Contra

2013-12-03 05:06:20 am

Finally the run that end everything, no frames speed thing or whatever... it was sure you were going for a good time soon btw ! congratz TMR you are the Mexican Contra King hell yeah !

Deuceler

2013-12-03 08:49:03 am

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

It's funny, people thought Heid's run was the end all. I haven't watched TMR's highlight yet, but having talked to him previously I think this time could still be improved. THAT being said, it would be really really really difficult, as this is an amazing time. Cheers to more Bill and Lance

Heidrage

2013-12-03 03:44:35 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

I never once said my run was any good. Now that new stuff has been found, mine cant even be used for learning the game.

Deuceler

2013-12-03 04:03:11 pm

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

I didn't say YOU said such things Heid. A lot of talk around the community left the sense your run was untouchable, and with the "old" strats I would say it basically was. Nothing is EVER 100% optimized anymore with the growth of viewers getting involved with destroying games, but I do wish you luck and hope you come back to this game soon - would love to see a knockdown drag out fight

Saint Connor

2013-12-03 04:06:54 pm

Congrats TMR! Epic run man. Well done.

Uilnslcoap

2013-12-03 04:37:25 pm

F*ckin' sanity effects...

Welp, that was amazing. Congratulations TMR!

sinister1

2013-12-03 05:38:09 pm

sinister1

so pro u don't even know

Way to go TMR! Can't wait to see what is the next record you go after.

TheMexicanRunner

2013-12-03 08:06:32 pm

Fighting like a Warrior

Frame Counting Hopefully right:
First of all i had trouble trying to open the ".vob" file on Virtual Dub so i had to convert it to ".avi" to be able to open it. I counted the frames and i got a total of 18224.
I started the counting of the first frame when the blue lives appear in the top-left of the screen and I counted as the last frame when Bill has down his weapon and it was 10:08.074
Almost 10:07 Sad

Anyway it was a good run.

Svenne

2013-12-03 09:43:41 pm

Smörgåsbord

Great stuff! Now submit! thumbsup

WWurnner

2013-12-04 10:30:41 am

Gratz on the WR TMR, you deserve it :)!

Le Hulk

2013-12-04 11:00:24 am

SNES rules!

HUGE congrats, really. That is a sick time.
This new record really inspired me to try to improve my PB (which is an amazingly bad 11:52 or something).

I wonder how much time could be saved with the recently discovered pause trick for the claws in Hangar. Maybe that trick could bring the time down to 10:06?

Hurblat

2013-12-08 01:11:30 am

First of all, big big congrats to TMR on that amazing run! Smiley

Thanks for your great work in pushing the game a great deal closer to its limit!

I have updated the times on the leaderboard for TMR, DK28, Caracarn and MASTER-88.
Tight competition in the 11:20's, and DK28 getting very close to the top!
If I have missed anything, give me a nudge.

Le Hulk, do you want me to put that time on the leaderboard?

Sorry I've been absent for so long. The reason is I've moved countries and been on vacation in a part of the world where I've hardly had any Internet access.

Le Hulk

2013-12-08 02:33:01 am

SNES rules!

Quote from Hurblat:

Le Hulk, do you want me to put that time on the leaderboard?

Sure, why not. I played on FCEUX, dunno if it matters.

Hurblat

2013-12-09 02:43:33 am

Updated!

Exo

2013-12-09 05:29:50 am

Sandbagging

A bit late but congrats TMR Smiley

TheMexicanRunner

2013-12-10 08:37:52 pm

Fighting like a Warrior

Wow a congrat from EXO himself PogChamp.
Thanks Smiley

Working DK

2013-12-26 10:55:22 am

The Gorilla wrecking Ball is back in the swing of things. New PB on low %! J version 11:10, so that's 11:21 by comparison I believe.
thumbsup

DK28

2013-12-27 02:19:27 am

General Kong - Bullets and Bananas

Update! New low % record. 10:59 J version!

sinister1

2013-12-27 01:01:47 pm

sinister1

so pro u don't even know

Sub 11!?!?! The most magical of numbers Wink

Congrats DK, can't wait to watch this later.

DK28

2013-12-27 04:40:46 pm

General Kong - Bullets and Bananas

Thanks sinister! It was my first stream and I got the run! Cheesy

Sorry you missed it, if it wasn't 2am I would have bugged you. I know you'll be there next time.

rayunver

Edit history:

rayunver: 2013-12-27 07:39:12 pm

rayunver: 2013-12-27 06:52:54 pm

2013-12-27 06:52:19 pm

rayunver 11:37.85 any % using Nestopia www.twitch.tv/rayunver is my stream channel. I am pretty damn casual though with a 50 hour a week job, wife, and kid.

Deuceler

2013-12-27 08:02:31 pm

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

Congrats DK!!! That's awesome man.

So when is it going to become a think that we just run the Japanese version since it is faster? I don't see any reason we shouldn't accept times from that, most other games do the same thing, yes?

Remz

2013-12-27 08:23:40 pm

Just wanna say a big thank you here to Heidrage for showing me so many things yesterday I really appreciate your time man!

Hurblat

2013-12-28 09:52:58 am

Congrats DK! That's a very very good time Cheesy

Do you have an exact time conversion to US timing?

Mr. K

Edit history:

Mr. K: 2013-12-28 11:31:31 am

Mr. K: 2013-12-28 11:21:50 am

2013-12-28 11:21:23 am

Yes

Huge congrats to DK! Speaking of time conversions, there's something I wanted to put forward to all of you. I'd like to suggest that whenever someone submits a time to the leaderboard using the J version that we convert the time to U version manually.

Here is why I'd like to do this:
-For people who prefer console, it's not reasonable to expect everyone to play on the Japanese version
This would require everyone to get a J version cart and either a famicom or a 60 to 72 pin converter. This is a bit too expensive.

-Unlike games like Super Mario World or Mega Man 2 where the difference between versions is fixed, the difference in Contra is variable based on how fast you can skip cutscenes
This gives people playing on the Japanese version an opportunity for time savers that aren't available to the U.S. version. What makes this less interesting in terms of speedrunning is that none of these time savers actually involve tricks or techniques in the stages

-We can convert times done on the Japanese version to the U.S. timing with a high degree of accuracy
https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Contra/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches#Converting_time_on_the_Japanese_Version_to_the_U.S._Version
I've updated my testing method and we can now get the timing to be accurate within 5 frames. Currently the formula is about 5 frames off, and it penalizes the Japanese version. I'll tinker with it some more later.

If anyone is interested in my testing methodology look below:

We have 7 stage transitions to account for.
Transition 1 - From Jungle to Base 1
Transition 2 - From Base 1 to Waterfall
Transition 3 - From Waterfall to Base 2
Transition 4 - From Base 2 to Snow Field
Transition 5 - From Snow Field to Energy Zone
Transition 6 - From Energy Zone to Hangar
Transition 7 - From Energy Zone to Alien's Lair

To be able to compare the times, we need a specific point in time where we know that the two versions start to behave differently and a specific point in time where they start to behave exactly the same. The method I chose for this was the moment in which the boss health for each stage reaches 0. I can know when this is by playing on a cycle accurate emulator like FCEUX and looking at the boss health in RAM Watch. The Japanese version's screen blacks out instantly. It has two cutscenes that can be skipped and it will only lag 1 frame when loading the next stage. The U.S. version takes two frames for the screen to go black completely and lags multiple frames between loading stages. Once the next stage starts to appear, both versions display the stage and spawn the player in the same amount of tie. Using this timing method, all of these version differences can properly be accounted for. By comparing isolating out all of the factors I can put a number to the version differences between a run, all things being identical. I even learned that you need to be at the very farthest right after defeating the energy zone boss and any distance between you and the right edge of the screen is added directly to your time.

Unfortunately, RAM watch is not available for runs on console so I needed to come up with another method that would predict the same result or something as close as possible. A uniform point of reference is when the screen goes black. The U.S. version takes two frames to go black and I had to decide where to count up from. Based on testing and the previous RAM watch result I decided to use the first frame where it starts to go black instead of when it goes completely black. I had to make sure this method was accurate so I totaled up all of the times between screen transitions between the two runs and used this method to see how we should be comparing the two runs. There are still 5 frames to account for and as I continue to tinker with this I may be able to get things even closer.

What does everyone think?

Huge congrats to DK!  Speaking of time conversions, there's something I wanted to put forward to all of you.  I'd like to suggest that whenever someone submits a time to the leaderboard using the J version that we convert the time to U version manually.

Here is why I'd like to do this:
-For people who prefer console, it's not reasonable to expect everyone to play on the Japanese version
This would require everyone to get a J version cart and either a famicom or a 60 to 72 pin converter.  This is a bit too expensive.

-Unlike games like Super Mario World or Mega Man 2 where the difference between versions is fixed, the difference in Contra is variable based on how fast you can skip cutscenes
This gives people playing on the Japanese version an opportunity for time savers that aren't available to the U.S. version.  What makes this less interesting in terms of speedrunning is that none of these time savers actually involve tricks or techniques in the stages

-We can convert times done on the Japanese version to the U.S. timing with a high degree of accuracy
https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Contra/Game_Mechanics_and_Glitches#Converting_time_on_the_Japanese_Version_to_the_U.S._Version
I've updated my testing method and we can now get the timing to be accurate within 5 frames.  Currently the formula is about 5 frames off, and it penalizes the Japanese version.  I'll tinker with it some more later.

If anyone is interested in my testing methodology look below:

[hidden]We have 7 stage transitions to account for.
Transition 1 - From Jungle to Base 1
Transition 2 - From Base 1 to Waterfall
Transition 3 - From Waterfall to Base 2
Transition 4 - From Base 2 to Snow Field
Transition 5 - From Snow Field to Energy Zone
Transition 6 - From Energy Zone to Hangar
Transition 7 - From Energy Zone to Alien's Lair

To be able to compare the times, we need a specific point in time where we know that the two versions start to behave differently and a specific point in time where they start to behave exactly the same.  The method I chose for this was the moment in which the boss health for each stage reaches 0.  I can know when this is by playing on a cycle accurate emulator like FCEUX and looking at the boss health in RAM Watch.  The Japanese version's screen blacks out instantly.  It has two cutscenes that can be skipped and it will only lag 1 frame when loading the next stage.  The U.S. version takes two frames for the screen to go black completely and lags multiple frames between loading stages.  Once the next stage starts to appear, both versions display the stage and spawn the player in the same amount of tie.  Using this timing method, all of these version differences can properly be accounted for.  By comparing isolating out all of the factors I can put a number to the version differences between a run, all things being identical.  I even learned that you need to be at the very farthest right after defeating the energy zone boss and any distance between you and the right edge of the screen is added directly to your time.

Unfortunately, RAM watch is not available for runs on console so I needed to come up with another method that would predict the same result or something as close as possible.  A uniform point of reference is when the screen goes black.  The U.S. version takes two frames to go black and I had to decide where to count up from.  Based on testing and the previous RAM watch result I decided to use the first frame where it starts to go black instead of when it goes completely black.  I had to make sure this method was accurate so I totaled up all of the times between screen transitions between the two runs and used this method to see how we should be comparing the two runs.  There are still 5 frames to account for and as I continue to tinker with this I may be able to get things even closer.[/hidden]

What does everyone think?