Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The

Edit history:

SDAVerification: 2017-08-03 03:57:39 am

2017-07-18 08:48:02 am

Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/Morrowind.html

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The (pc) (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Decision: Accept

Congratulations to 'AntonioPeremin'!

Thread title:

SDAVerification

2017-07-18 08:48:02 am

Run Information

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The (pc) (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/morrowind-v_IQ.mp4

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). If you wish to remain anonymous, you can also send a pm with your reply to 'sdaverification' (please state clearly in that case which run you have verified). This is not a contest where the majority wins - Each verification will be judged on its content.

LotBlind

2017-07-19 06:41:11 am

Using the menu options to align the mouse is really smart. Was this your own idea?

3:30 : You can land directly next to it?? Why haven't I seen that before?

What's the timing estimate? It's really really useful to have you know...

AntonioPeremin

(user is banned)

AntonioPeremin

Edit history:

AntonioPeremin: 2017-07-19 02:35:08 pm

AntonioPeremin: 2017-07-19 09:16:30 am

AntonioPeremin: 2017-07-19 09:16:16 am

AntonioPeremin: 2017-07-19 08:58:02 am

2017-07-19 08:54:44 am

Hi LotBlind.
Menu option mouse gave me near perfect menuining at hero creation(saved me 2 seconds) :).
3:30 also a nearly perfect jump,saved me 3-4 seconds.I discovered a strategy how to do it 100% of time(just use icarian flight scrolls,all 3 of them, at same time as me in this run and You will get it every time).
Time estimate is around 3:20-3:25.Only difference between my and WR run is that wr run holder did scroll more speed with keening switch bug.I have a Trust GXT i52 mouse, so the wheel button on it isn´t that good, but my mouse has very good slide sensitivity.

LotBlind

2017-07-20 12:56:15 am

As I recall, we accepted the previous one so there's not much to say... of course I'd still like to encourage you to take your time with producing a finalized run that you're absolutely sure you don't wanna improve on it. If you feel like you could use feedback, that can happen to some extent, but something like using the menu to place the cursor it would have been difficult for someone who doesn't know the game that well to think of (unless they'd seen it in a similar game). Speedrunning is a lot of thinking outside the box and answering your own questions.

Yeah, so looks even better now,
accept

SDAVerification

2017-08-03 03:57:40 am

Decision posted.

Pendrokar

Edit history:

Pendrokar: 2017-08-17 06:12:30 am

2017-08-17 06:11:56 am

Current SDA game page record holder here. (confirming my bias)

AntonioPeremin: Did you make any modifications to the Morrowind.ini file? I hear in the Elder Council chatroom suggestions to change the Max FPS setting to avoid having the game potentially crash. That setting is not in ingame options menu. So if you did change that, then I'd like SDA's opinion on validity. As if that is allowed, then the 'disable audio' option can cut the speedrun time by about 30 seconds.

AntonioPeremin

(user is banned)

2017-08-17 07:35:00 am

Hi.
I did no changes at all.

LotBlind

2017-08-17 02:12:09 pm

Hmm... How does disabling audio make it faster exactly?

Pendrokar

Edit history:

Pendrokar: 2017-08-26 09:39:59 am

2017-08-26 09:37:09 am

Quote from LotBlind:

Hmm... How does disabling audio make it faster exactly?

Before the whole character creation section, the game's official code scripts wait for characters to finish their voice samples before continuing. That's 31 seconds when the player is blocked from moving in the English version of the game after first gaining control. And even longer in the German and French versions.

Turning voice or master volume within the game does not skip voice samples from playing.

But disabling audio makes those scripts skip playing voice samples. There is still a short wait time coded in those scripts. Music still keeps playing with this setting. And disabling all audio output devices through Control Panel makes the game crash, but that would have been against SDA rules anyway.

The SDA rules state that configuration files can be modified to increase stability and/or audio-visual quality of a game. Does this also apply in decreasing quality to use "glitches/tricks/clips"? In-game console does not offer a way to disable audio.

[quote="LotBlind"]Hmm... How does disabling audio make it faster exactly?[/quote]
Before the whole character creation section, the game's official code scripts wait for characters to finish their voice samples before continuing. That's 31 seconds when the player is blocked from moving in the English version of the game after first gaining control. And even longer in the German and French versions.

Turning voice or master volume within the game does not skip voice samples from playing.

But disabling audio makes those scripts skip playing voice samples. There is still a short wait time coded in those scripts. Music still keeps playing with this setting. And disabling all audio output devices through Control Panel makes the game crash, but that would have been against SDA rules anyway.

The SDA rules state that configuration files can be modified to increase stability and/or audio-visual quality of a game. Does this also apply in decreasing quality to use "glitches/tricks/clips"?  In-game console does not offer a way to disable audio.

ktwo

2017-08-27 04:56:36 am

Quote from Pendrokar:

The SDA rules state that configuration files can be modified to increase stability and/or audio-visual quality of a game. Does this also apply in decreasing quality to use "glitches/tricks/clips"? In-game console does not offer a way to disable audio.

I'm not sure exactly where you're looking in the rules, but if there is no way to change a setting in-game, it should generally be avoided. The exceptions you mentioned are either cosmetical (increased A/V quality) or to make the game speedrunnable (preventing frequent crashes). They shouldn't give any advantages in terms of gameplay or timing though.
These kind of topics tend to not be entirely straight-forward, so I'm sure there are individual cases that are still worth discussing.

LotBlind

2017-08-27 06:59:28 am

There doesn't seem to be a justification to edit external files just cause you've found a way to speed up a run. I'm sure there's plenty of ways to do that for most PC games. I'm reminded of Gothic where apparently SFX have to be disabled to avoid crashing. The FPS stability thing though doesn't sound like an issue if the target FPS is left at something reasonable. Or does it affect the run time in any way?

Pendrokar

2017-08-27 09:25:46 am

Guess not, as it only affects the scene loading progress bar which is an animation. It will run faster with higher FPS. But since loading screen time is cut from run time, then it does not affect run time.

Some say that it crashes more often with the Max FPS default setting of 240. So even if changed, such an edit falls into 'stability' category.

Anyways, the disable audio issue has been cleared up for me.