Speedrunning

[Slypenguin]

Who had the lowest time? I dunno

[Slypenguin]

And who had the lowest time?

[Slypenguin]

Maybe post your demos on YouTube

[Slypenguin]

I am only accepting runs that are on the UV 

speed category 

[Stupid Bunny]

 

for the love of god stop posting multiple times in a row. This isn’t Discord. If you have more to say either edit your last post or just take a breath and make sure you’ve addressed everything you want to say before posting. 

 

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, Slypenguin said:

How do you open demo files on the unity port 

 

Try a source port.

[PsychEyeball]

Speedrunning is the act of playing the game under the influence of speed, which may or may not be legal. Make sure you consult your local drug laws to see if you can speedrun Doom.

[Slypenguin]

I think the winner was 4shockblast I dunno lol

[RHhe82]

I ask myself, is this a joke thread, but I dunno lol

[ChippiHeppu]

But I beat 4shock's time by 400 milliseconds... I've been scammed of an entire internet point.

 

[spineapple tea]

48 minutes ago, ChippiHeppu said:

But I beat 4shock's time by 400 milliseconds... I've been scammed of an entire internet point.

 

Here, you can take my megasphere for compensation!! :D

[Slypenguin]

I'm not trying to change the subject just joking you may be wondering why am I doing this well this answer is CUZ IT'S FUNNY

[Betus Alpha]

On 9/29/2022 at 8:36 AM, ChippiHeppu said:

map01_6_29.zip

 

The megasphere will totally be worth 2 minutes of my time.

i gave you a megasphere like does that count

[Slypenguin]

On 9/29/2022 at 6:47 AM, dasho said:

Six minutes and 74 seconds has a lot of room for improvement, I'm afraid.

(they didn’t know what they signed up for)

[Slypenguin]

Sorry I haven’t been here for a while 

[spineapple tea]

14 minutes ago, Slypenguin said:

Sorry I haven’t been here for a while 

It's been very sad that this thread hasn't been updated in a while. After all, it is the prime source for all things speedrunning.

[Fluuschoen]

I don't know how serious you are, but I paste this post I made in a different thread, might have some use for you, or for anyone interested in the topic a bit. I'm suspecting the latter might be the more likely case, but oh, well.

 

So what helped me the most so far (besides the 20 years of quakes, played competitively in the last good 4 years + quite xtensive FPS background going back to 1996 : D), is to finish the official WADs in the purist way, so maybe you can get something out of it too. Anyways, it was a considerable bump up in general Doom skill, a most certainly noticeable change in the wind, even though before completing the task at hand, I was already arguably better with the mouse/some concepts than whom you would identify as an "average" player, due to the thousands and thousands and thousands of conscious effort-hours put in the game's genre before (and the vast majority of those hours were spent with an arena shooter relative of Doom).

Play all original WADs, so

The Ultimate Doom
Doom II
No Rest for the Living
Final Doom (TNT: Evilution, The Plutonia Experiment)

You may want to Sigil put in there, your choice. Either that or Plutonia should be the last.

Now play on Ultra-violence / pistol start every level / no mid-level saves or keyframes, and then when you'll finish Plutonia too like this (it looks way harder than it actually is, imo only about 2-3 levels that can a bit tricky for the marine in the making, up until he/she realizes what to do in order to minimalize the effect of enemy placement), you might end up re-thinking your concept on "hard" regarding Doom combat/gameplay in general, because many-many situations deemed as "hard"/"scary" earlier just got into the trivial/near trivial category in your basket.

 

I think this is the very foundation of setting up the needed mentality in your head, and it will affect your decision making in subtle (and not so subtle) ways that you can rely on to a certain degree later on, and from better decisions, you can predict better results (in most cases) as well. Or you can just have that result earlier than it was possible before, since it's quite rare that skipping some steps are actually benefitting you in the long run.

 

 

If you already did this, which is quite possible, then here's a wonderful WAD for directly practicing speedrun tech: Meowgi's Practice Hub

This one is surely a Cacoward 2021 in my book. It's an awesome training map, solely for practicing speedrun technics (SR50, rocket jumps, platforming, 2-shotting cybers etc.). Its value cannot be overestimated in learning movement skills and some combat bravado stuff. It's complevel 9, so it needs Boom compatibility.

 

 

Use a source port tailored towards speedrunning, it will be much easier on you on quite a few things, especially practicing for demos and monitoring times to the millisecond. Now, it's either Woof!, DSDA-Doom or PrBoom+ v2.6.2. These can legit record and playback demos without desync (complevel 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 21), and it's a matter of preference, but I don't see a reason to use anything else than DSDA tbh. On a more vanilla side (complevel 2, 3, 4), there's Chocolate Doom and Crispy Doom as well, which are absolutely awesome, but you have more use of DSDA, and a centralized workflow (you don't HAVE to switch source ports sometimes) make things easier, at least for now.

 

Also, you might find it useless or not very charming to you, but try to give 4:3 screen ratio a proper whirl, if you haven't already did that. While it's true that your horizontal FoV is lower, but I think that's much more important in PvP multiplayer than in single player, and the shallower angle somehow makes things align easier (certain angles, like for SR50 etc.), and makes you a bit more focused, because the edges of the screen are closer to the screen's center (or crosshair), meaning that there's way less clutter, less crap in your peripheral vison dividing attention for no constructive purpose (just rather the opposite, really), and a larger (percent) part of the screen is now closer to your focus point. Maybe this is just me, but I swear by it.

Max fps + Max Hz is my recommendation, but some prefer using the vanilla executable's fix 35 fps top limit. If you do that, make sure the monitor uses it's highest frequency which can be divided by 35, because it looks and feels way better. So if your monitor is 144 Hz for example, use either 105 or 140 Hz with a custom refresh rate tool. If you are playing uncapped fps, just let those Hz run wild as much as they can. tl;dr: So if you are not playing on fix 35 fps/y x 35 hz, never ever cap anything for the best responsiveness.

Always play with -shorttics, even in casual single player games, so it becomes absolute second nature when you are forced to use it while recording a demo. (Tbh, I really like the feel of the 360 degrees divided to 256 ticks, so I'd use it if I would never record anything as well, but each to his own.)

You might want to try out carry fractional ticks: off. It might be absolutely alienating at first, I know, but I'm telling you that feeling won't last long, and as it fades into nothingness, it will make getting precise angles (even for simple SR40/50, not just glides or precisely placed rocket boosts and such) much more easier for you, because your input is filtered in a way, that your unintentional micro movements are not taking part of the equation. You just have to be more "deliberate"/"firm" with your mouse handling, but I think you'll get it what I mean by this. Made a thread about these last two parameters some time ago, explaining my viewpoint/thoughts with perspective, trying to spark a little conversation about these settings with forum members, if you are interested in that.

Software renderer looks the most badass, but sadly, in the current trifecta of advanced source ports, the OpenGL renderer is much more responsive, feels a lot less input laggy with uncapped fps/uncapped Hz than software mode. I suggest go for OpenGL/shaders, that's the most reminiscent of the old school look.

 

Check out the Doom Movement Bible, a must read for upcoming Loopers and ZMs.

 

 

Always practice your movement. And by always, I mean always, even when you casually dozing off on some casual WADs, because good movement is one of the great foundations of good aim/combat skill. It really is, because it makes you more precise and also frees you of some shackles, so you can get more creative. So the goal here is to get the required motions in your hands rapidly, to make them so motor-like that they actually won't need any conscious effort from you materializing themselves.

 

tl; dr: You can just wake up, in the middle of the night, hop in front of the screen just to make a few fix 90/180 degrees turns first try, or do a bit of soothing SR40/50s, so you can finally go back to sleep instead of doing this stupid drilling exercise. : D I mean you get the point made in this sentence. I could have said that you can autopilot on the edge of coma, and your PoV itself is STILL moving 'n bobbing in a nice, serene, and oh-so-pleasing way, with fixated angles, bells and whistles, everything. So the perception of a nicely controlled PoV's "camera flow" is there, even if you do absolutely roflul stuff out from a comedy club special meanwhile, like getting gang-raped on an empty football field by 3 imps, with 200/200 and only 240 ammo in your BFG. : D

 

Play around more in NoMo. So -nomonsters, meaning no creature is on the level, you can solely focus on your movement alone. This is one of the most seriously undervalued possibilities you have with this game imo.
 

 

Try to play only the maps you really enjoy for some reason (don't have to be rational here, your choices can be based on feel/emotions/preferences alone), at first, at least, regardless or what IWAD or PWAD we are talking about. You don't have to commit yourself to an absolutely cold, hardcore grind in the beginning; running the levels you love the most/have the most fun on keeps an upbeating stroke around, while you are learning different things in varied environments, so even the boredom of the oh-so-needed repetition in this field can be mitigated somewhat.

Sometimes analyzing your own and others' demos (while being truly, unapologetically self-aware) is the way to proceed to a next step. This can lead to great achievements, both subjectively and objectively. So you ask questions like these yourself: "Can I do that now, or would I be better off practicing some aspects of the game more, before I make an honest try once again?" / "I screwed up big time, but where? What is holding me back in getting what I want? Let's watch the demo, frame by frame if needed, and figure it out!" / "I'm not sure, that this method is the trump card of efforts regarding this map. I have an alternative idea, so let's try out if it works in practice!" / "Hmm... well, this guy is a total legend, but what would be a realistic time for me now with my current skill level?"  etc.

 

And if/when you get that time, and you didn't need a decade of solitude in a Doom monastery, should you push it more? Would it be reasonable to do so? Is it within your current ability shaving off seconds (or even just a few, but value-their-weight-in-gold frames), or you need more grinding to get more consistent timeframes for your sub-level times? Or it really doesn't worth the huge time investment, because the difference in results would be almost as subtle as if you didn't have a difference at all, practically speaking? So something along this critically self-sharpening, honest perspective of yourself, your options and others (no bullshitting/delusions at all, but giving some credit when it's due) might be a good idea to implement, if it's lacking at the moment. Be the sharpest, most objective critic of yourself without being unreasonably hard on yourself (the ego can get in the way, just try to fight it rationally the best you possibly can), and you can learn a LOT from demos/videos, even if the latter ones are not commentated.

 

Find mates you can play challenges with. I'm nowhere near legendary/beast status in Doom speedrunning, but I like to think that I'm also not an unredeemable grandiose shit gobbler either : D, and I'm up for it, if you are. Like for playing any IWAD maps or almost all compleveled PWADs single maps with UV speed (maybe UV max too if it's not an ultimate chore), Pacifist and NoMo. This week is your map/ruleset choice, the other week is mine, we are exchanging/posting demos back and forth, and if you can/want, even renders as well, hopefully improving ourselves bit by bit in the process. Might be motivating to have somebody you can compete against directly, while maintaining some light-hearted "rivalry" of some sorts.

 

 

Also, patience, my friend, patience. Results are often come after a LOT of effort put in (at least results that are actually matter), so you have to exercise patience, above all, while setting little goals (based on reality, so you can achieve them quicker for the sake of healthy progression) on the way to your personal Nirvana. The process is more rewarding like this imo, because you have constant little joy-inducing interrupts/waypoints on the loooong road towards greatness.

 

The more you know about the game and yourself, the more insight you'll have, and you can tell more clearly which parts of your gameplay (or even hardware) needs what level of polishing in order to be more competitive. If you can set up clearer, more self-tuned short term goals, you'll get more worth out of them, because they draw up a more tailored/followable curve leading to your destination, while making sure you get your periodic, but also needed injections of small successes/positive feedback without wasting the most precious currency/asset there is, which is time. 

 

Also, try to be at least somewhat consistent with your practice sessions, where quality absolutely beats quantity (well, except for certain motor-related stuff, which need an endless amounts of repetition to be properly engrained). One of my favorite YouTubers, Karl Jobst (a pretty legendary speedrunner himself) has made two short videos ([link], [link]) on the general mindset of speedrunning, and they are recommended watches imo; while I may not agreeing with him on absolutely everything 101 percent or more, they indeed seem to be very well-grounded basic principles, regardless of what games you play, provided by a well-respected and proven expert in the field in a concise manner.

Just my thoughts, it's not 10 commandments or anything.

 

 

 

On a sidenote, if it relates to you:

Don't shy away in investing in your computer a bit. I'm talking about mainly keyboard, mouse, mouse pad and monitor here, assuming that the rest of the rig is more than enough to handle classic Doom and its iterations on the preferred resolutions. A very competitive set of peripherals (so not overpriced gaymer junk, but serious gear) won't make you a good player overnight, but it can make you learn how to fly faster, because everything is optimal and none of your gameplay issues can be traced back to the hardware itself. It really makes a difference, and you don't necessarily have to leave your lungs and kidneys at the cash register to buy decent, respectable things. If you need a bit of help, feel free to ask, I will; this is my hobby for like 15 years, and it even correlates somewhat to my job as well in the last 4,5 years.

Assuming you don't have the pretty carefully chosen, subjectively ideal gear already, you may ask why would you want to spend some money this, especially for mainly the sake of a 30 year old video game that can ported to an electric paternity test?

(a tl;dr from another post in that previously mentioned other thread)

 

Because the peripherals are constituting to the enjoyment/feedback of a computer a great deal, as they are entrusted to make that critical human-computer relation as seamless as possible, which defines the user experience on a core level. I would never cheap out on stuff that are this important in terms of what I perceive in every sensation possible, especially not for something I really adore/I have plans with/will spend a considerable amount of time with in the foreseeable future and beyond.

 

What I mean by "cheaping out" is not that everything has to cost a month worth of salary in the developed world or such folly, but it's factual, that specific hardware types have a specific minimal price range, under which you never want to go if getting nice stuff or just plainly getting an even remotely good bang for your money are not the very last things on your bucket list. For a brand new keyboard/mouse/mouse pad/monitor, this minimal price is around 45/30/20/135ish dollars (I hope we can agree that these prices are not hardcore at all, especially not for result-oriented, decent apparatuses), and you have to chose carefully (this is also true for the vast majority of the price ranges btw), but you can find extremely good deals on the second hand markets too, even for the fraction of a new unit's price. A literal fraction, as in some cases, you wouldn't believe how cheaply I got some proper stuff like this. And this is just the beginning of a truly enjoyable level, which actually worth paying for, but also a good comparison point/experience, if you decide to up your subjective standards a bit later on.

 

So with good hardware (which you can get pretty darn cheap for what they are btw, if you know where to look), you don't have to battle the thing on a physical and/or emotional level consciously/unconsciously, as there are no synthetic caps on your self-expression in-game or work, so you can solely focus on your end of the deal instead of your sub-par hardware's faults (of which you might not even have a crystal clear grasp if you lack some experience, so a more sophisticated concept of what is/feels "good" compared to what is not properly there yet). You can feel at home/more comfort/more confident/reassured, which leads to less stress and more positive feedback (even the sounds the gear make, the feel of the buttons, the texturing of the mouse pad, the materials etc. matter in that sense, so we are not just talking about strictly game-related technical reassurance), more productivity in front of the screen, regardless of what you do with your computer.

 


/wall of fucking text finally off, I really should do something with my life : D

Edited October 18, 2022 by Fluuschoen

[GarrettChan]

3 hours ago, Fluuschoen said:

Max fps + Max Hz is my recommendation, but some prefer using the vanilla executable's fix 35 fps top limit. If you do that, make sure the monitor uses it's highest frequency which can be divided by 35, because it looks and feels way better. So if your monitor is 144 Hz for example, use either 105 or 140 Hz with a custom refresh rate tool. If you are playing uncapped fps, just let those Hz run wild as much as they can. tl;dr: So if you are not playing on fix 35 fps/y x 35 hz, never ever cap anything for the best responsiveness.

 

I found out why I suck at speedrunning now because my refresh rate is 60 hz, but I capped the game at 35 fps.

[Fluuschoen]

On 10/18/2022 at 4:55 AM, GarrettChan said:

 

I found out why I suck at speedrunning now because my refresh rate is 60 hz, but I capped the game at 35 fps.

I suppose that's more like a mentality thing, not your specific hardware. ))

I mean, c'mon, dude, I know you are a runner, and THIS was your takeaway? : D

 

In the off-chance, that I read way too much into it, and your post wasn't sarcasm (sure felt like it tho, or maybe I just face it often enough to not assume it), but a needlessly self-deprecating realization of a bugging phenomenon after years of recording, then you can ignore the justification novel ominously closing in from below, even switching to a 75 Hz display running at 70 Hz should already make a palpable difference, and good for you. : D

 

 

You getting decent or downright good times doesn't necessarily mean that 

1) you are also playing on the absolute apex of your skillset (ask Looper what were his thoughts, when he got his 240 Hz display in front of him, instead of his old 60 Hz one, a new comp and switched from 35 fps to 1300+; one of his first moves was just going even more nuts, than usual, and doing a 17:29 Doom II UV speed WR).

 

2) you/your times/your comfort/the feedback you get wouldn't improve noticeably with carefully chosen gear that is held to generally high-leaning objective standards, and is tailored for the subjective outliers of your good performance as well (this tailoring means multiple choices, provided by answering a set of questions which have been formulated to correctly map out your real and putative needs, separating them from any possible acquired bad habits, so you can be presented a few good options to consider).

 

3) things that can be repeatedly measured with relative accuracy on a mathematical scale using some kind of a device are tend to be the exact opposite of placebo, just maybe less so for certain types of individuals.

 

4) capping the frame rate at 35 might help in some cases (NUTS.wad or D2M23 for me, for example), mostly at places that require rather quick and intricate input patterns in a really short timeframe, but it will make your life harder in others, where the perceived higher rate of speed is usually the preferable way to dealing with a complex scene. It tends to be an old-school preference nowadays, rather than a necessity, I also used it for like 6 months in the "new age", because that choppiness masked a good part of the input lag, so it felt more direct/responsive than uncapped.

 

5) that in case of stabilized 35 fps, using your refresh rate at any Hz without it being the integer multiple of 35, WILL result of sub-par motion clarity.

6) people can't get accustomed to basically almost anything in an almost unreasonably wide spectrum, can't defend those things for various reasons, or maybe can't even prefer them over solutions, which have been already proven to be the more optimal choices for most, but at least a considerably large percent/number of users.

 

7) you really had a proper and reasonable choice/chance to get a much better equipment on the core hardware level, but since you can work with what you have, this doesn't bothering you.

 

8) you used, or even just honestly approached and tried better in the same scenario for an amount of time, that can realistically give you at least some good indicators of what can be expected from the hardware, if you manage to get through the potentially occurring 'break-in' phase.

9) I don't have respect towards fix 35 fps in Doom, because I DO rever period-correct authenticity (or retrocomputing/retrogaming and the '80s-'90s in general) a lot, and I mean a LOT, even though I might not recommend it as an absolute way to follow for everyone. No respect for 60 Hz LCDs for playing anything real time though, at all. Old, especially former high-end Trinitron/Diamondtron CRTs are really nice on the other hand.

 

You didn't expect so many alternative ramifications from a single sentence, did you? : D

 

Tbh Doom is surprisingly playable on really out of date hardware and with junk peripherals, sure, you can have great fun with it. This, on the other hand, doesn't imply that you must play like this or there's nothing out there in relation to your rig that would make your time in front of the screen (much) sweeter. I just don't understand why throngs of people (in a global scale) are getting really cheap, when it comes down to the very devices they touch, use, watch or hear frequently/everyday, even when their PCs are like 3-4000 USD, or they are spending 10+ hours a day in front of it. Well, if the money now is for buying food or any other absolute necessities, then I sure do, it's obvious that a new lovely mouse or monitor are right at the end of your bucket list during the possible collapse of the Western world, rightly so.

 

Maybe I'm in a minority, but if that's not the case (well, we are slowly, but surely getting there...), I sure don't want to deal with sub-par plastic office rollouts/lowest shelf 15 USD complete sets and such in these times (or with an otherwise high-end, but low refresh rate display, which targets creative professionals), and since you can get pretty nice stuff quite inexpensively (well, inexpensive, if you know the selection pretty deeply and you know exactly what and why you buy), waaay more so if you look at the second hand market; over the years, I managed to get a few excellent stuff for so laughably low prices, that I almost felt awkward. Imo if your computer is not utter garbage, these input/output devices just might be the most important factors, when it comes down to using that PC, even more so, if you are spending hours in that chair in a relatively regular basis.

 

Your keyboard kinda sounds mechanical with some lighter switches tho, so this huge pile of letters were possibly born from a misunderstanding on my part by almost always expecting the worst from people I'm not closely familiar with,  if their post can have multiple, completely different meanings. But there's no swearing, might contain some new info/things to think about, so yolo. : D

I already wrote that people can get used to anything, and since Doom is so playable on low-tier technology, I can see why someone might feel so alienated by the thought of buying quality peripherals (which will be used for other stuff as well, not just this game, but that's another story). I mean you CAN do great runs with a 60 Hz display and 3 USD worth of flea market office peripherals. The question is; would you want to do that all time, if you'd also have a nice mechanical keyboard, a nice, light mouse, a nice mousepad, and a nice, high refresh rate monitor? Not even high-end, just wisely spent money, focusing on really good price/value ratio. I seriously doubt it; at least I don't remember a single instance in like the last 15 years, when someone regretted the purchase after some recommendations, and I do that almost daily since like 2014 on another forum with the core dwellers of the related technical topics.

 

It's the same thing when a construction worker finally gets his Makita power tools to switch from his low cost/low quality, half-way busted Walmart (or whatever, I don't really know these brands, but you get it) kit. It's not a given, that the result of his work will improve in a noticeable way, as if he had casted a magic spell (but still can happen, and it usually does, but the degree of it differs from person to person), but one thing is factual; he will have a more pleasant experience – both mentally and physically, he may even save some time – doing his job, so he can feel better about it. Meaning good peripherals might shape you into an overall better player or they might not, not everybody is the same, but the sensations and feedback, the overall user experience you get from them are still in a completely different realm, and these continuos positive impulses are affecting you not just directly, but subconsciously too, which can manifest different effects on a conscious level in exchange.

 

 

/War and Peace The End : D

Edited October 19, 2022 by Fluuschoen

[Fluuschoen]

Meanwhile I realized I have a complevel 2 demo and a render from March. Flat 6, so not the best, the first strafe on the stairs is way too wide angle, but cba to do more grinding at the time.

 

lv01-006.zip

 

Have you contacted the authorities about that speedrunning-related legal issue btw? These things can take a while, sometimes you have to push the matter a bit harder to get a  properly calibrated answer. Tenacity is key.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Fluuschoen

[Daerik]

4 hours ago, Fluuschoen said:

 

 

Peripherals/Hardware do not matter at all until you're trying to go from being the top .2% to the top .1%, until you're at that level they're not likely to have any impact on your ability to play, and you'll be infinitely better served by spending time actually improving your fundamentals as a player. Proper movement and decision making (which both strictly reside in the mental space) are what allow you to actually conquer difficult scenarios, not a mouse that lets you aim marginally better, not a keyboard that feels slightly more premium.

 

I'd also actively advise against playing entirely saveless, as there's very little to be gained by repeating segments of a map over and over from an improvement perspective. Most people will be better served by only repeating difficult parts of a level and tearing down what's not working and fixing it directly. Repeating entire levels is just going through repetitive already solved encounters which leads to tedium which leads to playing lazily which leads to building and reinforcing bad habits.

[Decay]

4 hours ago, Fluuschoen said:

I suppose that's more like a mentality thing, not your specific hardware. ))

I mean, c'mon, dude, I know you are a runner, and THIS was your takeaway? : D

 

In the off-chance, that I read way too much into it, and your post wasn't sarcasm (sure felt like it tho, or maybe I just face it often enough to not assume it), but a needlessly self-deprecating realization of a bugging phenomenon after years of recording, then you can ignore the justification novel ominously closing in from below, even switching to a 75 Hz display running at 70 Hz should already make a palpable difference, and good for you. : D

 

 

You getting decent or downright good times doesn't necessarily mean that 

1) you are also playing on the absolute apex of your skillset (ask Looper what were his thoughts, when he got his 240 Hz display in front of him, instead of his old 60 Hz one, a new comp and switched from 35 fps to 1300+; one of his first moves was just going even more nuts, than usual, and doing a 17:29 Doom II UV speed WR).

 

2) you/your times/your comfort/the feedback you get wouldn't improve noticeably with carefully chosen gear that is held to generally high-leaning objective standards, and is tailored for the subjective outliers of your good performance as well (this tailoring means multiple choices, provided by answering a set of questions which have been formulated to correctly map out your real and putative needs, separating them from any possible acquired bad habits, so you can be presented a few good options to consider).

 

3) things that can be repeatedly measured with relative accuracy on a mathematical scale using some kind of a device are tend to be the exact opposite of placebo, just maybe less so for certain types of individuals.

 

4) capping the frame rate at 35 might help in some cases (NUTS.wad or D2M23 for me, for example), mostly at places that require rather quick and intricate input patterns in a really short timeframe, but it will make your life harder in others, where the perceived higher rate of speed is usually the preferable way to dealing with a complex scene. It tends to be an old-school preference nowadays, rather than a necessity, I also used it for like 6 months in the "new age", because that choppiness masked a good part of the input lag, so it felt more direct/responsive than uncapped.

 

5) that in case of stabilized 35 fps, using your refresh rate at any Hz without it being the integer multiple of 35, WILL result of sub-par motion clarity.

6) people can't get accustomed to basically almost anything in an almost unreasonably wide spectrum, can't defend those things for various reasons, or maybe can't even prefer them over solutions, which have been already proven to be the more optimal choices for most, but at least a considerably large percent/number of users.

 

7) you really had a proper and reasonable choice/chance to get a much better equipment on the core hardware level, but since you can work with what you have, this doesn't bothering you.

 

8) you used, or even just honestly approached and tried better in the same scenario for an amount of time, that can realistically give you at least some good indicators of what can be expected from the hardware, if you manage to get through the potentially occurring 'break-in' phase.

9) I don't have respect towards fix 35 fps in Doom, because I DO rever period-correct authenticity (or retrocomputing/retrogaming and the '80s-'90s in general) a lot, and I mean a LOT, even though I might not recommend it as an absolute way to follow for everyone. No respect for 60 Hz LCDs for playing anything real time though, at all. Old, especially former high-end Trinitron/Diamondtron CRTs are really nice on the other hand.

 

You didn't expect so many alternative ramifications from a single sentence, did you? : D

 

Tbh Doom is surprisingly playable on really out of date hardware and with junk peripherals, sure, you can have great fun with it. This, on the other hand, doesn't imply that you must play like this or there's nothing out there in relation to your rig that would make your time in front of the screen (much) sweeter. I just don't understand why throngs of people (in a global scale) are getting really cheap, when it comes down to the very devices they touch, use, watch or hear frequently/everyday, even when their PCs are like 3-4000 USD, or they are spending 10+ hours a day in front of it. Well, if the money now is for buying food or any other absolute necessities, then I sure do, it's obvious that a new lovely mouse or monitor are right at the end of your bucket list during the possible collapse of the Western world, rightly so.

 

Maybe I'm in a minority, but if that's not the case (well, we are slowly, but surely getting there...), I sure don't want to deal with sub-par plastic office rollouts/lowest shelf 15 USD complete sets and such in these times (or with an otherwise high-end, but low refresh rate display, which targets creative professionals), and since you can get pretty nice stuff quite inexpensively (well, inexpensive, if you know the selection pretty deeply and you know exactly what and why you buy), waaay more so if you look at the second hand market; over the years, I managed to get a few excellent stuff for so laughably low prices, that I almost felt awkward. Imo if your computer is not utter garbage, these input/output devices just might be the most important factors, when it comes down to using that PC, even more so, if you are spending hours in that chair in a relatively regular basis.

 

Your keyboard kinda sounds mechanical with some lighter switches tho, so this huge pile of letters were possibly born from a misunderstanding on my part by almost always expecting the worst from people I'm not closely familiar with,  if their post can have multiple, completely different meanings. But there's no swearing, might contain some new info/things to think about, so yolo. : D

I already wrote that people can get used to anything, and since Doom is so playable on low-tier technology, I can see why someone might feel so alienated by the thought of buying quality peripherals (which will be used for other stuff as well, not just this game, but that's another story). I mean you CAN do great runs with a 60 Hz display and 3 USD worth of flea market office peripherals. The question is; would you want to do that all time, if you'd also have a nice mechanical keyboard, a nice, light mouse, a nice mousepad, and a nice, high refresh rate monitor? Not even high-end, just wisely spent money, focusing on really good price/value ratio. I seriously doubt it; at least I don't remember a single instance in like the last 15 years, when someone regretted the purchase after some recommendations, and I do that almost daily since like 2014 on another forum with the core dwellers of the related technical topics.

 

It's the same thing when a construction worker finally gets his Makita power tools to switch from his low cost/low quality, half-way busted Walmart (or whatever, I don't really know these brands, but you get it) kit. It's not a given, that the result of his work will improve in a noticeable way, as if he had casted a magic spell (but still can happen, and it usually does, but the degree of it differs from person to person), but one thing is factual; he will have a more pleasant experience – both mentally and physically, he may even save some time – doing his job, so he can feel better about it. Meaning good peripherals might shape you into an overall better player or they might not, not everybody is the same, but the sensations and feedback, the overall user experience you get from them are still in a completely different realm, and these continuos positive impulses are affecting you not just directly, but subconsciously too, which can manifest different effects on a conscious level in exchange.

 

 

/War and Peace The End : D

 

On 9/29/2022 at 4:07 PM, Stupid Bunny said:

 

for the love of god stop posting multiple times in a row. This isn’t Discord. If you have more to say either edit your last post or just take a breath and make sure you’ve addressed everything you want to say before posting. 

 

 

On 10/17/2022 at 7:47 PM, Fluuschoen said:

I don't know how serious you are, but I paste this post I made in a different thread, might have some use for you, or for anyone interested in the topic a bit. I'm suspecting the latter might be the more likely case, but oh, well.

 

So what helped me the most so far (besides the 20 years of quakes, played competitively in the last good 4 years + quite xtensive FPS background going back to 1996 : D), is to finish the official WADs in the purist way, so maybe you can get something out of it too. Anyways, it was a considerable bump up in general Doom skill, a most certainly noticeable change in the wind, even though before completing the task at hand, I was already arguably better with the mouse/some concepts than whom you would identify as an "average" player, due to the thousands and thousands and thousands of conscious effort-hours put in the game's genre before (and the vast majority of those hours were spent with an arena shooter relative of Doom).

Play all original WADs, so

The Ultimate Doom
Doom II
No Rest for the Living
Final Doom (TNT: Evilution, The Plutonia Experiment)

You may want to Sigil put in there, your choice. Either that or Plutonia should be the last.

Now play on Ultra-violence / pistol start every level / no mid-level saves or keyframes, and then when you'll finish Plutonia too like this (it looks way harder than it actually is, imo only about 2-3 levels that can a bit tricky for the marine in the making, up until he/she realizes what to do in order to minimalize the effect of enemy placement), you might end up re-thinking your concept on "hard" regarding Doom combat/gameplay in general, because many-many situations deemed as "hard"/"scary" earlier just got into the trivial/near trivial category in your basket.

 

I think this is the very foundation of setting up the needed mentality in your head, and it will affect your decision making in subtle (and not so subtle) ways that you can rely on to a certain degree later on, and from better decisions, you can predict better results (in most cases) as well. Or you can just have that result earlier than it was possible before, since it's quite rare that skipping some steps are actually benefitting you in the long run.

 

 

If you already did this, which is quite possible, then here's a wonderful WAD for directly practicing speedrun tech: Meowgi's Practice Hub

This one is surely a Cacoward 2021 in my book. It's an awesome training map, solely for practicing speedrun technics (SR50, rocket jumps, platforming, 2-shotting cybers etc.). Its value cannot be overestimated in learning movement skills and some combat bravado stuff. It's complevel 9, so it needs Boom compatibility.

 

 

Use a source port tailored towards speedrunning, it will be much easier on you on quite a few things, especially practicing for demos and monitoring times to the millisecond. Now, it's either Woof!, DSDA-Doom or PrBoom+ v2.6.2. These can legit record and playback demos without desync (complevel 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 21), and it's a matter of preference, but I don't see a reason to use anything else than DSDA tbh. On a more vanilla side (complevel 2, 3, 4), there's Chocolate Doom and Crispy Doom as well, which are absolutely awesome, but you have more use of DSDA, and a centralized workflow (you don't HAVE to switch source ports sometimes) make things easier, at least for now.

 

Also, you might find it useless or not very charming to you, but try to give 4:3 screen ratio a proper whirl, if you haven't already did that. While it's true that your horizontal FoV is lower, but I think that's much more important in PvP multiplayer than in single player, and the shallower angle somehow makes things align easier (certain angles, like for SR50 etc.), and makes you a bit more focused, because the edges of the screen are closer to the screen's center (or crosshair), meaning that there's way less clutter, less crap in your peripheral vison dividing attention for no constructive purpose (just rather the opposite, really), and a larger (percent) part of the screen is now closer to your focus point. Maybe this is just me, but I swear by it.

Max fps + Max Hz is my recommendation, but some prefer using the vanilla executable's fix 35 fps top limit. If you do that, make sure the monitor uses it's highest frequency which can be divided by 35, because it looks and feels way better. So if your monitor is 144 Hz for example, use either 105 or 140 Hz with a custom refresh rate tool. If you are playing uncapped fps, just let those Hz run wild as much as they can. tl;dr: So if you are not playing on fix 35 fps/y x 35 hz, never ever cap anything for the best responsiveness.

Always play with -shorttics, even in casual single player games, so it becomes absolute second nature when you are forced to use it while recording a demo. (Tbh, I really like the feel of the 360 degrees divided to 256 ticks, so I'd use it if I would never record anything as well, but each to his own.)

You might want to try out carry fractional ticks: off. It might be absolutely alienating at first, I know, but I'm telling you that feeling won't last long, and as it fades into nothingness, it will make getting precise angles (even for simple SR40/50, not just glides or precisely placed rocket boosts and such) much more easier for you, because your input is filtered in a way, that your unintentional micro movements are not taking part of the equation. You just have to be more "deliberate"/"firm" with your mouse handling, but I think you'll get it what I mean by this. Made a thread about these last two parameters some time ago, explaining my viewpoint/thoughts with perspective, trying to spark a little conversation about these settings with forum members, if you are interested in that.

Software renderer looks the most badass, but sadly, in the current trifecta of advanced source ports, the OpenGL renderer is much more responsive, feels a lot less input laggy with uncapped fps/uncapped Hz than software mode. I suggest go for OpenGL/shaders, that's the most reminiscent of the old school look.

 

Check out the Doom Movement Bible, a must read for upcoming Loopers and ZMs.

 

 

Always practice your movement. And by always, I mean always, even when you casually dozing off on some casual WADs, because good movement is one of the great foundations of good aim/combat skill. It really is, because it makes you more precise and also frees you of some shackles, so you can get more creative. So the goal here is to get the required motions in your hands rapidly, to make them so motor-like that they actually won't need any conscious effort from you materializing themselves.

 

tl; dr: You can just wake up, in the middle of the night, hop in front of the screen just to make a few fix 90/180 degrees turns first try, or do a bit of soothing SR40/50s, so you can finally go back to sleep instead of doing this stupid drilling exercise. : D I mean you get the point made in this sentence. I could have said that you can autopilot on the edge of coma, and your PoV itself is STILL moving 'n bobbing in a nice, serene, and oh-so-pleasing way, with fixated angles, bells and whistles, everything. So the perception of a nicely controlled PoV's "camera flow" is there, even if you do absolutely roflul stuff out from a comedy club special meanwhile, like getting gang-raped on an empty football field by 3 imps, with 200/200 and only 240 ammo in your BFG. : D

 

Play around more in NoMo. So -nomonsters, meaning no creature is on the level, you can solely focus on your movement alone. This is one of the most seriously undervalued possibilities you have with this game imo.
 

 

Try to play only the maps you really enjoy for some reason (don't have to be rational here, your choices can be based on feel/emotions/preferences alone), at first, at least, regardless or what IWAD or PWAD we are talking about. You don't have to commit yourself to an absolutely cold, hardcore grind in the beginning; running the levels you love the most/have the most fun on keeps an upbeating stroke around, while you are learning different things in varied environments, so even the boredom of the oh-so-needed repetition in this field can be mitigated somewhat.

Sometimes analyzing your own and others' demos (while being truly, unapologetically self-aware) is the way to proceed to a next step. This can lead to great achievements, both subjectively and objectively. So you ask questions like these yourself: "Can I do that now, or would I be better off practicing some aspects of the game more, before I make an honest try once again?" / "I screwed up big time, but where? What is holding me back in getting what I want? Let's watch the demo, frame by frame if needed, and figure it out!" / "I'm not sure, that this method is the trump card of efforts regarding this map. I have an alternative idea, so let's try out if it works in practice!" / "Hmm... well, this guy is a total legend, but what would be a realistic time for me now with my current skill level?"  etc.

 

And if/when you get that time, and you didn't need a decade of solitude in a Doom monastery, should you push it more? Would it be reasonable to do so? Is it within your current ability shaving off seconds (or even just a few, but value-their-weight-in-gold frames), or you need more grinding to get more consistent timeframes for your sub-level times? Or it really doesn't worth the huge time investment, because the difference in results would be almost as subtle as if you didn't have a difference at all, practically speaking? So something along this critically self-sharpening, honest perspective of yourself, your options and others (no bullshitting/delusions at all, but giving some credit when it's due) might be a good idea to implement, if it's lacking at the moment. Be the sharpest, most objective critic of yourself without being unreasonably hard on yourself (the ego can get in the way, just try to fight it rationally the best you possibly can), and you can learn a LOT from demos/videos, even if the latter ones are not commentated.

 

Find mates you can play challenges with. I'm nowhere near legendary/beast status in Doom speedrunning, but I like to think that I'm also not an unredeemable grandiose shit gobbler either : D, and I'm up for it, if you are. Like for playing any IWAD maps or almost all compleveled PWADs single maps with UV speed (maybe UV max too if it's not an ultimate chore), Pacifist and NoMo. This week is your map/ruleset choice, the other week is mine, we are exchanging/posting demos back and forth, and if you can/want, even renders as well, hopefully improving ourselves bit by bit in the process. Might be motivating to have somebody you can compete against directly, while maintaining some light-hearted "rivalry" of some sorts.

 

 

Also, patience, my friend, patience. Results are often come after a LOT of effort put in (at least results that are actually matter), so you have to exercise patience, above all, while setting little goals (based on reality, so you can achieve them quicker for the sake of healthy progression) on the way to your personal Nirvana. The process is more rewarding like this imo, because you have constant little joy-inducing interrupts/waypoints on the loooong road towards greatness.

 

The more you know about the game and yourself, the more insight you'll have, and you can tell more clearly which parts of your gameplay (or even hardware) needs what level of polishing in order to be more competitive. If you can set up clearer, more self-tuned short term goals, you'll get more worth out of them, because they draw up a more tailored/followable curve leading to your destination, while making sure you get your periodic, but also needed injections of small successes/positive feedback without wasting the most precious currency/asset there is, which is time. 

 

Also, try to be at least somewhat consistent with your practice sessions, where quality absolutely beats quantity (well, except for certain motor-related stuff, which need an endless amounts of repetition to be properly engrained). One of my favorite YouTubers, Karl Jobst (a pretty legendary speedrunner himself) has made two short videos ([link], [link]) on the general mindset of speedrunning, and they are recommended watches imo; while I may not agreeing with him on absolutely everything 101 percent or more, they indeed seem to be very well-grounded basic principles, regardless of what games you play, provided by a well-respected and proven expert in the field in a concise manner.

Just my thoughts, it's not 10 commandments or anything.

 

 

 

On a sidenote, if it relates to you:

Don't shy away in investing in your computer a bit. I'm talking about mainly keyboard, mouse, mouse pad and monitor here, assuming that the rest of the rig is more than enough to handle classic Doom and its iterations on the preferred resolutions. A very competitive set of peripherals (so not overpriced gaymer junk, but serious gear) won't make you a good player overnight, but it can make you learn how to fly faster, because everything is optimal and none of your gameplay issues can be traced back to the hardware itself. It really makes a difference, and you don't necessarily have to leave your lungs and kidneys at the cash register to buy decent, respectable things. If you need a bit of help, feel free to ask, I will; this is my hobby for like 15 years, and it even correlates somewhat to my job as well in the last 4,5 years.

Assuming you don't have the pretty carefully chosen, subjectively ideal gear already, you may ask why would you want to spend some money this, especially for mainly the sake of a 30 year old video game that can ported to an electric paternity test?

(a tl;dr from another post in that previously mentioned other thread)

 

Because the peripherals are constituting to the enjoyment/feedback of a computer a great deal, as they are entrusted to make that critical human-computer relation as seamless as possible, which defines the user experience on a core level. I would never cheap out on stuff that are this important in terms of what I perceive in every sensation possible, especially not for something I really adore/I have plans with/will spend a considerable amount of time with in the foreseeable future and beyond.

 

What I mean by "cheaping out" is not that everything has to cost a month worth of salary in the developed world or such folly, but it's factual, that specific hardware types have a specific minimal price range, under which you never want to go if getting nice stuff or just plainly getting an even remotely good bang for your money are not the very last things on your bucket list. For a brand new keyboard/mouse/mouse pad/monitor, this minimal price is around 45/30/20/135ish dollars (I hope we can agree that these prices are not hardcore at all, especially not for result-oriented, decent apparatuses), and you have to chose carefully (this is also true for the vast majority of the price ranges btw), but you can find extremely good deals on the second hand markets too, even for the fraction of a new unit's price. A literal fraction, as in some cases, you wouldn't believe how cheaply I got some proper stuff like this. And this is just the beginning of a truly enjoyable level, which actually worth paying for, but also a good comparison point/experience, if you decide to up your subjective standards a bit later on.

 

So with good hardware (which you can get pretty darn cheap for what they are btw, if you know where to look), you don't have to battle the thing on a physical and/or emotional level consciously/unconsciously, as there are no synthetic caps on your self-expression in-game or work, so you can solely focus on your end of the deal instead of your sub-par hardware's faults (of which you might not even have a crystal clear grasp if you lack some experience, so a more sophisticated concept of what is/feels "good" compared to what is not properly there yet). You can feel at home/more comfort/more confident/reassured, which leads to less stress and more positive feedback (even the sounds the gear make, the feel of the buttons, the texturing of the mouse pad, the materials etc. matter in that sense, so we are not just talking about strictly game-related technical reassurance), more productivity in front of the screen, regardless of what you do with your computer.

 


/wall of fucking text finally off, I really should do something with my life : D

That's a lot of words for a joke topic.

[Fluuschoen]

58 minutes ago, Daerik said:

 

Peripherals/Hardware do not matter at all until you're trying to go from being the top .2% to the top .1%, until you're at that level they're not likely to have any impact on your ability to play

Tbh at least four close acquaintances of mine would tell you otherwise. I mean not one them is even a remotely good (FPS) player or tech savvy, at all, but they still noticed the difference almost immediately, and one them even played much better stats with the borrowed hardware compared to his usual raw potato performance on LAN. Evidently he was still very much a big potato, but at least that thing started to cook a bit. : D

Of course, this is different for everybody, some can appreciate it right off the bat, some need time to realize what's happening, others again will never be anything remotely good or perceptive to such things due to physiological differences, no matter what kind of super high-end hardware they are using (and it's not their fault), but those .2% and .1% numbers are way too exaggerated I feel. More so, because I don't think I'm in that category, and it still matters a lot. Ok, maybe in Q3/QL I was, didn't do the math, but in the earlier stages of that era, when I started to pay attention to hardware stuff, I clearly wasn't top .2% or anything remotely close to it, and still felt after my first decent mouse and mouse pad, that I'm never ever gonna put crap on my desk again for prolonged daily use.

 

The saveless part is mostly about acquiring the basis of a mentality and prepare the soul for handling waves of frustration, not so much about fights. When you know that you have to restart the map in case of getting owned by a wild zombieman at the exit, you start thinking harder on what and how you should do. Since even one user error can easily be really punishing, you are forced to learn more efficient solutions, if you are tenacious enough to do that. If UV is too hard for real, it can be done on lower difficulty settings too, the point is that one has to use brainpower actively and has to seriously leave the comfort zone continuously (while showing a great deal of patience) to induce any kind of noticeable growth. You need to shit bricks for that :D, especially if you don't have any prior experience which would make the journey considerably less 'painful'. It's just that some persons find a type of fun in the process, while some don't, so they don't even bother with it, because they are looking for something else when they power on their machines.

 

The "practicing only the hard parts" is also a good idea, but it seems to be (at least to me) the one out of the two methods, which aims to help a bit more advanced players with precise training.

 

On the other hand, using decent stuff won't steal any playing time, so he can focus on the mental/knowledge/experience stuff all the same. The only difference is that it can easily be more comfortable/satisfying to use them, which positive feeling can help reaching a more optimal state of mind, so they can accelerate growth, as there's no electronic cap on personal potential. Not to mention, that those devices can (will) be used for other PC-related tasks too, not exclusively for Doom. If carefully spending some money is not too much of a problem for him, I really can't see any rational reason not to do it for an overall better user experience in front of the screen.

Just an opinion, he can and will do with it whatever he wants.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Fluuschoen

[Fluuschoen]

1 hour ago, Decay said:

 

 

That's a lot of words for a joke topic.

A big part of it was copy-paste, so I did the larger chunk of the 'work' earlier anyways, and if there's even one person reading it can get something positive/helpful out of it sometime, already worth the effort.

[BaileyTW]

To speedrun e2m8, shoot at the cyberdemon till it dies, but fast

[Slypenguin]

On 9/26/2022 at 6:17 AM, Sonikkumania said:

You just have to (Zero-)Master the game.

booooooooo (lol)

[Slypenguin]

On 9/29/2022 at 9:07 PM, Stupid Bunny said:

 

for the love of god stop posting multiple times in a row. This isn’t Discord. If you have more to say either edit your last post or just take a breath and make sure you’ve addressed everything you want to say before posting. Guess he has a point

 

 

 

[Slypenguin]

On 10/19/2022 at 11:35 PM, Fluuschoen said:

Meanwhile I realized I have a complevel 2 demo and a render from March. Flat 6, so not the best, the first strafe on the stairs is way too wide angle, but cba to do more grinding at the time.

 

lv01-006.zip

 

Have you contacted the authorities about that speedrunning-related legal issue btw? These things can take a while, sometimes you have to push the matter a bit harder to get a  properly calibrated answer. Tenacity is key. I guess they get the megasphere

 

[Slypenguin]

Breaking news I got a 6:51 time on entryway and just a quick update I am going to make a weekly news so any achievements pls post them in a video recording (and not a demo file because I can’t watch demos because I use doom unity) and I will put your username in my weekly news update thank you 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Slypenguin : Just a quick update

[spineapple tea]

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