Awesome P&key grab! You are definitely right when you say that it's tricky.
New run is here. Hex edit worked, so Desert World 4 P-switch hop and Desert Pyramid new keyjump is included. Also was able to fly carrying key in room 8, and fly carrying both in room 9. Not sure if this is the fastest possible way to get the P&key, but it's just your idea optimized a little, to avoid the wall-hit.
As far as the pyramid key-jumping goes in room 6, I entered the pipe the original way because entering a pipe while ducking forces Mario to travel up an extra block (so that his head hits the bottom of the pipe), and so it saved a few frames. And sorry that the beginning of Desert World 4 kind of sucks. Getting the P-switch just screwed me up trying to follow the same path that you did.
One other thing: if you were wanting to get 50 stars at some point (like VIPer did at one of the ghost houses in his SMW run), then Desert World 2 is the place to do it probably, as I tested it and it only costs two frames to do. I could try to hex this in if you feel it's important, but I'll leave it up to you, just let me know.
I also bet the game will seem a lot easier to time attack for a while after this pyramid level is done!
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Great jxq! I must say I'm glad the pyramid is almost over, sure it's fun to do the tricky parts, but the pyramid might be a little too tricky :-)
How much time did the P-switch jump save? I couldn't figure out why it saves time at all, from what I understand both methods should be equally fast.
On to the last two rooms of the pyramid now.
P-switch saved around 30 frames. On the other method, I had to slide for a few frames before hitting the first pokey, and it slowed me down some. By hopping off the P-switch, I jump immediately and can clear the first pokey with maximum speed still.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Oh, I see. I didn't realize you had to slide.
I saved no frames in room 10, tried to regrab the items but couldn't do so in a way that saved time. I've done the difficult part of room 11 however, and I'm happy to report I managed to save 62 frames (!) at the beginning. I'll most likely B-fly when running to the hole in the ceiling so the difference will be even bigger, but this comparison was made while running to it, like you did.
Dinner time, finishing the pyramid and posting the smv later.
Edit: The pyramid is finally finished. Click here. It's about 258 frames faster than the demonstration by jxq, I'm very happy with how it turned out, thanks a lot for the help jxq. Next up is the Yellow Switch Palace (though I accidentally named the smv Blue Switch Palace), followed by the pyramid again. I was hoping you could just hexedit the first 5 rooms since they will be identical for normal exit and secret exit.
Sorry to bug you guys, but is there any way you can start releasing the files in segments?
I love watching your progress (excellent run so far guys) but watching the entire beginning every time is a bit annoying.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the kind words Kijitow, they are very appreciated.
I've chosen "skip rendering 600 frames in fast-forward mode" under Options->Settings, so it takes less than 20 seconds to fastforward the ~40,000 frames I'm not interested in.
If I was only watching this movie (and not working on it myself), a much easier solution would be to make a savestate after you've finished watching an update and simply loading that savestate next time when progress has been made.
I always keep that stupid P-switch too long when I'm doing these runs. Anyway, 45 frames faster here. Room 10 - I got three frames by duck-flying. Room 11 - gained from flying on the way to the ceiling hole.
I'm pretty sure I can hex-edit in the five rooms for the pyramid redo once the yellow switch palace is done - however I am going out of town (without internet, frown) either today or tomorrow and won't be back until Monday or Tuesday, so you may get impatient and just do them again, or give hex-editing a shot!
(If you do try hex-editing, make many backups, advice which I grudgingly say frome experience. Also, when all done, pick the run you want to stick with, and then delete all your savestates and play the run from the beginning to make sure everything is good, and to re-save your savestates.)
I also don't know a good way to make runs segmented without having to hex them into the main run later. I just use the TAB key which I recently accidentally discovered is fast-forward!!!!!1one
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Very nice movie so far. Sometimes makes me want to take the controller into the hands again, but it seems like you two are already working together very well.
Two things that come to my mind:
- When you dive down to the key room, you stick at the right wall. Wouldn't it be faster if you move from the left to the right, so Mario already has some forward speed?
- And after you climbed through the hole in the wall and run above the screen, instead of just running to the right, could you fly to the right? I know that's pretty hard, because you have to throw and catch the key and don't see anything at all, but that would definately save some time
Btw, when I made those segmented movies for my SMW video, I usually ended one segment after Mario entered a level (1 lonely B button press in the hex code), and started the new segment before Mario entered this level (also 1 lonely B button press, usually somewhere around offset 95000). This made it very easy to merge two segments into one later on, just overlap those two singel B button presses (and add some extra time in the movie, this was done by manipulating one of the values in the first 20 offsets, don't remember which one).
Oh and btw, you're not going to remake the first 4 levels with flagitious' glitch, are you? (Don't say you didn't see this coming, I warned you about it!! ;))
Kijitow: Just play the movie once and make a savestate near the end. When a new segment is released, play the movie in read-only mode and load this savestate and you will watch from there.
This works as long as the new version doesn't change anything before your savestate. I use this all the time, and keep the savestate one or two levels behind the last released one. Saves a lot of time.
Wouldn't it be faster if you move from the left to the right, so Mario already has some forward speed?
Gah! Good idea. Saved 15 more frames from the 45 yesterday from the 60 day before from the ... holy CRAP we have optimized the hell out of this level. New SMV = go. Also, not sure which run you watched, but your second idea was already implemented.
I've done hexing that same basic way.. or in this level, looked for large blank spots around the frame number (signifying a pipe entrance) and adjusting the in-between frames until everything syncs. I honestly just don't feel like doing more hexing just to put out segmented runs, and then also have Fabian and I sending each other the full run back and forth to work on - we're already using DeHackEd's mini-uploader quite a lot. And frame count is in offset 16 through 19, which I usually just keep the old number in if I'm improving, so that's why the frame counts of some of my improvements are the same number of frames total. There just ends up being extra null time at the end of the run.
VIPer7 wrote:
Oh and btw, you're not going to remake the first 4 levels with flagitious' glitch, are you? (Don't say you didn't see this coming, I warned you about it!! ;))
Hehehe...well if Fabian wants to do them (or gives me permission to try) then I'll give it my all with hexediting. I personally am not too good with earlier levels because although I can find frames well, I seem to miss gigantic things like dragon coins.
And my out of town-ness will be Saturday through Monday, so Fabian if you do the Yellow Switch today, then I'll try hexing the first 5 rooms of the pyramid into it after I get home from work tonight. No rush though, if not I'll try when I get back.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Quick response before I go to sleep.
I haven't done the Switch Palace yet, so I might look into how hexediting works later. I figure sooner or later I'll have to learn this, so I won't feel too guilty for letting you do all this editing for me :)
I don't plan on redoing the first levels, but if someone wants to that's great.
And great additional improvements, as always, jxq!
And I was wondering if someone would be willing to send me the Patched game. I must be doing something wrong, because I can't get the patched game to work..
If I had to guess, it's likely he just applied the patch directly to the untouched ROM, without expanding the ROM with Lunar Magic which is supposed to be done first.
Readme files are there to be read.
A thought for pyramid normal exit:
Wouldn't the fastest way be to just carry the p-switch all-the way to the spikey bottom and then do a p-switch jump there to avoid damage? or maybe taking the key is faster i don't know, but still,
Be sure to make a save before entering the room as the position of the ball-'n-chains might be random which would prolly affect the speed alot.
EDIT: The previous post is completely retarded and should not be viewed by people who're impressionable.
I goofed around a bit on console and it seems to me the fastest way is to just dive down there with the cape. Dive as fast as you can, hug the left wall until you're in a good position, press x whenever you're in good positition continue to dive and pull up just before you hit the second "floor" of spikes. This will give you a few more frames of air-time before Mario hits the spiked cieling (don't think you can avoid that w/o losing time). He then becomes invincible, falls onto the floor which gives you enough time to jump with him to safety.
Crappy demo here: Link
Alternatively, you can do something along the lines of diving into the spikes and then use the flying-speed-while-running-bug to gain a few frames. Sorry i have no smv on this, I just play around with a savestate on the console.
EDIT2: Fixed a crappy demo. Also, you prolly won't have to jump of the grey platform to gain flying, I don't know why i did that. If you do have to jump up to become flying then maybe key-jumping is faster after all. Oh, and pounding the p-block in the beginning of the room saves loads of time, so the p-block-jump idea was retarded (which has already been stated).
Thanks for the thoughts and smv Gorling, I'll keep everything you said in mind.
Just for fun, I just did a quick awful demo myself, took like 5 rerecords (all down by the last spike ceiling) and 30 seconds (after I discarded the first idea I tried, which probably would've been very slow anyway). It's something like 30 frames faster than Gorling's. Linky.
Oh my, them Reznor are a smart bunch. Stand there until time runs out and every fireball misses.
Fabian, your email contains the hex-edit from the switch palace to the sixth room of the pyramid. Now you can try all these fun ideas!
And it's good to be back! 11 hour drives are not fun.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Thanks for the thoughts and smv Gorling, I'll keep everything you said in mind.
Just for fun, I just did a quick awful demo myself, took like 5 rerecords (all down by the last spike ceiling) and 30 seconds (after I discarded the first idea I tried, which probably would've been very slow anyway). It's something like 30 frames faster than Gorling's. Linky.
I didn't realise you could just fall all the way down. Anyway, the point of my smv was to show that given good timing (unlike my demo) one could get a few frames of flying in the narrow part.
Also, diving isn't faster than falling, it just looks that way to the naked eye, right?
