Return to Castle Wolfenstein

KhanFusion

Edit history:

KhanFusion: 2010-05-15 12:30:56 am

2010-05-15 12:21:22 am

Quote:

At :25 can't you jump on to the wooden railing from the stairs

Lol. I can, actually... and not on the railings but almost to the door. Looking at this frame by frame says it's a half a second frak up from me.

Quote:

At :38 you accidentally (I think) jumped towards the shelf, which eventually cost you about a full second

Not really a second, and I need lots of ammo in the first area of level 2.

Quote:

it's easy and saves a few seconds

If you mean railing not ahead of you but on the right where you have to jump over the gap, then I'm not sure it is even possible, and if it is, I'm not among those how can do this easily. I can jump over that gap only with full stamina bar.

Quote:

Out of curiosity, how are you segmenting this run? Is it 1 or multiple segments per level/mission?

It's one segment per level. Even though I would love to segment some of the levels. The game is rather random, especially its AI. In more than 90% of my level 2 runs I didn't get past the first 20 seconds, and when I did there was a long level ahead where quite a few thing can go wrong.

All in all, I intend to be time-effective on this one and improve the entire run instead of polishing individual levels to death. And there are quite a few levels in the main run that can be heavily improved (almost all of them, actually). And also, opposite my main run, I favor attempts where you end up with lots of health, even if they are a bit slower. Not worrying about your health really helps when you start off a run.

PS And i take it 100 fov is ok. Smiley

[quote]At :25 can't you jump on to the wooden railing from the stairs[/quote] Lol. I can, actually... and not on the railings but almost to the door. Looking at this frame by frame says it's a half a second frak up from me.

[quote]At :38 you accidentally (I think) jumped towards the shelf, which eventually cost you about a full second[/quote] Not really a second, and I need lots of ammo in the first area of level 2.

[quote]it's easy and saves a few seconds[/quote] If you mean railing not ahead of you but on the right where you have to jump over the gap, then I'm not sure it is even possible, and if it is, I'm not among those how can do this easily. I can jump over that gap only with full stamina bar.

[quote]Out of curiosity, how are you segmenting this run? Is it 1 or multiple segments per level/mission?[/quote] It's one segment per level. Even though I would love to segment some of the levels. The game is rather random, especially its AI. In more than 90% of my level 2 runs I didn't get past the first 20 seconds, and when I did there was a long level ahead where quite a few thing can go wrong.

All in all, I intend to be time-effective on this one and improve the entire run instead of polishing individual levels to death. And there are quite a few levels in the main run that can be heavily improved (almost all of them, actually). And also, opposite my main run, I favor attempts where you end up with lots of health, even if they are a bit slower. Not worrying about your health really helps when you start off a run.

PS And i take it 100 fov is ok.  :)

Ewil

2010-05-15 01:59:38 am

Here's the railing shortcut: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ap3foo

This shortcut is very easy to do, the real problem is that sniper since you usually end up getting hit at least once, but it's really worth it or you could probably kill him beforehand. It's possible to jump there even without stamina.

groobo

2010-05-15 02:08:20 am

boss

Quote:

At :38 you accidentally (I think) jumped towards the shelf, which eventually cost you about a full second

Not really a second, and I need lots of ammo in the first area of level 2.

It really is at least a second by the time you drop down, move back to your path, and accelerate back to full running speed. Anyway, you could just grab everything on that shelf while running by, with the 'use' key.

Quote:

it's easy and saves a few seconds

If you mean railing not ahead of you but on the right where you have to jump over the gap, then I'm not sure it is even possible, and if it is, I'm not among those how can do this easily. I can jump over that gap only with full stamina bar.

I've done it multiple times on my old attempt at running this game. It's really about the correct trajectory, more so than speed.

KhanFusion

2010-05-15 02:59:55 am

Quote:

It really is at least a second by the time you drop down, move back to your path

I tried a couple of times to dash through this part and i was 49 frames faster which is almost a second. But I didn't even try to grab that ammo.

Quote:

Here's the railing shortcut

Well, this one I can do. I thought it was something like jumping much further to the right, towards where the door is. THAT would be very cool...

zato

2010-05-15 10:57:47 pm

Out of curiosity I tried a couple of jumps mentioned here, but i had to try them on multiplayer cause i don't have SP installed right now.

The stair jump can be done quite smoothly but it's a bit hard to get positioned quick and the other jump can be made much to the right and near the door.

Attachment:

demo0002.dm_57

WoOdY49

2010-05-16 07:41:21 am

At 1:48, you can get directly to the higher area by jumping on the little edge at the wall on your right. That'd save a quite lot of time as you don't need to go all the way round. I'm just not sure if there's any triggers to be passed, which would make the jump useless.

KhanFusion

2010-05-17 08:48:36 am

There is a trigger. You need to kill 8 nazis to unlock the door leading to the narrow corridor.

KhanFusion

Edit history:

KhanFusion: 2010-05-21 05:09:12 am

2010-05-21 04:43:12 am

Ok, I think I found a serious problem. The rate at which the fatigue bar expends depends on the framerate! The lower the framerate the longer you can dash. So, what's now?

Attached a vid. Two segments run at 60 and 30 fps. It seems that the fatigue consumption rate is proportional to the fps.

Attachment:

6030.avi

ExplodingCabbage

2010-05-23 09:20:24 pm

My advice: pick whichever framerate you'd prefer to do the run at and stick with it (preferably 30 or 60 since they're more 'standard' for PC speedruns). Then note the issue in the run comments.

You can always PM Mike and ask he wants you to use a particular framerate but I don't see any reason it wouldn't be your choice which to use.

KhanFusion

Edit history:

KhanFusion: 2010-06-22 02:27:35 pm

2010-06-22 02:16:22 pm

Ok, I've picked the maximum reasonable framerate - 60fps. It seems s1cksyst3m picked 50fps.

So here's my final run. The first video is almost a copy of that that I posted earlier, I only rerun Tram part (not even sure why, and it's just one second improvement). I tried to rerun Escape and I've got tons of 54s , plenty of almost 53s, and only one 53 with 33 health remaining (link). So for me killing that sniper was a fair tradeoff. Especially given that Castle Keep is the one of the very few random levels I didn't manage to tame. And most of the improvements come from the fact that I greatly reduced randomness of the game. The most prominent example is Paderborn Village in mission 6 where I learned to lure out the first victim officer with almost 100% probality. And there are some other new tricks and optimizations. There are also tons of mistakes, there are ugly mistakes and there are mistakes that are not as terrible as they might seem or they are offset by luck in other parts of the level. If there any questions, ask away...
mission 1 in 4:47 (improved by 38 seconds)
mission 2 in 7:19 (52)
mission 3 in 8:10 (37)
mission 4 in 4:52 (51)
mission 5 in 3:59 (14)
missions 6 & 7 in 8:12 (67)
The old run improved by 4:19 to 37:19.
So yes, it's a sub 40 run, and sub 39, and sub 38. Smiley

Ok, I've picked the maximum reasonable framerate - 60fps. It seems s1cksyst3m picked 50fps.

So here's my final run. The first video is almost a copy of that that I posted earlier, I only rerun Tram part (not even sure why, and it's just one second improvement). I tried to rerun Escape and I've got tons of 54s , plenty of almost 53s, and only one 53 with 33 health remaining ([url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kVA4T4iuBo]link[/url]). So for me killing that sniper was a fair tradeoff. Especially given that Castle Keep is the one of the very few random levels I didn't manage to tame. And most of the improvements come from the fact that I greatly reduced randomness of the game. The most prominent example is Paderborn Village in mission 6 where I learned to lure out the first victim officer with almost 100% probality. And there are some other new tricks and optimizations. There are also tons of mistakes, there are ugly mistakes and there are mistakes that are not as terrible as they might seem or they are offset by luck in other parts of the level. If there any questions, ask away...
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_tHPe446c]mission 1[/url] in 4:47 (improved by 38 seconds)
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjPRkTkqHMk]mission 2[/url] in 7:19 (52)
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFHZ8zh9d5k]mission 3[/url] in 8:10 (37)
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHohWLo7A2A]mission 4[/url] in 4:52 (51)
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha71ZszOpRs]mission 5[/url] in 3:59 (14)
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD2seJN6iUw]missions 6 & 7[/url] in 8:12 (67)
The old run improved by 4:19 to 37:19.
So yes, it's a sub 40 run, and sub 39, and sub 38.  :)

Ewil

2010-06-23 05:02:30 am

Congratulations to sub 40 minutes run, are you gonna submit it ?

KhanFusion

2010-06-23 07:29:20 pm

Well, first of all I want to make sure it is ok, i.e. it cannot be improved as heavily as my old run was. I chopped off 10% from that run and significant part of it came from better planning. I can bear execution mistakes here and there especially in the more random levels, but if there are some shortcuts not used, planning errors, faster ways of doing something, or some other thing I might have overlooked, I'd like to know about them now...

Ewil

2010-06-24 01:39:16 am

The only thing I can think of is the railing shortcut in the very first mission Smiley

Rest of the run looks as fast as possible.

KhanFusion

2010-06-24 09:24:14 am

Yeah, right. But here's Castle part in mission 7 done 4 seconds faster. It looked half-baked because Black Guards are deadly in this level and very few attemps even made it to the end. As usual, doing things safer resulted in a faster time.

PS Why does it keep saying that the upload folder is full or something like that? The file was just 20mb... Sad

Tecnhopro

2010-06-24 10:03:49 am

Man, just finished watching the run and I have to say this is excellent work!

RTCW is my all time favourite FPS-game and this run is like a dream come true. It is good in so many levels: the accuracy and planning are so much better than in the previous runs that I was absolutely thrilled to watch the improvements. The best of all was the assassination mission, you took quite an original angle there. Grin

Also the snooper hipshots were top notch through the whole run.

Can't see much possible improvement here. Once again thank you for running the game with such skill. Smiley

KlVis

2010-06-24 12:16:57 pm

Le Prince Noir

Looked at the run and I love it!
Never played the game before but this run made me want to. It has everything an enjoyable (for outsiders) speedrun should have: skills, action and speed. Great run Smiley

KhanFusion

2010-06-25 12:23:34 pm

Thx all.
Ok then, time to contact Mike, I guess..

KhanFusion

2010-06-27 03:57:27 am

Ok, post about timing issues.
There are two timers in this game. One is shown in the top right corner of the screen if cg_drawTimer variable is set to 1, another is displayed when you complete a level. The timers are different and show different values.
The first one clocks exactly every 60 frames but it starts counting while the loading screen is up and doesn't stop when the level is finished. So I have it turned off, since timing by frames directly is better. The problem is that there is no definite point when the player gains control. When loading screen is gone and it starts to fade in you can only look around with your mouse, but not shoot, reload, move etc. And you gain full control when fading in is complete which takes exactly 60 frames or one second. Also it's a bit hard to say when the level ends exactly and measurements might be off by a few frames.
And there is a nice end-level timer which stops when the level is finished. However it starts when the level is loaded for the first time only and doesn't reset if you load a savegame while in game. A simple workaround here is to restart the game every time you want to load from a save. The more serious problem is that it's inaccurate. Sometimes it takes it 64 frames to advance one second, and sometimes 59. Overall, it gradually falls behind and once and again catches up by advancing two seconds at once. So it looks like this 35, 36, 37, 39, 40... I chose to use this timer because it's never off by more than a second and most importantly its errors are very consistent. It always skips 17th, 38th, 59th etc (roughly every 20th second) seconds no matter what. So a faster run will never have a slower time displayed by this timer and if used to compare two runs it won't lie. Also I timed my run both ways (timing by frames was done from the point when full control is gained) and the total time was exactly the same - 37:11 (or 133851 frames), so with all its pecularities its results turn out to be quite sound.
Well, that's all to it.

Ok, post about timing issues.
There are two timers in this game. One is shown in the top right corner of the screen if cg_drawTimer variable is set to 1, another is displayed when you complete a level. The timers are different and show different values. 
The first one clocks exactly every 60 frames but it starts counting while the loading screen is up and doesn't stop when the level is finished. So I have it turned off, since timing by frames directly is better. The problem is that there is no definite point when the player gains control. When loading screen is gone and it starts to fade in you can only look around with your mouse, but not shoot, reload, move etc. And you gain full control when fading in is complete which takes exactly 60 frames or one second. Also it's a bit hard to say when the level ends exactly and measurements might be off by a few frames.
And there is a nice end-level timer which stops when the level is finished. However it starts when the level is loaded for the first time only and doesn't reset if you load a savegame while in game. A simple workaround here is to restart the game every time you want to load from a save. The more serious problem is that it's inaccurate. Sometimes it takes it 64 frames to advance one second, and sometimes 59. Overall, it gradually falls behind and once and again catches up by advancing two seconds at once. So it looks like this 35, 36, 37, 39, 40... I chose to use this timer because it's never off by more than a second and most importantly its errors are very consistent. It always skips 17th, 38th, 59th etc (roughly every 20th second) seconds no matter what. So a faster run will never have a slower time displayed by this timer and if used to compare two runs it won't lie. Also I timed my run both ways (timing by frames was done from the point when full control is gained) and the total time was exactly the same - 37:11 (or 133851 frames), so with all its pecularities its results turn out to be quite sound.
Well, that's all to it.

KhanFusion

2010-07-05 03:18:21 am

Come on people, this run needs your opinion. I even updated a couple of levels so now it's a sub 37 run - 36:59, to be exact. Grin

http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php?topic=1285.0

crasdf

2010-09-18 05:25:23 pm

hey guys
does anyone of you have fu3l3d's run on his hdd?
you cant find it anymore on the web
an upload to filefront would be much appreciated

amdr

2010-10-06 03:54:43 pm

Wow great I found this thread. I requested an RTCW run for the SDA database and by seeing this footage I'm just gonna try it myself =D
I never done it before so it's gonna be a huge challenge to be precise and it's gonna take some time but I'm looking forward to it Smiley

DaleLewill

2010-10-06 06:41:11 pm

Ad infinitum

Quote from KhanFusion:

Come on people, this run needs your opinion. I even updated a couple of levels so now it's a sub 37 run - 36:59, to be exact. Grin

http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php?topic=1285.0

That sounds awesome! So what's happening with this run? It's not on the verification-list so is it getting processed by SDA and awaiting to be posted or did it fail verification or what?

This is an awesome game that I think really deserves a good speedrun... so what's the deal?!

d_arnold07

2010-10-06 06:47:32 pm

http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/return_to_castle_wolfenstein__september_20th_20102.html

DaleLewill

2010-10-07 06:15:40 am

Ad infinitum

Quote from d_arnold07:

http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/return_to_castle_wolfenstein__september_20th_20102.html

That's awesome, I can't wait to see the run!

KhanFusion

2010-10-07 02:21:52 pm

2amdr
Oh, so you found this thread first. Smiley

Well, good luck to you. If you've played this game a lot then perhaps you can find some more tricks and shortcuts.