[Tom41]

This is something I noticed recently in the Sonic 3/S&K special stages. You know how you run around squares of blue spheres and they turn into rings? Well, if you zig-zag to collect those spheres instead, the game will start to lag badly. The more blue spheres you collect (in that particular square), the longer the pause between collecting each sphere. Eventually, the lag will be so severe you'll be waiting over 30 seconds after collecting each sphere!

What I'd like to know is WHY this happens, and if it's possible to hack it so this doesn't happen? Also, if anyone has an overclocked MD, try out this glitch and see if the delay between spheres is any shorter.

The best stage to try it out on is the Blue Sphere game (Sonic 1 + S&K); I found a stage that's almost entirely blue spheres:

Password: 3253 1444 7528
Blue Spheres: 672
Rings: 656

[Overlord]

ahahahaha, so it does! The only thing I can think of it's that it's working out some complex calculation to do with turning spheres into rings, and the more turns you make the longer the working out takes.

[Jayextee]

I found this out on the red-and-white special stage in Sonic 3 when I first played it -- doesn't seem to happen all the time on that one though.

[nineko]

The only thing I can think of it's that it's working out some complex calculation to do with turning spheres into rings, and the more turns you make the longer the working out takes.

Yes. Varion and I noticed this while I worked on my special stage editor. The "perimeter-detection" code seems to be sloppy. Sometimes it might hang up at all, with the music still playing of course since it's on the Z80.

This is probably why most stages don't have groups of blue spheres bigger than 4x4, with rare (if any) exceptions.

This post has been edited by nineko: 11 March 2010 - 06:03 PM

[corneliab]

Oh man, that's freakin' hilarious. Never would've even crossed my mind.

[Ravenfreak]

Is there a video or something demonstrating this? I've never noticed it before. o.O

[Solaris Paradox]

Huh. How odd.

Still, infinitely less intrusive than the Sonic 1 special stages' hitbox issues, which seem more noticible in Megamix due to their more complicated design. S&K's slot-machine bonus stage obvious doesn't share that problem, since the game has no trouble registering that you're touching more than one block at once.

This post has been edited by Solaris Paradox: 12 March 2010 - 04:42 AM

[PicklePower]

Is there a video or something demonstrating this? I've never noticed it before. o.O

Blue spheres slowdown

This post has been edited by PicklePower: 12 March 2010 - 01:42 AM

[LOst]

Is there a video or something demonstrating this? I've never noticed it before. o.O

Blue spheres slowdown

Ouch.
Are we looking at a for(check_sphere = 0; check_sphere < max_spheres; check_sphere++) code here?
It certainly looks like that. There is nothing wrong with the code itself, but the design of the stage. Miscommunication between programmer and designer.

[nineko]

Miscommunication between programmer and designer.

Well yeah but those are the stages in S1&K, so they don't count very much. The main 16 ones go beyond 4x4 in just a couple of places: Sonic_3_%26_Knuckles_Level_Maps#Special_Stages. My guess is that they were aware of this issue, but they didn't bother to change the layouts in Blue Sphere because after all it's just a side game... And players aren't supposed to collect the blue spheres in that way anyway. Once they made sure that this issue wouldn't appear too often in normal S3&K gameplay they called it a day.

[0r4ng3]

This is something I noticed recently in the Sonic 3/S&K special stages. You know how you run around squares of blue spheres and they turn into rings? Well, if you zig-zag to collect those spheres instead, the game will start to lag badly. The more blue spheres you collect (in that particular square), the longer the pause between collecting each sphere. Eventually, the lag will be so severe you'll be waiting over 30 seconds after collecting each sphere!

What I'd like to know is WHY this happens, and if it's possible to hack it so this doesn't happen? Also, if anyone has an overclocked MD, try out this glitch and see if the delay between spheres is any shorter.

The best stage to try it out on is the Blue Sphere game (Sonic 1 + S&K); I found a stage that's almost entirely blue spheres:

Password: 3253 1444 7528
Blue Spheres: 672
Rings: 656

Is that the last one? The last one is only bluespheres with extra eight in the middle.

Speaking about Blue Sphere. The password generator program on the wiki hasn't been working for quite some time. Does anyone have another or know what the algorythm was?

[nineko]

Is that the last one? The last one is only bluespheres with extra eight in the middle.

That's not the last one. It's just a random one.

The password generator program on the wiki hasn't been working for quite some time. Does anyone have another or know what the algorythm was?

That's not a problem with our wiki, it's just that the website which contained the generator is offline. I have all the files which used to be stored on that website though, and I'm willing to upload them somewhere. NOT my webspace, though.

edit: whatever, I'll host it on my webspace temporarily. I will probably take it down sometimes in the near future.
http://digilander.iol.it/projectchaos2/BS/index.php

Note that all the links are likely to be broken, as I didn't edit the pages in any way. I only renamed index.html to index.php since my ftp is stupid, but aside from that, I uploaded a 1:1 replica of the original thing, and it works. Be grateful.

This post has been edited by nineko: 12 March 2010 - 09:49 AM

[0r4ng3]

I am grateful. Thank you very much.

[Overlord]

Is there a video or something demonstrating this? I've never noticed it before. o.O

Blue spheres slowdown

Well, that pretty much confirms it's down to thinking how to changes spheres, seeing as unconnected groups of spheres still work at normal speed. Thanks for the video =P

[D.A. Garden]

I explored the lag in the special stage provided above and this is what I got.
I'm quite facinated by it, actually, and what to know if there are ways to make it lag even more, as this was the most I got from this one.

This post has been edited by D.A. Garden: 12 March 2010 - 03:16 PM