tl;dr

• SIGN UP HERE
• It's completely open to anyone of any skill level
• We're using a skill classing system to group people into appropriate skill ranges and mod use
• The whole race will be streamed on my channel, with commentary by me and a few others
• The race is the 3rd of January, at 10:00 GMT!
• You don't need to do glitches! Any% means any speedrun category is allowed
• Any version of the game is allowed, with whatever mods you want!
• Beginners should expect to take between 8 to 12 hours
• Communication will be in my Discord server

Starting Date

The starting date has been decided: January 3rd, 10:00 UK time!

(Old: The starting date and time is yet to be decided, but it's up to YOU when it happens! When you sign up for the race you'll be asked when you are available to start the race. At some point I will close this question and take the most popular option for the start of the race. According to previous races' data, this means about half of you will not get the start date/time you wanted, but it is impossible to schedule something of this size with any more than a 50% satisfaction rate. You are welcome to start your entry for the race whenever you can and submit to the finisher's form regardless.) 

Communication

The race will be organised on my Discord server with the "Community Racer" role (that you can get from the "Channels & Roles" page) and associated text+voice channels. If you want to join the race, I'd HIGHLY RECOMMEND USING THIS as all communication on the race to the racers will be in these channels, however if you just want to turn up on the day and play by yourself that's cool too.
We'll have lots of Voice Channels open on the day of the race for you to chill with your fellow racers in! We'll also be doing race commentary in there so if you want to get randomly interviewed (probably at the end of your run) make sure to join!

Skill Classes

All skill levels are welcome! We're using a multi class system to put people into groups for the race so you can hopefully have some fun races with people of similar skill level in SA.
The signup form tries to do a good job of placing people into the appropriate class using a few questions.
The classes aren't enforced so don't worry if you feel like you're in the wrong one. I'll only be using it for stream layouts, suggested Discord voice rooms, and fun graphs and stuff after the race!

This year we also have a new addition to the class system: The * modifier! This is used to determine if someone is using additional tools/mods such as 3rd Party FPS Limiters, Silent Patch and "For Fun" mods like the Turkey Mod, Chaos Mod, Rainbomizer etc.

Class Overview

• Class S: Active and competitive runners of GTA:SA Any%/No Major Glitches
• Class A: Previously active competitive runners, currently active runners and runners of other GTA games who are confident with the SA route
• Class B: Casual runners and runners of other categories/GTA games
• Class C: Previous SA run finishers, casual runners of other GTA games and active speedrunners of non-GTA games
• Class D: SA run finishers who took over 12 hours, people with a lot of knowledge of SA but no run, or casual speedrunners of other games
• Class E: People who never tried anything like this before!
• Class F: Those who are here just to goof around and have fun

Race Rules

The following rules apply mostly to competitive people/Class S runners. Feel free to bend them if you're stuck 7 hours into your Class D run.

Any% Category

The race will officially be in the "Any%" category, but that doesn't mean you have to use glitches or even any strategies at all, it simply means that I'd like you to beat the game as fast as possible with whatever methods you like outside of intentional cheating.
Remember that "Any% No Major Glitches" is still "Any%".

Game Versions

You can play on whatever version of the game you would like including but not limited to:
PS2, PC Original/Steam, Emulator, Modern Consoles, Mobile, Windows Store, Definitive Edition or even Netflix!
If you don't know what version to use I'd recommend the original PC version from either disc, Steam or other sources 😉 and following this guide by English Ben on how to downgrade your game to 1.01 (you don't need the full 30 minutes of video for this).

Save Files

Normally for speedruns it's only legal to use save files that were created during the run itself, however for this race I suggest using "race" rules instead:
If for whatever reason you find yourself in a situation where you need to load a save (like your game crashed) but you don't have one you made during the race that you feel is "close enough" you may load a speedrun backup save file, or a save file from someone else in the race.
This save file however must be at a point from before you crashed. You cannot skip missions/progress.
Examples:

• Game crashed at the end of Monster X8, before the mission is completed. You may load a save from before Monster.
• Game crashed on the way to Flight School, after Monster X8 is completed. You may load a save (such as Anakeen's Any% Saves) from after Monster.

I'd still recommend saving a lot though...

LiveSplit (Speedrun Timer)

I have made splits for a beginner-friendly No Major Glitches route if you'd like to use LiveSplit.
You can download them from my Discord server, or these links:
LiveSplit program
LiveSplit layout and splits
To get auto-splitting working (Highly recommended) you will need to load all the files linked and right click LiveSplit → Edit Splits → Activate the Auto-Splitter.

VODs

Remember to go into your Twitch Creator Dashboard and enable "Store past broadcasts" if you want to keep a video of your run without locally recording it.
You will then have 7 days to make a Highlight of that Past Broadcast in order to save it forever (or export it to Youtube, download it, etc.).
You will need either the Twitch Highlight (NOT past broadcast) or a YouTube video to submit to the Speedrun.com leaderboards should you desire to, or to capture clips of cool moments for the clip review later!
The setting you need is:
Creator Dashboard → Settings → Stream → VOD Settings → Store past broadcasts

Important Beginner Tips to not get stuck

Time of day sensitive missions

Some missions require a certain time of day to start (usually between 20:00 and 6:00). The easiest way to advance time is to save to jump forwards 6 hours. In the splits these missions have "@20-6" in their names. The first and most important one is Life's a Beach which doesn't have a save point nearby, so I would recommend saving until roughly 18:00 before starting OG Loc (the mission before Life's a Beach).

Special controls missions

There are 3 missions/vehicles that require special controls:

• Cesar Vialpando and the Low Rider's hydraulics
• Robbing Uncle Sam and the Forklift's forks
• Vertical Bird and the Hydra's thrust nozzles

With default controls these require use of a Num Pad. If you don't have a Num Pad on your Keyboard (or don't want to use it) then I highly recommend rebinding the "Special CTRL Left/Right/Up/Down" in Vehicles Controls to something you can use.
For those using the Steam version, your "Special CTRL Up" and "Special CTLR Down" controls are flipped!

Lung Capacity

The mission Amphibious Assault requires level 2 Lung capacity in order to start it. Swim underwater to get XP in Lung capacity. Keep an eye on the popups in the top left for when your level increases; once you've seen two lung capacity level ups you'll be high enough level to start the mission (you can also check on the stats screen to see how much you have). This will take roughly 2 minutes of underwater time.

Buying the Airstrip

In the mission Verdant Meadows you will need to buy the Airstrip Property. This requires $80,000, so be careful to not spend too much money during the San Fierro/Desert sections. If you do run out of money and don't know what to do, the simplest way to earn it (NOT the fastest) is to do Firetruck vehicle side missions.

Gang Territories

At the end of the game, you'll need to capture 35.85% of gang territories in order to start the last mission. This means capturing 14 extra territories (size doesn't matter) in addition to the 5 you get from missions. You might lose territory to gang wars that start on their own, so you might need to capture more than that. Check the GANGS section of the stats screen to see how much territory percentage you have. Once you have enough, you'll need to answer a new phonecall from Sweet before you can start the last mission (don't panic if it says you need to capture more territory before you answer this call, it's incorrect).

Hey Joshimuz.com members, today I come to you with something a bit different! But before that I'd just like to post a little followup to the previous post that yes; the Rockstar Games Marathon is now delayed due to the GTA VI delay. I'll get back to you with more details when I figure it all out!

Anyways, this post isn't about any of that, this post is something new and interesting we wanted to try where people other than me write a thing about a relevant thing they like. This post will be for everyone, but future posts will be for Joshimuz.com members only!

This post is Halogenlampert, fellow speedfriend and Nintendo Switch Definitive Edition aficionado, writing about why he thinks the GTA:SA Definitive Edition route is cool actually and you should know about it. He apparently has lots of material for a possible entire seires of these posts diving into the cool details of the run, so if you enjoy this kind of post there'll be plenty more where that came from!

With that out of the way, I present to you: Halogenlampert's Definitive Edition Breakdown numero uno!

 ~

What's up guys? I'm Halogenlampert, you may know me from Josh's chat, and I run San Andreas the Definitive Edition on Switch 2.

Josh, Arko and I have been talking about having a 'Definitive Edition' news corner for Joshimuz.com. I still get a weird 'shameless self promotion' vibe from this, but Josh says he's fine with it and I will gladly talk to anyone about DE strats until their ears fall of so this is me scratching that itch so to speak.

For a bit of context, me doing SA DE of all things started out as a bit of a meme for one of the Joshimuz community races. It was later that I learned that DE actually has interesting noAJS strats, lots of which were, and are to this day, still in development (it feels like every time I do a run the route is outdated). Those strats, as well as being on the cutting edge of a route are something I enjoy quite a bit and why I still run this.

It should probably be noted that the reason few people are aware of the coolness of SADE any% noAJS is because not a lot of people run this category actively. In fact, I find it very humbling to read the #gtasa_remastered channel the GTA speedrunning discord and find incredibly talented stratfinders do very complicated research for a route that very few people are actually implementing. I would love it if one of you decided to read this and give the run a go lol.

The following will assume you already know a few of the basics of how om0 in San Andreas works (You can trick the game into thinking you're not on a mission, and by doing the same mission twice you can skip the next in the chain, that sort of thing). If feedback comes back that the explanation was too handwavy I can give it a more thorough go later. But for now, I said SADE has cool strats, so what are they?

As a bit of an introduction to this category, I think it makes a lot of sense for me to start out with explaining arcade om0 since that is what a lot of the noAJS route is built around. If you're familiar with how Josh uses vigilante om0 as the entry point for a lot of dupes, the same general concept applies here. 
Ever since the 10 year remaster of San Andreas, there has been a glitch that allows you to gain control of CJ while inside an arcade minigame. This can be used to set up a glitched phonecall, like the ones seen in Josh's Vigilante om0, which can then be used to dupe. 
This is incredibly useful since there's lots of usable arcades on the map, one of which is even in CJs house! Better yet, there is no frame perfect 1 in 3 bullshit, this just works and is pretty lenient in terms of timing. 
It does require you to be able to navigate using only the minimap, but that's a much more fun constraint in my opinion.
I should note that this strat is only used in "no external FPS caps" runs, since, of course, vigilante om0 just exists in DE as well, and FPS cappers use that instead. 
If you'd like to learn more about how arcade om0 works I have included a diagram and a link to a video demonstrating it. 

In future editions of this, I can see myself going over the new strats as they're being found, just like I will do in a bit, or talk more about the route as it exists now, like I just have. With all of that said, here's what's new! (It should be noted that between the writing of the previous sentence and the publishing of this article a few months have passed lol)

For noAJS, home invasion IP, running dog IP and doberman partial skip have been found 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iirmnE3a8sI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQbx1SxdNvQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBKGcMfj4mA

For running dog IP we need pimping om0, the inputs for which are INSANELY hard in DE. We don't have held calls, so we have to get it directly from an arcade. what ultragirl does here is blindly go to the pimpmobile, begin to open it, tap "left" to leave the door open (leaving doors open is its own headache in DE. TLDR is you cant do it as you exit the vehicle, only as you enter), then as the glitched call comes in do the projectile into vehicle teleport, then once you're in the pimpmobile, START DRIVING so that CJ doesnt close the door, because you need to start pimping in time before the om0 toggle happens and you can't do that while the door is being closed. This is stupid hard and I've only recently started getting any consistency in it.

Home invasion IP works via the stuck cutscene of burning desire. getting cutscenes stuck allows us to combine the initial "wait for cutscene to end" loop, instead of the main mission loop with other missions, which allows for more transformation dupes to exist. (I should probably explain how Instapsses/Transformation dupes work at some point)

Doberman partial skip is similarly cursed, since it needs a specific balla model to be loaded as doberman starts. I'm not sure yet if this will be integrated into the route, the current LS route proposal predates this find.

Meanwhile, in the hundo corner, vigilante has an instapass with life's a beach now
I think what happens here is Skipperskip is entering the in-mission cutscene while is om0 call is still ending, allowing him to regain control while the cutscene is happening, and then using that control to start vigi in the cutscene.

Aaaaand that's all I got. Do let me know what you think of this, once again I will gladly talk about DE until the cows come home but if it's not something the Joshimuz.com members are interested in then I can also live with that.
Until maybe next time!
-Halogen

Hello Joshimuz.com readers! I come to you while on holiday in a little static caravan on the Isle of Wight with Faye (who’s helping with the maths/spreadsheets of today’s post). I’m sat at the kitchen table sipping orange juice and writing this on my MacBook which is not a situation I thought I’d ever find myself in.

Ahead of the release of GTA:VI in late May next year I’ve been planning to do an “All Rockstar Games” marathon, where I will do a playthrough of every Rockstar made game chronologically leading up to GTA:VI!

Now this raises a few questions, mainly: “What games are included?” and “how long will that take?”, both of which I hope to answer here today!

What Games?

First the main question, what games? You’d think that “just every Rockstar” game would be easy enough, however there’s a bunch of complications such as how Rockstar changed name, how they not only just make games but publish them, and even just the searching difficulty of “Rockstar games…. Games”. Fortunately for us, I knew about an easy answer to this question as Rockstar themselves keep a list of their own games. This seems like a better list to use than any 3rd party like myself or Wikipedia.

This list does have a few questionable choices, such as Smuggler’s Run PS2 and Smuggler’s Run Gamecube being multiple entries, and even just the order in which things are listed is… confusing. But we can deal with those issues and take a few liberties with what we include and what order we do them in.

What... order are these listed in?

How long will it take?

With the list question mostly solved, now we can tackle the next, bigger, question; "How long will it take?" It’s a bit of a hard question to answer for a few reasons, but one I kinda need to know in order to plan when to actually start the marathon.

Firstly, we need an estimate for how long each game takes to beat. While I’ve played a few of them, and speedrun a bunch of them, there’s a lot I’ve never even heard of which makes knowing how long they are a bit hard.

Thankfully, this is where howlongtobeat.com and Remo come in! After talking about this on stream one day, Remo went ahead and made a big list of all the games from Rockstar’s website on howlongtobeat.com, a website dedicated to figuring out how long it takes on average for people to complete games.

Here’s the list which if you scroll to the bottom says it’ll take 28 Days 18 Hours, otherwise known as 690 hours! (Nice) This doesn’t include GTA:O or RDR:O playthrough times, but those are both so massive I realistically could spend any amount of time I want to in those, from 0 hours to infinity, so we won’t worry about those and instead I’ll just play them as filler between the end of the marathon and GTA:VI release to making timing easier.

So 690 hours then, there’s our answer… right? Well not quite, sure that gives us an amount of hours, but for me to plan when to start we also need to know how many hours I stream on average. Thankfully I can look at my Twitch stats for how many hours I stream a month and take an average. Here’s the last year’s months excluding September because of JDQ:
August: 122 hours
July: 144
June: 126
May: 96 (I went to an event that month)
April: 65 (Went to an event and also held GTA Marathon!)
March: 97
Feb: 76 (again, event)
Jan: 75 (Event)

December: 127
November: 102
October: 127

We can see just how many stream hours I lose to going to events! But looking at this I’m inclined to just give a rough estimate of 100 hours a month. Sometimes it’s much more sometimes it’s much less, but 100 seems safe and easy to calculate with. So with that it would seem that it’ll take approximately 7 months to complete! That means in order to complete before GTA:VI releases at the end of May I’d need to start… Right fucking now! Uh oh!

No wait, it’s OK! We just took the howlongtobeat.com average time and naively used that for our calculations. There’s a few other things we need to consider! Firstly, I speedrun a lot of the games, and secondly I would hazard a guess that I finish games a lot faster than the average gamer.

Since I’ve done a few playthroughs of games recently, we can take my completion times of those and compare them to the website’s times. Here’s a list of all the ones I could find:
Bully - Me: 12 Hours. Website: 15.
The Getaway - Me: 10.5. Website 12.5.
Mafia The Old Country - Me: 12. Website 12.
Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories - Me: 10. Website 14.

So other than Mafia I’m always faster than the average, by roughly 25%, but lets say 20% to be safe since I did take the same for Mafia and these are all styles of games I’m familiar with, while not all Rockstar games’s games are 3rd person shooters.

As for the games I speedrun, we can get a really good estimate for how long those will take. My literal marathon estimates from Josh Done Quick! Below is a list of all the estimates:
RDR (XBOX) - 06:50:00
RDR:UNDEAD NIGHTMARE - 01:30:00
GTA:SA (NMG)- 05:30:00
GTA:SA DE (NMG) - 06:25:00
GTA:TBOGT - 02:10:00
GTA:VC (NMG) - 02:10:00
GTA:VC DE (NMG) - 02:45:00
GTA:VCS (NMG) - 05:05:00
GTA:IV - 08:00:00
GTA:TLAD - 02:30:00
GTA:III - 02:30:00
GTA:III DE (NMG) - 02:15:00

However we also have to consider that this is supposed to be a playthrough marathon, not a speedrun marathon, and while I can’t magically unlearn the runs and play for the first time again, I can at least do Cutscene% (No Major Glitches) speedruns. That again brings us to uncertainty however since I don’t know how long each game is cutscene%. I do however know how long VCS, SA and SA DE will be Cutscene% as I’ve done both of those! Taking the time difference between Cutscene% and No Major Glitches of those two runs, making that a percentage and then increasing the time of all the other runs by that amount should give us a super rough estimate of how long they’ll be on average too. Here’s those calculations (I’m rounding up so not 100% accurate):

GTA:SA Cutscene%: 9:00:00. NMG 5:30:00. Difference 3:30:00. Percentage increase: 64%.
GTA:SA DE Cutscene% 10:00:00. NMG 6:30:00. Difference 3:30:00. Percentage increase: 56%.
GTA:VCS Cutscene% 7:30:00. NMG 5:05:00. Difference 2:25:00. Percentage increase: 48%.

With this (and also with ignoring DE) that comes out to an average of roughly 55% increase in time. If I wanted to be super duper accurate I could look up Youtube videos of “Every cutscene in X game” and see how long they were for each, then add those times on directly, but I think 55% sounds pretty close to my guess (I would’ve said 50%) so I’m happy to use that number.

Smush both the reduced howlongtobeat.com estimates and the increased speedrun estimates together (with the previous Bully and Liberty City playthrough times) and we’ll have our total time!

So... how long will it take?

341 hours, which if we again assume I’ll “only” stream 100 hours a month will be 3 and a half months. (Calculating with an estimate of 5 days a week, 6 hours a day we get 2.84 months, but I’ll take the higher estimate based on Twitch data.)

With this in mind, I think a perfectly good time to set for when to start the marathon is the beginning of 2026! If I start the 1st of January, that gives me 4 and a half months, which is one month more than the estimate. That sounds like plenty of leeway time to allow for events and days off doing something else, and gives a nice clean start date! If I do indeed finish nearly a month early, I can fill the remaining time with the near unlimited RDR:O and GTA:O content as I mentioned earlier, meaning I don’t need to do any tricking timing stuff to finish RDR:2 at exactly May 26th.

And that’s it, that should hopefully be everything I need to start the marathon at the correct time and play the correct games. I’m looking forward to seeing what all the fussy is about games like Max Payne and Midnight Club, as well as play some random retro games!

A big thanks for Faye for helping with all the maths on the estimates, she’s made a big google sheet with all the calculations on, and a little checklist for when I’m doing the marathon to see if I’m still on track to complete the marathon in time. I spent the whole time writing this sat next to her while we figured everything out for a few hours.

And a big thanks to you for reading! I hope this was actually interesting to read. If you think we got any of the maths wrong, or you really think *insert game here* should be included, let me know in the comments!

See you all the beginning of January for Joshimuz’s Big Rockstar Games Marathon!