I'm finally in the records, and it's a serious kick in my pr

[AmishRobot]

I finally got around to entering my times into the records. (as james mcvay, under ntsc, for those that are interested) And I've come to the realization that, well, I'm not very good.

A lot of my times are fairly respectable. I seem to be hovering in the middle to lower half of the top 10. Most of my better times are in the lower classes. (#2 at Sampa Run on Vector! Woo!) I'm guessing that's because most don't bother much with the lower classes.

One thing I did notice is that Al's times are rediculously low! I spent about three hours today racing Porta Kora TT at Phantom. At one point I managed two perfect laps in a row (a first for me! yeah!), and only a couple minor blunders after that. It netted me the 1.48.67 time that's posted. Al's still more than 17 seconds faster! I don't know how you did it, Al, but you are appearantly not human. rin: The NeGcon is great (wish I still had mine), but it doesn't help that much!

It looks like I need more practice. For now, I'm just going to use the excuse that I've played a lot more 2097/XL than WO3! :

[Wiseman]

Good, another person on the NTSC tables! rin:

Heh heh, we need as many people as we can get, especially in some of the TT tables, which in some cases (Raiper) Jay is the only one there!

I keep telling myself that I should just go ahead and put all of my times up, as lousy as some of them are, but I keep then telling myself that "No, you can beat those sucky times, just race the dang circut, then put them up", but I then never get around to it.


But I do have quite a few times on the tables, (all Raiper SR, all Vector TT, all Phantom TT, and all Porta Kora TT) but I maybe I should just put up the rest of my times, sucky as they are, to emberass myself into just doing the dang race again and getting some better times....

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Wiseman on 2002-02-11 05:36 ]</font>

[vincoof]

Once your times are entered into the tables, it's a great motivation for trying to improve them.

I recommend to enter all of your times, even the worst ones... especially the worst ones !
It helps alot for seeing on which track you do need more practice. And when the times are listed, you can easily see how many seconds you have to get to go to the upper/1st place.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vincoof on 2002-02-11 07:28 ]</font>

[AmishRobot]

Heh, I've been putting it off for months, with the intention of getting some better times first. I finally decided to just suck it up and embarrass myself. :

I was just thinking, though: I've never read the exact reason for the different times between NTSC and PAL, but I assume it's because of the differnce in fps. I could be totally wrong, but assuming the difference between the two is a constant, could there be some sort of equation that could be written into the database, so that the PAL and NTSC tables could be merged, and rankings adjusted according to region?

For example, someone puts in a lap time for NTSC, the database converts it to the PAL equivalent, and orders that number into the rankings. Then, when the the times are displayed, the NTSC times are converted back, but the ranking order remains. Does that make sense?

It would look a little weird to have a lap time of 42 seconds rank above 39 seconds, but it would be so cool to have a single comparison between everybody! Even though I'm sure my ranking would drop significantly... rin:

Any mathematicians lurking about??

[vincoof]

You're right about the ntsc/pal difference : everything's based on the fps difference.

But it's not possible to convert with a simple mathematical formula.

First of all, psygnosis _tried_ to get times working right for both versions. That means they did speed up/slow down the game, so the difference is not 50-to-60 and I don't think it's possible to know the real number.

Secondly, wip3out is a frame-based videogame (like all videogames today), which means that the videogame computes everything on a per-frame basis : everything's done every 1/60 of a second in a ntsc game, whereas everything's done in 1/50 of a second in a pal game. That is, the game displays 60 frames per second (for ntsc), but also it computes 60 AI stuff per second (for ntsc), it gets inputs from a controller 60 times in a second (for ntsc), etc. Replace every number '60' by '50' for pal, and then you'll see the visible part of the iceberg.
I'm sorry, AmishRobot but the problem is not likely to be solved by a simple mathematical formula.

[Hyper Shadow]

I remember when I stuck my times on the board, look for them, there near the bottom, except for Mega Mall-TT-Vector and Terminal-SR-Rapier ( PAL )

The Terminal one I am most proud of cos I sat there for about an hour racing the circuit and felt so joyous when the time appeared (I'm Alun Haines BTW)

[zargz]

Hyper Shadow finnaly reveals himself! rin:

[Hyper Shadow]

What do you mean finally reveals himself???

I mean, you never asked who I was :wink:

[Lance]

yeah, Alun listed his name and location on the old EZ-board data base.

[AmishRobot]

I somehow got into the mistaken notion that if there was a 10fps difference, it would make the ntsc version 17% faster than pal. Yeah, I know... it was really late. :wink:

It's too bad there's no way to measure the difference.

[Status]

Boy, I remember that feeling of pride when I submitted my first times like it was just last week...

Okay, so it practically was.

I wish I had more time to play, I'm actually doing pretty well on the Vector tables. :smile:

[Lance]

status, which name do you use on the tables?

i actually raced some last night; for the first time in about 3 months i was actually able to get close to a couple of my old times. i gotta get back in practice so i can compete again. the evil Jay and his venom nemesis, Wiseman await the opportunity to destroy any new records i may achieve! bastards!
:wink:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Lance on 2002-02-12 19:04 ]</font>

[infoxicated]

:smile:

[Dom]

Wasn't there a post put up a while back with some kind of NTSC/PAL conversion numbers?

[Status]

Lance, I'm Steven Dixon on the tables. I've only entered times for a handful of tracks, but they're all pretty good times if I do say so. :smile:

[Lance]

i havent really checked out the tables, but i did see you in Porto Kora. you put me back in third! grrrrrrr.

although i was way behind jay already. right now my PK time is as good as i know how to make it, but obviously there is a way to cut more than 3 seconds off my time; i just have to find it. it's experiment time!

[JABBERJAW]

there is not a 17% difference between the games. I did a test on porta kora on the old tables and YOu can check it out there. It should be fairly accurate for that track at least, but would be different for others

[The Boye]

PAL Wip3out runs at 25 fps hence all the times should be a multiple of 0.04 secs, sometimes the game will register 0.02 seconds when the fps on a busy section of a track but this should equate to 0.04 on the next update when the fps settles out again to 25.

NTSC runs at 30 fps so this versions times will be multiples of 0.033 secs.

There is also the problem of Hz rating related to the Voltage power supply. This differs from the display frequency in Hz check the sticker on the base of a PSX and you'll see the Hz rating next to the voltage requirements, most electrical appliances can select which frequency to run at automatically but the PSX is not so it will run slightly faster or slighty slower than it should depending on which power supply it is running on. If it is designed for 50 Hz and has a 60Hz voltage running through it it will be faster. The PS2 can differentiate between the two different Hz ratings - note the 50/60Hz voltage markings on the rear of the machine. So if a UK spec PS2 was to run on a US power supply it would configure the Hz acceptance to suit 60 Hz instead of its normal 50 Hz and therefore should maintain the same speed for the processor.

I remember reading about US imported DVD players to the UK that had what sounded like slurred speech from movies - sound being more noticeable when slowed down than vision - the reason for this was because the UK power supply was 50 Hz instead of the required 60 Hz making the players codechip run slower.

This may sound like a sad excuse to why Al's times are better than mine ( probably is :razz: ) but it would be interesting to see if times differ between a chipped US PSX running PAL Wip3out SE compared to a PAL PS2 running PAL Wip3out SE on a US power supply.... :wink:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sinuous on 2002-02-28 22:24 ]</font>

[Lance]

in all the specs i've seen published for the PSX, regardless of country, power supply, or television display frequency, the central processor runs at approximately 34.xx megaHertz. this is determined from an internal clock whose frequency is dependent on its own internal oscillator. it looks to me that any lap time differences experienced would be from other causes than chip speed, which ought to be the same in all versions. [my 2 cents]

however, it seems that there are some differences. on 3 of the circuits, jay and i have had fairly intensive competitions, and on those, in vector class there seems to be a difference of about 2 seconds for a race of two laps between our NTSC times and the equivalent times on PAL. NTSC being the lower time. NTSC would be about 2.3 to 2.5 percent faster.

it is just too hard to pin down an exact percentage differential that could be applied to everything. so unless we are all playing the same version or unless there is such a huge time differential in favour of one pilot that it's obvious, then we're not going to be able to say with no doubt which pilot is the best in any particular race. i think it's pretty clear which pilot has an overall superiority in phantom class over all races. but other than that, nothing is clear.

[science]

if the physics were exactly the same in both PAL and NTSC versions of the game, then someone could come up with some sort of a definate percentage of difference between the two. since the physics are ever so slightly different, though, its really not fair [not to mention rather futile] to try to come up with conversion factors. its kind of like comparing two different games, albiet to very similar games, but different nevertheless.