Oh No! More Challenges!

[GigaLem]

Tricky 6-Lemmingology-Finish in under 1 minute
Gliches:Yes
Save:100%
Skills:floaters,bashers,bulders and climbers

Give it your best shot

[namida]

Do you even test these before you post them? That challenge is very easily completed without glitches... and for that matter, without bashers too. In fact, it's probably the solution people will usually use the first time, just releasing the crowd a tiny bit sooner to stay within the 1 minute.

[GigaLem]

i would my Dos lemmings levels arn't working
As in The original level are acting like the holiday levels

[ccexplore]

(This doesn't quite fit in this challenge thread but there's simply no challenge thread for this, so oh well.)

Think you know the "maximum saved" results for PC Lemmings 2?  Well think again.  Thanks to my discovery of http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=199.msg8704#msg8704" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">the glitch allowing you to survive the bouncing tennis ball via framestepping, it's now possible to save all 60 lemmings in Sports 1!  Yep, that level whose previous best result was a lose-2 I think.

This really has to be seen to be believed, so I've attached a zipped DOSBox video.  I've also included a comment below in spoilers related to the solution's skill usage:

If you're wondering why the solution still uses so many skills given the power of the glitch, well unfortunately right now, framestepping is still not reliable enough to make more minimal-skill solutions feasible for execution, as those solutions would require dealing with both tennis balls with at least one (if not both) of their kill-zones intact.  I've tried a number of times the past week or so and keeps screwing up mid-way.  Whereas here, you'd note in my video that you only need to deal with one tennis ball, and even then I've used the skills to minimize the amount of time a lemming would walk in the ball's kill zone, making the solution much more tolerant to mistakes in the frame-stepping.

[edit: once again looks like I'll need FileDen for the "large" attachment, @#$%@ http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/7/15/2915232//Sports1_save60.zip" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/7/15/2915232//Sports1_save60.zip]

[geoo]

Nifty, so overall we should be down to lose 2 (Classic 5 and Polar 8 ) now! http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />

I found a somewhat less tedious (i.e. less framestepping) way to save 100% using your glitch, I also recoded a video, but for some reason it looks blurry and has sound even though it uses the same codec as yours, so here's just an outline:
(I really should better revise for my upcoming exams instead of doing this...)

Bomb at the right of the level to make a holding pit accessible; make sure that no-one splats in the process. In my attempt 3 lemmings landed in a bunch under the right tennis ball, the rest getting safely into the holding pit. Step them through the ball, and have them land in front of the left ball. Flame away some terrain below it while framestepping to make sure none of them gets crushed. Flame again at the bottom of the hole you created with the first flame thrower to break through the pipe. The lemmings will land one floor below and barely survive the fall landing in front of the steam pipe. Release the crowd with the last flame thrower and guide them through the balls.

It seems that in general many animations are affected by pausing and fast forward somehow, and for the objects where the interaction with lemmings is animation frame dependent this can have a crucial effect.

The framestepping setup in DosBox is really awesome, thanks for documenting it! http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />

[ccexplore]

I also recoded a video, but for some reason it looks blurry and has sound even though it uses the same codec as yours

I don't know anything about the blurry part, but as for sound, I actually turned off sound and music in Lemmings 2 itself before I recorded my videos.  I do that because I find that the video zips up noticeably less efficiently when there's sound recorded.  Of course, that was for the good old days when the forum doesn't complain of 4-6MB attachments.  Now that I apparently have to go through FileDen for all my movie uploads, I might as well keep the sound and maybe even skip the zipping...... http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" />

You're taking summer classes?

[LemSteven]

Wow, ccexplore, great job!  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />

Unfortunately, I don't have anything to add to the challenge results right now, and I probably won't for several weeks.  I'm in the process of moving right now, so most of my personal belongings are packed up.

[Simon]

Yeah, great job! Stretching the physics to their limits.  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

Immediately go back to frameskipping and holding the ball up further.

-- Simon

[geoo]

I don't know anything about the blurry part, but as for sound, I actually turned off sound and music in Lemmings 2 itself before I recorded my videos.  I do that because I find that the video zips up noticeably less efficiently when there's sound recorded.  Of course, that was for the good old days when the forum doesn't complain of 4-6MB attachments.  Now that I apparently have to go through FileDen for all my movie uploads, I might as well keep the sound and maybe even skip the zipping...... http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" />

You're taking summer classes?

Ah, I only disabled the sound in the dosbox.conf, not ingame, which caused the sounds to be recorded into the video.
But no matter what settings I choose in the dosbox.conf, it always results in a video of resolution 320x200 (as opposed to 640x400 yours has) looking blurry/'jpeg-y' and not crisp like yours does. According to the doc the video output resolution is determined by the 'video mode', but nowhere there's an explanation what the 'video mode' setting actually is.
As for uploading, I noticed with 7z you can get your last video down to 3MB, but I don't know whether that's sufficient to get below the attachment size limit. (And DosBox doesn't seem to offer keystroke recordings, which would solve the size issue altogether.)
No, no summer classes; exams tend to be scattered across the semester break over here.

Yay steganography!

[ccexplore]

]Ah, I only disabled the sound in the dosbox.conf, not ingame, which caused the sounds to be recorded into the video.

Yeah, if you look at the comments in the .conf file, "nosound" still performs sound emulation, so sound will still be recorded into the video.

But no matter what settings I choose in the dosbox.conf, it always results in a video of resolution 320x200 (as opposed to 640x400 yours has) looking blurry/'jpeg-y' and not crisp like yours does.

I don't know for sure, but try these settings (see bolded):

[render]
# frameskip: How many frames DOSBox skips before drawing one.
#    aspect: Do aspect correction, if your output method doesn't support scaling this can slow things down!.
#    scaler: Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes. If 'forced' is appended,the scaler will be used even if the result might not be desired.
#            Possible values: none, normal2x, normal3x, advmame2x, advmame3x, advinterp2x, advinterp3x, hq2x, hq3x, 2xsai, super2xsai, supereagle, tv2x, tv3x, rgb2x, rgb3x, scan2x, scan3x.

frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

You might also want to try this (see bolded):

[dosbox]
# language: Select another language file.
#  machine: The type of machine tries to emulate.
#           Possible values: hercules, cga, tandy, pcjr, ega, vgaonly, svga_s3, svga_et3000, svga_et4000, svga_paradise, vesa_nolfb, vesa_oldvbe.
# captures: Directory where things like wave, midi, screenshot get captured.
#  memsize: Amount of memory DOSBox has in megabytes.
#             This value is best left at its default to avoid problems with some games,
#             though few games might require a higher value.
#             There is generally no speed advantage when raising this value.

language=
machine=vgaonly
captures=capture
memsize=16

Because I seem to remember on one computer that without the vgaonly, screenshots come out at 320x200 instead of 640x400.

[geoo]

Ok thanks, setting machine=vgaonly did it, it was previously set to vga (vgaonly isn't even listed in the commentary notes in my dosbox.conf, but it works). So I guess this was what they were referring to with 'video mode'.
Downside seems to be that I can't have proper fullscreen anymore, it's as small as windowed, just centered on the screen.

[Simon]

Make separate config files for recording and regular playing, and two links to Dosbox. :]

-- Simon

[ccexplore]

Ok thanks, setting machine=vgaonly did it, it was previously set to vga (vgaonly isn't even listed in the commentary notes in my dosbox.conf, but it works).

Hmm, which version of DOSBox are you using?  I'm currently still on 0.73, haven't upgraded to 0.74 yet.  If you're using older versions you should probably move to 0.73 at least.

So I guess this was what they were referring to with 'video mode'.

To be fair, the game is using 320x200 mode, so I don't really know whether the 640x400 recording frame size is intentional or not.  Hopefully it'll remain like that in future DOSBox versions.  Or maybe they'll add a configuration option that determines whether the video frames are recorded pre- or post-scaling.

Downside seems to be that I can't have proper fullscreen anymore, it's as small as windowed, just centered on the screen.

Sounds like a video card issue since I don't have that problem on my computer when I checked just now (I normally don't use fullscreen).  Follow Simon's advice I guess.

[geoo]

Hmm, which version of DOSBox are you using?  I'm currently still on 0.73, haven't upgraded to 0.74 yet.  If you're using older versions you should probably move to 0.73 at least.

I'm actually using 0.74, however I remember now I simply copied over the old config from 0.65, that's why it's missing these comments I guess.

Yeah, I guess I'll use the settings that work normally for me, and switch whenever I want to record a video.

[Clam]

Think you know the "maximum saved" results for PC Lemmings 2?  Well think again.  Thanks to my discovery of http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=199.msg8704#msg8704" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">the glitch allowing you to survive the bouncing tennis ball via framestepping, it's now possible to save all 60 lemmings in Sports 1!  Yep, that level whose previous best result was a lose-2 I think.

I never did claim to know the scores... but this is a fantastic result! http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" /> Having to lose two lemmings to (of all things!) a trampoline log-jam was always somewhat unsatisfying, especially on the first level of a tribe http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/XD.gif" alt=":XD:" title="XD" class="smiley" />

The frameskipping glitches are hilarious too, especially the dragon one http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/laugh.gif" alt=":D" title="Laugh" class="smiley" />