F-Zero Central Message Board
F-Zero Maximum Velocity (Gameboy Advance) >> FZMV General Discussion >> Totaling the times
http://fzerocentral.suddenlaunch.com/index.cgi?board=fzmvgeneral&action=display&num=1061495299

Totaling the times
Post by tx3000 on Aug 21st, 2003, 2:48pm

I was just curious about how the times are added together. What's the system for it? Since it deals with min and seconds, Since there is only 60 seconds in a min. But there are times with 63, 77, 89...etc...etc... in them. So how does one determain when seconds go from seconds into a min? Once the time reaches 0'99"99, if you added another 0'00"01 to that 0'99"99 does it turn into 1'00"00?
Or do you take anything over 0'60"00 and add the difference. For example: A time that reads 0'80"00 would actually be 1'20"00.
Could someone/anyone straighten this out for me please!! Thanks in advance.
Re: Totaling the times
Post by Ryan Jenning on Aug 21st, 2003, 3:02pm

What I did before I even joined this site was for the GBA I wrote down all of my times, then added together all of the milliseconds, and every time it went to 100 I added 1 second. Then I added all of the seconds together and every time it went over 60 I added a minute. Then I added all of the amount of seconds I got from the milliseconds. Same for the minutes, and then when my times were posted by Dave on the rankings page, I went back and looked and my total times I got by hand were pretty accurate, only a couple of miscounted milliseconds and such. I imagine though that Dave or whoever does the times has a thing on the computer to do all of the calculations, actually, he better because then I'm gonna feel guilty every time I sumbit a time!
Re: Totaling the times
Post by F-Zero Fanatic on Aug 21st, 2003, 3:11pm

on Aug 21st, 2003, 2:48pm, tx3000 wrote:
I was just curious about how the times are added together. What's the system for it? Since it deals with min and seconds, Since there is only 60 seconds in a min. But there are times with 63, 77, 89...etc...etc... in them. So how does one determain when seconds go from seconds into a min? Once the time reaches 0'99"99, if you added another 0'00"01 to that 0'99"99 does it turn into 1'00"00?
Or do you take anything over 0'60"00 and add the difference. For example: A time that reads 0'80"00 would actually be 1'20"00.
Could someone/anyone straighten this out for me please!! Thanks in advance.


It would never reach 0'99"99 because there are only 60 seconds in a minute, therefore it should be 1'39"99.

Re: Totaling the times
Post by tx3000 on Aug 22nd, 2003, 07:55am

I was saying that hypathetically
Re: Totaling the times
Post by Logan on Aug 22nd, 2003, 08:22am

It's actually pretty easy to set up a spreadsheet so that it will calculate time. For example, you might have one column for minutes, one for seconds, and one for hundredths of seconds. So say you entered two times, 1'32"23 and 1'31"79. Like this.

____________
| 1| 32| 23|
--------------------
| 1| 31| 79|
--------------------

In the right column, anything that goes over one hundred adds one to the centre column, and you can set the centre column to be "base sixty" so that it will re-set and go to zero whenever it hits sixty, it also adds another to the first column. So this particular example might be
____________
| 3| 04| 02|
-------------------

I do know that F-Zero Central uses spreadsheets to enter times, but I don't know if they use this format, it's just an example. You could set up your own spreadsheet in Excel if you wanted!
Re: Totaling the times
Post by tx3000 on Aug 22nd, 2003, 08:50am

Ok so let me know if I am doing this right.

I'll take my times on the Pawn series which are:
1'59"24
2'16"39
2'03"16
2'12"43
2'09"45

Now the totals for the 3 rows are as follows:
9'99"167
Now taking into consideration that you have to add 1 to the middle column for every 100, you would need to deduct 100 from 167 to get: 67 left over. Next add the 1 to the middle column to get 9'100"68
so now I would deduct 60 from 100 to get 40 left over. Again add 1 to the first column to now get: 10'40"67

Is this the correct way of doing this or am I still wrong?

Re: Totaling the times
Post by Logan on Aug 24th, 2003, 5:24pm

Sounds good to me!
Re: Totaling the times
Post by Webmaster on Aug 25th, 2003, 10:22pm

Yes tx3000, that method got you the correct answer.

WARNING: The following explanation might cause headaches, so stay away if you don't find spreadsheet formulas interesting! ...

Due to the site's need to have the times both in milliseconds (for various spreadsheet calculations) and a textual display format to show to the world (1'59"99 style), here's how the totals are done on my Excel sheet:

The times are entered in three separate cells just like Logan's example, but the base-sixty stuff is not used. Each time is first converted to milliseconds:

=IF((B3*6000)+(C3*100)+D3=0,"nt",(B3*6000)+(C3*100)+D3)
This particular time was entered in B3, C3, and D3; "nt" is the result here if there is no time entered

This is done for each of the 21 times (applies to either course or lap total, I'm just giving a single example), and then the following three cells produce the total time:

Assuming the millisecond results are in cells T3 through T23, and the following cells are V5, V6, and V7:
=FLOOR(SUM(T3:T23)/6000,1)

=FLOOR((SUM(T3:T23)-V5*6000)/100,1)

=RIGHT(SUM(T3:T23),2)

Still with me? You're quite brave. The total is then converted to display format:

=IF(V3=0,(V5&"'"&(IF(V6<10,"0"&V6,V6))&""""&V7),"no total")
If you're understanding this, you are noticing that there is something "extra" here ... something which refers to ...

In cell V3 I have this "counter":

=21-(COUNTIF(T3:T23,">0"))

This is checking to see that all 21 times are present. If not, the total time display will show "no total".

If anyone has a simpler system, I'm open to it. But all of the needs expressed above must be met. There's obviously a simpler way to ONLY calculate the total time for an individual if you already know that the person has times for all tracks. But my sheet must be able to auto-detect when a player has times missing, making it impossible for it to simply total the times in one convenient cell.
Re: Totaling the times
Post by Ryan Jenning on Aug 26th, 2003, 2:28pm

Dave: I'm sure that there is some program on the internet that is like a calulator. (but for times ) It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to create one either, you would just have to know how to create programs.