Tomb Raider speedrunning site
FAQ & Rules
Q: What is speedrunning ?
A: Speedrunning is a contest in which you try to achieve best possible time on certain level using various tricks, shortcuts and timesavers.
Q: What games do you speedrun here ?
A: Currently, we speedrun all Tomb Raider games and custom-made levels/campaigns.
Q: What should I do to set a new time ?
A: First thing to do is to learn all tricks that saves time like flare cancels, backflips, short running jump etc., then pick a level you think you can improve and start practicing or finding new routes/shortcuts. You can make a run of new level too, just make sure it's downloadable if it's a custom-made. Then it's just about your skill, luck and patience.
Q: Are there any specifications or rules I should follow ?
A: YES. Please, follow these rules:
1) Do not cheat under any circumstances
2) In order to get your run accepted, the video has to be complete, have no serious glitches, decent quality and must include audio.
3) Do not use any 3rd party software such as flying cheat, position editor, save editor etc.
4) We divide each Tomb Raider into Glitched Glitched, Glitched and Normal. Glitched Glitched runs (GG) only applies to Legend and Anniversary, while Glitched (G) applies to every Tomb Raider. It means you used some kind of engine of level design abuse to your advantage. This is the latest list of tricks recognized as glitched:
- Corner bug & flicker motion
- Fence bug
- Block or crack bug
- Dive bug
- Quicksand bug
- Slope bug
- Exposure meter bug
- Left and back roll jump
5) Every new run must beat previous time if exists, depending on the category below.
6) There are 4 categories of runs so far:
a) Individual level and continuous level - You can either run a level on it's own or make a continuous run of entire game. We don't differ these as the only advantage you get is different inventory, but that can save just a couple seconds. The only exception is Anniversary, which has several differencies between continuous and individual. You can use more than one segment per level, but please keep it in reasonable numbers. Runs done in 20 segments or so won't be accepted. You can use any type of difficulty you want, it doesn't matter so far.
b) Single-segment - Speedrun through the entire game in just one segment = no saves. The only "rule" here is not to die.
c) Secrets - Same as a), but you have to pick-up all secrets.
d) 100% - All pickups, all kills, all secrets
Q: What does the "G" in timetables mean ?
A: It means the run uses glitches. The current list of what trick is marked as a glitched is above.
Q: What does the "GG" in timetables mean ?
A: It means the run uses heavy glitches such as Air-Walk or Out of Bounds. However, they only work in Legend and Anniversary.
Q: What if I'm not sure whether it's glitched or not ?
A: Well, simply go to contact and ask me or you can do it on forums as well.
Q: OK, I think I can make a run, how do I record it ?
A: Well, that depends on what platform you wanna play. If you play on console, hook up your vhs or dvd recorder to it and record the run, then grab it into a PC and make a video. If you play on PC, you have several options depending on which Tomb Raider you wanna record:
1) Tomb Raider 1: If you somehow manage to run this game without any graphics emulators, Hypercam is the application you need, but I'd rather recommend you to use graphic emulator like DgVoodoo or Glidos, then record the run using Fraps. If you don't know how to install TR1 on XP or Vista, please visit this installation guide.
2) Tomb Raider 2 and 3: Fraps doesn't really like this game, so you will probably either end up recording at low fps (5-20) or something like 320x240. For higher quality and smoother gameplay, use Hypercam with Lagarith codec. Here is a good guide how to use it.
4) All other Tomb Raider games works correctly with Fraps, so please use it.
Remember that TR1-5 have 30fps limit, so don't try to record any higher. It's recommended to use 60fps or more when running AOD, Legend or Anniversary, though. Some tricks in Legend and Anniversary require certain framerate. Make sure your framerate is higher than 20fps, otherwise the run won't be accepted, we just don't like crappy quality.
As for the audio, you can use recording via microphone since many people have had problems recording sound via soundchip input. If you do so, please avoid any outside sounds as talking, cursing, bashing etc. I suggest to upload a sample before you start your run.
Q: The run is recorded, what do I have to do next?
A: Now you have to encode the video. You can use whatever software you want as long as you keep at least 320x240 resolution, 30fps, 500kbps video and 56kbps audio. I recommend to use *.avi or *.mp4 container, xvid/divx/x264/vp1/wmv video codec and mp3/aac/ogg/wmv audio codec. You can see what types of containers you are allowed to use in submit run section.
If you want to encode several qualities, please follow these standards:
1) Low Quality - 320x240x30fps, 128kbps video, 32kbps audio
2) Normal Quality - 320x240x30fps, 512kbps video, 64kbps audio
3) High Quality - 640x480x30fps (or more), 2048kbps video, 128kbps audio
4) Insane Quality - 640x480x60fps and higher, 5120kbps video, 320kbps audio
5) Extreme Quality - 800x600x60fps and higher, 10000kbps video, 320kbps audio
It doesn't have to be precise, but keep it close.
Q: I have no experience encoding videos, what should I use and how ?
A: If you really don't want to mess with this stuff, then just use windows movie maker to create *.wmv videos. If you want a better codecs, you can use a software like VirtualDub, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere etc. Here is a really nice guide about recording and encoding a speedrunning video, although it's for advanced users, so I recommend to use VirtualDub and xvid/mp3 duo for beginners. You should be able to understand how this software works, it's very user-friendly.
If you want to have best possible quality and do not know how to achieve it or have some serious issue with the captured video like desynced audio, you can upload the raw file to our ftp in Submit section and I will do the encoding for you.
Q: I have the run encoded, what next ?
A: Now you want your run get submitted. In order to do that, you have to do 2 things:
1) Upload all the videos to our ftp. To do that, go to Submit section and use the form.
If you encounter a problem with uploading your run using the Submit section, you can use direct ftp access instead.
Host: station09.station.cz
Username: upload.tombrunner.net
Password: upload
2) Inform us about the run. To do that, go to Forums, choose or create current month and post these informations:
RUNNER: Your name
GAME: TR1-TRA or Custom
CATEGORY: individual or continuous run, non-glitched or G or GG and secrets or bonus etc.
LEVEL: Level name
TIME: Time of the finished level
DATE: Date when you finished the run
LINK: All links to your run (one per one source, not every video)
3) Optional - You can upload your run to YouTube or any other video share service.
If you find a problem with the uploading, please contact me.
Q: Where can I learn all the tricks and known shortcuts ?
A: For the tricks, please go to Area 51 section and watch our runs, of course. For the shortcuts, you can either watch the latest run or go to Forums, where you can read latest discoveries.