FYI, toggling vsync (specifically, going from the "off" to "on" state) in the game options makes certain crouch-clips easier. The benefit of it appears to come from the transition, not from having a locked frame rate, and it "wears off" after a short period of time (making it necessary to turn vsync off again and allowing FPS to stabilize before turning it back on).

Thanks to Cliffs for discovering this!

And there it is.

In light of the magnitude of this skip, a new any% category has been created, and existing runs will be classified as either "nightmare all missions" or "novice all missions" runs. These categories WILL ALLOW use of crouch-clipping to skip portions of missions (and as such, there is 12-15 minutes of possible time save over the current world records), but will NOT ALLOW use of crouch-clipping to do the "big skip" (from M3/M4-M18).

Low% has been renamed to "Low% All Missions," and will also require runners to complete every mission, but will allow crouch-clipping to skip portions of missions.

Probably not even that long. Cliffs and I were able to get through elevators in M14 that are structurally identical (or largely similar) to the one you take at the end of M17 (to M18 tow platform). Once you get to that elevator, from any mission, the game assumes you beat everything up to that point. So you can essentially go from the start of M4 (you need the hack tuner from M3 to beat M18, and also need a revolver for the facehuggers), to Solomons, through two shutters (crouch clipping) back to the spaceflight terminal. Then through the ion torch door and the elevator to M18. Will be sub 1hr :D

This one is big.

Major time saves using this glitch/mechanic have been discovered and tested in numerous missions, including M2, M3, M6, M7, M10, M11, M12, M13, M14, M15, and M16. We'll be sharing these and any new glitches/routing here and on Discord as they are compiled.

Special thanks to PackSciences, who first hinted at this glitch (), Chimpaneez, who inspired a fresh look (), and of course everyone who has helped or will help explore this magic.

:D

As several others have noted, the header bar feels far too big vertically (even at a 16:10 aspect ratio). Collapsing everything into a single row would save a lot of screen space.

Setup/explanation:

A growing number of speedrunners and community members are relying on Discord for discussion about the game (and other things). Anyone interested may join at the link below.

https://discord.gg/0Sk7X8JLpV478kG2

The alien seems to kill regardless of which part of the animation Amanda is completing. Strangely the elevator will become active if the animation is started (even if not completed).

Unfortunately I wasn't able to replicate the death glitch.

If the load icon is visible it's a load, even if you can move or use the radial menu during it. This is true of PC runs timed with the load remover (there are points where gameplay has started, but the load icon is still visible and the timer remains paused).

For console runners, going forward you are welcome to submit a time without loads together with your real time. Please include in your run submission a linked image, spreadsheet, or text file (e.g., pastebin.com) that identifies the duration in seconds of each mission, intramission, and death (if appropriate) load. See, e.g., http://piratepad.net/qK3vCUjZwy (submitted for Mirror's Edge).

Note that unlike my prior manual timings (e.g., https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Dn3ivaG2PAP7xzisfO0EBM7u4VZFNGGBDpA-feAHYTA ), it is not required that you identify in your submission the exact frame each load started and stopped. It is sufficient to simply include a list of times, in seconds, for each load, together with a total load time and the subtraction thereof from the total real time.

As a reminder, the start of a load is determined by the first frame upon which the load icon is visible, and the end of the load is determined by the first frame after the load icon is completely invisible. See http://imgur.com/a/37xAw for screenshots of an example load (images 2, 3 and 4 reflect the total duration of the load; image 1 reflects the frame before the load icon is visible and does not constitute part of the load).

If you have any questions just let us know.

Regarding Option 3 (now noted in my original post), this is exactly what other games have done when a load remover was added later. See for example Mirror's Edge ( http://www.speedrun.com/me ), Portal 2 ( http://www.speedrun.com/Portal_2 ), Skyrim ( http://www.speedrun.com/skyrim ), and so forth.

To clarify: anyone on the website can manually change how the leaderboard is sorted (by clicking the dropdown), the issue is what the default method of sorting should be.

If we continue to prioritize Real Time, it defeats the purpose of the load remover and will eventually lead to disputes over what the fastest run is.

It has now been several months since the PC AI community has had access to a load remover for LiveSplit. Based on tests (see my prior posts and spreadsheets), it appears to be working accurately and as intended. This is a great addition to the community because it levels the playing field among PC runners who have dramatically different hardware (and thus, significant differences in load times).

Until this point, the leaderboards have been sorted by Real Time. This was primarily motivated by the need to validate the accuracy of the load remover, and additionally to provide runners with ample opportunity to submit new personal bests with load times removed. Those objectives have largely been achieved, although not every runner has submitted a new time and several of them are no longer running the game.

It is now time to discuss how best to integrate and merge (if at all) existing runs into a leaderboard sorted by Game Time, rather than Real Time. As of now, we are in the minority of PC games that ostensibly continues to prioritize Real Time where (1) a functional load remover is available, and (2) load times vary dramatically based on hardware.

Part of the rationale behind this persistence has been the (completely valid) concern that the leaderboard will become non-sensical and messy if sorted by Game Time where certain runs only have Real Time values. Because of the way the website works, every run that does not have a Game Time is prioritized lower than those that do. In other words, a 2:48 Real Time run will appear to be ranked worse than a 2:59 Game Time run, which is obviously not correct.

Following are several options. For purposes of this discussion, "existing runs" refers ONLY to those runs that have not been (a) timed with the load remover, or (b) manually re-timed to remove loads.

1. We do nothing and continue to prioritize Real Time (by virtue of sorting by time with loads as the default), despite the availability of a functional load remover and our knowledge that load times vary dramatically based on hardware. This perpetuates "pay to win" - runners with better hardware will have lower load times and better overall times - and discourages runners who have anything less than the best hardware.

2. We time out loads for all existing runs. This is a tremendous amount of work but something I would be willing to do if runners would provide (a) unobstructed YouTube VODs (or equivalent) of their runs and (b) time(s) of any death(s) that occurred during those runs. "Unobstructed" is critically important - if the load icon is not visible (i.e. because of a face cam), it is nearly impossible to accurately determine load times.

3. We use the same values for Game Time and Real Time for existing runs timed (a) without the load remover, or (b) where the load icon was obstructed. (An example of this are my runs in Nightmare Any% and Nightmare Low%.) Essentially, we can prevent the website from prioritizing Real Time runs lower than (unequivocally slower) Game Time runs by simply giving those existing runs a Game Time. This is not technically accurate (as the Game Time would include loads), but it would avoid a non-sensical leaderboard. Additionally, it would not affect the current Top 5 runs, all of which have been either timed with the load remover, or manually had their loads removed. (As a FYI, this is the option most games have implemented when a load remover was introduced - see, e.g., http://www.speedrun.com/me )

4. (Variation of #3) We remove some fixed amount of time as "load time" from existing runs. Based on runs completed with the load remover, and runs manually re-timed to remove loads, it is clear that PC runners have at least 4 minutes of load times, not counting reloads due to deaths. Under this approach, a 2:48 Real Time run would get a 2:44 Game Time. Again, this is not technically accurate, as load times vary greatly by hardware, and this will necessarily be more beneficial to runners with closer to 4 minute load times than those with 6 or more minute load times.

5. We split the leaderboards into Real Time and Game Time. This will be duplicative and messy (in addition to requiring more work to maintain). Furthermore, the Real Time leaderboard would likely become obsolete.

Option 3 (or 4) is my strong preference. However, this is not a dictatorship that simply imposes draconian decisions. Comments welcomed.

Free time for 100% runners.

Here's a third method, which is by far the easiest discovered.

Another way to do this, which doesn't appear to depend on which direction the station is tilted ().

It's possible to clip the audio log and ID tag out of the cage with the maintenance jack, avoiding the need for 100% runners go through the vent. Enjoy.

Running the game in "fullscreen" mode will simply run the game at the maximum resolution supported by your monitor (in this case presumably 1920x1080).

Even if you modify the "windowed resolution" setting to 3840x2160, the game is not actually running at that resolution without being set to run in "windowed" mode. So even though it appears in the video that the game is set to 3840x2160, it is only running at 1920x1080.