Hi

I read through some old 2000s internet forums and stumbled over a speedrun by Wazaaa from 2011 that did something none of us had thought about. Install Metal Gear Solid in minimum mode.

What is minimum mode? Well instead of installing the full game of around 1gb size, we just install around 230mbs of the game data. The movies are gone, some demos are gone and some 1000 vox files are gone. This is part of the official Metal Gear Solid PC installer, which most of us have never seen before because we installed our game from GOG oder via the Reddit installer which both feature full size installs.

What does this mean for the speedrun? In terms of impact, this is huge. Consider the Very Easy categories of PC, so any% and All Bosses where we can alt-tab or windows-tab to skip some audio cues and some cutscenes? Well this minimum install essentially does that. The most impacted areas are Cell Fight, Ninja Fight, Mantis Fight, Gray Fox Speech between the rex phases and even the little speech before the Liquid fight is slightly faster.

I made a side by side comparison video for everyone to see here:

Here's also a table to look at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y3ITC85TAdz-N37PX_Yg_dmWeyFCLRFdIUVzXR2wni4/edit?usp=sharing

So this means: Alt-Tabbing is not necessary anymore with this install method. It works reliably, it works with existing Reddit and GOG installs and also since we don't alt-tab, we have it on every difficulty.

How do we achieve a minimum install version? You can find the OG disc ISOs on the internet archives. (Obviously not direct link here). Install minimum (for example the US version). Then delete your existing folders Demo, Vox, Video folders and replace them with the version from the minimum install.

An important thing of note: We need to add 2 more vox files for this minimum install to work, without these additional fox files, you'll softlock during mantis' Meryl Posession phase 2 intro and during Johnny's first sneeze dialogue in the cell.

The vox files you need from the full install are called: VC114003.VOX Mantis "key sound" VC144001.VOX Torture "key sound" Copy these from your full install vox folder into the minimum install vox folder.

Now you can run your existing install as usual including all the mods and BMN launcher. Nothing else needed.

I consider this legal for the following reasons: this is a data feature set from the original developers since 2000 and not a custom selection of files us users made. The only thing we do is add 2 required vox files back in to make the game playable.

Considering we also modded the music back to a more console like state, I'd put that in the same category.

Last but not least, shoutouts to Wazaaa's original run from 2011. You can find it here, with a full description of how he made the minimum install work:

Last but not least, here's the story how I found this run and some more extra data and fun facts about this minimum install, I'd appreciate your support for my channel.

And now, discuss.

Yes, yes, yes, 1000x yes.

I vote to make this legal.

long as theres a way to replicate this on the GOG version as well i have no issues with this. We touched on this in MGSR's mgs1 channel and a list will be provided as soon as hau5 can. from there if we want to expedite the process for others that run on the GOG we can just make a quick batch file and/or maaaayyyybe add to the launcher? either way as long as this can be done for both I don't have a problem with this.

"So this means: Alt-Tabbing is not necessary anymore with this install method. It works reliably, it works with existing Reddit and GOG installs and also since we don't alt-tab, we have it on every difficulty."

Maybe this is enough to make me comeback and redo my mgs1 run lol, i vote yes to allow this.

Amazing rediscovery! I've used the original PC port installer before, but I never even considered the Minimum Install option period. I'm all for it.

Yeah F7 is still a thing for VE runs only but this will improve the QoL on those VE runs.

This is huge af, really good find! Im for allowing this

Even an old head like me sees no reason to refuse this, allow it ASAP after some testing!

The only issue I see is the packaging around a minimal install. We can't just ask people to go into their GOG or Oxide (Reddit) versions and manually delete the right files, there is too much room for mistakes.

My suggestion to solve the issue is to pack the required files into a convenient .zip along with the two extra .vox files and comprehensive instructions on how to delete and replace the affected folders.

These are the folders affected and the files present on a minimum install in alphabetical order (please doublecheck in case I messed up something and yes, I couldn't be bothered to write a text file). Keep in mind that the two required .vox files to not make the game crash, VC114003.VOX and VC144001.VOX, are NOT present in this screenshot.

However, if a legendary Dan main decides to create another patch like the music one so the whole process becomes extremely convenient for everyone, I have nothing against that! wink wink

And I have nothing against a possible fix so those two extra files aren't needed in order to prevent a crash either.

All Bosses VE here I come! :D

Legalize it!

Great find!

After doing some testing with other runners, we are running into crashing issues at various codecs. Examples would be the first Miller codec in the vent, after Ocelot, after Ninja and after REX. I have had one crash/freeze but others have had many. Is anybody else having issues? I almost want to say it's a core affinity issue but unsure. Reddit and GoG installations affected on this.

I had the miller vent codec freeze too but that was on a version where I patched up the game myself. When I switched to Reddit oxide patch it didn’t crash anymore. Maybe it has to do with cores or how people skip these codecs. I hold down escape to skip the codecs as quickly as possible. But even in my test run I had one codec freeze on Reddit which was the post torture underground passage codec.

Also the time save for any% is bigger but that comes out only now. The „your turn snake“ Johnny dialog also gets skipped when loading into torture for example. A better analysis is coming in the coming days I as have more time then

Another idea, we could try and see which vox files cause issues with the codecs and add them in again to help with stability. Since we already have to do that anyway for the mantis and the Johnny dialog or else we softlock, might as well?

I'd agree on this. One of the reasons I don't want to run MGS1 anymore is because of the absurd long waiting times on cutscenes like that and that would eliminate so much of the waiting, love it

tfw you wake up to some kind of speedrun documentary being made about your ugly ass 2011 MGS1 run Lmaoo

No but real talk, there was more discussion about this run in the SDA forums https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/my_metal_gear_solid_1_pc_speedrun_questions_please_help..html and it was considered to be a grey area due to some problems:

1. Afaik, officially the Minimal Installation was meant to be played WITH the CD inserted into the disc tray. Only some files would be read from the Hard Disk, the rest (aka the skipped cutscenes and stuff) would be normally read from the CD. So if you "NO-CD patch" the game (modification number 1), you're able to start with this weird unique Minimal abomination that saves time, that's cool, BUT...

2. but you can't actually finish the game with it, because it's missing the 2 described files, so you would have to add back those 2 files yourself (modification number 2).

So, technically mine was a "Minimal + NO-CD-patched + 2-files-added" run if that makes sense, that's part of the reason I let it rot unlisted. Just saying.

I mean we were already playing with modified version anyway, such as with the Reddit version to make it work on modern PCs. Then GoG. Then a music patch. Then an analog patch. This has already been a pieced together version, so being vanilla as possible really isn't a thing here. A lot of the PC 2000 is considered a gray area, but the community has voted and decided to move forward with everything we've done so far. PC 2000 is basically MGS1 Speedrun Edition so to speak.

Regardless, cool to see you post here on the forums and thanks for having the video somewhere for this discovery lol

Welcome @WAZAAAAA to 2024. thank you again for not privating that run.

Yeah speedrun edition nails it pretty much. The best experience is still console psx (fight me nerds, you‘ll lose) but as I see it PC is a great technical marvel still surprising to this day. At the end the runners will decide what to do with this info. But I like a fair update benefiting everyone. Unlike alt-tabbing is for example.

NO LONGER UPDATING THIS POST. SEE HERE INSTEAD: https://www.speedrun.com/mgs1/resources/am0et

Also in reply to my own post regarding crashing last night, adding back some VOX files have resulted in less or no crashes. Also, setting your Core Affinity in bmn's launcher to Core 0 also seems to help.

The following VOX files should be re-added to the VOX folder. If we discover more we will update. I eventually will re-package the installer to include all necessary VOX files once testing is complete.

VC014403 - Mei Ling Codec on Heliport

VC020000 - 1st Master Miller Call

VC054201 - Post Ocelot

VC091202 - Post Ninja with Meryl

VC251401, VC251402, VC251403 - Post REX

VC281209, VC281210, VC281211, VC281212, VC281213 - Final codec before Score screen

VC211001 - First codec in REX's lair

VC203401 - Post Raven

Testing in itself will take time, but I see zero reason not to allow this on the board at this time. Go get those WRs.

Decent

Speedrun = Go Fast

This does not modify the game in bad faith. It gets it working. Huge QOL improvement.

Hell, I may finally give this run a shot.

Legalize go fast. 42069 fuck yeah dude.