Ask Any GE Question You'd Like Here!

[AZ]

It is much slower.

[flicker]

They are the same hostages we kill on agent, and from RTA runs we know that they complete on average about 30-40 seconds into the level, thus there is no reason to free them sooner as they should have ample time to escape before you finish the run. The fact that you have to watch the bug as you throw it for it to complete also makes this slower. We quickpause during that watching/waiting moment as well.

[IIsYnII]

They are the same hostages we kill on agent, and from RTA runs we know that they complete on average about 30-40 seconds into the level, thus there is no reason to free them sooner as they should have ample time to escape before you finish the run. The fact that you have to watch the bug as you throw it for it to complete also makes this slower. We quickpause during that watching/waiting moment as well.

Great thank you for the detailed answer

[IIsYnII]

Second the deep breathing suggestion. If you get the key boost or objective onscreen that makes the PB possible, start breathing through your nose and settle in for the ending.

-Ergonomics and posture are also a big thing, if you're not in a comfortable and relaxed position then it may be harder to focus or you may lose some dexterity. If you're sitting at a 45 degree angle to the TV and craning your neck to read chat or something then it will be harder to be consistent. If playing 2.x consider using a pillow or holding the controller in your lap to make it more comfortable. Finally consider trying to find a grip style with maximum comfort and precision for you.

-To add to the last point, you will have better reaction time and visual acuity with your foveal vision, ie looking directly at the TV in the center of your field of vision, and also don't turn your neck but face the TV directly during the run. You'll often have trouble clutching if you're not in a ready position once you know shit's going down. You don't usually see the top runners looking out of the corner of their eyes during the crucial part of the run, they usually are visibly focused on what's going on. 99% of gameplay may be more casual on some levels but when it's time to execute you want the maximum consistency.

-Practice the endings, practice with cheats on or using 007 mode if applicable. This goes especially for levels like Depot SA/00A or Streets Agent where you only get past the start once in a while. If you haven't done the end of the level in a while or you're warming up, be sure to keep your muscle memory sharp and avoid needless errors due to rust or unfamiliarity. Know the quitouts and ending times you need to show pace so you can avoid sloppy play and master those sections.

-Failing to clutch runs is definitely a learning experience. It's awful when it happens but it will make you a better player because when you know it could be the run it's a totally different animal than a typical attempt. Don't get too worked up trying to force it, just let muscle memory mostly take over and stay in control. Trying to do too insane of an ending will hurt often times. Remind yourself that the times with a lot of ties tend to not be that tight and trying to do too much is worse in many cases than confidently doing what you know to be consistent pace.

omg im sorry i didnt see this.. thats such excellent advice and ive been using it
I appreciate it

[Ray Ruane]

Can somebody please give a VERY detailed description of the grenade jungle on Runway Agent? I'm trying to get 22 using 1.2 and it's driving me mad.

Thanks.

[Sharpeye468]

Can somebody please give a VERY detailed description of the grenade jungle on Runway Agent? I'm trying to get 22 using 1.2 and it's driving me mad.

Thanks.

https://forums.the-elite.net/index.php?topic=14793.msg406967#msg406967 Should help you out mate

[IIsYnII]

Is the only difference between Frigate SA and 00 how many hostages have to escape?

[Slugg Christ]

Is the only difference between Frigate SA and 00 how many hostages have to escape?

Have to do the basement hostages first route, otherwise the second basement hostage will never complete.
Other than that, yeah.

[JDBlack21]

4 hostages on SA, 5 on 00A

[IIsYnII]

Can someone briefly explain the GL on streets agent. The 1:12 strat
I have 1:15 rn and 1:16 no gl I’m on cusp of getting a good time

[Slugg Christ]

Can someone briefly explain the GL on streets agent. The 1:12 strat
I have 1:15 rn and 1:16 no gl I’m on cusp of getting a good time

Killing the guard at the beginning (see any 2x GL video) causes a guard to spawn before the first set of roadblocks who can also have a GL.
The second possible GL guard should be there on most runs after the second set of roadblocks.

[wishiwasfamous]

What's the best approach to kill the 2nd GL guard after the 2nd set of roadblocks?

[IIsYnII]

Can someone briefly explain the GL on streets agent. The 1:12 strat
I have 1:15 rn and 1:16 no gl I’m on cusp of getting a good time

Killing the guard at the beginning (see any 2x GL video) causes a guard to spawn before the first set of roadblocks who can also have a GL.
The second possible GL guard should be there on most runs after the second set of roadblocks.
[/quote
Okay so for the second one I just have grind it out until I get a GL on a fast run?

[Slugg Christ]

What's the best approach to kill the 2nd GL guard after the 2nd set of roadblocks?

The fastest is to yolo it and just charge him and hope you don't get back boosted by his GL shot. Getting forward boosted here is great. You can strafe around the explosion but it costs probably almost a full second.

[Slugg Christ]

Can someone briefly explain the GL on streets agent. The 1:12 strat
I have 1:15 rn and 1:16 no gl I’m on cusp of getting a good time

Killing the guard at the beginning (see any 2x GL video) causes a guard to spawn before the first set of roadblocks who can also have a GL.
The second possible GL guard should be there on most runs after the second set of roadblocks.

Okay so for the second one I just have grind it out until I get a GL on a fast run?

Yeah, getting a GL is pretty uncommon so by the time you get 2-3 GL spawns you should have enough practice strafing the level to cake points.

[IIsYnII]

Great. Perfect answer thanks a lot guys.

[Irie]

The goal with the 2 gl strat is to get the first gl spawn and then hopefully get the later one, the middle one is trash good luck getting a pb with it. It's possible but for 1:13 I would honestly just stick with the one gl and focus on good lines. Hope that guy is in the middle spawn with a kf7 for a free boost if anything.

[rhakiath]

Also, the GLs aren't a free ticket to a PB though they do help matters a lot. Practice the self boosts with cheats, it's a skill you'll need to learn especially if you want to go for 1:12 or 1:11 eventually. It's very easy to lose your lines if you don't have a good plan where to use the GL, and if you only see a couple an hour it will take a long time to clutch it. 1:13 is somewhat forgiving with GL as long as your lines are on a good level and you stick to the plan.

2.X is also advised if you aren't already using it but that's probably obvious. For me, getting 1:14 no GL was a tolerable grind and didn't take too long, just a fairly favorable boost ratio. You're probably close to getting a 1:14 on a good run at least so I'd recommend trying to play out some runs while waiting for the GL and seeing if you can refine certain spots and master the fundamentals of the level a bit more. If you're already seeing 1:15s you should be fairly close to where you want to be, good luck.

[IIsYnII]

Also, the GLs aren't a free ticket to a PB though they do help matters a lot. Practice the self boosts with cheats, it's a skill you'll need to learn especially if you want to go for 1:12 or 1:11 eventually. It's very easy to lose your lines if you don't have a good plan where to use the GL, and if you only see a couple an hour it will take a long time to clutch it. 1:13 is somewhat forgiving with GL as long as your lines are on a good level and you stick to the plan.

2.X is also advised if you aren't already using it but that's probably obvious. For me, getting 1:14 no GL was a tolerable grind and didn't take too long, just a fairly favorable boost ratio. You're probably close to getting a 1:14 on a good run at least so I'd recommend trying to play out some runs while waiting for the GL and seeing if you can refine certain spots and master the fundamentals of the level a bit more. If you're already seeing 1:15s you should be fairly close to where you want to be, good luck.

I got a 1:15 without a GL but a rocket boost and a really good ratio. Might have been 0 backs I’m not 100% about that though.

Thank you for your advice

[Seanjohn]

I was going for Streets SA 1:56 this past week and watched Goose's tutorial. In the tutorial he mentioned the cutscene offsets being 0.75s for the 1 guard cutscene and 0.85s for the 3 guard cutscene added onto the timer calculation (switch + end).

My question is whether this offset actually is 0.75 and 0.85, or if these numbers are rounded. Considering the game runs at 30fps, should this offset not be a whole number of frames?

The reason I ask this is because I decided to analyze a bunch of other people's runs to see where I was most in need of improvement. I wrote a spreadsheet and input a about 20 of other peoples' SA and 00A runs and compared several different metrics. In doing so, I analyzed Mike Mint's 00A 1:54 and with a 3 guard cutscene (0.85s), a 214.66 switch and a 451.18 end, I actually came up with a 1:55.01. If the cutscene offsets however are a whole number of frames and the real offsets were 0.723 and 0.823, then his run would calculate to 1:54.993. If this isn't the case, then his run must have had some other partial-frame effect or rounding that doesn't usually need to be accounted for (technically if the quoted offsets are correct then there MUST be some partial-frame effects because the offset itself contains a partial frame).

As a follow up question, are the the quoted 0.75s and 0.85s cutscene timings actually the PAL cinema timings since PAL runs at 20fps (0.05s per frame)?

[Irie]

I don't know a whole lot about this, in fact I'm starting to believe whatever I thought I knew was wrong. The other day I got multiple 1:15s with a 45:88 ending. I had never seen this before. It could have to do with me shooting at the start of level to lure a guard boost which I didn't used to do, creating lag and delaying the timer from appearing on screen for a frame or two? Either way i thought this would be helpful as I too believed a :85 can round but a :86 or better is for sure the time you thought it should be, ie a 46:86 should be 1:13 every time.

[Seanjohn]

That's odd Irie, it's the opposite problem I was describing. Your run wound up being slower than the calculated time, but Mike Mint's wound up being faster. He did also use the 3 guard cutscene lure but like you said I would have expected the extra lag to cause worse times, not better.

[Irie]

Yeah with cheats on very weird things can happen with the decimal, but with legit runs while different there's definitely some things I've been seeing recently that I hadn't seen before or at least noticed

[Sumbigboi]

Hey, first time posting, so sorry if this isn't formatted correctly.

What are some tips for trying to beat Aztec 00? I'm trying to beat all the difficulties as a casual player, so if its a better idea to try to beat it as a run, let me know.

[berg]

Hey, first time posting, so sorry if this isn't formatted correctly.

What are some tips for trying to beat Aztec 00? I'm trying to beat all the difficulties as a casual player, so if its a better idea to try to beat it as a run, let me know.

My advice would be to beat it with speed run strats, but go slower. A good way to do it is to watch some of the 00 or 100% WR single segment runs and watch how they do it. For specifics on the mainframe glass strategy - watch a few different runs and notice where people are shooting. The shot placement is important, and you want to be sure that you're as close to the glass as possible.

[Wouter Jansen]

PAL is 25fps. and I think NTSC is 29.97?

[Irie]

Correct wouter, I didn't even notice that guys post said pal was 20 fps

[Whiteted]

As a follow up question, are the the quoted 0.75s and 0.85s cutscene timings actually the PAL cinema timings since PAL runs at 20fps (0.05s per frame)?

What matters isn't the video format framerate but Goldeneye's internal rate in the different versions. These are 60Hz for NTSC and 50Hz for PAL. So 0.05s is 3 "frames" (maybe"ticks" would be a better word) on NTSC.

The only mistake I've seen with those cinema calculations is from people rounding to 2 decimal places. If the timer reads 2:14:46 then this is actually 46.666..
This can throw your calculation out by 0.01

[Seanjohn]

As a follow up question, are the the quoted 0.75s and 0.85s cutscene timings actually the PAL cinema timings since PAL runs at 20fps (0.05s per frame)?

What matters isn't the video format framerate but Goldeneye's internal rate in the different versions. These are 60Hz for NTSC and 50Hz for PAL. So 0.05s is 3 "frames" (maybe"ticks" would be a better word) on NTSC.

The only mistake I've seen with those cinema calculations is from people rounding to 2 decimal places. If the timer reads 2:14:46 then this is actually 46.666..
This can throw your calculation out by 0.01

Yeah I actually was playing with this yesterday in emulator and noticed that when I frame advanced it seeemed to be running at 60Hz (I have to advance twice for each visible frame). I also considered rounding in my original post, but I assumed with 2 rounding events, each with a maximum of +/- 0.005 the maximum rounding effect would be 0.01 which was very unlikely given the frequency. At 29.97Hz (or 60Hz for Goldeneye's internal timer) you will only be either rounding down from .0033 or up from .0067 which means the maximum rounding is .0033 per event (.0067 total) and falls short of the .01 discrepancy. This is why I dismissed it as the sole explanation, unless Goldeneye does something like always round to floor or ceiling, in which case then the maximum rounding would be .01333. Also NTSC being 29.97Hz instead of an even 30Hz could cause some drift in the thousandths place and beyond, which could allow rounding closer to full .01.

At this point it doesn't really matter, we're just splitting hairs. I was mostly just curious why the 0.85s offset seemed to include half a frame, which now makes sense.

[IIsYnII]

Just playing Archives SA. The end cutscene played without Natalya next to bond and it failed. I have never seen a cutscene play on a failed run. Is this common?

[Whiteted]

Relatively yeah, she just died on the last frame before the cutscene. It's similar to TNS but bad.
It's because the script waits a frame after seeing that Nat died, before failing the objective. So the other script sees that all objectives are complete and sets up the cutscene. The attempt to move Nat for the cutscene fails because she's busy dying 

[Clichejon]

Hey - can someone please tell me what overclocking your N64 means. I understand it can make things run faster? I came across this a couple of times during speedlore and some times regarding a certain player from Brazil. Do you need to pull the consol apart to make it run faster? 

[flicker]

You should look elsewhere for your answer. Even if anyone knows, it would be a bad idea to endorse it on this forum.

[Irie]

As far as I am aware, overclocking refers to the act of resting your N64 console on top of a clock, preferably analog, and playing with this set up. Popularized by MadmanFlechr, this seems to mess with the timing calculations of the console, you too can skip to 1:01 on Frig sa using this tech! This form of overclocking is still allowed on the ranks, as it hasn't been fully researched enough for the speedrunning community to come to a census, but it does not come without controversy!

[deletedprofile.u]

Deleted a reply which contained links to sites with overclocking methodology. We don't endorse that here. Google is your friend.

[Clichejon]

Cheers

[Ray Ruane]

If you watch my Archives Agent 00:16 video, the signed is slightly lagging by a frame or two. Is this common while capturing on a CRT TV or what? I looked at Boss' 00:16 and his is the same, but I looked at Wouter's 00:16 and the sound syncs up perfectly. Can anything be done about it?

I know that this will be incredibly basic stuff to most people, but I am a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to technology. I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

[Ray Ruane]

sound not signed*

[JDBlack21]

It's most likely your settings in your capture device, if you're using amarec or obs, post a pic of your settings and someone should be able to help you out

[ScottSTL]

Howdy all - I think this is actually my first post within the GE forum on here, outside of an introductory post a year or so back. Question - going through my old original times from 1997/98 (don't laugh at me, but dam 00A 16:35 ), I found I had a TNS on control. I remember control, especially the protect sequence, was hard for me as a 10 year old. The only logical explanation I can think of is that I destroyed the last mainframe as I entered the lift, but not 100% sure. I guess my question is how common is a time not saved on control, and is it also possible that the protect natalya sequence is what caused the TNS?

[Sharpeye468]

I guess my question is how common is a time not saved on control?

Not overly common from what I understand, but it has been seen in high level gameplay, including luke's agent 3:56 as seen below

[Irie]

Also times don't save when your time is over 20 minutes. I had the same thing on my file. I think you did beat it without TNS but it didn't save the let's play time lol. I could be wrong

[ScottSTL]

Interesting - I don't think I ever knew a time over 20 minutes would also not save. How about that for baller 1998 speedrunning strats?

[Irie]

Yeah I just tested it out and I was right. Pretty funny eh

[Watertemplefiend]

Sup gang,

I've finally been getting notable times after a long break (buy the CRT, just buy it) and I'm wondering what everyone uses to decide on their next run. I'm seriously torn between Depot, Streets or 22 Runway and I am aware of the strats, however Runway nades just annoy the hell out of me.

[MadmanFlechr]

play many levels

am i having fun

can i realistically get the time in less than 1000 hours

[OHMSS]

I'm wondering what everyone uses to decide on their next run. I'm seriously torn between Depot, Streets or 22 Runway and I am aware of the strats, however Runway nades just annoy the hell out of me.

If you don't feel a strong urge to go for a record then just let it be IMO. The main purpose of speedrunning is enjoying and challenging yourself. Even if you play for a high rank, try to keep in mind that you are ultimately doing it for yourself and that hardly anyone else will care. It's a bit different for the top content creators, innovators, etc, who provide enjoyment for many people.

Grumpy grandpa out 

[IIsYnII]

I was playing control agent and I wasn’t happy with my start at first so I paused as Natalya started to move and then I figured I might as well get practice my timing on the beginning up to where you get the mines. So I unpaused and she skipped forward. Like warped from one point to another closer to where she hacks the door when I was in game. I’m not sure if it saves time but it was certainly interesting.

What do you think of this and any explanations?

[Whiteted]

It just sounds like a lag spike from pausing to me?

[flicker]

Means nothing without a video, if you get one then I can tell you it's slower than standard strat. There used to be some theories to get Nat to warp or any way to improve her pathing. It was looked at pretty thoroughly and only found small pathing timesavers that depend on Bond's position and that any warp was actually slower.