I think it's been long enough that people aren't mad at this game anymore.
This version is quite different from the PC version. There is no strafejumping, traditional rocket jumping or damage boosting. You also cannot use or upgrade the Daikatana outside of the Kage Mishima fight in E4M5.
However, I found a pretty big glitch with wide application: Weapon Boost! It abuses the recoil from many weapons, compounded with your backwards speed and the game's jump mechanics to allow fast bunny-hopping and super jumps to skip parts of levels. For more on this, see the Game Resources page.
Here is a testrun up to E2M2 showing the route so far. Commentary is available in BizHawk (turn on Subtitles) and as CC (captions) in the encode:
Testrun input fileLink to video
For future levels:
E2M3: No major skips in this level, as we have to find all five pieces of a tablet for the end trigger to activate.
E2M4: Best weapon against Medusa is the Poseidon Trident. We'll need 24 ammo for this fight.
E3M1: A Boost Through Walls can be done on the gate to save a minute and a half from not having to talk to Musilde and get the keystone. The glitch usually could be done anywhere but strange unclippable walls block most attempts to clip anywhere else.
E3M4: No major skips here either, as we have to find all seven pieces of the Purifier sword in order to fight the king.
E4M5: This fight can be done in under 10 seconds by repeatedly forward-stabbing. This cancels all his other phases.
This could be a big project, so I am opening it up to the community to help or take over. I can help with glitches and routing, or more if needed. Maybe a full run could be achieved through small efforts from many people, like Mario 64's 120 star run.
Note: While most of the game is desync-free, be careful of desyncs around the E1M3 timed door guys. Also use the UDLR keyboard shortcuts instead of the virtual Control Stick, as that may cause desyncs too.
Neat WIP.
There might not be strafing, but can you abuse floating point precision to get better speed? It's somewhat like strafing, but more precise and doesn't gain as much speed.
And if BizHawk doesn't display lag, there's an option called "Non VI Lag".
BizHawk 1.11.8.2 had some N64 core changes, maybe that would help with the desyncs. Or you used a bad setting.
Thanks!
I did find a form of movement that might be what you're describing. You turn the camera at an angle and move forward+strafe left or right to move 20% faster. Different from SR40 and such in Doom, less intuitive and it can make shots harder, but it results in a faster speed than running straight forward.
That Non-VI option is just what I needed. I didn't even see that before, thank you!
I did use the Pure Interpreter Core, which should be the best for sync. Maybe my RSP plugin is at fault (I used HLE).
What you described isn't abusing floating point precision. It is just regular strafing. Abusing floats leads to a fractional small increase of the speed. In Chameleon Twister it's about 0.000002u (can't remember the exact value), it's so precise that no one does that. except me.
But since there's already strafing in this game, the float abuse would fall into strafing optimization anyways.
I like all the weapon boosts and out of bound skip. The run really flows well overall. Keep up the good work.
Do you still have to bring AI partner to level exit in N64 version later on?
Thanks for the encouraging comments, guys! Maybe I will continue this by myself.
Nope, the partners only appear in cutscenes in this version. They're removed from the gameplay entirely, which should make this version faster.