Elma Tuning

Az Elasto Mania 99%-a a tudásra épül, de egy kis hardveres fejlesztés vagy a szoftveres beállítások módosítása sosem árthat.

Történelem

Egy kép a 45. internal pályáról (Sink)

Már 2000-ben is megjegyezték néhányan, hogy az Elasto Mania különböző gépeken másképpen viselkedik. A 45. internal pálya (Sink) volt a legjobb lehetőség ennek a tesztelésére. Ez azért volt, mert a Sink-en az első alma helyénél volt egy kis lyuk, ahova a kereket be tudták szorítani. A kerék itt csinált egy furcsa bounce-szerű mozgást vissza és előre, ahonnan aztán néhány ember kb. 0,2 mp-vel később tudott csak kijönni, míg mások ennél valamivel gyorsabban.

Ha 0,2 mp előnyről beszélünk egy Höyla pályán, akkor sok emberben felvetődik a kérdés, hogy vajon mi lehet a különbség.

Később észrevették, hogy a monitor frissítési frekvenciájának változtatása kihat a játék egyes területeire is. Maga The refresh rate itself was irrelevant, however when vertical synchronization was on, fps was synchronized to match the refresh rate. So, for example if you put the refresh rate to 85hz, the fps was 85. Note that the refresh rate must be set on the exact same resolution that is being used in Elasto Mania to have an effect.

Accordingly, when vsync was turned off, the fps raised to maximum possible depending on hardware. Typically this meant 200fps back in 2000.

Frames per second

So, the conclusion is that everything in tuning comes down to fps. Everything else, vsync, refresh rate, hardware, software and so on, is only indirect tuning (because they affect fps!).

Low fps (30-100)

Differences to medium/high fps:

• Long keypress delay. - Fixed in Elma Online.
• Faster rotation. - It is very small difference, but still a difference.
• Wheels can enter holes that are smaller than the wheel.
• Unpredictable wheel behaviour in "\/" shaped vertex holes. - Wheel can get sucked inside the polygon, or in another case, a high speed bounce up in the air can occur.
• 0,02 faster than high fps on a flat 10 second level.
• Human eye notices unsmoothness until about 60-80fps, depending on how hard you concentrate on seeing it.

It is important to note that the less fps there are the less predictable wheel behaviour is in tight holes. Also note that 30 fps is relatively a whole lot less than 100 (3,33... times)

Medium fps (100-300)

Differences to low/high fps:

• Almost unnoticable keypress delay
• Can still enter some holes that are smaller than the wheel, for example Shelf Life world record route.

High fps (300-999)

Differences to low/medium fps:

• Most significant difference is in brutaling. Due to the high fps, player is able to do a "slide" brutal, which is seen in the world record styles of Uphill Battle, Hi Flyer and The Steppes.
• Totally unable to enter holes that are smaller than the wheel - Sometimes it is seen in a battle that people can't enter hangs because they're too small. Check Level Designing Etiquette

Note that all this info only gives some direction to tuning. For example it is possible to have keypress delay for other reasons than the fps. Possible reasons are (b)elma.exe CPU priority, keyboard issues or monitor (LCD is considered bad for Elma) issues. It is impossible to say 30-100 fps does exactly one thing, when having for example 70 fps instead of 60 can make a certain trick from possible to totally impossible.