Changing your FPS in the middle of a run

The title kind of speaks for itself. There is currently no official ruling on whether or not one is allowed to change their FPS in the middle of a run. This discussion shall be an attempt to create an official ruling about this. Please provide examples of levels where doing this would be beneficial as I can only think of Great Divide where the 1st TL has better odds with one FPS and the 2nd is better with another.

I've never felt the need to change my FPS in the middle of a run in order to gain any sort of advantage. FPS tricks are few and far between, it just seems unnecessary to me. However I don't know of many examples of levels where it would be advantageous to do so.

Playing the entire level at low fps allows for the low fps trick and doesn't require fiddling with it mid run. I like to make a big fuss about playing at lower fps but in all honesty its not that big a deal, I get used to it pretty quick.

I guess we never really reached a ruling on this.

I think the official ruling is going to be you are allowed to change your FPS mid run. So long as the FPS doesn't dip below 30 it will still be valid if you change the FPS at some point during the run.

Here are my updated thoughts on the matter. This is not an official ruling.

Mazik has recently achieved a time of 4.402 on the Marble Blast Gold Beginner level #15, Marble Materials Lab. A world record by 0.034 seconds. Or is it? Normally congratulations would be in order but, instead this run has stirred up controversy because Mazik manipulated the Frames Per Second that the game runs at in the middle of the run. Is this run the next World Record? Or should this run be considered illegitimate and the technique of Mid Run FPS Changes (MRFC) be banned from Marble Blast speedrunning? Changing your FPS in the middle of the run becomes a similar issue to the Screenshot Glitch that radically changes how the game is played and destroys anyone's ability to compete without also utilizing this tactic that either requires using the in-game console, or external software to manipulate the game in an unnatural manner. MRFC should not be allowed as it interrupts the flow of the run and destroys the spirit of speedrunning this game.

The utilization of external tools like Riva Tuner Statistics (RTSS) is not going to be banned. Mac and Windows builds of the game run at different native framerates (166 & 64 respectively) the frame rate unlocker mod is allowed specifically to level the playing field between these two operating systems. Also, someone could purchase (or might already have) an old 30hz monitor and run the game with vertical sync to allow their FPS to be as low as 30 in a way that no one can believe is cheating or unfair. RTSS allows others to emulate having poor hardware without having to go out and purchase that hardware themselves. Manipulating the FPS of this game is part and parcel of speedrunning at the highest level.

No one disagrees that changing your FPS is necessary sometimes: Mine hits are more powerful at lower FPS, certain fast starts are only achievable at higher fps, traplaunches are beneficial at varying frame rates depending on the level, and so on. This is an unfortunate necessity we just have to deal with. However, all of those FPS manipulations occur before the runs actually start, none of these require your FPS to change in the middle of a run.

But what about lag? This game is 20 years old, even computers back when this game was new did not struggle to run the game at consistent FPSs well above 30, and computers have gotten nothing but more powerful since. No one has a computer that cannot run this game at the minimum required 30 fps. But what about lag spikes? Lag spikes always have and always will exist, there is nothing anyone can do to prevent those. But, they are quite rare and very difficult to induce intentionally. Even if a lag spike happens, even if it keeps the frames per second above the lowest acceptable rate of 30FPS, no one would consider that to be cheating as it is an unintentional consequence of factors beyond the runner's control and not an intentional manipulation of the game. If MRFCs are to be banned all honest runners would not accept a run with a lag spike during a critical moment of a run, even though it was unintentional. Intentionally manipulating the FPS in the middle of a run is very reminiscent of the another already banned technique, the Screenshot Glitch.

The Screenshot Glitch (SSG) is going to remain illegal because by taking a screenshot (or dozens) to lower the FPS to an extremely low point (typically around 1 or less) it majorly affects the physics and allows for some truly game breaking behaviour. This video by Kalle demonstrates what SSG can do:



As you can clearly see he grabbed the gem from a monstrous distance away which does not need explaining is highly unfair, as anyone who does not utilize this glitch cannot compete. If you saw a graph of the FPS of this run over time it would be consistent at maybe 200fps with small 10-15fps fluctuations which are normal. Then there would be a sudden immediate drop to ~1fps for one second then immediately jumps back up to 200 once again. This is not a natural looking FPS graph, no lag spike would happen like that naturally at exactly the point it would be immensely beneficial to the run.

SSG becomes speedrunning in this game. You cannot not use it to get world records if it is allowed. For these reasons the Screenshot Glitch was banned. The ruling that was decided was that if at any point in your run the FPS goes below 30 it is too low and enters this physics abusing territory and cannot, will not be allowed. 30 being set as the limit because, additionally, anything less is generally considered unplayable. SSG is banned from legitimate speedrunning and for good reason. Good riddance.

What Mazik has done in his latest run demonstrates that techniques akin to the Screenshot Glitch are still permitted within the ruleset for speedrunning this game. If you see a graph of Mazik's FPS over time it looks like this (note, the graph is not entirely accurate as it shows a dip to ~60fps but a careful analysis of the .rec file shows it actually drops to near 30fps, the overall idea being demonstrated still stands though the graph may have some inaccuracies in the precise details):



Though the frames per second never drop below 30 and this would technically be considered legal under the current ruleset, the spirit of Screenshot Glitch is clearly present here. An unnatural drop in FPS exactly when it is beneficial to the run to perform a physics defying trick. This should not be allowed.

Currently there are only two levels that utilize this strategy of changing your FPS in the middle of a run, Great Divide, and Marble Materials Lab. But, just like the Screenshot Glitch was once thought to only be useable on a handful of levels it became known that it was possible to utilize it on any levels with moving platforms or collectibles of any kind. While this new strategy does not reach the same extremes of SSG, the time it saves is considerably less, it is still of benefit. And with World Records getting closer and closer to the limits of this game this strategy becomes more and more appealing no matter how small the amount of time it saves. And just as SSG became known to be useable on nearly every level, so too is MRFC.

Additionally, MRFC necessitates interrupting gameplay destroying the flow of a run. By tabbing out to an external program like RTSS, opening the console, and or pausing the game you interrupt the continuous flow of gameplay which goes against the spirit of speedrunning. For a level like Marble Materials Lab there is no way around pausing the game to achieve this effect however, for some levels like Great Divide it might be possible to avoid pausing if you're fast enough at opening the console. However, by opening console (or tabbing out and back in) you still briefly give up control of your marble thus you still disrupt the continuous flow of gameplay. But, it is significantly easier to simply pause, change the FPS, and unpause, and that is what most people will do.

Furthermore, by pausing you allow yourself time to gather your nerves or react to something with time you would not otherwise have which goes against the spirit of speedrunning. That being said theres no way to detect pausing or effectively ban it unless we implement a rule that all world record runs require a recording/ live stream of the run which no one feels is necessary nor does anyone, moderators and runners alike, want to have to implement. Regardless, pausing during a speedrun in any game where time spent paused does not add to the time of your run, is a practice that people should not utilize. Kalle could probably make a better case for this than I can but, I agree with him (though not with the same passionate intensity) that it should not be done in Marble Blast. Allowing MRFCs encourages this practice and should not be allowed.

Mazik may have worked hard to achieve this run, but what he has done goes against the spirit of fair play in the same way the Screenshot Glitch did all those years ago. In order to prevent the further spread of this SSG equivalent practice and to better encourage the fun of speedrunning this game, the strategy of changing your Frames Per Second during a run should be banned from Marble Blast speedrunning.

Mazik wrote:

And just as SSG became known to be useable on nearly every level, so too is MRFC.

I'm assuming this was an over-exaggeration given what you said earlier, but MRFC is in no way useable on nearly every level

No exaggeration. Every level that SSG works on MRFC works on too (though not nearly to the same extent). Sure the minuscule benefit on levels with only gems on them will prevent anyone from actually doing it but that doesn't go against my argument that MRFCs work on every level SSGs do.

Mazik wrote:
What if instead of pausing mid run to change FPS, we had a keybind such that when we hold it, our FPS drops to whatever value we have it set to? This completely eliminates pausing from this whole debate so it should be fine right?

Uh, no. Keybinds or macros make this problem worse not better.

Mazik wrote:
Having a keybind to automatically do this is where I would draw the line. This is where MRFC's actually become more like the screenshot glitch than before, and SSG did have a keybind to do it.

100% agree. Keybinds (and macros) I'm already against being used in speedruns.

Every instance that MRFCs are used in emulate some aspect of the Screenshot Glitch, to a much lesser extent. The time saved is considerably smaller, granted, but the spirit of SSG persists in this trick. With the possible exception of Great Divide as thats not a momentary drop in FPS (as I understand it). SSG was banned because it uses drastic changes in FPS to abuse the physics of this game to pull off otherwise impossible tricks. The trick was no fun to play with and it was deemed too game breaking to be kept around. The only thing different here is the size of the effect, the physics abuses the lack of fun to use it (arguably even less fun than even SSG to use because of pausing). I think MRFCs are basically SSG lite and shouldn't be allowed because of it.

I have had some time to think about this question, as well as the arguments for both sides, and I think we need to keep a thing in mind when going forward. The point of speedrunning is not really to play the game as fast as possible, just like the 100m dash isn't a competition of who can travel 100 metres the fastest. It's who can run the fastest under a certain ruleset. You're not allowed to use vehicles, you're not allowed all kinds of shoes, you're not allowed to use steroids, etc. And just like in speedrunning we have certain rules that make the competition more fun and fair for everyone. And I think that that is what the goal of a ruleset should be. That is why I personally don't really like end credit skip glitches which you can see in some games - it simply makes the competition less fun and changes the gameplay to only focus on the skip glitch, rather than playing the game "normally" so to speak.

As for Marble Blast, I think we need to look at what would be the best for the competition rather than what would allow for the fastest times. We have already banned the screenshot glitch because it made competition too focused on that one glitch, and it was also unfair since it didn't work in the same way on all computers. So we made a rule that would make our speedrunning times slower. I think that this was a very good decision as it would make speedrunning less fun if we had allowed it. And I use the same logic for changing your FPS in the middle of a run. It is simply less fun.

Now we need to look at some points that have been brought up. One of these points is that changing your FPS in the middle of a run is easy, and can be done via a free 3rd party programme when you play MBG, and can be done in the options menu when playing PQ, so this would make mid-run FPS changes fair for everyone. And while it is true that this would be "fair", it wouldn't be fun. Changing your FPS can help you with many things, catching powerups, catching gems, mine hit strength, traplaunch strength, MP impact speed, etc. This means that this technique would be widely applicable, not just on a few select levels, but rather on hundreds of levels, if you actually push it. If we allowed this trick, it would be bad for speedrunning as it would force people to pause frequently just to slightly improve parts of the run. It is against the spirit of speedrunning and would make it less fun. It is better that we simply allow the runners to pick an FPS value (no less than 30) at the start of a run and then use it for the whole run. If there are levels where both a high FPS value and a low FPS value could do you good then you simply have to choose which one you think will do you most good during the run.

This means that I am fine with people using a 3rd party to lock your FPS to any value no less than 30 as long as it stays consistent across the whole run. I myself have done this with FPS values that are not available in the PQ default settings. IIRC it was something around 435, but that's not too relevant. The point is that it should not change during a run in order to stick with the spirit of speedrunning. There is no reason to worry about hardware not being able to run the game at at least 30 FPS since PCs from 20 years ago could do this without problem.

So to summarise thus far: I think FPS should stay consistent during a run, but you can use a 3rd party programme to choose any FPS value as long as it's at least 30.

As for the keybind points that have been brought up; we can't differentiate between keybinds changing your FPS and a pause-tab out-active 3rd party programme-tab in again-unpause situation. While pausing is not part of the discussion in this thread, we have already noted in the other thread that you can't detect pausing anyway in a run so it would not make much sense to ban one type of MRFC but not the other. If something can be abused, it will be abused.

Screenshot glitch was banned really late because we were ignorant (due to a lack of TASing methods) and found out that it could be applied to most levels and was most importantly, human viable

Actually it was known for years that SSG was viable for humans on many levels, it just wasn't seen as very fun to do apart from Space Slide (big fun explosion) and King of the Mountain (new Super Speed path) so it remained mostly unused for a long time. It was before we started TASing that we realised that SSG needed to be banned in order to not completely break the spirit of speedrunning MB.

Another thing that's been on my mind is that in a game where the physics depend on FPS (for some reason), why is it necessary to police FPS bullshit if it doesn't break the game?

It's not just about "breaking" the game, but rather getting an advantage from MRFCs. When I played Gym I chose to play at 30 and 60 FPS for the whole run because it would give me an advantage for the gem you need to squeeze in an interior to get to, but it made the run overall less smooth. If I had changed from 400 to 30 for that one section, it wouldn't have broken the game, but it would have been an advantage over someone who doesn't use MRFC. And I again will argue that having a standard where we need to play normally up to that gem, pause, change FPS, unpause, grab the gem, pause again to change back my FPS, unpause and continue would be against the spirit of speedrunning, and indeed very boring. It's best to just let people decide if they want to run the level more smoothly with higher FPS, or get an advantage at a certain part with lower FPS.

My MML run for example isn't much different (physically) from a typical Ramp Matrix run, where the goal for one of the gems is supposed to be grabbing it from as far away as you can by abusing how your grabbing hitbox works. The only difference is a change in FPS [...]

While this is not a huge deal I still wish to point out that the direction you grab a gem from matters. If you grab it "diagonally" in relation to the internal grid system you can grab it from farther away than straight on. So you can't reeeeeally compare different gem catches without giving this some attention.

All in all I don't think that MRFCs are "breaking" the game but I do think they're bad for the game and can give a person an advantage over someone who plays the game more "normally". And I think that introducing techniques like this just makes the game less fun to run. And that is why I am strongly against allowing FPS changes in the middle of a run. This is only my personal opinion and is not to be seen as a staff message.