Port demos question

[Gez]

Quasar said:

Isn't that technically a tool assist?

Isn't used a port (rather than vanilla) considered a tool assist in the first place anyway?

[dew]

Gez said:

Isn't used a port (rather than vanilla) considered a tool assist in the first place anyway?

vanilla exes are required only for compet-n aspiring demos and that concerns just iwads and very few other pwads. this subforum and DSDA accept anything and everything. was that a troll question?

[Gez]

dew said:

was that a troll question?

No. Just going with this and other obvious elements (such as how using a higher resolution than 320*200 allows to see monsters from further away in wide open maps) that makes port-made runs tool-assisted compared to vanilla runs.

[dew]

Gez said:

No. Just going with this and other obvious elements (such as how using a higher resolution than 320*200 allows to see monsters from further away in wide open maps) that makes port-made runs tool-assisted compared to vanilla runs.

you are operating on the premise there's a standard to which all demos compare. c-n has indeed a vanilla standard, but port-recorded demos aren't allowed, case solved. dsda and this subforum don't have standards, just recommendations. recording on vanilla for DSDA is a self-imposed restraint, you can use zdoom with jumping and it will probably get accepted. if you mean the, umm, nebulous community comparative standard, that is a mixture of common sense, good manners and customs, afaik. there's a strong seniority element in the demoing community. if enough influential long standing members agree, something becomes a custom. i'm sorry, but you really do sound like a troll in this context.

[Gez]

dew said:

you are operating on the premise there's a standard to which all demos compare. c-n has indeed a vanilla standard, but port-recorded demos aren't allowed, case solved. dsda and this subforum don't have standards, just recommendations.

It's my understanding that TAS are allowed as well here. You seem to be ascribing nefarious motives to me asking a simple question; like if tool-assist was a dirty taboo. Personally I'd consider a demo of a vanilla mod recorded with PrBoom or ZDoom to be tool-assisted. But if instead it's a demo of a recent Boom-compat or ZDoom mod, then, it's not tool-assisted since the port is the mod's target platform.

[dew]

Gez said:

Isn't used a port (rather than vanilla) considered a tool assist in the first place anyway?

then the answer to your simple question is NO. if that was the case, all the port-recorded vanilla wad demos would be in the thread you linked, logically.

[Grazza]

What dew says is right. In the demo-recording community, port demos are not seen as equivalent to TAS demos.

It is certainly considered good manners to say what a demo was recorded with (this is particularly important so people know what it is likely to play back with), and it is certainly wrong to use any features that are regarded as TAS (slow motion and joining being the main ones) without saying so.

Split, since this is nothing to do with new NM categories.

[myk]

Rather than "no" I would say "it depends".

One problem is that the definition of TAS, developed in the DOS-friendly era where we were still using engines limited to 320x200, often precedes features added into ports. Also that PrBoom+ has nothing in it helping define any standards, so by using it there is no way to distinguish different ways of playing the game. Nothing stops any random person out there from recording a demo we consider TAS without even knowing what TAS means. "Using saves to record a demo? It's right there as one of the options... isn't it normal?"

In any case, you can't define TAS without first defining what cheating is, understanding that TAS means something like "cheating gone open" or "honest cheating". Like when you have an affair but directly inform your wife about it. The most convenient thing people can do is simply provide clear data on what was used when recording. It's easy to do this with a text file template already including it, or by providing in in a player page, like the ones on the DSDA. This informs people of how you're recording, so they can freely make up their own minds on what they think of it or how comparable it is to the run they made, possibly using other features (less, more, or just different). It also makes people sensitive to the distinctions or effects of settings and options. If you never mention things, people can't be bothered to consider the differences.

Let's keep in mind that vanilla has practically no options past the exact arrangement of your key bindings, whether you use only the keyboard or both the keyboard and mouse (with its sensitivity setting), and screen brightness. At least nowadays, when stuff like screenblocks and low detail are not necessary at all. These are present in source ports, plus a barrage of customizations that may affect the game in little to great ways. That's why I think a good source port has ways to force settings, or channel them so that they can be distinguished, such as server settings in multiplayer, compatibility levels, or a parameter that enables TAS features (the latter is imaginary, but it could have been, or could be, applied to PrBoom and PrBoom+). Ports that just offer features indiscriminately, on the other hand, are badly designed when it comes to defining game play.

As for whether using a port can be equated to TAS, even if you consider some of the settings to be a form of "mild TAS", merely using the engine doesn't imply using "extra features". Someone may use PrBoom+ because it works nicely on their system and because it provides in one package anything they need for recording and watching demos, yet with vanilla settings on everything that applies. In that case, other than perhaps the way the music sounds, there would be no difference between a demo recorded on PrBoom+ or vanilla.

Considering vanilla, which has a long history, and given the circumstances, I would distinguish between "strong or true TAS" and "mild TAS" features. Generally, the "true" stuff tends to alter what you do to record the demo to gain an improvement, while the "mild" stuff provides extra information benefiting you.

TAS:

• Slowing the game down for a more accurate control of movement.
  
• Recording in segments using save games.
  
• Being able to see stuff not normally rendered (wall hacks.)
  
• Being able to do enhanced movements (like sr50 on turns.)
  
• "Building" a run by hacking the demo data.

Note that at the SDA recording in segments is not considered TAS. They allow it but they do not allow submissions that they consider "TAS". Nonetheless, they distinguish between single-segment or multi-segment runs, and consider single segment runs to be valid for hosting (they only host the fastest demos, not all submissions) even when a faster multi-segment run exists.

Also, when talking about vanilla, and if we follow the SDA definition of TAS, ports are TAS, as Gez is saying, because they modify the game. They are indeed additional tools the player uses, and, except for Chocolate Doom (or even a hypothetical port that limits one even more than vanilla :p), will likely help performance at least a bit unless one willingly ignores some of their features.

Mild TAS:

• Status data enhancements (having access to more than basic data.)
  
• Full screen visuals and status data combined (the HUD.)
  
• Eliminating the effects of the color map or palettes (full-bright.)
  
• Increased screen resolution (stuff doesn't get smudged at a distance.)
  
• Greater freedom binding keys and buttons.

As you'll note, the mild stuff has a lesser effect and is harder to spot or control, but still helps (assists) beyond what vanilla can let you do.

With Boom, it's similar to vanilla, but what constitutes allowed keys or "basic data" varies. The automap, for example, is more precise in Boom than in Doom, giving you data about keyed doors, teleporters and more. Going past Doom and Boom, you're going to have to be more arbitrary, because more modern engines have more and vaguer options. That said, specifying what was used always helps, and is arguably more necessary the more "advanced" the engine you use is.

[dew]

an interesting train of thoughts, myk, but 'mild TASing' was always present and certain hacks are fully supported even by the compet-n standard which is the most 'hardcore' ruleset i know of. vanilla doom didn't support always run, but then people found the joyb_speed bug and declared hacking the config manually a norm. vanilla doesn't support zero vertical mouse movement, but novert.com is legal by c-n rules and only expert gliders like cack_handed DON'T use it to exploit their special tricks.

by the way, wasn't there an issue about vanilla-under-dosbox running at slower rate on win2k? i think i read something like that, the game was supposed to run at... 80% pace or something. that'd make vanilla TAS'ed if not ran on pure dos systems and complevel supporting ports would be more faithful than vanilla, heh. but i'm not completely sure i didn't make that up. :)

anyways, this is where all the seniority ruling, common sense and good manners come in. i mean, during czech-n i found a new way how to 'hack' in prboom+, then me and hokis agreed we shouldn't allow it in the competition. it's extremely limited in use, but it's there. i tried to make a thread about it several times... but i always have a strong feeling i sound like a total dweeb.

[myk]

Yeah, Compet-n does allow some of the mild stuff, although the CFG hack to enable autorun in particular is an unintentional engine feature, rather than outside meddling. In addition to Novert and 180° TSRs, I think Adam Hegyi was okay with key rebinds by driver or the like. It can be argued that Ledmeister's standards for recording his completion demos are stricter than Compet-n, for example, as he sticks to the game's default bindings to play through.

I think the 80% game speed issue affects the native command line in NT based Windows systems, not DOSBox. I can't say whether Adam was aware of that effect, though.

[TimeOfDeath]

I think gggmork doesn't use autorun, but I might be wrong.

I started recording/playing competitively on ZDaemon with "next/prev weapon" keys. When I tried out prboom a few years later, I was like "where the heck is the next/prev weap keys?", so then I bound the weapon keys to mimic my ZDaemon config + keys around them. Later I found out that you can't even bind weapon keys in vanilla, so I was like "eff this". ;)

I'd love to know what options and key config everyone uses. *starts thread*

[Never_Again]