The Elite Forum
The Big Three Plus One => GoldenEye 007 => Topic started by: mrsooreams on July 10, 2005, 12:05:00 pm
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As I understand it, lookdown saves time because it raises the frame rate (rendering just the floor is pretty easy). Something to do with the way the clock isn't properly synchronised with the frames of the game, which was fixed in PD.
If I've understood that right, wouldn't that mean that other methods of raising the frame rate would also give better times? For example, according to this interview with Martin Hollis (http://www.zoonami.com/briefing/2004-09-02.php), almost 33% of the render time is spent just on Bond's gun. So if you put your gun away, perhaps you could go faster. Or have I misunderstood how lookdown works?
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I guess I'm lucky then, I usually put my gun away for most pure-strafing parts of levels. The return on Statue, Caverns Agent, Streets sometimes, yeah.
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I doubt putting the gun away really does anything beneficial, since remember that it also causes lag just as you're switching weapons. In that article, the guy says 4 different things are responsible for "1/3" of the rendering times, so he doesn't help us much.
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I think he was making a "joke", but even so, the weapon still adds up to about 20%-25% of the rendering time. I don't know if the time you'd gain back (if any) would make up for the extra lag from switching weapons. I'll experiment with it a bit more.
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There is certainly a 'jump' in the frame rate when you go onto unarmed. I've noticed this when playing around on levels like depot. However, Dan is right in saying that there will be lag caused by the weapon change in the first place. Too small a difference to be applicable i reckon. Good idea tho.
Arnie
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Surely it wouldn't hurt to at least try to measure the effects before dismissing the possibility entirely?
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I've tried to measure them, but it's tricky. You need an area with a fairly low framerate, but where you can run a decent distance in a straight line. The first part of Cradle would seem to fit this bill, but the fog makes it difficult to run in a truly straight line all along the arm. When people were first experimenting with lookdown, what part did they use?
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I've always been an advocate of experimentation with issues such as this (something people should do more of with PAL/NTSC for sure), so I'm glad Sam offered the inspiration. I tried some run-throughs of Dam Agent to experiment with lag... what I did was run across the top of the Dam itself 10 times, then abort at the end of the 10th time. All runs were 1.2, with invisibility (to make sure a guard wouldn't fuck me up) and with lookdown used in the same places (including the entirety of the top of the dam). There were no real errors or stucks on any of the runs.
- First run: pp7 out the entire time: 6:50
- Second run: pp7 out until the lock, then unarmed from then on: 6:50
- Third run: pp7 out until lock, then switching between pp7 and unarmed from then on: 6:53
So I guess the simple conclusion here is that the difference between unarmed and pp7 is very negligible or nonexistent, and that switching weapons adds SOME lag but in the end it's not a huge deal. Remember, I switched guns hundreds of times, whereas on a real run one would only switch to unarmed once or twice.
I will add, however, that both Wouter and I used to switch guns on Dam Agent when trying for 53 (Wouter used to try to warp the gate, and I often put the gun away as soon as the level began, then took it out later on), but on both the 53s we eventually got, there was no gun switching. This is probably just a coincidence, but just thought I'd mention it anyway.
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Thanks for testing that out Dan. My weak experiments with Cradle pointed to the same conclusion. Still, it was worth investigating. I think there are probably still some interesting "features" of the Goldeneye engine to be explored, but this apparently isn't one of them.