Slowdown and pause buffering

[TS666]

[Extra] - [Marisa - B]
TS666 - 884666310 - SL.RATE: 0.120% - [RPY]/[VIDEO]

SPECIAL NOTES
[NM][NB][TA]

Split from the SA score thread  -Karisa

[chirpy13]

Tool assisted huh... Well at least you're honest about it.  Also if you don't mind I might steal your formatting for all my future submissions.

[Oh]

Ebin :D

[TS666]

Tool assisted huh... Well at least you're honest about it.  Also if you don't mind I might steal your formatting for all my future submissions.

Yeah, only Cheat Engine .
Sure, you are free to use it .

[Jirachi]

[Extra] - [Marisa - B]
TS666 - 884666310 - SL.RATE: 0.120% - [RPY]/[VIDEO]

SPECIAL NOTES
[NM][NB][TA]

very formating                   much colors
              wow           many superplay
    so score                           wow

Spoiler:

inb4 shit dead meme get out

[TS666]

very formating                   much colors
              wow           many superplay
    so score                           wow

Spoiler:

inb4 shit dead meme get out

Hehe yeah, I did this replay at about a month or two, I don't remember.
Also I may say that I'm very familiar with SMF-based forums :3.
I also forgot say about the input lack for few times at the begining when playing, it's not a big problem but it was caused by the game window unfocusing when I was installing a thing :V.

[Inadequate]

What these people are trying to tell you is that these forums don't accept tool-assisted scores.

[TS666]

What these people are trying to tell you is that these forums don't accept tool-assisted scores.

Ah geez, I bet this will take place... :V
I really didn't know that TA RPYs aren't allowed, I only changed the speed and used my skills, nothing else...

[Karisa]

Wait... this was actually intended as a submission? And here I was seeing it as an obvious joke, especially with all the silly colors...

I'm a bit surprised anyone would think using a program called Cheat Engine isn't cheating-- it'd be pretty questionable (I'd say not allowed, though of course it's unprovable) even if you just viewed hidden memory addresses without modifying anything.

If you did do a serious tool-assisted scorerun (they can do all sorts of crazy grazing that's impossible in real-time; all the known Touhou TAS records are here) that scored higher than the non-TAS world record, that'd be a different matter... it still wouldn't be included in these scoreboards though.

[Jirachi]

And you'd have to ditch CE and get used to Hourglass and its glitches, otherwise Kopiapoa-senpai won't notice you. :3

[TS666]

No no no, I never said that using Speedhack of CE isn't cheating, anyways I did my try and no prob if the replay isn't added!.
It's my first submission and I didn't know the rules so excuse the mess, you may add it if you like or ignore it...

[I have no name]

This is sort of on the current topic, and also purely hypothetical-I wouldn't be submitting any scores that did it (not that I'd be submitting scores anyway! :V), but what if a replay that heavily pause buffered to the point of appearing like it was played with slowdown was submitted?*  Nothing outside the boundaries of the game was used, full framerate-would that hypothetically be allowed?

If not, would any replay with any pauses be disallowed?  Where would the line be drawn?  From a rules perspective I'm quite interested in which side of the line this falls on-though obviously it's right on the line.

_{*I was able to do this in ISC with very little difficulty, just took a bit of getting used to the timing for it and I could do it nearly every time.  (my own personal stance on it is for speed with game timer, no because it messes with it, speed in real time yes as it's included, pure survival yes as you're still playing, and scoring likewise)}

[chirpy13]

If it looks slowed down who's to say if it was actually slowed down or if you played at a lower fps?  I would just assume TAS in either case unless it was proven otherwise by a stream highlight or something.  Even then though, I wouldn't consider it legit.  As far as a replay with "any pauses", why not?  I think the line would be drawn at anything where pausing enhances your own ability.  Pausing to actually pause is perfectly fine.  No one's going to give a fuck if you went to grab a drink in the middle of a run or something.

I get the no-pause argument for arcade stuff where there's no pause built in, and where WRs are done on actual cabs where people actually sat through several days of infinite-looping games without being able to sleep or use the bathroom to get their scores.  For example Hishouzame is a bit over 20 minutes a loop, and the WR counterstops and reaches 182-4 (stage 4 of the 182nd loop).  That's a 60+ hour credit right there, and you can't really compare someone who went to sleep every night and got up for a stretch every so often to someone who did it sitting on a small stool in a crowded arcade with their face plastered to a CRT screen while struggling to keep their eyes open for almost 3 days straight.  Fortunately the longest Touhou games are only about 50 minutes with full milking and the ability to pause does indeed come included.

[Inadequate]

Pause buffered runs are generally accepted on scoreboards, as long as they don't look like TAS runs, i.e. the pausing was used only in moderation and often stated in comments (for example: "I paused to better position myself for stage 4 lasers in SA./I paused to better read KKS."). A run that is entirely done by pause buffering, and in which the pausing is used in excessive amounts would probably appear as a TAS and not get accepted.

However, some (if not most) players will probably look down on your run had you used such a thing.

Pausing in general is a two-edged sword; you can use it to calm down and regain your senses, but it will also disrupt the flow of gameplay and might thus throw you off for a while.

[TS666]

Oh, the situation with my replay with Cheat Engine is coming a trouble :/. Well, CE slows the game if I use Speedhack, it doesn't slow FPS (the game still thinks I'm playing at full speed but it's really going slow as the speed value is lesser than 1.0, I didn't use other things of CE (for ex.: modding the tables to trick the score system and earn extra score (Idk about it though)).
But, the major of problems are that I'm not completelly skilled and for that reason I used CE (Yeah, but I'll keep improving so later I won't need to use CE).
Also I said no problem if the replay is rejected because I didn't know about the rules :/.

[redlakitu]

Oh, none of us is completely skilled. Don't worry about that.

[Karisa]

Oh, the situation with my replay with Cheat Engine is coming a trouble :/. Well, CE slows the game if I use Speedhack, it doesn't slow FPS (the game still thinks I'm playing at full speed but it's really going slow as the speed value is lesser than 1.0, I didn't use other things of CE (for ex.: modding the tables to trick the score system and earn extra score (Idk about it though)).

It does slow the FPS-- if you played at, say, 1/4 speed, that's the same as playing at 15fps, or playing with 75% slowdown. It just also prevents the game from detecting it's being slowed.

It may not be evident in the game's slowdown percentage, but slowdown-assisted gameplay is usually obvious when watched at full speed-- the player's movements often wouldn't make any sense for real-time play.

On the topic of pause buffering-- didn't someone say that one of the top Japanese players pause-buffered in a stream during Lunatic Shou's 2nd nonspell? I forgot who the player was or where it was said (I think it was in stream comments somewhere)... does anyone have confirmation of this? (Does Nicovideo save archives?)

Also, I think this discussion belongs in its own thread. It's 17 posts long already.

[TS666]

Pretty weird this thing of moving themes and throwing my comment off to a new theme, what's that? the first time you see this kind of replay?.
You can at least delete the theme distortion (comments after me) and just lefting my replay in the topic it was (for curious people) :V.
But seriously it's surprising that many users started to talk about my replay just because it's TA (I used only CE Speedhack 0.2~0.5), it's really like the first time you see a TA replay, THE FIRST TIME.
Well, you can let me know if it'll be approved or not, then simply close this theme (if rpy rejected) [2] or restore the things as they were! (if rpy approved)[1].

It does slow the FPS-- if you played at, say, 1/4 speed, that's the same as playing at 15fps, or playing with 75% slowdown. It just also prevents the game from detecting it's being slowed.

I know that, do you think I'm a donkey?. The game doesn't slow its FPS when applying Speedhack and it thinks it's going at full speed.
Well, whatever if you're one of the moderators you/other MOD/admin must finally decide  ([1] or [2]) before the situation gets out of control just because I DIDN'T KNOW THE RULES (YOU DIDN'T ALLOWED TA REPLAYS).


Don't take me serious or ban me but you reacted just for a replay, surprisingly ended having its own theme.

[I have no name]

We've seen plenty of TASed replays before here-I just took the opportunity to ask about a means of play that could create a replay that looks the same, though without any slowdown.

But seriously it's surprising that many users started to talk about my replay just because it's TA (I used only CE Speedhack 0.2~0.5), it's really like the first time you see a TA replay, THE FIRST TIME.

It's the first time I've seen a TASed replay submitted to a score thread, where the submitter said it was TASed.  That's why discussion was had (that, and...)

The game doesn't slow its FPS when applying Speedhack and it thinks it's going at full speed.

But it's not going at full speed, and that's really what matters in the end.  The FPS is running lower than 60, the game is just tricked into believing it is running at 60.

I DIDN'T KNOW THE RULES (YOU DIDN'T ALLOWED TA REPLAYS)[/abbr].

TASed replays are perfectly allowed to be posted, they just don't go in the score threads (and should be obviously marked as a TAS, which you did).  There's no specific rule saying "no replays using Cheat Engine" because there shouldn't need to be one-it should be pretty obvious, especially with the rule about slow rate (which says if your average framerate is less than 57, it's too slow).  i actually ran a short experiment a couple years back with IN spell practice, I made 15 replays, TASed some with only slowdown in Cheat Engine, and the aggregate of everyone successfully pegged every replay I TASed, even though some of the replays were < 15 seconds.

I'd say splitting the discussion off from the SA score thread was a good move, given that it very quickly got off of the topic of SA scores.

Well, you can let me know if it'll be approved or not, then simply close this theme (if rpy rejected) [2] or restore the things as they were! (if rpy approved)[1].

I may not be a moderator or admin, but I do know that the thread probably won't be locked (as discussion is happening), and that the replay will definitely not be put on the scoreboard (that said, getting a NMNB run isn't exactly the easiest thing to do even with slowdown, so kudos for that).

[Zil]

...

Nobody's arguing about your score. It's obviously not being included and that's the end of it. I'm assuming this was moved here just because of the pause buffering discussion, which is a fair enough topic.

[TS666]

Oh fine, so I need to practise hard to do anything without tools!. TAS is accepted, however it won't appear on Hi-Score lists, I stand it and the reason is logic!.
So no problem, I know the reason and its acceptable, I think I'm going to deal with DDC.
But still surprised that a TA-replay generated such a big discussion :wat:.

So I will try to keep improving, from now you can see this replay as just some sort of practise or thing did when I had no thing to do (this replay was did two months before today).

[Jirachi]

Having pause-buffered myself before, it becomes pretty obvious if it's done incorrectly. It's hard to hold focus/shot and pause and move around at same time, so you'd be unfocused most of the time, causing your movements to look TASed. Quickly unfocusing as a wall is about to collide you but you make through also looks fishy. And if you don't make a delay between unpausing, the FPS will drop quickly after every pause, which also looks fishy since it'll go up and down as you make crazy unfocused movements.

As for legality etc, survival-wise, I'd say it's like having a 1cc with MoF MarisaB abusing the bug or with Aya/Medicine in PoFV: technically legal, but it's up to the watcher and the player itself if they'll consider it any impressive or even legal under their own standards. Score-wise however, I dunno since it's a more competitive scene, and even minor-ish patches like EoSD hitbox patch is disallowed (fair enough since it's an actual modification that alters the game a bit, but still less "cheaty" than pause buffering). It's probably bad for most grazes/milking since it greatly limits your movements unless you remap your keys or use a controller or something, but could be used for mere survival in a scorerun like Karisa said for Shou's 2nd nonspell. I guess it's up to the scoreboard moderators to draw the line.

[I have no name]

Example of pause buffering a lot.

You are right to a certain extent about the framerate, though it's worth noting that on 10-5 my framerate was also jumping around and I didn't pause during that at all.  10-4 was constantly changing, though, so you could see it that way.  Shooting, focusing, moving and pausing wasn't an issue for me, though.

[SirSlarty]

What is pause buffering exactly? I can't tell from the video but I'm guessing it has something to do with framerate and lag.

[Emerald Mint]

Just beware that in some games your actual spell card time can be affected greatly if you use pause during them. That includes pause buffering.

I'm more of a fan of playing the way it was intended rather than gimping it out with the pause button. Never have I had to use it and I don't really encourage it.

[I have no name]

Pausing the game repeatedly (or at all) to gain additional thinking/reaction time.  Pausing once as Shou's lasers straighten out allows you to see where they're heading and move accordingly after unpausing, what I did on 10-4 was pausing every tenth of a second or so holding a direction that I wanted to move after unpausing.  (of course, actually doing it is a fair bit harder than it sounds, due to the semi-awkward hand positioning and the required timing-trying to re-pause too son results in the game not pausing at all).  No slowdown, no lag, just using the pause button for a bit more than intended.

Asking about it was merely an idle curiosity since it had come up (I wouldn't have considered using it on ISC if chirpy hadn't done it for 4-6 first).

[SirSlarty]

Ah, that makes sense. It's the first I've heard about pause buffering (especially with ISC released) hence why I asked.
I am by no means coordinated enough to exploit this kind of thing.

[Karisa]

Not related to Touhou, but pause buffering is also a technique I've seen used in some games to perform frame-precise glitches, without needing TAS tools to frame advance.

I haven't done it myself, but I think in the games where it's done in real-time speedruns (such as Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask), mashing the pause button causes exactly 1 unpaused frame to pass before the game is paused again?


(Also I randomly tried playing with slowdown to see what it's like, and come to two conclusions-- one, a totally illegitimate Lunatic perfect run would only take a few tries at 30fps (comparing 30fps to 60fps is like comparing 60fps to 120fps), and two, it's almost intolerably boring.)

[Drake]

TAS is so unbelievably boring. I did slowdown runs of various Spell Cards for the longest time and I really just had to stop because 1) It took so long to produce anything, and 2) If I messed up there was no re-recording or savestate tools, which would obviously result in 1). It's great to watch and can showcase the boundaries of what a game is capable of, but man does it suck to execute.

At least with pause-buffering in a speedrun you're only doing it for one event, every so often.

[Espadas]

Is it a bad or a good thing that i don't even know what pause buffering is?  :wat: