Feature request: Increase (or remove) song length cap... by a lot

[Kaerix]

You could have breaks where there are no blocks (visually anything could be happening, nothing, portals/gates, visualization based on the music played, etc), so the game can catch up/fall back and resync.  It could do this probably by multiple means, but I don't know how it works, so I can't say how exactly.  If nothing else though, this could happen every X minutes as the next section of the track is calculated (where X is where the limit for desyncing is decided).

So instead of saying "no songs over X minutes" you could say "every X minutes, there will be a break while the next section is calculated."  Avoiding a pause would be nice, but allowing it would make this idea unable to not work.

It's not about "it can't be done," it's a question of how to do it and/or whether or not it's worth doing.  That I can't answer (it's not my place).

[blue_h3x]

The break in continuity would be a bit of a killer though. The idea of stress testing the machine would be a better, dynamically changing the max length based on the system.

[SohnoJam]

The stress test + dynamic length cap would, indeed, be brilliant. Maybe a button in the options menu that activates the test, so you don't have to test before every song and can still re-test if you change something in your system, say, get a new processor.

[blue_h3x]

Test on first run, plus a button to force a test would be the ideal situation.

The other would be to some how sync the music with the track better, such as time indicators in the ash, such as draw this block at 325.6s etc.

[SohnoJam]

Right now I can't decide which would be more complicated to achieve... Whichever is easier to be implemented should definitely be considered.

[blue_h3x]

Right now I can't decide which would be more complicated to achieve... Whichever is easier to be implemented should definitely be considered.

Having the ASH structured like subtitle files, where after x seconds through, a set task is carried out, would be pretty easy to do code wise. The algorithm just outputs the time at the same time as the blocks.

Stress testing would be the more complicated issue, as it would requite some way to detect a difference between visual and audio, plus would have to run for some time. The other way would be to set some rules with a fuzzy logic type decision algorithm, where so much RAM and a set CPU/GPU equates to a set max song length.

[SohnoJam]

Hmm... Seems like it could, theoreticly, be implemented, looking at it optimisticly.

[blue_h3x]

Yup.

The time synced ash idea is the most practical one imo.

[Kaerix]

One stress test might be to simply run the game on a terrible computer.

[SohnoJam]

No, no, no. We mean like a stress test to see how YOUR computer handles the game and how long can a track be without de-syncing on YOUR computer.

[blue_h3x]

With my old GPU, the track would get noticeably out of sync just after 14minutes, but now I never see a de-sync (and played songs which are substantially longer).

The stress test, for the best accuracy would need to be real time, though who's going to sit for half an hour waiting to play a game?
On the other hand, a simulated stress test could be run at a faster pace, though would be open more so to inaccuracies.

[SohnoJam]

There could be an "Estimate" button to check the hardware and make an aproximate estimate of how much your computer can handle and a "Stress Test" button, which would be the full test...

[blue_h3x]

How would one estimate the length though.

Again...

The time synced ash idea is the most practical one

[SohnoJam]

Yeah, good point... The time-coded Ash is probably the best way to go...

[Koen]

Not sure if I posted in this thread before, but I would love to see the limit increased to 80 minutes (so you can play full audio cd's). Shouldn't be too much of an increase over the current 1 hour limit.

I think the idea with timecodes in .ash files could really solve the sync issues. Every 15 seconds or so the .ash could have a few bits which the game reads as a timecode. The game could then speed up or slow down to get back in sync with the music. Ofcourse adding more timecodes would make resyncing go smoother, but would also cause some extra lag on older systems (like mine!).

The other suggestion, having a variable maximum song length, is good too - but the user should be able to override it at his own risk. I personally would take the sync issues for granted if I could play longer songs.

By the way, I have had a weird bug happen to me once. At the end of an hour long track the ship stopped going forward. I don't know if this is a sync issue or because of .ash file corruption, but it was certainly annoying and a real tease having the squid(?) right in front of you!

http://www.hackingyour.info/dump/glitch.wmv