DF-21 Forums

[ACE]

Ok, Im back and i fixed my codec problem.And made a speed run of talay tak base in 1:32 ! can any one beat it? Heres the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAVsmglvH1g

But when you watch it you'll notice that there is no music and i don't know ow to fix it does anyone know?

[ACE]

Alright i went back to try and get a better time on secret base and i got 46.914 seconds on my fastest try. A NEW RECORD! heres the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55DbWSNe_KY

[ACE]

Im holding off on speed running Dark forces for now until lucius finishes DarkXL hopefully with its new features it will be able to help me do a fast and good quality speed run.keep up the good work lucius!

[The MAZZTer]

DarkXL is a long way from being perfect with emulating Dark Forces physics. Any speed runs you did with DarkXL wouldn't be comparable to Dark Forces speed runs because of this, and perhaps even between different DarkXL versions as settings are tweaked.

It's probably best to do speedrunning with the original engine until a more-or-less final and stable DarkXL is released which can play through the full game acceptably.

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[klasodeth]

[The MAZZTer]

I took it to mean the first demo release, but now that I think about it that makes as much sense as a jello powered lawnmower.

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[ACE]

well dos-box runs smoothly but when im in a middle of a run the game will slow down for about 1 second then it goes back up to normal speed. I can have that if im going to do a quality run.

[Weregoose]

Since January 23, I've been working on my own speed run of Dark Forces, and today's date marks the end of that journey with the completion of the last level. The frames are counted, the times calculated, and the videos compressed; the fruits of my labor make their official debut here at DF-21.

These recordings were made in DOSBox at 100000 CPU cycles, or at approximately 20% normal speed. Due to the limitations of DOSBox, there were no save states available, leaving me with just one recording per whole-level attempt. I'm holding onto several backups of the original captures in their ZMBV format.

Without further ado, here are the (compressed) videos:

[Edit: Links removed. Here's a channel on YouTube instead.]

Mission - Time* - Frames*
secbase - 0:40:237 - 2820
talay - 1:14:351 - 5211
sewers - 0:34:715 - 2433
testbase - 1:30:703 - 6357
gromas - 2:11:323 - 9204
dtention - 1:08:687 - 4814
ramshed - 1:22:270 - 5706
robotics - 1:41:819 - 6996
narshada - 0:11:186 - 784
jabship - 1:53:089 - 7926
impcity - 2:22:239 - 9969
fuelstat - 1:47:824 - 7557
executor - 1:33:599 - 6560
arc - 3:17:371 - 13833

*Measurements are taken from the first frame that control is given to the player to the first appearance of the "Mission Objectives Complete" message.

Looking back, there is more that I could have done, more stunts that I could have have pulled, to save on precious time. The acknowledgment of these flaws is the ticket to a better performance; nevertheless, for now, this is what I have come up with. I am intent on providing comprehensive documentation in the near future.

–Weregoose

[Weregoose]

How about that Nar Shaddaa run?

Anyway, I'm redoing the levels. Here's another secbase.

And here's another trick: The Double TD Jump!

It would take an emulator with savestates to have the luck to utilize this.

One thing I've noticed, though, is that as the CPU cycles go up, the time will go down slightly. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because the framerate (70.086) stays exactly the same under different simulated CC's. (Note that keyboard responsiveness is also a hindering factor when reducing the speed.) An unfortunate consequence of this fact is that video length ends up being an arbitrary measurement, but it follows that the number of frames is more reliable for comparison, yet only under the condition that none are dropped during recording.

Please! I encourage anyone with the right hardware to get themselves motivated to blueprint and execute their own runs. It's exciting once you get started – the Tak Base run that I just tried outperformed my previous run, and it was on my first try in three months.

And on that kind of luck: the larger the number of attempts, and with more people involved, the better the chances of a real gem of a video being produced. And I want my videos to be bested by somebody else in this venture. Heck, with enough videos, a high score table might even be set up at this site. Doesn't that sound like worthy content? It won't happen unless you help to make it happen, so I recommend getting started so as to be a part of it.

Thank ya,
–Weregoose

[ACE]

WOW! Thats amazing! and the competition begins!

[CoinCollector]

Those are REALLY good! I like the use of the thermal detonators. That's really good for not being tool-assisted! If you wanted to use it, there's a special version of DOSBox that has save states.

http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php_t=5285

You might be sick of speedrunning by now though, so I'm not sure how much you'd want to try it.

You should look into getting these posted on SpeedDemosArchive.com. It's a really big website all about speedrunning (no tool-assisted runs allowed), and they don't have any Dark Forces runs right now.

[Weregoose]

You just rescued my sanity. I think I'll try that link out ASAP.

I love Speed Demos Archive, but they don't take tool-assisted runs, and mine are. TASVideos might be interested in them, but it'd take some convincing (using the frames argument, perhaps), because last I checked, timing issues like what I described earlier keep them from adding DOS runs to their archive.

Thanks, guys, for the feedback!

[Weregoose]

Well, square one again, at least in the sense of making a TASVideo out of this. They won't accept it, and all progress on the aforementioned DOSBox version has ended abruptly some time ago. I'll probably use it for my own entertainment and for this thread, but that's as far as it will go.

[ACE]

I'm currently working on a non tool assisted speedrun for Dark Forces but thanks to your amazing videos i can can get an idea on how i can make the runs faster.

[Weregoose]

If there's slow-down involved, it's tool-assisted. Just letting you know.

Best of luck.

[CoinCollector]

[Darth Oosha]

Observation: There *is* a PSX version of DF that someone who wanted to make an incontrovertible speedrun could use. Probably cheaper than getting a Mac for it, anyway.

[Weregoose]

[ACE]

Actually I was planning on doing a PSX speed run whenever i finish my PC run

[Fenwar]

That Nar Shaddaa is fantastic. I remember wondering if that jump was possible using mines but never got anywhere near acheiving it.

[ACE]

After much much time away I have returned with an improved run of Talay Tak Base. What caused me to speed run again was a new challanger!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtiyFnt7zBQ

[Fenwar]

Is Usain Bolt playing Dark Forces now?

[The MAZZTer]

Hah when you turned on the dam and then turned around you turned around sooo sloooowly... can't you use the mouse to turn around faster or something? Something to try in the future.

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[Weregoose]

A while ago, I tried to get NirCmd to work in conjunction with the modified version of DOSBox, but the blasted thing won't accept any input not given by the actual keyboard. DOSBox should have supremacy, but not in this environment! Gimme my macros!

Also, why turn when you can side strafe?

[EDIT]

Your challenger, diablo888, found a better route for Jabba's Ship than the one I used. I should look at spawn points more carefully.

[The MAZZTer]

You may need to set the process priority of the parent app that launches nircmd to be higher than dosbox, otherwise the simulated input may lag real bad or appear to be ignored.

I just tried my WiimoteScript program with DOSBox and made a sweet Wiimote control script for Dark Forces. It simulates keyboard and mouse input to DOSBox and it works fine. Uses the SendInput API which is likely what nircmd uses.

Wiimote pointed at the screen looks up down and turns (looking up and down is pretty jerky since they're only mapped to keyboard keys argh).

Nunchuk stick goes forward and backwards and strafes.

Nunchuk C does use while Z does secondary fire.

Wiimote up/down control pad cycles through weapons (basically I just have it press the number key without really knowing what weapons you have. Crude but it works sorta). Left toggles the map, right toggles the headlight. A jumps, B fires. Minus is walk, Plus is run, Home opens the escape menu. One crouches, Two opens the PDA.

Might tweak it a bit (could replace walking with the ice cleats I guess) but I've got another script for my 1.0 release of WiimoteScript now .

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[Weregoose]

Ta-da! My ThemTube page has been updated. Took me long enough. But with another runner entering the field, I had to scramble – like only a bull knows how.

Now to delve into some linkrot.

[ACE]

[diablo888]

I just found out about weregoose' amazing speedrun through youtube and found a link to here in his profile.

I did not even know that he had done it a year ago already, otherwise I would not even started a speedrun on my own , I just checked youtube and speeddemosarchive, found no "real" entry and started recording.

It amazes me even more that we came up with the idea of TD jumping to skip parts of the levels independently from each other (though obviously I cannot prove this statement, since weregoose was here earlier than me, but you know what I mean).

His research in level design (and game design as a whole - from what I have seen in the run and on this board here) is about as perfect as it can be.
Therefore I am even happier that - although he found faster shortcuts in every other level - I could come up with faster "route" in Jabba's ship (see my comments on his videos for some details, I wrote them before I knew he had done these runs a year before me)

Anyway, amazing job there. iirc it took you about 5 months? I did not have the patience to even retry Jabba's ship more than 20 times. Maybe I should have tried the slowdown as well, but speed, times and frames were never the purpose for me starting the run but to show how much of the game could be skipped.

I hope there will be future "challengers" who see these runs as inspirations to get an even better job done

-diablo888

PS: sorry for my crappy confusing English, I'm German.

[The MAZZTer]

Hi, welcome to DF-21, and feel free to update us on your own speedrun progress!

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[Weregoose]

I see that our enthusiasm for watching different runners run is amply mutual. I saw your videos before I uploaded mine, and was impressed at the routes you took. My first thought was, "Wow, this guy knows this game's layout pretty well," but then I was stunned that you had found that superior route through Jabba's Ship. It serves me right for only considering the spawn point at the beginning!

To be honest, that mission took up most of the overall time that I spent running Dark Forces, and it's because everything had to go just so – there were plenty of stunts involved, and there was a slim chance of all of them working in unison. Fortunately, your path didn't have quite so many; had I planned mine more like yours, it probably would have been easier for me to get past that rotten level.

But my next approach will be more tool-assisted: I'll be sending keyboard commands once per frame using a hacked version of DOSBox. I'm still scratching my head over which frames will actually accept any input, but once I figure that out (and get a sufficiently large chunk of the first level done), I'll happily detail everything and provide the work files as well so that everyone else can get in on the act.

As before, I'm more concerned about the fastest time being gotten than to be the one to get the fastest time.

P.S.,

Have you thought about doing a run with all secrets found?