Syphon Filter (PS)

2012-08-13 11:46:58 am

Strange days, incredible days

I'm not sure where the extra time came from either, I was surprised to see such a big jump as well. When I first started running I figured it would be measured in real time, but then I read SDA's rules and thought "well maybe it'll be based on the timer" and my conversations with nate and Mike Uyama during submission seemed to indicate this as well. But then it came out to 1:14:27. Now that I think about it, I've never actually measured to see where that time came from, I just assumed it worked out like that. If there were any penalties added to it, I'm not aware of them.

I know what you mean about random guard spawning, at some point I managed to figure out how to (fairly consistently) manipulate guards not appearing in the two Rhoemer's Stronghold levels. There's some set guards that wouldn't appear at all if you didn't alert others before reaching a certain spot. There's actually some that would ONLY appear if you'd died once on the level already, which really threw me when doing practice sessions. It actually reminds me of Minecraft a little, how enemies will only spawn within a certain range and if there aren't other enemies nearby...lots of ways to manipulate it, as you clearly did in the snow base.

The Tunnel Blackout story made me laugh. Man, I had such a hard time with that one. Something about the way the game renders that level just made it impossible for me to run normally. I never noticed it until I started running, during normal play I used the X-Ray gadget and progressed really slowly through that level.

I'm not sure where the extra time came from either, I was surprised to see such a big jump as well. When I first started running I figured it would be measured in real time, but then I read SDA's rules and thought "well maybe it'll be based on the timer" and my conversations with nate and Mike Uyama during submission seemed to indicate this as well. But then it came out to 1:14:27. Now that I think about it, I've never actually measured to see where that time came from, I just assumed it worked out like that. If there were any penalties added to it, I'm not aware of them.

I know what you mean about random guard spawning, at some point I managed to figure out how to (fairly consistently) manipulate guards not appearing in the two Rhoemer's Stronghold levels. There's some set guards that wouldn't appear at all if you didn't alert others before reaching a certain spot. There's actually some that would ONLY appear if you'd died once on the level already, which really threw me when doing practice sessions. It actually reminds me of Minecraft a little, how enemies will only spawn within a certain range and if there aren't other enemies nearby...lots of ways to manipulate it, as you clearly did in the snow base.

The Tunnel Blackout story made me laugh. Man, I had such a hard time with that one. Something about the way the game renders that level just made it impossible for me to run normally. I never noticed it until I started running, during normal play I used the X-Ray gadget and progressed really slowly through that level.

jerk_store

Edit history:

jerk_store: 2012-08-13 10:34:21 pm

2012-08-13 10:34:06 pm

Three seconds to kill Aramov and nine seconds to kill Girdeux?! When do you actually start recording the run during those levels, when you get controls?

J.Y

2012-08-14 08:15:54 am

Yeah that is strange. Could it be that the time (1:14:27) is the combined time of all the clips, including the loading and savingscreens?
I could perhaps volunteer and time your runs myself, from were control starts and ends. I'm not 100% sure when control ends, personaly I think it would be when the screen starts to fade, apart from the levels where you ride an elevator up or down (at the end of Base Bunker/Warehouse 76), because even though you still have control over Gabe, the level is finished and there is nothing more that can be done.

Yes, you can manipulate a lot of guards based on the actions you take, I tried to find as much ways as possible but I'm sure ther is more to come.

Haha, yeah it was quite painful to finish the level without seeing that much. But the level I had most problem with was Silo Acces Tunnel. I remeber that you said it was a favorite of yours, but definitely not for me haha! I did at least 100 recorded tries, I had a lot of problems finding a fast way down to the long tunnel early in the stage.

Yeah that is strange. Could it be that the time (1:14:27) is the combined time of all the clips, including the loading and savingscreens?
I could perhaps volunteer and time your runs myself, from were control starts and ends. I'm not 100% sure when control ends, personaly I think it would be when the screen starts to fade, apart from the levels where you ride an elevator up or down (at the end of Base Bunker/Warehouse 76), because even though you still have control over Gabe, the level is finished and there is nothing more that can be done.

Yes, you can manipulate a lot of guards based on the actions you take, I tried to find as much ways as possible but I'm sure ther is more to come.

Haha, yeah it was quite painful to finish the level without seeing that much. But the level I had most problem with was Silo Acces Tunnel. I remeber that you said it was a favorite of yours, but definitely not for me haha! I did at least 100 recorded tries, I had a lot of problems finding a fast way down to the long tunnel early in the stage.

J.Y

2012-08-14 08:19:37 am

Jerk_store:
If you read at the bottom of the post with all the times, it says:
"I have timed it from the frame were character control starts to the frame were the screen starts to fade"

The whole clips are not 3 of 9 seconds if you thaught that. All the times I listed is just "playingtime", not the lenght of the actual clip itself.

BaronHaynes

2012-08-14 12:35:13 pm

Strange days, incredible days

Silo Access Tunnel was incredibly hard, but for some reason it was hard in a really fun way. I had as much trouble as you, I'm sure, but unlike some other levels I really enjoyed running it.

I would think control ends when the memory card screen first appears, since you have to mash X to skip cutscenes at the end of most levels. Technically the "gameplay" input is done, but it still requires player input to continue. Also, you can actually die during the fade to black (which happened to me a lot on Pharcom Elite Guards when I first started playing, due to the grenade throwers).

J.Y

2012-08-14 12:52:34 pm

Hum, didn't think about dying when the screen fades away. Good point.
But even if you die when the fading starts, you will not survive to the next level, and therefore start from the last continue.
The saving screen does not appear on the last level though, when you kill Rhomer, but I gess you could stop the timer when the ending movie starts.
If so, all the timses I posted is a little bit off, but it's like 5 second to add or so, and the time difference between your run and mine will not change.

skychase2rebirth

Edit history:

skychase2rebirth: 2012-08-16 01:49:23 pm

2012-08-16 01:48:53 pm

Socially awkward ;P

Have you managed to roll through the truck on Base Escape ? ^^
I'm currently looking for a way to hoist through the floor at the end of Rhoemer's stronghold, hoping for the ending fade-out to start even without completing any objectives. Yesterday, I only managed to hoist in the air, but it's useless and pretty hard to do.

J.Y

2012-08-17 03:29:28 am

Yes, I managed to roll through the truck but I only survived 1 or 2 times, and I did probably 20-30 attempts. The roll under the truck itself it not hard to pull of, I thought it would be much harder, but surviving the flames turned out to be tricky Tongue

How do you come up with all this shortcuts through the fire, do you use some cheatcodes or something? I think there is a gamesharkcode that makes you invincible to fire if I remember it correctly.

I know a couple of spots in the game where you can fall right through the floor and I have some of them recorded, I'll try to upload it during the weekend.

skychase2rebirth

2012-08-17 05:09:26 am

Socially awkward ;P

Usually, I play on ePSXe and I use savestates. Save, roll in the flames, die, load, roll through the fire and flames, guitar solo didlidlidlidliwawawawaaahh, die, reload, roll, survive, I found a shortcut, hurray !!! ;P

skychase2rebirth

Edit history:

skychase2rebirth: 2012-08-18 01:21:34 pm

2012-08-18 12:33:38 pm

Socially awkward ;P

Good news, I've been able to roll on the burning truck, safer than rolling through the fire, ~~I'll put a video soon.~~ ^^

Edit: Too inconsistent, but I have a video of a little single level speedrun ;P

J.Y

2012-08-18 05:02:55 pm

Nice, you could beat my time now, thanks a lot! Wink

I don't know if it's because of the lag when I record, but I was nowhere near having that much Armor left when I rolled under the truck.
I've noticed that some movments where a lot harder to do when I recorded, like the roll of the ledge down to the window in the begining of Rhomer's Stronghold.

jerk_store

2012-08-18 05:16:02 pm

Quote from J.Y:

The whole clips are not three or nine seconds if you thought that. All the times I listed is just playing time, not the length of the actual clip itself.

Okay, thanks.

skychase2rebirth

2012-08-18 05:30:24 pm

Socially awkward ;P

Quote from J.Y:

I don't know if it's because of the lag when I record, but I was nowhere near having that much Armor left when I rolled under the truck.
I've noticed that some movments where a lot harder to do when I recorded, like the roll of the ledge down to the window in the begining of Rhomer's Stronghold.

That's pretty random, I think it depends on the frames of the flame's animation or maybe it's just because I held "right" while rolling, avoiding the big flame that's on the other side of the truck. Probably luck though ;).

J.Y

Edit history:

J.Y: 2012-08-19 05:42:26 am

2012-08-19 05:41:48 am

Quote:

That's pretty random, I think it depends on the frames of the flame's animation or maybe it's just because I held "right" while rolling, avoiding the big flame that's on the other side of the truck. Probably luck though ;).

Indeed it's a bit random with the fire,last week when I was playing Missile Silo, I caught on fire but didn't die, I could run around while burning. That was the weirdest thing I have seen in this game ever, and I have played it for over 10 years!

Anyway, thought I would upload another preview of the run, this time on Destroyed Subway.

I found a shortcut at the begining of the level where you can roll through the fire instead of climbing on the train and go past the flames, saving about 10 seconds or so. It's possible to still have some armor left after going through the fire, but the lag made it harder to time the roll perfectly.
I do think that I could have done better on this level, especially the climbingpart in the middle, but overall it's ok.

[quote]That's pretty random, I think it depends on the frames of the flame's animation or maybe it's just because I held "right" while rolling, avoiding the big flame that's on the other side of the truck. Probably luck though ;).[/quote]

Indeed it's a bit random with the fire,last week when I was playing Missile Silo, I caught on fire but didn't die, I could run around while burning. That was the weirdest thing I have seen in this game ever, and I have played it for over 10 years!

Anyway, thought I would upload another preview of the run, this time on [b]Destroyed Subway[/b].

I found a shortcut at the begining of the level where you can roll through the fire instead of climbing on the train and go past the flames, saving about 10 seconds or so. It's possible to still have some armor left after going through the fire, but the lag made it harder to time the roll perfectly.
I do think that I could have done better on this level, especially the climbingpart in the middle, but overall it's ok.

http://youtu.be/Zz_QZMj4aCM

skychase2rebirth

2012-08-26 04:24:57 pm

Socially awkward ;P

Any news ?

jerk_store

2012-08-26 07:37:55 pm

Agreed, you could probably shave a few seconds off your Destroyed Subway run by climbing up to the second level a little faster, otherwise, I think it looks great!

How fast can you kill Marcos in the Washington Park level? In my experience trying to run that part, his appearance is pretty random.

J.Y

2012-08-27 06:18:42 am

Been trying out Anri-Chan a bit more to see if I could get it to work. It seems to work right now, so hopefully it would be up for verification in the near future!

Yeah, I'm not that satisfyed with my early runs, should have done a few more tries before I moved on. But then again, if I'll try to beat it some other time I'll know where improvement can be done Wink

I think it depends how fast you can get through the maze and maybe the route you take.
It has been a while since I played Washington Park, but I think that you'll have to kill the guards that appear before him in order to make him walk towards you. He was running when I encountered him which makes it harder to hit him. I was very lucky when I got Marcos, got him on the very last shot with M16!

jerk_store

2012-08-29 11:35:38 pm

While playing Syphon Filter on my PS2, I accidentally bumped the console. The disc skipped for a split second and then this happened while I was practicing some runs on the Rhoemer's Stronghold level.

Yellow guns, weapon creates with missing skins, baddies spawning from places I've never seen before (but it was hard to photograph them without dying right away) and other fun glitches!

J.Y

Edit history:

J.Y: 2012-08-30 07:59:33 am

2012-08-30 07:29:05 am

Haha thats nice.
Speaking of glitches, I just had to upload the clip where Gabe is running around with flames all over his body, that's just ridiculous!

Edit:
Here's a little shortcut I found on Pharcom Warehouse, saves about 2-3 seconds I think.

J.Y

Edit history:

J.Y: 2012-09-30 07:18:22 am

J.Y: 2012-09-24 10:43:59 am

2012-09-13 09:00:48 am

Hello guys, sorry for being so slow to update.
I'm finished with the encoding now, I'm just waiting for permission to submit the run for verification.
Also I have an update about the times.

There have been some thoughts about how to time this game. There's an in-game timer that can be seen at the saving/loadingscreen, but it's not easy to say if it's accurate or not.

I did some testing with my brother last week and it seems as the game starts counting after the briefingscreen and the videos that are shown Before you gain control of Gabe. That is, when the screen starts to fade up to when it fades away and a video Or the saving screen is shown.

When I load the last misson the timer is on 1:03:xx. I re-timed my run using the method described above and landed exactly on 1:03:00, not counting the last level.
This seemed to be the most correct timing there would be, but I did the exact same thing with Aarons run with an it was 2 minutes off, comparing to the timer shown in the game.

Therefore, the best way to time Syphon Filter is from the first moment where the Briefing Screen appears to when the savingscreen appears.
My final time is 1:08:00

Here are all individual levels:
Georgia Street: 4:14
Destroyed Subway: 2:22
Main Subway Line: 0:16
Washington Park: 5:38
Freedom Memorial: 0:28
Expo Center Reception: 6:41
Expo Center Dinorama: 1:56
Rhoemer's Base: 3:16
Base Bunker: 2:19
Base Tower: 1:17
Base Escape: 1:15
Rhoemer's Stronghold: 6:23
Stronghold Lower Level: 6:11
Stronghold Catacombs: 8:46
Pharcom Warehouse: 4:35
Pharcom Elite Guards: 2:49
Warehouse 76: 1:22
Silo Acces Tunnel: 3:42
Tunnel Blackout: 2:04
Missile Silo: 2:25

Hello guys, sorry for being so slow to update.
I'm finished with the encoding now, I'm just waiting for permission to submit the run for verification.
Also I have an update about the times.

There have been some thoughts about how to time this game. There's an in-game timer that can be seen at the saving/loadingscreen, but it's not easy to say if it's accurate or not.

I did some testing with my brother last week and it seems as the game starts counting [b]after[/b] the briefingscreen and the videos that are shown Before you gain control of Gabe. That is, when the screen starts to fade up to when it fades away and a video Or the saving screen is shown.

When I load the last misson the timer is on 1:03:xx. I re-timed my run using the method described above and landed exactly on 1:03:00, not counting the last level. 
This seemed to be the most correct timing there would be, but I did the exact same thing with Aarons run with an it was 2 minutes off, comparing to the timer shown in the game.

Therefore, the best way to time Syphon Filter is  from the first moment where the Briefing Screen appears to when the savingscreen appears.
My final time is [b]1:08:00[/b]

Here are all individual levels:
Georgia Street: [b]4:14[/b]
Destroyed Subway: [b]2:22[/b]
Main Subway Line: [b]0:16[/b]
Washington Park: [b]5:38[/b]
Freedom Memorial: [b]0:28[/b]
Expo Center Reception: [b]6:41[/b]
Expo Center Dinorama: [b]1:56[/b]
Rhoemer's Base: [b]3:16[/b]
Base Bunker: [b]2:19[/b]
Base Tower: [b]1:17[/b]
Base Escape: [b]1:15[/b]
Rhoemer's Stronghold: [b]6:23[/b]
Stronghold Lower Level: [b]6:11[/b]
Stronghold Catacombs: [b]8:46[/b]
Pharcom Warehouse: [b]4:35[/b]
Pharcom Elite Guards: [b]2:49[/b]
Warehouse 76: [b]1:22[/b]
Silo Acces Tunnel: [b]3:42[/b]
Tunnel Blackout: [b]2:04[/b]
Missile Silo: [b]2:25[/b]

J.Y

2012-09-29 02:59:56 pm

Update: the run is now available for verification!
And if you haven't notice, my brother is currently doing a speedrun on Syphon Filter 3, check it out!
http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/syphon_filter_3.html

jerk_store

2012-09-29 08:21:56 pm

Congrats! Can we see a sneak preview?

J.Y

2012-09-30 07:52:09 am

Thanks!
Well, if you voulonteer as a verifyer you could see the entire run before everyone else Wink

But sure, I can upload one more vid.

jerk_store

2012-10-08 07:38:59 pm

I tried messaging a couple staff members to volunteer to be a verifyer for this run, but I haven't received any responses. Is it possible to message me your entire run and I can verify it in this thread?

DanE

2012-10-09 03:32:08 am

Fjölpärsk

From "Runs Needing Verification":

Quote from Flip:

Once I have found at least three verifiers (or two if the run has been up for a while) I'll let the runner submit.

Quote from Flip:

Again, if you can verify, send me a PM. I typically don't respond until a run is available for verification.

If I am slow to respond, it's probably taking forever to find verifiers. If you offered to verify a run and wonder why it's still here, it's because I look for 2-3 verifiers. I won't take more than 6, so if you offer and never receive the run, you were probably too late.

There are most likely too few verifiers right now, but once there are enough the run will be available. Please be patient! Wink