and start problems.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
PrinzSichelPickel, LoanSharkJoe and 2 others like this
United Kingdom

I've got a question about PAL versions, is there a category for PAL versions of the game due to the speed difference, or is it still viewed as irrelevant?

I'm considering getting back into running, but last time I did that all that happened was my runs were rejected by SDA, relegated to a category with no entries by TG, and between that and my shitty 2007 budget capture card eating PBs was enough drama to make me ragequit.

I ask because my Leon A PB from close to a decade ago would still be a good time today (1:11:07 game time) and I see Trevor Seguin's run is still highly regarded (as it should be because it's amazing), although my only surviving video would be a 1:12:something for Leon A. But I don't want to start practicing on PAL again if it's just going to be rejected.

Nowadays I have access to better video equipment and a japanese machine, so if I need to acquire NTSC versions of the game I can.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
England

50hz PAL is not tracked here anymore, we only accept PAL runs on dreamcast as it's 60hz on that console.

United Kingdom

Disappointing but thanks for the info.

United Kingdom

For more info, PAL is rejected because the in-game timer does not function correctly due to 50hz.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
United Kingdom

It's scaled so as to be equivalent, but I'm not gonna start that drama again that's more than a decade old. I am interested in running again but I don't want to have to fight tooth and nail to get runs accepted because somebody takes issue like back in the SDA/TG days.

I'm disappointed that a PAL category isn't maintained but I'll obtain copies of the NTSC version and just use those.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
United Kingdom

Dara and Stevenmayte spent a long time looking at it, and it was pretty much decided it does not run as intended when runs that were visibly nowhere close to being as good as Poppo's were beating his by whole minutes.

It's really nothing to do with the SDA/TG days (to my knowledge no one that ran back in the SDA days has put as much effort looking into these games as Dara, DChaps and Stevenmayte have), it's that they've already hooked timers for all versions of the game in emulator and have looked at the timers themselves. PAL's timer does not run correctly. It's the same case in a lot of Capcom's games. The conclusion is Capcom simply did not do a good conversion, if any, on a lot of their timers from NTSC to PAL, leaving a lot of them to come out as not properly functional in the conversion from 60hz to 50hz.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
PereCasteur and StevenMayte like this
United Kingdom

I'd have to look at their more up-to-date research to draw any conclusions more accurate than those I had back in 2010. I'm more than willing to accept that the timers don't work the way I thought they did back then. Thanks for giving me some more information to look into. (As far as I remember, we initially thought the final time is multiplied by a value that's around 0.81 or 8333333 whatever, to bring it in line with the US version, because the 50hz real-time made it too difficult to get unlockables that required a fast time. But I'd be very interested to know if that's true.)

One last question, why are JP and US games mixed on the leaderboards when zombie placement and damage is so different?

Is the JP version the only one people care about nowadays?

I've bought a JP version anyway as I only have access to JP and UK hardware right now, I'd have to buy a US ps1/ps2 if I wanted to run that version.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
United Kingdom

JPN and US mainly aren't separated because:

  • Japanese is the most competitive, as well as the fastest version. So, it takes precedence by default.
  • Two of the Japanese versions (PC Sourcenext and Dreamcast) have a mode that is harder than the US scenario, those being Nightmare (Dreamcast) or "Hard" mode, in terms of the PC version. Pretty much making separating US version on its difficulty changes alone sort of redundant, because the most popular version, by far, is PC Sourcenext.
  • Resident Evil, by nature in terms of leaderboards, is already heavily separated as it is. Most leaderboards don't even separate console at all, as an example. Separating by region would be a tad excessive.

In the recent findings, also, we found specific region-modded PS2s basically play RE2 at an unnatural speed. These being US Playstations with the Playstation Driver "1.11", which does not exist in any Japanese Playstation and so Japanese players were becoming increasingly frustrated at this. In terms of this finding, these specific PS2s have also been moved to their own category, due to region-modding being a third-party process to begin with, and these PS2s, by default, should only really be playing the US version.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
United Kingdom

Wow. Things sure have changed a lot it seems.

I only have access to an unmodified JP PSOne right now so it doesn't sound like the mod-chip issue will affect me for the moment. I'm assuming it's a mod-chip issue anyway unless I've misread. It's not related to PS2 fastload capability? As I know that was an unknown cause of faster times for a little while.

I'm not personally interested in the PC port, and personally enjoy the US/EU version more than the JP version of the game and feel they are different enough to be distinct, especially as Capcom put in several zombies which have extremely high chances to be bitten by when running which makes health management more interesting to me.

But that's cool, if it's the JP version people care about the most I'll play that :) Thanks again for all the info!

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Florida, USA

Seeing this response, I'd like to chime in a bit.

  • Japanese is the most competitive, as well as the fastest version. So, it takes precedence by default.

It's the most competitive, most likely, because it is the fastest. However, specifically with console and EMU runs, it is often not the most readily available or easiest to find.

Anyone who streams knows that there are often people that come in asking why the game is in Japanese. It's possible that some of these people would be more interested in running if their English versions worked or they could use the English version. (When I say worked and use, I mean to obtain competitive times. Obviously, we know that as long as they followed whatever rules were in place, their runs would not be rejected, but they have an infinitely harder time in getting a competitive time.)

Also, I'd like to respectfully point out that saying something is popular or competitive is not really an answer. If that were the case, then Leon A PC version would be the only category. Categories like Claire B low % on Dreamcast have no submissions. Should we remove it because it isn't popular? You'd probably say no, that just because someone hasn't run it yet, doesn't mean it should be removed as that version of the game do have people that submit.

However, I see far more interest in players running English versions of the game (which does differ from "hard mode" on the other versions) than someone running Claire B low % Dreamcast, yet one of those categories exists, and one doesn't. Is this an argument for English version category? No, but neither is the reverse true.

Resident Evil 3 recently separated out Japanese and Taiwanese, and I'd make the same argument there (that they should also have English version category.) However, RE2 doesn't do that, so I can understand that it's simply "fastest version." Someone could take Claire B low % DC WR with English version, in theory, and it hold up as WR, so I understand not separating it. But if there was a separation of versions, it should apply to all versions.

Also, I'd like to point out, and this is a minor point, that when looking for the game on speedrun.com, you cannot find the game under "Biohazard 2." You must search for "Resident Evil 2" which says that most players are likely more recognizing of the English version of the game, yet almost nobody runs "Resident Evil 2," they run "Biohazard 2." In so doing, they went and obtained the Japanese version somehow. This tells me that even the creators of this forum knew that the English version was more popular, which means that it's likely you'd already have some runners if an English version were created. Again, not advocating for that, but just a thought.

United Kingdom

"when looking for the game on speedrun . com, you cannot find the game under "Biohazard 2." You must search for "Resident Evil 2"

That's a really good point actually, in almost every other context the game is mentioned in, Resi refers exclusively to a western version and Biohazard to a Japanese version.

I mean, I totally get the logic for having the JP version take precedence and for not wanting to bloat the number of categories, I just wanted to clarify what the situation was as a newcomer before I did anything as it wasn't clear from the rules on the leaderboards page is all. I ran a long time ago when streaming wasn't really a thing, so to be quite honest I'm just glad nobody is asking for mailed VHS tapes or video conversion through weird-ass japanese programs that never worked properly.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
United Kingdom

[quote]It's the most competitive, most likely, because it is the fastest. However, specifically with console and EMU runs, it is often not the most readily available or easiest to find.[/quote]

We consider it "not easy to find" because most of us are from countries that do not distribute Japanese copies of any game. That being said, if English was the default, the Japanese players would be in the same situation we're in right now. We only see it this way because we're all from the UK, Europe or the US.

[quote]Anyone who streams knows that there are often people that come in asking why the game is in Japanese. It's possible that some of these people would be more interested in running if their English versions worked or they could use the English version. [/quote]

That comes more from an ignorant understanding of speedrunning. A lot of people genuinely do not know why people run the Japanese version. They ask this question to get rid of that ignorance to the reason.

[quote]Also, I'd like to respectfully point out that saying something is popular or competitive is not really an answer. If that were the case, then Leon A PC version would be the only category. Categories like Claire B low % on Dreamcast have no submissions. Should we remove it because it isn't popular? You'd probably say no, that just because someone hasn't run it yet, doesn't mean it should be removed as that version of the game do have people that submit.[/quote]

I don't really understand your point here, as US hasn't been removed or penalised in any way. PAL was removed because, as prior stated, the timer on that version does not function correctly. It's a non-functional, at least in terms of tracking times, version of the game. This is why PAL was banned.

[quote]Resident Evil 3 recently separated out Japanese and Taiwanese, and I'd make the same argument there (that they should also have English version category.) However, RE2 doesn't do that, so I can understand that it's simply "fastest version." Someone could take Claire B low % DC WR with English version, in theory, and it hold up as WR, so I understand not separating it. But if there was a separation of versions, it should apply to all versions.[/quote]

Totally different reasoning why those were separated. This was because several mods stealth inserted the version on the boards before checking it was even legitimate, (one fake version actually got onto the boards before everyone else stepped in) and because the Japanese legitimately cannot obtain this version as their piracy laws are far, far greater than the West and finding this specific version online to buy is next to impossible. It took a while to even get one person to send mods a verified legitimate, unaltered copy. One Japanese runner attempted to buy it and what they got was a modified version that didn't even boot properly initially, as there are tons of Chinese bootlegs flying around online.

[quote]Also, I'd like to point out, and this is a minor point, that when looking for the game on speedrun.com, you cannot find the game under "Biohazard 2." You must search for "Resident Evil 2"[/quote]

Because it's called Resident Evil 2 in more of the world, as in, a more recognizable name. People are also freely open to run the US English version. As prior stated, almost no board on the site separates Japanese and English versions unless there is a major rule difference such as turbo being allowed in the Japanese ruleset or the timing method being different and so forth. Most games don't even separate the versions, and just stick to running the fastest version available.

One thing that's also wanted to be shyed away from is turning records into what are essentially "regional records". The Japanese aren't going to touch the US versions ever, because it's well.... slower. This would effectively cut off a large portion of the skilled playerbase from the US version, if it was separated, and create a 'record' that essentially exempts an entire region of players. We go to the Japanese versions for faster completion times... why would the Japanese come to our versions to get... slower completion times? This is another reason.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
PereCasteur, The_A_Drain and 2 others like this