In-game Timer

JaggerG

Edit history:

JaggerG: 2013-05-24 02:22:26 am

2013-05-22 02:31:28 pm

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

I made this topic because I said so. Mainly because of the Total Metroid Time board.

So I recorded a recording of the game, resetting after every save station to check my time, letting all cutscenes play out, so I can go back into the archive and investigate the timer mechanics. My findings are confusing.

-Unlike I previously thought, the loading summary does NOT count for in-game time.

-Timer starts as soon as the game loads in from either the initial loading screen (at the very start), or upon hitting 2 or (-) at the game summary.

-I suspect length of the pre-rendered cutscenes are added to the time as soon as they start playing, rather than having the timer actually run. Thus the first 3 cutscenes, 4 cutscenes before the first boss room, even if skipped, are still added.

-Certain game-graphics styled cutscenes are NOT included, and the timer stops throughout them. For example, during the first boss, there are several cutscenes of Adam telling you to attack the frozen spot and or telling you not to move or shoot unless he says so. At the end of the fight, there's about a 6:55 session of cutscenes, but apparently it's actually a 3:23 long cutscene in the middle of 2 non-timed cutscenes.

-Anything pause-menu related is not counted, such as authorizing abilities, updating the map, and simply pausing.

-The game is saved as soon as you can actually read the "SAVING" message in the bottom-right. If you reset as it's still garbled, it didn't save yet.

The first boss is as far as I have so far. It took for-freaking-ever to figure out, because of all the mini cutscenes, partial cutscenes, poor understanding of the start/stop times, mis-estimations, etc. PrimeHunter believes there's about an hour of cutscenes that are counted, out of the nearly 2-hours of cutscenes I added up in Theater mode.

Update:
-Lag also lags the timer
-Loading messages pause the timer
-Addition and Subtraction is hard

Thread title:

I made this topic because I said so. Mainly because of the Total Metroid Time board.

So [url=http://www.twitch.tv/jaggerg/b/405831138]I recorded a recording of the game[/url], resetting after every save station to check my time, letting all cutscenes play out, so I can go back into the archive and investigate the timer mechanics. My findings are confusing.

-Unlike I previously thought, the loading summary does NOT count for in-game time.

-Timer starts as soon as the game loads in from either the initial loading screen (at the very start), or upon hitting 2 or (-) at the game summary.

-I suspect length of the pre-rendered cutscenes are added to the time as soon as they start playing, rather than having the timer actually run. Thus the first 3 cutscenes, 4 cutscenes before the first boss room, even if skipped, are still added.

-Certain game-graphics styled cutscenes are NOT included, and the timer stops throughout them. For example, during the first boss, there are several cutscenes of Adam telling you to attack the frozen spot and or telling you not to move or shoot unless he says so. At the end of the fight, there's about a 6:55 session of cutscenes, but apparently it's actually a 3:23 long cutscene in the middle of 2 non-timed cutscenes.

-Anything pause-menu related is not counted, such as authorizing abilities, updating the map, and simply pausing.

-The game is saved as soon as you can actually read the "SAVING" message in the bottom-right. If you reset as it's still garbled, it didn't save yet.

The first boss is as far as I have so far. It took for-freaking-ever to figure out, because of all the mini cutscenes, partial cutscenes, poor understanding of the start/stop times, mis-estimations, etc. PrimeHunter believes there's about an hour of cutscenes that are counted, out of the nearly 2-hours of cutscenes I added up in Theater mode.

Update:
-Lag also lags the timer
-Loading messages pause the timer
-Addition and Subtraction is hard

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2013-05-22 03:06:59 pm

2013-05-22 03:06:39 pm

Well if the initial loading time is not counted on the game's timer like I thought it was that adds something close to 10 minutes onto my estimate based on how many segments I ended up making, meaning it's probably closer to 90 minutes if you add in my mistakes.

I've thought about taking another crack at the game tonight by attempting to do a single segment run, but I'm not the greatest at those so I'm not getting my hopes up of pulling it off in the first attempt. If I manage to get a successful run or far enough to make a considerable dent in the game before failing I'll put my observations here rather than clog the TMT any further than we already have.

MilesSMB

2013-05-22 04:16:01 pm

It'd be easier to play the game in Dolphin and find the in-game timer with memory watch/Cheat Engine. >_>

And easiest to just not play the game in the first place but

JaggerG

2013-05-22 04:17:54 pm

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Yeah I had assumed the summary counted because I felt like I saved immediately after and still gained 15 seconds, but really, it's just a long intro fanfare and takes forever to get the ship to register that I'm trying to save, then another couple seconds to ACTUALLY save. The summary takes like 20 seconds, and the save+load costs about 10 seconds, so segmenting probably is longer than a really good single segment regardless.

Does it emulate easily? My laptop kinda sucks. But yeah, it is kind of an average game to speedrun. It's mainly about being morphed as much as possible unless you can speed boost.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2013-05-22 04:47:22 pm

2013-05-22 04:46:59 pm

I tried to use morph and speed boost as much as possible and ended up being 40 minutes slower than my record when I ran it a week or two ago, so there's plenty of room for error even when you know what you're doing. I mean there are a few shinespark tricks here and there, optimizing the boss battles, etc., but yeah it's mostly morph and speed boost otherwise.

The annoying thing is that you can't skip through the navigation rooms which means you're going to lose time all over the place just from being forced to save even if you're doing a SS run. But since you are forced to do that regardless, other than the seconds you lose from starting each new segment I don't think the time would be too much different from an SS in the end if everything goes well along the way. A few minutes maybe, but again I'm not the best judge of that.

JaggerG

Edit history:

JaggerG: 2013-05-22 09:10:28 pm

2013-05-22 09:08:33 pm

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Good point. I've been rolling and then unmorphing at every obstacle to scramble over it, then remorphing. I managed to get to the first boss in 16:57 yesterday. Definitely takes a lot of practice to not actually LOSE time from morphing in bad spots, and bouncing off certain doors.

Note sometimes sparks might actually take longer because you have to run for so long before boosting, and skidding or bonking costs like 3 seconds. Rolling might save time over boosting in more than half the cases.

Prime Hunter

2013-05-23 01:16:52 am

Between the weather and the fact that I made quite a few mistakes and ended up dying extremely early (those two worms after the Diffusion Beam) I think I'll have to try this again some other time. In about 30 minutes I got to 40:20 on the timer though, give or take a few minutes since I didn't bother to hit the save right before that fight thinking it would be easy.

Being able to use rapid fire missiles can save a lot of time as well if you are good at it. A lot of required battles early on fall pretty quick that way.

kirbymastah

2013-05-23 01:26:09 am

When you go into first person view in combat, doesn't gameplay slow down for just a moment? do you know if the in-game timer slows down for that too?

JaggerG

2013-05-23 02:16:06 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

uhhhh I don't think so...the sense move has that effect, too, but that doesn't change the timer. Should probably check just to be safe, though.

Man, my best time is still 4:26:53 in-game after my third playthrough. I struggle too much on nightmare...I keep trying to shinespark him and I'm not getting it right.

Prime Hunter

2013-05-23 10:29:12 am

Huh, never thought about that. I doubt it effects anything, but it would make that rapid fire missile trick I was just talking about even more beneficial due to the way you jump in and out of first person so fast/often.

You can shinespark Nightmare? I seem to remember hearing that back when the game came out but I've never done it myself. I just try to get off as many Supers as quickly as I can, especially in the 2nd battle. Does it really make that much of an impact on him if you connect?

JaggerG

2013-05-23 04:59:29 pm

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

I have no idea. It's in Theater mode. I keep getting hit immediately before getting a charge. Also apparently if you overcharge pirates, you can get off a missile on them before you even land. Super effective.

JaggerG

2013-05-23 05:45:38 pm

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

First-person does not lag the timer, picking up an etank doesn't stop the timer, using control panels doesn't stop the timer. I keep timing the first mission after the boss and getting a less-than 4 second map screen, but a 5 second less in-game time, so something's up. Maybe the map rotating is stopping it? Maybe the second and a half it takes to get through the door before the map screen comes up counts as the map being up?

kirbymastah

2013-05-23 06:26:26 pm

IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE

Prime Hunter

2013-05-23 06:43:56 pm

Basically what you're saying is that most/all things that happen in-game look like they count towards the timer, but cutscenes and the forced map screens are throwing things off? Guess that would make sense and actually be pretty consistent with most other Metroid games.

Have you tried timing other segments to see if the timer is off for other forced map screens? If it's only this one time it's wouldn't be as much of a problem because it's only a second or two. But with how many of those maps come up over the course of a run it's going to skew the times by quite a bit before the end if it applies with all of them.

Is the map the only thing that seems off so far?

JaggerG

2013-05-23 08:55:38 pm

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

There's also actual lag in big rooms to account for. The Furby intro segment I'm currently timing has approximately 1:45 of cutscenes that MIGHT be automatically added (56+3+29+17), but there's so much lag in the big room you fight the 2-headed dr seuss creature. I'm gonna call them star-bellied sneeches. But yeah, I spent a lot of time in that room in the video, and my in-game time is 23 seconds shorter than real time. Going through it again and skipping cutscenes, the lag is much more noticeable because I don't kill anything, and it's consistently 1:24 longer than real time. Tried again not skipping cutscenes and it's 19 seconds shorter than real time. It can't all be lag, can it? :^/

AGH I can't tell addition from subtraction!!

Prime Hunter

2013-05-24 12:23:04 am

I just thought about all of those times where you run faster than the game's able to load and you get stuck for a few seconds at a doorway while it catches up to you. Tends to happen when I either blitz by all of the enemies or I'm rolling around in Morph, but I'd bet that effects things too since you're still in-game technically when it happens. I mean I'd still count that for real time, but does the game?

And suddenly the way the Prime Trilogy loads rooms is looking better than ever...

I'm starting to see why we never figured this out in the past. A lot of small variables keep popping up which could be interfering with the timer.

JaggerG

2013-05-24 12:35:15 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

oh. Actually yeah, that happens 2 times in the segment I'm timing, and you can actually prevent the longer one by going up to that door during the arachnus(?) team fight and having it load during the fight. I've only managed it once.

Buuuuut I can go to that door and come back to check. That's a good idea.

JaggerG

2013-05-24 01:54:34 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Yosssssssss good call. I couldn't test it on that segment, but the save before diffusion beam is an EXCELLENT place to check. If you roll into the tunnel right before, then go back to the nav room, you lose a second in-game even though you're still moving. If you roll up to the unloaded void on the other end of the tunnel, then roll back, load the room before the nav room, then load the nav room itself, you actually lose only 2 seconds, but of course if you're timing, it feels like forever. Pretty confusing, actually. It's probably just fractions of a second lost per loading dialogue. I tried rolling to the void and back 3 times and it lost 6 seconds total.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2013-05-24 01:55:51 am

2013-05-24 01:55:19 am

So let's see if I have this right:
- Forced navigation rooms with forced map popups
- Lag during normal navigation and battles
- Room loading issues if you're too fast in general

Is it starting to feel like they don't want us to speedrun this game on top of everything else they did?

JaggerG

2013-05-24 02:00:19 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Actually, the more I'm learning, the more sense it's making. Loading screens not counting makes sense to me. Lag is gonna lag the in-game timer for any non-pc game, really. But yeah, I think fmv style cutscenes are added regardless, and other kind of hybrid cutscenes are not. It's just so difficult to tell because if it has the latter, it has other factors...

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2013-05-24 02:12:16 am

2013-05-24 02:11:47 am

Finding out how long all of the fmv cutscenes are would probably be a good idea sooner or later. If they are added 1-1 onto the timer at least it would narrow things down a bit. Say there's 1:15 of cutscene for instance, but the in-game timer and real time are still off by a few minutes even when that's taken into account. It would line up with some of the things you're finding out now since we know there are gameplay quirks already factoring in to a degree.

JaggerG

2013-05-24 02:18:57 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Yeah, like the intro cutscenes are the only factor in the first segment, but there's a combination of types of cutscenes in the third segment. Essentially, I'm just adding or subtracting things until it breaks even. It's so confusing because I forget if I'm subtracting relative to real time, or in-game, then I forget if I added or subtracted something else...

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2013-05-24 02:29:15 am

2013-05-24 02:28:01 am

It would also narrow down just how much each of these gameplay elements effect things in the end. If it's only 5 minutes or so, then the second or two lost at certain points makes sense. But if it's closer to 15-20 minutes that would suggest we're still missing something major because it would take hundreds of moments like this to add up to that much time.

A lot can happen over the course of the run, true, but if the record is around 2:30 in real time to me that sounds like a lot of skewing would be happening for each minute of standard gameplay in order to make up that kind of deficit.

JaggerG

2013-05-24 02:37:57 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

yeah, I think the lag in large rooms can get pretty horrendous. I've had it lag so badly that Samus struggled to get rolling to finally exit the room. It probably adds up to 5 minutes by itself. I don't recall THAT many loading times, and the ones there are aren't especially long, so MAYBE a minute from that. The most significant factor is likely the cutscene discrepency, so hopefully those are obvious enough. I hope I can simply go through Theater mode and add up those specific cutscenes to get the time.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2013-05-24 02:47:45 am

2013-05-24 02:47:36 am

Theater mode was my thought too since it's easily available. It wouldn't be that hard to do it, just time consuming because of how much extra it includes.