Hello everyone, I wanna announce a few changes we've made to this board to hopefully improve it.

1. 1-1 blindfolded deleted
2. Cheat% deleted
3. NG and NG+ Glitchless merged into one category "Glitchless" separated into NG and NG+ with their respective difficulties.
4. AA Knife Only, SW Knife only, and NG Knife Only merged into one category "Knife Only" separated into AA, NG and SW.

We are also looking to add new interesting, skill based and ideally short categories onto the board so if you have any ideas, feel free to leave them down below. The reason we deleted the two categories mentioned is because they were not active and were not very fun or interesting. We might delete some other categories as well.

As of today 19/11 we are releasing an improved version of the autosplitter we use for STEAM runs. Unfortunately, we cannot 100% assure that this will be the last time it is modified, because of how truly difficult it is to balance and make fair for everyone. If you find any issues with this autosplitter contact the mods and we will look into it. So why are we doing this again?

Because the previous timer:

1. did not remove all loads in their entirety (it stopped pausing before loadings were finished)
2. it had an un-finished feature called framecounter which attempted to compensate for frames (FPS) lost in-game converting them into time but unfortunately this led to the infamous checkpoint bug where the timer would sometimes go nuts and go backwards a couple seconds or even entire minutes after resetting a checkpoint anywhere and on another hand it created inaccuracy between runners since the time "compensated" by this feature was not consistent at all.
3. it wasn't global, meaning it didn't work for things like No Merchant and Easy/Amateur without having to create a whole new autosplitter file changing some things.

This newer timer features:

1. full load-removal (as far as we could test). If you notice a loading isn't entirely removed, bring it up with the mods and we will try to fix it with the people that created the script.
2. works globally, for any category you'd like to run
3. adds key item splits which will split whenever you pick up a key item that you can select and customize through Edit Splits -> Settings
4. less lag due to more concise and readable code

This new autosplitter should appear automatically on Edit Splits if you have RE4 Steam selected as the game. If you don't want key item splits or if you wanna keep using your previous splits, you can keep using the regular doorsplits and uncheck key item splits on the settings window.

This will not invalidate runs done with the previous LRT.

If you need them, you will find splits and the ASL file on the resources tab of this site.

If you have any questions, leave them down below.

All credit goes to Wipe, Yuushi and Mysterion for their work on this newer autosplitter!

Hello everyone. I will try to keep this as short yet as informative as possible, presenting all the facts. To put it on simple terms, the way the current LRT works is it pauses on each loading screen, it pauses when you pause the game with the options menu, and it pauses when you open and close the inventory (while the duration of that short blackscreen). It also has a feature called framecounter that counts the amount of frames (FPS) you dropped in-game and then converts those to time rewinding the timer backwards. As most active runners know by now, this current LRT we use has had and still has several issues which I will list below, along with proof/examples of them.

1. The load removal feature is inaccurate due to the timer un-pausing before the loading has even finished. This happens on every single loading/blackscreen of the run including each inventory open/close blackscreen (there’s several hundreds of both of these combined during the whole run) and we strongly suspect it is related to the in-game memory address for the loading screens/blackscreens being unreliable, so we are unsure if it can be fixed. Examples: I specifically chose myself cause I’ve a “bad” PC (should be more than good enough for this game but we all know the Steam port is a special kind of unoptimized) and Derek because he has a really good PC and also records at 30fps just like me so the comparison is as accurate as possible. As you can see on the last clip, the framecounter counteracts this problem to some degree due to the fact that it counts frames during loadings as well, and as you can see it rewinds roughly a similar amount to the amount you lost after each loading when you pause/open the inventory. You should also consider that Derek might very well not have the fastest loading times possible, so the differences could be even bigger. Or,. if I didn’t have an SSD, the difference would be bigger. You might be thinking losing 0.1, 0.2, or potentially more because of hardware limitations isn’t a big deal, but when you consider that there’s literally hundreds of loadings in the game, it becomes incredibly significant.
2. The framecounter feature of the timer is inaccurate which causes discrepancies of frames randomly (you can either lose or save a few frames). However, since the load removal feature is also inaccurate, this can counteract it by giving you “fake timesave” which balances out the time you lost from inaccurate load removal as explained in point 1). Example:
3. The timer can go backwards for no reason when reloading checkpoints (this is a bug related to the framecounter). Examples: This, although annoying, is easily fixable since the timer pauses during the options menu so all we have to do is manually add that fake timesave to the final time when submitting the run which is what we’ve been doing for a while.

One of the main theories that arised from the issues with the timer is the theory that since bad PCs drop a lot of frames, bad PC = free fake timesave. However, we could not find any reliable proof of this. We have a google sheet specifically dedicated to record each and every gold segment of each top runner for analysis-purposes. If this theory was true I (since I have enough skill and unfortunately the worst PC out of all the top runners) would have the best gold by far on many splits, specially laggy ones where I would drop a lot of frames, and similarly, anyone with a bad PC would have the fastest segment on segments that are nothing but a straight line, but neither of these were the case. In fact, nearly every split where I have the best gold can easily be attributed to the fact that those segments are FAR more optimal on KBM, and would be unmatchable on controller no matter the skill (for example all merchants, or splits that require fast shots and quickturns, like village treasures). Moreover, Derek (current 4th place runner) has the majority of the best golds DESPITE playing on controller AND having a good PC AND never dropping a single frame, which again disproves this theory. Currently, the timer is inaccurate (by frames) for everyone, and not just for bad PCs. The only thing related to good PCs being at a disadvantage we strongly suspect of is that getting 61fps (we don’t know why this happens) equals timeloss, which would explain why for example Shimarisu seems to get worse times on many segments (he gets 61fps very often).

In order to fix this messy situation, recently Wipe (the developer of the current timer) developed a new script which modifies how the autosplitter detects/splits on doors, and therefore making it universal for any category you run which is a big positive, but at the same time it straight up removes the framecounter which, although it fixes problem number 3, it massively exacerbates the issue of the inaccurate load remover and it also makes dropping frames in-game a huge issue again. Just a few days ago we tested this new timer with success, however, we quickly realized the massive time differences between good and bad computers, with bad computers losing 20-40s compared to the current timer, and good computers only losing about 10-12s.

The main reason why the LRT came to be in the first place was to eliminate the pay to win aspect of the IGT, and therefore expanding the competition fairly, since not everyone has the possibility to afford a good computer. Not only that, but if we consider the fact that the Steam port of the game is incredibly poorly optimized, with some people with good to amazing PCs having performance issues and also small yet noticeable discrepancies in loading times between good VS top-tier computers, this makes it so on the new script even a GOOD PC won’t be able to compete with a TOP-TIER PC. Someone could bring up the argument that losing 30-40s for example to hardware limitations would not affect someone with a non-top time which is most of the leaderboard, but I personally heavily disagree because 1) this assumes these people will never reach the top which we simply cannot say for sure (in which case this time difference would make them unable to keep competing at that point) 2) it is very unenjoyable to lose time to things you can’t control, in this case hardware limitations, which I believe would make many runners quit the game and 3) the leaderboard was and is made for everyone that runs the game, not just for the top 5 or 10, therefore I believe the logical course of action is to do what benefits the most amount of people in the community.

We think that although the current timer is quite flawed and not exactly accurate, the issues with switching to the new one would heavily outweigh the benefits, and we believe moving back to a timer that is very hardware-reliant and that would only benefit a small amount of people (if we look at the leaderboard and the differences between IGT and LRT it is clear that runners having a top-pc is the exception, not the norm) while screwing over the rest is a huge step-back. However, we are still analyzing what to do with the current situation, and since we have not come to an agreement yet, we want to know what active/former runners of the Steam version of the game think of all this, and if you have any reasonable suggestions, feel free to leave them down below.