NullpoMino Game Rate

[Integration]

I see NullpoMino videos with bizarre Game Rates from time to time. That's why I am making this post. The following statements are true for every version of NullpoMino (7.5, 7.6, League), but only if you don't use Pause during the game (which shouldn't happen in Line Race anyway).

As you probably know, the end time NullpoMino shows mustn't be the real playtime. So you may wonder, if your best times are valid or not. NullpoMino clocks the real playing time, but neither shows it on screen nor saves it directly to replay files. But there's one feature, which you can use to backtrace your real playtime: Game Rate.

Game Rate is supposed to show the ratio of Pseudo time (time shown on screen) to Real time, but it was messed up. The problem is that the time you have to wait at the start of a game (Ready! Go!) is added to Game Rate. That's 100 frames, respectively 1.666 seconds.

If you measure Pseudo and Real time in seconds and Game Rate in percent, you get the following formula:

Game Rate = 100 x ( Pseudo + 1.666 ) / Real

You can easily rearrange this to get your Real time:

Real = ( Pseudo + 1.666 ) x 100 / Game Rate

If your Pseudo Time is accurate, you would expect to get that Game Rate:

Expected Game Rate = 100 x ( 1.666 / Pseudo + 1 )

For example, in case of kero's WR we have Pseudo = 19.68 s and calculate Expected Game Rate = 108.465 % from this formula, which roughly matches the Game Rate he got (108.460 %). This means, the time is valid, although Game Rate may look a bit high. Indeed, you have to worry about low Game Rate values - not high Game Rate values. Whenever, the shown Game Rate varies by more than 0.1 % from the Expected Game Rate, you should do the calculation above:

Real = ( Pseudo + 1.666 ) x 100 / Game Rate

Q: Huh? My Game Rate is far away from the expectations. What's going wrong?

A: Please make sure that your Frame Rate is set to 60 (Options -> General Options -> MAX FPS). NullpoMino assumes a Frame Rate of 60 FPS. Using smaller values is cheating.

Q: I use 60 FPS! Still, my Game Rate is more than 1 % away from the expectations. What's going wrong?

A: This means NullpoMino is running too slow on your computer. Perhaps you get lag spikes from Anti-Virus programs or Internet Browsers? You can see your FPS in the bottom-left corner, if you've activated the corresponding option (Options -> General Options -> SHOW FPS). Note, that this doesn't mean neccesarily, that your shown times don't match your skills, as lag spikes make you misdrop (and make you play slower). There are 2 ways to speed up NullpoMino:

1. In Options -> General Options, turn on FPS PERFECT YIELD. If it doesn't help, turn off FPS PERFECT MODE. If you turn off the later one, you may get a little inaccurate Frame Rate, but this will speed up NullpoMino by far.

2. Use the NullpoMino Swing version instead of the Slick version. That means start play_swing.bat in your NullpoMino main folder. Some users claim to get better times with the Swing version.

2017 edit:
3. Gamerate problem may also occur, if a computer has nothing else to do. In this case, start another program to keep your computer a little busy. For example an internet browser or a music player (with sound turned off). This problem is even worse in NullpoMino League Edition (because belzebub removed the resolution change code, so your computer has even less to do in League Edition). If you encounter this problem in League Edition, then maybe try regular NullpoMino 7.5 or 7.6 instead.

Also note that in my League Edition mod, the gamerate offset is fixed, so you would always expect to get a 100% gamerate there. The corresponding formulars are there: Game Rate = 100 x Pseudo / Real and Real = Pseudo x 100 / Game Rate.

[eevor]

Thanks a lot for this post! The game rate confused me since I started playing Nullpo.